The Problem with Third Party Candidates

[dburkhead]

I think that most of us are smart enough to realize that by handing a homeless drunk a $20 bill on the street corner, we are enabling his addiction not helping him.

And how much better off are you by simply burning that $20 bill?

By continuing to vote for candidates that continue to bend you over without so much as a kiss, you're enabling them and giving tacit approval of their policies.

Did you actually read what I wrote?

If you're in a car rolling down a hill towards a cliff, which is better: break (even if the brakes are faded and won't stop you completely) or accelerator?

Maybe you think things will be better if you get to the cliff even quicker (the "going galt" solution). History suggests otherwise.

The problems that are ailing our country will not be fixed at the ballot box. The ballot box is only prolonging the inevitable. Our country needs to return to a policy of personal responsibility and a society where people have real property rights. IE, you don't produce, you f'ing starve, not steal from the rich to give to the poor. Our country is made up of roughly 1/3 conservative, 1/3 socialists, and 1/3 weenies who don't have a clue what the f they want until election day. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of that last 1/3 will swing socialist.

Cite for these numbers?

This site is made up of an overwhelming majority of conservatives and yet there is still a huge amount of posters here who are envious of corporations, the rich, etc. When it comes time to vote, many conservatives are still voting for the candidate that is going to bring them the bacon.

And many are still trying to get to that cliff as fast as possible--somehow thinking that it will be something other than a fatal crash.

Until you can rewire the brains of the majority of our citizens to real conservatism, things aren't going to change. Our country is too far gone to bring it back by incrementalizing it at the ballot box. We need to return to the roots of our country and follow the constitution today. Not tomorrow, November or 2012. No citizen alive today has lived first hand the freedom that existed in this country 200 years ago so they don't have faith that a return to freedom will bring about prosperity, not another government program.

If that's true than the choices are not tyranny and freedom but simply more or lesser tyranny.

If that's true, "Freedom" is not on the table and will not be on the table for generations.

If that's true, then the best you can hope for is "lesser tyranny."

If that's true then only a complete idiot (or someone who likes tyranny, but I repeat myself) would take a path to greater tyranny faster.

My solution:

Go Galt or split this country down the middle. You've got 45 days to get your stuff packed and move to the side of the country you feel best suits your needs. Conservatives on one side, socialists on the other. On day 46, the 100' tall electric fence goes up and a 2 mile wide minefield on either side. After a couple of years, you decide you chose the wrong ideology and the other side is more appealing? You can make it through the minefields and electric fence, welcome to the other side.

IOW create a dark age where the barbarians have won. That's what "going galt" and "stopping the motor of the world" mean in the real world rather than in the fantasy Rand wrote about.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

Minor party candidates and new party candidates may become eligible for partial public funding of their general election campaigns. (A minor party candidate is the nominee of a party whose candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the total popular vote in the preceding Presidential election.

A 3rd party vote is not a wasted vote. Anything said to the contrary is just an attempt to pull you into the brainless popularity contest. I didn't like most of what Bush Sr. did. I didn't like most of what Clinton did. I didn't like most of what Dubbya did. I don't like most of what Obama is doing.

Just because you think that Republicans are better than Democrats, doesn't mean that I think that way. I see them as two heads of the same beast. One has sharp, gnashing teeth. The other has wide, crushing teeth. In the end, it all turns out as

The only thing I think we really agree upon here is that as long as libertarian-minded Republicans keep voting for someone different than libertarian-minded non-Republicans, we're not going to see any positive changes.

Have you considered what might happen if you libertarian-minded Republicans would either wrest control of your party back or move en masse to 3rd party?

Either way...please don't expect me to start voting for people who pass legislation such as the "patriot" act... You should be ashamed that you think such people are acceptable.

 

[dross]

Let's say your self-sufficient, originalist, libertarian world is achievable? How will you get there? Are you more likely to get there by voluntarily resigning all the power you have and placing yourself on the margins, or by trying to influence the closest party we have to your ideals to adopt more of your ideals? Yes, by not voting for any but the pure, you keep yourself pure. But that's a symbolic gesture that accomplishes nothing practical in the real world.

