Good evening, Frank! > I previously wrote: > > > As I browse through all of these messages on this conference, > > > that is, from Travis, Robert, Lowell and others, there appears to > > > be a common thread with regard to Democrats and Republicans, > > > there are only two questions that all of us should be asking, > > > namely: > > > > > > 1. Political Expediency, e.g.: Doing what is most likely a > > > probability of getting a half of a loaf, versus nothing at all, > > > and > > > > > > 2. Doing what is the right thing, e.g.: Voting on the principles > > > upon which you stand, and what you believe is the absolute > > > correct course that ought to be followed. > > To which, you replied: > > Versus voting for a compromise candidate who might enact some of the > > principles you believe in. > > You missed my point here somewhat. This is exactly what #1 above > is all about. This is Political Expediency at its finest! People > vote, and politicians deliver on what is 'possible', not what is > right. People vote for politician that will do the least amount > of damage, rather than one who will likely NOT get elected, such > as a third party candidate. Meanwhile, the politician has no > mandate, but votes in the same fashion as most likely his > opposition would have done if he or she were elected, vote > according to the results of the latest public opinion polls.
Yes. My point was that your point 1. listed both sides of the argument (half a loaf vs. nothing), while your point 2. listed only one side (vote principles vs. ...). I was supplying the "...". > Again, I wrote: > > > Along with this, of course, is the U.S. Constitution, which > > > seemingly during the last seveal decades gets very little > > > attention, either from the politicians, or the people who elect > > > the politicians. > > To which you replied: > > It gets attention when it is convenient. For instance, Democrats who > > haven't cared about "States Rights" since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 > was > > passed now care deeply about them because it appears to be an argument > for > > not passing the DC Personal Protection Act where Congress will override > DC > > laws to allow residents to keep self-defense firearms at home in DC. > > Again, political expediency! That's why I only listed two choice > categories here Lowell! If, on the other hand politicians would > vote on principle versus expediency, then we would likely have > real choices in the voting both, which at present, no real > choices exist except maybe some of the third party candidates. > Not enough of them get elected to form a good picture of how they > might vote if they were really elected. That isn't universally > true, there's one holdout in Congress, Congressman Ron Paul who > almost always votes on principle. Since Goldwater and others are > no longer in Congress, there aren't too many other examples left > anymore. Do you mean that there aren't politicians who vote on principle? Or do you mean that most of the politicians have principles that you disagree with. I would suggest, for instance, that Teddy Kennedy is a very principled politician. But I soundly disagree with his principles. > And again, the voters choose these bozos out of political > expediency knowing full well that neither of the two party > candidates will support or represent them when they are elected. Or, they chose them because they agreed with their principles--and those principles happen to be different than yours. It may even be that some of them reject the ideas in the US Constitution and so only cynically appeal to the Constitution when they think it might help convince some of their opponents. > It is pure fiction to believe that their is a dimes worth of > difference between Republicans and Democrats after they are > elected to public office. By the way, Democrat George Wallace, > and Republican Barry Goldwater echoed the same remark as the one > I just broached. Well, let's see. R's are generally in favor of taking the war to the terrorists and D's are about evenly split on the issue. D's tend to think that the 1st Amendment provides a "separation of church and state" which allows for or even requires laws banning religious expression by individuals on state property and that can be said to create a "hostile environment" for those of certain protected groups. R's tend to think that the 1st Amendment merely prevents the government from establishing an official state church and that people should be free to express their views--even if others occasionally find them objectionable. D's tend to think that the 1st Amendment protects all non-political (and non-religious, see above) expressions--no matter how tasteless, vile, hateful, pornographic or otherwise harmful to society, while doing everything they can to limit political expression by non-politicians. R's tend to think that political expression is protected while some limits are possible on the public expression of non-political speech (pornography, for instance). D's tend to think the 2nd Amendment is about the National Guard or the State Guard. R's tend to think it protects an individual right (and argue over the limits or lack there of.) D's used to be better about protecting 4th and 5th Amendment rights regarding search and seizure and self-incrimination. It's a mixed bag, now. The differences between individual politicians is greater than the differences between the parties. D's who complain about Monica Lewinski's mother being forced to testify against her daughter should remember that they were the ones who ran over the attorney-client privilege, the pastoral privilege and the spousal privilege to get at Oliver North a decade prior. R's tend to care about property rights. D's