The Official Gary Johnson Thread

[FCP Bob 1,312]

edit: to be clear, these posts are intended for digital monkey, not bob. I like bob (even though he is a communist).

I'll have you know that I'm a Canadian Conservative. In the US I guess that would make me a Commie.

Don't bother trying to figure out BG... it's hopeless. You have to read his posts over a very long time to sort out the jokes from the real positions. It's a well-honed persona, and a tough one to maintain.

BG is a master at what he does. Cigar smoke must be some kind of brain food.

[iZuma 764]

you hate freedom and you know it!

[hblask 1]

Here is an article that explains some of the problems-http://mises.org/daily/1724

I finally got around to reading this, and I respect mises.org. But their objections here boil down to one point: there are other ways to define freedom, too.But what is the point of a "freedom index"? Is it to get as close as possible to some idealized view of freedom? Or is it something more practical, such as a predictive model?In the case of the IoEF, their goal is to be 1. reproducible and 2. predictive. The article you linked doesn't object to the index on either of these grounds, only that certain people might choose to weight different aspects of freedom differently. In fact, I have yet to see that any convincing arguments that it fails on either of these goals (except for one point LLY made long ago that I is certainly valid).So OK, go ahead. Anyone who wants to come up with a model that is equally reproducible and more predictive is free to do so. So far, nobody has. Until then, it is the best model we have for the type of government that leads to maximum economic success. Whining that "my favorite freedom isn't weighted heavily enough" is just a way of attempting to ignore real world data that contradicts a hardened ideology.I won't hold my breath for you to do your homework and provide a reproducible, predictive model that demonstrates that socialism and crony capitalism is better than free markets and rule of law.

[digitalmonkey 929]

yeah, balloon guy uses a lot of hyperbolic humor too, but don't worry, I won't expect you to pick up on that anymore. it can be pretty tough to, you know, read and understand stuff.

Apparently it is difficult to read and understand stuff when you have to consider the character of people you've never met or interacted with. Perhaps you can share the eHarmony notes you keep on everyone.And show some respect when you address me...I'm a chartered fucking member.

[Balloon guy 158]

DO NOT TALK ABOUT ME LIKE I'M NOT EVEN HERE!And Cigar smoke is awesome.You know, everyone I know who smokes cigars is smarter than most people....so is it the cigars that make you smart? Or smart people smoke cigars?As far as what I believe, I believe in a man's right to walk down the street, knowing that his country is better than any other.And while he is walking down those same streets, he is allowed to smack the heads of people who think they are cool by thinking that other countries are better then their own country.And while walking down that same street, he is also allowed to want those streets to be there tomorrow for others to walk down them, so when stupid people risk the safety of those streets with their poorly thought out feelings...then that man has the right to return their poorly thought out feelings with equally poorly thought out rhetoric.Just so we are clear..Canada doesn't have the street I am talking about....sorry aboot.Also I believe in God, and I believe that God believes in me. And now I am thinking of the movie Hair

[digitalmonkey 929]

here, let me expand on that a little: you see, your trolling, in all appearances, is what you actually believe and presented in the most vitriolic and condescending manner possible, while being completely devoid of humor (the only real redeeming quality of a trolling post). balloon guy's trolling, however, is funny because he BLATANTLY ignores facts and skirts issues, and he's obviously doing it on purpose, yet you guys STILL try to argue with him. it's really pretty great. hope this helps.edit: to be clear, these posts are intended for digital monkey, not bob. I like bob (even though he is a communist).

No, that didn't really help. I have trouble reading. Words such as vitriolic and condescending confuse me. Perhaps you can point out some examples of my posts that you consider to be trolling, vitriolic and/or condescending.

[digitalmonkey 929]

DO NOT TALK ABOUT ME LIKE I'M NOT EVEN HERE!And Cigar smoke is awesome.You know, everyone I know who smokes cigars is smarter than most people....so is it the cigars that make you smart? Or smart people smoke cigars?As far as what I believe, I believe in a man's right to walk down the street, knowing that his country is better than any other.And while he is walking down those same streets, he is allowed to smack the heads of people who think they are cool by thinking that other countries are better then their own country.And while walking down that same street, he is also allowed to want those streets to be there tomorrow for others to walk down them, so when stupid people risk the safety of those streets with their poorly thought out feelings...then that man has the right to return their poorly thought out feelings with equally poorly thought out rhetoric.Just so we are clear..Canada doesn't have the street I am talking about....sorry aboot.Also I believe in God, and I believe that God believes in me. And now I am thinking of the movie Hair

Do they make cigars on that street? Or do you have to have them shipped in from, say...a communist country?

