No Labels Asks its Supporters to Express Preference for How Presidential Nominee Should be Chosen

Posted on by August 30, 2023

On August 30, the No Labels national office e-mailed people on its list, asking them to weigh in on how No Labels should choose a presidential nominee. The choices are: (1) by five to ten highly-respected national leaders of No Labels; (2) by approximately 2,000 delegates who will gather at the No Labels convention in 2024; (3) by tens of thousands of registered No Labels members; (4) by a subset of the 77,000,000 registered voters that No Labels research indicates would be open to voting for the Unity Ticket.

Americans Elect, which was somewhat similar to No Labels, in preparation for the 2012 presidential election, set up a website in which any registered voter in the United States could register as someone who wanted to vote in the Americans Elect selection process. It also set up a system by which candidates could qualify for the vote. But no one received many votes in the Americans Elect “primary”. Among candidates seeking the Americans Elect nomination, former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer got the most, 6,293. His total was so low that Americans Elect decided on May 17, 2012, not to run anyone.

In 1996, the Reform Party had its own national “primary”. People who were registered members of the Reform Party, or who had signed a petition to put the party on the ballot, or who asked for a primary ballot, all were permitted to vote. Ross Perot won with 32,145 votes; his opponent, former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, received 17,121. It is not known if the leaders of No Labels have familiarized themselves with the 2012 and 1996 examples.

Comments

No Labels Asks its Supporters to Express Preference for How Presidential Nominee Should be Chosen — 122 Comments

  1. They should use Condorcet with actual pairings. A voter could somehow qualify and be sent a presentation of two candidates and they would select one.

  3. That’s interesting. They seemed convinced on selecting their presidential nominees at the April convention. I think that leaves them starting later than the two legacy parties on introducing their candidates to the public. They should take advantage of laws that afford a Presidential Preference Primary in big states.

    According to Ballotpedia (https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_preference_primary), all ten states where No Labels has ballot access also have Presidential Preference Primaries (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada*, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah).

  13. To be precise, Americans Elect required candidates to get a certain number of clicks of support from voters who had registered on AE’s website, in order for those candidates to qualify for AE’s online primaries.

    Neither Buddy Roemer nor any other candidate received enough support clicks to even qualify for the AE online primaries.

  14. As to No Labels, while they need to have a process for selecting their presidential nominee, they also need to have at least one person willing to run as their presidential nominee. So far nobody prominent has come forth to say that they want the NL nomination. Even if anyone who isn’t prominent is seeking the NL nomination, I haven’t heard about them.

  15. Jim Riley: “They should use Condorcet with actual pairings.”

    Yeah, any of Ranked Choice Voting, STAR Voting (Score Then Automatic Runoff), Approval Voting, or Condorcet should select a nominee broadly supported by the party.

    No Labels should also, of course, support any/all of these for the actual presidential race, as these all address the spoiler effect in our current plurality system that is arguably an even bigger handicap to alternative parties than ballot access laws.

  16. Americans Elect had a provision in their by-laws which said that if their internet convention resulted in candidates that their national committee felt were not appropriate that their national committee could replace them. This became a moot point since thay dropped out of the race.

    I would not be surprised if the No Labels Party has a provision like this in their by-laws.

  17. Option 2 seems like the best route. You need a group bigger than a handful of insiders to pick a nominee, and smaller than an open-ended electronic primary. A bunch of them need to meet face-to-face, and hash it all out.

    A “smoke-filled” convention? Maybe so, but, were they really that much worse than what we have now?

  18. Think of it like the constitutional convention of 1787. Folks from every state meet there, and, while there were those who came with a definite agenda, they all respected each other, and put together something better than any of them had in mind each by themselves.

  19. @PGI,

    The original version of Condorcet was conceived as pairwise comparisons, rather than pairwise comparison derived from a ranked list.

    Imagine a primary campaign with 12 candidates. You draw an 11 week schedule just like you would for a football league. Each contest would be assigned a week and congressional district. So Haley-Pence might be Week 3 in Tennessee 3rd District. The two candidates could have a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Voters would then vote for one of the two. The results would then be compiled in a league table.

  21. It seems to me that actual Condorcet voting could be implemented in a face-to-face convention.

  22. Or, for that matter, instead of having successive primaries, why not hold same-day caucuses with pairwise Condorcet voting?

    It seems to me that a caucus is the ideal place to use pairwise voting.

  23. “The original version of Condorcet was conceived as pairwise comparisons, rather than pairwise comparison derived from a ranked list.”

    I wasn’t aware, thank you! Seems like they should work very similarly in selecting the Condorcet Winner.

  24. But, if you want to use a primary for pairwise voting, what you have to do is print ballots on which each pair of candidates is listed separately, and the voter is able to cast a vote for the preferred candidate from each pair.

  25. Option 3. Option 1 would get panned. Option 4 how do you go beyond what you have for Option 3 logistically, and Option 2 how do you setup the organizations that select these delegates?

  27. WZ – VETO CONSPIRACIES IN 1787 TOP SECRET CONVENTION —

    SMALL STATES >>> ALL STATES 2 SENS ONLY USA SENATE >>> CURRENT 60 VOTES UNCON STUFF IN USA SENATE

    SLAVE STATES >>> SLAVE = 3/5 PERSON >>> 750,000 DEAD IN 1861-1866
    —
    CONDORCET WITH APPV TIEBREAKER
    —
    P-A-T

  29. The Constitution of 1787 wasn’t perfect, but it was better than any alternative put forward, AND, it specified the means by which it could be improved in the future. That’s why it’s still in use.

