Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...
Comments
I am not blind to differences in some policy areas.
But every person, regardless of party or ideology, has their own list of prioritized reasons to support or oppose, discriminate between or lump together candidates.
Just as I don't think Barack Obama ever seriously thought he could achieve single-payer health care or even negotiated drug prices, but held those out from time to time in his career to win votes, I don't think that Mitt Romney seriously believes he can ever voucherize Medicare--it's red meat for the base. It is rhetoric rather than reality.
That's point one.
Point two is this: MY personal list for president considers foreign policy, military intervention, and US-sponsored human rights violations around the world to be one of my highest priorities. With respect to those I see little or NO difference between Obama and Romney.
If you rate saving Medicare as a higher value for selecting a president, you are not going to see it that way, obviously. And that's OK.
But please remember that it was Barack Obama who cut Medicare by $750 billion (I admit the GOPers would have liked more) and it was John Carney I listened to at UD last week say (I paraphrase but very closely) "to pay for the ACA we're going to have to pay providers less."
Continually paying doctors less is not the way to get high quality health care.
If you consider women's health issues as human rights and civil liberties issues (as I think they are), then there is a tremendous difference between Obama and Romney. Also, teh gays.
Still, I am voting Green this year.
a1
Man, you really have a case of the ass, don't you?
By the way, on abortion rights and marriage equality I'm fine with Gary Johnson. His support of marriage equality as a constitutional right is about, what, five times better than Obama's opportunistic but hollow posturing?
Ironically, however, we do have this in agreement: despite my complete lack of use for her domestic policies, Jill Stein would be my second choice, because at least she'd follow a de-militarized foreign policy, restore civil liberties, and cut defense spending.
I can't bring myself to choose one warmonger over another based on better domestic policies. Seems to be like getting bribed to ignored Pakistani children being shredded by our drones.
And since, inside Delaware, my vote won't matter anyway (Obama will win in a walk), a vote to open up the political system is hardly going affect Medicare or whatever this time around.
But it might provide some more alternatives in four years.
Wonder how many more brown people will be dead by then who'd have been alive if Gary Johnson were actually elected President?