Idaho Libertarian Times

Op Ed: Voting for the lesser of two evils

"If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct,we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check." - Thomas Jefferson

by R. Lee Wrights
BURNET, Texas (Aug. 3) - It never ceases to amaze me how many citizens can vote for a candidate who doesn't represent their views merely because he's not as bad as the other guy, and then complain about the results. This phenomenon reminds me of a joke that circulated after the 1964 presidential election. That campaign was particularly vicious and decisive, especially the debate over the increasing American involvement in a far-off country called Vietnam and the fight against the "Communist Menace." While President Lyndon Johnson pledged, "We are not going to send American boys nine or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves," Sen. Barry Goldwater countered by saying he'd make "a damned swamp out of North Vietnam" if they didn't quit their aggression.
The joke goes like this: "You know, they told me that if I voted for Goldwater, there would be riots in our big cities and a massive war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater, and, by golly, they were right."
However you want to justify or rationalize it, when you vote for the "lesser of two evils" you're not just betraying your principles but also abandoning all hope of ever having a government that respects and defends liberty and freedom.

    When you vote for a candidate who doesn't represent your views in order to stop another candidate who doesn't represent your views, you end up with a government that not only doesn't represent you views, but is run by people who have no incentive or motivation to even consider what you might think.

    If you maintain you're choosing to support one evil in order to avoid a greater evil, you're basically admitting there is no evil you would not support in the interest of a "greater" good.
Consider any other aspect of your life. If there were only two plumbers, electricians or car repair shops in your city, and both overcharged you, provided shoddy service, used substandard parts, and didn't guarantee their work, would you still hire the one that was least bad? Or would you find a serviceman in a nearby town to hire, even if you had to wait several days for service? Some of you probably would do what I've done and learn to do the work yourselves.

    In either case, you reject the idea of choosing from the "lesser of two evils" and find or make your own, third choice. Why then do we tolerate lousy performance, broken promises, and shoddy service from the two parties whose only reason for existence is to expand the power of government and reduce the rights of individuals? As Pat Buchanan observed, “The Democrats and Republicans are two wings on the same bird of prey.”

    The men who framed the Constitution did so with a profound understanding that government was "a necessary evil." They knew that just by the very act of drafting a document to establish a federal government they were actually choosing the "lesser of two evils." Therefore, they took great care in what they wrote and the government they established, setting it on the firm foundation of natural and unalienable individual rights, while granting it only limited, specific and enumerated powers. The writing of the document was a compromise and the document itself was full of compromises. Nevertheless, the framers believed that the "blessings of self-government" could be secured for posterity through this "lesser evil."

    It's easy to claim that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, but that's not the worst outcome. It's not always possible to vote for someone you agree with on every issue. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate - even a Libertarian candidate. It may be pragmatic to vote for a candidate you agree with on most issues, some issues, or at least on key issues.
    The key word here is "for;" you want to vote for a candidate, not against a candidate. This doesn't mean voting for someone who has no principles you agree with, or who is unquestionably willing to compromise any of their principles at the drop of a hat in order to get elected. This is the underlying misconception about voting for the "lesser evil."
    To begin with, it's habit-forming. The winning "less evil" candidate you voted for could turn out to be just as bad, or worse, than the candidate you voted "against." Remember that once in office, a politician has to "get along" in order to "get things done." Your vote contributes to his false sense that he's won a "mandate from the people." He has no reason to pay any attention to any views that don't match his own. So we shrug our shoulders, say "Oh well," and in the next election do it all again in the hope things will turn out differently. After a while, you become desensitized to the constant disappointment of the lesser evil we choose being no better than the greater evil we feared.
    The most pernicious consequence of voting for the "lesser of two evils" is that it adds credence to the dishonest assertion by establishment party apparatchiks that the Libertarian Party is not "viable." The reality is that if all the people who reluctantly voted for the "lesser of two evils" voted for their principles instead, not only would several third parties be viable, the cumulative effect would build like a tsunami that would eventually sweep away the calcified political establishment.
In summary, here are The Top Ten Reasons Not to Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils:

1. Change doesn't come from the top, nor does it happen right away. Change comes from the bottom, from the grassroots, from the masses of people expressing their voice through their vote, over time.
2. The lesser of two evils usually isn't.
3. It won't change the mind or actions of the "lesser evil" candidate.
4. It's interpreted by the candidate you select as an endorsement of all their views.
5. It helps winning a candidate falsely claim a "mandate from the people."
6. It encourages the practice of the "politics of fear" rather than the politics of freedom.
7. It reinforces the false claim that third party (Libertarian) candidates are not "viable."
8. They don't deserve it.
9. It is in your self-interest and best for your own self-defense to vote for principle, regardless of the possible outcome; in the end, it is the only thing that matters.
10. You'll sleep better.