  31. NLP VOTERS FOR NLP PREZ NOMINEE —

    (3) by tens of thousands of registered No Labels members;

    AND STATE VOTER FOLKS WHO SIGN A NLP OATH IN SECRET BALLOT STATES
    —
    NLP METHOD — CONDORCET IF $$$ FOR COMPUTER COUNTING OR CHEAPER APPV

  32. Therefor, IMO the best set up for the No Labels nomination would be local caucuses in which delegates to a state convention are chosen by in-peron pairwise voting, a presidential preference poll based on paired choices taken, a state convention in which delegates are selected to the national convention by in-person pairwise voting, and results from the presidential preference polls are aggregated state-wide, and the national in-person convention is held to make the final decision of candidates, again by paired voting, with the selection being made from the top finishers from the aggregated state preference polls, up to an agreed upon cutoff for eligibility.

    Sound complicated? IMO, it’s not much more complicated than what we have now.

  33. IMO, those improvements made to the basic Constitution of 1787 by amendments over the years have been significant, substantial and beneficial.

  34. Altho, IMO the 16th Amendment was a mistake that needs to be corrected, and the 18th Amendment was a mistake corrected by the 21st.

    On the whole, the record is pretty good.

  37. The No Label local caucuses could be organized by Congressional district, since they are roughly equal in population across the country.

    The Presidential preference polling can be done on-line, since a virtual ballot doesn’t have to be limited by size. and a ballot with pairwise voting could be quite long.

  38. “Jesse Ventura and call it a day.”

    That’s what’s wrong with politics today. People have no patience for mutual deliberation. It’s a wonder that there are still town meetings held in parts of New England.

  39. Agree that most Amendments were improvements, but I’m not a fan of the 17th Amendment.

    The original intent of the Senate was to be a check on ever-growing federal power to encroach upon that of the state governments. As such, Senators were originally appointed by state governments so that they’d have an incentive to champion state power against federal power (Germany’s upper house operates this way).

    By switching to direct election, the incentives upon senators changed for them to try and bring federal pork to their home state, and there is no longer any check at all on growing federal power.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2004/05/repeal-17th-amendment-ridhancock/

  40. Oh, and agreed 100% on the importance of deliberation and small town meetings!

    My big issue with staggered primaries is that voters in early states have a disproportionate amount of power compared to voters in later states. Walter, would different pairs of candidates appear in different states at the same time so as to make every primary voter as early as each other?

  41. @Ink
    I never thought about Senate elections like that. That’s interesting.

    For No Labels, primaries will be skewed. A smaller group of dedicated people using their judgement would be more American. #2 seems best.

  42. @WZ,

    If you used random samples, any given voter would only have to compare two candidates. If you converted slot machines to voting machines, a voter could pull the handle and a joker and a knave would appear. A voter could listen/watch two campaign spiels before casting his choice. That was why my original proposal would have had separate races in different locations and dates. The primary voters would only have to consider two candidates.

  43. MINORITY RULE IN ALL MAJOR SYSTEMS IN USA AND STATE REGIMES——

    USA H REPS, USA SENATE, USA 12TH AMDT-PREZ/VP
    ALL STATE LEGISLATURES
    MANY/MOST LARGER LOCAL GOVTS

    1/2 OR LESS VOTES X 1/2 RIGGED GERRYMANDER AREAS = 1/4 OR LESS CONTROL

    SUPER-WORSE EXTREMIST PRIMARIES / CONVENTIONS – REAL MINORITY RULE 3-10 PCT ???

    SENATE ROT FOR USA LAWS / TREATIES / APPTS OF TOP EXECS AND ALL USA JUDGES.

    >>> TOTAL CURRENT ROT — GETTING WORSE BY THE SECOND
    —
    P-A-T

  44. Is it getting worse by the second or are we having relentless progress? Make up your mind. You’ve also claimed there’s no such thing as worse or better previously when the question was posed.

  45. Lots of naive misconception above..
    Where to start?

    First, that the shadowy types behind no labels are genuinely asking the question, or care what you think. They only want to make it look like they care. Their goal is obviously to have “five or ten respected leaders” make the real decisions, while at the same time giving a much larger group of people the illusion that their input matters. This is the same type of crap they pulled with American Select.

    Joshua K seems to propose that candidates who would actually be seriously considered would be openly campaigning now. That’s just not how this group does things. There’s no reason for them to run now, and they won’t run anyone unless certain conditions are met first. Manchin has made noises indicating he might do it. That’s probably as close as we’ll get this year.

    PGI thinks NL would spend time advocating alternative voting methods in the general election. They will not. These are not genuine outsiders. They are a faction of the establishment which is considering pulling the alarm and breaking the glass to get the fire extinguisher because Trump threatens their SNAFU status quo. They don’t want to open the process to alternative parties. They want to make sure an outsider doesn’t win through the avenue of a major party again, especially now that he learned how the game is really played by having won before.

    More in a bit..

  46. AZ repeats stupid crap, as always. Every country in Europe and the Americas except the US and Haiti ended slavery without a war. It wasn’t rocket science.

    As far as his NPR fake news link, riot is the only thing applicable.

    As far as the “improvements,” most of them were not. At a minimum, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 26th amendments made things worse. The antifederalist argument that the bill of rights would eventually encourage the notion that the federal government can do whatever is not explicitly forbidden for it to do has also been subsequently proved to have a lot of merit.

    Jesse Ventura: No. Just no.

    Mail ballots: No. Just no.

    Computer voting: No. Just no.

    Town meetings: Yes, please.

  48. Fake news. The commie cities are way more fascist than the legislature..

  49. There is no need to repeal the 17th Amendment outright. States could include in their current election laws the provision that party caucuses in the legislatures could make direct nominations of Senate candidates. The popular vote would still be there, but the voters would have nominees made by the legislatures included on their ballots.

