Coyote Blog

6 Comments

1. Mr. Mercy Vetsel:

   Good grief is that irrational.

   I think that libertarians are much smarter than your average bear, except when it comes to elections.

   That kind of reasoning is precisely why the net effect of the libertarian party has been to increase the size and scope of the federal government.

   What? Didn't catch that? I'll shout:

   THE NET EFFECT OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY HAS BEEN TO INCREASE THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

   John McCain is an eco-irrationalist and an economic disaster not to mention a weak candidate with no executive experience and 30 years playing petty politics in Washington.

   The Socialists realized this about 70 years and through with the Democrats and yet libertarians keep reciting the same stupid line.

   If you want to "make a statement" then blog away or paste your car with bumper stickers, but please, please don't engange in willful ignorance to pretend that there are no important differences between the politics of McCain and Romney or between the Democrats and the Republicans.

   Maybe it would help if you read my take on McCain.

   If that doesn't help then check out the Liberty Index rating the Congress at the Republican Liberty Caucus.

   Or you could also check out the Democrat Liberty Caucus.

   -Mercy

   February 5, 2008, 9:07 am

2. daren:

   "THE NET EFFECT OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY HAS BEEN TO INCREASE THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT"

   How? PLease explain

   February 5, 2008, 10:48 am

3. ErikTheRed:

   I'd have to agree with Mercy on this one. Voltaire put it well: "The best is the enemy of the good." Unfortunately, I failed to heed my own advice and left myself registered as "independent" for too long and won't be able to vote for the vote-sucking ballot leech of my choice. However, I do offset that be having enough people crazy enough to listen to me.... errr... respect my opinion to the point where I probably influence a few dozen votes.

   A few things I've figured out:

   1) Protest votes mean dick.
   2) Once either party starts feeling comfey in Washington they stop paying attention to their base and start trying to consolidate power and buy as many votes as they can for the next election.
   3) Therefore, hold your nose and vote for the person you like best. Don't let them stay in place too long.
   4) Write your congresscritters. The ones that aren't complete sell-outs do at least pay some attention.

   In any case, my "least evil" candidate is also Romney. A little left for my taste on guns and some other things and while I understand the rationale for his health care thing is Mass it still makes me a little queasy. That being said he seems to be pragmatic, results-oriented, ridiculously smart (simultaneous MBA and JD cum laude at Harvard??!? Seriously!), gets things done, and seems to live a pretty clean life.

   February 5, 2008, 11:01 am

4. metrognome:

   I think that a Simpsons Halloween episode is relevant here...

   It's the one where the evil space aliens (Kang and Kodos), kidnap presidential candidates (Clinton and Dole I believe it was at the time) and assume their forms prior to the election. And even upon the revelation that the candidates, are, in fact, inhuman monsters, the voting citizenry accepts that "it's a two party system" and vote one of them into power anyways.

   At the end, as the everyone slaves away beneath "emperor Kang", Marge asks "why do we have to build a laser to point at a planet I've never even heard of?" And Homer replies "Don't blame me...I voted for Kodos."

   February 5, 2008, 2:17 pm

5. Mr. Mercy Vetsel:

   Har, har. Unfortunately that's a really bad analogy, just like the Coke and Pepsi analogy. The reality is that the political positions people take in Washington do make a difference.

   Some exceptionally bad legislation is bi-partisan, but a lot of it isn't and libertarians really do a have dog in many political fights whether they want to accept it or not.

   Also, the two-party system does a fairly good job of representing the desires of the voters. Sure it's possible to devise a more mathematically democratic system, but if the voters want a big government, they're going to get it.

   One of the best parts of our system is that the constitution and separation of powers moderates democratic influences. If we really want a better system, we need to think of ways to better protect individual freedom from the tyranny of the majority, not a better way to translate the special interests of various voting blocks into political power.

   -Mercy

   February 5, 2008, 3:10 pm

6. Max Lybbert:

   North Carolina recently kicked the Libertarian Party off the ballot after failing to attract a set number of votes in the last few elections. Of course the state Libertarian Party has filed a lawsuit challenging this. The only good solution I can see would be a truly libertarian one: the parties ought to pay for, organize, and run their own primaries.

   The fifty state-wide elections we hold cost several million dollars and effectively amount to an incredible subsidy to the Democratic and Republican Parties. The fact that each party has different numbers of delegates and different ways to award those delegates seems to imply that the primaries are party events anyway, and ought to be paid for by the respective parties.

   February 6, 2008, 9:04 am