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Libertarian for President Jo Jorgensen finds it hilarious that Trump accuses the CPD of trying to silence him

“Join the club, President Trump,” said Dr. Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian for president in response to his claim that the Commission on Presidential debates is “trying to silence” him. “The CPD, along with its Democratic and Republican colluders – including you, have been silencing the Libertarian Party for decades. Your hypocritical criticism of your own co-conspirators is hilarious.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates consists of well-connected Democrats and Republicans who conspire every election with media elites to set debate rules that deliberately exclude alternative party competitors.

Since billionaire Ross Perot was in the presidential debates in 1992, the CPD has required presidential candidates to poll an average of fifteen percent in polls by five pre-selected polling firms – a percentage that was carefully calculated to make it virtually impossible for an outsider to qualify.

Those same Democrats and Republicans allow presidential candidates to participate in primary election debates with poll numbers as low as one percent.

“Do you want to show some consistency for a change, President Trump?” asked Jorgensen. “Tell the CPD to set rules that accommodate all viable candidates for president.”

Jo Jorgensen is the only alternative-party candidate for president who is on the ballot in all fifty states, plus the District of Columbia -- in spite of rules set by Democratic and Republican lawmakers to make it very difficult to achieve this.

#trump #biden #republican #democrat #itsallbullshit #cpd #wedeservebetter #wecandobetter #commonsense #practicalsolutions #votegold #libertarian #enoughisenough

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

Kris Morgan 9/6/2018

Democratic Socialism is a phrase that has been popularized by Vermont Senator and former Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders. The word ‘socialism’ sets off red flags in the minds of Libertarians and Conservatives alike. This is understandable given the body count of the 20th century that traces back to socialist countries. Nevertheless, supporters of the ideology claim that those opposed are merely associating their form of socialism with that of totalitarian dictatorships. Whether we agree with this statement or not, one thing is for certain; Democratic Socialism is gaining in popularity and if we are going to successfully push back against that tide, we should not engage in hyperbole. The Democratic Socialists of America webpagehas two major tasks for the visitor to explore. It behooves us to listen to their message and highlight where we disagree and offer alternatives.

Number one on the to-do list is providing medicare for all. The text reads “In the capitalist system, you have to pay to get care or go without, and under a democratic socialist system, we would collectively provide care as a society.” It would be great to reach a point where everyone has access to quality healthcare. However, there are two major points worthy of examination.

First, the present medicare program is due to go bankrupt by 2026, despite the fact that it does not cover all citizens. A piece in the LA Times noted “The report from program trustees says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026 — three years earlier than previously forecast. Its giant trust fund for inpatient care won’t be able to fully cover projected medical bills starting at that point.” The Democratic Socialists would likely develop a financial plan designed to resolve this issue. However, we must keep in mind that no government program is ever presented as if it will be poorly managed and leave us bankrupt. Yet here we are, over $21tril in debt; not because of a single party or even a single office, but because of the system as a whole.

Second, though libertarians recognize and sympathize with the current state of medical services, we identify the problem as being government interventionism in the first place. Mises.org has a great piece showing step-by-step how the United States has empowered and enriched private entities at the expense of the people, resulting in higher costs and fewer services. Our solution is to end the practices that lead to the current state of affairs to begin with. We want to trust communities and markets with the ability to solve problems. Contrary to the popular belief that we have a do-nothing answer, we would remove artificial barriers so individuals can make investments and increase efficiency of current services. Models that don’t result in greater output than input end in bankruptcy, whereas political failures continue until change is advantageous for those in power, regardless of the damage they cause.

Next on their list of objectives is stronger unions. Notwithstanding the lack in details, their ideas still warrant attention. Not surprising, capitalism itself is made the target.

“Capitalism pits us against each other and workplaces are fundamentally authoritarian unless workers can self-organize and build collective power. This is why people build unions, and why employers undermine them. It is also why the capitalists as a class constantly work to undermine unions and promote narratives about unions that frame them as unnecessary, undemocratic or ineffective. We are forming a national project to fight back and build power in the economy, since outside of Wall Street, workplaces are the place where the owning class extract resources from the working class.”

Yes, under capitalism there is competition. The nature of this competition is largely peaceful, with workers determined to prove themselves more valuable than each other, and entrepreneurs working on meeting demand most efficiently. While it can be argued this is less than perfect, it is much more preferable than competing for power over each other. In free markets the goal is to trade one’s economic efforts for material gain. In socialism, the goal is to pander to, or seize, power and force everyone to do what we want. Talk about pitting us against each other!