    This is actually not too far from what happened before the 17th Amendment. Candidates for the legislature would declare their preferences for US Senate when they ran for office. The first Lincoin-Douglas debates took place when both of them were running for the US Senate. They were trying to convince voters to vote for their endorsers who were running for the Illinois legislature.

  52. The Anti-Masonic Party never achieved much electoral success. But, they established the precedent of nominating candidates by convention. This was considered an improvement over the previous methods, which usually involved partisan and factional caucuses in the legislature making candidate nominations, to the exclusion of everyone else.

    Whatever the motives of New Labels, if they can be persuaded to try alternative methods of choosing candidates, all the better. Like the Anti-Masonics, they could create precedents for the future.

  53. Porcus Agricola Tacitus: “PGI thinks NL would spend time advocating alternative voting methods in the general election. They will not.”

    Correct, I don’t expect they will. And I merely said what they *should* do to further their stated aims. The likely outcome is to elect Donald Trump (and in-line with Edward TJ Brown, I view him as the most socialist Republican president in my lifetime — although Biden kept all of Trump’s economic policies in place and so is at the same level).

    Walter Ziobro: “There is no need to repeal the 17th Amendment outright. States could include in their current election laws the provision that party caucuses in the legislatures could make direct nominations of Senate candidates.”

    They could, but there is a collective action problem here. State governments that implement this would see their state become less likely to receive federal money, and an individual state government doesn’t benefit very much if a check on federal power is restored (especially if only partially restored). Every state is thus better off waiting for other states to do this first (and only follow their lead if it is likely to make a difference in their favor).

    So, I agree with Corvette Kitchen Fire that repealing it would be far better.

  54. Walter Ziobro: “Whatever the motives of New Labels, if they can be persuaded to try alternative methods of choosing candidates, all the better. Like the Anti-Masonics, they could create precedents for the future.”

    Agreed 100%. They are going to run. If Biden thinks they will hurt him, it is up to him to decide how to persuade them to drop out.

    The only power that alternative parties have in the current system is leverage from threatening to spoil, and if the major parties don’t like that, they are more than welcome to support alternative electoral systems that are far less susceptible to the spoiler effect. If a spoiled election persuades a major party to back alternative electoral systems, all the better.

  55. No labels is not a party. They have threatened to sue anyone who calls them a party. Except when they call themselves a party in state filings.

    Trump is not a commie or fascist; Biden is both.

  56. The highest likelihood is still that they run nobody and junk the whole thing just like in 2012.

  57. “The only power that alternative parties have in the current system is leverage from threatening to spoil, and if the major parties don’t like that, they are more than welcome to support alternative electoral systems that are far less susceptible to the spoiler effect”

    YES! Under plurality voting, playing the spoiler is the most powerful thing that any third party can do. Embrace it.

  58. “The highest likelihood is still that they run nobody and junk the whole thing just like in 2012.”

    Alas, that is probably true. Such a waste of time, energy and money.

  59. ANOTHER NOMINATION MESS >>>

    MUST PUT EQUAL BALLOT ACCESS NOM PETS/FILING FEES INTO CONSTS —

    NOOO CAUCUSES / PRIMARIES / CONVENTIONS / OTHER MACHINATIONS.
    —
    Sec. 2. (1) All elected officers shall be registered Electors [in addition to any other qualifications in this constitution].
    (2) A person may hold 1 elected or appointed office in a time of peace.
    (3) All incumbents and all other candidates shall respectively file a declaration of candidacy by [5] P.M. [203] and [196] days before the election day and any filing fee as in (4).
    (4) The names of candidates shall be put on the ballots by
    (A) Elector forms equal to not more than [0.1] percent of the number of Electors at the last regular election for governor in the election area involved which shall be filed and verified respectively by [105] and [70] days before the election day or
    (B) a filing fee equal to the signatures number in (A) times a uniform money amount.
    (5) Elector form [12] point type, [4.25 by 5.5 inches]:
    NOMINATING PETITION – PARTISAN (for legislative offices) / NONPARTISAN (for executive and judicial offices)
    I nominate (candidate’s name and address) of the (one word party name – not more than 16 capital letters) Party for (office) in (election area) at the (date) election.
    Elector signature, printed name, address and date signed. [Elector in area involved]
    Return to- (address)
    (6) No filing shall be withdrawn.
    (7) Legislative body candidates shall have their party’s name in (5) [and all candidates may by law have a [0.4 inch by 0.4 inch] symbol] next to their names on the ballots.

  61. Smart Home Information Technology: “Trump is not a commie or fascist; Biden is both.”

    Tariffs are socialist. They involve government central planners deciding what individuals should or should not buy with their own money. Both Trump and Biden support similar levels of tariffs.

    Industrial policies are socialist. They involve government central planners deciding which companies and/or industries should succeed instead of letting free market competition determine the result. Both Trump and Biden use industrial policies (Trump to support fossil fuel industries, Biden to support green industries).

    Both of them also supported Jerome Powell for Fed chair, who has used his position to pump money into the stock market that is a big reason for the inflation we are seeing today. He also made a sharp break with tradition in having the Fed buying *corporate* bonds instead of just U.S. Treasuries, making the Fed into even more of a government central planner than it usually is, one that decides which corporations should get loans from the Fed.

    Trump and Biden differ mostly in social policy (e.g., the “culture war”), not economic policy. Don’t like socialism? Support the Libertarian Party.

  62. The basic reforms of the political process in the US rests on three points:

    1. The assertion by political parties of their free association rights to organize internally, and make nominations according to there own rules.

