I'd probably vote for a libertarian candidate (3rd party), is there a good candidate?

Libertarianism only works if you're in a powerless position.

 

Libertarianism is a pipe dream. Check out Jill Stein and the Greens. Here's a link to her issue stances. The Greens could actually come of age on the national stage if the GOP continues it self immolation and already have significant gains in state and local races (for a third party).

http://www.jillstein.org/issues

 

I like Jill Stein, but reality is until the playing field is leveled in elections the Demopublicans will continue to dominate. Put a cap on election spending - if your freedoms can be curtailed in the interest of "security", then certainly they can be temporarily curtailed in the interest of the person who is going to be in charge of making those decisions regarding freedoms/security.

So even if money is free speech, you need to cut that ish out for anyone who decides to run for Prez, stop allowing people to use their own sponsored money to campaign, and take control of the elections again. This means actual debates based on intellectual questions prioritized directly by what people care about most - which is typically, "what is eating up most of the tax money" and "why are you not paying attention to my needs at home".

 

capitalism is free and voluntary human interaction and exchange

 

Jill Stein and the New Green Deal are hilarious. Repped.

 

I think the tea party shows a smaller group can impact politics. The Greens will emerge if people stop considering it a wasted vote.

 

Green party is sometimes to idealistic. I want a party that is moderate and practical.

 

The objective should be to move the Overton window such that your party is perceived as moderate and practical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

A third party is only viable if it supplants an existing party. Like what happened to the Whigs.

 

unless it involves externalities that are forced upon people. Let's say you try to limit, to the best of your ability, meat from your diet, and you try to limit your carbon emissions by taking a train instead of plane, shopping locally, and taking mass transit, but that doesn't stop the fact that the percent of people who simply don't give a s**t and are being flagrantly irresponsible are directly harming you without your explicit consent.

The growth hormones and pesticides being placed in all of our food supply, the pollutants being released in the air, and the garbage being dumped into the ocean (including nuclear waste) affect everyone, even if they are not responsible for it. Free and voluntary. Ha.

Not to mention the capricious nature of capital, and the leverage it gains by simply being mobile as opposed to labour. Or the fact that future generations have no say on what happens to present resources.

no, but really, we are all free. and pure capitalism is a wonder to behold. Because everybody is rational, and because the future is nothing to hope for anyways.

 

Interesting. This is more hysterical than usual.

There are certainly organic foods you can buy and eat. When disciplined (rare, I admit), I stick to such a diet. FWIW, there is a large group of anti-GMOers who are libertarians/ancaps. If that seems to be a contradiction, it's not.

As for pollution, that would require more detail to answer the questions you likely have. See here and here.

On whether people are "rational" or not, I would recommend the first chapter of Human Action. See here, or the study guide to the first chapter here.

But I am interested to hear more about the capricious nature of capital. I didn't know capital had a nature. What a fool I've been! I'd also like to hear more about how we can include future generations (including the unconceived, I assume) on decisions made with present resources.

 

Thadeus and I have both suggested that we do away with elections and elect people at random from the adult population. The Law of Statistical Averages would suggest that you'd be represented by the average person in your district, and we'd do away with all of the partisan BS.

I don't vote because it's a waste of time. There is no choice. Only the illusion of choice.

 

Well, not really. In reality, you are indeed free... to starve.

 

Well, yeah. If someone wanted to starve themselves, they certainly can.

 

My you're clever.

 

I do what I can.

 

Its not about voting its about taking action.

 

Being anti-GMO has nothing to do with it. In fact, I myself am not anti-GMO and I fundamentally think if you are part of the conventional "anti-GMO" movement, it's because you don't understand how science works. GMOs to me are like the debate about that "strange new food" of potatoes. There are underlying arguments about biodiversity and the methods attached to GMOs (Monsanto included) but by and large, anti-GMOers can't tell the difference between glia and neurons, so I wouldn't trust them to even think of those arguments, at least from the scientific perspective.

The modern GMO movement, like Randians in general, can pick out good problems vaguely, but are held back in their solutions by their superstitions, and lack of knowledge in certain (admittedly very technical) fields. There's this strange need/poster drive to "go back to nature" that I personally find gobsmackingly amusing because "natural" substances and nature itself contains some of the most f**ked up things this side of anything. It reminds me of the "abolish the Fed" rally cry, to be honest.

As for Mises, he died in 1973, and I can say with some confidence that advances in cognitive science have abolished his views. The amount of our action and behavior shaped by physiological, and hormonal processes is astounding, just off of the top of my head.

for example, we can now predict with reasonable confidence when a woman will initiate sex, and when a man will (hint: almost all of the time), and it has nothing to do with volition within rationality that Mises espouses, but more to do with fluctuations in the menstrual cycle.

If you want to discuss the content of capital and societal discount rates, I suggest you look at who controls capital. This is a good case study of the capricious nature of capital---

http://www.wallstreetmanna.com/2008/07/hedge-funds-role-in-hong-kong-crisis-in.html

http://www.chicagofed.org/webpages/publications/working_papers/2000/wp_17.cfm

 

Also, most organic foods are poisoned by the pollutants in the air, and contaminated by pesticides and hormones from neighboring farms. That leads to things like me having to buy f**king greenhouse food at ridiculous prices just to avoid that, and that's at least within my control. I don't think I can dodge cataclysmic climate events. I guess I am free to imagine they won't happen.

 

No it isn't.

I still vote, but I always vote for 3rd parties and, sometimes, for myself. It doesn't really accomplish anything, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

And yeah, I still think demarchy (election by lottery), for all its potential faults, is the only thing that can make American democracy work.