Prosthetic Conscience

Interesting Presidential candidate

George Phillies

A potential Libertarian Party candidate for President in 2008. His focus seems to be on “not looking batshit crazy,” which is much better than the LP has ever managed in the past. I don’t know too much about his views on the more controversial aspects of the LP platform, because he has chosen to highlight all of the sensible things.

Interestingly, he opposes corporate “free trade” agreements. I consider this a litmus test over whether I can support a Libertarian candidate (not the only one, but one of a few big ones). He describes the goods produced in countries that suppress labour unions as “stolen property,” and argues that we should not engage in “free trade” in stolen property. He also recognizes that “Free Trade” agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA are state-managed trade for the benefit of politically-connected industries.

I disagree with him on immigration. His position is reasonable, but wrong. I largely disagree with him on healthcare, as he does not recognize the role of the insurance cartels in creating our crisis of healthcare costs. Interestingly, his argument that cost transfers (from insured to uninsured patients) result from an unfunded mandate on hospitals to care for those who cannot pay, and should either be eliminated or funded, can be interpreted as a call for single-payer health insurance. I doubt that’s what he means, though I’d certainly be willing to pick up the argument and run with it.

He recognizes the threat of peak oil. He seems to agree that some property rights are naturally held in common.

In all, a candidate I disagree with on many issues, but not more than I disagree with the Democratic Party front-runners.

[ Posted: 19:40] | [ Category: /politics] | Permalink | Comments: 0 ]

Links for [2007-03-21 Wed]

• NumberFox
  An extension for Firefox that numbers hyperlinks and form elements for navigation.

  At home I use Epiphany because its user interface is generally better than Firefox’s, in a lot of small ways. There are times, though, when I do miss having Firefox extensions available to me. There are a couple of things I’d like to write as Epiphany extensions, but I haven’t had time to learn the interface.

• Veterans link Iraq to Gulf Coast
  The CPRC was involved in hosting the veterans tour in Columbia, of course.

[ Posted: 19:31] | [ Category: /web] | Permalink | Comments: 0 ]