When do you stop voting for the lesser of two evils?

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Hey, Mr. Boats

Like I said at the top of the previous page, I WAS planning on voting for Badnarik, but you have shown me the error of my ways.

Now I am thinking about voting for Kerry. like you said, "For the Children"

A vote for principles is a vote for Kerry.

:neener:
 
Therefore, I really have no alternative other than to vote for myself if I am going to be true to the philosophy that I choose to vote for the best man for the job.
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I believe that when people say "vote for the best man," they are referring to candidates for the office. If you would like to be a candidate, you have to get chosen by some recognized party. Just voting for Joe Johnson down the street is not getting you anywhere, because no one knows what Joe Johnson stands for, or what message you are trying to communicate by voting for him.
 
What have I done...

Bush sucks ... but he's not the only Republican and I don't believe the majority of the Republican party supports him for any reason other then he's the bastard we're stuck with for now.
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So, we have 2 options here.

1. The GOP is a bunch of lemmings who will elect what is put in front of them.
2. The GOP knows that Bush sucks as a candidate and is busily formenting a plan to get another candidate.


Which of these scenarios is currently playing out?:uhoh:



I guess what I meant to ask, and what very very few have answered with, is "Where do you draw the line?

<Working within the party/ supporting the party>--------<GRAY AREA>--------<Shooting The Bastards>


Where in that Gray Area do you say "No further?" When do you stop going with people that want to merely go slower toward the abyss than the other group? When do you reassociate yourself with people that want to go in the right direction?

Work within the party you say? When do you say "hey, this isn't working!"


At some point between "Supporting those who sell you out/working within" and "Shooting The Bastards"* you have to draw a line and say "I am going to stand up for what I believe in, and I am not going to keep doing the same thing I have been doing which has been doing no good (IE :banghead: )." So, I ask you again: Where is your line? When do you stop voting for the lesser of two evils which gets you nowhere, and start supporting what you believe in?


*meaning those that put us in the handbasket and those who kept us from escaping...
 
1. The GOP is a bunch of lemmings who will elect what is put in front of them.
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I think this is a bit unfair. If you remember back to the 1999 primaries the two major contenders were John McCain and George W. Of the two Bush was considered to be the more conservative, and at the time he had backed it up. While Governor of Texas he didn't give any indications of the kind of nonsense he'd pull while president. He signed CCW and Firearms Liability Bills and was a steadfast supporter of gun rights. He also didn't have any of the bigger government tendencies that he now has.

I remember personally that during the primary I was torn, because I figured if McCain won the primary he'd cruise to victory in the general election with his eyes closed. BUT I figured Bush was the more conservative so instead of "voting for the lessor of two evils" and going with electibility I decided to support Bush and go all or nothing. The bad thing is it worked and Bush won.....but now he's turned out to be worse than McCain nearly. :banghead:

This being said, he's an incumbent Republican president who STILL supports a LOT more of my positions than John Kerry ever will and he has the best chance of winning so he gets my vote. The time to change things is in 2008 when we get a fresh slate and can vote for a TRUE republican in the primary. Not in the middle of things and give the liberals control for four years and let them whittle away at our rights more. That's just shooting yourself in the foot for no other reason than to spite yourself.
 
I think this is a bit unfair. If you remember back to the 1999 primaries the two major contenders were John McCain and George W.
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Two comments here: Firstly, did you pick those two as our options? Nope, neither did I. It reminds me of the old Soviet system where you get to vote for one of the members of the Communist Party, and the Communist Party tells you who your choices are. These things are decided in smoke-filled rooms behind closed doors. Don't believe what anyone tells you about the grass-roots Republicans getting to pick who the choices are. Secondly ..., oh hell! I forgot what my second point was. :banghead: If it comes back to me, I'll be sure to post again. :D
 
Oh yeah, the second point was that you seem to be implying that the more liberal the Republican candidate, the better chance he has of getting elected. This ignores a couple of facts: Firstly, in '80, '84 and '88, the Republican candidate for president was perceived by the people, and portrayed in the press, as being extreme conservatives, and the Republicans won all three big. Once Bush the elder was perceived as a liberal big taxer, he was booted out. Secondly, G.W. didn't win in a landslide in 2000 because he did not ignite (and actually alienated) the Republican conservative base, due to his insinuation that traditional American conservatism lacked compassion for the common man. That shows a huge misunderstanding of real principled conservatism, and real principled conservatives resented it. Too many stayed home or voted third party. The only reason he squeaked through was that the Dem candidate was so damned Leftist and scummy. Reagan captured the Republican conservative base, and brought in many libertarians and traditional Christians too, which is why he won so big. He appealed to solid American values, and, yes, libertarianism is a solid American value. Just ask the Founding Fathers.
 
