...this happens...
Where Trump represents the anger, hateful and fear filled bombast of the right wing blogger/commenter, Johnson represents the other part of that particular personality...zero command of facts....a spine made of jelly...unable to comport themselves in venues with live human beings.
A recent discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine who is a Johnson supporter informed me that he had no problem with this lack of knowledge. In fact, he thought it was a badge of honor because he doesn't have any respect for any world leader so why should he know their names?
More than anything else, this election has exposed a part of our electorate that merely wants to tear the whole playhouse done merely due to ideological spite. Like Mr. Johnson here, they don't care about knowledge or facts. They just want "Not Someone Who Threatens My Own Sense Of Self Worth" in office.
1 comment:
To be fair, the question was phrased, "Who's your favorite foreign leader?" Or a foreign leader you respect?
A possibly cogent reason Johnson can't answer is that he doesn't respect respectable foreign leaders, because he's ideologically opposed to forms of government that produce respectable leaders.
Libertarians want a Randian oligarchy run by robber barons who have the balls to just take what they want. Those forms of governments produce leaders like Vladimir Putin. Which, given who Johnson is running against, wouldn't be a very smart answer.
It's really a gotcha question, because politicians (and people in general) only respect those who reflect their political and social ideals. There are no libertarian countries in the world.
Unless you count the hellholes in Africa where warlords just take whatever they want.
Libertarians are under the delusion that given complete autonomy people will play nice and live by the unwritten rules of enlightened self interest. If you take away the power of the government to enforce those rules, the undeniable fact of history is that people with power will form cartels and monopolies, either political or industrial.
Libertarians think that somehow regular joes will have the power to tear down those cartels and monopolies by simply spending their money elsewhere.
Which is silly, because in a Libertarian paradise there would be no financial disclosures of corporate acquisitions, so a smart monopolist would secretly buy out competitors and keep the old names. Thus, the average joe would have no idea that the three companies that sell the same product are really all owned by the same guy. By the time people did figure it out, there would be no choice. If this happened in an industry such as petroleum or natural gas, the monopolist would have a complete stranglehold over the entire economy.
Any form of government that doesn't have laws and regulations to prevent the formation of cartels and monopolies will ultimately wind up like China and Russia.
I'm curious why Johnson tried to name Vicente Fox, though. Because he could see Mexico from his front door?
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