imported post
ghostrider wrote:
I disagree. I don't think it's throwing your vote away.
If your not interested in the other candidates, supporting statistics for a third party is a good idea. Only problem is too many people disagree.
I was being facetious when I said "throwing my vote away" (hence the quotation marks).
I do find, much of the time, that I end up voting Libertarian only because said candidate is within my political spectrum. But when it comes to certain candidates, sometimes I'm willing to forgo a minor issue in favor of a larger one... and this is what will cause me to vote for a major party (Republican or Democrat).
For instance, let's say a race comes down to Democrat A or Republican B... I am going to probably choose one of the two major parties if one of them are strongly supporting a major issue. Even though the Libertarian may also support that issue, I might feel strongly enough to help "secure" the ideal by voting for the candidate who has a higher chance of success.
But again, it's not often this comes up.
On the subject of "throwing votes away", I'm of the opinion that our votes in federal matters are non-existent anyway. We do not directly elect the President or Vice President... the electoral college does this. There have been several cases (most recently in the 2000 Bush vs Gore election) where an electoral voter did NOT vote in accordance with the People. In 26 States (a majority of the nation) there are NO laws punishing, or cancel ling the votes of, these faithless electors. And while there hasn't been a case YET where faithless electors have changed the outcome of an election; the fact is that it COULD happen. So we, the People, do not have the control we think we do. In the 2000 case, the faithless elector was one of DC's total of 3 electors. Her decision to abstain from voting (rather than vote for Gore, as the People instructed with their votes), she, in effect, canceled out 1/3 of Washington DC voters. That means that thousands of people turned out to cast their vote, but were not represented.
We, the People, really have no control in federal matters. We control our respective States, only. For instance, in Michigan, we directly elect Michigan delegates to represent our State interests in the United States Congress. But since we have no control over the other 49 States (50 if you include DC), then we, in effect, have NO control over federal powers. It's not like we, in Michigan, can vote out some idiot in another State.
I shake my head every time a Presidential election rolls around and all these people start getting patriotic all of a sudden. I get irritated when the media campaigns the importance of "being heard by voting". I wonder how many of these people actually paid attention in their high school civics class. In that we do not directly elect Presidents and we have no control over federal matters... then how the hell are our "voices heard"? At best, our "recommendations" are heard... but just like any Monarch, they can easily ignore us.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who have not ever read the full text, including all Amendments, of our Constitution. I've read it so many times, forward to back, that I have large parts of it committed to memory. Because I understand my Constitution so well, I resent the idea of being referred to as a United States citizen. I consider myself a resident of the United States, but a citizen of Michigan. Our individual States are our sovereign States... collectively, we form the UNITED States.
Pay particular attention to the use of the word "States" in the Constitution. More particularly, pay attention to how it is ALWAYS referred to as "the United States" as a plural entity, rather than "The United States" as we know it (a singular entity).
THE United States sounds an awful like THE United Nations or THE European Union. None of which are a sovereign, singular, entity... but rather a collection of individual sovereign entities UNITED under one umbrella for a common purpose. Kind of like a marriage... just because you promise to love, honor, and obey each other does not mean you lose your self identity. You are still two separate people... and even more importantly, you still have the right to separate if the union proves to be unfavorable to one or both of you.
I wish the South would have given up the issue of slavery and stuck, exclusively, to the subject of State rights. This country would probably have been in a much better condition today. Losing that war just empowered the federal government to steamroll the American people even harder. FDR's "New Deal" was the icing on the cake. And now, more recently, the implementation of the PATRIOT Act was the box that packaged us up nice and neat as good little subjects.
History is so insightful. And it's all right in front of our faces. And yet we, the People, are more concerned with who Paris Hilton is banging these days than with the fact that the federal government, for the last 150 years, has been slowly executing a political coup upon the States and the People. Even the States are becoming corrupt.
Case and point: We need to undergo background checks to exercise rights. Try buying a pistol without it... you won't get very far. The Constitution was written in plain English (of the time) and is purposefully not complicated. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It's an obvious infringement when I have to request PERMISSION to do it. "Excuse me sir, may I purchase a pistol please?" "Hello good citizen, you may purchase one only after you jump through these hoops." One of those hoops, incidentally, is not to piss off your local police clerk. If he/she is deputized (and believe me, any clerk issuing purchase permits IS deputized), they can simply say "I think you could be dangerous... so I'm denying you." It happened to me. No clinical psychologists, no mental evaluations, no convictions... NOTHING. All she was had was a "suspicion" because, I guess, she is not only a PhD, but also omniscient. The reality is that the assertion of my rights didn't sit well with her, so she invoked the legal ability to deny based on a BS "suspicion". I went all the way up the chain to the Captain... and he told me that if I didn't like it, I could go get a lawyer and sue. It's good to know that in order to exercise a right anymore, that you have to spend $3,000 (non-refundable, by the way) to sue someone. It took me MONTHS to get my gun.
But hey... no infringement there. Right?
Bottom line... we live in a land of legal matrices. It's not totally different than the movie (The Matrix). Take away the machines and replace them with government... and there you have it. We, the People, are oblivious to what's going on behind the scenes of this world that we think exists.