[Balloon guy 158]

Don't bother trying to figure out BG... it's hopeless. You have to read his posts over a very long time to sort out the jokes from the real positions. It's a well-honed persona, and a tough one to maintain.

I don't think most people would believe my real positions.Even I am shocked when I think about them.For instance, I am in the camp that Carter wasn't that bad of a president, and is a very good man. But he's become a joke since then, probably because of his decades of being called the worst president ever for things he did that were actually really good. Like shoring up the US dollar with high interest rates for years to make it the dominant currency for such a long time.I also think Reagan is over rated, he reaped the rewards of Carter's economic policies, but he is still a really good president. Plus he found the simplest way to be loved by the country, he spoke to us in our language. You young people have no idea what it means for the President to drop the politicians speak and just talk like we were sitting together at the cigar store.Why no one has been able to do that since him shows you that ultimately, every single politician is brain dead, and the people running things in the back room are equally brain dead, but they are effective in stealing money for themselves.I also think this government has a responsibility to help the needy, and that this help will likely ruin those people for life, but that is the cost of help sometimes.I think the US soldier should be paid more than teachers, and their lives are more important to me than any foreign person's. And when we send them in, we should expect them to kill everything, that way we will send them in fewer times, and when we do we will lose less of them. If we don't want them to utterly destroy the ability of the invadees to wage any resistance, then we should make them stay at home. War is the result of the failure of politicians, yet they never suffer the consequences.I would not care if taxes on the rich are raised to 50%, if the government was efficient, but I would vote for it to be lowered to 5% if the government refuses to quit being so inefficient. I want the government to suffer for their bad choices, not us.The rich will not stop investing their money if we raise their taxes by 5%, nor will they start new companies with an extra 5%, but the government doesn't deserve the money, so that is why I am against it.Libertarians are a nice choice now, but if our country was founded as libertarianism, we would not have roads. Their system requires there to be an existing infrastructure to build off of, which is why I am not a libertarian.Democrats have good motives, but completely ignore reality about their decisions.Republicans are largely bring lied too by the republican hierarchy which is doing things contrary to their rhetoric, which are fine with bigger government, but their rhetoric is better then the 'truth' the democrats spout, so at least we are remotely possible of stumbling into doing the right thing.Online poker will be legal in about 16 months in the US.Five Guys burgers are in fact better than In N Out, cause In N Out allowed their burgers to shrink to the point of being silly.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

Apparently it is difficult to read and understand stuff when you have to consider the character of people you've never met or interacted with. Perhaps you can share the eHarmony notes you keep on everyone.

Character obviously means their character on here.I feel like the thousands and thousands of posts they have is an adequate sample size."But I don't read all of them!"Yeah, but you've probably responded to about 50 of BG's posts and using his theoretical 10:1 ratio of views to replies, that means you've read about 500 of them.Hey BG, don't say "business is good," say "business is a-boomin." And do it with a fake southern drawl.

[Balloon guy 158]

Do they make cigars on that street? Or do you have to have them shipped in from, say...a communist country?

Well the truth is that most of the growers fled Cuba after they established their labels and went to free countries where they are allowed to profit for their risks. Cuba having the fields that were left behind, along with many of the workers unable to leave when the communist took over, of course they can still make a good cigar.But their dominance of the market has not been a reality for over 2 decades.In fact most cigar smokers I know love to smoke a cuban cigar, but almost none of them think that any cuban they have smoked is better than all non-cubans. In fact it is very common for cigar smokers to say that they think cubans are over rated.Last one I had a month ago was less than average. I'd rather have a Padron 7000 than any cuban.

[Balloon guy 158]

Hey BG, don't say "business is good," say "business is a-boomin." And do it with a fake southern drawl.

You're not the boss of meBut that is a good suggestion, next time I will totally use itKind of funny that when I went to google images with 'Foghorn Leghorn cigar' as my search I found this as find number 8:That guy is such an obvious communist.

