No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

Funny, one of the first few days that I knew Rammage, he was carrying a clipboard rallying people to vote for Perot back then.

To think we've come this far. ;-)

In 6+ years of knowing the two of you, I don't think I ever heard about that.

That little factoid I had planned on keeping buried away in the vault. But, yes, Ross Perot was the recipient of my first-ever presidential vote. And I blame myself, personally, for 8 years of Clinton. I learned my lesson and have been straight-ticket Republican ever since. ;-)

Incidentally, I still have a mint Perot bumper sticker. You think that'll be worth something someday, like all that McGovern memorabilia?

Yes, I do. I wonder what it's worth today.

Almost nothing, according to eBay.

That said, I don't have a problem with "throwing my vote away." Knowing that I won't be satisfied with the result of the election in any case, at least I can claim the moral highground. I can always say "Don't blame me, I voted for (someone else)."

"Almost nothing, according to eBay."

Damn! Well, I guess the bumper stick goes back into the vault for another 30 years.

I guess the question of "wasting your vote" is one that all libertarians wrestle with (even double small "l" "libertarian leaning" independents like myself).

The 3rd Party party problem is clear. As you discovered yourself, to the degree that a 3rd party is effective, it is to achieve the probable opposite result of a preferred outcome. Perot is effective, Clinton wins. Nader is effective, Bush wins.

The Libertarian Party is unique. Since it pulls more or less equally from both major parties, it is always impotent in national elections, (even in a negative way) and can be safely ignored by both major parties.

Admittedly a longshot, but I think there is a way for libertarians to become a relevant political force, which I outlined in my post Hand Wringing Libertarians

...in '06, with a limited turnout, and a highly polarized electorate, it is just possible that a simple idea, widely communicated, to a relatively very few voters on the margin can make a difference. If only there was some sort of ubiquitous communication medium that had the potential of getting this idea widely disseminated, we might get just enough votes to make a difference. Something like a vast network of tubes. Too bad it does not exist. If it did we could let the politicians know that thereis a libertarian voting block that does not throw it's vote away every election.

What is needed, for this to work in this very short time-frame, is an organizing principle. A principle that is so obvious, so logical, and so clear-cut, that no leadership is needed, no parties are needed, no candidates are needed, and no infrastructure is needed. Ideally it is just this easy: You think about the principle, and you know how to vote.

That organizing principle exists. It is Divided Government. It is absolutely clear-cut and easy to understand. Divided Government is documented by Niskanen et.al. to work in a practical real-world manner to restrain the growth of the state. The entire idea can be communicated in a sound byte. As a voting strategy it can be implemented immediately.

Whatever the percentage of the electorate that libertarians and disgruntled limited government advocates represent, whether it is 9% or 20%, if they vote as a block for Divided Government, they become the brokers of an evenly split partisan electorate. They arguably become the single most most potent voting block in the country, specifically because they are willing to vote either Democratic or Republican as a block. Specifically because they are not fused to one party or the other.

It means, libertarians must ignore what the politicians say and look at what they actually do (Niskanen again). It means ignoring spurious invitations to fuse with either "big tent" party that no longer stands for anything meaningful. It means voting straight Democratic in 2006, and (if successful in establishing divided government) voting Republican for President in 2008. It means the difference between libertarians being a completely impotent political force, and libertarians having the biggest swinging political "hammer" in town.

And it can be done this year.

It can be done in the next in the next three months.
Just Vote Divided.

I am so ashamed that I wasted my vote on George Bush. What was I thinking? Why did I let my right wing extremist, neo-conservative, neo-evangelical thinking get in the way of exercising sound personal judgment when I entered that voting booth?

Growing up, I was led to believe that the Republican Party was a grass roots party of the people & for the people. In retrospect, it is clear that the last 3 presidents produced by the Republican Party were nothing more then the rich man’s rich man hiding under the disguise of jingoistic patriotism and the lie of conservative values. The economic dark ages of reagonomics fleeced the middle and lower classes of this county simply to benefit the rich and wealthy and waste money on unnecessary unconstitutional military actions. George Sr. carried that same self-serving torch. George Jr. has quietly shifted this country back to those dark ages. Bush inherited a strong economy and squandered that real quick. And even though 9 -11 did happen, none of bush’s reckless decisions are in any way justified by that day in history. It is clear that he never had any real salient foreign & domestic policies when he became president in 2000. Bush and Cheney have pimped the Presidency and turned the senate into an auction house for legislation to the highest bidder.

Now we have 3 more years of neoconservative republican lies and a growing body count overseas. When are people going to wake up to the truth that neoconservative political philosophy does not work for anyone but the rich and wealthy at the top? When are people in the USA going to wake up to the fact that neoconservative republican political philosophy does not even cross paths with reality? The main goal of the neoconservatives who have destroyed the soul of the Republican Party is to consolidate national wealth to the nation’s top 2% wealthiest at the expense of the middle and lower classes while imperialistically occupying other nations. This is promoted under the façade of promoting democracy elsewhere in order to hide ugly truth regarding the real agenda. It is imperialism but we are now trying to do it to other countries instead of the British doing it to us.

