The Libertarian Party again nominated former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as its presidential candidate Sunday, believing he can challenge presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton because of their poor showing in popularity polls . . .
Johnson, 63, won the nomination on the second ballot at the convention, defeating Austin Petersen, the founder of The Libertarian Republic magazine; and anti-computer virus company founder John McAfee. The delegates selected former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld to be his vice presidential running mate . . .
At one point on Sunday, Petersen reportedly confronted Johnson over the selection of Weld as his running mate. Johnson apparently told his rival, “This is not the place” and walked away.
Petersen confronts Johnson about the Weld choice. "This is not the place," says Johnson, walking away. pic.twitter.com/48ZLvPCDiL
Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, and current leading Libertarian candidate for president is set to name William (Bill) Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, as his running mate today. While Weld certainly has some fiscal conservative bona fides from his time as governor, he also has a statist streak, which should give libertarians, especially those who are delegates to the Libertarian convention, pause.
James Antle summed up whether or not Weld is a libertarian best, in a 2005 profile at the American Spectator. Antle wrote “does the strange combination of thorough economic conservatism and social liberalism make Weld a libertarian? Not unless libertarians also support expansive environmental regulations, gun control, and affirmative action.”
Here are five statist positions of Bill Weld that should give libertarians pause.
Gun Control
Weld is a gun grabber. He gave his support to gun control measures in Massachusetts. As the New York Times reported at the time:
With voters growing increasingly fearful of gunfire on the streets, Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts reversed course this week and proposed some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country.
Mr. Weld, a Republican who will run for re-election next year, called for a statewide ban on assault weapons — a proposal he opposed during his 1990 campaign — as well as a waiting period for buying handguns and a prohibition on handgun ownership by anyone under 21. His proposed legislation would also limit the number of handguns an individual could buy and would impose tough penalties for illegal gun sales and gun-related crimes.
“The purpose of this common sense legislation is to remove deadly guns from our streets and to take weapons out of the hands of many teens who themselves are becoming deadly killers,” the Governor said.
Eminent Domain
Like Donald Trump, Bill Weld believes in the power of the state to take land for private developers. When running for governor of New York, the patrician Weld explained when he would use the power of eminent domain to seize private property for the good of a select few. The New York Sun reported:
At a Crain’s Business Breakfast in Midtown, Mr. Weld said he would support the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, as well as in cases of building affordable housing in certain neighborhoods, depending on “the character of the neighborhood you were razing.”
The benefit to the public created by such private projects would justify the use of eminent domain, he said.
During a Manhattan Institute breakfast on March 1, Mr. Weld said a recent Supreme Court decision that permitted eminent domain to spur economic development “has put alleged collective needs ahead of individual liberty and property rights, and increased tax revenue ahead of the pursuit of individual happiness. It’s a decision I would expect in Communist China.”
The proposed Atlantic Yards project, which would include affordable housing and a new basketball stadium for the Nets, “is clearly okay,” he said yesterday, because “that whole project is imbued with public interest… A major public asset is involved there and it’s not simply an effort to increase the tax base.”
Affirmative Action
When debates swirled around ending many federal affirmative action programs during the 1990s, then Governor Weld stood firmly with the statists who wanted to keep them. The Washington Post reported:
Further complicating the affirmative action issue is that some of the nation’s most prominent moderate Republicans have spoken out against efforts to eliminate it. Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich, Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld and Gov. John Engler of Michigan are among those who support many affirmative action programs.
Environmental Regulations
Weld was a supporter of stricter environmental regulations being promulgated by the EPA. In 1997 he joined Governor Whitman of New Jersey in pushing the EPA to establish “stricter limits on smog.”
In 1994 Weld led his administration in pushing for the EPA to require an electric car mandate. The New York Times reported:
In Massachusetts, the Environmental Affairs Secretary, Trudy Coxe, said that the state Legislature adopted the California plan and that the measure was signed by then — Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. Gov. William F. Weld, a Republican, supports the program, she said.
Among the stipulations that New York and Massachusetts agreed to is a requirement that 2 percent of the cars offered for sale in the 1998 model year be electric.
Full Throated Endorsement of Barack Obama
Only a statist would have ever endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain, who was hardly an orthodox conservative in 2008. Obama was already known to be a radical leftist in 2008, when Weld endorsed him. There is nothing remotely libertarian about Barack Obama.
Here’s Weld’s full-throated 2008 endorsement.
Long story short. Bill Weld is not a libertarian; he’s a liberal Republican from the Northeast. There is a big difference. (For more from the author of “5 Statist Positions That Should Make Libertarians Run From Bill Weld” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/4456052320_e693acc9d5_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-19 22:30:282016-05-19 22:30:285 Statist Positions That Should Make Libertarians Run From Bill Weld
If I asked you to name an example of a libertarian film, you’d probably offer some science fiction dystopia in which an oppressive government makes life miserable for the people. Minority Report, Equilibrium, the Giver, the Hunger Games, even the recent adaptations of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
These are all good examples, but I have always considered the most effective political messages in pop culture to be the implicit ones, the ones that sneak up on you, so that you don’t even realize what the message is until you’ve already internalized it. When you hit someone over the head with a message, their natural instinct is to resist it, which I guess is pretty libertarian in itself. But when you paint a picture of a world that speaks to people’s basic desires on an instinctual level, that’s when you really reach them.
