Linked by Kevin at The Smallest Minority.Wash it down with this post from Rational Passion, also linked at TSM.
An excerpt (but please read the whole thing):
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When I search for good arguments from left-liberals--and I truly do look for them--I find none. Which is fair enough--I think they're wrong, so I'm not surprised they don't have any good arguments. But I don't just mean that I find a lot of bad arguments--though I do find those. Too often, I find no arguments at all. I find insults and smears--accusations of racism as the only explanation for opposition to Obama, for example--without even the pretense of argument. And in all likelihood, I suspect that the American people will not reward Barack Obama with the White House for spouting the same left-liberal talking points that left-liberals have been spouting for decades (with a side of hopey-changey rhetoric added for "inspiration"). I suspect that they will punish his supporters for some of the things they've said and written during this campaign.
Can Obama win? Sure--the Republicans have messed things up pretty badly, and it's not inconceivable that the public will punish them for it by turning over the entire government to the Democrats. But no matter how much the Republicans deserve to lose, the Democrats do not deserve to win. And I suspect they won't.
Still, I won't be voting for McCain. Ayn Rand once wrote that "There is a limit to the notion of voting for the lesser of two evils." I am sticking with what I wrote in January before the first primary results came in: I will not vote for either major-party candidate. Barring the unforeseen, I suspect I'll be writing in John Galt
--and I hope you'll do the same if you bother to vote at all.If you want to know what positive actions you can take that will be more likely to make an impact--a John Galt write-in campaign, even if thousands of people participate, will probably not get reported by the media and will thus be a waste of time--I suggest acquainting yourself with the ideas of the defenders of individual rights and limited government--especially those of Ayn Rand--and speaking up for the principles on which individual liberty depends (reason and self-interest) in any forum available to you. In that spirit, here's
a great analysis of the election from Craig Biddle of The Objective Standard, a publication I highly recommend.***
Tempus fugit.
I will not NOT vote. I won’t condemn those who do. But neither will I buy into the idea that we can “send a message” to Washington by such a tactic.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Bush and the Repubs screwed their base these last few years, the voters sure sent them a message. But what message did America send, and just as importantly, what message was received?
I believe the message sent to the Republican party was that we’re tired of you acting like democrats. The vehicle for the message was the huge number of conservatives who stayed home on election day, with the inevitable result that the socialist democrats now reign over Washington and the nation in general.
Now what message was received? This is the most important question of all. The Dems and their media lackeys crow loud and long they’ve been given the green light by America to pursue their socialist policies to the fullest. Well who cares what those bastards think or say right? They weren’t the recipients of “the message”. They were merely the beneficiaries of it. But the intended recipients didn’t get it right either. And they STILL don’t get it. Look at the way Palin has excited the electorate out in the fly-over country. It isn’t because she’s a woman, or because she’s an outsider. It’s because she’s the closest thing to a conservative we’ve seen in a long time. Yet the Republican party is still quivering like so much jelly in face of a vociferous assault on Palin.
Instead of embracing their conservative base and making amends for acting like RINOs, the they’re still groveling, tail-tucking and trying to out democrat the Democrats. So they didn’t get the message we sent. Now we are gonna pay for this terrible miscommunication.
We failed to get a conservative candidate on the ballot. There’s no turning back the clock with a “do over”. All we can do is take the correct course going forward because there’s no changing the past. There IS learning from the past however. Half of McCain’s policies suck. ALL of Obama’s do! I say we elect John, and hope he dies early. Palin seems to have some conservative tendencies. Is she perfect? No…but if you’re waiting for perfect, you missed it by 2,000 years.
This business of sending a message by not voting just ain’t getting us anywhere. I’ll not be a party to electing that closet raghead and his socialist / Marxist policies. And standing by and allowing that evil charlatan to get elected doesn’t make my precious principles feel any better.