Politics is philosphy converted to policy. Except in a dictatorship, that must be done by making compromises with competing philosophies. Don't you see that even if you had a society of people who all agreed with you, that you would have disagreements within that society? It's like watching the Communists break into factions in the early part of the 20th century. From our point of view they all wanted pretty much the same thing. From inside, they called each other traitors to the Revolution.

 

[dburkhead]

One thing some people seem to be missing. I am not saying don't support more conservative/libertarian candidates. I am saying that the place to do that is at the primary level to get them on the ballot as one or the other of the major party's candidate. It's simply easier to "take over" a party than it is to get a third party into power at the federal level.

And if your libertarian/conservative minded candidate cannot beat the RINO in the primary, what makes you think he can beat the RINO in the general election? And if he can't beat the RINO, well, voting for him anyway may make you feel better about losing but it's still losing.

And if the folks voting third party because they don't like either major party candidate and the people staying home because they didn't like either candidate lead to the worse candidate getting into office, well, you may feel better about not having voted for someone you didn't like but you still have the worse candidate voted into office. And you share the blame for it.

 

[CarmelHP]

Either way...please don't expect me to start voting for people who pass legislation such as the "patriot" act... You should be ashamed that you think such people are acceptable.

OK, in the last presidential election which candidate would you have suggested out of those running in the general election?

 

[dross]

A 3rd party vote is not a wasted vote. Anything said to the contrary is just an attempt to pull you into the brainless popularity contest. I didn't like most of what Bush Sr. did. I didn't like most of what Clinton did. I didn't like most of what Dubbya did. I don't like most of what Obama is doing.

I think a third party vote is a wasted vote. I promise you I'm not brainless, nor am I trying to support popularity contests. Nothing wrong with disagreeing, but why must the people supporting this position constantly attack the motives and worth of those who disagree? It's a leftist tactic. I want what you want, I just think you way you advocate won't work.

Just because you think that Republicans are better than Democrats, doesn't mean that I think that way. I see them as two heads of the same beast. One has sharp, gnashing teeth. The other has wide, crushing teeth. In the end, it all turns out as .

What are your most important issues? I'm trying to imagine what issues they are so close on that there's really no difference.

The only thing I think we really agree upon here is that as long as libertarian-minded Republicans keep voting for someone different than libertarian-minded non-Republicans, we're not going to see any positive changes..

I just think that requires sometimes voting for the MOST libertarian minded Republican available. Sometimes that choice sucks.

Have you considered what might happen if you libertarian-minded Republicans would either wrest control of your party back or move en masse to 3rd party?..

I've considered it. I think of it as "daydreaming" because I don't think we can make that happen in the upcoming election, or the next, or the next. Perhaps, however, we can move the party towards that goal.

Either way...please don't expect me to start voting for people who pass legislation such as the "patriot" act... You should be ashamed that you think such people are acceptable.

I'm not ashamed. I haven't done anything wrong. I don't think any of them are "acceptable." I don't get to choose the best choice I can imagine. I only get to choose the best choice available.

 

[dburkhead]

I'm not ashamed. I haven't done anything wrong. I don't think any of them are "acceptable." I don't get to choose the best choice I can imagine. I only get to choose the best choice available.

A couple of years ago, I had a choice to make: get my belly cut open in four or five spots or have repeated gall bladder attacks until things got really bad. I didn't like either choice. Neither was "accpetable" as Paco appears to be using the term.

However, "neither" was not an option. It was going to be one or the other. I made a choice.

A year later I had another choice--ongoing pain in my right shoulder or extremely painful surgery to fix the problem. Again, "neither" was not an option much as I would have liked it to be.

In both cases I could have gone to some quack who would promise to fix the one problem without the problems attendant on the other "standard" alternative. And the quacks would have been just as effective--doing nothing to improve the original problem or maybe even making it worse.

