If Romney/Santorum/Gingrich gets the Republican nomination and he's running neck and neck with Obama this November, will you cast your ballot for the Libertarian Party/Ron Paul, knowing that Obama will then likely win?
Bonus question: Who should Ron Paul pick as his running mate, and why?
Not a US citizen, but hypotheically yes, I would for Paul.
I think Gary Johnson would be a good running mate. He is calm, collected, has executive experience etc. Like Walter Block has said, he is good on every issue but misses the bulls eye on all of them, but I feel if he were Paul's running mate he would be more radical.
I've made up my mind that this will be the last Republican nominee I vote for if Paul doesn't win the nomination. Obama has to go, I'd hate to replace him with Obama lite, but it's pretty darn important that he's not President for another four years.
Oh, and I'd like to see Judge Napolitano as his running mate.
BB: Oh, and I'd like to see Judge Napolitano as his running mate.
Then who would be the supreme court nom?
BB
Oh, and I'd like to see Judge Napolitano as his running mate.t
Interesting choice. I like the man; but conventional wisdom is to pick someone who brings in votes you wouldn't otherwise get. I think the judge fails on that score.
Evilsceptic
As long as you're using the vote as a voice of protest, not an agent for change, why not write in your vote for Walter Block himself? Or pick Block as the running mate?
DarylLloydDavis: If Romney/Santorum/Gingrich gets the Republican nomination and he's running neck and neck with Obama this November, will you cast your ballot for the Libertarian Party/Ron Paul, knowing that Obama will then likely win? Bonus question: Who should Ron Paul pick as his running mate, and why?
Ron Paul will win the 2012 election whether he becomes the republican nominee or not. The only way a republican can win this election is if Ron Paul gets the nomination. So the republicans have a very simple choice to make, IMO.
z1235
Forgive my ignorance; I'm not up on net lingo. What does IMO stand for?
Malachi
Obama still gets the same number of votes whether I vote for Ron Paul or newt gangrene or mitt commie or whoevers
If Obama gets the same 40 million votes either way; and Romney gets 40 million; and your vote is the last vote; which way do you go?
but if it helps to answer your question, I will not sanction the rule of a "lesser evil" because "someone even more evil might win!1!1!1!". I cast a ballot for my chosen candidate(s).
Thats not how elections work. Cf "electoral college" "state electors" "rogue elector"
How could I forget about the rogue electors!?! My bad. No candidate or running mate in mind?
This presumes that a person voting for the LP candidate would have otherwise voted for the Republican candidate.
I will only bother to vote for a candidate I would want to see in the position. As I don't support Obama or any of the Republicans other than Paul, I will not vote for them anyway.
(though, if my vote were significant - being in NY, it will not be significant at all - I may be convinced to vote for Obama against Gingrich, should he somehow get the nomination)
DarylLloydDavis: z1235 Forgive my ignorance; I'm not up on net lingo. What does IMO stand for?
In My Opinion
Thanks.
I don't think this country will survive if Dr. Paul doesn't become President.
Also, I think Dr. Paul would be more likely to run under the Constitutional Party than the LP again.
Michael J Green
True. It hadn't even occurred to me that someone belonging to this forum would even consider voting for Obama.
I will only bother to vote for a candidate I would want to see in the position.- I may be convinced to vote for Obama
Excuse me?
Obama is less likely to kill lots of people in other countries than Santorum, Bachman or Gingirch. So I'm not sure if Obama is such a bad choice. You wouldn't want more deaths on your conscience.
Trick question. If obama is likely to win, then obama is likely to win. You cannot vote "against obama" by voting for x candidate. Obama still gets the same number of votes whether I vote for Ron Paul or newt gangrene or mitt commie or whoever
Simply not true.
Unless it's Paul, we'll be force to make interpersonal utility comparisons, which are impossible, and hence it comes down to what benefits you the most. Might as well then vote for someone who would give you personally $1 million.
Eugene
One could argue that our economy is on the verge of irreversible damage, especially with Obama-care coming in 2013. And if our economy and our prosperity nosedive much further, America will cease to be an effective check on the aggression of other states and groups. Then more will die.
Ron Paul would win a lot of independents. Gingrich not as many. Independents who would otherwise vote for Obama.
As an advocate of direct democracy, you should understand that voting for a party is not democracy...
I would love to see a Ron Paul/Peter Schiff ticket. The Establishment hates Schiff every bit as much as they hate Paul, so if they assassinated Paul, they would just end up with Schiff, which is just as bad for them.
Clayton -
Clayton
It certainly isn't good democracy. It's a representative democracy; a system based upon the pretense that the interests of the people are best served by an elected few--who incidently hide behind a party platform--which in turn hides their complete lack of qualification to assume a decision-making role for anyone. So the outraged people blame the representatives, instead of themselves.
