Hobson's Choice '08: Second Thoughts
Now Playing: Lip Service, from Max Webster's Mutiny Up My Sleeve
I can't do it. There remains no power in the universe that could compel me to cast a vote for McCain, and that situation will not change, ever - but neither can I actively support the election of a Clinton or an Obama. Though I understand perfectly the argument for voting for the Demo-Socialist - a dual vote, essentially: one withheld from McCain and another given to whichever candidate has the best chance of beating him - I could never live with the knowledge that I had consciously voted for any of these people - McCain, Clinton or Obama. They're intellectual clones and antithetical to everything I value. We've been given the Hobson's Choice between: the GOP's hardcore statist or the Democrat-Socialists' hardcore statist.
Sorry, but that is a contemptible charade, not a choice, and I will be voting "None Of The Above," likely via a throwaway write-in - Judge Janice Rogers Brown or George Reisman or Walter Williams or maybe T.J. Rogers.
Every time I reconsider Ron Paul, even as a throwaway vote, he...opens his mouth. And I'm once again running through creative combinations of harsh language in as many languages as I can access. A man who thinks Islamofascism is the fault of America is no better in practice than an al-Qaida propagandist - not to mention a walking, talking suicide pact.
I try and I try not to wax pessimistic, but to my mind the Elian Gonzales atrocity of Y2K was a chilling indicator of the degree to which Americans have lost their respect for the concept of individual liberty.
[Which brings up another tangential implication of the upcoming election, one that nobody is talking about: It is not just several Supreme Court Justices that will likely be replaced during the next Presidential term. Try "one Cuban dictator." When Castro finally does us the favor of assuming room temperature, the fate of Cuba will rest in no small part with the occupant of the White House.]
The Bright Side: (Oh damn - Monty Python! Sorreee...)
Given the horrible situation the Party powers-that-be have dumped in our laps, what individualist Republicans can focus their activism on is: everything else. We need to shift our focus to every other elected office besides the Presidency - Congressional seats, governorships, State legislatures, right down to city politicians. We need to seek out and promote solid GOP candidates and weed out RINOs at all costs. We, not the recidivistic Left, have the valid arguments; we have the best "product," as Logan Clements puts it. It is only with candidates steeped in the philosophy of American individualism and capable of articulating it clearly that entrenched statists can be dislodged. Above all, this needs to stop:
Another vital point: We non-leftists have always been spectacularly inept at political activism. This too must change.
Maybe it's complacency; definitely it has to do with being productive and therefore having far less time to be stomping around in street demonstrations. In any case, we need to be more willing to get off of our duffs and engage in activism on behalf of our values, consistently and long-haul-permanently.
It may be something as simple as hammering out a periodic letter to the editor of a local newsrag, starting a blog (though they're admittedly a dime a thousand these days,) organizing or joining a simple street corner demonstration on a specific issue, and of course the imperative of frequent phone calls, letters and emails to our elected officious. To paraphrase something rocker Ted Nugent said in a 2005 LibertyFest speech, if you are not in contact with your elected officials at least quarterly, you're a chump - so don't be a chump.
With the ascendancy of John McCain the battle for liberty has taken a major blow, and it's happened for the same reason it always happens: Default on the part of liberty's defenders.
Time to get active and stay active on the promotion of individualism and freedom. At this point it's the only political option we have left to us.
I can't do it. There remains no power in the universe that could compel me to cast a vote for McCain, and that situation will not change, ever - but neither can I actively support the election of a Clinton or an Obama. Though I understand perfectly the argument for voting for the Demo-Socialist - a dual vote, essentially: one withheld from McCain and another given to whichever candidate has the best chance of beating him - I could never live with the knowledge that I had consciously voted for any of these people - McCain, Clinton or Obama. They're intellectual clones and antithetical to everything I value. We've been given the Hobson's Choice between: the GOP's hardcore statist or the Democrat-Socialists' hardcore statist.
Sorry, but that is a contemptible charade, not a choice, and I will be voting "None Of The Above," likely via a throwaway write-in - Judge Janice Rogers Brown or George Reisman or Walter Williams or maybe T.J. Rogers.
Every time I reconsider Ron Paul, even as a throwaway vote, he...opens his mouth. And I'm once again running through creative combinations of harsh language in as many languages as I can access. A man who thinks Islamofascism is the fault of America is no better in practice than an al-Qaida propagandist - not to mention a walking, talking suicide pact.
I try and I try not to wax pessimistic, but to my mind the Elian Gonzales atrocity of Y2K was a chilling indicator of the degree to which Americans have lost their respect for the concept of individual liberty.
[Which brings up another tangential implication of the upcoming election, one that nobody is talking about: It is not just several Supreme Court Justices that will likely be replaced during the next Presidential term. Try "one Cuban dictator." When Castro finally does us the favor of assuming room temperature, the fate of Cuba will rest in no small part with the occupant of the White House.]
The Bright Side: (Oh damn - Monty Python! Sorreee...)
Given the horrible situation the Party powers-that-be have dumped in our laps, what individualist Republicans can focus their activism on is: everything else. We need to shift our focus to every other elected office besides the Presidency - Congressional seats, governorships, State legislatures, right down to city politicians. We need to seek out and promote solid GOP candidates and weed out RINOs at all costs. We, not the recidivistic Left, have the valid arguments; we have the best "product," as Logan Clements puts it. It is only with candidates steeped in the philosophy of American individualism and capable of articulating it clearly that entrenched statists can be dislodged. Above all, this needs to stop:
Another vital point: We non-leftists have always been spectacularly inept at political activism. This too must change.
Maybe it's complacency; definitely it has to do with being productive and therefore having far less time to be stomping around in street demonstrations. In any case, we need to be more willing to get off of our duffs and engage in activism on behalf of our values, consistently and long-haul-permanently.
It may be something as simple as hammering out a periodic letter to the editor of a local newsrag, starting a blog (though they're admittedly a dime a thousand these days,) organizing or joining a simple street corner demonstration on a specific issue, and of course the imperative of frequent phone calls, letters and emails to our elected officious. To paraphrase something rocker Ted Nugent said in a 2005 LibertyFest speech, if you are not in contact with your elected officials at least quarterly, you're a chump - so don't be a chump.
With the ascendancy of John McCain the battle for liberty has taken a major blow, and it's happened for the same reason it always happens: Default on the part of liberty's defenders.
Time to get active and stay active on the promotion of individualism and freedom. At this point it's the only political option we have left to us.
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