What presidential candidate would be most beneficial to the climbing community and land access?

Just some random libertarian principles so we can dispell the conservative vs. liberal none sense:

• The left/right paradigm is an obfuscation meant to deflect the actual nature of state power. There is total control at one end (tyranny) and zero control (anarchy) at the other. What we are used to with the left/right, conservative/liberal bullshit actually exists a lot closer towards the tyranny end of the spectrum than the anarchy end. Regardless, it is promulgated by the Duopoloy in order to keep you thinking you are making a choice.
• Libertarians with a capital L adhere to the Non Aggression Principle. Look it up. It's awesome.
• Libertarians would end the war on drugs by decriminalization or even legalization. This is the primary reason why our incarceration rates are so high. It is also directly responsible for the high rate of minority incarceration.
• Libertarians have always promoted marriage equality. We believe no one needs to get permission from the state to be married.
• We would largely end eminent domain, civil forfeiture, and other state property abuses.
• As a general rule, if there is no victim, there is no crime.
• Kiss the fucking Patriot Act and its abuses goodbye.
• Hello FAIR TAX, goodbye to massively rights infringing IRS.
• No more international interventionism, including 800 bases in over 70 countries.

And perhaps most importantly, we would allow for competing currencies and disband the Federal Reserve.

Mike Lane wrote:Just some random libertarian principles so we can dispell the conservative vs. liberal none sense: *The left/right paradigm is an obfuscation meant to deflect the actual nature of state power. There is total control at one end (tyranny) and zero control (anarchy) at the other. What we are used to with the left/right, conservative/liberal bullshit actually exists a lot closer towards the tyranny end of the spectrum than the anarchy end. Regardless, it is promulgated by the Duopoloy in order to keep you thinking you are making a choice. *Libertarians with a capital L adhere to the Non Aggression Principle. Look it up. It's awesome. *Libertarians would end the war on drugs by decriminalization or even legalization. This is the primary reason why our incarceration rates are so high. It is also directly responsible for the high rate of minority incarceration. *Libertarians have always promoted marriage equality. We believe no one needs to get permission from the state to be married. *We would largely end eminent domain, civil forfeiture, and other state property abuses. *As a general rule, if there is no victim, there is no crime. *Kiss the fucking Patriot Act and its abuses goodbye. *Hello FAIR TAX, goodbye to massively rights infringing IRS. *No more international interventionism, including 800 bases in over 70 countries. And perhaps most importantly, we would allow for competing currencies and disband the Federal Reserve.

Excellent explanation!

J Q wrote: You called me "uniformed" because you disagreed with me. Your analysis of liberalism is simplistic and nonsensical, and is obviously based on emotion and not reason. You seem to have an an exception talent for selective hearing and thinking.

Sorry Comrad, but I did not know that you were fond of liberal bumper-sticker cliches. Had I known you were drawn to such idealism I might have hesitated from using such hurtful language as 'uninformed' to describe such people drawn to such idealism.

Truth is I didn't call you a name, nor would I simply because you and I may disagree. I don't have a problem whatsoever with disagreeing. Do you?

Mike Lane wrote:Just some random libertarian principles so we can dispell the conservative vs. liberal none sense: *The left/right paradigm is an obfuscation meant to deflect the actual nature of state power. There is total control at one end (tyranny) and zero control (anarchy) at the other. What we are used to with the left/right, conservative/liberal bullshit actually exists a lot closer towards the tyranny end of the spectrum than the anarchy end. Regardless, it is promulgated by the Duopoloy in order to keep you thinking you are making a choice. *Libertarians with a capital L adhere to the Non Aggression Principle. Look it up. It's awesome. *Libertarians would end the war on drugs by decriminalization or even legalization. This is the primary reason why our incarceration rates are so high. It is also directly responsible for the high rate of minority incarceration. *Libertarians have always promoted marriage equality. We believe no one needs to get permission from the state to be married. *We would largely end eminent domain, civil forfeiture, and other state property abuses. *As a general rule, if there is no victim, there is no crime. *Kiss the fucking Patriot Act and its abuses goodbye. *Hello FAIR TAX, goodbye to massively rights infringing IRS. *No more international interventionism, including 800 bases in over 70 countries. And perhaps most importantly, we would allow for competing currencies and disband the Federal Reserve.

Good stuff, Mike. I sympathize far more with Libertarians than Democrats or Republicans. That does not mean I agree with everything on the list you provided, but people will never agree on 100% of anything anyway.