Libertarians are not anti-union per se. Our objections only arise where force is being used. Rules which make it illegal for an employer to end associations with those wanting to form unions go against individual liberty. Freedom in these decisions would make it possible for workers and employers to weigh their options and do what is in their best interest. If a skill is valuable and rare enough, those who have it have a bargaining chip. Industry leaders would understand that negotiating is in their best interest under those circumstances. Economic problems persist where skills are not scarce, but law restricts entrepreneurs from opting out of negotiations. Demand for such labor diminishes under artificially higher costs, and lower-level employees assume added responsibilities, or technology fills in the gap. Opportunities for unskilled workers to gain experience, skills, and knowledge fade.

These Democratic Socialist stepping stones are just a launching pad to encompass key aspects of life. In their view, eventually everything would be transformed from spontaneous order to a centrally-planned, democratic decision making process. In their words, “Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives.”

Trade by itself is here to meet public needs. In markets, our highest order needs and wants are expressed in the pricing system. Consumers willing to buy products at high prices signal producers to direct more resources towards said goods, and the result is lower prices and a supply and demand reaching as close to equilibrium as conditions would allow.

Who determines if the public’s needs are being met in Democratic Socialism? Or, in the existential sense, how do we determine what exactly the public needs to begin with? Life is infinitely complex and peoples’ wants and needs are in a constant state of change. Running everything in a democratic manner would never allow for the flexibility needed to match these conditions, not to mention whatever the politics involved would look like. The only way to adapt to is to untie our hands and let us react to changes. A handful of us cannot possibly know what all of us need, and if they did, the bureaucratic process of democracy is far too slow to adjust.

Whatever the intentions are of democratic socialists, the course of action they have chosen will not make the world a better place. Our economy is already riddled with trade cycles, endless deficits, regulations, wars, etc, we don’t need more. The move to provide medicare for everyone is a step in the wrong direction. In bad times, just as in good times, the real solution is increased capital investment to make labor more productive and directed to meet real demand. This only occurs under conditions of freedom. The government’s job is simple; get out of the way and deal with people who infringe on private property rights. Stop running deficits, eliminate tariffs, allow interest rates to reflect economic realities, and stop inflating bubbles.

The task of taking purposeful economic action is on the people. For example, if more medical services are really what we want, then new models should be constructed and invested in privately, so that in the event the planners are wrong, they fail as they should. Under conditions where entrepreneurs hit their mark, they have a solvent system in play and get to remain. In spite of popular opinion, no form of socialism is synonymous with sharing, it’s about institutionalized theft.. Scarce resources are not something we should want politicized under any circumstances. Political decision-making is precisely what got us to where we are today, and we should not be entertaining the notion of expanding it.

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We don’t have to agree that they should be allowed into the country, but we should at least be willing to treat them all like humans facing disastrous circumstances.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

Franc Turner  August 8, 2018

“We’ve now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” – George Orwell I was recently doing some statistical analysis for my own curiosity and amusement. My thoughts on these matters may not be very popular, but I think that it is rather important to consider uncommon perspectives when it comes to the “leaders” of this nation enacting legislation due to the momentum of perceived public outcry, demand, and public relations. With the heated atmosphere of anti-gun vs. pro-gun, gun violence, the NRA, mass shootings, rallies, town hall meetings, Democrat vs. Republican screaming matches, etc., I wanted to research the numbers that relate to the topics at hand. Through a little bit of digging, I was able to look up the data from every mass shooting in this country, from Columbine to Parkland, and every mass shooting in between. And when I say “mass shooting”, I am using the Congressional Research Service’s definition of the term in which four or more people are killed, not including the perpetrator. I started at Columbine because that incident seems to have been the jumping-off-point of the exponential trend of similar events happening more frequently in the public consciousness. I gathered the numbers of individuals killed in each of the 58 shootings. Through some simple and straightforward mathematics, I totalled the number of individuals killed in mass shootings from Columbine (1999) to Parkland (2018). The total number of people killed in mass shootings in this country during that nearly two decade time span is 535. (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/). That number made me wonder how many individuals are shot and killed by police each year in this country. Unfortunately, people didn’t keep records of that kind of thing until three years ago, as far as I could find. For 2015, the number of people shot and killed by police was 995. For 2016, the number was 963. And for 2017, it was 987. This year, so far, there have been 531; for a grand total of 3,476 in the past three years alone. While it can be argued that many of those instances are “justified in the line of duty”, many others have transpired like that of the Daniel Shaver shooting.

