The Official Gary Johnson Thread

[hblask 1]

No, but they (the private prison companies) are allowed to lobby politicians aggressively for tougher sentencing laws and incarceration for lesser crimes which, to my understanding, is exactly what they do. I don't think judges or prosecutors are generally corrupt but that is not the ONLY way it is an issue.

I linked a video earlier that showed that public prisons' unions do exactly this -- lobby for tougher sentencing. In most cases they are one of the primary forces behind tougher sentencing laws, and it works better for them, because they can legitimately claim to be part of "law enforcement". If private prisons lobby for tougher sentencing, everyone knows what they are up to, so it is less likely to work.But get rid of half the prison population and instantly this whole issue is half the problem it used to be. Do we really care if an armed robber spends and extra six months in jail because of the prison lobby? No. Do we care if stupid college kid caught with a joint spends an extra six months in jail? Yes.Fix the big problems first, then we can argue the public vs private debate. I can see both sides of this debate, and think we need some balance, maybe some combination. But until the 50% problem is solved, that's tinkering around the edges.

[Balloon guy 158]

20% of criminals commit 80% of crimes

[SilentSnow 1]

1.Now the dems are liberals on social and liberal on fiscal, meaning they want to do whatever they want and have no responsibility for the consequences.Republicans are conservative on social and conservative on fiscal, meaning they feel actions have consequences.2.But hardly any democrats want the entire party to become conservative fiscally, while staying liberal socially.3.The correct thing is for the people that want to split the liberal social outlooks to become a third party, taking some from each party.But the truth is that a third party that is conservative fiscal, and liberal social, will mostly take from the republican party only. Which means a democrat win.4.Why do you think democrats don't want to join this third party that supports all their liberal social causes, just does a better job with the money?They need the government to be huge. And for that they need to tax tax tax.

1.Completely false. I'm amazed you guys still talk about "fiscally conservative Republicanism" with a straight face. Carter and Clinton were fiscally conservative. Reagan, Bush and Bush Jr were wildly fiscally irresponsible, or fiscal liberals if that's the label you want to use. 2.False again. Keep in mind that we have a different definition of fiscal conservatism. My definition is a responsible government that pays what it owes and avoids excessive spending, but will fund things that have been shown to make society better off. Your idea of a fiscal conservative seems to be someone that tries to destroy the government through expanding hugely the programs they like while cutting off sources of funding in general. There are a lot of liberals who are fiscally conservative, because many Democrats realize that debt hurts the middle class and poor the most. Either because debt tends to turn those without money into slaves to the rich or because a fiscal collapse would likely be a disaster in which the effects would be too unpredictable to risk. 3.The correct thing to do is vote for fiscally conservative liberals until the Republican party recovers from it's insanity in which it combines fiscal irresponsibility with irrational government meddling on social issues. Ralph Nader clearly cost Al Gore the presidency. Both parties have made the mistake of voting for a 3rd party candidate in the past, but Democrats may seem more hesitant to support one now because they have more recently been burned. 4.Another false statement. Democrats are perfectly willing to shrink the government. They seem hesitant to you because Republican proposals usually involve eliminating the fundamental parts of government that over the last 80 years helped make us the richest country in the world. Republican proposals have done enough damage to the poor and middle class as it is over the last few decades. But after 30 years of failed policies the only answer Republicans have is to do more of the same thing. I didn't bother to respond to your other statements because it gets boring discussing things with someone who never defends their positions. As Spademan so aptly said, you are the king of the gish-gallop.

[SilentSnow 1]

have you ever actually read any of hblask's posts? those positions are his (and the vast majority of "republicans" on this site's, save for bg obv) views down to a 't'.

Well maybe it's time for them to switch parties.

[hblask 1]

Well maybe it's time for them to switch parties.

I don't belong to any party because neither one is that satisfying. The last couple of years I've spent a lot of time bashing the Democrats mainly because they've been in charge. When it was Bush and the R's, I pointed out their stupidity.Overall, I think fiscal freedom is more important than social freedom, because fiscal freedom buys you a certain amount of social freedom, but not vice versa. Or to put it another way, rich people don't get their houses invaded on "suspicion of being naughty" while poor people do.

[El Guapo 8]

I don't belong to any party because neither one is that satisfying. The last couple of years I've spent a lot of time bashing the Democrats mainly because they've been in charge. When it was Bush and the R's, I pointed out their stupidity.Overall, I think fiscal freedom is more important than social freedom, because fiscal freedom buys you a certain amount of social freedom, but not vice versa. Or to put it another way, rich people don't get their houses invaded on "suspicion of being naughty" while poor people do.