    2. The development of general election voting methods that permit a large range of parties and candidates to be available to voters from which to choose.

    3. The wide distribution of powers between the federal and state governments, legislative and other branches, and within bicameral (or even multi-cameral) legislatures such that it becomes virtually impossible for any person or party to get too much power. Different houses of each legislature should have different methods of election to better ensure politically split legislatures.

  63. Tariffs are not socialist. National capitalism and tariffs built America. Learn some history.

    It’s ridiculous to claim there are no difference between bidenomics and Trump. You think Biden would have been for tax cuts? Yeah right. Bidenomics has blown literally trillions on climate communism and ballooned inflation. If Biden was president in 2020 wuhan flu hysteria would have been even way worse than it was. Just look at his commie student debt plan. All that bidenomics crap would be even way worse if congress went along with all of it.

  64. The no lube plan is to run only if Trump and Biden look likely to be the nominees come March and April and if their polls show they have a real chance to win outright with specific nominees willing to run with them. So, most likely they won’t run anyone.

    There’s a smaller, but nevertheless real, chance that the demon rat fears will prove true. Trump and Biden look set to win nominations, their polls fool them into thinking they have a real chance, they finish ballot access. As the race heats up about a year from now they realize their spring polls were a mirage and scramble to get off ballots, but miss some deadlines to do so. Despite campaigning for Beijing Biden, they manage to get enough votes, mostly at Quisling Biden’s expense, to help Trump. Let’s hope so!

  65. “Tariffs are not socialist. National capitalism and tariffs built America. Learn some history.”

    What differentiates a socialist policy from a capitalist policy is the degree of government interference in the economy. This is a question of economics, not history. There is plenty of socialist history in America. There are still socialist policies in America today. We are not even in the top 20 in terms of economic liberty.

    https://www.heritage.org/index/

  67. People obsess too much about labels, and not enough about logic.

    Whatever you call a tariff, it is a tax that takes wealth from some, and forces them to make economically suboptimal decisions.

  68. 6,000 PLUS YEARS ECON WAR —

    NET TAX/BORROW GETTERS – GOVT OFFICIALS / GOVT CONTRACTORS / WELFARE / NET GOVT INTEREST CREDITORS

    VS

    NET TAX/DEBT PAYERS

    MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDERS IN ALL MAJOR GOVTS IN USA — NEARING $$$ 50 TRILLION DEBT – USA/STATES/LOCALS REGIMES

    USA REGIME KEEPS ADDING DEBT ONLY BECAUSE OF MORON FOREIGN REGIMES MAKING MORE MORON LOANS TO USA LOOTERS

    NONSTOP 2 PLUS PCT LOSS [COMPOUNDED] IN DOLLAR PURCHASING POWER — AKA INFLATION — SINCE 1965 – JOHNSON VIETNAM WAR = DESTRUCTION OF PAPER SAVINGS – ESP LOWER/MIDDLE CLASSES.

    0.98 X 0.98 X 0.98 ETC —- 2023-1965 = 58 YEARS

    SAVED DOLLAR IN 1965 WORTH HOW MANY CENTS NOW ???
    —
    P-A-T

  69. Tariffs help domestic industry and economy. It’s how America got great to begin with and what will make America great again. Stop selling out America.

  70. Bringing in immigrants who vote for Marxism and gun confiscation is suicidal libertarianism. Stupid is as stupid does.

  71. America is *already* great. What’s the a better place to invest than the US stock market? Europe has way too much red tape and has few equivalents to Google, Apple, Facebook, or Tesla. China has a handful of tech giants but have made huge missteps lately, including reining in their tech industry but also their overly strict lockdown and a weak monetary response to their recent deflation. Russia’s currency is cratering and should be. All of these places in addition to Japan face huge demographic crunches (i.e., aging populations).

    The problem is that it’s in decline. Coddled industries like the Detroit automakers tend to become weak. Tariffs *can* help infant industries, but the US is no longer a baby. Besides, companies that succeed because their innovation outflanked the competition are the real drivers of economic success.

    But the US economy is actually doing quite fine, thank you! The bigger problem is political dysfunction. “Governance” was the reason for Fitch’s downgrade of US government debt. As I hope you all already understand, this is primarily driven by our two-party system which is both unrepresentative and polarizing to the point of utter dysfunction.

    https://www.fixourhouse.org/resources/debt-limit-chicken

    Less restrictive ballot access will certainly help alternative parties like the LP, but electoral reform is just as key, particularly moving away from winner-take-all elections to a multi-party Proportional Representation (#ProRep) system as in Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and Taiwan.

    That is what would make the US even more great than it already is today.

  72. Bringing in immigrants is what made America great 100 years ago. There is no way that America could have industrialized without large numbers of immigrants.

    And there is no way that America can remain an industrial leader without immigrants. In fact, NO major country can today. Birth rates are declining everywhere, even in China.

  73. “But the US economy is actually doing quite fine, thank you! ”

    Not quite. Excessive reliance on monetary and fiscal policy (especially by Democrats, but Republicans are not much better) are causing economic distortions.

    More laissez-faire policies, both internally re excessive government regulation and taxation, and externally re trade and immigration, are needed.

  75. “TARIFFS = MORE DOMESTIC MONOPOLIES / SHORTAGES / HIGHER PRICES”

    Bingo! AZ got that right.

  76. If the US economy is doing good, why do 80% plus of Americans say it’s not? Only people with a lot of money for whom 20% plus inflation since Beijing Biden took office makes no difference in their lifestyle think the economy is good. For everyone else it’s lousy.

    Best place to invest in the past ten years? Crypto, by a country mile. That’s even true since 2020, when the US stock market basically went long term flat once Quisling Biden successfully stole the election.