tend not to, except when it can be used to prevent some other holy cow of theirs from being gored. R's tend to think that the 14th Amendment means that all citizens should be treated equally. D's tend to think that it means you are racist if you don't support affirmative action. Notice that I only barely touched on economic freedom issues (the property rights paragraph). R's tend to generally agree with L's about that whole slew of issues. They may not be as radical as L's and they may have a higher percentage of the coalition who disagree with one or more of the economic freedom issues, but there are very few of these issues where the D's are better than the R's. (Immigration MIGHT be one of them if you can ignore the stink of total hypocrisy from both sides long enough to truly delve deeply into where they stand.) Even on some of the personal freedom issues you are more likely to get some progress from R's than from D's. I'm not aware of any serious thinkers among the D's who would be a match for Bill Buckley that have come out in favor of drug legalization the way that Bill has. Likewise, it was a Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson who was the highest profile elected politician to do the same. > > The problem is in coming up with a working majority. The highest > estimate > > I've heard for the percentage of the population that is ideologically > > "libertarian" is 25%. (Which group, BTW, includes people who are against > or > > wobbly on one or more "pure libertarian" issues. Some won't like one > issue, > > others won't like another.) In order to get to 50%+1, you've got to > find a > > way to work with people who disagree with you on some issues. If you're > > going to get elected as a L, you're going to have to give up some of the > L > > platform to get elected. If you then turn around and implement that > part of > > the platform any, once elected, people won't trust your promises and > will > > turn you out and elect someone to undo EVERYTHING you did and won't > trust > > anyone else who runs under the same label. So, just to get elected, you > > will have to compromise. > > I didn't even come close to getting elected this year, but I did > receive a higher percentage on local returns that other > Libertarians such as Badnarik who were on the ballot. And I'll bet you didn't get anywhere near even 25%. In other words, you didn't compromise and so you didn't even get half-way toward winning. You've pretty much proved my point. > One of the > reasons I believe I did as well as I did was due to dealing with > issues as they concern the people who are doing the voting. I > didn't talk about legalizing prostitution, gambling and drugs. I > talked about economic revitalization through free market > mechanisms and getting government out of Idaho's natural > resource-based economy, lowering taxes. All of this is strongly > Libertarian. I would only answer questions on the other stuff if > I were asked the question. By focusing on what people > understand, Libertarianism has a strong message. A good strategy. > By focusing on > the bizarre stuff, it alienates just about everyone. Right. And destroys the brand for anyone else. > If I really did win, I would NOT have compromised anything. Really? I assume this was for a legislative position. So, let's say that you had been elected. In the haggling over the budget, the leader of the Republicans who is pushing the bill through comes over to you and asks what it will take to get your vote. You point out a bunch of things the budget is funding that you think are unconstitutional (under the ID constitution) and say you want them removed. He goes through each one and names a different legislator for whom that item is a "deal-breaker." Then, he says, "Look, if you vote for this budget, then I don't have to add X, Y, and Z" to get so-and-so on board. (Where X, Y, and Z are some really expensive, unconstitutional items.) Do you compromise your principles and vote for the budget because voting against it will mean the budget that passes is worse? Or do you stand by your principles and let the worse budget pass? If you would compromise to get the smallest possible budget passed, then you would be compromising as I said in my previous post. > I > would have consistently voted on everything that I had campaigned > on. To show you how simple my campaign really was this year, > this is what I campaigned on: > > 1. Economic revitalization (bringing back our lost jobs in the > natural resource-based economy; > > 2. Education Reform in Idaho. Parental choice and recognizing > that a higher and higher percentage of Idahoans are opting out of > public education, empowering parents to make the choices for > their own children's education; and, > > 3. Tax reform. Abolishing Idaho's sales tax on food and > groceries, and cutting state government spending and reducing > taxes for all Idahoans. > > That was it. Very simple. Very straight forward. No talk of > legalizing prostitution, drugs or gambling. That doesn't mean > that I wouldn't do these things and vote this way if given the > opportunity. But I didn't expose myself to the inevitable > backlash that would have certainly resulted had I spent all of my > time harping on these issues that are mostly irrelevant to the > majority of voters anyway. And would you have proposed legislation on the "bizarre stuff"? Would you have been willing to trade a little on one of the above to get another? Suppose, for instance, in order to get educational choice passed, the law had to include an increase in the sales tax? Would you do it? That's the sort of reality you would have been in. If you don't compromise, you don't get anywhere. Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
