If I Were Gary Johnson

guest

Here is a link to the specific point of the Robert Wenzel interview when Gary Johnson starts revealing himself as a Keynesian:
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Just How Libertarian is Gary Johnson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTch7InkZjo#t=6m11s

http://twitter.com/chrifive916 chrifive916

lol, evictionism has been my abortion stance even before I knew the name for it. I saw the Walter Block presentation on it a few months back, and I finally had a name for my opinion on it. Before I was “pro-choice, mostly”, which always led to arguments with both pro-life and pro-choice people.

Evictionism only makes sense. A bad decision cannot make you a slave to another person for any length of time, and forcing someone to care for another human is wrong.

Adoption is obviously a better choice than abortion, but let’s be honest, aborting a 1 month old fetus is not murder. That isn’t a person yet; there is no consciousness. There is a viability threshold, the point at which a baby can survive outside of the womb, and it constantly lowers as premature child care improves. IMO, this should be the line at which getting an abortion becomes morally repugnant, and pro-life people should work to lower the age of this line as much as possible. Then they can save those children if they wish, and allow the mother to go on with her life as she sees fit.

Doctors shouldn’t murder children. Once they induce labor, they should be morally responsible for saving that life if it is savable (past viability threshold). Murder inside the womb is still murder if the child could have lived.

Anonymous

I listened the whole thing, and Johnson never reveals himself to be Keynesian on monetary policy. He hardly gets a word in edgewise on the subject, but what he does say is not a Keynesian alternative to Mises or Hayek. See the summary above.

Anonymous

Johnson does not say that it’s government’s job to print money. He says that ending the Fed does not prevent the Treasury from printing money.

Here’s Johnson advocating competing currencies before the Wenzel interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZX12pH7CI

guest

Regarding Ron Paul’s position on decriminalizing drugs only at the federal level, keep in mind that the states are sovereign under the Constitution because the states were created by people who voluntarily agreed to associate with each other.
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The general government doesnt have the authority to tell the people of the several states what laws they may pass; and the Constitution was an agreement among the several states, such that each state may leave the Union at any time, without the other states’ permission.
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Let me also qualify that “decriminalize” is not the same as “deregulate”; ad that it is actually the latter definition that Ron Paul has in mind with regard to the general government’s role in the issue of drugs and most other criminal laws, which are, Constitutionally, state matters.
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If you decriminalize something, the state will still claim authority to regulate and tax it.
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Ron Paul’s goal, in his capacity as President, would be to do what he can to keep the Executive Branch of the general government from interfering in matters which only the respective state governments have jurisdiction.

Dan

I have no idea why you are getting so defensive. I simply said if I was GJ, I would be more like Ron Paul. You asked how I wish he was more like Ron Paul, and I answered. Now you want to claim you didn’t ask that, as if we can’t look up a few posts and see that is exactly what you asked me. This discussion is just becoming a waste of my time. I tried to explain why I believe Ron Paul is the better libertarian, in my opinion, and the areas I think GJ could improve on. You don’t like my response, too bad. Those are my opinions and you can take it or leave it.

What annoys me is you want to move the goal posts on me constantly. You say you asked why GJ isn’t libertarian enough to be POTUS. Well, I’ve been discussing why I believe Ron Paul is a better libertarian. I never said GJ wasn’t libertarian enough to be president. In fact, I specifically said I had no problem with people who support him and thought he was a thousand times better than Obama or Romney. Yes, I have reservations about how he would handle the libertarian message when he was under attack, but nowhere did I say that he wasn’t libertarian enough to be president.

Anyways, nice talking to you. I’ve said all I want to say on the matter.

