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Tough Questions

What's the worst a reporter could say about you?

That I'm not a serious candidate. I know I won't win, but I also know a few thousand people will vote for me, and they have the same right to express their principles at the ballot box as do those who vote for the incumbent. Most of those who will vote for me care deeply about the principle of liberty; are they not "serious" voters? The press coverage of this race is unlikely to include a detailed analysis of the differing platforms advocated by the three candidates. Can that coverage be called "serious" reporting?

Is it true you don't even live in the district in which you're running?

Yes. Members of Congress aren't required to live in the district they represent. Since coming to California in 1990, every place I've worked or lived was in the district at the time. When we bought our home it was in the district, but San Carlos was carved out in the 2001 redistricting (even though Belmont further north was left in). I'm sure my 3-bedroom San Carlos residence is more representative of CD14 than Anna Eshoo's Atherton mansion. :-)

What's the worst a Democrat could say about you?

That a vote for me might help elect the Republican.

What's the worst a Republican could say about you?

That a vote for me might help elect the Democrat.

What's the worst a fellow Libertarian could say about you?

I've been called a "socialist" by a one or two anarchist Libertarians -- even though I would reduce federal spending by at least 50%.

Isn't the Libertarian Party sort of a joke?

And the incumbent parties aren't? :-) The Libertarian Party is the easily the party whose principles are closest to the ideal of limited government, individual responsibility, and personal and economic liberty. As such, it attracts single-issue libertarians, who care less about a coherent program of limited government than they do about their pet issue: taxes, guns, privacy, hemp, pornography, etc. But under what party should one register if one believes in free minds and free markets? Registering as anything other than Libertarian signals to the rest of the polity that you either don't know or don't care about organized electoral action towards limiting government.

Aren't you just a paper candidate?

I'm an ideas candidate. My campaign strategy (if you could call it that) is to promote the idea of liberty to opinion leaders -- activists, academics, journalists, and voters who seriously analyze the positions of the candidates. I could put my name on a lot of yard signs in hopes that name recognition will garner a few extra votes, but that wouldn't promote the idea of liberty very much. Getting some voters to be enthusiastic about Brian Holtz might be good for my ego, but I'd rather have them be enthusiastic about the idea of free minds and free markets. The latter sort of enthusiasm is much more likely than the former to persist and propagate.

Isn't your campaign more about showing how principled and smart you are than actually making a difference?

I think principles have been shown by history to make all the difference, and I don't think it takes much smarts to recognize by now which principles work and which don't. But my campaign suggests to some people that I'm principled or smart, I can live with that.

How can you be considered a serious candidate if you aren't going to raise or spend major amounts of money?

I have no serious chance to win this election. Too much of the electorate already has a default voting behavior that does not involve evaluating third-party candidates, and it would take a few million dollars of advertising to change that.

Aren't your positions too extremist and impractical?

Some thought abolitionism and women's suffrage were impractical, too. My positions are guided by a combination of economic science and basic morality. If that combination is extreme or impractical, then our society has serious problems.

Aren't you some kind of militant atheist?

I am an atheist, and I do enjoy the intellectual challenge of debating the philosophical and historical foundations of theism. I take religion seriously, and I'm an attentive student of the New Testament. A few of my debates with Christian apologists are published on infidels.org, the leading web site for nontheism. As a Libertarian, I want to protect the government from religion, but also protect religion from government. If you think help from the government is needed by your god(s) in order to accomplish the goals of your god(s), then you should either vote against me or find a more powerful god.

Aren't you just some pseudo-intellectual dilettante?

I'm just a guy who happens to believe that ideas are important and who is always looking to trade in his ideas for better ones. I'm also not shy about sharing and testing and defending the best ideas I've found. If you see anything "pseudo" about any of my current ideas or about the way that I share or test or defend them, I invite you to point it out to me. You wouldn't be the first.