[digitalmonkey 929]

Character obviously means their character on here.I feel like the thousands and thousands of posts they have is an adequate sample size."But I don't read all of them!"Yeah, but you've probably responded to about 50 of BG's posts and using his theoretical 10:1 ratio of views to replies, that means you've read about 500 of them.Hey BG, don't say "business is good," say "business is a-boomin." And do it with a fake southern drawl.

This wasn't about BG. It was about "Henry" and I don't recall reading many of "Henry's" posts...especially not enough to figure out his character.

[Balloon guy 158]

This wasn't about BG. It was about "Henry" and I don't recall reading many of "Henry's" posts...especially not enough to figure out his character.

He meant Henry is 10 times smarter than me, so by reading my posts which are smarter than any liberals posts, then you have glimpsed into the mind of someone 50 times smarter, via fuzzy math.Just go with it, it's not really worth the wasted time to understand this.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

This wasn't about BG.

Sorry. Felt like it was a little bit about him.

Can you explain Mr Balloon Guy's character because when I read some (skim most) of his posts it seems like he's intentionally ignoring facts.

yeah, balloon guy uses a lot of hyperbolic humor too, but don't worry, I won't expect you to pick up on that anymore. it can be pretty tough to, you know, read and understand stuff.

Apparently it is difficult to read and understand stuff when you have to consider the character of people you've never met or interacted with. Perhaps you can share the eHarmony notes you keep on everyone.

[Balloon guy 158]

Sorry. Felt like it was a little bit about him.

You need to read more of his posts to understand him better then.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

You need to read more of his posts to understand him better then.

Sometimes it's hard to get a feel for what's going on when you're scrolling past long posts and replies by and to SilentSnow.

[Balloon guy 158]

Sometimes it's hard to get a feel for what's going on when you're scrolling past long posts and replies by and to SilentSnow.

I hear you. I skip any longs posts and almost never click links, so I have to make it up as I go along often.But my time is too valuable to be wasted. As my post count clearly demonstrates

[SilentSnow 1]

I finally got around to reading this, and I respect mises.org. But their objections here boil down to one point: there are other ways to define freedom, too.But what is the point of a "freedom index"? Is it to get as close as possible to some idealized view of freedom? Or is it something more practical, such as a predictive model?In the case of the IoEF, their goal is to be 1. reproducible and 2. predictive. The article you linked doesn't object to the index on either of these grounds, only that certain people might choose to weight different aspects of freedom differently. In fact, I have yet to see that any convincing arguments that it fails on either of these goals (except for one point LLY made long ago that I is certainly valid).So OK, go ahead. Anyone who wants to come up with a model that is equally reproducible and more predictive is free to do so. So far, nobody has. Until then, it is the best model we have for the type of government that leads to maximum economic success. Whining that "my favorite freedom isn't weighted heavily enough" is just a way of attempting to ignore real world data that contradicts a hardened ideology.I won't hold my breath for you to do your homework and provide a reproducible, predictive model that demonstrates that socialism and crony capitalism is better than free markets and rule of law.

It's so cute when try to talk about it as being scientific. A 100 variable model will never, ever be scientific. It can't be reproduced since most of their values are abritrary and it predicts nothing since no one can know which of the 100 variables cause/correlate with whatever they are comparing it to.But it goes beyond being completely unscientific. It's not rational or honest either. The fundamental problem is that the countries with high taxes and lots of regulations are great places to live while third world countries have very low taxes and much less regulations. So in order to avoid an index that gave lousy places good scores and good places low scores they rigged it. Socialist countries got much higher scores than you would expect from a libertarian index and countries with low taxes and small governments got much lower scores. I already have produced a simple model. Market Socialism correlates much better with wealth and happiness than having low taxes and a small government. The evidence is overwhelming, so much so that your precious IoEF had to fake their index to account for this fact so they wouldn't look ridiculous. Also, you are being dishonest when you pretend that "defining freedom" was the only objection of the Mises article. They had the same fundamental objection that I just posted about.

[digitalmonkey 929]

Sorry. Felt like it was a little bit about him.

