I also found an official Facebook group that was just created:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gary-Johnson-Our-America/165297924363

He’s the leader that I think our country needs right now.

1. Reduced income taxes including negative income tax as a result of the earned-income tax credit. Ignore the lower taxes and focus on the negative tax — that’s pure redistributionism.

2. Social Security and other welfare-state benefits transferable to the spouse upon the other spouse’s death. This is an expansion of the welfare state.

3. Expanded state healthcare and other welfare-state benefits for the spouses of government employees (huge).

4. Mandating by law that those same benefits be given to spouses by private employers.

I have another one for you: I should be able to hire or fire someone for any reason I want to. Laws prevent me from discriminating against racial minorities. Do you support adding homosexuals to the list of protected groups in the name of “equality,” and thereby further reducing my legitimate property rights?

What are these rights violating additions to the welfare state, specifically? What are gay couple leaching off you by having their marriages officially recognized?

but reject the defense of innocent life on the grounds that a super majority doesn’t view it as a crime.

You must have misunderstood me. I don’t oppose the defense of innocent life. I oppose attempting to defend it through very ineffective means, and expanding the size and scope of the state in the process.

As someone who views abortion as the taking of innocent life, you can engage in a variety of tactics. Some of them involve the state; I would condemn those on both practical and moral grounds. Some might involve terrorism. I don’t necessarily attack it on moral grounds, but as a practical tactic, it is more likely to turn the general public against you.

The most effective tactic would seem to me to be moral suasion – blockades, informational campaigns, boycotts. All those are legitimate. If
that’s not strong enough for you, and the only acceptable methods are violent – either the state or terrorism – go with terrorism. It’s less destructive on balance.

Adding gay marriage to the welfare rolls would only INCREASE the extent to which the state uses its stolen resources to discriminate — to discriminate against the unmarried, for example.

Let’s first spell out what this discrimination against the unmarried consists of. Then, go ahead and explain why you think having fewer unmarried people would increase this discrimination.

So the regime’s next response is to try to censor and monitor the internet and phones more.

Illegitimate. The information is not force.

You really don’t see your hypocrisy here. You advocate a very unpopular addition to the welfare state (gay marriage) but reject the defense of innocent life on the grounds that a super majority doesn’t view it as a crime.

Adding gay marriage to the welfare rolls would only INCREASE the extent to which the state uses its stolen resources to discriminate — to discriminate against the unmarried, for example.

No. The point was only systemic to the nature of change. We can look at other examples, for instance from the field of religion, if you wish.

Yeah, and it was infringements on those freedoms — NOT the equal grant of welfare benefits — that led to Revolution. Another horrible example.

Incorrect. Infringements on freedoms where pandemic throughout the world, and all of history. On the contrary, the American colonists were so relatively free that they felt empowered to rise up and take it further, by becoming even more free.

And that is not in any way to suggest that they instituted perfect freedom themselves – far from it. But they made a step, and it was not because they had been reduced to North Korean like oppression – but because they were already relatively free, and feeling their oats.

YOU advocate MORE force being used in the name of “equality” — which is a step in the wrong direction.

No, I advocate the state not using its stolen resources to unfairly discriminate against people. Hardly the same thing.

Of course, when it comes to the issue of prenatal murder, then you say we need to wait until everything is perfect in the world. You are making the argument FOR the state initiating force and AGAINST the state (which has a monopoly on the service) preventing the initiation of force against the innocent.

If I thought that the state would be a good way to solve the problem, I wouldn’t be against it being involved. Absent a popular concensus, I only see it leading to back alley abortionists and self-mutilation.

The only thing the state can do is become increasingly violent, nosy and deatructive in seeking to destroy an activity which many people do not see as wrong. And as it becomes more violent, nosy and destructive, in no way would it limit exhibiting those qualities only to abortionists, abortion information providers, women seeking abortions…

Let’s think about how this would play out. Someone up above mentioned that information about self-abortion would spread through the internet (and, let’s say, by phones and text messages). So the regime’s next response is to try to censor and monitor the internet and phones more. Word about unlicensed abortionists would spread by word of mouth; the regime would need a network of undercover agents, spies and informers.

