How is voting for a candidate who polls like 5% or whatever of the electorate NOT throwing away your vote?
Because the goal is not to "vote for the winner." It's to say, "This is the person I believe is best for the job, out of the candidates on the ballot."
Do that, and by definition, your vote is not wasted.
It would seem, by your statements, that anyone who votes for anyone other than the winner of a given election should consider their vote wasted. Seems like a pretty petty way to look at our "regular peaceful revolution."
Sure, you get to feed your ego and run salve all over your conscience because you -- supposedly -- voted for the pure-as-the-driven-snow candidate
If you persist in utilizing strawman tactics, you're pretty much admitting defeat, you DO understand that, right? Since I *EXPLICTLY STATED* that my own preferred candidates were *NOT PERFECT*, that's what you've done, and I'm getting a little irritated by your continuing to lie about what I've said. Please stop.
rather than the "lesser-of-two-evils" or "demo-lite" critter, but what does it really get you beside that? Society is still left to deal with, in our case, the biggest of the two evils: OBAMA.
A hazard of any given election, and part of the design of our political process and the structure of our nation.
If you're truly concerned, I'd recommend you contact the RNC and get them to start fielding better candidates, since you seem to believe that's where the answer has to lie, while I continue to advocate for more-libertarian candidates on my own side. And yours.
As for trying to "civilly persuade" how the &^^% do you do that with people who blather almost incomprehensibly about "Obamaphone" and how he's so great will Romney is ...what was the descriptor that black woman used in that video? .... scum? Whatever. She is not civil to begin with. She wasn't even factually correct; it wasn't really Obama who passed out those cellphones; that program was started by Dubya. But we cannot ascribe anything "good" to him, only bad 'cause you see, that's what's PC this era.
If it's BAD then by all means lump it on Dubya's resume of tyrannical deeds but don't hang that millstone 'round the big O's neck even if he really did do it.
And trust me, I never was fooling myself into believing I was ever trying to "civilly persuade." I just calls it like I sees it and if the Devil yells in agony, so be it. And if the Angels start screeching and bawling, so be it.
Ah, I see where the disconnect there is - I wasn't talking about you (or the Rs) trying to civilly persuade DEMOCRATS to vote Republican. I was talking about you (and the Rs) trying to civilly persuade libertarians and libertarian-minded Republicans to vote Republican. The Romney campaign, and many of its supporters, notably lacked said civility in their attempts to, well, quite frankly, drive said voters away. Certainly there were libertarians and libertarian-minded Republicans who were never going to vote for Romney, but there were plenty who might have, if his campaign and supporters hadn't worked hard to piss them off, and that's a critical failing in a political campaign.
The above, while actually I agree with to an extent, is hardly any excuse to abandon them to an impossible-to-elect third party.
Third-party candidates will, by definition, remain "impossible-to-elect" so long as fools continue to labor under the delusion that ANYONE is "impossible-to-elect". Look up the term "self-fulfilling prophecy."
They can be persuaded by those they represent, but when those people run off to the third party the politician will chalk them off and look for others to support him....and if those others aren't so conservative or so true to their platform then the politician will alter his in order to win that support. Thus goes a vicious cycle. We eat our own, and do it very well.
"It is if you want them to vote for a candidate YOU believe should be running the show, rather than for the one THEY believe would be best for that job."
Don't tell me you wouldn't be doing cartwheels of onanistic pleasure if the candidate you supported had been elected. I think we all feel that way atleast to a degree. Everyone likes to have their opinions vindicated by general acceptance -- it's an ego thing.
While I certainly would enjoy a libertarian candidate winning major office, your description is... excessive, at best. I suspect my reaction in such a case would be roughly similar to yours if Romney had won. Would you describe your reaction in such a case as "cartwheels of onanistic pleasure"? Truly?
Since I bcame old enough to vote, there has only been one candidate for whom I voted , for whom I ever truly supported -- and even that man was imperfect.
President Ronald Reagan.
That's right. And he had once been a supporter of FDR.
But like that or not, Reagan did considerable thinking and writing about what drove him away from FDR, the democrat party, and toward conservativeism.
EVERY other political race since then has been .... well, as I said, "Scuzzbag A" versus "Scumbucket B."
And BTW, my opinion of Reagan is subject to re-evaluation as the situation demands.
As it should be. And that's how I look at EVERY election. Because anything else would be foolish. No human is perfect - but we can and should try to be better, and should especially demand better of those we've chosen to represent us in positions of power and authority. Voting for more-of-the-same does not fit that criteria, IMO.
