Are Most Techies Libertarians?

I honestly agree with this idea, and I'll toss Dr. David Brin into the mix -- he's written much about how left-libertarian the science fiction community tends to be (and they're mostly degreed scientists). Same thing with the open source community...

http://loljohnmccain.com/

not run by the campaign at all, yet still a lot of fun. Laughter is a powerful tool.

maybe looking at the campaign is too nearsighted...

Really now...so let me see if I can understand this.  You've voted Libertarian in the past.  You believe in "low taxes and minimal economic interference".  Yet in the past election you voted for the party that stands diametrically opposed to "low taxes and minimal economic interference", because you were pissed off at the social conservatives, who didn't even register as a blip on the campaign radar?  Methinks there is more to your protestations than you are leading on.

What the hell? Okay, let me be clear about something. Prongs 2 and 3 are not by any means doctrinaire libertarian positions. Number 2 is only popular among radical Lew Rockwell style people, and as for Number 3...you must know some very strange people. Number 1 is fairly mainstream among libertarians, but why do you oppose it so fervently? Do you think they just want people to do drugs all the time? If you listened to their economic arguments, they actually make a great deal of sense.

As long as Republicans want to keep raiding medical pot patients, I'll be PROUD to help them keep losing elections, even if it means making equally statist Democrats win. You people, as Bob "Accidental Discharge" Barr showed all too well, learn in the tax and spend drugwar debate via one method: Tough love. That means you'll need to either do that tail between the legs retreat thing on the pot issue, or keep losing. No other choices exist. Pot will be regulated and taxed just like cigs and booze, with or without Republicans in political power.

As for the other stuff, that's bullshit (more military contributions -- deal with it!) and bullshit (more blacks in RP's crowds than ANY other Republican primary candidate -- deal with it!) so I won't even dignify it with more of a response to your drivel.

Oh, I think the 'delivery' problems for at least the past eight years have been just as damaging as any 'packaging' concerns.  Who would argue that 'customer service' during the Bush administration has been anything but nonexistent to disastrous?  There are very few ways to package and sell what many voters, especially young voters, see as seriously damaged goods.  And it begs the question: if the policies are superior, why can't the GOP deliver the goods?  IMHO the short answer is that it has been ALL about packaging for the past decade, with little to no emphasis on policies and delivery.  The GOP is suffering from the same market dynamics affecting the Big 3:  inferior product at too high a price.

There's a legitimate beef about H1-B visas among tech workers.  The H1-B program was originally intended to aid employers who legitimately could not find qualified hires domestically, but in recent years tech employers have successfully lobbied to increase the number of H1-Bs issued annually, to pay H1-B workers less than domestic workers via HR legerdemain, and to prevent meaningful oversight of the program.  Employers aren't required to recruit domestically before trying to recruit an H1-B employee; H1-B workers can be hired even if a qualified domestic worker wants the job, and a qualified domestic worker can be displaced from an existing job in favor of an H1-B worker.  While employers have to attest that the H1-B worker is being paid the "prevailing wage" for their skill level, the regulatory standards for calculating the "prevailing wage" enable employers to classify virtually all H1-B workers at a lower skill level, and thus at a lower salary level, than they'd pay a domestic worker.  Finally, while the Department of Labor allegedly oversees the program, the DoL is prohibited by statute from doing much more than verifying the employer attestation forms are filled out correctly.

In sum, there's a not-unjustified sentiment that tech employers are using the H1-B program to hire cheap foreign labor in an effort to avoid having to pay what the market will bear for domestic talent.  I yield to no one in defense of the free market, but the U.S. labor market isn't free today, and there's a legitimate argument that the H1-B program is simply distorting it further via what's essentially a corporate subsidy, and to the detriment of domestic workers.