Seven Reasons Libertarians Will Use to Justify Their Vote in the Republican Primaries
By Laurence M. Vance
All of the reasons can be boiled down to these:
1. My candidate is not as bad as the other Republican candidates.
2. My candidate is better than the other Republican candidates.
3. My candidate is a lesser evil than the other Republican candidates.
4. My candidate deviates less from libertarianism than the other Republican candidates.
5. My candidate leans more libertarian than the other Republican candidates.
6. My candidate is more conservative than the other Republican candidates.
7. My candidate has a better chance of beating Hillary than the other Republican candidates.
Not because his candidate is a principled conservative or libertarian. Not because his candidate is great on a particular issue. Not because his candidate is great on most issues. This means that libertarians who vote in their state Republican primaries are no different from the mass of Republicans who hold their nose in every election and vote for what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils. They are not actually voting for anyone, just against everyone else. But since voting for the lesser of many evils is still voting for evil, I have a better idea. Send a message to all of the Republican candidates by not voting for any of them. And you can do this from home with no effort whatsoever.
The above originally appeared at LewRockwell.com.
RW Note: Laurence is very correct here.But I do want to make clear on Laurence's point that if there was a significance difference in a candidate, it would make sense to support him. That is a candidate who is at least head and shoulders above the others on an important issue, such as taxes or expansion of the Empire and not worse on any important issue. Thus, a candidate who would call for an immediate cut in taxes of 25% to 50% or who would call off US entanglements around the globe, "bring our troops home" and ground "our" drones.
I think the republicans won't know what the message is you are trying to send them.
ReplyDeleteIf you voted for the LP it would be clearer
RW note- i.e. Ron Paul
ReplyDeleteI supported Ron Paul by 1) registering GOP (very painful), 2) giving money to his campaign, and 3) voted for him in the primary.
ReplyDeleteI had no illusion of him ever being elected. Could anyone actually have thought the political class would ever, EVER let a Ron Paul anywhere near the Oval Office?!? He had no chance at all no matter how many people voted for him and I knew it. Even if 99% of the electorate had voted for Dr. Paul, the 1% would have prevailed. He'd likely have gotten the JFK treatment before ever stepping foot in the WH.
But Dr. Paul got out the message. The money I gave was to support his teachings not his election.
If Rand was doing what his father did, I'd support him too but he's not his father. Rand is a rotten apple that has fallen far from the tree.
It is our responsibility to put up the next wave of Ron Paul-type candidates.
ReplyDelete"if there was a significance [sic] difference in a candidate, it would make sense to support him. That is a candidate who is at least head and shoulders above the others on an important issue, such as taxes or expansion of the Empire and not worse on any important issue."
ReplyDeleteWhat non-criteria. How much is "significant." How much is "at least head and shoulders above." How much is "worse." All these are subjective measures. Walter Block in fact argues Rand Pauls' positions are significantly above the others and not worse than the alternatives. Cue endless potayto - potahto bickering over what is essentially a subjective determination. Libertarian principles get totally lost the minute people switch from principle to "lesser evil" calculations.
As I've written before, the legitimacy of voting hinges not on a candidate holding any particular stance on any particular issue. It hinges on what principle he stands for. Justin Sane, you perceive correctly. No one got excited to vote for Ron Paul because he wanted to cut government program A, B, or C. No one just had to have taxes cut all the way down to X% by Ron rather than Y% by a low-tax Republican. People voted for Ron because he said government programs are wrong in principle and taxes are wrong in principle. This made it moral to vote for Ron because doing so advanced those principles. Voting for any politician based on his specific positions and prospective actions wielding state power, even if more freedom oriented than the competition, is sanctioning government elections and power as means to achieve freedom. To think that's even possible is nuts. One is then just playing the statists' power game right alongside them. Absent promotion of principle at its heart, voting is immoral, bound to corrupt, and bound to backfire.
Great post
Delete