  79. 100 years ago immigration was reformed in a sensible way. Almost 60 years ago, it was changed again in a suicidal way, along with other suicidal policies introduced in the mid 1960s. Since then, America has been slowly turning into a turd world crap hole, especially any time the demon rats had anything to do with it.

    Just look at what they’ve done to the big cities where they have all the power. Stores are closing their doors and fleeing because of all the bums and crime, and besides bums and welfare queens only the rich can afford to live there. While the middle class is squeezed down to poverty, burn loot murder destroys the neighborhoods of the working poor, and tranny tyranny threatens everyone who can’t afford to send their kids to a Christian school.

  81. Trump brought back manufacturing jobs for the first time in decades. Beijing Joe has been busy offshoring them again when he’s not on vacation or taking Chinese and Ukrainian bribes with both hands. His whole crime family got rich while the economy flatlined.

  83. Most major countries in the world today have declining birth rates. Countries that can overcome this with immigration will be ahead of the others.

  88. I’ve never seen anyone with a Biden hat. I see people with Trump hats every single day for the last 8 years.

  89. Many people who talk about immigrants don’t know immigrants. I work with immigrants every day. They are productive, hard working, and VERY entrepreneurial. And I’m talking about immigrants from just about everywhere.

    People who choose America understand freedom.

  90. I live around a lot of them. WFKW and Hunter’s Laptop are right. You only see the ones who are working, not the criminal and welfare elements. Importing turd world population is suicidal. A hundred years ago the immigrants were majority White and we didn’t have a welfare state. This is not a hundred years ago.

  91. Is the real problem immigration or welfare?

    It seems like after a couple of generations, too many of their grandchildren become lazy, public educated, self-entitled whiners, after they have been given more than they can appreciate.

  93. The problems of immigration, crime, drugs, welfare, and disease are closely linked. Immigrants peddle dope, commit more than their share of crime, suck up way more than their share of welfare (often without having paid anything in), and spread diseases. They also become or spawn US voters who disproportionately vote for victim disarmament, defunding or abolishing police, liberal crime and drug policies, expanding the welfare state, and more open borders idiocy.

  94. We need to finish the wall and have a new and much bigger Operation Wetback. We also need mandatory e-verify for all US jobs, no anchor baby back door to citizenship, automatic and prompt deportation of criminal aliens, no welfare or any kind of government services for noncitizens, empowering local police to make immigration arrests, US military large scale deployment at the borders, shoot on sight policy for illegal invaders, a moratorium on legal immigration, etc.

  97. If we were to have head-to-head matchups by Congressional District, the states with only 1 House Member would only see 2 candidates. I think the solution to this is divide the state into a number of virtual districts equal to the number of combinations (for example, if there are 4 candidates, there would be 6 matchups and the state would be divided into 6 virtual districts)

  100. Hi Joe, thanks for asking. In the short term, I would recommend implementation of common sense policies like the ones Hunters Laptop laid out yesterday at 1:24 pm above. You should also do everything possible to boost conservative turnout, watch the polls, and do everything else you can to make sure the demon rats don’t steal another election.

    In the medium term, you should repeal the 1965 election law changes your congress passed, strip everyone who is in your country solely as a result of those of citizenship or residency, round up and deport all of them, and work to undo all other changes in law that have occurred because these people have been voting in your country for over half a century now.

    Similarly, in Russia we should start with deporting those who are immigrants since the dissolution of the USSR as well as internal migrants, particularly from autonomous republics, Krais, and okrugs. Exceptions can be made for ethnic Russian members of the Russian Orthodox Church in good standing.

    Next, we should limit migration, trade, and travel between States in the US (Russian equivalent, Oblasts). This would involve customs/border controls between States/Oblasts.

    Next, we get to my full implementation at areas of 100k +/- one order of magnitude. In Russia, raions (districts or regions) are all within this range, except some of the smallest ones would need to be combined. However, none are outside the margin of error to the upside.

    In the US, with roughly 300 million in population and roughly 3k counties, those would be ideal government units if they were within +/- 1 order of magnitude of population. Unfortunately, US county populations range from 2 digits to 8. Thus, not only would smaller population counties have to be combined into ones of adequate population, but the largest population ones would have to be split. How exactly they would be split would depend on local customs; for example, in NYC, there are 77 police precincts, divided along traditional neighborhood lines, all except the Central Park precinct (which could be divided among its neighbors) within the one order of magnitude margin of error. More details in another discussion here shortly, where NYC is being specifically discussed.

    More in reply to your query here shortly.

  101. MAXZIM PLAN >>>

    BAAACK TO THE STONE AGE WITH KILLER MONARCHS VIA OLIGARCHS ???

    GOOD LUCK TO MINI-TRIBES WHEN ATTACKED BY NEIGHBOR MINI-TRIBES OR BANKRUPTED BY COMMERCE RESTRICTIONS [ESP ADD ON TAXES BY MINI-TRIBES BEWEEN PRODUCER AREAS AND THE MINI-TRIBE AREA]

    [ USA 1-8 INTER-STATE COMMERCE CL = USA LAWS TO STOP/REDUCE BURDENS ON INTER-STATE COMMERCE — SCREWED UP AS USUAL BY SCOTUS CONLAW MORONS ]
    —
    P-A-T

  102. AZ, please keep your idiotic, wildly off base comments far away from my plans, which you entirely fail to understand. If any rational people (meaning not AZ) have questions or concerns, please feel free to air them, and I’ll address them. As it stands, AZ is only disrupting my conversation with Joe. I’m trying to find time to finish my reply to Joe. As mentioned already numerous times, nothing I write is directed at AZ. AZ, kindly please butt out of my conversations with Joe and any other reasonable people who might be reading and kindly please fuck off. Unfortunately, this site does not have an individual user to individual user block feature. If it did, I would have long since individually blocked AZ. I think his rants should be available to those who want to read them. I’m not one of those people. Correcting AZ mischaracterizations which have already been addressed numerous times is neither my job nor my hobby.

