BTW, whether you care or not, my respect for you just jumped up.

Well to be fair we have also been missing fiscally conservative Republicans for some time as well. The simple fact is neither party is fiscally responsible, so you if have to tally up the pros and cons of each party to see whats worth voting for.

I don't agree with all of the Left's ideas, but I disagree with far too many of the Right's to vote for any of the candidates they have put forward. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have made sure to rig the game to keep this country as a two party system.

The only way were are going to ever get a third party is to remove the big business money from politics and criminalize lobbying. Remove the money and then it becomes about politicians "EARNING" their votes rather than the current system were they are bought and paid for by special interest.

I would NEVER classify a Bible Thumper as Libertarian, as for GUN NUTS ??

Wanted to keep a constitutionally protected right does not make one nuts.

Liberals keep touting ACA has been the law for months, get over it, well the 2nd amendment has been the law for a couple hundred years, but Damned if the Left wing is not trying to ban those evil guns like the AR15 shotgun ;)

Libertarian Party is based on personal freedoms, and personal responsibility, Republican party is far too influenced by religious nutters to actually be effective, and Democrats think that Government is actually capable of fixes the problems that have been primarily caused by well...government

Well said

Blowing their horn?

The federal government was shut down. We lost some twenty-four billion dollars. Millions of people went without pay. All of this because the Republican party had a temper tantrum.

Jesus Christ... the country is fucked up enough with just the 2 "sides", why in the blue hell would anyone want to add a third?

How about people drop this nonsensical "sides" business altogether and simply focus on solving the real problems in our country? FFS, these people playing politics do nothing but point fingers at the other "side" all fucking day long.

You want shit to change, I mean really change? Minte asked what options there are outside of unicorns... the answer is quite simple: reform the entire fucking system. Stop wasting time playing "sides". Demand that these paid for politicians be removed from or step down from office. Stop letting the goverment and corporations do whatever the fuck they want.

It's not a difficult concept. The difficult part is getting people off their lazy asses to actually do something other than bitching under their breath...

Don't equate one battle as the sum of the war.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then, because I've met enough religious people who classify themselves as Libertarian.

The 2nd Amendment has been misinterpreted over the years. So while no, not every Libertarian is a gun nut... many if not most of them are. Even a mere suggestion of outlawing any kind of firearm makes Libertarians (and republicans for that matter) lose their minds... or what little of it exists in many cases.

No reason to outlaw any firearm, at all, ever. Illegal things people do with them is already illegal. (And fwiw, I do not now, nor have I personally ever owned a firearm, I did carry one for Uncle Sam though)

Pershing, SIR!

Hey brainiac...I don't want to "waste your time".

But Libertarianism can only work in the United States. You see genius, it's based on the U.S. constitution. So it's kind of hard for some other country to have a political party that would be based on the U.S. constitution.
You didn't think that one through.

And you're description of the Libertarian ideal is bullshit (as usual for Democrats and Republicans spouting party propaganda).

In 2012 I carefully read Gary Johnson's Presidential platform.
I'm not stupid. I AM educated. And I've proven myself in this world with what I've accomplished.

So I'm not some slack jawed hick, or some person who has EVER worked for anyone but himself.

So after I read, and re-read, and thought about it over and over...I realized that what Johnson was saying was correct.

And I tossed my Democrat card and registered as a Libertarian.

To see you sit there and type the nonsense you are typing about Libertarianism is insulting to me and makes you look ignorant.

And again...it amazes me that people like you are so adamantly AGAINST your own personal freedom and long to be controlled by others.

Maybe it's just the way it is. Most folks are worker bee/drones

No reason to outlaw any firearm ever, just make them actually difficult to acquire...

Ignorance. Just pure fucking political b.s. ignorance.

+1. A pity the majority of the sheeple won't realize that until it is too late.

Wouldn't slashing the military budget to something more manageable and on par with the rest of the world help with the debt issue. I never hear this come up from both sides, I guess being the world's savior is still a big deal for Americans...