I'm writing in Ron Paul for president.

I have received two surveys from the Republicans and three phone calls in the past 4 months. They are worried. I live in Oklahoma and I never even saw an ad for Bush in 2000 because he knew he had a lock on the state.

Bush is too liberal to get my vote. Coburn gets my vote in the Republican Senate primaries. He's a conservative.
 
. . .libertarianism is a solid American value. Just ask the Founding Fathers.
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I agree that it is a solid American value, one of many. However, as a single organizing principle that acknowledges none of the communitarian values of this country, which also have long and respected lineages, it makes for a wacky and wholly out of touch political party.:evil:
 
Why would you put something like this off for our children and or grandchildren to straighten out?
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No. I can't have children so there won't be any grandchildren. I want to give myself a chance to straighten this crap out.

I don't want the totalitarian socialist police state the Democrats are bringing to come so soon that we loose any chance of making changes within the system thus requiring a bloody revolution.

So, we have 2 options here.

1. The GOP is a bunch of lemmings who will elect what is put in front of them.
2. The GOP knows that Bush sucks as a candidate and is busily formenting a plan to get another candidate.


Which of these scenarios is currently playing out?
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You are making the same mistake that most in the media and the DNC make. The GOP is NOT a monolithic group marching in lock step with one singular agenda ... its made up of a diverse group of people with differing opinions on how things should be run.

The "neo-cons" and RINOs have somehow taken hold of the GOP in the last 8 or so years and its time for the conservatives and the libertarian minded Republicans to take it back.

Kerry can only make a worse mess to clean up when the GOP gets back on track so thats why I don't want to see him in the whitehouse (except maybe on one of those tours ... even then with extra security watching him).

Kerry wants to ruin the US economy with foolish minimum wage increases, reversal of the tax cuts and socialized medicine (I get all that from his ads). Those things alone should have Libertarians doing everything they can to insure his defeat, but they are too busy hating Republicans to see whats really at stake. Jeebus, if Libertarians would spend half the time attacking Democrats and their socialist plans for the world that they spend trying to convince us that Republicans are going to ruin America they might actually be moving toward their own stated goals!



The only hope this country has to become more libertarian is for one of the two currently well entrenched political parties to adopt libertarian ideals. period.

You're welcome to go try to start a DLC but the Dems are farther from that goal then the GOP is.
 
1. The GOP is a bunch of lemmings who will elect what is put in front of them.
2. The GOP knows that Bush sucks as a candidate and is busily formenting a plan to get another candidate.
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MoparMike: This is the same kind of forced choice H/S that the public opinion pollers put out to elicit desired responses. You don't believe in that kind of manipulation, why are you trying to pull it with us?
 
You are making the same mistake that most in the media and the DNC make. The GOP is NOT a monolithic group marching in lock step with one singular agenda ... its made up of a diverse group of people with differing opinions on how things should be run.

The "neo-cons" and RINOs have somehow taken hold of the GOP in the last 8 or so years and its time for the conservatives and the libertarian minded Republicans to take it back.
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At the state level and the US House of Representatives level, I think we can actually take it back. This is too local for the RNC "machine" to completely control at their whim. However, as for the Presidency, the "machine" has a lock on who we get to pick. They only tolerate statist/leftist candidates, and actually pick one that gets their active support. Any candidate who holds authentic conservative or libertarian views is not only trashed by the liberal media (we could survive that), but is actually trashed with full RNC resources and support. The last thing they want is another Ronald Reagan. If they can't destroy such a candidate by ignoring him and not supporting him, they will fund commercials against him, go on talk shows and spew lies against him, fund calling programs where they call you at home during your primary and ask you "If you knew that so and so was a baby molester, would you still support him for president?" The RNC machine at the national level will not allow you to have a conservative candidate for president again, even though they know that a Reagan style conservative would win in a landslide. Their tendency is to favor statism and leftism wherever possible, and this is proven by the fact that vice pres candidates are always more statist and leftist than the presidential candidate. This is because they want to make sure that the next Republican candidate for president is a statist/leftist. Even Reagan was muscled into accepting a statist/leftis vice, if he wanted RNC support for his candidacy. We will never again be allowed a conservative Republican presidential candidate. I believe in working within the system for Ron Paul type local government and US Congressmen, but you are wasting your time at the presidential level. It will never happen. They will not tolerate another Reagan style presidency, and will use the full measure of thier power to prevent it.
 
Hawkeye, I see your point, however I don't believe the RNC is beyond change ... there are several factions fighting for control of the party. The RLC types gained control of the party for the whole "Contract With America" and the Republican Revolution in the legislature. I believe we can retake power within the party.

