Friday, September 7, 2012

"Libertarian" Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: Warmonger

Gary Johnson just issued this statement (my bold):
As we all pause this weekend to remember the events of September 11, 2001, our thoughts are with those who lost their lives, those who saved so many lives, and a nation that showed its greatness in countless ways.  9/11 and the days after were a time when ordinary Americans did extraordinary things. Our thoughts and our gratitude are also with the amazing men and women of our military who are putting themselves on the line every day to keep us safe.  The fight against those who would do us harm continues today, and it is a fight we must carry out with the same determination that was so magnificently displayed by the heroes of 9/11.
This is really not much different from the comments made by neoconservative Steve Forbes during his interview with me on The Robert Wenzel Show  that will be released this Sunday here at EPJ.

26 comments:

  1. You got to love the "Libertarian" candidate heaping praise on the government run military. This is the kind of message that comes from a "libertarian" that has never read any of the great libertarians like Murray Rothbard. Typical pandering nonsense from a politician.

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  2. I guess your interview with that fool didn't stick in his brain. He probably read a few pages of "Economics in One Lesson" and moved on with his life.

    On a separate note, as good as "Economics in One Lesson" is, it's not nearly radical and forceful enough. You should recommend "For a New Liberty" or something similar to those lite libertarians.

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  3. Somebody get out there and EDUCATE this guy, fast!

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  4. This is highly regrettable. A person running under the Libertarian banner should know very well that the reason why America was attacked is out of retaliation against the federal government's intervention in the Middle East. It has nothing to do with America's liberties. Otherwise, why didn't the terrorists target places like Switzerland and Costa Rica, two pretty nice and free countries? The whole "they hate us for our freedoms" nonsense is propaganda used to justify the War on Terror. And statements like "[t]he fight against those who would do us harm continues today, and it is a fight we must carry out with the same determination that was so magnificently displayed by the heroes of 9/11" can be interpreted as veiled support for the War on Terror, which has done far more to damage the liberty and finances of America than the terrorists ever had.

    I am getting more and more disappointed with the Libertarian Party's presidential candidates since 2008 and their failed Bob Barr run. The LP has turned into the Republican Minor League Party (no offense to minor league sports). Gary Johnson seems like a good man with good intentions, but good intentions aren't enough. We need strong, determined, *principled* politicians who are willing to fight to uphold their principles even in the face of opposition. My fear with Gary Johnson is with these statements such as the 9/11 ones and with his statements about intervening in the Kony affair, he can be bent by the Establishment when things get politically tough. We all see how Rand Paul is now carrying water for Mitt Romney and the Establishment.

    Anarcho-capitalism is looking better and better each day....

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    1. more like since 1996.....Harry Browne was the last good LP candidate

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    2. "Anarcho-capitalism is looking better and better each day...."

      It certainly is. In fact, I'm pretty well already there. Sitting back and laughing at these degenerate parasites and having no emotional stake in our ridiculous political theater is actually quite relaxing. And distrust of the state and confidence that it destroys everything it touches is a philosophy which will always stand one in good stead.

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    3. @ Ed Ucation

      Harry Browne was also the LP's 2000 candidate.

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    4. I cannot buy the 911 story as it has been sold to US. I do not think that the millions of people in the world who subscribe to different theories about the facts of 911 attacks are all "kooks". No one attacked us from Al Queda, Bin Laden, Mossad, CIA, without full cooperation and complicity of the UN / US rogues in secret. PNAC fellows, for instance, who ended up in all the power positions after GWB got in office, in their own papers, wanted the US to have a New Pearl Harbor to justify war. There are many sources to substantiate different theories.

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  5. This is certainly no defense of Johnson, but I'd say that anyone who reaches a high office, like the governor's mansion, would hardly qualify as a libertarian libertarian. Ron Paul is exceptional. Yes, Johnson made cuts, vetoed bill after bill, but on whose behalf? On behalf of a principled stance on Liberty? Really? Or was he serving a conservative constituency? Given the US' clandestine wars over the 20th century and the stockpile of nukes, foreign policy almost by itself is becoming for me the acid test for a liberty-minded individual--Do you want to demonize another nation and their leader, war on them to take their natural resources and send a message to their allies, or do you want to be friends, make peace, and do business?

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  6. Why does everyone have to be Rothbard? There is nothing remotely wrong with Gary Johnson's comments. He isn't as hardcore as the anarchists, but so what? Neither was Mises. Mises was in favor of the draft. Mises said all sorts of things that Rothbardians would recoil at if it weren't for the fact that Rothbard liked Mises. And Hayek would be a socialist neo-con whatever compared with Rothbard.

    Johnson honored the memory of 9/11 and basically said that we will do what is necessary to take out terrorists. That's controversial? WTF.

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    1. "Johnson honored the memory of 9/11 and basically said that we will do what is necessary to take out terrorists. That's controversial? WTF."

      Don't get it, eh?

      Do some people need a light brighter than Sirius just to see?

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    2. "Johnson honored the memory of 9/11 and basically said that we will do WHAT IS NECESSARY (emphasis mine) to take out terrorists. That's controversial? WTF."

      The fact that you think the above line is not controversial when coming out of the mouth of a libertarian, shows how utterly clueless both Johnson as well as you are.

