Asymmetrical Information

There's another reason to vote Bush, even if you KNOW your state is going to go to Kerry, like my Michigan will...

I don't want 4 more years of "he won the presidency while losing the popular vote" crap.

The idea isn't to influence the Libertarian Party, which has no say and isn't likely to have a say. The idea is to influence the Republican Party and voice disapproval in the two-party plurality system.

I've argued and blogged on this before, but plurality forces third parties to be extremist in order to attract any attention, so you can't really blame them. Moderates don't want to throw away their vote, so moving closer to the major parties means moving closer to voters who are going to ignore them no matter what because they are already reasonably close to a candidate who has a chance of winning.

So third parties are forced to the fringes, to try and pick up voters who've already given up on the two parties.

I'm a libertarian, and one who voted for Harry Browne. While at FreedomFest (http://www.freedomfest.com/)earlier this year, I came to believe that the LP is part of the problem. "The Party of Principle" attracts moonbats. It sounds great to the converted that we should destroy the IRS in four years. Guess what? It sounds like complete lunacy to the vast majority of people. If you ever want to end up there, you can't start there.

Nobody, but nobody, makes the idea of limited government seem more preposterous than the LP. We need to argue consequences and promote marginal change, if we are to ever have any impact. The LP by its very nature won't allow that type of discussion to dictate policy. Screaming wackos get nominated because they make the most noise.

I like Libertarian ideas, and I have voted for Libertarian candidates on occasion. However, the Libertarian party has not attracted many voters, and probably never will. The idea that you can get something for nothing is a lot more attractive than the idea that you're responsible for your own well-being.

Jane, I think there are two ways of looking at this:

1. Voting for a barking moonbat like Badnarik or a grifter like Harry Browne rewards the LP for nominating knaves and fools.

2. Poor vote totals for whoever the LP puts up makes the position of LP nominee so unattractive - no particlar status attaches to it - that only knaves and fools find the prize worth the seeking.

Which is to say, it may be that LP vote totals are low because the candidates are bad, but it may be that higher vote totals would draw better candidates. I am provisionally opting for the latter theory on the grounds that otherwise I shall go mad.

The sad part is that a relatively sensible-seeming candidate (Gary Nolan) not only ran but won most of the primaries. He lost in a brokered convention.

I don't want 4 more years of "he won the presidency while losing the popular vote" crap.

I think this election is a great illustration of why the Electoral College is a bad idea. I personally wouldn't mind more wood for the fire (but ideally from the conservative side this time).

But he did win the presidency while losing the popular vote. Does the truth hurt that much?

Do you really wish to encourage the
major parties to nominate more such scum as Kerry or Bush by voting for them? They have no incentive to do other than increase the size of government if you keep voting for big government candidates.
Voting for Demopublicans only encourages them. Is it perhaps better to "lose" one battle with perhaps the greater of 2 major evils winning in order to eventually get either lesser evils from the major parties or better LP candidates in the future elected? With a republican congress, realisitically how much is Kerry going to be able to do that the republican's wouldn't also do, ie that Bush would have also done? Given even Reagan rarely found a bill he would veto, Bush certainly is also going to go as far as congress wants, they are the driver.

Despite being a "moonbat" on some issues, if you actually listen to Badnarik he is reasonable and vastly superior to Bush or Kerry. If the choice were Hitler or Stalin or Badnarik what would you have done? The only way to attract better Libertarian candidates is for the party to attract more votes, money, etc. Badnarik isn't going to win and really, and even if he did, isn't it likely that with a non-LP congress, and advice from Cato he'd still do better than Bush/Kerry?
Are the number of lies and distortions of Bush/Kerry less objectionable ethically than a difference of view over drivers licenses from a candidate that is honest. He may prefer less government than some small-l libertarians but we are a long way from getting to that point and people can jump ship from the LP, or steer it differently, once the government gets smaller.

But he did win the presidency while losing the popular vote. Does the truth hurt that much?

He got a greater percentage of the popular vote than Clinton ever did. It isn't that the truth hurts (here's the truth: under a standard "popular vote with runoffs" system neither Clinton nor Bush would ever have been President). What "hurts" is listening to partisans who only bitch about the electoral college when it hurts *them*.

Hell, few people remember it these days, but in the days before the 2000 election it looked likely that BUSH would win the popular vote and GORE would win the electoral college -- and during those days, the Democratic spinmeisters were preaching the virtues of the EC, and the Republicans the virtues of the popular vote.

