Voting Libertarian - Wasted Vote?

THE “WASTED VOTE” ARGUMENT - ANSWERED by Michael Cloud

He warned me. “When this commercial break is over, I’m going to throw you the toughest question for Libertarian candidates,” said WORC Talk Radio Host Tom LaRoche.“So buckle your seat belt.” I smiled. I love tough questions. Especially on the radio.“I don’t want to waste my vote,” he said. “If I vote Libertarian, the worst of the other two candidates might get elected. I want to vote Libertarian, the Libertarian is the best candidate, but I just can’t take the chance… Mr.Cloud, how do you answer this argument against voting Libertarian?” “Do you want your vote to matter?” I asked. “Do you want your vote to count?” “Of course I do,” he said.“Voting for the lesser of two evils, voting Republican or Democrat out of fear that the other is so much worse…THAT vote is wasted,” I said. “Because the candidate who gets your ‘lesser of two evils’ vote thinks that you are voting FOR him. He thinks you like what he’s doing, that you want what he’s giving you. Is that the message you want to send?” “No, of course not,” he said.

“You know how K-Mart got the message that you didn’t like anti-gun activist Rosie O’Donnell in their ads?” I asked. “When they saw Wal-Mart’s profitsgoing up. When they saw K-Mart’s profits going down.” I was warming to the subject. “Do you know when the Republican politicians and the Democrat politicians got the message that the American people didn’t want deficits? When Ross Perot got 19% of the vote for President in1992…campaigning almost exclusively against THE DEFICIT!” “Politics is a marketplace. A business knows you’re happy with their service and products when you spend money with them. Lots of money. Suppose you don’t like the service or the products, but you keep shopping there. Would they clean up their act? Would they get the message that you’re unhappy with them? What if you go to their complaint department again and again, but you keep shopping with them? Would they get that message?” I asked. “But when you spend money with their competitors, they get the message. When their competitors’ market share increases, they get the message. When their market share decreases, they get the message,” I said. “And then they either change their behavior or lose your business.”

“When you vote Libertarian, when Democrat and Republican politicians see Libertarian candidates getting 10% or 15% or 20% of the vote…on a platform of shrinking government size, spending, and power, on a platform of making government small…that’s a message they respond to,” I said. “You waste your money when you spend it with businesses you don’t like. You waste your vote when you spend it on politicians you don’t like. The only way to get rid of bad businesses and bad politicians is to do business withtheir competitor,” I said. “The only way to make your vote count is to vote Libertarian. Does that make sense, Mr. LaRoche?” “Yes it does. I agree,” he said. Does my answer change people’s minds? Not everyone’s. But it does persuade some.Want one example?A lifetime Republican from Arizona was in the studio during this interview. When the radio show ended, the Republican said that I had changed his mind. Then, at my request, he filled out a Libertarian Party membership form, paidhis $25 dues, and joined us. (LP NEWS, August 2001)

Great article by Walter Williams:

Do people have a right to medical treatment whether or not they can pay? What about a right to food or decent housing? Would a U.S. Supreme Court justice hold that these are rights just like those enumerated in our Bill of Rights? In order to have any hope of coherently answering these questions, we have to decide what is a right. The way our Constitution's framers used the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech, or freedom to travel, is something we all simultaneously possess. My right to free speech or freedom to travel imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference. In other words, my exercising my right to speech or travel requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights.
Contrast that vision of a right to so-called rights to medical care, food or decent housing, independent of whether a person can pay. Those are not rights in the sense that free speech and freedom of travel are rights. If it is said that a person has rights to medical care, food and housing, and has no means of paying, how does he enjoy them? There's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy who provides them. You say, "The Congress provides for those rights." Not quite. Congress does not have any resources of its very own. The only way Congress can give one American something is to first, through the use intimidation, threats and coercion, take it from another American. So-called rights to medical care, food and decent housing impose an obligation on some other American who, through the tax code, must be denied his right to his earnings. In other words, when Congress gives one American a right to something he didn't earn, it takes away the right of another American to something he did earn.

If this bogus concept of rights were applied to free speech rights and freedom to travel, my free speech rights would impose financial obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium and microphone. My right to travel freely would require that the government take the earnings of others to provide me with airplane tickets and hotel accommodations.
Philosopher John Locke's vision of natural law guided the founders of our nation. Our Declaration of Independence expresses that vision, declaring, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Government is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government.

Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do -- redistribute income. Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God. I'm guessing that when God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure he didn't mean "thou shalt not steal unless there was a majority vote in Congress."

The real tragedy for our nation is that any politician who holds the values of liberty that our founders held would be soundly defeated in today's political arena.

Hiking minimum wage hurts workers...
(and just isn't the job of government)

Article from Detroit newspaper - http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/OPINION01/602030308/1008

Bush's Tax Cuts...

I'm sick of the phraseology used to describe tax cuts, specifically of the Bush administration. Media use the word "cost" to describe revenue that won't be taken in as a result of the cuts. Here's an example from an AP story today: "Most of Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010. Extending them would cost $120 billion in 2011 and $1.2 trillion from 2012-2016." This is misleading though; "cost" is a loaded word that implies money that you have then spend. Consider if you are at the grocery store and choose not to buy a pack of gum. Did you just "cost" the grocery store a dollar? Of course not, they never had the dollar. A more appropriate and straight-forward (honest) way to phrase the AP excerpt would be: "Not extending the tax cuts would cost the American taxpayer $120 billion in 2011 and $1.2 trillion from 2012-2016."

Today's Journal Sentinel editorial...

Quoting from today's JS editorial (regarding Bush and State of the Union address), "But evidence that his tax cuts to date have fueled the economy, as claimed, is meager. Business investment is flat, job growth lags far behind what has occurred in previous recoveries and wages for average Americans have been faltering, adjusted for inflation."

Let's assume for a moment that the JS has the facts regarding job growth and investment correct. Is flat bad? Last year one of the worst natural disasters of all time hit the world by form of the tsunami. This year hurricanes ravaged the US and essentially wiped a major city off the map. The cost of doing business is higher than ever with the cost of oil and the fed has raised interest rates 15 consecutive meetings (I think that's right). I would argue a strong reason the economy isn't in decline is tax cuts. Maybe in light of recent events we should be happy with flat! The JS isn't satisfied with the economy's growth nor am I. But would taking more money from businesses and individuals via tax help spur growth? I think not...