perfidy

Safer? Perhaps only from the illegal use of sexual metaphors (things like "explode", "torpedo", "embedded" to describe sexuat acts and objects). Will Ass-croft say that nothing will "cum" at the US now?

I'll say it - I will vote for Bush. During the Republican primary season four years ago, I felt that Bush was the lesser of several evils. He is a Republican, but in many respects he is not a conservative. And where he is a conservative, I lean libertarian. Nevertheless, it was an easy choice of him over Gore, who offended my principles on many, many levels.

In the coming election, none of the Democratic candidates pass muster on what I consider key issues. The closest is Lieberman, but there is no way on God's Green Earth that he will win the nomination.

To be sure, none of the Democratic candidates would mount an invasive and penetrating campaign against that sordid industry. I have to say, though, defense of pornographers is not exactly high on my list of priorities.

And I promise I will never say, "When they came for the pornographers, I did nothing, and when they came for me, there was no one left..."

As anyone who reads this blog should realize, I have had issue with the administration over many issues. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the overall performance. Particularly in regard to the war on terror. I have absolutely no confidence that any of the Democratic candidates (again, save Lieberman) would do half as well. That is my primary touchstone. And on other issues - especially domestic issues - the Mudville nine provoke anything from mild disagreement to bemused wonder to apocolyptic horror. I will leave guessing relationship of the reactions to the candidates as an exercise for the reader.

A full scale assault on pornography should not be at the top of the Justice department's to do list. Yet, there are laws on the books that the Justice department is required by the constitution to enforce. Some of the anger you are feeling should be directed at the congress that saw fit to enact those laws.

I can only imagine the grass roots resistance movement that will rise up, with it's slogan, "You can't have my porn unless you pry it from my cold, dead hand." Hopefully, they will remain silent about what is in the other cold, dead hand.

Buckethead,

Just wanted to hear you say it.

I'm frustrated as well... the 10 horsemen aren't setting me on fire either, but I can't-- just can't-- vote for Bush.

What the hell is a self-respecting centrist with no abiding party affiliation to do?

BTW... you make a good point. A lot of dumbass laws are passed and stay on the books that never should be there. Again a testament to the beauty of limited government and a warning about the dangers of over-government.

Johno,

You should vote Libertarian.

Not because you want or expect the Libertarian candidate to win, but because you want to express your preferences as accurately as possible to whomever analyzes election results; and hopefully move current and future politicians that way.

Your vote will not swing the election, so you might as well send a clear message. A vote for Bush would be a muddled message at best, and likely to be misinterpreted.

Ashcroft was given the job of AG in return for keeping his mouth shut about losing to a dead guy in the Senate race. The RNC didn't want Ashcroft muddying the waters with a Republican protest when the Presidency was at stake.

Gil, I respect many libertarians. I agree with Libertarian ideas. But the Libertarian party is a grabastic collection of fractious spastics. It needs to die, so that something more useful can inhabit that portion of the political spectrum.

If for no other reason that since the Republican party will always be pulled away from its conservative base, I'd rather it be pulled to the center than to the left, like with prescription drug benefits.

As long as the Libertarians are not capable of motivating the average voter even as well as the Greens, there is no hope for them. I think that part of the problem is that, somewhat ironically, they are to ideological to function well in the big world. They have the zealotry of the converted, but that is not what their natural constituency - the middle of American politics - wants.

Buckethead,

I partially agree with your criticisms of the LP, but that doesn't affect my argument.

The likelyhood of your vote swaying the election (particularly the Presidential election) is far less than the likelihood of you getting into a car accident on the way to the polls.

So the only rational reason to vote is for expressive, not instrumental reasons.

What do you want to express? Is it support for steel tarrifs, farm subsidies, drug benefits, "education" bureaucracies?

Can the Republicans take your vote for granted and try to appeal to other people?

Gil, you pegged exactly most of my complaints about the Bush administration. Have you been reading our blog or something?

But my criticisms, I think, are exactly to the point. Making a protest vote for a libertarian candidate will not effect the thinking of the Republican leadership precisely because the LP is so ineffective. They can, and do take libertarians for granted because everyone knows that they are so laughable as a political organization.

When libertarian minded people act within the Republican Party, sometimes things happen. When Ross Perot launched his kinda sorta libertarian campaign, people bought into it, not merely because the little bastard was strangely charming, but because he actually built a fairly effective political machine, one that actually succeeded in electing governors in a couple states even after Perot pulled his support and money.

While the reform party no longer exists in a meaningful sense, the threat that they posed was neutralised by the large scale adoption by the Republicans of several key issues they supported. (Thankfully not all of them.)

Only a meaningful challenge will actually force change in the Republican party from the outside. Look what the Greens have done to the Democrats. Many who voted Green may have thought they were voting for expressive reasons, but as things turned out, they certainly were not. All voting is instrumental, in the end.

And therefore, the LP is not useful for the purpose of moving the Republican party in a direction we'd like to see it go.

Buckethead,

I disagree.

Several elections have been won by less than the Libertarian vote. That's enough to move candidates (or at least their rhetoric) in that direction.

Yes, look at the Greens. Don't you think they've helped push the Democrats to the left?

Yes, they have, and on a national level. You can explain the behavior of every major democratic candidate in the current election by referring back to Nader and the Greens in '00. (Except Lieberman, of course.)

I don't believe that the LP has had that effect on any major elections. A large part of the reason is not the inherent reasonable or unreasonableness of their positions, but their failure to be an effective political party. Have they ever cracked 1% of the popular vote? The Greens got close to 5%, if I remember correctly, and that seems to be the threshhold for serious impact. Perot got nearly a fifth of the vote in '92.

They invariably come off as cranks, because they are true believers totally unwilling to compromise on the received truth(tm) that the libertarian creed gives them. Some of them are as bad as objectivists or even Jehovah's Witnesses.

Remember, I'm not cracking on libertarian ideas, I agree with many and sympathize with most of the rest. But the Libertarian Party, as a political institution, is incapable of effecting change because it is incapable of organizing efficiently or even of presenting its ideas in a way that will appeal to the general public.

When I see a Libertarian candidate with a properly competant campaign, effective message, and at least some media presence (beyond appearing on a news segment that lumps him in with the LaRouchite and Buchanonite nutcases) then I might consider voting for him. Sadly, I don't think it likely.

It is sad that the biggest Libertarian newsmaker of the last year was the Wisconsin congressman who turned his skin blue.

Gil, I do vote libertarian sometimes when a candidate is on the ticket. But here in Massachusetts, the libertarian candidate is very likely to be a ravening blue-skinned nut as someone who applies reason reasonably.

At such times, voting libertarians becomes not so much a "protest vote" as a scary look into the abyss-- like when Massachusetts residents came with 10% of abolishing the state income tax with no alternative in play. Yeah, nice idea, but the roads are already for shit.

As an interesting twist on all of this, it looks like quite a few prominent California Libertarians are urging a vote for Republican Tom McClintock for Governor.

Just as the Republicans are finally gathering around Ahnold.

Which makes the Libertarians a semi-cohesive political interest in their own right-- more flexible than a party, less diffuse than just an "idea". Until they become stronger and find less loony candidates, that seems like an ideal situation.