OK, so it was a really BIG firearm :)

if they cut military spending, they cut infrastructure spending

Really? So I point out to you that the elections are rigged already to keep nothing but Democrats and Republicans in power in perpetuity and you are trying to act smug and pretend you have any kind of informed opinion on this?

You have to be SUPER rich to be able to even get on the ballots to get a vote as a third party candidate. And they have made it impossible to get in on the Presidential debates as well.

You don't understand that or have knowledge of that?

Ignorance. And yes, politically speaking...you are a drone/worker bee for sure. You aren't even open minded enough to educate yourself.
So YOU carry on (like I know YOU will) as a political drone. Enjoy what the 2 party system is doing.

The reason your so called liberals are saying get over ACA.. is because Republicans have now wasted billions of US tax dollars and somewhere around 45+/- attempts to repel Obamacare.

Everyone is tired of them wasting everyone's time and tax payers dollars to try to get something removed that has even been given the green light by the supreme court.

As far as 2nd amendment, that's usually a issue that is dealt with state by state and liberals have not tried to repeal the the 2nd amendment as a whole. It's usually related to regulating types of guns. Oh and liberals don't threaten to shut down the govt to ban guns..

Not everyone is tired of it. It goes with the middle of the country theme of not spending more than you make. The realestate bubbles on the coasts are what took down the economy.

I don't know or care about why John Boehner wants it repealed. I only know why I am against it. And it's only about the cost and the federal governments history of mismanaging almost everything they attempt.

I know if I can't afford a new Citation X then I don't waste my or the salesmens time looking at them. I look at what I can afford. And today, in my view the US can not afford obamacare.

the real estate bubbles? it wasn't the multi billions going missing in asia, that triggered the 'domino affect' for all the banking swap lines?

which further put stress on the economy, which THEN caused the housing market crisis?

gee.

The real estate bubble wasn't just on the coasts and it wasn't just a bubble. It was banks lending people money that couldn't afford the loans they were getting. It wasn't a east or west coast thing it happened every where.

The bubble it's self is not what caused the crash. It just made the hit feel harder.

Look at Texas as prime example.. It never really had a crazy housing bubble as there were tons of $50k to $100k homes that middle class families could have bought. Meanwhile those families didn't buy those homes, they instead built newer homes and took mortgages on 3 times the value of what they should have bought.

The whole McMansion term came from Texas..

I'm not going to argue with you about why we are where we are at today. It's history now. The future on the other hand has yet to be determined. And if things don't change in this country very soon, that future doesn't look good.

Don't minimize the debt this country has. Chinese aren't stupid, the time is approaching when they won't be interested in lending the US any more money. The senate can raise the borrowing limits all they want, and if there is no one willing to lend it, it all comes crashing down. And regardless what Reagan & Bush did, it's getting worse every day. And there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency to even make a budget. Balancing a budget is almost a joke{bad}these days.

The clock is ticking....

Yes and no.

Too much of our economy is based on our military.

Use base closures as an example. If a military base of fifty thousand people close, all of the businesses that were supported by members of the military go out of business. And it's not only members of the military, it's their families too. In some areas, the military is the economy.

Nooooo... it's opinion Robbie. And a reasonably informed one at that.

You have an opinion too... and we all have assholes... :winkwink:

LO-motherfucking-L

You have NEVER met a religious NUT Libertarian my friend. NEVER.

You may have met people who claim to be "religious" but don't really practice it...but you will NEVER, EVER meet a religious nut case like some Republicans who is an actual LIBERTARIAN.

Name me just ONE religious nut case who is pro-choice, pro-legalization of drugs, pro-legalization of prostitution, against the govt. "obscenity laws" that have been used against the porn industry so many times?

You can't. Because there aren't any.
Religious nuts are just like Republicans and Democrats. They want to CONTROL you.

You are completely and totally misinformed on Libertarians. There is no "opinion" on that.

I took the time during this last election to take a good look at all third parties.

And I made my choice in an informed manner. Not just spouting Democrat and Republican propaganda that they have put out there to stop third parties from ever having a chance.

Believe what you want old friend. One day you will stop and ask why the same shit just keeps happening over and over and over.

You ever been to Texas Robbie?

