See I think he hasn’t read any Hayek either. I thought it was pretty obvious he really hasn’t read basically any books. And you don’t want to be sitting live on the aire claiming you’ve read stuff you haven’t. Not a very safe thing to be doing. Especially if you’re running for office.
Actually yeah, I think that’s exactly what happened.
So what? That doesn’t mean he did any actual real reading or research of his own. So he read one (admittedly) really short book in the 1970s on what a libertarian is and figured out he was “always a libertarian”, and that’s that.
I mean honestly, if you really do listen to his policies and reasonings (when he can actually give any) it’s quite obvious his views are incredibly inchoate and as I said he basically amounts to a typical (mostly) ignorant American who just happens to lean more libertarian instead of “liberal” or “conservative”. But he seems to know about just as much as any other average joe.
Seriously check out the link I gave on his foreign policy assessments.
I honestly don’t believe he’s really looked into anything much at all. He just thinks abortion is fine, marijuana is fine, and people should pay their own bills. He doesn’t really understand economics, he hasn’t really studied political philosophy; he just happens to lean toward more individuality. It’s interesting considering the thread that we’ve had going on it, but in thinking more about Gary Johnson, the term “left-libertarian” starts to make more sense to me. He’s like a hippie who just happens to think people should be more fiscally responsible. Maybe we should invent the term “libertarian-Lefty”. That’s kind of how Johnson strikes me.