  103. Further in reply to Joe, at full implementation:

    Migration, trade, and travel between areas of 100k population (+/- one order of magnitude) would be disincentivized in a number of ways.

    First, most of the economic incentives would be removed. By the time full implementation is ready, 3D, nanotechnology and robotics will evolve to the point of assembling anything from specifications at the molecular level. Communication will evolve to high speed (real time feel), full reality fidelity, full immersion. With those two things alone, economic incentives for trade, travel, and migration will be removed.

    There will no longer be welfare, especially for aliens, and punishment for serious crimes would be swift, sure, and severe. Thus, welfare for lazy people and the life of fast money through criminal activity would cease to be draws for migration or “safety nets” for migrants. Instead, safety nets would be voluntary and local.

    Given that few people or goods would ever cross borders, the large scale facilities which facilitate the traffic of large passenger and cargo planes, ships, trucks, and large volumes of automobile and foot traffic would be scrapped. Border checkpoints would exist to control and tax any remaining trade/travel/migration.

    If and when people do choose to relocate, they would not get full citizenship rights immediately. In the US, citizenship can be currently granted after five years. I would propose instead five generations, with voting rights further limited to a minimum of five generations of local property ownership. Other social institutions would determine their own standards, but since society would be organized around longstanding local, social, extended family, small business, church, and other such community ties, integration would be very slow and selective by today’s standards.

    In business, the lack of any intergovernmental legal structure would also help keep business local and at a human scale. Outsiders would be instantly identified by everyone, and treated with an appropriate mix of welcome and caution or suspicion wherever they go. For the first several generations at least they would not go anywhere under the delusion that they are anything except guests. That would gradually fade over the course of a century or two.

    The technology to reach this level will likely evolve within decades, not centuries. Consider the acceleration of advancing technology in the fields discussed over the past century.

  104. Although my reference above is to U.S. citizenship, that in no way is meant to imply that the plan is somehow directed more at areas currently in the US than other areas. It is not.

  106. Edward, AZ is bad enough without your impersonations. Also, why do you think your medical problems are interesting to the readers here?

  107. MAXZIM SCHEME –

    SERFS LOCKED IN THEIR LOCAL ZOO CAGES BY ENSLAVER MONARCHS/OLIGARCHS ???

    NO TRADE , NO TRAVEL – JUST WORSHIP THE TRIBE MONARCH/OLIGARCHS ???

    HOW SOON BEFORE TOTAL COLLAPSE DUE TO INBREEDING — TOO MANY LOCAL TROLL MORONS TO COUNT ???
    —
    P-A-T

  108. No enslaved, monarchs, or oligarchs. And no inbreeding, since there’s no prohibition against buying wives or adopting children across borders. Stop lying about Max’s plan and stay in your own lane, troll moron AZ. You truly are a canker sore. Stop harassing people who want nothing to do with you such as myself and Max, you fauscisct ignoramus aborted zombie!

  109. Pat, you are correct about no monarchy. Slavery would be reserved for punishing convicted criminals, which would not be a new thing. Indentured servitude, apprenticeship, sharecropping, and company town types of arrangements would probably be legal. Oligarchy would not be absolute, but would be an element of a balanced system which would also include elements of meritocracy, theocracy, limited democracy, etc.

    You are correct that “mail order” brides could be an exception to the elimination of trade/travel/migration. I agree with the exhortation in your ultimate sentence.

    Most fundamentally, I think folks here, including AZ but even Jim Riley and just Jim seem unwilling or unable to fathom a society where political power would not be the main or most prestigious role in society. Recall that under my system in full implementation,I would no longer be qualified to vote, since I’m no longer in physical condition to perform battlefield military service or law enforcement in the field. I am however significantly more well off financially than when I was in physical shape to and did perform military service. Under full implementation of my plan I would have ceased being a voter at perhaps age 50, but all my peak earning years have been since then.

    I hypothesize that the stage of life when men would vote and do peacekeeper duty would come at a point when they have married, fathered two or more children, and have had some practical neighborhood watch/civil defense/militia/military/peacekeeper assistant experience, but before they inherit the top roles in various more important fields of endeavour than peacekeeping (business, churches, charities, and so on) from their fathers or earn them meritocratically. At the stage when they serve as peacekeepers they might be more in a subsidiary executive role in other pursuits, but being groomed for leadership.

    It seems people here can’t escape the mindset that political power must always be preeminent and sought after, as revealed by questions about e.g. term limits. In fact, I see peacekeeper duty as more of a hot potato; men would generally be relieved not to be elected, but duty bound to serve if elected. After a year, they’d welcome passing off the obligation.

  111. NO CONNECTION BETWEEN TAXATION AAND REPRESENTATION IN THE MAXZIM REGIMES ???

    JUST PAY SLAVE TAXES AND LIKE IT OR ELSE REAL SLAVERY.

    SEE USA COLONIES 1773-1775, THEN 1776-1784 USA STATES

  112. What do you mean by representation? As I understand Max plan, there would be a poll tax on voters/potential peacekeepers to pay peacekeepers. Everyone would have to contribute to military defense, either by paying or serving or both, since everyone is being defended. There would be a tax on people and goods crossing borders to help maintain border control. Other than that there would be no taxes. Why does troll moron AZ keep asking the same questions that were answered months ago over and over? Senile dementia?

