Voting

The subject of voting has been coming up a lot recently as we inch closer to the general election. I have recently been having a long back and forth conversation with a self described libertarian, who sports a "Fuck the Republicrats: Vote independent" banner on his myspace page, who has been desparately urging me to vote for McCain.

His primary reason seems to be that I am underestimating the damage that a Clinton or Obama administration might inflict on us, so he has reasoned that we would be best to vote against them. He is also a bit of a war hawk, and is attracted to McCain's "follow Bin-Laden to the gates of hell" mentality.

I have been appealing to the libertarian non-aggression principle as a reason not to support a mainstream party, but to no avail. In full disclosure, I should point out that our state is sort of an anomoly in that we have the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation, so we usually do not get the opportunity to vote for L candidates. Given this local state of affairs, I usually go to the polls to vote against bond issues, occassionally for politicians in local elections, and I default to non-voting in the general presidential election as a means of voicing my lack of a viable choice for president.

I brought this up today because I have a question for my anti-statist allies in the blogosphere. Do you plan on voting in the general election, and if so who for?

John McCain

I recently received an email message with a link to a Wall Street Journal article concerning John McCain on taxes. Looks like the Republicans are trying to quiet the fears of many fiscal consevatives in the party, and convice them to hold their noses and vote for McCain. I have posted my response below.

Thanks for passing along the article on McCain. I must admit that I
feel slightly less agitated by him knowing that his vote against the 2003
microscopic tax cuts was in protest of the bill not going far enough to reign in
spending at the same time. I have also spent the last few minutes studying
his votes and positions over the past 10 years, and I must say he appears to be
slightly more friendly to the low tax, more social freedom, issues that I hold
dear. However, I still find him light years away from someone I could ever
consider giving my stamp of approval via voting booth.

Although she is even further away from me on most issues,
I would probably feel more comfortable with Clinton in office than McCain for
the next four years. This would undoudtedly cause the Republicans to rally
once again and sweep congress to oppose her and we would return to that sweet
gridlock whereby the two parties spend all of their energies fighting eachother
and very little gets done in the way of tinkering with our economic and social
liberties. I look back on the 1990's and see that while Clinton was in
office, the Republicans as the opposition party were much more helpful in
fighting runaway government spending than they have been as the majority party
over the past 8 or so years. Honestly, the possibility of them regaining a
majority scares me. George Bush's compassionate conservatism has infected
the Republican party. It is like a disease that allows Republicans to grow
the size and scope of the government under another name, but it sure looks a lot
like modern day big government, bleeding heart liberalism to
me.

I don't like the direction our government has gone over the past 50
years, and I can't consciously, or morally support the controlling forces that
have been responsible for growing the state to its present form.

I can not as many on the right have said they would do, and hold their
nose and vote for McCain.