Mr Nader, Meet Mr Johnson

[dcarrigg]

Re: Mr Nader, Meet Mr Johnson

Why must people overcomplicate things? It's simple: Vote for the person you think is best. People should just vote their conscience instead of trying to vote "strategically" based on their fear of what other people might do. I honestly like Johnson best, so he's getting my vote.

Hi Shiny! Of course you can vote for whomever you want. That's democracy. But ideologically pure libertarians (anarcho-capitalists) believe in markets, and specifically not democracy. If the market is telling you the guy's a loser, and you profess to believe this, how can you vote against the market?

The political meme spread by the MSM is that 3rd party politicians "steal" votes away from Democrat or Republican candidates, as if the Dems or Repubs are the rightful owners of those votes. They aren't. WE own those votes! They must EARN our votes.

Fair. I think there are still a lot of shell-shocked and regretful liberals who wondered were horrified W. got into office and started conjuring up reasons to go to war after they voted Nader. That's where the modern ideas seems to have come from anyways.

They haven't earned my vote! They're as bad as the TBTF banksters who make millions and billions of dollars in bonuses for dreadful job performance. If banksters receiving those obscene bonuses makes you mad, then Republocrats acting as if they deserve our votes after doing just as terrible a job should make you even madder.

Humph!

That's fine. I never thought you to be an anti-democratic, free-market purist. Others here, I think may be. And so it was just a question of philosophical curiosity, not meant to cause offense to anybody, least of all you or Johnson. I was literally curious to the answer to the following question:

If you believe 100% unwaveringly in free markets, and free markets are not sending any money to a candidate, shouldn't you move on out of principle?

[shiny!]

Re: Mr Nader, Meet Mr Johnson

That's fine. I never thought you to be an anti-democratic, free-market purist. Others here, I think may be. And so it was just a question of philosophical curiosity, not meant to cause offense to anybody, least of all you or Johnson. I was literally curious to the answer to the following question:

If you believe 100% unwaveringly in free markets, and free markets are not sending any money to a candidate, shouldn't you move on out of principle?

No offense taken. I'm voting my love for the Constitution more than my interest in markets. The fact that lovers of free markets aren't sending Johnson money doesn't make them right. History shows us that the majority is often wrong... it doesn't mean I have to follow their lead. They should follow mine. I suspect in time they will! ;-)

[DSpencer]

Re: Mr Nader, Meet Mr Johnson

Hi Shiny! Of course you can vote for whomever you want. That's democracy. But ideologically pure libertarians (anarcho-capitalists) believe in markets, and specifically not democracy. If the market is telling you the guy's a loser, and you profess to believe this, how can you vote against the market?

Someone who describes themselves as an anarcho-capitalist likely wouldn't vote for anyone.

If you believe 100% unwaveringly in free markets, and free markets are not sending any money to a candidate, shouldn't you move on out of principle?

I can't understand the logic in this at all. I don't understand what about their philosophy would require them to bandwagon on to whatever candidate is "winning" whether by votes or money. The whole point of a free market is that there is competition and participants are free to make their own choices. If anything, it would suggest that they should donate as much as possible to their preferred candidate. More than anything though, a voter who is an ideological libertarian (not necessarily an anarchist) would be expected to vote for the candidate that most closely represented their views. I wouldn't describe our election process as free market in the first place though.

I'm not sure if this is a genuine question or just an attempt to make libertarians seem crazy.

[Ghent12]

Re: Mr Nader, Meet Mr Johnson

Libertarians read Cato and Reason. Kochs are the patrons of Cato and Reason and therefore libertarian thought in America. Libertarians believe in the free market. The free market is dominated by billionaires. Libertarian billionaires are betting on Romney and against Johnson. The post-citizens-united free market in political spending has decided. How can the market be wrong?

Well let's get one thing clarified. There is no entity called "the market" and therefore it cannot be right or wrong. What you might call "the market" is actually just a gross approximation of the summation of economic interests of individual entities, whether they are organizations or individuals. As such, these individual entities will do what they perceive to be in their own best interest at the time. In the case of the Koch brothers, although they are extremely wealthy, they still have limited resources and probably want to support what they see as the combined best-chance, least-bad candidate, which is Mitt Romney. That's just my guess at their intentions, but it makes a kind of sense from their perspective.

By the way, "the free market" is not "dominated" by billionaires. In theory, "the free market" is absolutely dominated by no group smaller in size than all productive individuals, hence the only group that can direct matters in a society-wide manner is the customer. In practice, "the free market" does not exist anywhere, but relatively free markets are tolerated to varying degrees in some geographic locations for some types of goods and services. In real capitalism, the capitalist is a servant to the people because they start in a position where they must offer what the people want at a price they are willing to pay, otherwise the endeavor is wasted.