The simple truth of the matter is that we use the electoral college system, and we always will, and anyone who doesn't like it (e.g., me) is shit out of luck. So shut up about it already.

Despite being a "moonbat" on some issues, if you actually listen to Badnarik he is reasonable and vastly superior to Bush or Kerry.

No, he really isn't. It is obvious, if you listen to Badnarik speak and read what the man's written, that he's completely out of touch with reality. His view of the role of the President can be summed up thusly: use dictatorial power to remake the government the way he wants it.

If the choice were Hitler or Stalin or Badnarik what would you have done?

I'd have wondered how Hitler and Stalin got American citizenship.

hmm. given medicare and social security problems
re: future liabilities, the deficit&debt,
healthcare proposals, etc, by Bush&Kerry, aren't
they sort of out of touch with reality?
The thought of a libertarian dictator is amusing since if he were actually libertarian he would then only be controlling the government, *not* the public, and would be less of a danger to us than Kerry&Bush.
The point re: Stalin&Hitler vs. Badnarik was obviously the thought experiment of what it takes for someone to vote for a third party candidate, how bad the major parties have to be before you stop propping them up. Bush gets away with increasing govt. spending and still using the small government rhetoric since some people think he is better than Kerry. There is nothing to stop the downward slide unless people vote for someone other then the Demopublican candidates. The confusing idea of sending a "message" to republicans by voting for Kerry is absurd since the msg is bigger government, as is the message of voting for Bush. If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils you will keep being presented with evil candidates. Its a never ending trap unless you stop being short sighted and stop rewarding the Demopublicans. Help out the LP if you see problems with them, write better material, propose
incremental policies (most libertarians see that as Cato's job (and similar think tanks)), run for office or coach those who do. Or keep voting for evil and getting exactly what you vote for.

No one thinks Badnarik will win. At this stage of the game the vote is really taken as a vote for libertarianism and not really for that particular guy
so i'm not worried about the current candidates flaws , just support a better candidate next time. No one will read any msg re: this candidate vs. another into the vote totals since most chalk it up to lack of media coverage, and most libertarians are aware of the candidates faults, but I suspect as is usual they are perhaps not as bad as they are portrayed to be. (I admit i cringe
at his silly notion about not being required to pay income taxes (if there is some loophole that huge (doubtful), they'd just pass a law to close it), as does much of the LP, unusual circumstances led to him being chosen apparently despite people not knowing enough about him). It seems to be an example of "cognitive dissonance"/wishful thinking which is true of many people where they can be intelligent and rational about most things but have a blind spot or two. Being a non-believer I tend to places the major party candidates faith in the area of allowable non-rational (faith) quirks except where they may chose to legislate it for the rest of us. In that case their quirk is more dangerous than the quirk of Badnarik which only effects him if he chose to follow it (and detracts from vote totals unfortunately) since supposedly he doesn't talk about that as being an LP position. I still think his quirks are minor compared to the danger of the major parties quirks and that the message sent by voting LP is Libertarianism vs. just this one candidate.

I'd have wondered how Hitler and Stalin got American citizenship.

Indeed. And if Hitler and Stalin have somehow bypassed the constitutional requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen, I would say we have worse problems to worry about.

Dan: The simple truth of the matter is that we use the electoral college system, and we always will, and anyone who doesn't like it (e.g., me) is shit out of luck. So shut up about it already.

We are also stuck with a progressive tax, and most likely always will be. Doesn't mean I'll ever shut up about the flat tax. Ditto for getting rid of the plurality electoral system and replacing it with Condorcet and Proportional Representation. Being a libertarian seems to require tilting at windmills.

But no matter the odds, I just gotta try. I can't afford not to.

" Being a libertarian seems to require tilting at windmills." Those who think voting for Demopublicans
now will ever lead them in a libertarian direction are tilting at windmills, wishful thinking holding on to a lost cause they pretend isn't lost. Pretending the solution to their problem isn't that far away, that somehow, magically, for no reason whatsoever they will nominate a more libertarian candidate next time when they know there is no need while the lemmings fall in line behind the major party candidates.
In denial still about the pro-big-goverment Rs and anti-civil liberty Ds. Rather than facing the painful truth that perhaps they need to build up the Libertarians if there is any hope of either Demopublicans heading the libertarian direction or the LP getting future better candidates elected. A vote for Bush or Kerry is anti-libertarian, akin to those who in pre-revolution times held on to the "practical" approach of supporting the King of England. A King who had imposed less of a burden on the colonies than Bush has or Kerry will.
Time to wake up and stop wasting your vote encouraging Demopublicans to continue the erosion of our liberty, the future crises as the head in the sand approach to medicare and social security hit our economy, the new capital being sucked up by the government deficit that could have been building companies instead of government(let alone the existing debt).

