And here we go!
Like clockwork, without ever
missing a beat; circus act that comes along every four years, we’re again in the
eye of a hurricane called Election(s). And of course, the groupies are coming
along with two circus troupes to make the experience of unassuming American electorate
complete. Most of the groupies, as one would suspect, are just there for the
act itself and backstage passes to the glittery (sic) performers, but in both
camps there are those who take their zealotry to the level only seen in
religions. These free-pollutants, these hordes of fanatics, frothing at their
mouths are roaming through your cities and towns. With blind dedication and
blood-shot eyes full of establishment lines they will make sure that anyone who
is not attending the circus be persuaded otherwise. You all know them. You all heard them and were
annoyed with them: The “wasted vote” bashers!!! In essence, you will get
lectured, and most probably bashed if you proclaim that either you don’t vote
in the elections, or you vote for a third party. On the other hand, you’ll have
your “patriotism” questioned if you proclaim you’re voting for “the other guy”.
If you are a logical, thinking person, and if you prefer to draw your own
conclusions instead of reciting the pre-canned ones, you have undoubtedly run
into one of the situations above. If you had some time to waste and tried to
use logic to articulate your position to “the patriot”, you found that after
10-20 seconds they went from trying to comprehend what you’re saying, to simply
checking the box in their brain that indicates you are _________________
(commie, terrorist sympathizer, big business shill, anarchist, hater of this
country, hater of Israel, terrorist, hater of Palestinians, Zionist, hater of babies, global-warming-denier, hater of….well…ah, you get the point), and you
need to be outshouted (not outsmarted) to get in line and just “be a team player”
that “supports America”.
To start with, the argument of “wasted
vote” is hogwash, and tons of ink, both digital and physical, has been spent to
illustrate why this argument is a losing one. For the sake of keeping things
clean and concise, I will not engage in rehashing the “lesser of two evils”
argument. Instead, there are only few things I want to address here, and they
range in progressive weight from patriotic duty, arrogance of vote ownership,
to questions whether there’s any difference between the left and right boot,
and finally, what does voting for them really mean. To lay all cards on the
table before we begin, I must admit that I am a member of Libertarian Party and
LNC, but even as such, I am not asking (or begging) from you to cast the vote for
Libertarian Party in the next elect ions.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel, proclaimed Samuel Johnson in the late 1775. The meaning of that
statement then is equally important as it is now. But what does it mean, you
may ask, my unwashed, uneducated reader? Let us consider the following exchange
I’ve been through recently:
-
Zealot: Oh wow, things are pretty bad in this
country since (X) took over. We will have to get rid of him/her in the upcoming
elections.
-
Me: Things have been bad for a long time, my
zealot friend, and nothing is going to change if you replace (X) with (Y).
-
Zealot: Well, the (Y) is much better for this
country because (X) did (insert party talking points here) and Y wants to
(insert party talking points here).
-
Me: The problems you’re referring to have
started long before (X) took office, and have been made substantially worse by
the policies of (Insert some predecessor of Y here).
-
Zealot: It is your PATRIOTIC duty to vote and
remove (X) from the office so the (Y) can take over, take the country back
(sic) and make it work again (sic).
-
Me: Well some founding fathers of the country
believed that the highest form of patriotism was to question your government
and not blindly follow in its footsteps. Now, I don’t think there’s much difference
between (X) and (Y), but I like some policies of (X) and want those policies to
remain, and if I end up voting in this election, I’d probably vote for (X)
because (Y)’s policies would (insert thoughtful and accurate analysis of Y’s
platform and its implications).
-
Zealot: WHAT? I can’t believe you’d even
consider that because (Y) is (insert even more talking points here)!!!!
-
Me: Well, if you look at the actual policies and
performance between (X) and (Y), you see that they are the same more often than
not. Also (insert some annoying arithmetic here (relative debt to GDP ratio
works miracles) that further supports your argument). This is why I think that
change cannot and will not happen from within the system and I choose nether of
them.
-
Zealot: You DO NOT understand!!! This is the fork
in the road. We have to choose (Y). We are at the brink as a country! By not
supporting (Y), you’re only supporting (X) and you will be sorry when this
country is (insert any threat to the country from previous election here).
-
Me: Well, I am sure that’s not going to happen,
but I have to go back to work now.
-
Zealot: OK, are we still up for the Sunday game?
-
Me: Sure.
Folks, there’s no patriotic duty to vote. Never was, never
will be. Voting for X or Y to fill in the shoes of their predecessors is not as
eventful as even picking up the remote control and changing the channel on your
TV, let alone affecting any meaningful change. Our history has shown that when
the country is under legitimate attack, there’s no shortage of volunteers who
will come in its defense. What zealots really mean is that by voting you are
complying with their version of patriotism, which, in essence, is the same as
complying with the platform of the party of zealot.
I have
been a member of Libertarian Party and LNC for a while now. Usually, we’d hold
our conventions without anyone noticing, we’d spend all the money fighting courts
to get on the ballot in all states, and we’d get our usual 1-2% of the vote,
leaving us in the aftermath of elections wondering what we can do different to
garner more votes next time. CATO institute would write some eulogy, and Reason
magazine would do the same. The party believed it was destined for 1-2% of the
vote period. In the 2008 election cycle, I had a chance to observe the election
process, the circus, the debates, the primaries, and the whole shebang. Little
did I expect, but I got a lot more than I ever could imagine.