Anyone who believes George war bush’s lies about promoting democracy in these Middle Eastern Islamic states is living in serious denial of reality. Those who believe bush’s lies are simply easy pickins and victims of logical fallacies. Historians and political scholars realize that to impose such changes on another country takes decades and that is only if it seriously adopted. Something that you are not going to make happen in an Islamic state. Also, the very definition of democracy is not something that the United States has any claim of ownership to. But then, if one looks at Bush’s view of democracy, it more closely resembles Mexico where you have a small rich elite ruling class and no middle class. In short…..a plutocracy.

If we ever actually do get out of Iraq, nothing will have changed and nothing will have been gained. The American people have never been given a specific objective in Iraq or a clear definition of exactly what “victory in Iraq” is from the president. Invading Iraq never had anything to do with, WMD, freeing the Iraqi people or making Americans safer and secure. Statements about WMD, Freeing Iraq or Making America Safer are nothing more then a neo-conservative marketing spin used to hide the ugly truth and make the lies palatable to the American public and justifiable to the red necks who voted for him. Bush likes to make statements such as “It’s worth the price” but he never says just what exactly “it” is. If he really believes that all of his waste of human lives and our tax dollars are worth it, then he should put his money where his mouth is and send his little party animals to go fight in Iraq.

Better yet…send his vicious vile spewing mouthpiece Ann Coulter to fight in Iraq. It would not take much to shut her big fucking mouth up if she ever actually had to stand up and be counted for what she claims to believe while being held captive by Islamic militants. Isn’t it strange how all these young republican youths who get interviewed claim to be for Bush’s private pseudo war, but very few if any at all are willing to enlist in the military??? Hey Ann…shut your big fucking mouth up and go fight in Iraq if you truly believe all the hateful vicious anti-Christian spew that those like you conveniently throw out during dinner presentations and Fox news interviews. If you were the last woman on earth, I doubt that any self respecting man would choose to fuck you with bush or cheney’s little dick.

The Republican Party is currently composed of a lot of gutless big mouthed chicken hawks. Those who believe that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. These chicken hawks are cowardly idiots who not only advocate wars, but they also believe that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require. You know the type…quick to judge, quick to anger and very very slow to understand. These republican chicken hawks will, conversely, attempt to depict those who oppose such wars as being weak, spineless and cowardly even though the war opponents are not seeking to avoid any personal risk to themselves, but instead, are arguing against subjecting their fellow citizens to what they perceive are unnecessary dangers.

Under the current President of the USA, we have now seen what the Republican party really stands for now that they have had about 6 or so good years of unobstructed ruling power. Yup…they’ve had their chance to demonstrate what they are made of and we can all now see that they are not what they claim to be. They are basically, a bunch of uncompassionate, un-conservative hypocrites. Fake, Christian, hate mongering Taliban trash like Ann Coulter.

I for one am tired of our political party making all these huge messes that have historically fallen to Democrats to clean up. Clinton took the 2 trillion dollar deficit economy that he inherited from our boys Reagan & Bush Sr. and prospered the country into one with a surplus without overtaxing the rich, middle and lower classes. Wake up America! Bush created the mess in the middle east starting with his personal desire to invade Iraq. “War on Terror???” Wake up America… you cannot wage war on a concept. Reagan sold this lie to us with his so called war on a concept we all know as the “war on drugs”. This has done absolutely nothing for our country. You cannot wage war on a concept but Bush, Cheney and most of the Republican Party hope that most Americans are stupid and impressionable enough to believe their lies.

The republican party claims to be for smaller less wasteful government but the current administration is responsible for the waste of more money, resources and human lives then any past democrat presidency. I have a hard time sleeping at night knowing that the blood of Americans and innocent Iraqi civilians is on my hands and the hands of those who voted for Cheney….I mean Bush. The real legacy of the bush administration is going to be one characterized by lots of wrongful deaths, lots of money and resources wasted, unnecessary tax increases for our children and grandchildren and the unnecessary destruction of various social programs that were never in need of fixing or eliminating to begin with.

Thanks to bush and his power hungry cabinet who all want to control congress, the senate & the Supreme Court, the USA is now a third world country hiding behind a lie of prosperity and so called society of personal ownership. In retrospect, I seem to own less now under this administration of “personal ownership” then I did during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Thanks to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their puppets, the USA is now a huge debtor country. The only ones with real ownership as a result of the current presidential administration are the rich and elite. Now that the USA owes all these hundreds of millions of dollars to countries like China, Germany, Russia & Japan, I wonder which language I need to learn for the day when these countries come to collect…

Respectfully,

Leroy

PS: Farwell GOP. Thanks for all the corrupt memories…I’m now a Democrat.

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