Go live on your bitcoin cruise ship in international waters and slowly recreate a shittier version of traditional government step by step while saying you hate government.
I like Chase Oliver. I don't agree with him on all the issues by a long long shot, but I think he seems like a genuine dude, and I understand his positions, even when I disagree with them. And he's ideologically consistent if nothing else.
I'm in a state where the Electorial College is a hard lock anyway, so I'll probably vote for him since my vote doesn't matter otherwise. Just as a protest vote if nothing else.
Plus, if they can get enough of the popular vote they'll get federal funding in the next election cycle. The Libertarian Party definitely has an extremist wing to it I can't stand, but there's something to be said for rewarding them for picking a reasonable human being for a candidate lol.
I'm in a state where the Electorial College is a hard lock anyway
That attitude is why states tend to stay locked. Third parties will never be viable, and if anything will act as spoilers until we get ranked choice voting. Sure the libertarians put up a semi-real candidate, but he's still a libertarian that wants the free market to solve every problem which is the most batshit insane idea. Don't reward that shit.
Yeah, I'm in a bluer state than California my guy. Think, like, Maryland or Massachusetts.
I feel pretty safe voting for Chase Oliver, lol.
Not that I'd feel bad voting for him in an Alabama or Mississippi either.
Hoping to flip it someday doesn't change the fact that when polling suggests that it's going 90% one way, hoping that maybe you'll flip it this cycle is delusional.
When you vote for a candidate you hate you're telling them that they don't have to change their platform to have your support. People making safe votes against their own interests is precisely why the people in power get away with all this bullshit. Don't waste your vote by giving it to someone who doesn't stand for what you believe in.
That can only ever benefit Republicans because they're enough of a cult to keep their party vote as long as they promise to hurt people the voters don't like. If every Democrat voted their conscience, trump would be guaranteed the win.
In the primaries, sure, that’s your chance to send your party a message about who you really want. In the general election? You are just a vote and you don’t get to decide how that is interpreted.
Are the Democrats likely to look at the results and say “oh the libertarian vote is gaining ground, we need to move our platform to the left”? Or will they see themselves losing ground and try to appeal more to the center? Or will the Republicans look at it and say “we need to be even more anti-government!” Or any number of other things that could be antithetical to the change you want?
Good for him. As a queer woman, it's always nice to see progress. But just like Pete Buttigeig, trash policies means I absolutely won't vote for him. Nor commit his name to memory, despite libertians booing at Trump the other day, they are still conservatives so this dork championing their deregulation nonsense doesn't move the needle for me.
Oh gawd no. I did tolerate a friend of a friend who voted Trump under the agreement we weren't gonna talk politics.
But.... Then roe v wade got over tuned and he was openly laughing at me loosing basic human rights. Anyways, he is in jail now anyways for trying to shoot his GF while blackout drunk.
And that's the story of when I decided to have standards for people I let in to my life.
if businesses are left to their own devices, they will “develop the technologies that will power us into the future, not using carbon-based fuels,”
glances at Communist Chinese EVs
So... Um...
One additional note, wrt his wiki page. I gotta say, quitting the Dem Party because Barack Obama didn't get us out of Iraq as promised is a more respectable position than I'd expect out of an LP candidate. After growing up with the likes of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson dominating the party, this feels like a ray of sunshine peaking out behind a very dark cloud.
Setting aside his naive take on climate change and education, I don't see much in immigration or criminal justice reform or foreign policy to explicitly hate. But I also know he's showing up as the more liberal wing of a party that's got a rather nasty John Bircher streak. Feels like he's showing up in the negative relative to a Trump campaign that's sucking up all the libertarian racists and cop lovers.
And yet, there are so many counter examples to pull from. Like, the basis of most regulations start with companies, who had been left to their own devices, completely screwing their customers, workers, and the environment.
But sure. It would work this time if we take off the guardrails.
Clearly the problem is too much regulation! If we stop regulating companies completely, they'll ✨magically✨ just start doing the right thing.
Shhhh don't talk about historical precedent for that not working, libertarian brains can't handle that sort of stuff. Just repeat after me: TAXATION IS THEFT, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, WAR IS PEACE
I mean, I recall seeing a ton of press a while back that the percentage of the Texas power grid that was renewable keeps growing because it's more economically viable than traditional power plants.
So, like, he may not be wrong. Solar and wind just keep getting cheaper. It's not like businesses will spend extra money to burn coal, just to spite the environment.
Absolutely agree that, at this point, he's probably right, especially if he were to go all-in on the free market aspect and cut 100% of fossil fuel subsidies. However, it does bug me that he's clearly ignoring how that "free market economy" produces those oil/gas/coal company vultures to begin with. The primary issue I have against vanilla libertarianism is their insistance that deregulation is a solution to everything when we're living in a time that's obviously worse off because of companies and individuals who weren't being properly regulated.
I mean, I think that's what the majority of people are advocating for in green circles too, no? "No New Coal" and all that?
I don't hear much advocacy for tearing down working power plants.
Power plants don't exactly have an infinite shelf life. They get run down and need to be replaced. Eventually only building green leads to only having green.
Combine that with the ever increasing cost of actually running a coal fire plant. Shipping in hundreds of tons of coal is eventually gonna get way more expensive than operating a solar or wind farm. At that point the business owners will likely tear the plant down of their own volition to replace it with the cheaper option. (Though that will be admittedly a little slower, as you have to amortize in the construction and downtime costs.)
Did you mean to reply to me? I don't see how that is relevant.
Like, sure, oil and gas companies are corrupt and doing immoral things to prop up their industry.
But if a coal plant can sell me electricity for 5¢/kwh and the windmill company can sell it to me for 2¢/kwh, I don't care what immoral stuff they try, the consumer is gonna buy the cheaper option.
Historically fossil fuels have been the cheaper option, and most of the immoral stuff was to avoid bad press. That strategy doesn't work if you're the more expensive option. The market will in fact work for the best in that scenario.
Which isn't to say the free market always makes the "correct" decision. Fossil fuels are a great example, as they have continued to be the primary form of energy for the past 100+yrs, since it was cheap. But it looks like natural market forces are bringing us around to green slowly but surely, and Chase Oliver might be right that this is a problem that will, at this point, largely solve itself.