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."- Thomas Sowell
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R. Lee Wrights, 53, a libertarian writer and political activist, is seeking the presidential nomination because he believes the Libertarian message in 2012 must be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. To that end he has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will be spent for ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states. Wrights is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and co-founder and editor of of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Born in Winston-Salem, N.C., he now lives and works in Texas.



LEE WRIGHTS FOR PRESIDENThttp://www.wrights2012.comContact:Brian Irving, Press Secretary919.538.4548855-4-LEEWRIGHTS

We're Back, with Persuasion Power Point #311

Persuasion Power Point #311 by Michael Cloud

Will This Pynchon Insight Make You a More Persuasive Libertarian?

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." -- Thomas Pynchon, 1973.

    "If you can get people asking the right questions, you don't have to worry about the answers." -- Michael Cloud, 1994.

Are some questions really this powerful and important? Are they really crucial and fundamental??

Answer: Yes.

• Questions initiate and direct thinking.
  
• They focus and drive and sustain it (thought process).
  
• Questions frame and limit the answers we consider and arrive at.
• Some questions control the kinds of answers that are even possible.

    Apply Pynchon's Insight to politics:

     'If Big Government believers can get Americans asking the wrong political questions, they don't have to worry about their answers.'

How about these wrong Big Government questions they want us asking?

• "If we cut federal spending by 10%, how will we pay for these desperately needed programs, workers, or benefits that the 10% currently funds?"
• "If we cut federal spending by 15%, what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of Americans depending on that funding?"
• "If we end or cut federal bailouts of financially struggling states, how will they provide the roads and bridges and hospitals and firefighters and police they desperately need?" * "If we repeal ObamaCare, how will we care for the 30 million Americans who will lose their health care coverage?"

Please note that these Big Government questions rig the discussion -- and drive us toward Big Government answers. Now apply Cloud's Corollary to politics:

"If libertarians can get Americans asking the right political questions, we don't have to worry about the answers."

How about these small-government, libertarian questions we want others asking?

• "Would you rather have the federal government spending $3.7 trillion, with huge deficits and high taxes like we have now -- or federal spending 10% lower, with lower deficits and lower taxes?
• "Which would you prefer: the federal government giving bailouts to multi-billion dollar Wall Street corporations, multi-billion dollar state governments, and foreign governments -- or eliminating all bailouts and using every dollar saved to cut federal deficits and taxes?"
• "Which would you choose: to totally and immediately repeal Obamacare -- with all of its costs and alleged benefits, all of its rules, regulations, mandates, spending and alleged improvements -- or keep Obamacare?"
• "Which would be better for more Americans: today's $3.7 trillion Big Government -- with its high spending, high deficit, and high taxes -- or a federal government 10% or 20% smaller -- with lower spending, a lower deficit, and lower taxes?"

    Are you asking other people the right questions?

    Which small-government, libertarian questions are you planting in the hearts and minds of others?

    Which government-shrinking, liberty-expanding answers will grow and bloom because of the questions you ask today? * * * * * * * *

Michael Cloud is author of the acclaimed book Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion, available exclusively from the Advocates.

In 2000, Michael was honored with the Thomas Paine Award as the Most Persuasive Libertarian Communicator in America.

taken from the : The Liberator Online, Volume 16, No. 11, July 12, 2011

The state of the union is a state of war

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Op Ed
by R. Lee Wrights

BURNET, Texas (Jan. 27) -- What was glaringly absent from President Obama's state of the union address Tuesday night, as well as from the response from both the Republicans and the Tea Party movement, is an admission that the real state of the union is a state of war.

The president only mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan towards the end of his hour-long speech, and uttered the familiar shibboleth of "support the troops" as an applause line to gain the longest sustained ovation of the evening. Neither Rep. Paul Ryan, speaking for the Republicans, or Rep. Michelle Bachman, speaking for the Tea Party movement, mentioned these wars in their remarks at all.

Most of the president's speech was a classic example of elected officials speaking out of both sides of their mouth. While on the one hand calling for a freeze in federal non-security, discretionary spending, the president also called for increased federal spending for a litany of non-security, discretionary items ranging from roads to high speed Internet. Except he doesn't call it spending money, he calls it investment.

