Y'know what? I 'spoze you're right. Yes; you're right. And if I was plannin' on becoming a Republican voter, it would have made perfect sense, morally, legally and logically, to go help pick a slate of
But I ain't a-gonna. The party that gave us two budget-eating wars, the USA PATRIOT Act, social welfare in the Medicare Prescription puzzle-maze, "No Child Left Behind" and similar meddlesome folderol is not my party and I see no sign it is going to get any better. Barry Goldwater is dead -- and they only ever listened to him about half the time, anyway.
Last election, I voted mostly from the Libertarian Party's slate of principled loonies and weirdos. In my opinion, if you cared about this country instead of winning elections and shrieking "na na na naaaa nah" at the Democrats, you would have too. Because of the party affiliation of the candidates I voted for and because I intend to continue so doing, I have no business -- none, zilch, zero -- voting in the Pachyderm primary.
Speaking of Democrats.... Why, yes, that party's office-holders do generally appear to be worse than their Republican counterparts, in just exactly the same way that being half-hanged, drawn and quartered is worse than a lethal injection; but the end result is the same.
I will support (or at least vote for) the occasional Republican, sometimes for entirely pragmatic reasons. Don't confuse that with being a member of the party.
I couldn't agree more with your voting ethics. Like you, I find nothing much to support in either of the major parties: although I might vote either Republican or Democrat to support an outstanding individual, the parties as a whole have little or nothing to offer me. However, I won't cheat by voting when I'm not legally entitled to do so, in order to influence the selection of candidates for either party. If they can't select good candidates on the basis of their own members' choices, why should I bother with them?
ReplyDeleteWV: minesse - as in, both of our major parties are minesses, as far as I'm concerned!
:-)
Couldn't have said it better myself. Excellent post!
ReplyDelete:-)
Hard to disagree (although with a six pack of Sam Adams and about an hour of discussion I could maybe assuage some of your individual policy problems.)
ReplyDeleteIn general though, both parties have gone astray and are going to get a comeupance shortly (although Coats getting the nomination isn't a good sign!)
If the parties return to the core of their ideology and actually operate there, the system will survive, otherwise look for something much less enjoyable.
Core conservative--individual responsibility and free market capitalism. Core liberal--government solution and heavily regulated economy. That's the basics.
One party seems pretty consistent, the other is adrift and waffling between principals and populism.
Always remember though that to get any policy enacted, you've got to hold a legislative majority.
Non illegitimus carborundum est.
I will no longer vote for either major party just to say that my "vote counted." How can my vote count, if I throw it away just to say I was on the winning team?
ReplyDeleteAnd Ed:
If you think that the core of the parties is as you posted, you have no idea what the core of either party is.
Hint: Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat, and Lincoln, one of the most anti-freedom Presidents in history, was a Republican.
The Republicans consistently squander their legislative majorities by rearranging "family values" deck chairs, while creating the occasional bureaucratic monster (coughDHScough coughHEWcough) of their own.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think anybody with their collective head so far up their fundament would have their core principles in clear view, and yet they don't appear able to spot them.
Nice talk, Ed, but I do not believe either of the two big parties operates from principle.
ReplyDeleteEd: "Always remember though that to get any policy enacted, you've got to hold a legislative majority."
ReplyDeleteHow about the policy of not adding any more legislative logs to the bloody huge fire they've already got going?
Srsly, any time a candidate tells me about the "new policies" he's gonna enact, it makes me wish dueling was still legal. Can't they just show up, take the paycheck, sit down and shaddup? We have got plenty of laws already.
Yes, you have to hold legislative majority to enact policy. However, both Ds & Rs have shown over and over that they will sell a bill of goods and then not deliver- even though they could.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if Rs couldn't cut spending when they held both houses and the White House, just when exactly can we expect that they will? The evidence says, 'roughly never'.
Until people who desire to be both personally and economically free start voting for what they want instead of what they will tolerate the other two parties won't learn anything.
ReplyDeleteIt's time to start sending them signals that the will start (or keep) losing elections if they don't get back on track with our founding principles and the idea of natural rights.
Funny how things aren't that different in our two countries. While I think it was Roberta who pointed out that politics are not at all similar between Canada and the US, the reactions of your posters, Roberta, mirror mine. I am what we call a conservative ... a small 'c' conservative. Up here in the Great White North, we do have a Conservative party ... a large 'C' conservative. (That the Conservative form a minority government should give us cause for happiness; it doesn't.)
ReplyDeleteIn recent elections, I have voted Conservative because the party's principles most closely reflect my own views, needs and desires. As any intelligent adult could tell, though, the actual delivery on those concepts has been lacking ... and on balance, most infuriating.
Given the overall left-leaning nature of Canada, there's simply no other party to endorse. I have to agree with the view of an old friend in the mountains of New Hampshire. Don't vote; you'll only encourage the as*holes.
Oh ... Ed? It's:
Nihil illegitmati carborundum est.
Regards.
The way politics works -- the software -- varies widely, country-to-country; but the humans who are the hardware, we're all pretty much the same, George. :)
ReplyDeleteBrings to mind a couple of quotes from one of my favorite people:
ReplyDelete"There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can't stand him quite that long."
- Will Rogers
"The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best."
-Will Rogers