“If you say you’ll be pulling the lever for the libertarians or any other third party come November? Cue the chorus from both sides of the aisle: “Go ahead, throw your vote away” But that ‘s advice best ignored.” So says Newsday’s Lane Filler, I suppose who’s a libertarian? Who assumes there’s going to be an “any third party” candidate come election time. If they just so happen to get on the ballot in time, which the libertarian party has been lax to do in the past few elections. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s not impossible, because it has become increasingly difficult since Ross Perot’s third party candidacy to get mainstream coverage. There’s just never going to be enough support for a supremely disjointed party amongst an increasingly disjointed voting bloc.
You can find bits and pieces of the Libertarian ideology in either party, and not really have your “independently minded” bonafides tested or mocked. But when Mr. Filler argues both sides’ bad policies are non-starters for most Libertarians, how do they expect to gain traction? “You can only change the Democrats and Republicans by defeating them.[…] Third parties must pursue guerrilla politics.” First of all, if you can’t even propel a strong enough candidate to get on a ballot in ALL 50 states, how can you hope to topple the two-party system? I don’t disagree in Mr. Filler’s notion that the game is “rigged”, but if you can’t even field a competent team to play the game and have to resort to buffoonish political figures that just pay lip service to the Libertarian cause, as it relates to a Republican ideology, then you are wasting your vote. Next, his shining example of guerrilla politics? Ron Paul. “[He] seems to have figured out how to use the Republicans, rather than being used. Paul claims to be GOP, while voting against his party mates’ bills.” You know what would be great here? Some actual evidence to back this up! Granted, column space and all, but if the Libertarian cause is trying to rally troops and bring in new converts pointing to Ron Paul and saying “This Guy!” isn’t going to help, especially when he’s just as regressive and obstinate as his housing party the GOP.
“Since he’s a “Republican” and has support, he gets to participate in debates and the media runs stories about him.” Ah, a delicious right-wing idiotic mind meld of a point! So whether or not the “stories” the media run are bad or not doesn’t hold any water to a voter? Any news is good news eh?
To even further this disjointed third party nonsense Mr. Filler name drops four of the “party’s”(for lack of a better term) would be ideal candidates from 2008 that Ron Paul wasted his endorsement on: The Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party…and Ralph Nader (Independent). Because Ron Paul didn’t agree with any of McCain’s policies, this is the route he chose.
The game analogy is apt because it sadly needs to be played in this day and age. Unfortunately for “third party’s” their lack of a recent serious candidate of any ilk isn’t going make the game change itself. Using vague notions like “guerrilla politics” or Manchurian Candidate-ing either of the two political parties, then yeah, the critique of wasting your vote is very cogent. Honestly, you’re also obstructing people’s right to chose a candidate that would best serve the country. Not one candidate is ever going to be the “perfect” guy for the job, and that’s just the way the game is played.
The third party/Libertarian “movement” must also come to grips with the very real danger their ideology promotes. Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000 and opened the door for W. to get in. I don’t think you’ll find very many ground floor Libertarians that are plussed by the eight years of that Bush presidency. That is the real danger of wasting your vote.
Is that a reductive argument? Sure. But so is pretending that by being a giant asshole and voting for a Unicorn is the voice of change.
“If change is what you want, you can’t keep voting for the status quo when November rolls around. As things stand right now, the third-patty votes, not matter which off-rand ticket they go to, are the only ballots that won’t be wasted.” Thanks for making my point for me Mr. Filler. It doesn’t really fit too good on a bumper sticker, but the idea that wasting your vote could propel anything is absurd. The voting booth is where representative change is enacted, but that’s not where it takes place. If the third-party’s are serious they have to change the mind of the people and there’s plenty of evidence to do so. They are lazy, obviously unfocused, and would rather backseat drive our political system than actually promote a real change to our country.
Suggesting that if the voters refused to vote for a major party, that the total number would shock and the in the next election cycle people would recognize this…and then what? Is Mr. Filler riding a Unicorn whacked out on his mind when he wrote this? You would have to assume that an actual viable third-party candidate would be able to pull all these voters together to vote for him. But if the previous points in the article show that four different people could represent third-party ideals, then voters are even more out of luck then when it was just “this guy or this guy”.
No comments:
Post a Comment