Libertarian NOMINEE Gary Johnson: GOP intolerant, homophobic

Winning nearly 70% of the votes on the first ballot at the Libertarian National Convention in Las Vegas today, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson wasted no time proving he is not going to run or govern as "Republican lite":

Gary Johnson, accepting the
Libertarian Party nomination
for President in Las Vegas.

"I believe the majority of americans are fiscally responsible and socially tolerant," Johnson told BuzzFeed in a phone interview. "I believe the majority of Americans could care less about whether or not there is a gay individual working in the Romney campaign." Romney's newly hired foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell was openly gay, a fact that raised the ire of social conservatives, whose reaction resulted in Grenell's leaving the campaign.

"It speaks volumes to the intolerance that continues to be present in the Republican Party," Johnson said. He said he doesn't attach that intolerance to the majority of Republicans but to "the activists driving that agenda."

"That intolerance is why the world vilifies Republicans," Johnson continued. "It’s why I have never worn a Republican t-shirt in my life. There is a certain Republican dogma I just cannot defend. Homophobia is one of those issues."

Asked why he had spent so many years in the GOP before defecting to the Libertarian Party, Johnson explained:

Johnson said the only reason he's never been a registered Libertarian is because "I have a notion of governing and winning," and "I have a lot of Republican friends who have just had it with the Republican Party."

Pollster John Zogby
believes the Libertarian
Party could have a
significant impact on
this year's election.

Governing and winning . . . that's the trick in a Libertarian Party that has never broken 1,000,000 votes and only once in its 40-year history exceeded 1% of the vote in the General Election.

But Gary Johnson is pursuing what has been called the 15% strategy--attempting to amass enough support in major polls to be invited into the Presidential debates this fall, where sharing a stage with President Obama and Governor Romney could be the breakthrough moment he needs.

The strategy does not seem impossible, at least at this point, as Johnson has already showed up at 6% in some national polls; as high as 15% in his home state of New Mexico; and recently at 8% in Montana.

Recently, pollster John Zogby even suggested that Johnson's candor or marijuana legalization, gay rights, and abortion rights might steal some of the youth vote from President Obama.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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