Dan

The only thing I would disagree with you on, chrifive916, is you stating that a one month old fetus is not a person. That is not what evictionism theory would state. In fact, Dr. Block’s position, and I believe the correct position, is that the fetus is a person from the second the egg and sperm come together. If you look at that link I posted above from an article that Dr. Block wrote recently, you can find all the literature that he has put out on evictionism. He links to all his work and some of the counter-arguments to his theory in that article.

guest

These are all Keynesian responses:
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Gary Johnson: “… like I say, I would just be in agreement with the notion of economic cycles, and that recessions are a good thing, a healthy thing, and if depressions actually come about, that being the same, and the federal reserve manipulation of interest rates [unintelligible] softening of a recession or depression [cut off]”
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Gary Johnson: “What causes a recession? Just the notion that we all get overheated a little bit, and we spend a little bit too much, and then we have to reel it in because we can’t consume as much as we think we can, an again, just, the natural cycle [cut off]”
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Robert Wenzel: “… without the Federal Reserve manipulation of money, there would be no business cycle …”
Gary Johnson: “I don’t think you can say that – what about tulips in Holland? That was a financial bubble that I don’t think a central bank was engaged in.”
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Gary Johnson: “Are you suggesting that before we had a central bank, we didn’t have booms and busts in this country?”
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Robert Wenzel: “Now, let’s get back to money again for just a minute, and then I know you have to go; The federal Reserve – would you like to see it be abolished?; Or what is your view on the Federal Reserve.
Gary Johnson: “… We need to stop printing money, and if we abolish the Federal Reserve, the Treasury could, and would, still print money, just like they did before there was a central bank; Just like other countries print money where they don’t have a central bank. But short of abolishing the Federal Reserve … [it] should return to its original mandate of price stability …”
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Gary Johnson is a Greenbacker, like Ellen Brown:
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Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt Is an Anti-Gold Currency, Pro-Fiat Money,
Greenback, Keynesian Tract. Here, I Take It Apart, Error by Error.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/department141.cfm

Dan

I agree that Gary Johnson gave a Keynesian view of the business cycle, but I wouldn’t consider him a greenbacker. He has consistently stated his support for commodity money. I think GJ has very good libertarian instincts, and it’s amazing how many libertarian positions he believes in considering how little time he has spent studying these things. I just wish he would step his game up and add the intellectual framework needed to defend his primarily good instincts from a serious attack.

guest

Regarding the Tulip Bubble, and the booms and busts in America before the Fed: It’s not enough to say that you don’t need a central bank for booms and busts to occur.
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Artificial credit expansion, whether a central bank engages in it, or whether decentralized banks do so.
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Robert Wenzel refers to the work of Doug French, in response to this objection, of which the following is a sample:
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The Truth About Tulipmania
http://mises.org/daily/2564
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I would suggest, as well, the following article because French identifies “bimetalism” as a factor in the Tulip Bubble and it explains how that can artificially expand the money supply:
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What Has Government Done to Our Money? Gresham’s Law and Coinage
http://mises.org/money/3s5.asp
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A great overview of how fiat money creates the boom/bust cycle is the following speech by Tom Woods. It explains why we are deathly afraid of paper money even if there is no central bank:
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In fact, my request would be that you watch this video before reading the articles.
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Smashing Myths and Restoring Sound Money | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzExlEsIKk

guest

Oops. That should read:
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“Artificial credit expansion, whether a central bank engages in it, or whether decentralized banks do so, causes the boom/bust cycle.

Anonymous

None of the quotes are Keynesian. They’re run of the mill, laymen’s descriptions of economic phenomena without much theoretical depth in any theoretical system. Keynes does not say that a recession is a healthy correction of an overheated economy.

“Gary Johnson is a Greenbacker” is a non sequitur. The preceding quotes don’t imply that Johnson advocates anything like greenbacks, and the following link has nothing to do with Johnson.

You don’t follow up with a link to Johnson, because you can’t, because Johnson is on the record clearly advocating commodity money and competing currencies long before the Wenzel interview. You’re setting up a straw man only to knock it down while saying nothing relevant to Gary Johnson.

Wenzel himself never suggests that Johnson is a Keynesian and certainly never suggests that Johnson advocates anything like greenbacks. He only thinks that Johnson doesn’t know enough Austrian economic theory.