For many, the real choice is between voting for the Libertarian candidate and not voting at all. So why is it better to vote for someone you KNOW is going to lose rather than refusing to participate in a process you know is rigged in favor of the two major parties? And let's not kid ourselves. The LP is never going to win, or at least not within the lifetime of anyone voting today. Perhaps the only advantage of getting involved in the LP is to participate in the bewildering variety of debates among Libertarians. One may feel more legit deriving entertainment from those debates if one votes for the LP candidate. After all, the REAL truth is that one vote makes no difference. Zero. Zip. Nada.

I'm voting for Michael B. not to influence the Libertarian Party to influence the Republican party. I just don't see the Libertarians as being a vialbe alternative as the small governmetn party.

By voting Libertarian, I can send a protest to the R's for their wonderful efforts at expanding the federal government in the last 4 years.

If you're a small government conservative and not really a social conservative, then voting for ABB is a pretty good alternative. I find it hard to believe that government will expand faster under Kerry/Rep Congress than it has in the last 4 years.

"I don't want 4 more years of "he won the presidency while losing the popular vote" crap."

Oh, I don't know. I kind of like hearing extreme leftists whine.

The point re: Stalin&Hitler vs. Badnarik was obviously the thought experiment of what it takes for someone to vote for a third party candidate, how bad the major parties have to be before you stop propping them up.

It's an idiotic "thought experiment". Yes, if my choice was between two genocidal dictators and a delusional would-be dictator with no apparent genocidal tendencies, I wouldn't vote for any of them -- I'd move to New Zealand.

The simple fact of the matter is that Badnarik is manifestly unqualified to be President. He has less grasp of the Constitution than the Democratic and Republican parties, the most idiotic foreign policy ideas since Charles Lindburgh, and no respect for either the law or democracy. If I ever found myself in a situation where he was the best option available, leaving the country would be the only sane option.

why is it better to vote for someone you KNOW is going to lose rather than refusing to participate in a process you know is rigged in favor of the two major parties?

When you vote for a candidate, you say "I want this candidate to win". When you refuse to vote, you say "I don't care enough about any of these candidates to care who wins".

I won't vote for Badnarik, because I don't want to give the Libertarian Party the impression that they can appeal to me by nominating these tinfoil hat loonies over and over again.

I think you should reconsider. You're spending a lot of time trying to decide which major party candidate is less distasteful.

Instead of continuing your search for the lesser-of-evils, look more closely at what you're rejecting: http://lp.org/issues/platform/

You may remind yourself that there is a candidate that you actually want to win.

"It's an idiotic 'thought experiment'."
No, since many people don't realize they are caught in a trap where the worse the Demopublican candidates get, the more likely they are to be scared of one of the candidates and wish to vote for the other. The question is under what circumstances would anyone be willing to opt out of the duopoly to vote for someone else, how bad does it need to be.

The thought experiemnt wasn't "idiotic" for those who know that a thought experiment is used to try to explore underlying reasoning for something vs. to get picky and find an excuse to avoid thinking about issues by complaining about a minor flaw in the test. lets pretend its not badnarik but some non-moonbat Libertarian candidate (unless you consider any non-statist a moonbat)). Then if a Libertarian candidate would be voted for, but is *not* going to win, and most of the public and the media will not remember anything about that particular candidate but only know that the Libertarians got X% of the vote this time and say swung crucial swing states and changed the outcome of the election, then in the future libertarian candidates will be paid more attention to. (and had better be able to withstand scrutiny). The drivers license issue is a state issue, not a federal one. The danger proposed by the Demopublican candidates, their quirks, lies, corruption, ignorance, etc, outweigh any quirks in
Badnarik especially given the fact that the vote is mostly for the Libertarian Party re: what the public and media will think of it afterwards.

