I wrote the question in response to the OP saying that he agreed with most of Johnson’s planks. If your position is “I like Johnson but think his actual platform is silly but think he wouldn’t be able to execute it”, then that particular question wasn’t directed at you. And I think that there’s something wrong with asking ‘what’s wrong with Gary Johnson’ and then responding to ‘this big list is wrong’ with ‘well, other people would stop him from doing any of that stuff’.
Or maybe he’ll veto good stuff and use his executive power to gut lots of Federal programs without consulting anyone else. The idea that a lifelong anti-vaxer is going to listen to experts is certainly an interesting one, what in the world gives you the impression that arguments and data will change his mind on anything? More specifically, why exactly, aren’t the massive arguments and data in favor of vaccination enough to change his mind on that particular topic, and why do you think that much fuzzier political questions will have arguments and data that he can’t simply ignore or refute with libertarian logic?
You’re falling into a common trap: “We don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing.”
Yes, it’s hard to make progress in economics. No, we can’t do the kinds of experiments we’d want. That doesn’t mean we can’t do anything at all, and it damned well doesn’t mean we haven’t learned anything at all.
We’ve had economic shocks since the Great Depression, but none of them have been as bad as that was, and that isn’t chance. That’s due to the Federal Reserve, among other institutions and rules, doing things based on what we have learned in the decades since the Great Depression.
We have a system, and it’s improving. You advocate throwing it all away because it isn’t perfect. That isn’t progress, that’s a goddamned temper tantrum.
And Johnson and his ilk have a better hold? You are arguing from ignorance of all parties’ positions on economics, and possibly of economics in the first place.
YES. Companies just pass these taxes onto consumers in the form of higher prices and it would be better if everyone knew how much we were really paying in taxes.
cut individual income tax out entirely and replace it with sales tax.
YES. A national sales tax with a tax prebate make more sense. It is better to tax consumption rather than production.
want to get rid of hate crime laws
YES. There are plenty of other laws that duplicate these same conditions (assault, battery etc)
switch to private prisons in spite of the massive, documented problems with them
NO. I disagree with Mr. Johnson on this.
let schools teach nonsense like creationism
YES. It should be up to the state. If Kansas stops teaching science, then business will not be hiring those graduates and the market will force Kansas to alter its education system.
use state money to send kids to religious schools
YES. It should be up to the state and parents should be able to chose the type of school for their kids.
abolish student loans
YES. All this does is increase the price of tuition since someone else is paying.
No. As I said, all parties have a poor grasp on economics.
I’m not supporting Libertarianism. I’m arguing that Johnson would be equivalent to Hillary on a good/bad scale, so I would rather see him in the running than Trump.
And even with Trump, I’m actually not particularly against a Trump presidency. He’d accomplish little and end up leaving in a few months, after a conniption. My complaint against his Presidency is with Pence.
Basically, my positions and logic are completely divorced from all conventional wisdom of all parties. If you want to argue against me, you will have to read what I wrote and assume nothing beyond exactly what I wrote. Otherwise you’re going to find yourself arguing against all sorts of straw men.
Obviously I believe that neither of those is true, but I doubt we could ever come to agreeance on it, so it’s not worth arguing.
I would have a hard time trusting anyone who claimed to have a firm grasp on economics. It would be like a meteorologist who claimed he could tell you whether you will need an umbrella for your 4th of July party next year.
Yes, if you eliminated everything Libertarians don’t understand, I suppose you would be left with a rather trivial field.
The fact remains, however, that macroeconomics alone is a serious field of study with lots of theory and lots of history to mine for evidence. That doesn’t go away just because some people refuse to understand it for political reasons.