Tweedle-scum or Tweedle-scummier?
OK, another election is coming up and all the usual angst and apathy is showing up among those that still consider voting.
Jeff over at Alphecca has a rather intemperate if accurate rant on his feelings towards the whole situation. My only argument with him is language. He is far too polite and temperate.
My feelings are summed up in two bumper-sticker-like aphorisms:
Don’t vote: It only encourages them.
What if they gave an election and nobody came?
Since the political system has been suborned to the interests of the two old parties, and the courts are tools of the old parties, you have only two options: Do not vote or vote for some third party candidate that comes close, if you have one that has been able to jump through the rights-violating, unconstitutional laws that now regulate elections in this country.
So I vote. Desultorily. Reluctantly. With the hope of those that kept working in the concentration camps of so many tyrannies of the past: That a change will come before I die.
Each vote is a message. Even if they lose, as is all but guaranteed, each vote for a candidate is a message to whoever wins. The message is what people want.
This was far more apparent in decades past, when minority parties still had a chance. Note in that link that minority parties occasionally totaled more members of Congress than the difference between the two parties with the largest representation, and actually held real power. Once, in 1823-25, the total of third party seats was larger than the second party seats.
This all but ended starting in the FDR/Truman era, when ballot access laws were passed by the two old parties that so restricted access that minor parties were all but frozen out of the political process.
And since then we know what has happened. A continual erosion of rights and powers held by the citizens, all being transferred to the government at all levels. Ever increasing taxation, ever increasing regulation, an ever increasing, creeping, tyranny.
This will not end until freedom is returned to the political process.
But that is as likely as asking GM and Toyota to make it easier for and Nissan and others to sell cars.
The outlook is bleak folks, but bleak is not black.
Too bad None of the Above is not on the ballot. I would vote against them ALL. But since that is not an option, vote your conscience as best you can. Do not vote out of fear someone will get in you dislike. No matter who gets in will likely be just as odious as the other. Better to walk out of the voting booth feeling clean and honorable, than dirty and violated by a bad choice. I would rather cast an honest vote for an honest candidate that loses, than submit to being forced to choose between tweedle-scum and tweedle-scummier.
When you vote, do not waste it on the corrupt, cynical status quo of the two old parties. Look at all the parties and candidates and vote your consciences. There are many to choose from. Green and Libertarian candidates are the most active and largest of the minority parties, but even the smaller ones deserve your consideration, if they match your positions better.
Send a message, vote the truth, it just may set us all free.