Since you worked in the military you have a far better understanding about it’s workings than I do, but that still doesn’t help much with my queasy feeling about McCain.

I also understand that since you come from a military background you are likely more comfortable and gravite towards others with the same background. I basically have more of an entrepenuerial/business background which probably makes me a little more comfortable with Romney over McCain in that sense.

You are right though, overall, they both stink.

I know what the movies show. And the media. And the books. But that doesn’t make it real.

Ask yourself how you attract hundreds of thousands of volunteers, and retain a huge number of them. A workforce of higher quality (in terms of education and aptitude, not intrinsic worth) than the American population as a whole? That is something that is rarely discussed in the media, but the military has more HS grads and college grads, as a percentage of the population, than the general population does, higher aptitude test scores, fewer crimes committed per 1000 population, etc. They work until 4:30, give or take, on weekdays and are off on the weekends. The soldiers are paid well for the work they do, and they are expected to contribute to making their units better. They live in barracks that look like college dorms and don’t have sergeants invading them without notice.

An Army base is essentially a town of about 50,000, with everything such a town would have. Including stores, gas stations, fire and police, utilities, houses, work places, etc. Is it conservative, at least outwardly? Yes, it is. Like 1950′s Americana. Does that make it top down authoritarian? Not nearly as bad as many civilian companies I have worked for. Spend some time talking to soldiers, you might be surprised.

Now, as far as McCain goes. Yes, there’s bad. But, there’s also good. I think he’s neutral to moderately opposed to some things we think are important. But he’s not Romney, Huckabee, or Giuliani, and nowhere even close to the Democrats.

Not a wonderful choice. I won’t vote for him. But not the worst of the bunch either.

Adam I don’t have a problem with you pointing out problems with candidates, and I assume Paul has received more than his fair share on this site because he is the most liberty friendly, and because he has a few worts. This site has done it to pretty much every other candidate as well, especially in the republican field. But that is my point, where are the posts telling me the positive, liberty friendly aspects of a candidate. There are none. They are all about the faults of a candidate. I am sure there are a few good things to say about pretty much each candidate, especially the candidate that may be the most liberty friendly of the bunch.

You may be right about the military as I did not serve in the military, however, I do see it being a top down structure, where you are to do as your superior tells you, without much question. Maybe I am wrong with this and people are questioning their superiors all the time about things. Maybe there are choices all over the place in the military, but I guess I don’t see it. You have one choice and you do it. I don’t see McCain as one who allows much questioning of authority, especially his, and that is scary to me as a President, especially with his foreign policy ideas. Many other servicemen probably see the fallacy of top down authority for everything as they were subject to alot of it and may actually do a better job in the private sector because they know what unintended consequences it may have.

I think you misunderstand the military mind when you characterize a military background as highly authoritarian. This is a very common thing, though, since our media has gone to immense pains to paint military commanders as fascist, bureaucratic, anti-liberty martinets. I am former military and clearly not highly authoritarian. Further, I manage a fairly large department in my “day job” and they do not consider me to be authoritarian, either. Just to give you something in the real world to compare to.

I consider McCain neutral for a variety of reasons, not least being his stance against the secretive actions of our government with terrorism detainees. McCain-Feingold clearly is egregious enough to balance that out, though.

I also do not consider, as so many do, opposition to the Iraq war to be a litmus test. Far too many socialists and progressives are also opposed to the Iraq war. And someone could, in good conscience support it even though they are liberty friendly (think Glenn Reynolds or Eric Raymond, both clearly not authoritarians, but disagreeing with the PC view of most libertarians).

Finally, your demands to say who you should vote for came across as a demand to endorse someone, which I will not do. I don’t think point out some very serious issues with Paul and his campaign is ranting. Would it be ranting if we did that to candidates you don’t support?

Personally, other than Ron Paul, I only saw one other candidate that could even be remotely thought of as liberty friendly, and he just dropped out of the race today. That is an interesting take on McCain as I consider him pretty authoritarian. I would maybe give Romney a slight edge over McCain in liberty friendliness, for nothing else than his having a far greater business background, while McCain’s is all military (highly authoritarian) and political.

Adam, I have absolutely nothing against you for not wanting to vote for any of the candidates. You misintrepreted my question. I just wanted to get an idea from some of the posters here who they consider to be the most liberty friendly candidates that are still running. For the past month or two here it has been just rant, rant, rant about candidates flaws, but I feel at some point you have to look at their strengths as well to get a better, full picture of each of the candidates. I wasn’t getting that from any of the posters here. Your post helps a little, though it still leans to just talking about the negatives of each candidate.

