[awcopus]

There is still a chance for those of you worried about getting a good night's sleep after this upcoming election.

Don't throw away your vote on either of the major party's candidates.

For those of you who lean towards the Republican Party because you buy into its rhetorical flourishes about free markets and lower taxes, and who find Bush's record of corporate welfare, dramatic increases in federal spending, and barely-there tax cuts upsetting, consider voting for the Libertarian Party candidate.

For those of you who lean towards the Democratic Party because you buy into its rhetorical flourishes about civil liberties and affordable health care, and who find Kerry's record of supporting the "war on drugs," his soft support of the Patriot Act, his aggressive stand against ballot access for Nader, and his plan to socialize medicine upsetting, consider voting for the Libertarian Party candidate.

Or, for that matter, vote for any third party candidate that matches your beliefs, but by all means avoid supporting the tag-team party system that uses displays of mutual dissent to conceal its shared, insatiable desire to enlarge government at the expense of your hard-earned money and your natural rights.

Whichever of the major party candidates win, and one of them will once the dust their lawyers kick up settles, we're going to see our civil liberties and economic freedoms increasingly curtailed over the course of the next four years. The least you can do is refuse to endorse the mad growth of an increasingly omnipotent state by using your vote to protest a party system that is now structured entirely to sustain its strangehold on power.

Bush and Kerry are simply not deserving of a rational citizen's vote. You may reasonably agree with some of the stands they take, but all in all, government power will grow under either of them, and in manners that are ultimately going to affect all of us negatively.

Be counted among those who refuse to continue to support the virtually indiscriminate, self-serving expansion of public power undertaken by the unprincipled leadership of the major parties.

[Secret__Police]

Just VOTE and encourage others to Vote.

[sideus]

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by awcopus:
There is still a chance for those of you worried about getting a good night's sleep after this upcoming election.

Don't throw away your vote on either of the major party's candidates.

I will vote for President Bush because I believe this time in our country's history is too dangerous to have weak leadership, or to suffer from a new president's learning curve.

The situation in Iraq needs to continue better than it has, but it needs to continue.

The terrorists need to understand we will not back down to their threats. Instead, we are going to keep going after them with everything we have.

If I didn't believe the above, I would consider looking more closely at a 3rd party candidate, as I think it's healthy to have viable alternatives to the Dems & Repubs.

But this year, it's important to stay with the President's proven leadership team.

[Cohiba]

The problem with the LP is that all of their views are extreme. Legalize ALL drugs INSTANTLY, no no no. Believe that ALL companies should be trusted to care for the environment, no no no. Privatize ALL public property including side walks, NO NO NO. Just a quick quip, if I owned all the streets in NYC, then if you wanted to protest against Kerry or Bush, well I could throw you off of my MY property, so privatizing all property means no assembly.

Ensure that all the governments money is either in gold and silver, or can be changed into gold and silver, no no no, mercantilism is going back in time, less Enron, yes, less trading ability with other countries (especially Japan), no no no.

Fire all government regulators, no no no. Remove all troops from Iraq, no no no. I am sorry, but if the LP was less (and I mean FAR LESS) extreme, then maybe it would work. But their form of government would never run a international superpower the size of 250 million people. A small town, yes. And LP does work well in smaller, isolated towns. But that is where it all ends.

[macintologist]

I like the fact that LP is principled and anti-war, but the reason these third parties don't succeed is because they don't represent mainstream American thought.

[Troll]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
I will vote for President Bush because I believe this time in our country's history is too dangerous to have weak leadership, or to suffer from a new president's learning curve.

Interesting. If national security is still an issue 3 and a half years after his election, what makes you think it won't be an issue in 4 years time? Or are you going to propose scrapping the no third term rule in 2008?

[awcopus]

I am not oblivious to the appearance of policy differences between the candidates. Certainly there are repercussions for the Supreme Court, for stem cell research and abortion, and in some way for the conduct of the war in Iraq.

Nonetheless, a vote for BushKerry is a vote for the status quo, which is increasingly a commitment to the principle that the government can and should be a proactive force in America's domestic and foreign affairs, and the growth of the federal government from a budget of 100 billion dollars in 1960 to over 2400 billion dollars in 2004 reflects this. Not to mention the growth in the number of nonviolent offenders serving time in one of the thousands of new jails.

A vote explicitly not for BushKerry is a protest against an establishment that is marching America towards a European national/socialist state model that leads to economic stagnation and a steady erosion of basic civil liberties.

The above is an evidence-based thesis. See Bush giving away billions in corporate welfare. See Bush increasing the federal budget for the drug war and for public education and create an entirely new entitlement program for prescription drugs. See the Patriot Act eroding the Fourth Amendment (subtly for now, and eventually...). See Kerry voting to increase the budget for the drug war and virtually every other government agency, and propose a single-payer health care system that is ostensibly, scientifically a failed model just to generate populist appeal. See Kerry propose that literally nothing be done about Social Security.

Small government conservatives... how can you consider voting for Bush? Anti-socialist, Clintonian democrats... how can you consider voting for Kerry?

Vote for change. Pick a third party and make your vote meaningful by signaling to Democratic-Republican power that you have joined the ranks of those who refuse to subsidize their grotesque waste of our time and resources and lives.

[awcopus]

Originally posted by macintologist:
I like the fact that LP is principled and anti-war, but the reason these third parties don't succeed is because they don't represent mainstream American thought.

I agree. They don't. There is very little resembling principled thought left in mainstream America.

If the rhetoric of the politicians reflects the mentality of voters, it can be said with some degree of accuracy that many if not most voters are completely out of touch with the idea that government exists only to protect individuals' rights, to enforce laws against fraud and the initiation of force, and to protect the land of its citizens with a defensive military. This idea of government is NOT even remotely represented in the major political parties, but rhetoric about it is regularly used to appeal to citizens' nostalgic pride about being Americans, as if being born here were all that is required to uphold American values (civil liberties, limited government, free markets).

If libertarians are out of touch with mainstream American thought, it is because mainstream American thought is out of touch with America's founders' ideals. And we can only take those ideals for granted for so long before we really do not live in the home of the free anymore.

[awcopus]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cohiba:
The problem with the LP is that all of their views are extreme. Legalize ALL drugs INSTANTLY, no no no. Believe that ALL companies should be trusted to care for the environment, no no no. Privatize ALL public property including side walks, NO NO NO. Just a quick quip, if I owned all the streets in NYC, then if you wanted to protest against Kerry or Bush, well I could throw you off of my MY property, so privatizing all property means no assembly.

Ensure that all the governments money is either in gold and silver, or can be changed into gold and silver, no no no, mercantilism is going back in time, less Enron, yes, less trading ability with other countries (especially Japan), no no no.

Fire all government regulators, no no no. Remove all troops from Iraq, no no no. I am sorry, but if the LP was less (and I mean FAR LESS) extreme, then maybe it would work. But their form of government would never run a international superpower the size of 250 million people. A small town, yes. And LP does work well in smaller, isolated towns. But that is where it all ends. [/QUOTE

Some good points in there. I think between now, where the Libertarian Party has NO power whatsoever to implement any single initiative, and some future date where they might begin to have such power, maybe some reasonable compromises on some of the issues you point out above could be reached.

In other words, your vote for the LP's presidential candidate is a protest vote only.