It would be easier if Libertarians would join in the fight.

Ironicaly I would say that Cheney is more conservative and to the right of GW so I'm not sure you're theory about leftist/statist VPs is 100% accurate (although I agree it was with Bush Sr. .... Bush Sr. is the main reason I considered leaving the GOP for the LP ... then I started talking to Libertarians and I figured that they had no clue how the world works ... too many people join the LP because they want to smoke pot out in the open or are just there to be "different" :rolleyes: )
 
if Libertarians would spend half the time attacking Democrats and their socialist plans for the world that they spend trying to convince us that Republicans are going to ruin America they might actually be moving toward their own stated goals!
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Worth repeating! :cool:
 
Ironicaly I would say that Cheney is more conservative and to the right of GW
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You've got to be kidding me. Cheney is a true believer in statism, while George W. is just a guy who drank his way through the first half of his life, and was picked because of his name to be a good little puppet of the RNC statists. Cheney has more to do with the decision making process in the Whitehouse than Bush does, I guarantee it. He is as establishment as they come.
 
Where do you draw the line?
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For me it came after the 2000 election and over a decade of trying to work within the Republican Party. My candidates never won the primaries, and then the party unconstitutionally installed the most patently unqualified President in living memory. Looking in the Republican mirror, I could no longer see my own reflection.

So what would I do? Join the Democrats? Their platform has a few merits, but I could never get behind the institutionalized poverty of their social-welfare programs. Mindless Democratic support for “gun control†and “affirmative action†didn’t appeal to me either.

Finally, I looked more closely at the Libertarian Party—actually read its platform. I discovered that it incoporates almost all of the things I liked in the Republican and Democratic platforms and excludes everything I disliked. The Libertarians are ideologically consistent, favoring individual freedom and responsibility over the casual socialism and petty fascism of the Democrats and Republicans.

Will the Libertarians win? Will the U.S. (or even the world) become a more libertarian place? Probably not—at least not in this historical cycle. Barring global disaster, though, the ideological seeds we are planting may yet germinate and bloom sometime in the future.

In the meantime, I will not be a party to the slow march back towards tyranny—even benevolent tyranny. Usually unintentionally but sometimes intentionally, that is where the Democrats and Republicans are ultimately taking the United States. I’m sure they can succeed without my help. :(

~G. Fink
 
and then the party unconstitutionally installed the most patently unqualified President in living memory.
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Man, you couldn't be more wrong. It was COMPLETELY constitutional. Bush got the most Electoral College votes and, per the Constitution, he became President.

As far as voting Libertarian, I'm not gonna do it this election. The lessor of the two evils (Bush) is a much better choice than the greator (Kerry).
 
Ojibwe, I don’t want to hijack the thread, but given the uncertainty involved, the 2000 Presidential election should have gone to the House of Representatives—where, yes, the result probably would have been the same. I’ll leave it at that.

~G. Fink
 
Ojibwe, I don’t want to hijack the thread, but given the uncertainty involved, the 2000 Presidential election should have gone to the House of Representatives—where, yes, the result probably would have been the same. I’ll leave it at that.

~G. Fink
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Yeah, Gordon, you and I would probably agree on a lot of things, but George W. won the race in the Constitutional manner. He won more electoral votes. The Florida Supreme Court tried to hijack the system, and the US Supreme Court actually did the right thing by ruling that what the Florida Supreme Court was doing was ex post facto, and thus violated the Constitution of the United States. The Florida Supremes wanted to change the law after the election, which, first of all, courts aren't allowed to do period (i.e., legislate from the bench), but certainly not after an election applied backwards in time. G.W. is the actual president, and this by our Constitutional system for electing presidents, even though I don't like or respect the man.
 
MoparMike: This is the same kind of forced choice H/S that the public opinion pollers put out to elicit desired responses. You don't believe in that kind of manipulation, why are you trying to pull it with us?
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BigG, that was in response to a post about the GOP knowing just how much Bush sucks as a candidate for POTUS. It reflects the two choices the RNC has for this year, and the apparent course of action they are taking.



I still want to know how far a THR member has to be pushed before they will start doing the right thing and voting their principles (no matter what they might be, Green, LP, whatever) instead of being dragged downstream by the major parties. No one who already hasn't made the decision has answered the question.
 
I think Mike wants to see some specific reasons. For example, some members have stated that they won’t vote for G. W. Bush if he signs an extended “assault-weapons†ban.

~G. Fink
 
What I'd like to see, and what no one has provided, is the answer to this:

What do you think you are really accomplishing by voting for Badnarik?
 
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