Incredibly, President Obama actually made light of the war on civil liberties being perpetrated by the Transportation Security Agency. He said that an "investment" in high-speed rail could soon make train travel faster than flying, and "without the pat down." What was particularly disturbing about this quip was that it received laughs and applause from both Democrats and Republicans in the chamber.

Even though he acknowledged that ballooning federal spending and the skyrocketing national debt were unsustainable, President Obama warned against making "mindless cuts." He admitted that his proposed spending freeze would only affect 12 percent of the budget. Then he said that in order to really tackle the deficit he would have to cut excessive spending "wherever we find it," and even mentioned the big ticket items in the federal budget: Social Security, Medicare and Defense. But then he backed away from offering any meaningful action, preferring to talk about reducing health care costs, eliminating tax breaks and closing tax loopholes, and making government more affordable, more competent and more efficient.

President Obama said that the war in Iraq was "coming to and end," even though a few months ago he said that the war was over. He also said, "we will begin" to bring troops home from Afghanistan in July, even though he has actually sent more troops there since taking office. That reminded me of a used care salesman who raises the price of a car before putting it on sale.

Clearly, neither the president, the Republicans or the so-called Tea Party Republicans have the courage to handle the truth and propose the one action that is absolutely essential if we are to avert an economic catastrophe. We must stop the spending on the 60 to 75 percent of the federal budget that cost the most - defense and entitlements.

We can't avoid economic disaster by slowing spending, lowering spending, cutting spending, or freezing spending. Nor can we nickel-and-dime our way out of the crisis. We must stop spending on items that cost the most. And, we should begin to stop the spending by stopping all wars and bringing the troops home.

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R. Lee Wrights, a libertarian writer, activist and lifetime member of the Libertarian Party who lives in Texas. Wrights is considering seeking the presidential nomination because he believes the Libertarian message in 2012 should be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop all war. He has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his campaign will be spent for ballot access so that the stop all war message can be heard in all 50 states. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty for All.

https://www.typepad.com/secure/services/signin?to=%2Fsite%2Fblogs%2F6a00e554820eb18833010535e29398970b%2Fdesign

Episode 019 Mark Hinkle interview

Libertarian Party National Chair Mark Hinkle Episode 19

 

Conversations On Liberty # 016 James R Dompkowski

 

Conversations On Liberty: James R Dompkowski

Conversations On Liberty # 015 Lee Wrights

Lee Wrights Discusses his campaign & hopes for the future of the LP

Conversations On Liberty #15

 

Libertarian Party Founder David Nolan, RIP ; Antiwar.com Blog

Eric Garris, November 21, 2010

I just received the very sad news that my old friend David Nolan has died.

via www.antiwar.com

From web comments it appears David suffered a massive stroke or heart attack sometime Sunday.

More on this as the Story develops;

 

Lonnie

Conversations On Liberty # 013, Wes Benedict

 

Conversations On Liberty #13 Wes Benedict

Stefan Molineux video: The Proof of Anarchy

 

Conversations On Liberty # 010 Marc Delphine

Conversations On Liberty Interview

Marc Delphine is a college & financial adviser based in Tigard, Oregon. As a native Oregonian, he's worked in the field of investments and insurance for the past 10 years, opening up his own firm, Futures: College & Financial Planning in 2007.

Marc's campaign mission is to “bringing communities together. As a people, he fears we are being divided and conquered. This is why he participates in local activism.

• Marc's been in the Libertarian Party of Oregon for over 7 years

• In that time Marc's run for State Representative twice (2004 & 2008) and State Senate (2006),

• Marc's served in local office on the Tigard Water Board,

• and unlike any visible Democrat in Oregon, Marc was on the front lines of the ‘NO on 36 Campaign’ (which defined marriage in Oregon as between one man and one woman).

• Marc's the current Chair of Americans for Prosperity in Washington County and has given a tremendous amount of his time and effort to helping the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender) Community in Portland.”

• Marc is gay and has worked to improve business within the community. As a board member of the Portland Area Business Association (PABA), Portland’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce.

• Also Marc was the organizer of last year’s TEA Party movement in Beaverton and he lead the march this year in Tigard on April 15. As Marc notes ;

• Marc has Publicly stated “TEA Partiers have been given just as bad of a rap as the LGBT community. Most of us are hard working, open-minded peaceful people” (referring to both TEA and LGBT). The media will have you believe otherwise, but that is a major reason why I’m running…to bring communities together.”