I love this kind of post.

Probably, 70% of the posts in this entire forum are directed at yrs truly, and when one slips by me, after a long exchange with the poster elswhere, a n00b like this guy comes in and says, "see!!!??? SEEEEEEEEE!!!!?? Dis here dun proves--PROOOOOOOOVVVVEEESSSSSSS!!!!--what I been dun sayin' 'bout how dumby dem consarvaytives is!!!"

Sheesh.

What n00bery.

What a maroon.

What a walking, keying joke this guy is.

Tokie

It's even funnier 'cuz your such an arrogant little prick....

fucking hilarious.

Here is what YOU fail to grasp: party trumps person.

Maybe not always at the local level, and more rarely still at the state level, but ALWAYS at the federal level party trumps person.

Here's the problem with "voting for the man, not the party!" (state/fed levels): while that FEELS good, it is stupid. Why? Simple: when "the man" gets to the assembly/legislature (whichever you call it there), no matter what wild-eyed stump promises he made, if those promises do not mesh with the overarching goals of the party, and he pushes them, he will find himself as a minor member of the facilities janitorial supply acquisition committee...and that's all. The same applies in spades at the Federal level. There is no "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" in real life, no matter how hard we squinch our eyes closed, clench our fists and stamp our pretty feet.

That's a fantasy.

See: Tom Tancredo. See: Joe Lieberman.

Worse, when you send a Libertarian or other 3rd party type to DC that guy ends up shunned by BOTH parties...he doesn't even make it onto the House Committee on Acquistion of Softer Toilet Paper. He is UTTERLY ignored. Nothing he brings to the floor goes anywhere...ever. Not even PORK for their own districts, and you must know that Congress almost never keeps its own from doling out the pork. Remember the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska...that was a shoo-in until the public at large found out about it.

There are a couple or three Libertarians in Congress. Please name the legislation they've gotten through?

I'll wait.....


And wait.....

And um, well, wait.

Yes, it might feel good to "vote my conscious!" but it's not a very grownup approach to the real world. When you go to the ice cream shop and they are out of cherry vanilla swirly, what do you do? Crumple to the floor, roll around howling and crying and insisting that since that's your mostest favroritist flavor you are gonna cry and scream until you get some?

That's essentially what "voting for the man, not the party" is.

And I know that's what you are going to do, anyway. That's what's called being blindly stubborn. I've known guys like you all my life. From what brand of car they drive, even after being sold lemon after lemon they're a Chevy man 'til death because they are so frightened of looking into the mirror and saying "I was wrong."

Why do you think so many libs LOOK like conservatives (bitch about rising taxes and find ways to avoid paying them, send their kids to private, often religious schools, drive those kids there in big, safe SUVs, raise those kids in 6000 s.f McMansions and dress them in clothes made in Malaysian "sweatshops," etc., etc., etc.)?

Simple: they were a "liberal" in college and fear more than death itself having their still-single still "active" friends from those days coming for a visit (freeload on the way to some protest) and finding out that they are (horrors!) actually very conservative in their values now that they have (even worse) GROWN UP!

Aaauuuuggghhhhh!!

Rockribbed, muleheaded "Libertarians" like you are no different.

So be it.

Help drive this country into socialism even faster, at least you'll be able to look into the metal mirror on the wall of the concentration camp privy and say, "I always voted for the man, not for the party!"

Tokie

In all fairness. I realy see no difference in voting Republican or Democrat, in the big picture of things.

All of them ignore the same problems.

None of them stand up for:

The Bill of Rights.
Property Rights.
Smaller, Limited Federal Government.
Immigration Reform.


I could go on about things you an I disagree with, like Gay Marriage, The War in Iraq, and Presidential Authority. But those are key deffinitions between you and I.

From what I read from your opinions. You closer to Paleoconservativism than Libertarianism or Conservative Libertarianism, or the countless arbitrary terms for Conservative folks.

I go into a discussion about the war, or Civil Liberties. I get called Liberal. When I go into a discussion about taxes, and Government Spending. I get blasted as a Neocon. Which offends me more than anything, regarding Political discussions.

We can go back and forth, 8 time a day on this.

The only thing I can tell you is that I can allign with someone I do not agree with. Like Guilliani or Huckabbee. Who are anti-gun rights. Pro-Protectionist Trade barriers, like NAFTA or North American Union. Who waste our time with arbitrary discussions about Gay Marriage, and so on.

Or those who cater to the Libertarians and Conservatives by saying they will drastically shrink Government. Than Government always gets bigger every year, always.


Or I could vote for the party, regardless of it's size, political power or number of Candidates at the Federal Level. That holds strong in it's platform. Offers concrete solutions to complex problems.


More importantly, alligns with 95% of my personal beliefs regarding the place of Government, property rights, and the Bill of Rights. Which is the most important part of the United States Constitution, to me.

So I vote Libertarian, at the local level. Occasionally a shining light will appear in the two headed beast of the two parties. Ron Paul would be one of them. So I reserve my vote to see if he can pull it off. Or I will vote for the party that not only supports my views, but also, I happen to be a member of.

__________________
"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

When you go to rent a new apartment, or buy a car, do you forego doing so until you find a "perfect" example?

No one, not even a Libertarian (and let's be realistic: the clock is not going to be turned back to 1785, no matter what) will be "perfect" and make every move exactly as YOU would want.

