Gary Johnson

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Lowering the Qualifications

“Oh yeah?” someone posted recently in response to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s inability to name even one foreign leader. “Let’s see how many you can name!”

That’s not the point. I’m not running for President. 

If I was applying for a job with a law firm and they asked me to name one of the amendments to the United States Constitution and I couldn’t even think of one, would you hire me? In your own job, there are things you need to know that I don’t know at all, which is why I would never be qualified to demand to be hired, much less to be hired as head of the entire business.

The President of the United States is, in many ways, the most powerful person on the planet. Shouldn’t there be some specific qualifications for the job?

Imagine you own a huge corporation that has a trillion dollar budget and millions of employees. You’re looking to hire a new CEO to run things. Who are you going to hire — the person who has spent their entire life working in exactly the field in which your corporation does business, who has numerous college degrees, who has definite plans on how to improve your business and who has proven she can work with others to accomplish your corporation’s goals — or the guy who has absolutely none of those qualifications but “tells it like it is”?

This is something I have never understood about politics — how some people are more interested in voting for the “guy they want to have a beer with” instead of the “guy most qualified for the job.”

Of course charisma is part of the job. Qualifications are more than just what is on your resume, and they include having the personality necessary to accomplish your goals. But even the dumbest most incompetent person can have a winning personality.

Last time we elected the “guy we want to have a beer with” we got the biggest terrorist attack on our soil ever, the complete crashing of the economy, and a costly, unnecessary deadly war.

Competence matters.

 

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Why Gary Johnson would help the debates

I am not a Gary Johnson fan by a long shot. And I don’t like setting a precedent of allowing candidates who are getting less than 10% be in the debates.

However, there would be two advantages to having Johnson participate in the debates.garyjohnson

First: It might make it more substantial. I can just imagine a debate moderator asking stupid questions about email servers and taco trucks and so on instead of real issues that Presidential candidates should be asked. With Johnson up there, perhaps the moderators will ignore some of the non-issues and ask real things just so he can be included.

Second: I am sure that the more that conservatives find out about Johnson, the more appealing he will be to them — and the more liberals find out about him, the less appealing he will be. Already, one major newspaper has endorsed him (The Richmond Times-Dispatch, my hometown paper, and one of the most conservative papers around). This can only help to split the Republican vote, and for a Democrat like me, that’s a very good thing.

So sure, I’ve changed my mind. Let Johnson debate. It will only help Hillary.

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Why in the world are Bernie people going to Johnson?

I am constantly astounded by Bernie people who say they are now going to vote for Gary Johnson, the ex-Republican and now Libertarian candidate for President.

(Sorry I can’t credit the artist here; don’t know who it is)

Libertarians are good on certain social issues. They don’t think the government should be deciding things concerning abortion or gay marriage or whether you should be able to smoke marijuana. They don’t want Big Brother government watching us. They’re against using torture against our enemies. You can see why many Bernie supporters would like that.

The problem is that libertarians not only believe that government should be out of our social lives, they believe the government should be out of just about everything.

Bernie railed against income equality, Wall Street, and greed. He talked about how the little guy in America couldn’t get a fair share with corporations paying no taxes and fighting minimum wage. He railed against Citizen’s United and the deregulation of banks that caused the housing crisis and the economic recession.

And what kinds of policies caused these problems?

Libertarian policies.

Here are the things Gary Johnson wants:

  • Elimination of all corporate taxes  (not your taxes, of course — just businesses)
  • Health care only for those who can afford it (and elimination of medicare too, so your elderly parents can just suck it up and deal)
  • Privatize social security
  • Insurance companies can refuse you for a pre-existing condition and can kick you off their plans if you get sick
  • Get rid of income tax but have a national sales tax of 23% on top of your state sales tax. (This means that the average person will pay more taxes overall, but the average rich person will be tremendously better off)
  • Get rid of the minimum wage (Not “reduce it” — get rid of it completely)
  • Schools allowed to teach creationism
  • Abolish the Department of Education
  • Vouchers so students can get tax breaks to go to religious schools (with your tax money)
  • No government student loans (Can’t afford college?  Tough)
  • Support of the TPP (Trans Pacific Pact) so businesses can ship jobs overseas because freedom
  • Allow corporations to give unlimited money to political candidates
  • No gun laws
  • For-profit jails (who then lobby for stronger drug laws so they can keep more people incarcerated because money)
  • No cap-and-trade policy and no extra taxes on polluters (currently used to force them to go to cleaner energy)
  • No federal funding for science or stem cell research
  • No net neutrality — your internet server can decide to charge you more based on what sites you want to visit
  • Cut all support to Israel

Come on, the man carries around Ayn Rand books and gives them out, saying that is the kind of government he wants.

Now, of course, some people think all this is a good idea — that if only government got out of the way, no powerful person would ever take advantage of anyone ever again and we’ll all live in peace and harmony happily ever after, even though that has never been the case in the entire history of humanity.

But Bernie supporters?  Really? If this is what you truly believe, then what the heck were you doing supporting Bernie, who has spent his entire career fighting people like Gary Johnson?

 

(Primary source:  http://www.ontheissues.org/Gary_Johnson.htm)