You fell for his trap. Anyone who has read 5 posts from you knows you are not repub or dem, but he never read your posts, just kept spouting his rhetoric. He is live BG, but wrong and not funny.

[AmScray 355]

Debt as a percentage of GDP is a meaningful metric, but doesn't wholly correlate to political sentiment (since GDP is mostly independent of that) A more accurate statistic- to elucidate "who" is responsible for what at any given point in time- would be net deficit spending (and not just aggregate debt) relative to GDP.

[AmScray 355]

Jumping into the conversation in the middle...how do private prisons make money by keeping prisoners longer? I don't understand the financial model here.

As probably the only person here who understands the 'nuances' of prison, I can instantly think of about a billion situations- from a procedural standpoint- where private prisons would create catastrophic injustice. The government tit is all about billable hours. You're basically incentivizing "the system" entrusted with keeping a prisoner to keep him there longer.

[digitalmonkey 929]

As probably the only person here who understands the 'nuances' of prison, I can instantly think of about a billion situations- from a procedural standpoint- where private prisons would create catastrophic injustice. The government tit is all about billable hours. You're basically incentivizing "the system" entrusted with keeping a prisoner to keep him there longer.

But the fight over lifers would be so much fun.

[Balloon guy 158]

1.Completely false. I'm amazed you guys still talk about "fiscally conservative Republicanism" with a straight face. Carter and Clinton were fiscally conservative. Reagan, Bush and Bush Jr were wildly fiscally irresponsible, or fiscal liberals if that's the label you want to use.

Ahhh the joys of koolaide.Look man, I don't know your age, but I am assuming you are semi-new to the world of politicians and facts.So let me help a brother out.If a politician/political party/political pundit/person who likes politicians EVER shows you a chart, know right away that it is falsely leading you in the wrong direction.The GDP isn't influenced much by a political party currently in power, and only slightly by the previous oneIn other words, the GDP is non-politicalClinton had next to nothing to do with the increase in GDP, it was due to the growth of the internet.Ronald Reagen got the full credit for the rise in GDP because of the change over to the US Dollar as the bench mark currency during CarterW. Bush had the largest increase in GDP of any double administration. Even with a war and a terrorist attack with world wide implications.This link let's you see how the United States economy ignores politicians.And for an interesting comparison, click on the left other countries like Denmark and Norway and France so you can see why their 'examples' of how to run a country are a joke.

2.False again. Keep in mind that we have a different definition of fiscal conservatism. My definition is a responsible government that pays what it owes and avoids excessive spending, but will fund things that have been shown to make society better off. Your idea of a fiscal conservative seems to be someone that tries to destroy the government through expanding hugely the programs they like while cutting off sources of funding in general. There are a lot of liberals who are fiscally conservative, because many Democrats realize that debt hurts the middle class and poor the most. Either because debt tends to turn those without money into slaves to the rich or because a fiscal collapse would likely be a disaster in which the effects would be too unpredictable to risk.

Ahh more koolaide. You try to make the case that my definition is false because yours is actually x, then define mine as Y so you can tell me why its wrong.I'll let you think about that right there and we can return to this later.

3.The correct thing to do is vote for fiscally conservative liberals until the Republican party recovers from it's insanity in which it combines fiscal irresponsibility with irrational government meddling on social issues. Ralph Nader clearly cost Al Gore the presidency. Both parties have made the mistake of voting for a 3rd party candidate in the past, but Democrats may seem more hesitant to support one now because they have more recently been burned.

Ralph Nadar was a pimple on the rear of the democrat party's already pimple covered rear.The people that voted Nadar were not going to vote democrat...they are the wackos who want to feel good about themselves while they pretend that they are making a difference when their vote is literally a complete and utter waste of resources and 100% equal in value to a person who does a write in candidate and writes in Mickie Mouse. Exactly the same value!Ross Perot influenced an election. He is the only person in the last 60 years who has had an impact on the presidential election. To pretend that Nadar is why you lost is going to fill your ears with the sand you are burying your head in. The only person responsible for losing the 2000 election is Algore. Now that we see how insane he really is, we can all be happy that he sunk his own campaign.

4.Another false statement. Democrats are perfectly willing to shrink the government. They seem hesitant to you because Republican proposals usually involve eliminating the fundamental parts of government that over the last 80 years helped make us the richest country in the world. Republican proposals have done enough damage to the poor and middle class as it is over the last few decades. But after 30 years of failed policies the only answer Republicans have is to do more of the same thing.