We libertarians (I hope that is alright calling you that) seem to always try to find the worst in others instead of looking for the more positive points.

Democrats:
Clinton – Socialist in moderate’s clothing … not liberty friendly
Obama – Progressive, aka social democracy … not liberty friendly
Edwards – Seems pointless to discuss, but also a Progressive
Kucinich – Aside from being against the Iraq War (I don’t agree that is a litmus test for liberty friendly), not liberty friendly

GOP:

McCain – Moderate with authoritarian leanings … not liberty friendly, but not overly anti-liberty either, call him a fence sitter
Huckabee – Social conservative with progressive/authoritarian tendencies … not liberty friendly
Romney – Moderate with authoritarian leanings, went along with govt intrusion into healthcare in Mass … not liberty friendly
Giuliani – Moderately fascist, definitely not liberty friendly regardless of his anti-tax position … He is “Bush Heavy”
Hunter – Dropping out soon, like Edwards, who cares?
Thompson – Liberty oriented conservative with some social conservative tendencies … on the fence
Paul – Pro liberty, some social conservative and nativist positions, more of a Federalist, incompetent manager likely to do to libertarian philosophy what Carter did to progressive philosophy … pro liberty but strongly advocate against voting for him

There you go, that’s my view of the 11 folks currently running for the GOP and Democrat nomination for President. I can tolerate either McCain or Thompson, don’t think Romney would be too devastating. Giuliani would be worse than George W and the other GOP’ers, but better than Huckabee, Clinton, Obama or Edwards. Huckabee is just a horrible choice. Paul is a reasonable choice from a philosophical perspective, but an awful choice for the likely outcome of his Presidency.

In my opinion, if you absolutely feel that you must vote FOR someone, and you are looking for a candidate that will be either neutral or moderately good for the goals of liberty oriented folks, I would make the following recommendations:

Thompson if you want someone that will be neutral to slightly pro liberty.

McCain if you want someone electable and neutral to moderately anti-liberty but unlikely to do too much damage.

Paul if you want to vote principle but aren’t worried about practical outcomes.

I won’t even attempt to rank the other candidates in order. If forced to vote, that is the order I would vote in.

Since I’m not, and since I think you are narrowing your question in a manipulative fashion, my recommendation is that you vote for none of the above.

So what it boils down to is I am not aksing you to vote for this person, but who do you think is the most liberty-friendly candidate left running and why? I have never heard the answer to that question from any of the posters here at this site and I am interested in knowing.

At this point in time I cannot endorse any candidate for President.

Your comment suggests that simply because Adam and I have found fault with Ron Paul, we are obligated to name another candidate that would be acceptable.

Well, what if there isn’t one ?

Personally, I choose none of the above and you haven’t convinced me why that isn’t an acceptable answer.

You are completely missing my point. I did not ask you who you would vote for or even if you would vote. You have been trying to basically tell us that he is an unacceptable candidate to vote for so I am wanting an answer as to who is a more acceptable candidate to vote for. You are trying to get off way to easy. Tell me who is a better candidate for liberty that I can vote for in this election cycle. If you cannot come up with another candidate then I must assume that you agree that he is still the best candidate (though not perfect) at this point in time. No candidate, including Paul, may meet your lofty standards to vote for them, but I am asking of all the candidates who is the best candidate in your opinion that we should be voting for if we decide to vote at all.

If you want us to respect what you write when you are chastising candidates than you need to put yourself on the line a little bit and tell us who is the best candidate for liberty that is currently running if it is not Paul. It is very easy to find faults in candidates including Paul and write about it, but it is much harder and braver after doing that to come out with an alternative candidate and have to back that up given all the other candidates worts.

Not voting is not an option in my book. That is not what I asked. I want to know who you or the other commenters would suggest we should vote for other than Ron Paul?

Why is not voting not an option ?

If none of the candidates is acceptable to me, why should I be forced to vote for any of them ?

Maybe some of the writers here should spend some time writing/reporting on journalism that stinks like that from the NY times post listed above in Tryones post.

Not voting is not an option in my book. That is not what I asked. I want to know who you or the other commenters would suggest we should vote for other than Ron Paul?

Thanks for talking about Ron Paul. Despite his good results today in Nevada, a lot of the mainstream media continue to ignore Ron Paul. This blog focuses on trying to poke holes into Dr. Paul, who I believe is truly a good person in heart. If you truly believe in liberty takes a look at the following: Here is the results of the primaries according to the NY Times:

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/index.html

Everyone should continue to be aware that freedom of the press is one thing but when the press goes from the business of reporting the news to interpreting the news then there is a risk that everyone’s liberty is curtailed.