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Opinions/Editorials Title: [LWAN]: Are You Insane? The familiar biannual season is once again upon us as Republicans and Democrats compete for popular attention with myriads of colorful roadsigns and well funded media blitzes. There's less suspense this cycle without any presidential race, but the latest atrocious scandal, or at least the discovery of it after Republican Congressman Mark Foley's many years in office, has added some fire to the cheerleading masses. As Democrats seize the opportunity to cry foul at the lack of Republican oversight -- quite possibly intentional -- to possibly retake majority control of the congress, Republicans loyal to a fault (which they are, no less so than Democrats) shore up the defenses and commence their wild-eyed, flag-waving mantra. Even the Republicans running the fair and balanced Fox News, where they report and you decide, in bold move even for them labeled Foley as a Democrat on a recent segment. It's documented here with TV screen shots: http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=36396 I guess you get to decide whether it was an accident or not. Amazingly they weren't the only ones as net searches on http://clusty.com or censor-prone google of "Mark Foley D-Florida" turn up all manner of misreportings. All that's missing now is a suicide bombing announcement by Foley that he is now changing party affiliation to the big D. Hey, why not take as many of them with him as he can. That would certainly would be taking one for the gopper, and maybe earn him some concessions from the crew of the USS Republican, presently striving desperately to stem the flooding from Foley's own dynamite blast. But before you get fired up and start cheering for your team again (R's and D's both, I'm talking to you) consider one of the definitions of insanity: It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, like voting for R's & D's. You expect things to get better only if your team can win *this* time. The seats change but no matter who gets elected, things always get worse and the crummy programs brought in by an opposing predecessor are almost never repealed, but instead embraced. It's embarrassing, or should be, but hey, if you're insane I guess it doesn't matter. I'm a Libertarian, having long since shed the Republican elephant skin, particularly since I realized that Republicans really are for big government. At least Bush is, apparently. But third parties always suffer from the wasted vote syndrome, where R or D sympathizers say "I really like what your candidate says, but your candidate can't win so if I don't vote for Mr. Lessoroftwo Evils then I'll be helping Mr. Big Evil. Uh... okay. If that's what floats your boat go run along and repeat the insanity. As a Libertarian, I think you should have that right... or maybe that's an implicit defect of the Libertarian zen. Yes, we libertarians believe that if you want to shoot yourself in the foot then by golly you have every right to do it. But maybe we should draw the line when you start shooting us in the feet too, which is really what happens when you go off and vote for R's or D's every two years. Not that the "wasted vote" argument is completely bogus. It does, in fact have logical merit on it's face, given our voting method where it's rarely the majority that's required, but merely the largest minority. But there are many different voting methods available and the one we use is about the worst one there is, as it virtually guarantees the two-party duopoly by inspiring people to vote not for the best candidate but often for the second worst. Seriously, did you vote *for* either Bush or Kerry last election, or vote "against" Kerry or Bush? Even one of the founders of the Libertarian Party went public two years ago to abandon the Libertarian cause and vote for Bush just because Kerry was just a really, really, evil guy. And now looking at Iraq I can't imagine Kerry being anything close to as bad as Bush. I guess even us Libertarians can sometimes go insane too. But other voting methods that would eliminate this problem are run-off elections, "instant" run-off elections, priority voting (if my favorite candidate doesn't win, then transfer my vote to candidate B), and even more obscure and complex systems which grants a graduated scale of voting weight from most favored to least favored candidates. My favorite method, however, and one adopted by a friendly, leisure organization I helped organize is "Approval Voting", and it's about the simplest, cleanest, and most honest voting method that should be adopted in all public elections. With Approval Voting, you get to vote for as many candidates as you want. Every candidate you "approve" of gets one vote from you. All candidates total their votes and the one with the most votes wins. It's that simple, and there's no need for follow-up contests, as you have all the information you need from all voters with only one round of voting. If you want to vote for all candidates you may, but it has the same effect as voting for none. You may "approve" of only one candidate on your ballot if you wish, or you could effectively "disapprove" of one (evil) candidate by voting for all others. Either way, your preference is accurately counted. Approval voting eliminates the "wasted" vote syndrome, and creates an opportunity for 3rd parties to break into the mathematically stable and polarized binary political system we have today. Approval voting