"He has less grasp of the Constitution than the Democratic and Republican parties,"

their grasp of the "constitution" is mostly how to distort it to be a "living document" (whatever happened to amending it?) in order to stretch it to let them do mostly whatever they wanted to (with the limited exception of some parts of the bill of rights the public has bothered to defend) and appoint Courts over the last hundred years that agreed more and more over time to go along with the charade.

"no respect for either the law or democracy"

Respect for the power of democracy. The results of democracy needn't necessarily deserve respect, Hitler having been peacefuly elected, Putin, etc. Its majoritarian rule being effectively a peaceful means of mob rule (ie, we outnumber you so our mob wins), eg the concept of two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Some laws are deserving of respect, others (eg, for obvious examples from the past,laws which were pro-slavery, pro-segregation, etc) are only worthy of acknowledging that they exist and the govt. would enforce them. I think Badnarik goes overboard and is wrong with his approach to some laws, however even if his choices seem silly the concept of questioning laws needs to be acknowledged as not being silly.

Personally, I think Republicrats is a lot catchier than Demopublican. Although I do think the two parties are actually very different -- just both very bad.

The LP lost me when the pacifists got vocal. Badnarik isn't even saying things that would get me to think about voting Libertarian this time around. Maybe the split isn't that deep, but they can have the party.

It did lead me to the realization that any time you see two libertarians in apparant agreement, they just aren't communicating properly.

Holy shit, who are you guys expecting to run for Prez, John fricking Galt?

C'mon, let's pull our heads out of our asses for a second. The Libertarian Party is by no means perfect, and nobody knows that like me. After serving a year on one state LP's State Central Committee, I got disgusted with the internal politics and no longer pay dues now. But that said, there is no other party that even comes close to encapsulating my beliefs in a policy form. I can't imagine a genuine libertarian who would disagree with seeing that platform implemented, *given our current direction*. It seems y'all encapsulate the same divisiveness that you complain about in the LP. Eyes on the prize, people!

I don't blame anybody for not voting. And hey, if you don't believe in libertarianism, then I can see why the LP pisses you off. But if you want to vote and you're a libertarian, it seems REALLY stupid to not vote for a libertarian, IMHO. A vote for anybody else is just playing the two party shill game. A vote for the LP is an explicit endorsement of the libertarian agenda. While I admit I'm falliable, I can't begin to explain my inability to understand why y'all would fail to see that, on either principled or pragmatic grounds.

I mean, we *are* libertarians, right? And that *means* something, right? So you're gonna withhold your vote from this libertarian candidate, simply because you don't like his *style*? Give me a break. I thought Libertarians were interested in substance.

My own take is that Badnarik is no more of a moonbat than Dubya the Born-Again, or Kerry with his endless stories of impossible heroism in Vietnam. As for "tax-protester sympathies," I am not clear what you mean by that.

I admit that a LP Prez wouldn't be able to do much...but like the elections of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota or the Governator in California, it would be a real good shot-across-the-bow to the politics-as-usual crowd.

I'm voting for Badnarik (most likely). I was impressed with his answers to Slashdot questions. There were only 10 questions, but I think he answered honestly, and I can see his reasoning behind his answers.

Of Nader, Kerry, Badnarik, and Bush the only candidate I won't vote for is Bush. I pretty much despise crony capitalism more then anything and the Bush administration reeks to high heaven of crony capitalism.

Crony capitalism? Give some freakin' examples (spare me the Halliburton crap), and explain to me how that's different than the other party. What a lame reason to not vote for somebody. Did you forget that we're at war? Did you forget about the number of baby-boomers that are about to retire? Are you so intellectually devoid of thought that the most important thing to you is whether a politician takes care of his friends? Smell the fuc--- roses, moonbat, all politicians are some shade of gray corrupt. Big deal, it's been that way since the dawn of man.

"Did you forget that we're at war?"

What a lame reason to vote for somebody.

Sheesh. All this talk of Bush as the backup pick... don't libertarians recognize a social-policy axis as well?

I'm a libertarian, but I'm going to trade my vote for a kiss from a girl whom I like, and who likes Kerry.

"don't libertarians recognize a social-policy axis as well?"

Of course. And as soon as Kerry comes out for ending the war on drugs, curbing civil forfeiture, decriminalizing consensual crime, promoting federal concealed-carry, adhering absolutely to free speech principles, and eliminating the DOE and HUD, I'll throw my weight fully behind him.

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