In my last post, I was pretty clear about why I think third party presidential votes are a bad idea. But I have to say more about one of those candidates: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. Johnson is perhaps the closest I’ve seen in my political life to a third party candidate worth supporting….
Libertarianism
Fairness in Tax Policy
We’ve begun to discuss the specifics of tax policy in a few of the comment threads, so I thought I’d bring that discussion here. I’ll do my best to keep the explanation simple, but if you’re not into tax policy I understand. Jacob and I started with a discussion of what constitutes “fairness” in…
Taxation and Slavery
In his recent comment,* Jacob made several references to slavery, both historical and metaphorical. I’d like to unpack them a bit since they reflect the foundation of some of our differences. In his first reference, Jacob references the historic institution of slavery. He suggests that “the majority of Americans were better off as a result…
The Colorado Springs Experiment, Part I
A recent episode of This American Life examined the difficulties and decisions made by the city government of Colorado Springs. Put briefly, the city began to run out of money and had to start shutting down basic services. Then a successful resort owner in town proposed that the city could save money by running more…
Commander in Chief
I watched the Republican debate last night and had plenty of thoughts that I won’t share here. But one thing that really stood out to me was the way in which they dodged military-related questions, both those having to do with “don’t ask, don’t tell” and items of foreign policy. Their most common refrain was…