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    3. It's been somewhat of a shock to me to discover that modern-day libertarians are all either Buchanan-style non-interventionists, pacifists or conspiracy theorists. The more liberal left (with the exclusion of the late Christopher Hitchens) are all the same way. There's no conspiracy in protecting our country from religious fanatics, or the nation of Afghanistan from the Taliban who will murder all collaborators, gays and non-Muslims should they regain power (they just beheaded over ten people they caught at a wedding celebration for having dancing and music) and oppress women again.

      "Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect."
      -Christopher Hitchens

      The Republicans can't stay out of my bedroom and the libertarians sadly won't keep their fingers off the drones' joysticks. That leaves me the guy who got bin Laden and Khadaffi... hoping he makes it a trifecta with Assad.

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  7. I just took an informal poll among friends. Gary Johnson isn't going to win. Let's not worry about what he will or will not do as president.

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  8. So far the only positive out of the Libertarian Party as of late is that Wayne Allyn Root has resigned from the party to run for US Senate as a Republican.

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  9. Aw, c'mon. Warmonger? Compared to who? This is a candidate advocating cutting 43% of the Pentagon budget -- more than Ron Paul did. GJ is not here stating what the determination to defend can legitimately include, and can't fairly be labeled a warmonger merely for acknowledging a need for national defense. I know who would be most likely to both roll back the growth of federal spending and keep the military out of unnecessary and unjust wars, and that candidate isn't Obama, Romney or Stein.

    Granted, GJ is not a pure Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist, an economist, or a political philosopher. Just a politician and ex-governor far more libertarian in his thinking and governing record than any candidate on the 2012 ballot.

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  10. It does sounds like an endorsement of the status quo regarding the "war on terrorism", but it isn't clear enough by itself to draw any hard conclusions what it would mean in terms of policy. Up to this point, Johnson has been running on the theme of peace, and presumably he would dramatically scale back the "war on terrorism" policies of Bush and Obama--but maybe not.

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  11. I'm puzzled. Who was heroic on 9/11?

    Did George Bush immediately spring into action and race over to NYC upon hearing that the first highjacked plane hit the WTC? I guess that continuing to read stories to school children in a public place, knowing that he himself might be a target, could be regarded as heroic in a foolish sort of way. Did Dick Cheney do anything heroic as he was observed receiving reports of the approaching plane which eventually hit the Pentagon? Did he rise above his pay grade to order the fighter pilots at nearby Andrews AFB to scramble and intercept that plane?

    Did any bureaucrat in any government agency heroically risk his job to leak out the names of the "investors" who purchased the massive volume of hugely profitable put options just prior to 9/11? Did any whistle-blower working for the police department which arrested the "dancing Israeli furniture movers" filming the WTC plane strikes, heroically leak out anything to the public?

    As for the first responders, knowing that no steel tower anywhere had ever collapsed from fire, they went in there just doing their jobs. Nothing heroic there. If they had known in advance that the three towers were rigged with explosives as was conclusively demonstrated in the documentary put out by the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, how many of these first responders would have heroically soldiered on to rescue trapped office workers?

    Who in the MSM heroically risked his or her job by reporting all the transparent absurdities, contradictions and anomalies of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory? How many members of the military heroically refused to obey orders to invade and occupy two countries which had nothing to do with 9/11? How many clean-up workers heroically quit their lucrative jobs rather than blindly believe the EPA that the pulverized dust from concrete, gypsum board, glass, plastic, paper and all kinds of insulation was safe to breathe?

    There were thousands of victims on 9/11. As I can see, the only heroes on that tragic day were ordinary office workers who risked and lost their lives helping co-workers. The story of heroic government employees is part of the mythology of the official 9/11 narrative.

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    1. Very un-PC, but I think you make a good point.

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    2. So the people on Flight 93 charging the cockpit taking the plane down in a field in Pennsylvania weren't heroic?

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    3. AMEN and AMEN, and as for military who refused to fight in Iraq or attack Afghans for the 911 attack, I for one was eligible for reenlistment, so I called up a recruiter. I offered to become a recruiter too...then, after I was told the way it was going down, I refused and have been speaking out ever since -I put two and two together and it didn't make 5 -like the official crappy story which doesn't add up. I cannot be the only one who said, "why can't I defend America, where the attacks happened? Why do I have to help recruit young people to be sent so far away, something is fishy here." I told my congressman, if they want to attack us here, and it is imminent, then tell the Al Queda boys to BRING IT ON! We will fight here. No, he said he wanted us to fight them, over there, so it wouldn't come over here. With the borders wide open, it was complete nonsense.

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  12. Mr. Wenzel has presented this statement as if it were made today, when in fact it was made on September 10, 2011. If I am mistaken, Mr. Wenzel, please feel free to correct me. Although I agree that Johnson does not fall in the radical Libertarian section of the political spectrum to which I belong, I would like to think that he has moved away from his previous Republican/Democrat imperialist frame of mind. A bumper sticker quote, without a time frame or acknowledgement that evolution is possible, borders on the dishonest.

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  13. Johnson is a sub-par candidate and his campaign has been very poorly managed, but to call him a "warmonger" for this statement is quite a stretch.

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  14. Ron Paul is also a warmonger, he heeps taxpayer money on veterans.

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  15. These kinds of politicians are the kind of people that has me wishing that I should be moving to hongkong instead of staying on here in the states.

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