The Sorry State Of Affairs
Posted on July 6th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Those of us who believe in free markets, small government, peace, capitalism, civil liberties and the Constitution will lose, no matter who wins in November. ~Steven Greenhut
That sums it up quite well. All the more reason to vote for Barr.
Filed under: politics
Mr. Larison, are you favoring voting for Barr over Baldwin at this point? What would your reasons be?
I like Greenhut, who’s an Orhtodox convert, amont other things, but he’s a fairly textbook libertarian and would like us to be more receiptive to immigration.
He doesn’t like dense housing or public transportation. He may lost both of those battles, since Orange County is pretty much build up with SFRs, and gasoline is headed skyward.
I must say I’m leaning to Barr, too. I want to like BHO, but he’s such a left-liberal I can’t bring myself to support him, even though the Commentary crowd hates him.
What would my reasons be for voting for Baldwin rather than Barr? To cast a protest vote against Bob Barr? To split the already tiny dissident vote on the right?
Substantively, there is not much difference between the two candidates, whatever you want to say about the differences between the parties. Meanwhile the CP will probably be on fewer state ballots than the Libertarians (again), some elements of the AIP are trying to break away to back Keyes, which will diminish the already small number of CP voters, and Barr stands the best chance of being heard and consolidating dissent on the right behind one candidate. The whole business with the AIP unfortunately reminds me of the chaos in the Reform Party in 2000, and I’m not interested in watching another version of that.
Ah, ok, that is something for me to consider–I believe the CP is on the ballot in California, and I had been favoring Baldwin over Barr. But I will think about the reasons you put forth.
Personally, I think voting for any third party protest candidate is a cop-out, unless they havea real chance of winning. It’s a way of avoiding the hard choice between two flawed major party candidates that will actually determine who is President and what policies are enacted over the next 4-8 years. I can understand the bind most people here are in, in that neither Obama or McCain represents paleocon views very well, but one still has to recognize that one of those two will be President, and not Barr or Baldwin or Paul. A politically engaged individual has to accept that reality and participate in the decision between those two candidates, however difficult it might be.