So, to apply all we've learned so far as it pertains to climbing:
1.) Liberals are socialists who will grid bolt everything with half-inch stainless steel bolts so that any climber can enjoy any route risk-free after a one-hour gym certification course ... until someone inevitably mishandles a Grigri.
2.) Conservatives lean toward chopping anchors in favor of returning to a more natural, unregulated condition. Any quickdraws left overnight will likewise be confiscated. At last our wayward souls will return to toproping and the proper way of life as written by the Holy Gunks Bible in 1975.
3.) Libertarians: anything goes if the time and place is right, just don't hurt anyone. Nude climbing is encouraged.
I think most climbers would fall into the libertarian category.

Just to try and derail the whole "I'm this, you're that" BULLSHIT that people like to buy into, I notice nobody has said "I support Hillary Clinton".

Did I miss any supporters?

Who is voting Hillary?

D B wrote:Mike, I agree with Libertarians on a lot of things, but the ones I disagree with (tax policy, corporate regulation, certain social policies) are ones that I think would be disastrous for the country.

Hey D B. I'd really like to hear some of the thoughts you have on the items you delineated. For example: I'm a proponent of the 'Fair Sales Tax' proposal (admittedly there are many versions out there) and getting rid of the IRS. I'm curious as to whatever arguments you may have against it.

Mathias wrote: The first two are the only interesting points to me because the rest you and I feel the same way about. "Let" children go hungry, implies that keeping children fed is the government's responsibility. Since when? Let's face it, having a child is easy. Two people of the opposite sex bump uglies and there's a kid. This is not always done with consideration as to whether they can afford that child financially or care for it emotionally, never mind whether they truly have a desire to do either. But that man and woman have the right to create life, and also the right to retain it until it reaches a certain age, providing they fulfill minimum requirements and standards of care. If they cannot do this financially, the taxpayer picks up the bill. If they cannot care for that child "correctly" in all aspects aside from financially, the child is taken by the government, and the taxpayer foots the bill for care. The one piece of legislation I'm for that strips rights from people is a One-or-None child policy. Apparently man people can be trusted with their own reproductive organs, but not to care for the results of using them. Let the mental ill die in the streets. What's the alternative? The sad fact is, life is cheap. I don't know how to truly solve either of these problems. But do you suppose the mentally ill are well cared for in Cuba, or do you think they get a 9mm behind the ear?

It just comes down to the facts. Natural selection and survival of the fittest.

Ha! Good one! There was a really good climber that once said the same thing. He is dead now.

William Thiry wrote: Sorry Comrad, but I did not know that you were fond of liberal bumper-sticker cliches. Had I known you were drawn to such idealism I might have hesitated from using such hurtful language as 'uninformed' to describe such people drawn to such idealism. Truth is I didn't call you a name, nor would I simply because you and I may disagree. I don't have a problem whatsoever with disagreeing. Do you?

I am not your comrade, with an e on the end, nor am I a liberal. The only bumper sticker that I can say I am fond of is the one that says, "Tea parties are for little girls and their imaginary friends", because it makes me laugh. So yes, some bumper stickers can be fun, especially considering the actual tea party and their hanging of the excise man, which was disgraceful. By attempting to reduce an entire school of thought to a bumper-sticker in order to defame it, it proves that you might just be what you claim the opposition is; unformed, biased, and to be ignored. You must first be able to understand the thing, grasshopper, before you can claim to know it or critique it.

Lesson number one: liberalism has nothing to do with bumper-stickers, communism, or being uninformed. That is your faux newster poking out, and it's fun to laugh.

D B wrote: It's hard to say because I don't know which exact version you support. But in general, it adversely affects the poor when you consider disposable income. Poor people spend a much larger % of their income on necessities, so the flat tax ends up being a higher % of their disposable wealth.

I can tell you that in the UK they have 20% VAT (though also income tax) but it does not apply to food bought in a grocery store. It does apply in restaurants though because having food prepared and served to you is considered a luxury. This is how food is kept affordable for the poor, and food is one of the few things in the UK that is as cheap as in the US (from what I recall).

J Q wrote: Lesson number one: liberalism has nothing to do with bumper-stickers, communism, or being uninformed.

Lesson number 2: forget everything you ever learned about logic and make all your decisions based on emotion.

D B wrote:Mike, I agree with Libertarians on a lot of things, but the ones I disagree with (tax policy, corporate regulation, certain social policies) are ones that I think would be disastrous for the country.

