Live-blogging the 2016 Libertarian Party primary debate

I'll be live-blogging the Libertarian Party's first televised presidential primary debate of 2016 (or ever). Keep reloading this post for more updates.

9:03 — Gary Johnson uses his opening statement to talk about his "wonderful family," including his grandchildren and his fiance, with whom he shares "a passion for health and wellness." "It's great to be in love, and I'm in love!" He talks about starting a successful "handyman business," then selling it in 1999 — "nobody lost their job." He also points out that he got elected governor in a state that's 2 to 1 Democratic, New Mexico. And he's adventurous: "I climbed the tallest mountain in each of the seven continents!"

9:05 — John McAfee's opening statement strikes a different tone — philosophical, not personal: "Libertarianism is grounded in the concept of liberty. What is liberty? Liberty is the idea that our minds and bodies belong to ourselves. . . . Liberty cannot be extinguished . . . through laws; it can only be unjustly punished."

9:06 — Austin Petersen sketches his biography to highlight how he's learned the value of liberty. He grew up on a horse farm near a town called Liberty, Missouri. He learned about "economic liberty" as a kid, when his parents sent him to sell chrysanthemums. He learned about "personal liberty" from "the Golden Rule." "I may be the youngest candidate in this race, but I'm the oldest in libertarian years!"

9:09 — Johnson is asked how we can trust him on military issues when he wants to cut military spending. He says the terrorist threat is real, but our drone strikes have made things worse.

9:10 — McAfee is asked about the perception that libertarians are "isolationists." McAfee cleverly turns the tables by saying that "isolationism" is "taking on the role of world policeman, making ourselves separate from the rest of the world: we're the policemen, and you're the ones we police."

[I missed the first few minutes and added the above posts later. Here's where I started actually live-blogging:]

9:11 — When should we go to war? Johson and Petersen say: "When we're attacked." McAfee tries to cut the Gordian knot: "Why do we need war?"

9:12 — McAfee on drugs: "A heroin addict's addiction is its own punishment; we don't need any more."

9:18 — Petersen proposes a "penny"-based budget, where we take away one penny of every dollar from every federal program — with a way to bring that penny back in cases where Congress decides it's needed. He declares: "No one is going to be hurt!" But the moderator, John Stossel (a libertarian), seems skeptical of that.

9:19 — Johnson would cut the federal budget by 20%, including Medicare, Medicaid, and military.

9:21 — Stossel asks what specifically they'd cut. Petersen says everything — but in particular, he'd repeal Obamacare. Johnson says the Departments of Commerce and Education. McAfee says the FDA.

9:27 — When asked how to fight ISIS, the candidates all give pretty unexciting answers: McAfee says we need better intelligence, Petersen says we should fight them while following the Constitution, and Johnson says Congress should declare war on ISIS and we should cut off their funding.

9:30 — On foreign aid, Petersen forcefully says he'd get rid of "all" of it. Johnson is more cautious, saying he's uncomfortable with the word "all" — but he's generally against foreign aid. "It sounds nice, like you're giving them food, but it's really propping up dictators."

9:36 — Stossel asks each candidate about their flaws, starting with Johnson: He lost in 2012, he's "low-key," and he admits he sometimes smokes marijuana. Johnson says he hasn't had alcohol in 27 years, and legalizing marijuana would reduce the overall harm caused by all addictions.

9:38 — McAfee is asked about his shady alleged activities in Belize and Guatemala. "You're still technically a fugitive!" He was also arrested for driving on Xanax. McAfee says . . . well, he's never been charged with murder! (That's reassuring.) He admits his DUI was "the stupidest thing I've ever done."

9:39 — Petersen is asked about his young age. "I'm 35, so I'm constitutionally eligible. . . . Don't hate me because I'm young and pretty!"

9:40 — Johnson is asked how he can appeal to Democrats. He says he took a quiz on ISideWith.com, which tells you what percentage you agree with each candidate. He agreed with himself only 90%! But the person he agreed with the second most was Bernie Sanders, at 73%. He agrees with Sanders on civil liberties.

9:42 — Petersen challenges Johnson on his support for requiring bakeries to make cakes for same-sex weddings. "Should a Jewish baker be forced to bake a Nazi wedding cake?" Johnson says: "Yes!" [Added later: Who would have though the most extreme, crazy statement made in the Libertarian debate would be in favor of government forcing a business to make goods that promote Nazism?] Petersen accuses Johnson of not understanding the free market. Petersen frames his argument as pro-gay: "Let the bigots out themselves!"

9:48 — On abortion, Petersen says Congress has no power to legislate, but we should be "morally pro-life." "Ending the federal war on drugs would allow women to buy birth control over the counter." Johnson and McAfee are strongly for legal abortion.

9:49 — Stossel does a lightning round on a couple issues. They're all against the death penalty, and they're all for same-sex marriage. McAfee jokes: "I met Austin [Petersen] in a gay bar!"