Yeah, I have a daughter who lives close to Austin. So I go there a few times a year to visit.
And I use to play there in bars all the time in the 1980's as well.

I was even there in the late 1960's and early 1970's as a kid because my parents used to visit some friends near Dallas every summer...they would make all of us kids go outside to play in the daytime, and we would all try to find some shade somewhere to sit and pant like dogs under because it was so hot. lol

By the way LAJ...why the heck aren't you getting in to the oil business there?

I'm reading that Texas is now getting bigger economic boom than North Dakota with fracking oil shale.

I'm hearing that the money is through the roof there. Is that really happening? And if so...are the girls at the strip clubs making the kind of money that they are in North Dakota now? (couple of grand a night)
Let me know...I may have to bring CM there to dance if that kind of money is flowing.

The problem is that you can't really reduce the budget and deficit without either making big cuts to the military or to social programs. A while back Bill Maher had a great demonstration of the budget. He had a dinner plate that had a big piece of fried chicken, a pile of mashed potatoes, a big pile of mac and cheese and a sprig of parsley.

The chicken represented defense. The mac and cheese was social security, the potatoes was medicare/medicaid and the parsley was everything else. The problem, he explained is that everyone wants to cut the budget but not touch those three big helpings. They want to take it out of the parsley. They could throw the parsley off the plate and still have problems so something somewhere has to go. No matter what they cut people will get hurt. The question is which is going to cause the least amount of pain.

Yep, and when the country can no longer borrow anything and there is no more money left to beg, borrow, and steal...then EVERYBODY will be hurt far more badly than they would by cutting now.

If I were Pres. Robbie...I'd cut the military down to the friggin' bone and close ALL foreign bases as well as 90% of "forts" that are all across the U.S.

Then I'd stop ALL foreign aid, all corporate welfare, and all subsidies (including farm subsidies).

It would be extremely painful...but after the dust settled we would be a lot better off and out of debt. once and for all.

Actually it started waaay before fanny mae. When they got rid of Glass-Steagall, mortgages were packaged as securities no regulation ,no standards. Subprime was the largest growing market and with AIG insuring against possible losses. It made gambling against mortgages very profitable. And since they needed more and more mortgages to package as investment instruments they gave bigger and bigger spifs to get deals done. And shittier and shittier the deals got with a triple a rating all the way. People should of went to fucking jail.

We arent even close to that, japans debt was 200% over gpc and they went nowhere. Spending to gpc is getting lower and lower.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...-barack-obama/

That kind of irresponsible/nutty talk is one of the reasons that Libertarians will never become a viable political party. There are something like 50 political parties and if I am not mistaken around 35 of them run presidential nominees and when one reads their platforms one can understand why they are pretty much cut out of Presidential debates and being covered by the main stream media. They are pretty much looney tunes.

I saw a story a while back right after the crash about a student who was from Canada and had come to the US for a year of college on an exchange program. He went to Washington Mutual to open a bank account and started a savings and checking with about $2,500 total between them. He talked about how after he had his accounts set up they tried to get him to buy a house. They offered him no payments for 90 days and said that he could easily buy a place, fix it up and flip it in 90 days so he could make money before he even had a payment due. When he told them he has no job so he has no source of regular income the bank told him that having a job and a source of income was not one of the criteria for getting a mortgage.

This is part of why it all fell apart. Places like Washington Mutual packaged and sold as many shitty mortgages as they could and with no regulation those crappy things ended up being the base of dozens of investment products. They were allowed to build a house on a shitty foundation and then were shocked when it all collapsed.

Exactly... Not only a Bank / Housing bubble that hit, but also
The Price of Gas was so high for so long, that people and companies had to decide what to pay for. House payment or tank of gas to work.
Gas made everything go up. My electric bill doubled.. Why? My electric company takes the cost of gas and applies a % of that based on your usage.

Housing was from banks giving anyone a lone with no verification. My best friend got a house and they talked him into a house at the MAX of his budget. Then gas prices interest rates, and so on... HA
I was pre approved for a $500K house. LOL no fucking way could I have afforded that..

GREED GREED GREED is the reason for 90% of the problems in America....