You must reallly like koolaide.The democrats want to shrink government, but those mean republicans won't let them.....WAHHHHHH...cause they are meanies.The democrat party was in complete control of the WH, the Senate and the HofR and did nothing even remotely close to your supposed intent that you are claiming they have deep down.You are trying to argue also that it was the government's programs that made America rich? How does welfare make the GDP grow? How does social security make the GDP grow? How does Medicare make the GDP grow? How does anything the government do ( besides buying incredibly cool tanks airplanes and missiles for the military) help grow the GDP?This country got rich in spite of the government.

I didn't bother to respond to your other statements because it gets boring discussing things with someone who never defends their positions. As Spademan so aptly said, you are the king of the gish-gallop.

Deciding to pigeon hole a person's beliefs to fit your desired outcome is such a poor character trait. Leave it the experts.

[CaneBrain 95]

As probably the only person here who understands the 'nuances' of prison, I can instantly think of about a billion situations- from a procedural standpoint- where private prisons would create catastrophic injustice. The government tit is all about billable hours. You're basically incentivizing "the system" entrusted with keeping a prisoner to keep him there longer.

qft.

[SilentSnow 1]

You fell for his trap. Anyone who has read 5 posts from you knows you are not repub or dem, but he never read your posts, just kept spouting his rhetoric. He is live BG, but wrong and not funny.

It wasn't a trap, you just have zero reading comprehension. Obviously I know that Hblask is mostly libertarian. I mean seriously- I have mentioned this multiple times in my past posts. The reason I pointed it out is because I thought it was funny that Libertarians are now closer to Liberals on most issues than they are to mainstream Republicans. Yet it seems that Hblask criticizes "liberals" far more than Republicans.

[SilentSnow 1]

1.In other words, the GDP is non-politicalRonald Reagen got the full credit for the rise in GDP because of the change over to the US Dollar as the bench mark currency during CarterW. Bush had the largest increase in GDP of any double administration. Even with a war and a terrorist attack with world wide implications.This link let's you see how the United States economy ignores politicians.2.You try to make the case that my definition is false because yours is actually x, then define mine as Y so you can tell me why its wrong.3.The people that voted Nadar were not going to vote democrat...4.The democrat party was in complete control of the WH, the Senate and the HofR and did nothing even remotely close to your supposed intent that you are claiming they have deep down.5.You are trying to argue also that it was the government's programs that made America rich? How does welfare make the GDP grow? How does social security make the GDP grow? How does Medicare make the GDP grow? How does anything the government do ( besides buying incredibly cool tanks airplanes and missiles for the military) help grow the GDP?This country got rich in spite of the government.

1.First of all we are talking mainly about taxes, not GDP. Second, you still can't resist the urge to prop up the Republicans, thus contradicting your argument that GDP is non-political. 2.You have no definitions because you never support what you say. You are right that it was probably pointless to try to guess what in the world you could possibly be thinking. 3.He did cost Gore the election. Nader even admits it in his book. "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all." (which would net a 13%, 12,665 votes, advantage for Gore over Bush.)4.They didn't for two reasons. They had to recover from the worst economic crisis in 70 years(caused mostly by Bush and republicans) and many Democrats have been corrupted by the political process in Washington. You may not have noticed, but there are a lot of liberals who are very unhappy with Democratic policies. Obama has broken the majority of his campaign promises and done almost nothing for liberals. 5. I would say that your views here are laughably wrong, but the assertions are vague enough that you could hide behind plausible deniability. If you want to link to anything that gives a serious argument in favor of your views then I'll post my opinion on it.

[Balloon guy 158]

1.First of all we are talking mainly about taxes, not GDP. Second, you still can't resist the urge to prop up the Republicans, thus contradicting your argument that GDP is non-political.

Of course I prop up reps, they are the lessor of the two evils.

2.You have no definitions because you never support what you say. You are right that it was probably pointless to try to guess what in the world you could possibly be thinking.

So you missed the point, its okay...baby steps.

3.He did cost Gore the election. Nader even admits it in his book. "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all." (which would net a 13%, 12,665 votes, advantage for Gore over Bush.)

He 'admitted it' in his book because he wants to pretend he is relevant. Algore lost the election because he didn't win his home state of Tennessee. Think about that for a minute.Also, never believe exit polls, because they are paid for by someone with an agenda.

4.They didn't for two reasons. They had to recover from the worst economic crisis in 70 years(caused mostly by Bush and republicans) and many Democrats have been corrupted by the political process in Washington. You may not have noticed, but there are a lot of liberals who are very unhappy with Democratic policies. Obama has broken the majority of his campaign promises and done almost nothing for liberals.