Given your belief in "real human nature as it exists right now", you really think that a significant portion of the population would come out to vote in direct democracy on every issue? And with the necessary expertise? Note that writing laws in the present day has become complex and lengthy, with many clarifications. You expect people to be able to comprehend topics ranging from Internet laws to military strategies to monetary policy to everything else?
Wheylous
Given your belief in "real human nature as it exists right now", you really think that a significant portion of the population would come out to vote in direct democracy on every issue?
If they didn't, they would have no one to blame but themselves.
And with the necessary expertise?
Do you trust Nancy Pelosi's expertise? I expect those who want to write new laws to use experts to help make them good law--and to convince the people of the need to support them.
Note that writing laws in the present day has become complex and lengthy, with many clarifications.
It often leads to huge omnibus spending bills, yes, because they no longer even bother to clarify them before passing them.
You expect people to be able to comprehend topics ranging from Internet laws to military strategies to monetary policy to everything else?
I expect them to learn, to face the consequences of their actions and inaction, and to grow as people. (Maybe even into a system that is all-voluntary....)
In a voluntary system all you need is the NAP and a definition of homesteading. In a non-voluntary system where private property is "respected" you need countless laws to cover up all the DoubleThink.
@Daryl: I don't think direct democracy is an improvement over republican government. The problem is not the form of government, the problem is "government" itself.
People go bonkers whenever they hear this; a bit like a fundamentalist Christian hearing an atheist assert that there simply is no god and that the Christian God is evil. They immediately imagine a cut-throat Hobbesian world of murdering ape-humans, blood dripping from their teeth as they ride from village to village raping and plundering.
But the fact is that, to whatever extent it is legitimate, government is only legitimate insofar as it flows out of free, individual human choice. "Authority can only be granted, never assumed." - Anonymous. Contrary to popular belief, democracy is not an expression of individual choice. It is, in fact, a suppression of individual choice.
The problem with democracy is that it's just a decision-making procedure, nothing more. Majority vote has been used for millenia for everything from deciding who has to keep the night watch to deciding whether to commit mutiny. Mucking around with the decision-making procedure doesn't address the morality/immorality of the decision being made. For example, if 51% of Americans vote to kill off the remaining 49%, does that make such a decision legitimate? Of course it doesn't, which means that the moral problem of the State is above and outside the problem of how governmental decisions are made.
But let's assume that all governments are always legitimate and just look at the suitability of majority vote itself as a decision-making procedure. It turns out that human beings are actually quite rational in this regard... public choice theory tells us that the amount of attention that the human being will devote to a decision is proportional to a) the impact of the decision on the quality of his own life and b) the likelihood that his participation in making the decision will have an effect on the outcome of that decision. On both counts, modern democracy is irrational. Participation in modern democracy is a waste of time and is irrational behavior.
First of all, it doesn't make any material difference to the general public who is President, for example. My life is not one iota different under Bush than it was under Obama. But even worse, we have to compare hypothetical worlds (I think Bob Murphy talks about this in an online lecture). It's no use to compare my life under Bush to my life under Obama. Rather, what I really want to compare is what my life would have been like under McCain versus what it is under Obama, a comparison which I can only ever metaphysically speculate about. So, even if it would have been very different under McCain, I actually have no way of knowing this fact and no matter how much I surmise that it would have been very different under McCain, I have no way to have confidence in my speculations.
But we can extend the point by comparative analysis of government policy under supposedly antithetical parties. George Bush expanded drug entitlements to record levels. But wait, aren't Republicans supposed to be vehemently anti-entitlement? Bill Clinton maintained and extended US foreign policy in line with the policy objectives of his Republican predecessors, Reagan and Bush I. So, we see that it doesn't really matter who's President, the agenda is being set by a permanent political establishment that changes its mask once every four to eight years.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, your vote doesn't matter. The only case in which a vote matters is if the election comes down to a single deciding vote. Then, it will have mattered that you voted. The odds of this happening when you get out beyond a few hundred votes is basically zilch. So, majority vote is a rational decision-making procedure for very small groups but is largely useless beyond that. The reason is that if your participation can't possibly affect the outcome (be the deciding vote), then you have no rational incentive to inform yourself (rational ignorance) or think logically about your voting choices (rational irrationality).
What all of these decision-making systems suffer from are two flaws: scale and territorial onopoly. It is scale that is responsible for the fact that our votes are meaningless. The solution is rather simple... smaller, independent political units. And territorial monopoly on the apparatus of government is responsible for the fact that we cannot compare political systems except through the employment of ridiculous hypotheticals and metaphysical speculation about what the world would have been like if the election had turned out some other way. The solution to this is a little more difficult but not impossible to imagine... it's called polycentric law or, even better, free market law.
