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xiphiasSee, I live in a "safe state", so I don't have to vote "strategically" and vote to make sure that the lesser-of-two-evils gets in -- we KNOW how Massachusetts is going to go for the Presidential election, so I COULD vote for a third party. But I'm not going to.
Here's how I think about it.
I believe that the modern Republican party is basically in the pockets of a coalition of religious extremists and big corporate interests. Now, people will argue that the Democrats are no better, in that they're in the pockets of their OWN special interests. And I'd more-or-less agree with that -- except that the "special interests" in whose pockets the Democrats are are largely interests that are largely societal goods. Oh, there are exceptions, but, on the whole, a country run under the principles of the "special interests" who fund the Democrats would be a relatively decent country. Perhaps it wouldn't have as hypertrophic an economy as one run by the Republicans, but it would be generally comfortable and survivable. A country run entirely by the principles of the corporate and religious interests who currently control the Republicans, on the other hand, would be intolerable to me. (Which doesn't mean "I'M MOVING TO CANADA!" if the Republicans win, of course. Those principles would not take utter control of the country, even if the Republicans picked up a huge landslide. We'd be much closer to that model, but I don't think we'd get UNLIVABLE. Not in Massachusetts, anyway.)
So, yeah. I DO believe that both major parties are run by special interests, including corporate interests. I believe that the corporate interests have a major hold over both parties, but the Republicans more than the Democrats. And the Democrats have their own interests to whom they're beholden.
And I DO believe that a third party would be less in the pockets of said interests.
And that's why I am even LESS inclined to vote for the Libertarians than for Republicans.
While the Republicans want to destroy the country because people pay them to do so, the Libertarians want to destroy the country in many of the same ways, simply because they want to. That's even scarier and more dangerous than the Republicans' venality.
The Libertarians and the Republicans both want to destroy social safety nets, allow corporations to destroy the environment, remove the tools that help promote equality, destroy our country's ability to fix disasters, and allow corporations and other powerful interests to run rampant over everybody else's rights.
But the Republicans want to do so because people pay them to think that way, while the Libertarians actually think like that.
And THAT'S why I'm not a Libertarian.
Here's how I think about it.
I believe that the modern Republican party is basically in the pockets of a coalition of religious extremists and big corporate interests. Now, people will argue that the Democrats are no better, in that they're in the pockets of their OWN special interests. And I'd more-or-less agree with that -- except that the "special interests" in whose pockets the Democrats are are largely interests that are largely societal goods. Oh, there are exceptions, but, on the whole, a country run under the principles of the "special interests" who fund the Democrats would be a relatively decent country. Perhaps it wouldn't have as hypertrophic an economy as one run by the Republicans, but it would be generally comfortable and survivable. A country run entirely by the principles of the corporate and religious interests who currently control the Republicans, on the other hand, would be intolerable to me. (Which doesn't mean "I'M MOVING TO CANADA!" if the Republicans win, of course. Those principles would not take utter control of the country, even if the Republicans picked up a huge landslide. We'd be much closer to that model, but I don't think we'd get UNLIVABLE. Not in Massachusetts, anyway.)
So, yeah. I DO believe that both major parties are run by special interests, including corporate interests. I believe that the corporate interests have a major hold over both parties, but the Republicans more than the Democrats. And the Democrats have their own interests to whom they're beholden.
And I DO believe that a third party would be less in the pockets of said interests.
And that's why I am even LESS inclined to vote for the Libertarians than for Republicans.
While the Republicans want to destroy the country because people pay them to do so, the Libertarians want to destroy the country in many of the same ways, simply because they want to. That's even scarier and more dangerous than the Republicans' venality.
The Libertarians and the Republicans both want to destroy social safety nets, allow corporations to destroy the environment, remove the tools that help promote equality, destroy our country's ability to fix disasters, and allow corporations and other powerful interests to run rampant over everybody else's rights.
But the Republicans want to do so because people pay them to think that way, while the Libertarians actually think like that.
And THAT'S why I'm not a Libertarian.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-31 07:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-01 12:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-01 12:53 am (UTC)http://www.jillstein.org/
Not actually a Massachusetts thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-01 01:22 am (UTC)Www.jillstein.com
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-31 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-02 04:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-02 02:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-10 03:07 pm (UTC)This year the Libertarian Party chose Gary Johnson, two-term governor of New Mexico, as their nominee. (Much, much better, IMO, than Bob Barr four years ago, whom I could not possibly vote for.) I fail to see, in Johnson's record as governor, the sorts of things you mention. I do, however, see in New Mexico a state whose finances are considerably better NOW than its neighboring states (whose governments outgrew the economy and now they're faced with a ton of unaffordable, unfunded commitments).
I do see a man who is actually committed to ending the unconstitutional, anti-civil-liberties horrors of the Drug War and the War on Terror, not for abstract hyperventilating reasons but because pragmatically, "it doesn't work." (Also, not just lip service, à la Obama, whose DoJ is worse than Bush's when it comes to respecting liberty, and who thinks it's terrific to hold weekly meetings to target who should be killed. This is the sort of stuff that, when Republicans did it, my liberal friends screamed their heads off, but now that it's a Democrat doing it, they excuse the behavior, rationalize excuses, or, most often, simply look the other way. Nice double standard.)
But hey, if you ever want to get out of your echo chamber* and look at actual principles and facts concerning libertarianism, instead of stereotypes, maybe we can talk.
- Paul, 11 days behind on reading LJ
* I note that none of your readers before me disagreed with you at all on this post. So I may be overgeneralizing, and feel free to correct me, but it sounds an example of what I notice a lot in both my social and work circles: when it comes to politics, liberals-talk-only-to-liberals, conservatives-talk-only-to-conservatives, and the talk is more about tribalism, at its heart, than it is about consistent political principles.
I grant that, having just come out of an election season where "Echo Chamber" political discussions were a daily occurrence at work, plus a painful "discussion" in which a liberal friend brought up the topic, asked me what I thought about Elizabeth Warren, and subsequently chewed me out for not 100% agreeing with her (the friend), while not listening in the slightest to my actual words (e.g. she was convinced that Scott Brown voted with the Republicans 100% of the time, which is off by a mere 53%, but she didn't want to hear it)
...that I might be a little oversensitive and overgeneralizing.