If Wenzel were a Keynesian, he could just as easily pick holes in Johnson’s knowledge of Keynes, and he undoubtedly would. A Wenzel follower might then be here accusing Johnson of being a closet Austrian out to feed the poor to the rich.

guest

Johnson does, in fact, say that it’s government’s job to print money, in the Wenzel interview.
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Here is a link to the specific point in the interview when he does so:
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Just How Libertarian is Gary Johnson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTch7InkZjo#t=19m31s
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Gary Johnson: “… We need to stop printing money, and if we abolish the Federal Reserve, the Treasury could, and would, still print money, just like they did before there was a central bank; Just like other countries print money where they don’t have a central bank.”

guest

Here is a link to the specific point in the interview when he advocates government money printing:
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Just How Libertarian is Gary Johnson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
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Gary Johnson: “… We need to stop printing money, and if we abolish the Federal Reserve, the Treasury could, and would, still print money, just like they did before there was a central bank; Just like other countries print money where they don’t have a central bank.”
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The part where he says that recessions are a good thing is not where he reveals his Keynesianism; but, rather, where he says that the Federal Reserve can “soften” a recession, and that the economy can “overheat” due to too much consumption.

Anonymous

I haven’t moved any goal post. I never anywhere suggest that GJ is a better libertarian than RP. I supported Paul myself very vigorously in ’08 and again this year. You only need to look at the archives of this forum to see that. If Paul were still in the race, I’d still be supporting him, because he earned my support, but he’s not in the race.

I don’t care who is the better libertarian. I don’t claim to know who is the better libertarian. They’re both more than libertarian enough for me.

Maybe I confused you with guest earlier. If so, I regret it. The question is: why would you not support Johnson now that Paul is out of the race? Writing in Paul’s name has no legal effect. The vote won’t even be tallied.

Dan

I’m with Martin on this one point. He doesn’t say the government should print money. In fact, he says we need to stop printing it. Acknowledging that the government could and would print money is not an endorsement of the idea.

That said, I think it is a pointless statement. Just because he thinks the government would print money without the central bank is no reason to advocate keeping it around. I would’ve rather he say that having a central bank is wrong, it should be abolished, and that the role of money in society should be in the hands of te free market.

This is another reason I criticize GJ. To me, that is a soft ball question that every libertarian should be able to handle. Saying the treasury will print if the Fed doesn’t misses the opportunity to explain the free market approach to money.

I do agree with you that he made it even worse by suggesting the Fed has a role in softening the landing during a recession. That shows a very large lapse in understanding free markets.

http://twitter.com/chrifive916 chrifive916

I know that is Block’s position when arguing for evictionism, simply because it is best to concede that point to show pro-lifers that even if true, evictionism still holds up.

It is my opinion that a 1-month old fetus is not a person yet. I did not mean to imply that fetus age was an argument in favor of evictionism.

Regardless of the determination of whether a fetus is a person or not is a moot point; no person has the right to force another to care for it, or give it life, regardless of age.

guest

Gary Johnson thinks the _Fed_ should stop printing money, but not that money shouldn’t be printed. This is the Greenbacker view.
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Ellen Brown, another Greenbacker, was also thought to have been against money printing, until Gary North exposed her:
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Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt Is an Anti-Gold Currency, Pro-Fiat Money,
Greenback, Keynesian Tract. Here, I Take It Apart, Error by Error.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/department141.cfm

Anonymous

Whether or not it’s “enough” to say that booms and busts don’t require a central bank, that’s all Johnson said. Your insinuation that he’s therefore a Keynesian is a non sequitur.

Thanks for the reading list, but I’ve argued against bimetallism myself often. The issue is your unsubstantiated assertions that Gary Johnson advocates Keynesian fiscal or monetary policy.

I never anywhere deny that fiat money can create a boom/bust cycle, so here again, you’re preaching to the choir. The point is that Gary Johnson never denies that fiat money can create a boom/bust cycle, and he never advocates a Keynesian response to the bust.

