The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

3) Why isn't Gary Johnson on the stage?

Because he's polling less than the 15% required?

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Because he's polling less than the 15% required?

But he is on the ballot in all 50 states.  And a couple of polls had him at 13% but also reported a 2-3% MoE.

An honest, and imo forgivable, gaffe.  
Tbh, I'd take "what is Aleppo" over "bleeding out of her whatever" any goddamn day.

*shrugs*

I find Johnson's gaffe to be indicative of a broader lack of foreign policy knowledge, even at it's most basic, which I do not prefer over a mere poor choice of phrase.

But he is on the ballot in all 50 states.  And a couple of polls had him at 13% but also reported a 2-3% MoE.

 
Don't look at me, my state has two different socialist parties on the presidential ballot too. ;P

Would the goal for the party in putting him in the debate just be the popularizing of the Libertarian platform? Do you think he'd stand out more in contrast to Clinton or Trump?

So there's that.

 
Throwing up this image showing results of a few who-won-it polls.  
(Using off-site linkage because the image is rather large.)

I'm sure Altair will have more when he wakes up.

Popularizing, sure, but that's what coverage and exposure are supposed to do, and the LP needs to popularize their ideas if they want to be viable... ever.  This has been the year for 'outsider' contenders, and 2020 doesn't promise the same opportunity.

I think Johnson differs enough from Clinton and Trump, which is what got him noticed.  He's criticized Hillary's foreign policy as well as Trump's stance on immigration.  He describes himself as "fiscally conservative and socially don't-give-a-damn."  
I've also heard Libertarians deride him for not being "Libertarian enough."  So there's that.

 
I don't trust anyone who considers themselves "fiscally conservative" to care about social issues enough to suite me. Fiscally conservative means they want the poor to suffer because they don't want to fund welfare or other safety-net programs because they subscribe to the pull yourself up by your bootstraps philosophy.

Frankly, as there's no viable socialist candidate and unlikely to be one until the USA gets over it's fear of socialism in any form, I'm going to stick with Hillary. I'm sick of "fiscally conservative" people ruining this country.

I don't trust anyone who considers themselves "fiscally conservative" to care about social issues enough to suite me. Fiscally conservative means they want the poor to suffer because they don't want to fund welfare or other safety-net programs because they subscribe to the pull yourself up by your bootstraps philosophy.

Frankly, as there's no viable socialist candidate and unlikely to be one until the USA gets over it's fear of socialism in any form, I'm going to stick with Hillary. I'm sick of "fiscally conservative" people ruining this country.

 
The terminology is so fucked, really.  Because a lot of stuff that gets flagged as "fiscally conservative" is flagrantly financially irresponsible, and stuff that actually makes fiscal sense, especially in the long term, is opposed on fiscal grounds.

Like, I heard about a program that sent nurses on home visits for teen mothers.  And this thing had huge numbers of observed by study effects: not just the obvious stuff like reducing infant mortality and maternal health, or the 'we'd hope it'd do that' stuff like reducing the subsequent teen pregnancy rate for those mothers, but things like improving long-term educational outcomes for mother and child, reducing crime rate for mother and child, reducng the child's teen pregnancy rate, improving those people's long term financial prospects, and so on.

It seems to me that a genuine conservatism (financial or otherwise) would look at that and say, "That works.  That promotes improved health, reduced crime, better productivity, and it basically pays for itself in reducing those additional costs.  It's tested, it's functional, it does what it says it's going to do, and what it's going to do is good for individuals and society.  It builds healthy communities.  Let's do it."

And it doesn't work that way, and I genuinely don't understand why, except that "conservative" is used as some sort of talisman for things that don't have anything much to do with stablity, continuity, or tradition.