is also far less complex and trouble free than the run-off voting systems, (which actually has failed to break up a 2 party monopoly where it's been tried). It's simple and easy to understand, and once you do, you understand that the idea of you being allowed to express your opinion only of a single candidate in, say a 5-way race is downright *insulting*. And as for voting, as a computer professional let me tell you this: No vote system should ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be entrusted to a computer. Never, never, never. Get the picture? Good. And by the way, did I mention I was a computer professional? I am. You can never look at a computer and know that it's not been hacked, or even be certain that it will count things as you expect. They can be coded to count honestly as long as the results go a certain way and skew things if counts go contrary to the programmers wishes. There is really no limit to the ways in which computers can be so manipulated. I once worked for a firm developing testing software and had I wished, I could have coded the tests to give favorable (or worse) results to a student with a particular SSN and it would have sailed right through quality control and been released nationwide. Of course I didn't but I could have if I just wanted to, and I did think about it. That's just one small example. Ultimately you can't even trust your own computer fully, and with the touch screen voting, where there's a complete lack a paper trail of who you voted for, meaningful recounts are impossible. With such touch screen systems, let me assure you of one of two things: Either it's an election waiting to be stolen or it's one that already has been. If you vote, do yourself and your city/state/country a favor and boycott any touch screen voting booths and instead get yourself an absentee ballot. You need to request an absentee ballot long before the election, like right now. At least in Maryland. Do it. And speaking of Maryland, there is a senate seat that is open that gets my interest. With Senator Paul Sarbanes finally deciding to retire (Maryland Senators are pretty much elected for life these days), Maryland voters will have a viable 3rd party candidate to vote for in Kevin Zeese. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Zeese in person and I like his ideas and he has my support. While he did receive the formal nomination of the Maryland Libertarian Party, he also received separate nominations from the Green and Populist parties, and that by his own motivation and not with any preplanned coordination between the parties themselves to gang up on the big 2. Not that that's a bad idea, mind you. Though he is a registered Green party member, he does have some Libertarian ideas. In spite of the stereotypes he points out there is ideological overlap. But if you think our invading Iraq was a major mistake, which I do, and want the troops to be brought home now, which I do, and want to stop throwing people in jail for smoking or just touching the leaves of a green plant that God created, particularly if their medical condition makes it medically urgent, then vote for Zeese. No I don't agree with everything he proposes, but I like a lot of what he says, he is a viable candidate, he can talk about what the Constitution says, he debates and presents himself quite well, and he is running to win, not just to make a statement. He recently showed his mettle very impressively at a 3-way debate with the status-quo candidates which can be viewed and heard on his website: And unlike the two republicrats, not to mention just about any other elected official (Republican Congressman Ron Paul excepted, as he gets a big thumbs up from me), Zeese is actually aware that the US Constitution that sets the rules on what government can and cannot do. If, however, you are caught up in the R vs D cheerleading campaign (that is, if your home city's baseball team has already been eliminated from the playoffs and you can't keep the pom-poms in the closet) and you're happy with our country's moral and economic decline, or you have some insane notion that if, just this last time, voting republicrat will finally make life better, then feel free to step into that booth, close that curtain, and fire that holstered gun. Neil McIver http://www.cjmciver.org Copyright 2006 Neil McIver
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#1. To: Neil McIver (#0)
I will not be voting this year, and I urge you, and all other posters, whom I respect to do likewise.
I can't think of one reason why it's better not to vote. Sure the vote may be rigged in places, but if so, it's better to make them go through the rigging and give people a chance to see it. Otherwise it doesn't have to be rigged and they can just sit back and claim it's all fair.
If everyone didn't vote, that would be a powerful vote... Me, I'm not sticking my head up and my neck out for any third-party that I don't run. I used to donate a lot of money clandestinely to the Constitution and Libertarian Parties, but it was all misspent. Not no more.
Problem is, the fewer people that vote, the more power the remaining voters have and the more motivation there is to be one of those remaining voters. So any campaign to discourage voting actually encourages it as a consequence. Kinda like the War on Drugs (tm). The more drugs that are blocked, the higher the street value which in turn motivates the suppliers further.
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