Yep it's "nutty", "irresponsible", and "looney tunes" to even think for one second that we can have personal freedom, stop borrowing trillions of dollars, and even stop interfering in the rest of the world's affairs.

Just crazy talk.

And no...that's not why they are "pretty much cut out of Pres. debates"

You need to read and educate yourself. The Pres. debates are set up so that a political party has to poll a certain percentage of the national electorate to be ALLOWED in the televised debates.
And of course without being on television you never will get those numbers.

So you either have to be filthy rich like Ross Perot was so you can reach into your own pocket and buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads for yourself...or you have to be on the debates.

And as I said...it's a vicious circle.

The media doesn't cover any candidate that isn't going to be on the debates because they know it won't matter.

Are you understanding what they have done? They have effectively stopped any third party from getting any real publicity.

AND...even getting on each states ballot is difficult. Again requiring tons of money...and without the media coverage of the debates...

It's how the Republicans and Democrats remain the only games in town.

Don't you think you deserve better? Or at least another choice?

I think the reason some people see it as nutty is because it is pounded into us from birth that this is the norm. The other day I was debating the drug war with a friend. I suggested we legalize everything and we offer free rehab to anyone and everyone who wants it. We focus on education and treatment instead of just leaving people to rot then throwing them in jail when they finally do something stupid. My friend was adamantly against it. Eventually he admitted that his main concern was that it just felt wrong. Ever since we were babies all we hear is "Just say no" "drugs are bad" and how we have to put bad people and drug users and dealers in jail. The idea of actually dealing with people in a different way scared him.

I think a lot of it is that way. People say they want change, but they really don't want change. If they did they wouldn't keep voting for the same people and the same platforms that never actually pan out. They want to buy the same lies every few years. They just don't want to admit it.

Oh you and your 'Republican bible beaters' and 'Democrat Authoritarians'
When will you Awake???

That's true Kane. We all get indoctrinated as kids.

People forget that all drugs were legal for a long, long time in the U.S.

Hell...heroin was manufactured by Bayer and sold over the counter in stores. Cocaine was an ingredient in Coca Cola.

But we are all just children and can't make up our minds in modern society I suppose.

Speaking of another kind of indoctrination...When I was in kindergarten (waaaaayy back in the mid 1960's), we not only said the pledge of allegiance every morning but we also sang all the military battle songs.

I STILL know every word to the Marine Corp, Army, Navy, and Air Force battle songs all these years later.
That is how heavy duty we are brainwashed in school at a young age.

But we never think of it as "brainwashing". It's only brainwashing when it's some "enemy" of ours doing it. Just like our religion is the only "good" one and everybody else is "wrong".

And of course, to our "enemies" it's just the reverse. And the cycle just goes on and on.

But I'm the one who is "nutty", "irresponsible" and "looney tunes"?

Democrats and Republicans together are 100% responsible for everything that is happening to our country today.
We interfere in foreign countries...we get 9-11
Congress is bought and sold by their cronies...we get the housing market collapse
Congress spends and spends and spends...and we get a 17 trillion dollar debt

But most people think there is no other way!
And any talk of personal freedom and a return to the original ideals of our constitution is "nutty", "irresponsible" and "looney tunes".

It feels like I'm living in "Bizzaro World".
Everything is upside down and backwards. lol

That is crazy that they had you sing the military songs. Did you grow up on or near a military base?

Your point about brainwashing is spot on. If we have a parade honoring our military it is just that. We are doing a good thing. But if a country that we are not friendly with does the same thing it is propaganda.

No, I went to kindergarten in a tiny, tiny town of Bowling Green, Fla.

But yeah, we sang all the military songs and got taught that the U.S. was the "greatest" nation on Earth and we were the good guys in everything we did.

And the Soviets, Cubans, and Chinese were "evil" and our mortal enemies. :(

And oh yeah...Jesus loves us and is on our "side". Can't forget about that.

the name john boehner was probably too good to pass up for use on the late night talk shows.

I wonder why Anthony Weiner didn't do a subtle name change before he got into politics.

He had to know what was coming.