If authority is not territorial but polycentric, then the comparison of political/law systems is no longer hypothetical. You can see and compare how your neighbor who is living under political system A is doing compared to yourself under political system B. This is how people choose automobiles or insurance policies and it works because if you make the wrong choice, you can see how to do better and change. In the current system, no one can see how to change because there is just one, territorial, monopolistic political system.
I should have added that not all decisions are made by the People. Military is still controlled by an executive branch/Defense Dept., and an internal hierarchy; monetary policy by the Treasury Dept.; etc.
If you hadn't caught my link to my direct democracy Constitution yet: http://www.amazon.com/New-American-Constitution-Democracy-Alternative/dp/1463666837/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325454271&sr=1-1
This timely, common-sense yet revolutionary overhaul of the U.S. Constitution establishes, among a multitude of overdue reforms, a fully-functional direct democracy in lieu of our hyper-partisan, ineffectual Congress.
As opposed to the American people, who are totally apartisan and look at policies instead of the R or D after a person's name.
Military is still controlled by an executive branch
Controlled by a president or no?
But the fact is that, to whatever extent it is legitimate, government is only legitimate insofar as it flows out of free, individual human choice.
I wrote this in response to a different topic. Forgive me if you already read it; but it applies here as well:
The Social Contract is not a valid contract; but it is nevertheless an enforceable contract. Individual rights are predicated upon the survival of individuals--on the right to life. If survival itself depends upon securing control of limited natural resources; and such control cannot be maintained absent a limited state system, primarily in the form of a combined defense against competing collectives; then individual rights must be partially subsumed by a state system--only to the extent necessary for ensuring life itself. If technology advances to a point where individual survival is either no longer dependent upon limited natural resources or no longer physically imperiled by other humans, then the state might dissolve naturally.
if 51% of Americans vote to kill off the remaining 49%, does that make such a decision legitimate?
The solution is rather simple... smaller, independent political units.
Excuse my ignorance. What is does NAP stand for?
As opposed to the American people, who are totally apartisan and look at policies instead of the R or D after a person's name
Take a second to think about it, though. If there is no more Congress, what difference do parties make? They would only be one more group, along with lobbyists and the government itself, trying to convince the people to vote their way.
Yes. If you go back to that sight and click on the book, you will read that there is still a President and a vice President--but also an Attorney General on the ticket, who, along with veep, can replace the President after two years--if the people vote it so. The Attorney General thereby acts as a legal check on the excesses of the President, in the name of the People.
voting is a waste of time. If it was completely costless I would vote for Ron Paul regardless of wether or not he was on the ticket. This is how the RP supports should be caucasing. They should threaten to take ALL of their votes away from the GOP if Paul is not the nominee. Force the regular conservatives to decide just how much they hate Obama (its pretty clear they aren't in love with any of the current GOP candidates). RP supports have enough numbers and enough enthusiasm to pull this off, or at least give it a good run.
I will be voting for Ron Paul no matter what. As much as I hate Obama, the other three would not be noticeably better and I kind of want the Republican party to derail for trying to exclude Ron Paul so much.
I'm either going to vote for Ron Paul or not vote at all. I'm tired of seeing the neocons claim free markets when they're really corporatists. If Ron Paul doesn't win in 2012, I hope Obama wins so the mass population can't blame "capitalism" for the continuing downward spiral.
I'd love to see Robert Higgs as Ron Paul's running mate. If you have time, watch Higgs's 3-hour long interview on C-SPAN2 (playlist on YouTube). His responses to the callers are fantastic. He does a great job of explaining his positions.
My 2nd choice for VP nominee would be Tom Woods.
Evilsceptic: Then who would be the supreme court nom?
Good point, the Judge might be better on the SC. I believe he is pro-life, although there has been some confusion with his comments there. Life trumps all issues in my book, I'd vote for Obama if it meant the end of abortion. Thank God I don't have to though. I'm somewhat new to libertarianism, I'm looking foward to what Rand Paul brings, and I'd like to see Marco Rubio come out as a libertarian someday. Other than those two, I don't know of anyone else that I'm currently keeping track of in politics.
DarylLloydDavis:Interesting choice. I like the man; but conventional wisdom is to pick someone who brings in votes you wouldn't otherwise get. I think the judge fails on that score.
Dunno, they could probably bring in the independents and some leftists if they push the non-interventionist policy. Obama sure has disappointed the anti-War crowd. Bachman, and now Santorum are beating the war drums talking about bombing Iran. Would be an interesting ticket nonetheless.
NAP -> Non-Aggression Principle