With that in mind, I’d like to offer up an example of a film hardly anyone would call political, but which may be the most libertarian movie I know. It’s an almost forgotten little gem from the late 90s called Pleasantville.
When this film popped up on my Netflix queue the other day, I had almost forgotten it existed. I hadn’t seen it since it first came out nearly 20 years ago, before I even knew what libertarianism was. But upon reviewing it, I was surprised at how well it encapsulates the basics of that philosophy without ever coming off as even slightly political.
The plot of the film is basically this: two teenagers get sucked through their TV into the world of a black and white Leave It to Beaver type show depicting an idyllic 50s neighborhood of malt shops and “aw shucks” morality. Unlike the dystopia movies mentioned above, there’s nothing sinister about the town of Pleasantville. Everything’s nice, everything’s pleasant, but the world is as limited in its realm of experiences as it is in its color palette. It isn’t what it might be, because the powers that be, in this case not so much the government as the rules of the world itself, place limits on individual freedom, or as Aldous Huxley said, the freedom to be unhappy. Husband and wives sleep in separate beds. It’s always 72 degrees and sunny, and the school basketball team never loses a game.
But when Reese Witherspoon’s slutty high school character introduces some of the local boys to sex, things begin to change. People start to have new experiences, as well as new emotions, and gradually the black and white gives way to stunning technicolor.
Not all these changes are improvements. Along with love and excitement come jealousy and anger. When the formerly blank library books begin to fill with words, the locals get exposed to new ideas, including Mark Twain’s treatment of slavery in Huckleberry Finn. For the first time ever, rain clouds darken Pleasantville’s previously sunny streets, and like Prometheus’ gift of fire to mankind, the knowledge of good and evil is not without a cost.
Of course, there are those who resist these changes, who preferred the old ways, that things always be nice and predictable and stable, but the vast majority of the population revels in their newfound freedom. They prefer danger and uncertainty to comfort and security, because the later can only exist in a pale, shadow of a world without any of the richness that makes life worth living.
This is the essence of libertarianism. We prefer freedom, for all its messiness, to the life of a bird in a gilded cage. The fact that few viewers of Pleasantville would wish to live in so limited a world shows that, deep down, most Americans prefer freedom as well, even as they vote for policies that restrict speech, gun rights, and economic liberty in the name of security. The challenge is making that mental leap between what they implicitly recognize as desirable, and what they explicitly ask of their political representatives. But as long as media is being produced that shows the benefits of freedom in spite of its dangers, the cause of liberty will not be without hope. (For more from the author of “The Libertarian Statement No One Expected From Actress Reese Witherspoon” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Reese_Witherspoon_at_the_83rd_Academy_Awards_Red_Carpet_IMG_1306.jpg23043456Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-08 21:54:132016-05-08 21:54:13The Libertarian Statement No One Expected From Actress Reese Witherspoon
The Alaska Republican Party has taken measures to prevent a takeover by libertarian and Tea Party activists.
The new rules say a person has to be registered as a Republican for at least four years before seeking a top leadership position, and they require all candidates for the party’s statewide offices to be vetted by a special committee before they can run. The rules were adopted on Saturday, at the Alaska Republican Party’s biannual convention. Party Chair Peter Goldberg says the changes are a reaction to a coup staged by a group of Ron Paul supporters at the 2012 convention.
“Two years ago, people that were not Republicans were registering to become Republicans on the day of their district conventions and participating,” says Goldberg. “That’s really not appropriate.”
The insurgents elected a libertarian-leaning chair and vice chair, but the Alaska Republican Party’s old guard kicked them out of office last year.
Read further background stories HERE, HERE, and HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-05-11 00:34:012014-05-11 00:34:01Alaska GOP Passes Measures to Block Tea Party or Libertarian Takeover
Photo Credit: Daily Caller GOP strategist Karl Rove was caught on tape blasting Michigan Rep. Justin Amash as the “most liberal Republican.”
“The most liberal Republican is Justin Amash of Michigan. Far more liberal than any other Republican,” said Rove, who served as deputy chief of staff to former President George W. Bush.
The man dubbed “Bush’s Brain” in a New York Times bestseller blamed Amash’s libertarian leanings for this distinction.
“And why? Because he is a 100 percent, purist libertarian,” Rove said, “and if it’s not entirely perfect, ‘I’m voting with [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi.”
Rove actually made the remarks at the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June, but journalist Andrew Kirell tweeted out the video Monday. It was subsequently picked by a libertarian blog and local media in Michigan.
Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson was nowhere to be seen at the official Ron Paul rally in Tampa, but he did make a pitch to Paul’s voters at this weekend’s grassroots-organized Paul Fest.
“I want you all to know that I am a Dr. Paul fan,” Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, told the crowd to loud applause.
Johnson emphasized his agreement with Paul on foreign policy and auditing the Federal Reserve as he made the case that he is the best candidate to move the Texas congressman’s message forward in the presidential race.
Initially, Johnson sought the Republican nomination for president while Paul was still a candidate, but he told the crowd he had long been a Paul supporter. “Ron Paul asked me for my endorsement in 2008 and I readily gave him that endorsement,” Johnson said. “When I dropped out of the Republican primary, I asked everyone who was going to vote for me to vote for Ron Paul.”
Cheers erupted when Johnson reminded the audience that, during his final appearance in the Republican presidential debates, he said he would pick Ron Paul to be his running mate if nominated.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2012-08-27 01:54:322012-08-27 01:54:32Libertarian Gary Johnson asks for support of Ron Paul Voters