Couple things to think about:
Corporatists use their influence with the state to provide immunity for themselves from malfeasance. With a powerful state, that is never going to change.
Corporatists also use the state to stifle competition through tax advantages, patent policy, and a million other tactics. You need to observe the revolving door our 'elite' have between the public and private sector. Henry Paulson springs to mind.
As for regulation, we aren't totally against it; but refer back to my statement about 'no victim, no crime'. Regulation is often used by the Corporatists as a tool against competition.
Tax policy-
If we were to convert to a consumption/transaction based tax system, then the financial sector -which profits from our government more than any other sector- pays the brunt of the load. Meanwhile, we as individuals have somewhat of a say in how much we pay for government by our spending habits.
The system we have now instead claims a percentage of your earnings, which translates to the time you spent earning it. If you visualize that we work Monday and Tuesday only for the state then you start to see the immorality of income tax. We can pay for our government through cooperative means, but instead they make sure we actually donate part of our lives instead.
And the reason for that is simple compliance. Just like when rich slaveholders declared 240 years ago the YOU and I consented to be governed. I didn't consent to shit. I didn't consent to sending an invasion force to Iraq because they tried to escape the hegemony of the petrodollar. I didn't consent to acquiring $19T in debt which not only makes the interest payments alone the #4 line item in Federal spending, but it is also primarily where our tax dollars go as they account for actual wealth, whereas everything else the state does can be done on fake money.

J Q wrote: I am not your comrade, with an e on the end, nor am I a liberal. The only bumper sticker that I can say I am fond of is the one that says, "Tea parties are for little girls and their imaginary friends", because it makes me laugh. So yes, some bumper stickers can be fun, especially considering the actual tea party and their hanging of the excise man, which was disgraceful. By attempting to reduce an entire school of thought to a bumper-sticker in order to defame it, it proves that you might just be what you claim the opposition is; unformed, biased, and to be ignored. You must first be able to understand the thing, grasshopper, before you can claim to know it or critique it. Lesson number one: liberalism has nothing to do with bumper-stickers, communism, or being uninformed. That is your faux newster poking out, and it's fun to laugh.

Well then, if you don't consider yourself the typical bumper-sticker grade liberal, then why were you offended at my prior post which poked fun at such people? Glad to hear you are not a liberal. You still have a knack for drawing unwarranted conclusions from little to no evidence, though, such as being convinced that I've 'proven' myself to be "unformed, biased, and to be ignored". Especially when considering that you have not put forth any thoughts in this thread that suggest you are anything but that very sort yourself. Please be more careful, because when you make such unwarranted (and incorrect) accusations it makes it difficult for anyone to take you seriously.

D B wrote: I've definitely met plenty of people who want true libertarianism, no government, let the free market decide everything, private police forces, etc. And it seemed like that's what Todd was arguing at first (didn't read all his previous essays).

What you described "no government" is called anarchy. I haven't met any such person. That's not what libertarianism is in the USA. I have not met Todd though, so I'll let him speak for himself.

D B wrote:I don't know a lot about the VA, and yeah it's a shame the way that system is run. Unfortunately it's a small portion of the population and government doesn't seem to care because they can ignore it and still win elections. Medicare is a different story, though, and has higher satisfaction rates than the private market. You can bet that if everyone were on Medicare, it would get a great deal more attention than the VA does. commonwealthfund.org/public…

Interesting. From what I have seen, a lot of rural folks can't get medicare care because doc's wont even take it. But that's not stats, it's antecdote, which I concede are not the same thing. So I went looking for stats. I found that people overwhelmingly don't like Medicare part D, but I couldn't find any good studies (in limited time) to re-enforce your statement here. If you have any addditional links, you do have my ear and I am listening. You've got to admit, in todays internet news (views) era, a single article can be hard to swallow as proof...
My particular interest there is around the weight of HMO's into the stats, etc...

D B wrote: Sanders has held the same positions his entire political career. He has nothing to hide. Trump is a terrifying enigma. However, I'm happy that both of them are infiltrating the establishment and turning the parties inside out.

Sanders hides A LOT, behind facts and figures that he selectively quotes to deceive, and people readily take the (class war) bait.
You are not going to get me to say anything nice about Trump, unless that it is that he's burning down the R house.

