To Vote or Not To Vote, and For Whom?

[tpahl]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white58.html

This is a interesting article about whether it is worth voting this november or not. I am not sure that he really makes a convincing article not to vote, but it reminded me of a thread we had here a couple weeks back about the possibility of a future revolution.

An impassioned liberal friend, who thinks my previously expressed intention not to vote at all is immoral under the present circumstances, wrote to me:

I take it you REALLY don’t intend to vote this Nov.! I can't say that I blame you, but I DO want the pleasure and privilege of voting AGAINST Bushie.

To which I responded:


As Jack Benny famously said, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking." Argument for voting for Kerry: a digit against Bush. Argument for voting for a third-party candidate: signal of disaffection from two-party racket. Argument for not voting: signal of radical disaffection from entire iniquitous system. But I shall continue to think.

If Bush gets back in and keeps the same crowd around him, including the war-mad neocons, we may very rapidly reach a kind of Political Ground Zero where we simply have to change course. We might very well reach that much-to-be-desired turning point rather faster with Bush than with Kerry, because the anti-Bush grass-roots forces, which are now very visible and increasingly well-heeled, will have great reason to oppose him vehemently at every turn, and the Democrats, as a party, will be even angrier than they were after the Gore loss. A mighty engine of frustration at work. Hell hath no fury like a political party kept from the trough.

Whereas, if Kerry gets in, we already know that to start with it will be business as usual. Bush or Kerry: more men needed in Iraq. We must stand up to challenges delivered to us freedom-loving peoples, etc., etc. Let us be reasonable. A draft. And if Iran is somehow maneuvered into firing the first shot to start the next phase of WW III, under either K. or W. there will be no withstanding the argument for the clearly self-evident need to – etc., etc.

But I should still say they are wrong-headed as all get-out because there is no promise for the future in ever-enlarging government no matter who has the executive, and the federal government has clearly outgrown the possibility of being reduced by quiet means. The real need is to shut down D.C., but something tells me that is not up in this next election, worse luck.

Travis