Dan

I’m not writing in Paul. I’m not voting. I’m also not telling other people to not support GJ if that is what they want to do. In fact, a friend of mine, who is very libertarian-lite (it’s tough to even call him a libertarian), sent me a link to GJ meetup groups. I encouraged him to attend and gave him my suggestions on where I thought GJ could be more bold. I told him I thought it was fantastic that he was getting more involved in libertarianism and suggested some reading material that would help him win arguments against people who gave him crap about supporting the guy. I have nothing personal against GJ.

Still, I’m not going to spend my time supporting his campaign. I believe I have better ways to spread the message of libertarianism than with supporting him. My plans are to start raising money for things like the Murphy/Krugman debate, Liberty Classroom, LRC, LVMI, the Mises Academy, EPJ, etc.

The only reason I got behind Ron Paul’s campaign was because I thought that was the most effective way to increase the number of libertarians in the world. Ron Paul is clearly the Michael Jordan of spreading the message so it made since for me to promote him. I maxed out my donations to his campaign and donated over 1k to Rev. PAC. I’m very happy with the results, although I would have liked to see Jesse Benton and John Tate dumped and the money used differently. Still, I think Ron Paul, yet again, boosted the libertarian numbers significantly and I’m very pleased about that.

I don’t believe Gary Johnson does a good job at converting people to libertarianism. If he did or starts to I will reassess my decisions, but as of now I think more people will become libertarians by my support for other ventures. I don’t give a damn about politics. I only care about creating a free society, and I don’t believe politics will do this for me. I only value politics when having that podium is waking up the masses. Sadly, I don’t think GJ is effective in this way.

Anonymous

He doesn’t say that the Fed can soften recessions. He says that Fed efforts to soften recessions by manipulating interest rates are counterproductive. You’ve taken a few garbled words and twisted them to suit your preconceived notion.

Anonymous

Ron Paul was never a great orator, and I never supported him as such. He spoke truth to power, and I was inspired.

Johnson has other strengths, and I think he’s a good candidate for the office, as much as anyone can be, but I agree with you that politics is largely a waste of time. If you’d rather support other ventures financially, I completely understand that, but if you were bothering to vote for Paul, I’m still not sure why you wouldn’t cast the vote for Johnson now. Maybe you should reconsider.

Dan

Yes, I agree with you that it is a moot point. Still, my nitpicky nature must stress that not only does Dr. Block believe that by stating the fetus is a person from the beginning that it takes that argument off the table, but he also believes it is the only logical position to hold.

Obviously, we are agreeing on the overall theory, but I did want to make that distinction in case there are others reading who have never heard about this theory.

guest

When I say “it’s not enough”, here, I’m referring to Gary Johnson’s attempt to rebut Wenzel’s claim about the Federal Reserve by citing the Tulip Bubble.
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Johnson thinks that the Treasury should print money, yet thinks “central banks” are bad things – which means that he would not view a Treasury with money-printing powers as a central bank.
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He’s a Greenbacker; and, yes, a Keynesian.

Dan

The only reason I would’ve bothered voting for Paul was to not be a hypocrite. I couldn’t go around telling everyone I knew they should listen to his message and get behind him if I wasn’t going to do the same. I still believed voting was a waste of time considering one vote changes nothing, but if I’m going to stump for a guy I feel I should go out and vote for him. Even though it is only a symbolic gesture.

I don’t have that problem when it comes to GJ. I haven’t been out stumping for him. Not only would my one vote not mean anything, but I would be wasting time doing something I hate to do. So unless I start throwing my energy into getting people to get behind GJ, I will simply relax and read a good book on election night.

Dan

I understand that is how you are interpreting what he said, but I don’t agree with you. I could be wrong, of course, and if you have other clips where he says the treasury SHOULD print money I would concede the point. But based on the Wenzel interview alone, I don’t think your interpretation is the correct one.

Anonymous

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to coin money and to regulate its value. Johnson only acknowledges this reality. Denying reality doesn’t change it.