9:50 — Should government fix the fact that "women are paid less than men"? Johnson says women should be paid the same as men, but "the devil is in the details," and he'd have a hard time signing any legislation about it. McAfee says women and men should be paid equally — but "the employer should decide." Petersen correctly says the "gender pay gap" is because of "women's choices." More women than men go to college — should government force more men to go to college?

9:52 — If there were no Libertarian nominee, would they vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? They'd all refuse to vote for either. Johnson says he'd find another third-party candidate to vote for.

That's the end of the first half of this pre-recorded debate. The second half will air at 9 pm Eastern on April 8.

The Libertarian Party debate is this Friday

"[T]he first ever nationally televised libertarian debate has been confirmed for April 1. The debate is set to air at 9pm EST on the Stossel Show on Fox Business."

Based on the photos, I'd say: Johnson for president, Petersen for vice president, and McAfee for head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Was Ayn Rand a hypocrite for collecting Social Security?

John Fugelsang seems to think so:





But wait a minute . . . there's nothing inconsistent about being a libertarian and collecting Social Security. If you believe the government is wrongfully taking your money (in the form of taxes), naturally you should want to take as much of it back as possible (in the form of benefits). You could still complain that this was inefficient because you would've spent the money better if you had kept it all along; some of your money was siphoned off by government workers; etc.

By analogy, if a thief stole your wallet and spent half of the cash that was in it, then offered you the wallet back, you'd take it back, simply to recover most of what you had lost. That wouldn't be an admission that what the thief did was good.

If anything, the hypocritical libertarian would be one who declines to receive Social Security checks, since this would be essentially donating money to the federal government.

Ron Paul on libertarians and vaccines

Perhaps those "libertarians" actually mean what they say when they say: you should have a right to do whatever you want — as long as you're not hurting anyone else.

The problem with free-market economists

Explained by a free-market economist.

Democrats for Gary Johnson

Terry Michael, who once served as a press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and has been a vocal supporter of the two-party system, explains why he's voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for president:

I don’t intend to change my registration. I’m still a Democrat. But I’m a small “l” libertarian Democrat, who wants to teach fellow Democrats that 21st century libertarians are not a bunch of selfish, Ayn Rand-style, greedy capitalists. Among the three issue frames of politics—economy, social, and foreign—most rank-and-file Democrats share much in common with modern libertarians. Most libertarians want to keep government out of our bedrooms, away from our bodies, and out of the backyards of the rest of the world. On the economy, while we are for limited spending, taxes, and regulation, we favor free markets—not oligarchic capitalism that uses government to re-distribute tax revenue to the military-industrial-congressional-media complex, the behemoth pharmaceutical companies, or other lobbyists along Washington’s K Street who seek benefits from government and regulations that put competitors at disadvantage. . . .

Gov. Gary Johnson balanced New Mexico’s budget all 8 years he served; he pledges to end the insanity in Afghanistan immediately; he is committed to legalizing drugs, to ending the government-induced black market that drives up profits and causes Mexican cartels to murder thousands, like the Al Capone murder and mayhem created by alcohol Prohibition. And he wants to end handouts to corporations that see the U.S. Treasury as a giant ATM, stocked with cash by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

I have been a slave to political pragmatism during my four decades in these 10 square miles surrounded by reality known as Washington, D.C. But this year, I encourage my Jeffersonian, classical liberal friends, in each party and neither, to send a simple message to both my party and the Republicans, in the form of votes for Gary Johnson.

The Political Compass ideology quiz

You can take the quiz here to find out where they place you on economic and social issues.

Based on my scores, I seem to be a moderate libertarian.

Libertarianism is often seen as an extreme ideology, so is "moderate libertarian" an oxymoron? Not according to Tyler Cowen. Writing in 2007, he said that libertarian policies have increased America's economic growth, but added:

The more wealth we have, the more government we can afford. Furthermore, the better government operates, the more government people will demand. That is the fundamental paradox of libertarianism. Many initial victories bring later defeats.

I am not so worried about this paradox of libertarianism. Overall libertarians should embrace these developments. We should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government. We don’t have to favor the growth in government per se, but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal.

In short, libertarianism has the seeds of its own destruction.

As with all these kinds of quizzes, I take issue with the premise of some of the questions. The first one is whether you agree with this statement:

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

This seems designed to prompt you to think in zero-sum terms about benefitting either "trans-national corporations" or "humanity." I wish there had been an option that would have allowed me to take the position that globalization should benefit both trans-national corporations and humanity at the same time. But the quiz nudges you toward answering that "humanity" should take precedence over "corporations." (The quiz writers should read the section in chapter 1 of Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies about the "zero-sum fallacy" and the chapter on free trade in Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist.)

Also, the quiz results are supposedly about your political views, but several of the social questions don't refer to any role of government. For instance, you could believe that discipline is the most important value to instill in children, and that society has gone too far in allowing people to express sexuality in public (which the quiz would count as "authoritarian" positions), while taking a libertarian position that government should stay out of these issues. You can have a moral objection to the painted nude woman in Times Square the other day without thinking the police should have arrested her. The quiz is supposed to test whether you do have authoritarian political views, but the quiz seems to make an authoritarian assumption that you'll want the government to enforce your morals.