If you're not familiar with Thomas Massie, he's a congressman from Kentucky's 4th district. He's a libertarian-leaning conservative, and, IMO, the most interesting man in Washington. The fact that he's been chosen by the good people of Northern Kentucky is part of the reason why I plan to jump the river from Cincinnati in the near future, as they are clearly my kind of people.

He looks like he chugs syrup. 

Again, another draw to move to Kentucky. We can chug syrup together.

So, do you need curly hair to join the KY Libertarian party?

He's a Republican.

posted by justincredible

He's a Republican.

That doesn't answer his question. 

I don't believe curly hair is a requirement, but I can't be certain.

Watching the video now.  The landscape is beautiful country.  Is that the type of land you want to own?  Can you get it on the cheap in Kentucky?  

(will continue to comment)

I've seen cheap land deep into Kentucky (as low as $1k/acre), but I'm not sure I can talk my wife into moving that far away from the city. As it stands, we're looking at 20ish miles from downtown Cincinnati and it's going to be $10k/acre, give or take.

- "Live and Let Live" - Such a great motto.  Let people do what they want, and you do what you want.  Stay out of each other's business.

- His house is incredible.

- I absolutely love how he organized his following, the local govt. told him to sit down and shut up (basically), and his following all gave him their allotted time frame to speak to the local govt.  I love middle fingers to the govt.

- Don't touch the metal bucket to the [electric] duck fence... because you might mispronounce duck.  lol

- "We need to keep government in check" - amen

- The cattle portion made me ragey.  Fuck the USDA

- I really like Massie, and his curly hair.

He's a modern day Renaissance man, for sure. Got, I'm guessing, pretty damn wealthy by inventing a virtual reality technology as a student at MIT, built a company of over 70 employees with the tech. Then he built his own damn house.

"So I was studying up on timber framing, and took a weeklong class in Tennessee. Then I build my own house using timber from my farm I milled in my own sawmill."

I also watched a video from his personal youtube channel a while back where he bought a totaled Tesla and turned the battery into a battery system for storing the solar power from his house.

Here is the Tesla video. Love that his personal youtube name is oldmilwaukee100.

posted by gut

So, do you need curly hair to join the KY Libertarian party?

Closer to being rumpled, like Sherrod Brown.

I prefer the Rand Paul curl.

The saddest part about all of this is that America is too stupid to ever back a guy like this.  Big Money will always shut these people down, and the idiots will just fall in line and do what [Big Money] tells them to do, and think what they're told to think.  

What has really resonated with me (from the video) is what he states about "buying local."  We should trust local much more than we trust what the USDA tells us to trust.  Gives you a ton of respect for the local farmer, and really puts things into perspective.  A lot of times we feel that things must be "exotic" for them to be any "good."  

Indeed. I am glad I shared the video and at least one person watched it. We certainly need more folks like Mr Massie in Washington, but I fear you're right. Big money is always going to win out in the end. 

I feel like we've discussed this.  Do libertarians fail because of a lack of money, or because of lazy voters entrenched in a 2-party system?

Koch ran for POTUS as a libertarian.  He gives most of his money to Republicans.  Why do you think that is?  Because there's no coalition of Libertarians capable of accomplishing any agenda.  Money is going to back a winner.  3rd Parties can't win, so they get no money.

The sad reality is, 80% of Americans blindly vote straight ticket.  So long as that continues, 3rd Parties have 0 chance of amounting to anything significant in Washington.  The closest we've seen is a "Tea Party" candidate running as a Republican.  You can be a Libertarian, but you'll have to run as a Repub (why they can't run as a Democrat is another debate).

posted by gut

I feel like we've discussed this.  Do libertarians fail because of a lack of money, or because of lazy voters entrenched in a 2-party system?

Yes. Also doesn't help that there is a concerted effort by the Rep-Dem duopoly to shut them out of any significant debate. 

A move to ranked choice voting would go a long way, IMO, to breaking up the duopoly. A lot of people vote defensively. I hear it a lot from friends, being a pretty vocal libertarian. "I like most of what I hear about libertarianism, and X candidate, but I don't want the [other party] to win so I'm holding my nose and voting for Y candidate." Ranked choice would allow you to actually vote your conscience without the fear of 'wasting' (hate this argument) your vote on someone that can't win.

https://www.fairvote.org/rcv#where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used

posted by gut

I feel like we've discussed this.  Do libertarians fail because of a lack of money, or because of lazy voters entrenched in a 2-party system?

Koch ran for POTUS as a libertarian.  He gives most of his money to Republicans.  Why do you think that is?  Because there's no coalition of Libertarians capable of accomplishing any agenda.  Money is going to back a winner.  3rd Parties can't win, so they get no money.

The sad reality is, 80% of Americans blindly vote straight ticket.  So long as that continues, 3rd Parties have 0 chance of amounting to anything significant in Washington.  The closest we've seen is a "Tea Party" candidate running as a Republican.  You can be a Libertarian, but you'll have to run as a Repub (why they can't run as a Democrat is another debate).

Highlighted the important parts of your post for you... 

lol

Great watch, thanks for posting. Heard of him before but didn’t know anything about him.

ETB made me LOL

Bumping an old thread here.

His wife died yesterday.

posted by justincredible

Bumping an old thread here.

His wife died yesterday.

What? Was she ill?

I'm not 100% sure, I just saw he tweeted about it this morning.

https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1806685880330903837