Wost economy in 70 years? You didn't click the link did you? If you did, you would have seen that the GDP grew from $9.89 trillion to $14.119 trillion while he was in office. Thats almost a 50% increase in the GDP during his tenure. We could use a lot more of his 'worst economy in 70 years'.I agree that Obama played you guys like a fiddle and then turned around and dumped you. Here's a hint, he will be coming back soon with his hat in his hand to tell you he's sorry and he will do better if you elect him again. If you choose to belive it, its on you. We tried to warn you last time that he was a politician from Chicago, which by definition means he is a lying crook. Luckily for us though he recognized that Bush was almost always right on foreign policy so he is copying him on everything from allowing torture to keeping Gitmo open for waterboarding training exercises. So he may destroy the county from within, but at least the communist will not do it to us.

5. I would say that your views here are laughably wrong, but the assertions are vague enough that you could hide behind plausible deniability. If you want to link to anything that gives a serious argument in favor of your views then I'll post my opinion on it.

You mean like a link showing the GDP rises steadily without concern for most political decisions?I'll see if I can find one.

[Balloon guy 158]

It wasn't a trap, you just have zero reading comprehension. Obviously I know that Hblask is mostly libertarian. I mean seriously- I have mentioned this multiple times in my past posts. The reason I pointed it out is because I thought it was funny that Libertarians are now closer to Liberals on most issues than they are to mainstream Republicans. Yet it seems that Hblask criticizes "liberals" far more than Republicans.

Liberals are the worse of two evils.By far, as Henry pointed out. Rich people don't have as many problems from intrusive government programs as poor people do.So the solution would be to:A. Tax the rich to bring them down?B. Help the economy to bring up the poor?C. Pretend that we want to be like Norway and have a GDP smaller than Texas.

[SilentSnow 1]

I forgot to add this to my earlier post. Most people know that Democrats have been much better than Republicans when it comes to debt. A lot of people might be surprised to learn that GDP has grown faster during Democratic presidencies.

[Balloon guy 158]

I forgot to add this to my earlier post. Most people know that Democrats have been much better than Republicans when it comes to debt. A lot of people might be surprised to learn that GDP has grown faster during Democratic presidencies.

I almost want to leave you ignorant.Instead I'll leave you with this:

[hblask 1]

Debt as a percentage of GDP is a meaningful metric, but doesn't wholly correlate to political sentiment (since GDP is mostly independent of that) A more accurate statistic- to elucidate "who" is responsible for what at any given point in time- would be net defect spending (and not just aggregate debt) relative to GDP.

I've tried to weed through the "whose debt is it" debate for the last 10 years, and it's really pretty impossible. To get a real assessment you'd have to look at who ran the House, the Senate and the presidency; who created the program; the political potential to alter a program once it is in place; any unnecessary additions to a program, and on and on.I'm not sure there is a real clear answer in most cases. The ones that are breaking our budget now are SS, Medicare, and defense. SS and Medicare are Dems, over-reaching defense tends to be R's, although not universally.In the end, though, the president has to sign the bill, so it's fair to give much of the credit blame to the president. But even then, it's hard to know how much of it was inherited. Look at the first Obama/Bush deficit. Clearly each deserves part of the blame, but how much?

[hblask 1]

It wasn't a trap, you just have zero reading comprehension. Obviously I know that Hblask is mostly libertarian. I mean seriously- I have mentioned this multiple times in my past posts. The reason I pointed it out is because I thought it was funny that Libertarians are now closer to Liberals on most issues than they are to mainstream Republicans. Yet it seems that Hblask criticizes "liberals" far more than Republicans.

I don't think libertarians are now closer to liberals, I think liberals and Republicans are now too close to tell apart.Name 5 significant differences between Obama and Bush:Which one created a large budget-breaking health entitlement program?Which approved of indefinite detention of suspects?Which approved of spying on Americans without a warrant?Which signed the PATRIOT Act?Which put more troops into an unwinnable quagmire in the mideast?Which gave massive corporate welfare to well-connected campaign contributors?Answer to all questions: both

[mrdannyg 274]

Answer to all questions: both

I like you.

[Moneyball16 0]

I would also be fine with privatizing all prisons if the trade-off was a sensible drug policy.

This is really where I come in as well. I really like Johnson, but on its own I dislike privatized prisons in most cases too. I think the bigger difference would be incentives to rehabilitate the prison population rather than an increase in time served though. As has been pointed out ITT there are financial incentives for groups involved in both public and private prisons to increase sentence lengths so I think it would mostly cancel each other out. With greater government involvement I would guess there would be a greater emphasis on rehabilitation though.That said with no war on drugs I feel like the need for rehabilitation would be greatly reduced. Prisons would have a much larger % of lifers and true sociopaths. And in the case of those 2 groups of people I would support simply locking them up as efficiently as possible which probably means privatization.

