As to me "wasting" my vote voting for a 3rd party candidate.
Let me make this clear: voting for someone I know isn't going to win does not give me a warm feeling. It's a cold feeling knowing you can't win, but I'm not going to "waste" the ONLY vote I get to make on someone I don't even like.
Understanding your thoughts is not hard, it is not even a disagreeable position, it does however have repercussions.
Forget the debates that you hear so much in the media, those are agendas. Instead consider very real long term thoughts.
Note going to debate the NEED for health care insurance, but the actual legal position.
For 235 years this country has functioned quite well with citizens telling the government what to do. Generally speaking, exclusive of the issues surrounding slavery and similar activities, the general premise has been the government can make a law that tells you what you can't do, the legislature recommends it, the executive branch approves it, and SCOTUS upholds it if found to be acceptable by the founding documents.
Last year changed ALL of that and much of the SCOTUS debate around the healthcare law made it very clear. For the first time in history it has been allowed for the government not to tell you what you can't do, but to actually FORCE you to do something. Guy (assumed male) that is HUGE and some serious insight into the future. The government is SEIZING POWER and EXERCISING it upon citizens now and all three branches of government just moved forward on it.
While you may well believe that the third party candidate vote is a free speech issue and sends a message of some level, it is without merit. The best race ever for a third party candidate ever was Perot. I believe he is the ONLY third party candidate in history to garner more than 5% of the vote, effectively rendering any third party run in modern times nearly impossible and statistically delusional at this time.
The above noted, take a real close look at the third branch of government and recent votes. 100% of the liberals voted for the government to TELL YOU what to do, 100% of the conservatives voted against TELLING YOU what to do and the one moderate back and fourth justice went liberal this vote and approved the government telling YOU what to do. Why is that important? If you look at the ages of those serving justice's you will find 3 of them are over 75 years old, one liberal and two conservatives.
It is important because it is quite likely the next administration will indeed be appointing 3 or perhaps even 4 justice's to the bench. If you think for one second that the DC ruling on firearms would go the same with two more liberals on the bench, you had better take another look at the vote on McDonald and read the dissenting opinions.
We got put on the slippery slope this year with SCOTUS voting that the government now TELLS US WHAT WE HAVE TO DO instead of the other way around, and if you do not consider the potential third branch appointments as a significant part of your voting criteria, be careful, you just may get what you ask for, the ground work has already been done, there is case law, and more laws will pass muster unless the third branch stops it.
Other than that, vote as you see fit. You put your opinions out there and I have responded in kind with my own, I ask only that you consider it and then do as you see fit.
