Gary Johnson Would Make a Better POTUS Than Donald Trump

Introduction: LikabilityMy opponent claims that Donald Trump's repugnant character is a rouse to gain popularity. This is a questionable tactic considering Trump's obnoxious persona is the reason he is so vehemently hated by many in his own party, and all around the world [1]. People don't like to work with others they don't like. Working with foreign leaders and being sensitive to cultural differences is important, while Trump has proven he is very me-centric and not respectful or knowledgeable enough to adapt to other people's cultural expectations. He brags about doing the opposite.In this debate, we are mainly looking at the candidate's personality and platforms -- not the actual limitations of the presidency as it pertains to Congressional gridlock. Yet Con wants to use Trump's (questionable) record as a businessman as an indicator of his competency to guide Congress effectively. First, let's not ignore Gary Johnson's own success as a businessman. He is multi-millionaire CEO. In 1999 he got $10 million for a handyman business he started his junior year of college and built into a 1,000-employee construction firm (without a small loan of a million dollars). He now runs a company in an entirely new industry, proving he does have the skill of adaptability. Trump's position is largely in part to his incredibly wealthy family who sent him to private schools and gave him every opportunity in the world to network with rich investors and grow his already inherited wealth. Let's not pretend that Donald's business savvy is the foremost reason for his success. Nevertheless, Con suggests "It's likely that [Johnson] would just be yet another obstructionist, 'do-nothing' president." But I reject the notion that a "do-nothing" president is a bad one. Con is completely wrong in saying that Johnson using his veto power to effectively govern is unproductive or "do nothing." On the contrary, Johnson balanced the budget and created a substantial reserve fund. This required far more than simply nixing every proposal. He took proactive measures to fix the budget. Democrats appreciate that libertarians are socially liberal, while Republicans respect libertarianism's fiscal responsibility. A push toward libertarianism in Congress encourages compromise on the grounds of reducing government involvement in our lives. By "doing nothing" Congress might actually be more successful. Moving on, Con says that Donald Trump is open to advisory, specifically on foreign policy. But Donald's Trump list of proposed advisers is laughable at best. One of his advisers is a 2009 college graduate who lists Model UN as a credential [2]. Others have a slew of corruption allegations [3]. Several experts claim that Trump’s failure to staff up his foreign-policy team is unprecedented, and his "move to surround himself with neophytes and fringe players suggests he doesn’t grasp how Washington’s network of decision-makers collaborate on important global decisions" [3]. Nearly everyone is baffled by his choices [4] and his own party considers his advisers "rotten" [5]. This is more evidence of Donald's selfish, untrustworthy nature and questionable judgment.It is not a bare assertion that Trump engages in hostile conflicts; it is a well documented reality [6] and regardless of his motives, not a good indication of how Trump will deal with other important authorities.Military and Foreign PolicyCon falsely accuses Gary Johnson of being an isolationist. He is not. Gary Johnson supports responsible interventionism. Our militaristic engagements and foreign policy have proven to be incredibly harmful and counterproductive; you'll notice that Can does not (and can not) contest this. But Donald Trump wants to perpetuate more of our absurd policies. It was U.S. interventionism that has specifically led to the creation and empowerment of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda [7]. My opponent has failed to show how U.S. militaristic hegemony has preserved peace. On the contrary, we have been involved in perpetual militaristic conflict for decades while continuous violence has ensued despite our routine interventionism. This has had unjustifiably expensive and proven dangerous blowback that threatens our national security [8]. Con claims that Trump wants to cut military spending and cited a #7 source that did not prove this at all. Instead his source confirmed my points about massive military (wasteful) spending and why it needs to be curbed. We have every reason to believe that Johnson will scale back spending while Trump will not.Donald has said he wants to build more ships and planes [9]. This is a massive expense, and one that he cannot push on our allies. He can't control them, and he exaggerates the burden our allies put on our military anyhow [10].Donald Trump told Sean Hannity in March 2016 that he would increase military spending [11]. RBC Capital Markets' Robert Stallard said