Who do you plan to vote for?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I voted for Marrou, Paul, and Browne... slept easy at the time but today I wish I had those back. I was wrong, and have moved on to where I am making a better choice now.

No. You believed you made the right choice then and you believe you're going to make the right choice now.

I want for the RNC to see Bush losing PA by the couple percentage points picked up by someone who stands for values that most Republicans believe in. Sure its a fantasy but if it looks like Kerry will have a close win in PA I'm clicking The Lib lever. There is no way I want Kerry to think he has my support unless he gets real on the war. Bottom line voting is an empty activity. The way you effect our government is through professional involvement and bribery er fundraising. Voting is just a silly activity that creates the illusion of representation and makes punks like Bush think they have some moral authority.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by hot_pastrami

Here's what I believe... I believe that any vote which is not for Kerry is just as good as a vote for Bush. The sad fact is that a vote for anyone aside from the top two candidates is just noise; So if I don't vote for Kerry, then I am failing to contribute to removing Bush from office. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.

The vast majority of non-libertarian supporters of Badnarik are Republicans who are disgusted by Bush so a vote for Badnarik is not the same as a vote for Bush. In fact a vote for Badnarik is often one less vote for Bush.

Like it or not we have more than 2 parties and caving in and voting for the lesser of two evils does not make the best choice "noise". Although it is noice. It's the loud noise of people shouting that they won't take the same old shit from government.

When you compromise with evil, only evil can win. If you vote for the candidate you hate the least instead of the candidate you like the most, your vote is wasted and you've lost a chance to make things better. Voting isn't a horse race. You don't bet your vote on who you think will win. You vote for who you think will be best for the country. Anything else is a wasted vote.

Here's a quote from Michael Badnarik at this years Libertarian convention.

"If you were in prison and you had a 50% choice of lethal injection, a 45% chance of going to the electric chair and only a 5% chance of escape, are you likely to vote for lethal injection because that is your most likely outcome? If you continue to vote for the Democrats or the Republicans, you are committing political suicide."

--Michael Badnarik

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I was wrong, and have moved on to where I am making a better choice now.

Really? And what's that choice? If it's Kerry or Bush it's not a better choice. If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil.

Originally Posted by Griff

No. You believed you made the right choice then and you believe you're going to make the right choice now.

I want for the RNC to see Bush losing PA by the couple percentage points picked up by someone who stands for values that most Republicans believe in. Sure its a fantasy but if it looks like Kerry will have a close win in PA I'm clicking The Lib lever. There is no way I want Kerry to think he has my support unless he gets real on the war. Bottom line voting is an empty activity. The way you effect our government is through professional involvement and bribery er fundraising. Voting is just a silly activity that creates the illusion of representation and makes punks like Bush think they have some moral authority.

I agree with your summation of the voting process in some ways. The sad thing is that "punks" like Bush or Kerry or ANY elected representative on the national level don't for a moment believe they derive any moral authority from the "will of the people" - they just want everyone else to buy into this fairy tale or keep quiet about it if they don't. The American people continue to refuse to acknowledge the fact that the emperor wears no clothes, and that's fine by the emperor.

I DO feel that my vote still makes some difference on the state and, especially, the local level. I think we all need to pay more attention to the grass roots if we want to even try to save this great experiment we call American democracy.

I don't like Kerry, but I loathe and hate Bush. The election is close enough in my state, anyway, that Kerry WILL get my vote. I would restate Radar's analogy more like this: I have a 49% sure chance of dying, a 47% chance it could go either way, and, given the dynamics of the selection process, I can in effect choose the first option by selecting something that has a 100% certainty of not happening, as noble (or not) as that third choice may be.

Welcome to the real world. George W. Bush has SHOWN the American people that he is amoral, playing the game for the ends of his handlers and himself with no regard for the people of this country and its democratic ideals. Jefferson would weep to see what this most recent George has wrought, so counter to what the first man by that name in office FOUGHT for.

A vote for a third party candidate in such a close election as this is a vote AGAINST whatever ideals you may have. If you feel strongly about the lack of choice offered to the American voter, become an activist in the off election years. Support candidates at the local level who stand for what you believe in. Speak out against the electoral college process and the way a place in office is now bought and sold. For God's sake, vote to give this country at least an outside chance and not the certainty of the Bush administration's continued atrocities against the Republic we all hold so dear.

[Griff]

When I weighed the last Presidential election, I thought Bush was the lesser of two evils. I'm really glad I voted for Browne.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by Radar

The vast majority of non-libertarian supporters of Badnarik are Republicans who are disgusted by Bush so a vote for Badnarik is not the same as a vote for Bush. In fact a vote for Badnarik is often one less vote for Bush.

Well, that may be true in many cases, but it isn't true in my particular case, since my vote wouldn't have gone to Bush anyway.

Originally Posted by Radar

Like it or not we have more than 2 parties and caving in and voting for the lesser of two evils does not make the best choice "noise". Although it is noice. It's the loud noise of people shouting that they won't take the same old shit from government.