RandyR wrote: Your comparisons are oversimplifications at best. Let's take a look at your breakfast cereal statement first. Are there really hundreds of types of cereal in the grocery store because of a "free market"? Government subsidies to corn and wheat growers lowers the cost of high fructose corn syrup, wheat, maltodextrin, and other cereal ingredients. This clearly drives down the cost of cereal. At that artificially low cost, demand for cereal rises. I believe that is a sound argument that the variety of cereal is an effect of the market coupled with government intervention. Now, the DMV argument. Of course the DMV is a typical example of poor government service because people are familiar with their local DMV. People go to the DMV because it is mandatory to drive a car. Because the connotation with the DMV is one of fees and taxes, there is a negative association with walking in the door. Even if the customer service was spectacular, people would still complain. This DMV example is a red herring though. The SERVICE they deliver is safe roads. People love roads. The "free market" could never deliver the convenience of public roadways. The best system is the current one, where user fees (taxes) are collected by government, planning is done by government, regulation is by government, and construction/repair/engineering is some hybrid of government and private enterprise. Have you ever dealt with Time Warner or Comcast? Often they are the ONLY choice for high speed internet. Their customer service is often terrible, they often under-deliver speed (but that's all legal because you sign a document recognizing that the speed they are selling you is a MAXIMUM POSSIBLE speed), and they are under no obligation to even deliver the service for the entire billing cycles (internet goes out for days, you still pay full price). This is all made possible because there is literally no competition in many places. Sure, you're not obligated to do business with them....as long as you mind not having high speed internet.

The reality is if we look at things closely we are only dealing with a few companies dominating the "competitive" market. Think about basic commodities like soap or a candy bar. There are probably less than 5 companies in the world providing the multitudes of choices you have. Meat? I believe 3 companies provide it for the world.

By pure definition by Smith or Friedman we are pretty far away from a free-market system. That's why I laugh when everyone says that Sanders is going to turn us into Russia. We already are a socialist country that is controlled by the government (aka the 1% wealthy). Bernie isn't going to come and take away your money...the banks already did that.

Scott McMahon wrote: Meat? I believe 3 companies provide it for the world.

Maybe in the grocery store, but I grew up in the country. Just walk down the road and talk to the local farmer.

Problem with free market is people are not stupid and companies are greedy and work together to make fixed pricing instead of the government doing it.

It still is probably better than the government setting the price because it generally leaves an opening for other private people to come in and create a company to provide things cheaper. When the government sets the price noone can just come in and make a cheaper price.

Diamonds are extremely common and are one of the biggest scams of an industry in the world.

ViperScale wrote:Problem with free market is people are not stupid and companies are greedy and work together to make fixed pricing instead of the government doing it. It still is probably better than the government setting the price because it generally leaves an opening for other private people to come in and create a company to provide things cheaper. When the government sets the price noone can just come in and make a cheaper price.

Yeah. Preventing someone else (individuals or corporations) from price fixing does not necessitate the government price fixing.
Busting up conspiracies and illegally formed monopolies is a much more valid action for government than is price regulation.
The government was formed to keep us from being taken captive, not to be the captor. The former (busting up price fixing scemes = capitalism) is much harder to manipulate for private gain than is price-setting. The latter is far more prone to selling out the offices and abuse (protectionism = crony capitalism = statism).

J Q wrote: I agree with you, and I didn't imply shiz, you did. Conservative thought is easy to understand, I teach it all day long, and I will stand by that comment only. It doesn't' make it more or less valid. Smart is relative to the dogma you believe in. The basis of conservative thought is to conserve the status quo, so yes, it is much easier to conserve then to enact change. Trickle down economics is not difficult to understand. Restraint of Government is not difficult to understand. Wanting less taxes is easy to understand. Being concerned with security is one of the most basic human concerns and is a very very easy concept to grasp. However, finding a balance on these issues is an enormously difficult task that cannot be done by people trying to prove a point on the interwebz, so let's not waste our time with the fate of our country and get back to the good old personal insults.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your tone or intent, but it seems like you're missing my point completely. Yes, wanting less taxes is easier to understand, but sometimes tax hikes are necessary to fund the government. And understanding that, while more difficult, is integral to understanding governmental process in general. I believe you (and even most conservative lawmakers) would agree with that, right?

Maybe you're misunderstanding my point (or more likely, I've done a poor job conveying it): Conservative thinking is fine, I'm not trying to debate the merits of Conservatism. But you're stating that Conservative thinking is better because it is simple or easy to understand, and that argument is logically flawed. An idea is not "better" simply because it is easier to understand. That's all I'm saying.

But if you'd rather insult each other, I'm down for that... YOU COTTONHEADED NINNYMUGGINS.