Naturally, all of this activity would have to be funded. That would not be through voluntary means. Since the state would already have efforts underway to police communication methods and social networks more thoroughly than now, do you imagine for one minute it would not also turn those methods on a wide variety of other targets? Unlicensed drugs, unlicensed migrants, unlicensed contractors, the cash economy – the list is endless.

The state is a very blunt instrument, and a very powerful one. Let’s find a better way.

Czarist Russia already underwent many reforms prior to the revolution. Then Menshevik controlled Russia made further moves in the direction the Bolsheviks wanted, but not far or fast enough.

I don’t want a Bolshevik revolution, so that history is only relevant to say that the moderate “reforms” under the Czars led to one of the most evil governments in human history (second only to our own, perhaps).

The American British colonies were in many ways the most free place on earth at the time of the revolution. But not free enough.

Yeah, and it was infringements on those freedoms — NOT the equal grant of welfare benefits — that led to Revolution. Another horrible example.

We should absolutely push to reform evil institutions to make them kinder and gentler. That will hasten their fall, not prevent it.

We should push to chip away at the state’s initiation of force against people and property. YOU advocate MORE force being used in the name of “equality” — which is a step in the wrong direction. Of course, when it comes to the issue of prenatal murder, then you say we need to wait until everything is perfect in the world. You are making the argument FOR the state initiating force and AGAINST the state (which has a monopoly on the service) preventing the initiation of force against the innocent.

Lessons from the Ron Paul campaign:

You need a strong ground game in Iowa and New Hampshire. Be there early and often, in person. Have your get out the vote operation very solidly established, with multiple backups.

The Jefferson County, Iowa Ron Paul group did a good write-up about what worked for them; it was the only county in the state Ron Paul won.

Find a hook to get crossover voters, like Ron Paul did with standing up to Giuliani on foreign policy. Johnson has a built in hook with drug policy. Make a point of confronting the establishment very visibly.

Then, roll with it. Instead of capitalizing on that energy, Ron Paul used the money he raised for ads for atrocious migrant-bashing in an ill-advised effort to get the Tancredo vote. NO. Once he had the money, he should have made antiwar ads. Johnson should make anti drug war ads and get those independent and crossover voters to the polls.

Ron Paul sent them to the Democratic primary to vote for Obama (and, ironically, made it possible for some of them to vote for McCain) because he did not capitalize on his strengths in his NH advertising.

The best chance either campaign has to make a splash is by registering a lot of new voters and getting them to the polls. I’m available for consulting and implementation.

You might be thinking this because you have a mental image of things needing to get really, really bad before they can get better.

But that isn’t the way change generally happens. Czarist Russia already underwent many reforms prior to the revolution. Then Menshevik controlled Russia made further moves in the direction the Bolsheviks wanted, but not far or fast enough.

The American British colonies were in many ways the most free place on earth at the time of the revolution. But not free enough.

We should absolutely push to reform evil institutions to make them kinder and gentler. That will hasten their fall, not prevent it.

GE: Err… This isn’t my understanding (but I could be wrong). My understanding is that West Virginia was born of one of the evil Lincoln’s illegal machinations.

PF: Both are correct, it just depends on whicfh angle you look from.

Yes.

In February 1865, Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery. The Confederate Congress abolished slavery on 13 March 1865, as I recall. Shortly before Richmond fell.

In other words, when the handwriting was already on the wall, as opposed to a couple of years earlier, when much of Europe would have gotten involved on their side – but for their insistence on preserving slavery.

You might like Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s book “Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men.” It covers the period and much of the legislation.

I did like it. It’s been a while.

Rather an alarming number of falsehoods are told about this matter. The Confederate Congress did emancipate all slaves in Confederate territory. They also conscripted all adult male blacks. These matters are often conflated by revisionists.

Conscription = slavery.

Didja know that West Virginia seceded from Virginia and was accepted as a state by the north in 1863 with a constitution that provided for the gradual elimination of slavery?

Err… This isn’t my understanding (but I could be wrong). My understanding is that West Virginia was born of one of the evil Lincoln’s illegal machinations.