The 24- hour media circus also made me think back to the (never discussed) number of civilians estimated to have been killed in the 17-year-long “War On Terror”, which is between 1-2 million, conservatively; none of which had anything to do with the events of 9/11 (a day which was used as the catalyst for these indiscriminate regional massacres), while the majority of those killed are women and, yes, CHILDREN. And I would bet that the current number is more likely to be much higher, as those estimates are from a few years ago . This also caused me to think back to events such as Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco, TX; all of which took place in the not-so-distant past, carried out by your own benevolent government. Again, if you’re unfamiliar with those incidents, I suggest you read about them. The point is that your own government kills more people in a matter of a few days (on the average) than all of the mass shootings that have taken place in this country in the past 20 years, combined. And yet, there is almost zero outrage about this blatant and disturbing fact. There are no marches, no rallies, no town hall meetings, no wall-to-wall media coverage. Your own government is committing mass murder on a daily basis and will continue to do so while they con the citizenry into bankrolling the whole thing. For the past couple of years, I’ve found it fascinating to watch the willfully oblivious masses feed right into the “Us vs. Them” political mindset; with each and every new hashtag spreading like a zombie outbreak from “World War Z.” People seem to find comfort and peace of mind through recreational outrage, as instructed by the various news agencies.

The individuals who support the two major political gangs (Republicans and Democrats) in this country have compared the “opposing” faction’s de facto leader to Hitler. I’m guilty of it too, but I’m biased because I think that that every President we’ve had in the past 40 years has been a fake-smiled, friendly-faced fascist. But since Trump is the current figurehead, I’ll use that particular cult-of-personality as an example. For many self-proclaimed Democrats, Trump is Hitler-incarnate. And yet these masses of people are also demanding that Trump’s government enact legislation to ban the population from having certain firearms which they deem “only military and law enforcement should have.” So, basically it’s, “Trump is Hitler! You can’t trust anything he does! Give HIM all of your guns! That’ll show him! VICTORY!” They also want universal background checks, mental health screenings, and more. And Trump, himself, has even stated that he would like the government to be able to take weapons from anyone whom they deem to be a threat, without due process. His exact quote was, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” And there’s a certain percentage of Trump supporters who will go along with anything he says because they still believe he’s going to “Make America Great Again”, which is useful for the continued perpetuation of the incremental obsolescence of the Constitution as a safeguard against government overreach. This is the same Trump which recently sold $350 billion dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. So, it’s ok to give Saudi Arabia weapons, but not ok for American citizens to have weapons? That makes perfect sense. And I’ve heard arguments such as, “Europe has strict gun control and these kind of events don’t take place over there. It’s uniquely an American phenomenon.” Didn’t the deadliest mass shooting in recent memory happen in France just a few years ago? That one in which 137 people died, causing everyone to change their profile picture to have the colors of the French flag? And all of this is aside from the fact that our government, along with other major governments of the world, are holding the citizenry of the entire planet hostage under the threat of nuclear annihilation. It’s not the people doing these things, it’s their governments. Do we really want Trump’s government to be the only ones who have guns? It has been argued by many (whom you may never hear speak on any major news outlet) that the purpose of government is to cause the problems which they, in lock step, offer to “fix”; hence, creating an artificial “need” for themselves to “protect” you from each boogie man they’re conditioning you to fear. “The people can’t be trusted to protect themselves, so let’s make ’em all rely on those in power to do that job for them.” Genius, I tells ya. Pollution, war, poverty, hunger, scarcity, oil, hatred, hardship, violence, drugs, waste, etc..; these are not combatted by governments, but carried out and perpetuated by them. Max Igan described this trend as applying to even the simplest aspects of our daily lives. Take something as simple and seemingly straightforward as seatbelt laws. “If you don’t wear a seatbelt, you pay a fine. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll go to jail. If you don’t let them take you to jail, they’ll come and arrest you. If you don’t allow them to arrest you, they’ll kill you.” Whether it’s in the wake of mass shootings, terrorism, war, or any other reason, actions taken by governments are not just about creating safety, security, protection, and harmony in everyday life. They’re also often about creating, enforcing, and conditioning obedience within the population, so they don’t question who’s got the keys to the shackles around their ankles. The bottom line is that human beings have a right to defend themselves. Period. And the ironic thing is that any kind of gun ban would be enforced at the barrel of a gun (the same guns which they are banning). I was always a person who believed that people should lead by example. Therefore, if the governments of the world would like their citizens to disarm, they should first destroy each and every one of their own weapons, starting with every nuclear weapon. A few months ago, half a million people marched on Washington to beg their imperial overlords to take away more of their own rights. If people are genuinely concerned with saving the lives of children, then stop allowing your own government to kill innocent people around the globe with impunity, and stop pretending like you or the government have the moral authority to “allow” other people to have the right to defend themselves. A human being doesn’t have to ask permission to do that, it’s self evident. The world has literally gone insane, my friends.

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