 

[Pami]

It's simply easier to "take over" a party than it is to get a third party into power at the federal level.

I have an acquaintance who tried very hard to do just that - "take over" a party - for several years. She finally gave up and switched to the LP recently.

And, it's easier to do it from the ground up - start at the local level and work up. The LP is getting people in the city/county level all across the country.

And personally, I'd say Indianapolis has an excellent city/county councilor who is doing a darned fine job of trying to get things back to less government/less taxes (guns in city parks, anyone?).

The LP has a strong base in Indiana. Go to the Primaries and vote LP where you can. With the dissatisfaction in BOTH of the major parties, NOW is the time for a strong third party to stand up and get noticed. It can only do that if all those "I'd vote for them but..." voters actually DID vote for them.

 

[hornadylnl]

We've tried the method of voting for the lesser of 2 evils for over 200 years. For every step we've made to liberty, we've made 1000 backwards. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Voting for Rinos hasn't worked for 200 years, it's time we change our methods. There are other methods but those are deemed extreme, radical, etc. Your's isn't working, what harm would it do to try something else?

Our founders could have tried to prolong the inevitable. Their attitude wasn't one of "I can live with this, I'll be long gone before it gets too bad". Instead, they cared more for their posterity than they did themselves.

 

[dburkhead]

I have an acquaintance who tried very hard to do just that - "take over" a party - for several years. She finally gave up and switched to the LP recently.

And, it's easier to do it from the ground up - start at the local level and work up. The LP is getting people in the city/county level all across the country.

And personally, I'd say Indianapolis has an excellent city/county councilor who is doing a darned fine job of trying to get things back to less government/less taxes (guns in city parks, anyone?).

The LP has a strong base in Indiana. Go to the Primaries and vote LP where you can. With the dissatisfaction in BOTH of the major parties, NOW is the time for a strong third party to stand up and get noticed. It can only do that if all those "I'd vote for them but..." voters actually DID vote for them.

If most of the "I'd vote for them but..." voters actually did vote for them, they would still lose.

Take an example from the upcoming senate race. If you can't get enough voters to vote for a more libertarian candidate against, say, Dan Coates, in May, then how in the world would you expect that candidate to get enough votes to do it in November?

I didn't say that "taking over" a party was either easy or a sure thing, just that it's easier than starting from scratch. You have to get just as many votes to win as a third party candidate as you do as a Republican candidate and have less to do it with.

The greatest likelihood of success is in the smaller local elections (which is why I specified "larger Federal elections" in my OP). But Ed Coleman winning in Indianapolis is worth exactly nothing when it comes to Washington.

 

[dross]

We've tried the method of voting for the lesser of 2 evils for over 200 years. For every step we've made to liberty, we've made 1000 backwards. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Voting for Rinos hasn't worked for 200 years, it's time we change our methods. There are other methods but those are deemed extreme, radical, etc. Your's isn't working, what harm would it do to try something else?

Our founders could have tried to prolong the inevitable. Their attitude wasn't one of "I can live with this, I'll be long gone before it gets too bad". Instead, they cared more for their posterity than they did themselves.

I can agree with trying "something else." But all something else's aren't created equal. I think this one is doomed to failure.

 

[turnandshoot4]

And I ask you what I asked Prometheus: What has your candidate accomplished?

And I ask you sir. What has your accomplished?

 

[mrjarrell]

I have an acquaintance who tried very hard to do just that - "take over" a party - for several years. She finally gave up and switched to the LP recently.

And, it's easier to do it from the ground up - start at the local level and work up. The LP is getting people in the city/county level all across the country.

And personally, I'd say Indianapolis has an excellent city/county councilor who is doing a darned fine job of trying to get things back to less government/less taxes (guns in city parks, anyone?).

The LP has a strong base in Indiana. Go to the Primaries and vote LP where you can. With the dissatisfaction in BOTH of the major parties, NOW is the time for a strong third party to stand up and get noticed. It can only do that if all those "I'd vote for them but..." voters actually DID vote for them.