It was
to be another uneventful republican debate and I wasn’t prepared for anything
else. From the start though, an unassuming, frail-looking old man started wiping
floor with his opponents using my favorite tool: logic. I watched as his
opponents started to snicker and try to rebuttal him with talking points. He
was steadfast. He made sense. He knew history. He knew economic business cycle.
He knew the cure to get this country on the path of healing. He was laughed at.
He was booed. But even with booing, he was able to give all his opponents
little “reading list” that would lead them out of their blind ignorance. I
listened as authors and their works poured out of his mouth and broke against
his opponents closed-shut ears. I was
amazed and my eyes turned to my own bookshelf: The reason I was so amazed is
because the most authors listed I already had on my shelf and was quite big fan
of. This has got to be a joke, I said to myself. This old mad is way out of the
element here surrounded by big mouth chicken haws that kept spewing their
official sound bites. In my disbelief, I turned to my phone and called a senior
member of LNC (let’s call him Bob). The conversation went something like this:
-
Bob: Hello?
-
Me: Hey Bob, are you watching the republican
debate?
-
Bob: Why would I?
-
Me: There’s one old guy that’s making sense for
a change and is educating the rest of them about the principles that are aligned
with ours.
-
Bob: Oh, that’s Ron Paul.
-
Me: Ron who?
-
Bob: He was the LP candidate in 1988. He gave a
finger to Reagan and ran as a libertarian. Since then, he returned to the
congress as a republican and has been there ever since.
-
Me: What do republicans have to do with us?
-
Bob: Nothing at all. Unfortunately, since we
were usually on the same side against the enemy, some people in the republican
party believe that libertarians and all the votes that come with them belong to
GOP.
-
Me: That’s BS, since we’re diametrically opposed
to all GOP stands for.
-
Bob: Never underestimate the power of political
pressure.
-
Me: Pressure or not, this man belongs to LP.
-
Bob: True, but he won’t run with LP.
-
Me: Why Not? After all, he’s saying all we have
in our platform.
-
Bob: The system is rigged.
-
Me: What system?
-
Bob: The courts.
-
Me: What do courts have to do with elections and
parties???
-
Bob: They control who gets on the ballot in each
state. It’s been a rigged game for a while now.
-
Me: WHAT???
-
(silence) …….. (disconnect)……..(busy signal).
I did not know all this because I came from far away. I didn’t
know this because I wasn’t born here. I believed in the “home of the brave and
land of the free” until the contrary slapped me so hard over my head I had
another awakening. IT’s a rigged system, but all rigged systems require
participation of all parties in order to perpetuate themselves. Who’s this Ron
Paul guy, a guy with two first names? I don’t think I was the only one with
such reaction. I embarked to find out that this guy is and what exactly is he
doing in the GOP. I think that was the issue that bothered me the most. The
rest is history. History for myself, and for thousands that woke up under the
weight of his message. I’ve witnessed something remarkable: thousands of people
getting registered into a party that has absolutely nothing to do with the
youth, progress, or the way forward. Out of curiosity I reached out and talked
to many of these newcomers to the GOP. Do they support wars? Do they support
overblown budgets? Do they support PATRIOT act? Do they support Medicare Part
D? The answer to all those questions from them was no. They supported Mr. Paul
and they believed that all of them combined would be able to defeat the
establishment machine with honest approach. It is now 2012.Once more these
folks were called to cast the ballot for the nominee of the party: Once more (as in any election cycle) for the “lesser
of two evils”. They were cheated. Their delegates were cheated. Their votes
stripped. They were shown what happens when some unexpected and unapproved
change enters the system. They were lead to believe that voting really matters.
They were wrong.
Now the
frothy-mouths want to tell you that it’s time to fall in line. “Your guy lost,
it’s time to fall in step with the party because we have to defeat (X)”. Now you
have to reflect and ask yourself this:
If it were not for Mr. Paul, would you really belong to the
republican party and still be registered as a republican without having to take
a hot shower every 10 minutes??? If not so, then it is time for you to punish the
arrogance of the party that believes simply because you’re registered with it,
your vote automatically belongs to them. Imagine their arrogance. Imagine their
vein. Just because you saw one defection from the establishment, and you
registered to legally cast your ballot for the defection, it means that your
vote belongs to the establishment. Don’t let them simmer with this belief too
long. Make them remember soon that your vote, and your consent, belongs solely
to you. It is not to be traded or exchanged for party favors. Its precise arithmetic
is not to be traded for party’s groupthink and small favors. If you give in
their ways then you truly don’t have a room to complain. Many people warned
you. Mr. Paul warned you. I warned you. If after all the warnings you fall into
the trap, then everyone else will need to seek the fault anywhere else but with
you.
What
lies ahead, I do not know. But I am not a coward to try to prevent something
just because I don’t know what the outcome of it is: I am NOT a conservative. I’m
not a coward to try to prevent something because I can’t control it: I’m NOT a
democrat. Neither are all of you. I’m
not asking for your vote, but I’m asking from you to stay individuals and not
fall for the groupthink of either parties. The future might be bleak, bright,
or neither. We can’t know it. One thing I will ask from you is to keep your
spirit up and as youthful as it can be. The old paradigms are falling and it
will be up to us to take over soon and rebuild things as we did many times
before. Are you up for that task? If so, are you sure?
You better be.
In Liberty!
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