Convenient quoting, I must say (read that in an Ed Grimley voice if it helps).This whole discussion originated when Henry said something and then others said he didn't say it, but it was then shown that he did actually say it, but then Henry apologized because he didn't mean it the way it appeared, but then Shakezuma (iZuma on eHarmony) entered the room stating that based on Henry's character we should have known what he was saying and I simply stated that expecting someone to know the character of people we rarely interact with is vitriolic condescending absurd.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

Convenient quoting, I must say (read that in an Ed Grimley voice if it helps).

I don't know who Ed Grimley is.I understand what's going on, just having fun with it.

[iZuma 764]

oh oops, looks like you're still having some trouble understanding words. see, after I stated that "maybe I skimmed over it", and you reposted what henry said, I said that when "I read henry's post, I thought it was out of character."maybe this little recap will help.

[digitalmonkey 929]

oh oops, looks like you're still having some trouble understanding words. see, after I stated that "maybe I skimmed over it", and you reposted what henry said, I said that when "I read henry's post, I thought it was out of character."maybe this little recap will help.

[hblask 1]

But it goes beyond being completely unscientific. It's not rational or honest either. The fundamental problem is that the countries with high taxes and lots of regulations are great places to live while third world countries have very low taxes and much less regulations. So in order to avoid an index that gave lousy places good scores and good places low scores they rigged it. Socialist countries got much higher scores than you would expect from a libertarian index and countries with low taxes and small governments got much lower scores.

So you are saying that by paying attention to the data and making their model relevant, that proves they are not relevant? Well, that explains a lot about your beliefs.

I already have produced a simple model. Market Socialism correlates much better with wealth and happiness than having low taxes and a small government.

LOL, nice troll attempt. Sorry, not biting this time, either.

[hblask 1]

I don't think most people would believe my real positions.Even I am shocked when I think about them.For instance, I am in the camp that Carter wasn't that bad of a president, and is a very good man. But he's become a joke since then, probably because of his decades of being called the worst president ever for things he did that were actually really good. Like shoring up the US dollar with high interest rates for years to make it the dominant currency for such a long time.I also think Reagan is over rated, he reaped the rewards of Carter's economic policies, but he is still a really good president. Plus he found the simplest way to be loved by the country, he spoke to us in our language. You young people have no idea what it means for the President to drop the politicians speak and just talk like we were sitting together at the cigar store.Why no one has been able to do that since him shows you that ultimately, every single politician is brain dead, and the people running things in the back room are equally brain dead, but they are effective in stealing money for themselves.I also think this government has a responsibility to help the needy, and that this help will likely ruin those people for life, but that is the cost of help sometimes.I think the US soldier should be paid more than teachers, and their lives are more important to me than any foreign person's. And when we send them in, we should expect them to kill everything, that way we will send them in fewer times, and when we do we will lose less of them. If we don't want them to utterly destroy the ability of the invadees to wage any resistance, then we should make them stay at home. War is the result of the failure of politicians, yet they never suffer the consequences.I would not care if taxes on the rich are raised to 50%, if the government was efficient, but I would vote for it to be lowered to 5% if the government refuses to quit being so inefficient. I want the government to suffer for their bad choices, not us.The rich will not stop investing their money if we raise their taxes by 5%, nor will they start new companies with an extra 5%, but the government doesn't deserve the money, so that is why I am against it.Libertarians are a nice choice now, but if our country was founded as libertarianism, we would not have roads. Their system requires there to be an existing infrastructure to build off of, which is why I am not a libertarian.Democrats have good motives, but completely ignore reality about their decisions.Republicans are largely bring lied too by the republican hierarchy which is doing things contrary to their rhetoric, which are fine with bigger government, but their rhetoric is better then the 'truth' the democrats spout, so at least we are remotely possible of stumbling into doing the right thing.Online poker will be legal in about 16 months in the US.Five Guys burgers are in fact better than In N Out, cause In N Out allowed their burgers to shrink to the point of being silly.

I agree with so much of this I'm going to let those other few things alone. Nice post.

[hblask 1]

Gary Johnson got a full hour on Stossel yesterday. As of now, these links work, but I don't know how long they'll stay up here. Mysteriously, I could not find part 4.

-- a social conservative explains the problems he'll have in the primaries.

EDIT: Found part 4