^^This.
Councilman Coleman stands out as what I'd like to see. Let's look at what he did. Sponsored a bill to remove the ban on guns in Indianapolis parks. Now, what was the Democrat response? They crapped themselves and voted against it. What was the Republican response? They crapped themselves voted against it, including a threat to veto from Indianapolis' republican mayor. So....I should vote for a republican or democrat over a candidate like Ed? Sorry, that's never going to happen. I'd rather fight a losing battle on the side of the angels than side with evil or evil only on odd days. Those of you who wish to preserve the one party structure are free to do so. Just don't come whining when you're stabbed in the back, as usual.

 

[Paco Bedejo]

or by trying to influence the closest party we have to your ideals to adopt more of your ideals? Yes, by not voting for any but the pure, you keep yourself pure.

One thing some people seem to be missing. I am not saying don't support more conservative/libertarian candidates. I am saying that the place to do that is at the primary level to get them on the ballot as one or the other of the major party's candidate. It's simply easier to "take over" a party than it is to get a third party into power at the federal level.

I voted for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary. Any other questions? Please do take over the Republican party & start fielding candidates at all levels of government who understand our Federal & State Constitutions & the oaths they swear to uphold them.

And if the folks voting third party because they don't like either major party candidate and the people staying home because they didn't like either candidate lead to the worse candidate getting into office, well, you may feel better about not having voted for someone you didn't like but you still have the worse candidate voted into office. And you share the blame for it.

Your definition of worse might be different than mine. I still see the PATRIOT Act as worse than National Health Care. So, by your standards, I should have voted for Obama over McCain or Barr (who my voted went to in an attempt at getting public financing in 2012).

OK, in the last presidential election which candidate would you have suggested out of those running in the general election?

To be quite honest with you, I would have had to choose Obama over McCain in the POTUS election based on a long list of tangible & intangible criteria. McCain really was a turd sandwich IMO. That's why my vote went to Bob Barr. Not because I wanted him as my president but because I wanted to do my part in trying to secure public financing for a third party in 2012.

 

[dross]

And I ask you sir. What has your accomplished?

Well, under Bush we got some bad stuff. But it wasn't as bad as the "stimulus" bill, the nationalization of the financial industry, buying GM, and this healthcare bill. Bush helped to increase the deficit, Obama has managed to triple? quadruple? I'd have to look it up. Under Bush, we weren't talking about unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Under Bush, we got a broken arm. That's bad. Under Obama we've gotten lung cancer. That's worse.

 

[CarmelHP]

To be quite honest with you, I would have had to choose Obama over McCain in the POTUS election based on a long list of tangible & intangible criteria. McCain really was a turd sandwich IMO. That's why my vote went to Bob Barr. Not because I wanted him as my president but because I wanted to do my part in trying to secure public financing for a third party in 2012.

So, you're saying that the Libertarian Party put up an unacceptable candidate in Bob Barr (which you voted for anyway)? Isn't there a just a tad of hypocrisy in that? So why, therefore, should anyone support the Libertarian Party?

 

[Paco Bedejo]

So, you're saying that the Libertarian Party put up an unacceptable candidate in Bob Barr (which you voted for anyway)? Isn't there a just a tad of hypocrisy in that? So why, therefore, should anyone support the Libertarian Party?

I firmly believe that as long as we only have two parties, our system will suck. The Libertarian Party is the 3rd largest, and as such, I decided to spend my vote trying to secure public financing so that the unwashed masses might finally become aware that more than 2 parties even exist.

So long as folks like you keep insisting that it's an "us" or "them" dichotomy, our nation is doomed to failure, IMO. Of your two supposed choices, sometimes the Republican is the candidate most interested in leaving my rights & my money alone. Sometimes it's the Democrat. Though you guys keep saying it, I'll never believe that Republicans are always a better choice than Democrats.

