Tag Archives: Election 2016

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Election 2016: Can John McAfee Change the Game?

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The 2016 presidential election cycle got a lot more interesting on September 8 when John McAfee announced his candidacy under the banner of a newly formed “Cyber Party.”

McAfee, whose eponymous computer security software made him a multi-millionaire, sports a long record of public eccentricity that I need not waste words on here — you can look up if you’re interested. What’s important about his eccentricity is that where it touches on politics, he generally supports two important values: Freedom and privacy.

I’m definitely down with those twin emphases, and so far McAfee seems like the only bright light in a pretty dark and dismal presidential field. If the election was held today, he’d have my vote from among the declared candidates. But the election is 14 months away, and I have a few suggestions to offer McAfee for making the most of those months.

First, I hope he’ll forget his plans for a new political party. If he’s serious about freedom and privacy (and I believe he is), there’s already a party ready-made for his candidacy: The Libertarian Party.

Libertarians substantially agree with McAfee on the issues he cares about.

The Libertarian Party has a long record of securing ballot access for its candidates in all, or nearly all, of the 50 states. That alone would save McAfee millions in campaign costs versus establishing a new party (I speak from experience — in 2006 I founded a new political party; that party was only able to get on the 2008 presidential ballot in four states).

Additionally, the Libertarian Party will run hundreds, if not thousands, of down-ticket candidates in 2016 — candidates who also substantially agree with McAfee on the core issues. He doesn’t need to create a new movement. There’s a movement already in place and awaiting his leadership.

Beyond affiliating with the Libertarian Party instead of going it alone, I hope McAfee will identify freedom as the core issue and clearly mark out privacy as an emergent property of that issue, not a separate issue per se.

A well-known, reasonably well-financed Libertarian candidate who takes the US government to task for its depredations — in particular warrantless searches and wiretaps, wholesale eavesdropping on telecommunications, and imprisonment or exile of heroic whistleblowers who expose government abuses (Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, to name two) — could tear this presidential race wide open. And that’s something we desperately need.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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More Sequestration: The Best Bad Thing, For Now

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English: CBO Long-Term Public Debt Scenarios
English: CBO Long-Term Public [sic] Debt Scenarios (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

If American politicians lived in the real world, US president Barack Obama would propose and Congress would pass a balanced budget for the federal government.

But American politicians don’t live in the real world. Since World War II they’ve inhabited a utopian fantasy in which the federal government has continuously spent more money than it has brought in, on the promise that that debt will eventually be paid off.

Someday.

By someone.

So we’ve once again reached the periodic moment of untruth, with a September 30th deadline for Congress to decide between three alternatives:

Obama’s completely insane budget proposal (which increases spending across the board on both the military and civilian sides of government); or

One of several equally crazy Republican budget proposals (which would likely increase military spending and make some cosmetic cuts to civilian spending); or

Another fake “government shutdown,” accompanied by automatic “sequestration” entailing trivial cuts in both areas.

Under each of these alternatives, the federal government will run a deficit (in English, it will kite a check and overdraw its accounts), adding half a trillion dollars or so to the federal government’s debt (euphemistically referred to as the “national debt” or “public debt” — the politicians want to keep you believing that you’re responsible for their fiscal irresponsibility, and their creditors believing that you’ll cough up someday).

The best choice — in fact, the only reasonable choice — would be for the president and Congress to bite the bullet and balance the budget. That is, make a reasonable estimate of revenues and craft a budget that appropriates and spends less than that estimate.

But, like I said, reasonable is off the table. Neither the president nor Congress is willing to balance the budget this year, or to commit to doing so for any year in the near future. So it looks sequestration is the best we can hope for right now.

How about the next crop of politicians?

American voters will elect a new president, replace (or re-elect) the entire House of Representatives, and replace (or re-elect) 1/3 of the US Senate next year, to take power in January of 2017.

Many of the campaigns are already under way, and the presidential candidates are already debating each other in public.

Why not hold their feet to the fire, and let them know that any candidate who proposes to continue deficit spending will not receive your vote?

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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People as Packages, Tied Up With String: This is Chris Christie’s Favorite Thing

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English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration ...
English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arresting suspects during a raid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Jersey governor Chris Christie deserves huge honesty points for his vision of a new 21st century America. Donald Trump’s paeans to Mussolini-style fascism reside in vague appeals to “national greatness” and his own “leadership.” Christie comes right out and shows us the dark policy specifics of his desire to turn the United States into a technologically advanced  version of Erich Honecker’s East Germany.

His latest: Tracking people “like FedEx packages.”

Granted, he limits the proposal to foreigners entering the US on visas, for purposes of preventing illegal visa overstays. And he’s light on details. An RFID chip in the physical visa or passport, maybe? But what if the foreigner leaves that document in a drawer? How to track him then? Maybe implant the chip beneath the skin on entry and pull it out on exit? Who knows?

The technical details that aren’t that important, although they do sound pretty creepy. The threat is embedded in the idea itself.

As someone — not Thomas Jefferson, although it’s often attributed to him — once said, “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

A government big enough to track every foreigner from entry to exit is a government big enough to track YOU — your location and your activities — from cradle to grave.

A government big enough to track you from cradle to grave is a government big enough to CONTROL you from cradle to grave.

Anyone who proposes such a scheme is crazy, evil, or both … and should never, ever be allowed anywhere near the levers of political power.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the “major party” presidential candidates, and lots of lower-level politicians and bureaucrats, are on board with schemes like this, in one form or another.

“Real ID” to put everyone’s n right to travel under federal government control . “Background checks” to control and monitor gun ownership. “Voter ID” scams to manipulate the electoral impact of minority populations. “E-Verify,” which conscripts employers into unpaid agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement gang. You name it, it’s either done or some prominent politician is talking it up. Christie just happens to be the most vocal and honest representative of that line of thinking.

If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good that you plan to vote in next year’s presidential election. And if you’re going to do that, why not draw some red lines, come up with some litmus tests, instead of just resigning yourself to the usual futile attempt to discern the lesser evil? Any promise other than to roll back the surveillance state should be an instant disqualifier for the presidency.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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