  113. pgi: “America is *already* great. What’s the a better place to invest than the US stock market? Europe has way too much red tape and has few equivalents to Google, Apple, Facebook, or Tesla. China has a handful of tech giants but have made huge missteps lately, including reining in their tech industry but also their overly strict lockdown and a weak monetary response to their recent deflation. Russia’s currency is cratering and should be. All of these places in addition to Japan face huge demographic crunches (i.e., aging populations).”

    Pig Farmer: “Best place to invest in the past ten years? Crypto, by a country mile.”

    I notice that this is an asset class and not a place! I rest my case that the US is the best country in the world to live in (despite the best efforts of its enemies to convince people otherwise). It’s the place entrepreneurs are most likely to be rewarded for their innovations and risk-taking, and the place where success is measured by how well you do against your competition, whether that competition be in market share, vote totals, grades, or in sporting contests.

    And it is exactly because of the forces of competition that the American economy has moved away from making things and towards providing services. Trade will always exist as long as there are differences in comparative advantages. Even if everybody can produce all their own goods, there will always be differences in skills in providing services (cooking, gardening, giving haircuts, music performance, dramatic performance, music curation, reporting, money management, etc.).

    Finally, here is what Murray Rothbard had to say about tariffs and other forms of protectionism.

    https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/how-to-look-at-tariffs/

    “The upshot is that protectionism is not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense, destructive of all economic prosperity. We are not, if we were ever, a world of self-sufficient farmers. The market economy is one vast latticework throughout the world, in which each individual, each region, each country, produces what he or it is best at, most relatively efficient in, and exchanges that product for the goods and services of others. Without the division of labor and the trade based upon that division, the entire world would starve. Coerced restraints on trade-such as protectionism-cripple, hobble, and destroy trade, the source of life and prosperity. Protectionism is simply a plea that consumers, as well as general prosperity, be hurt so as to confer permanent special privilege upon groups of inefficient producers, at the expense of competent firms and of consumers. But it is a peculiarly destructive kind of bailout, because it permanently shackles trade under the cloak of patriotism.”

  114. You said the US stock market is the best place to invest. Over the past decade my crypto has performed better than my stock index funds. The “best place to live” is a separate question altogether and considerably more complicated. A lot of that depends on what you’re looking for.

    Here’s one listing. I don’t think I fully agree with it. There are other sources which disagree on details. None I’ve found in recent years have the US at the top. Let’s see if it lets me post this link this time…

    http://www.zerohedge.com/economics/visualizing-state-economic-freedom-around-world-2023

    If you’re looking exclusively at economic performance, some (not all) of the East Asian rim and Persian gulf countries are best. Switzerland is best in some respects.

    Low level service jobs suck . They don’t pay well, don’t have good job security, etc. They are also bad for national security. Countries need good manufacturing, energy, and food independence to be reasonably secure. We are way too vulnerable to economic warfare from China, Saudi Arabia,etc.

    Murray Rothbard was right about a lot of things, especially in the last few years of his life. Tariffs was not one of them. Pat Buchanan was correct to reject Rothbard’s advice on tariffs. Pat Buchanan, Perot, and Trump have been right on trade issues and a lot of other things.

  115. Yes, when I asked, “What’s the a better place to invest than the US stock market?” and go on to list several other places (Europe, Asia, China, Russia, Japan), it’s clear that I’m talking about locations.

    I love Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index and have cited it frequently. That being said, I think that list is more about where to live rather than where to invest (with the exception of Singapore, which has a poor record on civil liberties). I doubt anybody on this board has a significant portion of their portfolio in any of the top 10 countries. What countries are your stock funds invested, and in what percentages?

    Interestingly, many of the countries near the top of the list share something in common: multi-party democracy via Proportional Representation. Incidentally, there’s two obvious things that Buchanan, Perot, and Trump all have in common:

    1) none of them studied economics
    2) all of them are politicians (i.e., people notorious for telling voters what they want to hear)

    Also, not sure where you are getting your information, but the US has been a food exporter as long as I can remember and also energy-independent ever since the shale revolution. Manufacturing is not the key to economic security, as China’s current troubles show. It’s poverty-ridden developing nations that will dominate manufacturing because cheap labor is their comparative advantage. Any country that seeks to increase the quality of life for their citizens soon leaves manufacturing behind.

    Persian Gulf countries are obviously too reliant on energy prices, and OPEC’s pricing power is in decline. Switzerland’s economy relies too much on banking, which is a lot shakier these days with the failure of Credit Suisse (disclosure, I work at UBS), but it resembles the US a lot more than it doesn’t with a minority of workers in agriculture or manufacturing and most working in services (which includes finance). Ditto for East Asian countries that, like the US, have a strong emphasis on technology. Unlike the US, however, they are very vulnerable to geopolitical uncertainties (i.e., invasion from China), particularly Taiwan and South Korea, and so I wouldn’t particularly recommend investing there either.

    Speaking of which, as someone who’s worked in finance the past six years, while I view cryptocurrencies with hope that they may help lead us away from fiat currencies to free banking (i.e., competing privately issued currencies), I cannot recommend them as an investment due to their volatility and lack of intrinsic value to support their prices, an asset bubble is a very real danger. I don’t recommend putting more than 5% in your portfolio in them.

  116. I’ve found that direct investment in otherwise non public businesses which are open to select outside investment is more fun and profitable than owning stocks. Bonds are extremely boring (even at 65). I’ll echo recommendations above, crypto and metals. I also like real estate.