That's the biggest failure of some of you Republicans. You think that just because you're fiscally conservative, that you're on the same team as libertarian-minded people. While, many of us libertarian-minded people see your social conservatism as a systematic attempt at fascist control over our deeds & actions.

 

[dburkhead]

We've tried the method of voting for the lesser of 2 evils for over 200 years. For every step we've made to liberty, we've made 1000 backwards.

You keep coming up with these numbers. Just because you attach a made-up number to an argument does not make it particularly strong.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Voting for Rinos hasn't worked for 200 years, it's time we change our methods. There are other methods but those are deemed extreme, radical, etc. Your's isn't working, what harm would it do to try something else?

Because historically the "something else" has generally been an even bigger disaster.

"Chief, this water isn't putting out the fire. Let's try something else."
"Okay, here's some hydrazine."

Bringing on the Dark Age faster only means that you have utter and complete misery that much sooner. It does not lead to any promised land, however much Rand claimed otherwise.

Our founders could have tried to prolong the inevitable. Their attitude wasn't one of "I can live with this, I'll be long gone before it gets too bad". Instead, they cared more for their posterity than they did themselves.

Our Founding Fathers knew something that most people today don't. That "good" societies never last all that long. Ever. The Founding Fathers were quite familiar with historical works like Aristotle's Politics (how the three "good" forms invariable degenerate into the three "bad" forms), with Cicero's "On the Commonwealth" where he claimed that a mixed form (such as, he believed, the Roman Republic) could beat Aristotle's inevitable descent followed by the historic example that Cicero was engaging in wishful thinking. They were will familiar with the historic examples that showed the predictions of those ancient writers played out over and over again. That any time a society got a "good" government it wasn't long before the descent into tyranny began.

When Franklin said, in response to what government we had, "A Republic if we can keep it" he knew whereof he spoke and that keeping it for long was the extreme long shot.

When Jefferson said that a little revolution now and again is a good thing, he wasn't saying that he expected the US to go on in perpetuity as a free nation, but expressing the only real hope that periodic "revolution" might "reset" society back to "good" before it descends too far to the "bad" form. Unfortunately it looks like he was no more correct than was Cicero.

If things cannot be reset at least some at the ballot box then we really are out of luck. Consider what revolt/civil war would really mean. Don't believe for one moment that terrorist tactics would not be used. The death toll would number in the millions, on the order of 7 million if the percentages are similar to those of The Civil War, but we can probably expect still higher percentages given modern technology and tactics--and the population density of modern cities. Beirut, Fallujah, etc. would look like a Sunday social. I personally think that we would be talking at least 10-20 million dead in the US before it was over.

Now, maybe I'm not as compassionate about the many moochers and leechers who would be among those 10-20 million dead as the Left would like, but a lot of those dead would be the Tony's (who just needed a good example to stop being a moocher/leecher), the Eddie Willers (hard working, as far from a moocher/leecher as one could get just not as "gifted" as someone like Dagny or Galt), and the Cheryl Brooks (much like Eddie to a lesser extent) of the world.

That's where "stopping the motor of the world" and the final collapse of the US society leads. I, for one, will do everything in my power to stop, or even delay, the US reaching that point--for the Tonys and Eddie Willers and Cheryl Brooks of the world.

 

[dburkhead]

And I ask you sir. What has your accomplished?

Well, let's see. Mine has allowed the '94 AWB to sunset, has prevented AWB II from being passed, has stopped civil suits against gun manufacturers for criminal misuse of guns, has nominated and confirmed justices that confirmed RKBA as an individual right, and so on.

What legislation have Libertarian candidates gotten passed or were instrumental in stopping again?

 

[dross]

That's the biggest failure of some of you Republicans. You think that just because you're fiscally conservative, that you're on the same team as libertarian-minded people. While, many of us libertarian-minded people see your social conservatism as a systematic attempt at fascist control over our deeds & actions.

I'd be surprised if you're to the left of me on social issues. None of the people arguing with you here are what anyone would call "socially conservative."