Who Would the World elect?

When whowouldtheworldelect.com ran the polls, Ron Paul came on top. Now, it's the economist's turn. So far McCain has a clear lead in Macedonia.

Sri Lanka has 30 electoral-college votes and Obama's thrashing McCain 69%-31% right now. Bob Barr is not included.

Obama is also taking the entire U.S. 79% to 21% so far, in voting. So can we finally conclude that all media (except Fox) has both a liberal bias and elitist? thank you.

Mirror on Me on Obama

This probably some kind of cheating. It's useful when you have friends in the media. In any case, here is Dinidu writing on something I (supposedly) said about the U.S. elections:

Deane would vote for: Barr–Root (Libertarian)

He says he would vote for the Libertarian candidates because "I agree with Obama on some things and with McCain on others. But I don't agree enough with either one of them to actually vote for them. At least I agree with Barr on most things." But interestingly, Deane goes onto say "Now pretending we are Americans is cute, but the fact is, we are not. Sure Obama knows how to work the teleprompter and give a great speech, and Sarah Palin is one hot governor but surely, those are not good enough reasons to root for anyone."

He explained his stance by saying, "Unfortunately 'talk' is all what most twenty-something Sri Lankan Obama supporters have considered. They might give all sorts of sophisticated policy-wise reasons for it now, but the fact is most decided to support Obama just by listening to him and not by examining his policies. Obama for example proposes to 'save American jobs', now I can understand why some Americans might support that, but why on earth would Sri Lankans want to save American jobs? I'm sure the American union bosses would find it rather cute. Protectionism of one country directly opposes opportunity of others. That's the great Obama plan."

"Like Rudy Gulliani said, "change" is not a destination and "hope" not a strategy, and I think Americans are waking up to empty cheesy rhetoric, and that's why Obama is going down in the polls and loosing the election. There is one good reason though Obama should win – he's black. If he loses, all the media here and in other countries will put it down to racism and would argue the fact that not even in America can a person from a minority win an election. That's not good for minority groups anywhere."

The whole thing here

Ok ok that going down on the polls and loosing the election part was stretching it. But I stand by everything else. I could have written anti-McCain something as well. But what's the point in making fun of an old white guy, of whom everyone hates anyway? Obama-bashing is much more fun. And did you know he just flip-flopped on net neutrality? gasp!

On Barr, he's toast. He just lost Ron Paul's endorsement by playing bad boy. He (and frankly Paul) screwed up what could have been Libertarian Party's best year yet. 

More on Obama, McCain and the U.S. elections.

Are Libertarians ready for the mainstream?

Some observations from the TIME magazine,

Libertarians are getting ready for the mainstream, and mainstream America may finally be ready for them.

The whole thing here.

[Link via Hit n Run]

Steven Colbert could be a libertarian

Having the Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr on his show, Steven Colbert, the American satirist said the following,

"I, myself, am a Libertarian," he said. "I don't want big government to infringe on my right to tell other people how to live. [link]

Colbert, of whom, I'm a big fan was obviously kidding. I mean, that's what he does. But funnily enough, he could be a libertarian. A weird one, but still a libertarian.

See Libertarianism, is quite explicitly a political philosophy. A subset of moral philosophy and not an overarching social Philosophy. This essentially, I believe, is the difference between Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism. The former covers a range of things while the latter only deals with the proper role of violence in social life. That is, it only concerns with how the monopoly of force, vested in the state, should be used -- the primary and only concern of politics.

Murray Rothbard, sums this up nicely in an essay about Myths and Truths about Libertarianism,

Political theory deals with what is proper or improper for government to do, and government is distinguished from every other group in society as being the institution of organized violence. Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit, except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism. [link]

This means Libertarians are a diverse bunch. Practically anybody could become a libertarian so long as you don't want to use force -- directly by your own initiation or indirectly through the state -- to achieve your goals. So even a racist, or even someone like Steven Colbert could be a libertarian, although if you have those tendencies you probably wouldn't be.

Like my friend Ron Paul likes to remind us, freedom is a package deal. If you believe in it, you have to tolerate and accept the fact that people will do things you don't like.

The video featuring Barr and Colbert was in Youtube, but unfortunately it seems to have been taken down. You can see it from the Comedy Central site, but their player kind of suck.

Special Note : What may appear as peaceful activities by the state -- taxation, regulation of any kind is actually not peaceful. It's an initiation of force, think of what will happen if you don't pay your taxes (and you get caught) you will be forced to pay, if you don't do that, you will be put in jail and if you resist arrest, then a gun will be leveled to your head.