Forgot to respond to the original thread topic
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Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights
Absolutely not! And the more people that get that kind of propoganda out of their head, the better. Your vote is, of course, your vote. If you vote Libertarian, then you are voting Libertarian...not "anti-Republican", or "anti-Democrat". I grow weary of hearing that tired old mantra "You're throwing your vote away.". Wrong! My vote is my voice, and by using it I am not wasting it. As it stands today...I will be voting for Badnarik. He is the candidate that most closely matches my values and beliefs.
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I couldn't have said it much better tan this. This is EXACTLY how I feel.
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Originally Posted by cthulu23
Vote for whomever you want to, but be prepared to deal with fallout from your Bush supporting friends if Badnarik pulls a "Nader" in a battle ground state.
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I *REALLY* hope this happens. The Green party, no offense to its supporters, was too new to handling the instant attention it got from Nader's success in 2000. But, I think the Libertarian party is grounded enough already where, if Badnarik were able to get the media attention of "spoiling the election" it would really help them out.
Now, onto the whole wasted vote thing. There are two ways to look at it. The honest way, and the pragmatic way. I look at it through what I like to call the honest way. It is the way BOR outlined aboev. However, when evangelizing to friends of mine, I debate the pragmatic way. That is, I know many of my friends hate Bush and dislike Kerry les. Much like Stompy points out, you DO have a choice over whether or not the one you hate or the one you just dislike gets into office. This is where the wasted vote mentality comes from. In fact, the mentality is so rooted in our culture it is very difficult to overcome it. So, when speaking with my friends about this I first ask what state they are voting in. Most times it is not a swing state - almost all are voting in Illinois, some in California, others in Indiana - almost none are voting in a state where their vote realistically matters. At this point, I simply point out the fact that their vote WON'T make a difference in the eection no matter how "close" it is because of the state they are living in, so I encourage them to find a third party candidate to vote for instead. Now, if they are voting in Ohio, I don't fight it. It's a tought battle - especially this election - so I simply say, alright, then vote for Kerry, but if you know anyone voting in a "solid" state, please encourage them to vote third party. I've actually gotten many people to plan on voting third party this election through this method, without any of them worying that if they do so the person they dislike most will win.
Nonetheless, I think the REAL argument for voting 3rd party lies in the honest approach - the one BOR mentioned above. Part of the reason I think this can be summed up through a quote by Michael Badnarik:
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"If you were in prison and you had a 50% chance of lethal injection, a 45% chance of going to the electric chair and only a 5% chance of escape, are you likely to vote for lethal injection because that is your most likely outcome? If you continue to vote for the Democrats or the Republicans, you are committing political suicide."
-- Michael Badnarik on voting third-party
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