11 May 2002
“Why should I vote for you when you’re not going to win anyway? Are you advocating that I should waste my vote?”
Never. Just like dollars in the market place, every vote sends a message. When you walk into McDonald’s to spend your cash you are telling Burger King that you don’t like their selection, their prices, or their location. Admittedly, it takes a lot of transactions (dollars or votes) for the message to get through, but it will get through. It all adds up.
Every time you vote for a Democrat or a Republican you are telling them that you like what they’ve been doing. You are endorsing their continued encroachment upon our civil liberties. You are giving your approval to higher taxes. You are saying you support their schemes to strip Americans of their rights to privacy and to keep and bear arms. You are giving your consent to their vicious drug war.
When you vote Bipartisan, you become an accessory to their crimes. You help Lon Horiuchi to murder Vickie Weaver. You support Janet Reno’s incineration of eighty people at Mount Carmel, and you assist the CIA and the Peruvian air force to butcher Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter. If you continue to vote Bipartisan, knowing their blood-stained record, then the blood is on your hands.
“Those were tragic accidents,” you might think, or maybe ,“They brought it on themselves.” Nevertheless, the Democratic and Republican War on Unpopular Drugs, and their War on Civil Rights, and their War on your Right to Keep and Bear Arms will have consequences which are as inevitable and as predictable as stress fracture and fatigue are to an engineer, and just as catastrophic. If we keep sowing the same corrupt seeds, we will continue to reap the same bitter harvest.
Okay, maybe that’s a little heavy. After all, many voters simply vote on pocket book issues, and really have no interest beyond the economy. They ask, “Why vote for Libertarians, who promise real tax relief, when they can’t win? The Republicans may be less than perfect, but at least they can accomplish something.” It’s a fair objection. To my Republican and Independent friends who think that maybe the next election the Republicans will actually follow through on their free market claims, I have to ask, “What can you expect?”
After six years as Governor, Republican George W Bush left a Texas state government larger than the one he acquired from Ann Richards. After eight years as President of the USA, Republican Ronald Reagan left a federal government and a national debt more than twice the size as the one he inherited from Jimmy Carter. Democrats controlled the House of Representative for over forty years, growing the federal government and our tax burden every step of the way. After eight years of Republican control, the federal government is larger and more expensive than ever.
Bipartisan voters are a lot like the victims of abusive relationships.
“How can you stay with him?” we ask.
And the sad pathetic answer is inevitably, “He didn’t mean it. He’s really trying harder. This time it will be different.”
Next time, it’s not going to be any different, unless we do something different. As long as we keep returning Democrats and Republicans to the seats of power, government will grow, your freedom and security will fade away, and your paycheck will continue to shrink.
Next time, vote Libertarian.
update 180531: While Lon Horiuchi and Larry Smith remain at large, Janet Reno (aka “The Wicked Witch of Waco”) is now safely dead, and the rest of the Clintonista may have been successfully defanged. On the other hand, John (“When a Man Loves a War, Man”) Bolton still exercises his dark influence over our present Puppet-in-Chief and doubtless salivates over the prospect of catching Iran alone one dark night.
Why am I so much harder on Republicans?. Is it guilt? Maybe. If I’m any sort of archist at all, I’m surely more of a republican than I am a democrat. I suppose I hold my own to a higher standard. Also, as confessed commies, I expect Democrats to act like children, so their foolishness offends me less. Republicans, on the other hand, often claim to be “the grown-ups in the room” and they talk a pretty good free market on the campaign trail. But when they start illegal wars and squander tax loot like a liquored up Lyndon Johnson, I’m going to point it out. (This is also why I consider BHWB44 to be only 97% as evil as BHWB43. Unlike Dubya, Bario never actually claimed to be a conservative.)