[Moneyball16 0]

Also for anecdotal evidence against BGs theory that voters for a 3rd mostly Libertarian party would just consist of people that would normally vote Republican I would like to say that if I was eligible I would have voted for, and likely heavily supported, Obama in 2008 and most Democrats in 2010, but I would prefer to have Gary Johnson the US president over Obama in 2012. I wouldn't consider myself to belong to any party though.

[Balloon guy 158]

Also for anecdotal evidence against BGs theory that voters for a 3rd mostly Libertarian party would just consist of people that would normally vote Republican I would like to say that if I was eligible I would have voted for, and likely heavily supported, Obama in 2008 and most Democrats in 2010, but I would prefer to have Gary Johnson the US president over Obama in 2012. I wouldn't consider myself to belong to any party though.

You would be the minority though.And you admit you're not a member of the libertarian party anyway.

[SilentSnow 1]

I don't think libertarians are now closer to liberals, I think liberals and Republicans are now too close to tell apart.Name 5 significant differences between Obama and Bush:Which one created a large budget-breaking health entitlement program?Which approved of indefinite detention of suspects?Which approved spying on Americans without a warrant?Which signed the PATRIOT Act?Which put more troops into an unwinnable quagmire in the mideast?Which gave massive corporate welfare to well-connected campaign contributors?

It's pretty clear you haven't read my posts if you would post this as a response to me. It is absolutely nonsensical to say that Liberals and Republicans are too close to tell apart. The CBO says that you are completely wrong about it being budget-breaking. It won't be worse than the old system but the health care reform bill will not solve our health care problems. There are fundamental differences between the two groups on this issue. Republicans want to keep propping up a failed system, while many Liberals want to switch to the system that nearly every other rich country uses. Who are strongly opposed to indefinite detention of suspects? Liberals. Who are opposed to spying on Americans without a warrant? Liberals.Who are opposed to the PATRIOT Act? Liberals. Who are extremely opposed to putting our troops into unwinnable quagmires in the mideast? Liberals. Who are strongly opposed to most types of corporate welfare? Liberals. The truth is that Liberals are disenfranchised. Money rules our corrupt political system and many of the rich and powerful are opposed to nearly every liberal idea. The only choice for Liberals is whether to vote for a candidate who sides against you the majority of the time or not bother to vote at all.

[hblask 1]

The CBO says that you are completely wrong about it being budget-breaking. It won't be worse than the old system but the health care reform bill will not solve our health care problems. There are fundamental differences between the two groups on this issue. Republicans want to keep propping up a failed system, while many Liberals want to switch to the system that nearly every other rich country uses.

I think you need to start reading a source other than DNC press releases. Seriously.

Who are strongly opposed to indefinite detention of suspects? Liberals.

Lip service doesn't count. Action counts. There is no difference.

Who are opposed to spying on Americans without a warrant? Liberals.

Again, lip service doesn't count. As far as I can tell, only Ron Paul and third parties are consistently correct on this one.

Who are opposed to the PATRIOT Act? Liberals.

A Democratic congress with a Democratic president just renewed it before the election. That's quite some opposition there.Lip service doesn't count. Action matters.

Who are extremely opposed to putting our troops into unwinnable quagmires in the mideast? Liberals. Who are strongly opposed to most types of corporate welfare? Liberals.

See if you can guess the real-world answer to these two.

The truth is that Liberals are disenfranchised. Money rules our corrupt political system and many of the rich and powerful are opposed to nearly every liberal idea. The only choice for Liberals is whether to vote for a candidate who sides against you the majority of the time or not bother to vote at all.

Nonsense. Liberals are getting exactly what they signed up for. Liberals want more government running more things. That's what they got with Obama, Pelosi and Reid. The only reason liberals claim it isn't what they wanted is the delusion that giving all this power to government will work out in their favor, this time for sure, despite a century of evidence otherwise. I can't tell if it's naivete or just ideological blindness that the liberals keep supporting the people who are actively working against their interest.If you ask for big government, you are going to get it, good and hard. Don't start whining after the fact that you didn't want THAT big government. When your rights go up for sale, they will go to the highest bidder. Either you support small government, or you support corporate welfare, the military-industrial complex, and the trampling of your rights. Make up your mind, just don't whine when YOUR big government guys show their true colors.