Nick Gillespie debating Walter Block

**Meritocrat** · 08-17-2016, 03:17 AM

"Libertarians should vote for Donald Trump in the Presidential Election."

November 1, NYC, 6:30 pm, Soho Forum

**Danke** · 08-17-2016, 08:57 AM

Thanks for the link.

**NewRightLibertarian** · 08-17-2016, 09:01 AM

#StandWithBlock

**undergroundrr** · 08-17-2016, 09:11 AM

Somehow trump and evictionism go together.

**Meritocrat** · 10-31-2016, 04:21 AM

Hope to see you there tomorrow.

**Meritocrat** · 11-02-2016, 05:04 AM

Mr. Block opens the debate with a number of sound and well organized arguments for voting for Trump, but then surrenders the contest by suggesting that it is OK for those in pre-decided states to vote for Gary Johnson (a bad idea since popular vote could help decide the winner of the election).

Mr. Gillespie's first words in response are an insult to the hosts and audience. He asks who intends to vote for Trump and if is there anything he could say to dissuade them, concluding contemptuously that there isn't. He then launches into a number of ad hominem attacks on Trump. The laughter these elicit prime the audience for series of appeal to ridicule fallacies.

The Reason editor continues throughout the debate to ask the audience questions. By getting people to repeatedly raise their hands a speaker can condition the audience to agree with his points. Such a tactic is only resorted to when one has weak arguments.

Mr. Gillespie suggests that enforcing immigration laws means checking papers and physically removing people from the soil when simply dropping benefits and making it difficult to hide in plain sight will have majority of illegals self-deport requiring no intrusion or violence.

As expected, he talked about how his parents came to the US from Italy and Ireland, ignoring the glaring differences between a countries that helped start the Renaissance and countries such as Syria and Mexico that have yet to live through it. He claims with no references that illegal immigrants commit less crime than natural born citizens when the fact is that most illegal immigrants arrive in America as violators and victims.

Mr. Gillespie ridicules Mr. Block’s notion that voting for Trump could prevent World War III. Currency wars are reaching a breaking point, the everything bubble appears to be popping, destroying the narrative of global economic recovery, The US and Russia are on opposite sides of a civil war in Syria with the Democratic nominee for president threatening to shoot down the planes that fly over the country, yet the editor of Reason believes that a world war can never happen again, presumably because it just hasn’t happened yet in his lifetime.

As his main reason for voting for Gary Johnson over Donald Trump, Mr. Gillespie asks the audience to think of the long game. If Gary Johnson gets a few percentage points more than the last Libertarian candidate, the two major parties will have to consider his watered-down libertarian perspectives next time around. Seriously!

Mr. Block should have answered that the long game is saving Western Civilization. He did a good job of outlining the threat of World War III if Hillary is elected, but should have talked more about the virtues of electing a man who never held public office before and is unlikely to after. A return to the meritocracy that made the country great.

Mr. Block failed to knock down a number of Gillespie’s arguments and instead got caught in the weeds on the relatively insignificant and over-down gay wedding catering controversy and pressed too hard on the false dilemma “gun to the head” fallacy.