Here's how I look at it... in America's current political climate, a Libertarian candidiate cannot win by my reckoning. With luck that won't always be true, but it is the sad reality right now. Consequently, to cast a vote for a Libertarian candidate effectively nullifies that vote. With that in mind, consider this... what if Bush were to win by a margin smaller than the number of voters who vote Libertarian? In that situation, if all those Libertarian votes had been cast for Kerry instead, Bush would have lost.

There is too much riding on it this year to vote for someone who can't win... the highest priority for me is to get Bush out, even if it means a bland, mediocre guy like Kerry is in the White House for awhile.

This discussion is all irrelevant anyway, since the electoral college makes the American voter pretty much impotent in such matters.

[lookout123]

i was scanning through old threads and came across a good one that i think is appropriate here. it is interesting to see the evolution in some cellarites political opinions over the last 18 months or so. radar's prediction about the D's putting a monkey up against Bush because there is no chance of Bush getting re-elected is pretty funny.

flashback

[xoxoxoBruce]

That was fun to reread. Kutz said;

I sincerely hope that Bush is not re-elected, bu fear that he may very well be. He's got this war behind him, all this Homeland Security crap is still in effect, and he just fired the Cheif Economic Advisor - if he turns around the economy, I'd say he's in for 2004.

:hafucking

[wolf]

Originally Posted by tw

Actually the Economist has been doing a study of swing states, one by one, for months now. Colorado was listed as a swing state.

Pennsylvannia is listed as about as close as one can get. PA still uses punch hole ballots.

What backwoods district are you voting in? We've had either the old style lever voting machines or the new electronic ones since the 80s.

Oh, there were a few elections I did use a punch-ballot in, but that was when I was in college, 81-83 (I switched my registration to my college address). My home district used machines.

[Kitsune]

Speaking of electronic voting: I find it cute that you all argue like your vote is going to count.

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Speaking of electronic voting: I find it cute that you all argue like your vote is going to count.

Yeah, I know. I feel like a kid whistling in the dark to keep my spirits up. I'd like to believe that I live in a Democracy, but I really don't. We should just make Bush King George IV or V and be done with it.

[cowhead]

well.. geez, although I live in Kansas and might as well fire the aforementioned flare up my ass whilst yelling at a rock and cutting my arm off... just take a little look at the link below.

my main disagreements with bush aside from the war/terrorism/the economy/lies/distrust/patriot act etc. is his perversion of sience to promote his religous views. have any of you read the waxman report (one of the earlier ones )?

a friend of mine works in the local school system, and he was shocked and somewhat horrified to discover the abstinance was the leading advice in the newer textbooks.. yeah sure it'll cut down on 'unwanted' children and disease.. but c'mon let's get real.. kids are GOING to have sex... they ought to have the knowledge/resources to make real choices in that areana (yeah I know this is opening a whole 'nother can of worms.. sorry)

oh here's the link
http://www.thousandreasons.org/listB.html

[Huckamuck]

Originally Posted by Radar

The poll should have Badnarik in it. Michael Badnarik is by far the best choice of every candidate running.

AMEN, Brother. The Libertarians are the only party with their collective heads screwed on.

[alphageek31337]

Unfortunately, I have to vote for Kerry. I'd much sooner, in a perfect world, vote for Badnarik (I am a card-carrying Libertarian), Nader, or even Dennis "The Mad Elf" Kucinich, but being in a swing state and knowing that we can't afford four more years of neo-conservatism, I have to vote for a man who has an honest-to-god shot at winning. Plus, I don't really dislike Kerry...he's a viable alternative (if not the best)

[hot_pastrami]

On Slashdot: Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik Answers 15 user-submitted questions. Interesting history and opinions.

[Chewbaccus]

I'm voting for Kerry, both because of what he wants to do and what the other guy wants to do, but I'm not really getting as invested into the Democratic Party as a few friends of mine are. From what I've read of history and what I'm seeing now, I firmly believe that we're going to see a politico-ideological schism in this country that we haven't seen since the Republicans first came on the scene a century and a half ago.

Basically, it seems to me like the established parties are shooting themselves in the foot going so after the youth vote like they are this year. Every new young voter I've spoken to that just got a crash education in current politics says something to the effect that "They're not really all that different, you know?" This just says to me that we now have a bloc of voters, disaffected with the current political system, ready and willing to join a new home if the opportunity presents itself.

My opinion as to how it's going to go down? The neocons aren't going to go away. So to combat it, somebody at the DNC right now is proposing giving the Dixiecrats (Miller, et al) some more face time in order to "advance the greater agenda" of Democratic beliefs or some other excuse like that. Sooner or later they're going to try it out, and when that happens, you'll see the young, the established Left, and other dissenters to the policy bolt for another group.

Of course, everything would be essentially resolved if we went to a proportional representation system, rather than winner-take-all, but I know well enough that I'll never live to see that.