There has to be some sort of threshold, but perhaps 15% is too high. We certainly don't want to turn presidential debates into a Kangaroo Court of every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to speak.

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Actually I think it was a bit of copypasta that (she?) was just waiting to dish up.

The simple fact is that while people may not be totally satisfied with their options it in no way means that they want the Libertarian option. At it's core of anarcho-capitalism it is an extreme position not compatable with the rights it supposes to protect. Hence being doomed to the fringes, especially should it really come under the kind of scrutiny it would merit if it actually had a snowballs chance at the presidency.

So maybe have one debate with the extras, so that Americans at least get some exposure to the ideas. That would be good.

But after that it's just a joke and a waste of valuable time having them around. Again including them means that you cut the number of questions in a debate to a third.

Hell yea I'd like to see more than just the two major party candidates debate. Interjecting another person or even another, makes it far more interesting. Although, I gurantee that those extra (*)(*)(*)(*)ers wouldn't even get any questions.

Actually I don't know if people know enough about these people for a debate to be all that meaningful. A debate is for managing (hopefully) tough and specific questions on the fly. But people don't know generally what the other people are for. They don't even know what Libertarians stand for.

Probably what they should have are some kind of "meet the third parties" segment or something.

I was going to say 'how will you ever know what they stand for if they continue to lurk in the shadows thanks to the two party 'dictatorship'.

But then that last line seemed like a decent enough solution.

A debate is public that does not make it a public in the sense we are talking about. It has absolutely nothing to do with the government run parts of the election. Like most fringe you completely confuse public and private. Public means government owned. Not open to the public. Learn the lexicon. The parties are private organizations. The committee on presidential debates is a private organization. The parties agree to debates on their terms. At times this can be annoying even for those in the parties. Obama wanted the most closed canned debate he could get. I may not have liked it but its his right.

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Yes, it does, if the participants are government officials or vying to become government officials.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Schopenhauer

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.” - Adolf Hitler

"We should never forget that everything Adolf Hilter did in Germany was 'legal'" - Martin Luther King Jr., from a Birmingham jail, April 16, 1963.

The participants are government officials? There is no rule that says that. Many presidential candidates have held absolutely no government position when they ran for the office. As a republican Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan come to mind.

And the fact that they are vying for a government position doesn’t make the federal government all powerful. Private entities have the right to hold debates as they see if. And the government doesn’t have the right to tell them who to let into the debate. That is freedom. What you advocate is totalitarianism. Whats worse is that you don’t even know you are doing it.

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Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

Well your mind is failing you then because Nixon had already been Vice-President, Reagan had already been governor and Einsenhower was a government official in his military capacity as the commander of forces in WW2 and NATO after that.

ROTFLMAO!!! Let's take a closer look at the Commission on Presidential Debates. Let's see here:

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was established in 1987 by the Democratic and Republican parties to establish the way that debates between candidates for President of the United States are run. The Commission is a private entity, funded entirely by corporate contributions.

The Commission is headed by Frank Fahrenkopf, a former head of the Republican National Committee, and Paul Kirk, a former head of Democratic National Committee."

Link

So it was created by Democrats and Republicans and run by Democrats and Republicans and funded by the same corporations who are contributing to Democrats and Republicans to help them get elected and re-elected. Can you say CONFLICT OF INTEREST? I think you can.

Better luck next time.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Schopenhauer

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.” - Adolf Hitler

"We should never forget that everything Adolf Hilter did in Germany was 'legal'" - Martin Luther King Jr., from a Birmingham jail, April 16, 1963.

I specifically remember using the word when thereby fixing the time to the election. Again I am beginning to question your grasp of the English language. So you are arguing that any government service at anytime forces one to sacrifice their rights to the government in perpetuity. At first I thought your argument was that they are subject of federal oversight because they "work" for the government. Now that is bad in and of itself it ignores the principles of federalism. But this new line you have rolled to in a fleeting attempt to save some face in this drubbing is even more disturbing.


I don’t care how it came about. It is their right to run it how they see fit. You can never have freedom if you believe in a totalitarian government, no matter how well intentioned your motives may be.

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Mens Sana in Corpore Sano