You simply ignore the fact that Johnson was already on the record advocating commodity money and competing currencies before the Wenzel interview. He explicitly advocates ending legal tender laws. He never anywhere advocates fiat money.

Johnson advocating anything like the greenback is a figment of your imagination. Wenzel never suggests it. You never present any evidence of it. You just keep repeating the assertion, like the quintessential politician.

Anonymous

He doesn’t say that the Fed softens the landing during a recession. This part of the interview is garbled, and Wenzel only leaps to this conclusion. Johnson was trying to say the opposite, that the Fed only makes things worse by trying to soften the landing during a recession. This interpretation is clear enough to me in the larger context.

To a hammer, everything is a nail. Wenzel is a self-appointed spokesman for Rothbardian correctness in this interview, and he leaps at every opportunity to question Johnson’s ideological purity. This sort of legalistic, denominational infighting is the death knell of any cooperative movement.

JP

If I were Gary Johnson, I wouldn’t support the violence of abortion.

Dave Carroll

Block’s evictionism theory is wrong because the mother is responsible for the baby’s existence. It’d be like inviting someone to take a ride on your airplane and then kicking them out all of a sudden in mid air. Claiming that since the plane is your property kicking the person out isn’t murder. It’s not your fault they aren’t able to fly.

All of that said I’m still supporting Johnson because he’s pretty good on most issues and nobody’s perfect.

Luke Sunderland

*sarcasm on* You just want four more years of Obama! We need to support Romney or else we support Obama!” *sarcasm off*

Luke Sunderland

Politics is nothing but a sham anyways. Dr. Woods is already doing more for liberty than any campaign manager (or candidate for that matter) could ever dream of doing.

Luke Sunderland

I love the Borg reference. The motto for the Republican convention
should have been – “We are the Republicans. Existence as you know it is
over. Your ideological distinctiveness will adapt to service us.
Resistance is futile.”

Luke Sunderland

I haven’t decided yet whether to not vote at all, write in Ron Paul or vote for Gary Johnson. So, even if Johnson only gets 3 or 4 percent of the total vote, he may very well end with one more than he otherwise would.

George

Money can be printed Without inflation notes are replaced. Treasury would do that.

Anonymous

Really? When something really is a load of crap, it’s wrong to say the Emperor is wearing no clothes? Sorry, have to disagree on that point. I doubt anyone is coming back here as the discussion is a bit dated, and I had planned to make several comments on this, but Becky Akers did a much better job than I could have over at the lewrockwell blog.

Please see this http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/120226.html

And this http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/120728.html

Henry Moore

Reading these threads is scaring me. People so much want to vote for someone other than Romney that they will say utilitarian, pro-choice, ignorant, CFR puppet, humanitarian warrior, tax marijuana, don’t end the drug war, economic illiterate, leave Guantanamo open, hates true federalism Gary Johnson resembles any kind of libertarian just so they can vote for him guilt free. You are lying to yourselves. But if it feels good, do it. Go vote for him see if it does anything. If Gary wins, you think the crap isn’t going to hit the fan, or you think when it does, all libertarians won’t be blamed in spite of the fact the guy at the helm was a phony?

Tom

If I were Gary Johnson, I would not flip flop on my non-interventionist foreign policy during a national televised interview. That’s confusing and spineless. Our military must not be used as a policeman of the world to correct horrible things being done by idiots in other countries. Mr Gary Johnson said he would use our military as a policeman of the world to correct genocide in other nations such as Africa. Mr. Johnson I withdraw my vote. I support Ron Paul’s foreign policy not yours.

DarthJ

A catholic can never support Gary Johnson- he supports (at least personally) abortion and Sodomite “marriage.”
Virgil Goode 2012!

Anonymous

Gary Johnson may not be Ron Paul, but Paul isnt in the running anymore. GJ’s got it in for the Federal Reserve and IRS – together, the bankster cartel’s engine of fraud and looting of America’s wealth. That’s a good enough start, and if made so, a lot of the rest of the corruption will fall naturally.