Author: ben45

Libertarian Presidential Candidates Dollars / Vote

Nominal Dollars not Inflation Adjusted  Nominal
Election Candidate Popular Votes Individual Donations Dollars/Vote
1996 Harry Browne 485,759 $1,248,198 $2.57
2000 Harry Browne 384,431 $1,217,198 $3.17
2004 Michael Badnarik 397,265 $1,093,013 $2.75
2008 Bob Barr 523,713 $1,372,110 $2.62
2012 Gary Johnson 1,275,821 $1,984,244 $1.56
2016 Gary Johnson 4,167,740 $12,794,165
includes Super PACs		 $3.07

2016 Reference
 

Jobs Are a Cost, Not a Benefit

At the FEE site, Professor Van Colt presents the essay “‘Creating Jobs’ Will Hurt the Economy”

full text

Excerpts:
“Gaining jobs” to achieve a given objective is synonymous with worsening your situation, not improving it.

The value of work is easy to grasp at the most domestic level: your own home.

Being a homeowner isn’t easy. Among other things, you always seem to have more chores to do than time to do them. The chores are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are means to an end — in this case, making a home and yard more livable or aesthetically pleasing.

Opting to do a chore yourself — “insourcing” in current parlance — isn’t costless. You lose the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your other labors. For example, you could tackle different chores, spend more time with your family, or work extra hours in the marketplace, increasing your income. Hiring someone else to do the chore — that is, “outsourcing” — isn’t costless, either. It means you can’t buy other things. Costs represent sacrificed alternatives.

Free Advice

The minority of crazies chase off people only because the sane expect everyone to be perfect. The sane give up when they find someone they think is unreasonable.

Ignore the crazies.

Don’t waste your time trying to convince them, just work to have a majority and out vote them.

When you find someone unreasonable, just tell yourself, I need to find another sane person.

If the sane out vote the crazies enough, it will be the crazies who leave.

When crazies stops getting attention, they generally leave to find another audience to annoy.

(orginally published May 26, 2016)

Michael Cloud’s Blast from the Past

At my request, my friend, Brian Wright, found an old favorite speech/article from Michael Cloud.  You can find Brian’s blog  at http://brianrwright.com/CoffeeCoasterBlog/

The Late, Great Libertarian Macho Flash

by Michael Cloud

It was a large and expensive home. The architecture radiated impeccable taste. Seated around the dining table were five people: three moderates, a conservative and a libertarian. The conservative was a multimillionaire — and a generous political contributor. After dinner she turned to the libertarian and said, “Our hosts tell me you’re a libertarian. Maybe I’m a little naive, but I don’t know what that word means. Could you tell me about your beliefs?”
Continue reading Michael Cloud’s Blast from the Past

Birthday Greetings to a Double Lifer

Jeffery Tucker writes to Ross Ulbricht on the occasion of his 32nd birthday.
full text at Fee

Excerpt:
Isn’t it ironic? It is increasingly difficult to distinguish the intentions of cyber criminals from that of the government itself. They are both on the same side in lining up against the interests of the human right to liberty and property.

Talk about Politics without Sounding like Jerks

Advice from Matt Zwolinski
full article at Fee

Excerpts:
There are at two main reasons why reasonable disagreement is so common.

1) The moral values that underlie our political debates are plural and conflicting.
….
2) Many of our moral disagreement are ultimately rooted in complicated empirical questions.
…
So be humble — don’t be so confident that the beliefs you’ve formed are the single correct way of thinking about political morality. And be tolerant. Recognize that people who disagree with you might have good reasons for doing so.

Of course, I think that being tolerant of reasonable disagreement means that we should be reluctant to impose our moral views on others by force, or to ask the state to do so on our behalf.

But then again, I’m a libertarian, so I would think that, wouldn’t I?

Another way to defeat Trump

The possibility of nominees for President that majorities do not seem to want is due to the plurality winner takes all elections and the existence of super-delegates in the Democratic Party.

If Trump wins the nomination, Republicans have another tool to block both his election and the Democratic nominee – the Electoral College.

Most states use plurality voting for electing members of the Electoral College. The Electoral College requires the person they designate as President to get a majority of electoral votes. If no one gets a majority, the House of Representatives gets to pick the President.

If the Libertarian Party nominee wins enough states to insure that no one gets a majority of the electoral votes, then if the Republicans can continue to hold the House of Representatives, the Establishment could end up selecting the President.

Could the Republican Establishment (whoever they are) give Gary Johnson or whoever wins the Libertarian nomination, enough votes to win a plurality in a sufficient number of states to deadlock the Electoral College?