Trump's "typically erratic" stance on foreign policy creates enough uncertainty to imagine a serious jump in spending [12].We know his proposals will increase DOD spending including the border fence; calling to take out ISIS with continual presence overseas; his anti-NATO stance with Russia and his condemnation of the Iran Deal, which leads to greater conflict in the Middle East. His positions on China and Japan's nuclear weapons could also promote violence in Asia. He also wants to add more military personnel. War on Drugs Con says that I've misrepresented Trump's position but cannot prove it. I specified that Trump used to be opposed to the War on Drugs, but now he is not. Con's source proves my point! Here is an exact quote from Con's very own source which is directed at Trump: "You used to think that legalization, taking the profit out, would solve that problem. What changed your mind?" As you can see, Trump changed his mind. And since my opponent did not (can not) disprove my comments on the War on Drugs being a miserable failure -- as well as tried to misrepresent Trumps position -- you can see that Trump actually IS now in fact on the wrong side of this very important topic as I claimed, per Con's very own source. Another one of Con's sources quotes Trump saying in 2015 "Medical marijuana is another thing, but I think [recreational marijuana] it's bad. And I feel strongly about that." If Trump won't even legalize POT (which is the safest drug of all), we have no reason whatsoever to believe Trump is for decriminalizing drugs. Here are several more sources where Trump flip-flops and claims he is NOT opposed to the War on Drugs [13, 14, 15]. And moreover, the fact that Trump repeatedly posits that drug smugglers are crossing the border and destroying the country, shows us that he is not in fact open to the legalization of drugs. Extend every single one of my arguments regarding Johnson's policy being superior to Trump's in this regard.The EconomyCon claims that U.S. debt isn't a problem. As the national debt per capita increases, "it reduces the amount of tax revenue available to spend on other governmental services. Over time this will cause people to experience a lower standard of living" [16]. Corporations will have to raise the prices of goods to accommodate lending margins. People will have to pay more for things, thereby resulting in inflation. Plus the cost of borrowing money (specifically for homes) will increase for Americans [16]. Increased government debt means productivity is stifled; the economy does not grow and people lose jobs [17]. Stagnation ensues. So yes debt IS a big deal. "Perhaps most importantly, as the risk of a country defaulting on its debt service obligation increases, the country loses its social, economic and political power. This in turn makes the national debt level a national security issue" [16].By cutting public services, Gary Johnson is diverting public jobs to the private sector where they belong. Tax payers do not have to overpay and people in the private sector are taxed, which actually contributes to the tax pool whereas taxing public employees is redundant and does not alleviate our tax burden. The private sector is more efficient [18, 19, 20] so Con has not proven Johnson's economic policy is bad. Con naively suggests that Trump's policies won't increase the deficit. But Trump's plan has been called impossible [21] and would allegedly add trillions to our debt [22]. He wants to cut taxes but not remove some of our greatest expenditures. Trump is not fiscally conservative. I'll expand more on the economy (specifically tarriffs) next round.Immigration Con does not contest the border fence will cost billions - which Con says is perfectly fine; that it will not cover all U.S. borders; and that most illegal immigrants enter the U.S. by plane, thereby making this a moot "solution." Therefore most of the crime Con attributes to immigrants would still exist even with Trump's wall. However I've already explained that most immigrants do not engage in violent crime which I've sourced in the last round, and here's another saying that only a tiny percentage of the nation’s violent crimes are attributed to immigrants [23]. Con's source contains manipulative figures. Moreover, I've already explained how the vast majority of violent crime (especially by immigrants) is a direct result of the War on Drugs.The quote about refugee screening was in direct relation to how people here on student visas or naturalized American citizens are the ones who create the majority of violent crime.Extend my arguments on Trump inhibiting foreign labor and the subsequent negative effects.Con says the wall is about screening. But Gary Johnson WOULD ALSO screen immigrants. He is in favor of background checks for immigrants [24] because "federal authorities DO need to know who is crossing our borders and be able to prevent criminals from entering the country" [25]. SOURCES: http://www.debate.org...