Thanks. Up until now the only problem I had with Trump is always waiting for a chipmunk to stick its head out of his funny frontal hair.
Terry above now inspires me to ask--
Why not support Scott Walker?

Hmmm, I find your conclusions irrational. However what would be your solution? I stand by my remarks and conclusions.

Because Donald is an offensive boor with the tact of sulphuric acid?
Because Donald has arguably used government funding for many of his projects?
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/11/...

"If evil is voted for then it is because the people doing the voting are in themselves somewhat evil. "
imo, illogical conclusion without any basis in fact. Please share the data that proves this is true.
imo the propaganda of the party controlled media, and education system supports the illogical conclusion that the only choice is Dem or GOP. That doesn't make the targets of the propaganda evil in any way.

"We must always try to speculate on what a person will do once in office "
Yes, and if we don't consider the acts of the candidates and the history of the party and previous candidates of that party there is no way to make a rational judgement.
The GOP and Dems have proven they are lying looters repeatedly. Voting for candidates from that party will continue the history of more state power and less individual liberty. There is no rational argument that can be made using the history of the DemReps that justifies voting for DemRep candidates.

I agree. I will vote. I do not agree with those of you that just sit it out. Why not help pick a candidate that has the closest philosophy as ours? Why not support a non political? Why not support Donald Trump?

I planted "this house is sold on Goldwater" signs all over Kokomo Indiana. His defeat devastated me.

Yes I get this argument all the time and from both sides of the discussion. However, I simply cannot wrap my head around this argument for many reasons. If evil is voted for then it is because the people doing the voting are in themselves somewhat evil. None of this is new. People vote for what they want. So those that voted for Wilson, FDR, Johnson, and Obama, to name a few, wanted something for nothing. On the flip side voting for Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan and to a lesser extent Bush knew they wanted a Gov't that stayed out of the business to allow the economy to prosper. All those I have mentioned could be considered evil depending on one's perspective. To not vote on the lesser of what we may consider evil is to allow evil to flourish. Case in point the election of Obama – twice.

We must always try to speculate on what a person will do once in office even though the truth will only come after that fact. There are simply too many variables. Who controls the House, the Senate. It is not as simple as the President of choice. I see Democrats and Republicans as the middle ground between Progressives and Conservatives. It is the middle ground that supplies the variables.

The quote "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" rings true regardless of how one feels about Edmund Burke. My belief is the Founders put together America believing that it was their Gulch. It has been a struggle from day one. If everyone walks away from that struggle then we have already lost.

As I've mentioned several times already, I was one of those Libertarians trying to make a difference. I beat my head against that particular wall for a long time before I decided that I just wasn't worth it. But you keep up the fight for as long as you think you have to...I'm done with it.

If that's the "practical reality," then it's Republicans and Democrats forevermore. You can't keep kooks out of any but the very smallest political parties, but that hardly dooms them. Gary Johnson has gathered plenty of thoughtful news stories and articles. So have numerous Libertarian congressional and state legislative candidates, especially in races where they had the potential to affect the outcome. The word "libertarian" itself is being used, often favorably, to describe the positions of certain Republican presidential candidates, and this is due in no small part to the efforts of Libertarian Party activists during the past 40 years.

And that's why I supported the Linertarians in the first place. But it's not the fine, upstanding candidates who make the headlines...it's the kooks. And if you"re going to mount a serious third party challenge to the two party standard, you can't have kooks. And that's the practical reality.

in high school, I had his bumper sticker on my
notebook. . it was so sad when he went crazy
as he aged. -- j
.

yes. . we have the best politicians money can buy. -- j
.

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't think a president could get away with refusing to sign the actual spending/appropriation bills. The budget itself does nothing. As to pardons, he could only pardon those in federal prison and while I would love to see such an action, I fear that DoJ, FBI, DEA, ATF and several others would go nuts and probably rebel. It's those buried in the bureaucracy that one needs to worry about. If you haven't noticed this last couple of years, Congress can't even get one of them fired.

Citizenry must take up arms to destroy such a ruinous government. Of course that will be less than 10% of the nation. The rest will sit in their lazyboy's and either watch the TV or computer screen as the county goes into the toilet. Lock,load and Fire!

There are many serious Libertarian candidates, compared to the number of "kooks". Gary Johnson, the 2012 and likely 2016 presidential nominee, is a good example of a candidate who is effective in spreading the libertarian message in a manner that encourages a respectful hearing by the voting public.

I agree in that I don't think he would have done any worse; maybe better. But to me it shows that the Libertarians can't be taken seriously, at least as far as a national political force.

What it (and similar incidents in California) showed me was simply that the LP is unwilling to try, at all, to purge itself of kooks. This makes it a lot less likely that they'll elect anybody soon. In my view this is a good reason to avoid putting much effort or money into the LP, but not that much of a reason to refrain from voting for them, at least if there isn't an acceptable major party candidate. In the unlikely event that Stern had won, I'm not sure exactly what he would have done as governor, but I can't see how he could possibly be worse than the real governor. And it would be worth it just to really and truly f___ with the minds of the establishment supporters.

That depends what you regard as real, significant change affecting the individual voter. A president could, for example, declare that he will not sign any new budget that isn't balanced. Or he could pardon the millions of people in prison for marijuana en masse. I'll grant you that actions that big, if the people who voted for him weren't expecting them, could get him impeached, but chances are that actions like those would stick even after he was out of office.

Whether such "shocks" may be necessary or desirable depends on the extent to which libertarians "win" in politics. If Rand Paul is elected, does he think it's a one-off, not likely to be repeated, or do we expect the next Congress to be libertarian, too? I think you make the pessimistic assumption and hope it's wrong.

At one time, I was a registered Libertarian. However, the Libertarian Party lost much of its credibility when it ran Howard Stern for governor of New York. That showed complete ignorance or indifference (take your pick) of and to political reality.

No, I don't in any way justify the initiation of violence absent the need of self defense. The difficulty arises in the naive belief by many in the anarchy and agora movements, that everyone, given the opportunity to live in a free society, would respect everyone else's rights. My problem with such pacifist is in the limiting definitions of what is violence against them that justifies a response of self defense, and their refusal to take responsibility for their own defense, expecting others to do that for them. They remind me of many of the hippy utopians of the 60's and 70's,

I'll likely be voting for the Libertarian presidential candidate again, as I've been doing since 1972. It's a louder statement of dissatisfaction with the "two-party system" than not voting at all.

It doesn't matter if the POTUS is from the GOP or from the Democrats. They are the same party with only an illusion of choice. Perception of improvement is exactly what those looting scounderels depend on. For 50 years they have been tallking the talk, and they will NEVER walk the walk. Their actions are always on a statist program of more power for the fedgov and corporatocracy, and less rights for the sovereign people.
If the non GOP, non Democrat POTUS is a statesman, then there could be a positive effect toward individual liberty. No POTUS from the DemRep party will produce anything but statist propaganda.