Now, you might say "but the Libertarian would better represent my views" True. But that's a pipe dream. The Libertarian is not going to get elected (national).

And while I have a HUGE problem with what the traitor in the Oval Office did regarding illegals, and with the free trade agreements with the crimnal, socialist government of Mexico, I don't have many complaints elsewhere.

I don't want to list the issues and bat them around. You know them, I know them, etc.

The socialists are so far removed from what you as a Libertarian want, it's like they are a different species.

The Republicans, while by no means the perfect party you demand, are still far, far closer to your ideals than are the socialists.

Here is the political calculus: your not voting, or your voting for an "Independent" etc., is a vote for the socialists. It's that simple.

So, once again, I ask you: which of the two MOST (not perfectly, as you demand) satisfies your ideals? Those who will use our military not for the Constitutionally sound purpose of protecting US citizens' interests here AND abroad, but only for "humanitarian purposes" putting command of our forces under the UN? Those who will raise taxes to 100-120% in some cases on "the rich" (excluding of course those who they deem "the select": Algore, the Clintons, Moore, et al.)? Those who will socialize business, from medical, to transportation, to...well, anything they can. Those who will (as the Clintons did) turn enormous tracts of public lands in the US, over to UN control, banning all uses (including recreational) by US citizens? Those who will take more and more and more from the producers, to "redistribute" to the "more deserving workers"?

Again, no party is perfect, no candidate is perfect. But I think you need to be realistic; time to grow up and put away the things of childhood, including childish fury that with imperfection. Frankly, you remind me a little kid in this, way, throwing a fit because his apple has a bruise on it.

You can idealize those you well, idealize, from past or present. Other than perhaps religious figures, none of them were perfect. And you are being childish if you really believe that even if by some wild stroke, a Libertarian suddenly found himself in the Oval Office, he would not be forced by reality to deal in well, reality.

The outside world is not going to go away. You can't rewind the calendar. We can't all live on 5 acre farms or own little shops in little towns.

It's 2007, not 1807, and screaming "the Constitution is still the Constitution!" doesn't change that fact, either. Today's leaders have to work with today's issues, and within the framework of the modern world.

Tokie

Hey!

I'm not a prick!

I fail to see how being a Constitutionalist negates any understanding of the real world.

Both parties are too apathetic to the issues I believe in. None of them will ever address these.


Reinstating the Gold and Silver Standards. (which usually gets a president shot)
Non-Interventionism in our Military Foreign Policy.
Abolishing Property taxes.

I could on and on. But call me selfish, but I would do the same to the person encouraging me to vote GOP. Is it not the support of the Status Quo that keeps them in office? Is it not the people who throw there hands up, stay home and vote, or simply check either Elephant or Jackass on the ballots regardless of what they believe?

I do not believe the two party system works. I think it is a sham of democratic processes. A debate commission that excludes anyone who does not allign with Democrat or Republican.

The Cato Institute Conducted a poll. In that poll they tried to attempt to determine how many Libertarians there are in America. The poll, howevor innaccurate it was. Showed to be around 15 million Americans who are Libertarian or who have Libertarian or Minarchist Leanings.

I would not say that to be a minority. Or no chance of ever getting elected.


So no if my Choices are Guilliani or Obama and Hillary. I choose Libertarian. If My choices are Ron Paul, Obama or Hillary, I choose Paul.

Huckabee I don't care for.


So I vote for my principles. I seriously doubt you can or should continually try to convince me. Or any other Libertarian for that matter. We are seriously set in our ways.

__________________
"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

I didn't say being a Constitutionalist negates your understaning of the world. I said being childish impact your understanding of the world.

None of the issues you name here have a shot in hell of doing anything but getting you laughed at. Again, yes, it would be wonderful if we could turn back the clock to 1785 and all of us could work small farms or make buggy whips or cheese or better, beer in our small family owned shops on quaint, quiet tree-lined streets and joint the lads every afternoon for a pint before heading home to our wattle and daub house and a nice pot of venison stew followed by a reading of the Good Book around the crackling fire before we donned our bedcaps and fell to a long night of blissful slumber.

Then, Johnny Tremain grew up.

And we entered the modern world. One where other grownups deal with the grownup problems of the day not by pining for long gone days that may or may not have existed (do you really think things were all that pleasant in rural PA during the Whiskey Rebellion, or on the western Frontier when an Indian raiding party found your idyllic cabin?).

If there are that many Libertarians (I believe you mean libertarians) then why can't they seem to get anyone elected? Why aren't they all voting for the Libertarian candidate who runs every 4 years? Brown has run what, 4-5 times now?

15 million is pissant when compared to the 50 million the Rs and Ds have vote in national elections. It's pretty clear that not all Libertarians (or libertarians) vote for the L candidate, too. Or you wouldn't see numbers like 2-3 million votes...or is that part of the conspiracy?

The reality is, you can continue pouting and angrily voting "for the man, not the party!" until you die, it's not going to change the two -party system we have and all you are doing by voting for a Libertarian candidate is helping get the MORE socialist of the two viable parties elected.

Tokie

We need to let this topic drop.

But yeah, libertarians, is what I should have said.

Keep in mind, a libertarian can be a Libertarian, but a Libertarian can not be a libertarian.

__________________
"It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish the Government"
Declaration of Independence
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
Milton Friedman

Probably on all counts.

Tokie