    Diversification is always key, as is having a plan and long term perspective. Anything remotely approaching day trading is essentially casino gaming without the entertainment benefits. I don’t keep anything significant in banks anymore. Crypto and other highly volatile investments are great if you have the back up funds and patience to hang on for a decade or two. Look at long term charts to see what I mean.

    I don’t invest in countries. I invest in ideas and people. I look over an operation in great detail before investing, including personal visitation and periodic revisitation. For virtual businesses, I meet the owners, get back end access, cross check financials, have “undercover” (sometimes relative/friends/contractors) testing of customer and employee/contractor experience, etc.

    I agree with Pig Farmer, best place to live depends on a lot of personal preferences, many of which have little or nothing to do with politics. I’m not sure I understand the current Heritage economic freedom picks. Many of their top choices have a giant nanny state with tons of red tape.

    There are certainly economic academics who support fair trade, but more fundamentally I would not fall for the simplistic notion that formal academic study of economics is the best avenue to expertise, or to identifying the people with best advice. Most formal academic economics is utter nonsense. Many people with much better understanding of economic and financial matters are businessmen and / or self taught, not highly regarded economics professors or people trotted out by establishment media as supposed experts.

    I agree with Pig Farmer about liability to foreign blackmail due to lack of economic independence, but nation state areas at present are far too large. Economic independence needs to be brought down to human scale. I propose nations of around 100k population +/- one order of magnitude ideally, but would be very happy with incremental movement in that direction, even well above that level. Humorous but true illustration of the problem of scale :

    https://web.mnstate.edu/alm/humor/ThePlan.htm

    Economics and culture are interwoven, and global scale trade and migration are culturally destructive. The scale of modern nations is also far too large, and the so called enlightenment has vastly overreached in its hubristic rejection of many social and political values which represent the net achievement of thousands of years of trial and error. While the modernist/ “enlightenment” criticism of the traditional ways of antiquity has some basis, it’s spun way out of control, leading to far worse results than the problems it allegedly solved or was designed to solve. The time scale for implementing large scale changes and testing results is far too short, while the geographic and demographic scale is far too massive. The modernists are far too convinced that their intellect alone holds all the answers, with no regard for collective wisdom earned the hard way over centuries and millennia. When confronted with actual results,they always double down, shift arguments, resort to ad hominem,etc.

    Furthermore, these so called intellectuals are generally quite ignorant and dismissive of perspectives far outside their own, or even with the classics of literature, philosophy, political and economic writing from before the so called enlightenment, from outside their part of the world or economic or political schools prevalent there, etc. I’ve always endeavoured to make my study of history, opinion, current events etc as wide ranging in perspective as possible.

  117. Max , pearls before swine, again . I know you’re talking to potential lurkers, not PGI, but even there, you exceed the audience intellect and attention span. I’m sure you know this already. Your points are all solid, but who’s going to read all that?

  118. Food exporter and food independence are two different things. Can America completely feed itself without major market disruption? Maybe, maybe not, but if it’s a net food exporter, that doesn’t answer the question. To take an extreme example, say a banana republic produces bananas for export exclusively, other than a few rotting bananas left to the locals, and imports all its other food. 90% of the population gets inadequate nutrition, but works long hours for low pay. This country could be a net food exporter, but far from food independence. That’s obviously not the US, but how seriously would US food supply and distribution be disrupted by an interruption in international trade?

    Energy independence works similarly. This may be more applicable to the US. Being a net exporter doesn’t mean we have energy security. Global energy supply disruption still leaves the US very vulnerable.

    Manufacturing works the same way. China and other hostile nations could cause a lot of problems due to global supply chains. Pandemics, real or hyped, and various other disruptions can too.

    Beyond that Max is right, we need a lot more local reliance way below the national level.

  119. My favorite strategy:

    tdotco slash N5ZKFqCKDK

    Try it yourself on paper first if you’re scared to risk real money or just can’t spare any, or live a little and give it a try. I’m not shilling anything. Believe me now or believe me later.

  120. 50% crypto since 2013. My crypto is up 100,000% in that time, despite all the naysayers and “crashes” it’s been very resilient and always comes back even way stronger than before, kind of like Trump. DJIA up a bit over 200% in the same time frame. Now moving to quant strategy, which the chart shows would have made me even way more money over that 10 year period. Check back in 5-10 years if you don’t believe me.

  121. Pig Farmer, your point is more valid for food than energy, as oil is a fungible commodity (i.e., it’s pretty much the same thing no matter where you get it from). But I would imagine the US produces a broad enough of foods to be far closer to food independence than any of the countries you named or the top ten in the Economic Freedom Index.

    By the way, Singapore being at the top of that list is a reminder that there are two axes of liberty, economic and social, and the best index for the latter that I’ve found so far is the Human Freedom Index maintained by Cato and Fraser:

    https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2022

    “we need a lot more local reliance way below the national level.”

    I’m actually fine with that as long as it is pursued via private and voluntary means (i.e, without big government telling people what they can or cannot buy).

    By the way, as someone just starting to get into bonds as I age, I don’t find them boring at all, at least in the security selection part (holding them to maturity is probably boring, but that’s kinda the point). Yes, you can make a lot of money in crypto, but there are also plenty of people who made a lot of money in Tulip Bulbs in the 17th century. Both stocks and bonds (at least, the ones worth buying) have expectations of generating future cash flows, so calculating their intrinsic value is relatively straightforward (easier for bonds, obviously). How do you calculate that for a cryptocurrency?

  122. Lastly, politicians — especially the elite ones that expect their claims to be believed just because of who they are — are just as likely to be dismissive of different perspectives as anybody.

    This is why I think it’s important to pay attention to how a person backs their claims and how they respond to critiques.

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