Vote Libertarian: Nobody Will Notice
Bill Hobbs compares the current big government GOP and the Democrats. His conclusion (paraphrased, of course) is support the lesser of two evils. Additionally, he states in comments:
Well, you can vote Libertarian, and have no influence, while the Dems win and expand government exponentially while losing the war on terror, or while the GOP wins and expands the govt a little less rapidly and wins the war on terror. No good choices.
Herein lies my dilemma regarding the presidential election: Who do I vote for? I don’t like any of the Democrats, as they are big government cronies engaging in class warfare. I think Bush is slightly less bad than the Democrats (he’s big government, despite the rhetoric) but Ashcroft (who is only slightly better than Reno since he hasn’t burned down a religious complex yet) absolutely must go (even some other hardcore conservatives feel this way).
Others have advocated a legitimate third party, some even sort of in jest. Sadly, the third party can’t win under current political conditions. But they can ensure that someone will lose, remember Nader?
As of now, I fully intend to vote for the Libertarian Party (big L) candidate and hope others will do the same. Some people have called this idea stupid. There reason is that they don’t want Democrats in office, ever. But I, being up to my nefarious shenanigans, have decided I am willing to accept four years of a Democrat administration to send the message to the Republican Party that they need to return to being the party of small government and that they can’t forsake their political base to make some power plays. And the Bush administration only plays lip service to gun rights.
So, my campaign slogan is: Vote Libertarian! Maybe Someone Will Notice!
Update: Bill comments back at his blog that I am off the mark by stating he actively supports the lesser of evils. He does not, in fact, mean he supports them in that manner but that the GOP is kowtowing in the spirit of compromise to the the Big Spenders. However, the de facto implication is that he supports the GOP because they are not as bad as Democrats.
August 12th, 2003 at 2:59 pm
The Founding Fathers abhorred parties because they saw it led to the very situation we have today. Neither party supports anything but what will get it re-elected and in control of the money trough. Everything electoral is deformed to their needs: ballot access has been rigged in favor of the established parties; the press takes only them seriously; the government funds their activities; etc.
You forgot to mention the Reform Party. They came sooooo close! They denied the Republicans a victory and got Clintoon into office the first time. Had a better man been the leader, they might have jump-started the first serious third party in the last century. They nearly made the Democrats a second-tier party according to FEC rules! At one point, Clinton was polling at only 23%, below the threshold for major-party status, and there was real talk of the party being crippled as a result. Shortly after came the famous, Clinton-bootstrapping of the “Comeback Kid,” where he named himself that (listen to the speech) and the press picked it up and ran it like it was their name. It was brilliant, but helped sink the Reforms, nearly as much as Perot’s own wackiness did.
It might also have been the Libertarians moment of opportunity, but the principled purists own the party and so it languishes in a pure and ineffectual state. The upper ranks of the party have problems with despostism (so I am told) and the majority of the leadership (such as it is) are folks who want Libertarian principles “all the way, right now, deal with it” and are not willing to be gradualists. It’s a formula for disaster, as we’ve seen. Even when the political climate favors libertarian principles as never before, polling for the Libs has been falling the past decade when it should be climbing.
Still, I’ll vote Libertarian because it’s closest to my own philosophy. Republicans are arrogant, stupid and fat. They don’t deserve anything. Here they’ve been given the very opportunity they’ve desired for decades and we see what they’re doing with it. They’ve revealed their true natures. Screw ’em.
August 12th, 2003 at 3:03 pm
And you’re not blogging currently for what possible reason?
August 12th, 2003 at 3:29 pm
Voting Libertarian will do about as much good as voting Green did for the democrats in 2000.
While that statement might highlight its disastrous side-effects (Bush in the white house), I don’t mean to ignore the other side-effects which are good: namely, getting the democrats to pay attention to its more liberal, leftist constituency. It just came at a very high, idiotic price.
The question is: can you afford to vote Libertarian?
That said, go ahead and do it. We’re gonna need all the help we can get this round. 🙂
August 12th, 2003 at 6:00 pm
You can argue that Ralph Nader could ultimately force the Dems to field an actual liberal as their candidate like Dean rather than someone like Lieberman who has been described as a “closet Republican”. The Dems have to worry about the people to the left of them as well as the right..I could see how forcing the Republicans to do the same could yield much better candidates.
August 12th, 2003 at 10:52 pm
I was one of the idiots who voted for Perot in the belief that it “would send the Republicans a message.” It did. It got us not four, but EIGHT years of Clinton. And it very nearly got us four of Gore.
No more message-sending. If the Libertarian Party presents someone who I believe would be a viable candidate, I’ll vote for him or her, but first they’d better get some representation in Congress. A Libertarian sitting in the White House with a Congress full of Democrats and Republicans will accomplish exactly zero.
Wait a minute…..
August 13th, 2003 at 1:13 pm
If big L libertarians don’t face reality, they’ll never be a force in American politics, which pisses me off because while my personal beliefs are conservative (I know, big surprise) my political philosophy is libertarian. I like a small gov’t.
So, like you Uncle, I have to decide whether to “waste” my vote on a candidat unlikely to win, or vote for the guy closest to my beliefs who has a shot to win.
I’m leaning toward the former, only because even if my one vote tips the balance from Bush to whoever the dems put up, the Congress will still be controlled by reps, or so nearly divided as makes no difference.
What I’d really like to see is libertarian candidates running on a local level, building up asupport there before going national.
August 13th, 2003 at 2:13 pm
Kevin: I voted for Nader because I didn’t like Gore or Bush in 2000. Would I cast a protest vote again? Sure. Would I be as quick to do it as I was in 2000? Probably not.
August 13th, 2003 at 2:30 pm
I vote Libertarian on the Alabama level and we lost and lost big. We were shut out of the debates by the Montgomery Advertizer and other media that controlled the debates despite our (at the time) Major Party Status.
Instead of a Montgomery tax and spend Democrat, we got a Washington insider Republican who promptly got a deal with the Alabama Teachers union and put into place a plan for the Largest tax hike in our history.
Now, how was that about the Republicans being the lesser of two evils?
August 21st, 2003 at 5:29 pm
I am commenting on the first comment “The Founding Fathers abhorred parties because they saw it led to the very situation we have today”. Going to have to disagree. It is technically correct in that the Federalist did not want parties they wanted all Federalist and vice versa for the Republicans. But that is human nature, your side is better, and all would be better if everybody aggreed with my side.
However, the country was founded with the party system (I believe some choice is better than no choice) and political debate. FOUNDING BROTHERS by Joseph J. Ellis is a good short read (just took me a couple of days and I am slow reader)that will give better insight to exactly what I am saying. Good book.