The two other candidates

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In an election where the majority of voters will vote against someone rather than for someone, perhaps it is time to consider the two minor party candidates. If the idyllic casting of a citizen’s vote is to vote one’s conscience despite the mathematics of how it might help another more probable choice, then we should examine the other options for president that will appear on November’s ballot.

According to Real Clear Politics, the national poll monitoring website, in an average of the seven top national polls accounted during a period from Aug. 28 to Sept. 15, Republican nominee Donald J. Trump had a favorable rating of 38.5 percent and an unfavorable rating of 57.3 percent. His opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, had a favorable rating of 41.9 percent and an unfavorable rating of 54.9 percent. Since generally accepted scientific polling has been the standard commencing with the presidential race of 1960, these two nominees have the highest unfavorable ratings ever!

Consequently, the awareness of alternative candidates from minor parties becomes more important in this year’s presidential race.

Therefore, is it appropriate to discover who Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, and former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico, the Libertarian Party candidate, are and where they stand on pertinent issues.

George Washington, our first president, warned against factionalism and the danger of a domineering two-party system. He believed that ultimate liberty was preserved by the evaluation of a potential leader’s individual patriotism and character. Furthermore, he proffered that an allegiance to party can easily eclipse an official’s oath and duty to the nation. How prophetic our first president was and how apocryphal the two top political parties have become.

So, let us study the two other candidates. What are their prospective policies? What are their subjective professional histories? And will our consciences dictate that either Stein or Johnson is indeed more reflective of what we are looking for in our next president?

Stein, 66, a Harvard-trained physician specializing in internal medicine, ceased practicing and teaching medicine in 2007 to commence a career of environmental activism and politics. After serving on the Lexington Town Meeting, a legislative body, in Lexington, Mass., Stein ran for governor as nominee of the Green-Rainbow Party in 2010. She did not prevail.

In August of this year at the Green Party National Convention in Houston, Texas, she became the Green Party candidate for president on a platform of both environmental and liberal-progressive ideas. Many of her campaign standpoints are not dissimilar to those of Democratic primary presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Not surprisingly, the core of her campaign is a proposed “Green New Deal.” This concept was first coined by liberal journalist Thomas Freidman of the New York Times in 2007. Simply, the idea is to change the nation and the world’s paradigm toward renewable energy sources and away from fossil fuel, dirty coal, clean coal, fracking for natural gas, and mining.

In addition, Stein wants to provide further tax breaks for “Microgeneration.” This is the practice of small business and residential homeowners building self-contained energy generating sources, such as windmills and solar panels with governmental incentives. Some small-scale programs already exist. Stein wants to extend these programs on a mandatory basis for all new building in the United States. Her “Green New Deal” would seek to eliminate millions of fossil fuel related jobs with the unrealistic hope that green industry employment would rival or exceed the existing number of domestic energy sector jobs. From an unemployment standpoint, this plan is surrealistic.

Speaking of national unemployment, Stein wants to guarantee employment for chronically unemployable people by re-instituting programs akin to those orchestrated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. A modern day “Works Progress Administration” and a 100-percent promise of employment are untenable in the modern day and would skyrocket our already astronomical national debt, which dangerously sits around $19 trillion.

Also, Stein believes in single-payer health care (Medicare for all) and nationally legalized marijuana. She also believes that all state college and university tuition should be cost free for all students regardless of past academic records.

To pay for all of these impracticable notions, Stein wants to eliminate all tax breaks and tax shelters for Wall Street investors. And she wishes to change the 15 percent rate on dividend income to 39.6 percent, the top end marginal tax rate. She wants to add a half-percent tax on all financial transactions nationally. Additionally, the Green Party nominee wants to implement a 55 percent estate tax on all inheritors that have a personal assets value totaling over $3 million. The chances of any of these campaign promises becoming legislation that would pass through the majority Republican House of Representatives is nil.

The other minor party candidate is Johnson, the 63-year-old former two-time governor of New Mexico. Known as “Governor Veto” because of his record of using his executive veto 750 times during his eight years in office – more than any governor in the history of the nation – Johnson stopped excessive spending with his stamp and pen. As a result, he balanced budgets and lessened taxes every year in office. A Republican during his tenure in office, both “Blue Dog Democrats” (fiscal hawks) and fellow GOP officials praised his budgetary successes for New Mexico.

Johnson has become much more radical in his economic perceptions and intended practices since becoming the nominee of the Libertarian Party back in 2012 and currently.

Johnson wants to eliminate all forms of national taxation and replace them with a 23 percent consumption tax, essentially a national sales tax. This “Fair Tax” would apply to all goods and services rendered in the United States and its territories. Additionally, the former governor wishes to slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security by 43 percent. He has repeatedly called Social Security a pyramid scheme. He would eliminate an individual state’s ability to seek federal relief when faced with state insolvency. Also, he would not allow federal rescue of large investment firms or “too big to fail” banks.

Furthermore, his platform desires limited government, consolidation or eradication of many government departments, strict military non-intervention, a balanced federal budget annually, and the ending of the Federal Reserve System. Also, Johnson says he will end the “War on Drugs” and seek decriminalization of hard drug usage and he seeks to legalize marijuana.

On trade, the governor believes in free trade, globalization, and favors the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

One might presume that some of Johnson’s ideas could be resonating with the electorate at least somewhat. A recent NBC News poll had Johnson polling nationally at 11 percent, while the well-respected Quinnipiac poll had him polling at 13 percent. His other minor party opponent, Stein, has peaked so far in all national polls at 4 percent.

Unfortunately, neither figure is sufficient enough to qualify to appear in the upcoming first presidential debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) sets the rules, and is run by a bipartisan mix of Democrats and Republicans. This is another example of Washington’s prognostications regarding political parties sadly proving true.

All in all, it is fair to say that Stein and Johnson have some outlandish ideas. Nevertheless, with the major party candidates being so repellant and distrusted, maybe Stein and Johnson should be given a good long look.

If we truly value the sacrifice of those who have preserved our right to vote, then we must vote our conscience rather than figuring the odds of how the casting of our ballot affects other possible outcomes. Washington’s sentiments were correct. Cast your ballot for who you think is the best person to lead our country, not for a party and not for a presumed result of an electoral equation!

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