I'm somewhat uncomfortable with calls for an Obama victory and the various reasons given. Reminds me of what Rothbard labelled "left-wing sectarianism" where incremental steps towards change are rejected as not being radical enough. A Romney victory -might- buy time for us to take over the republican party. That's within our short term grasp. Then again, a Romney victory could also strengthen the anti-radical Romneyite wing of the repubs, possibly running contrary to that goal... hmm. Perhaps a Romney loss would indeed be the best way to go, viewed from that angle, as it would cause a crisis of confidence in politicians like Romney.
Then again, I consider the whole libertarian party strategy, and even the take-over-the-repub-party strategy as suspect and unlikely to produce lasting change. But, who knows really.
Anyway, here's what Rothbard had to say:
In the field of strategic thinking, it behooves libertarians to heed the lessons of the Marxists, because they have been thinking about strategy for radical social change longer than any other group. Thus, the Marxists see two critically important strategic fallacies that “deviate” from the proper path: one they call “left-wing sectarianism”; the other, and opposing, deviation is “right-wing opportunism.” The critics of libertarian “extremist” principles are the analog of the Marxian “right-wing opportunists.” The major problem with the opportunists is that by confining themselves strictly to gradual and “practical” programs, programs that stand a good chance of immediate adoption, they are in grave danger of completely losing sight of the ultimate objective, the libertarian goal. He who confines himself to calling for a two percent reduction in taxes helps to bury the ultimate goal of abolition of taxation altogether. By concentrating on the immediate means, he helps liquidate the ultimate goal, and therefore the point of being a libertarian in the first place. If libertarians refuse to hold aloft the banner of the pure principle, of the ultimate goal, who will? The answer is no one, hence another major source of defection from the ranks in recent years has been the erroneous path of opportunism. Murray N. Rothbard (2012-08-16 12:47:05-07:00). For A New Liberty (Kindle Locations 5534-5535). Ludwig von Mises Institue. Kindle Edition.
Alright, here's me at the polls, complete with my V for voluntary pin and the V for voluntary "gang-sign" :P
The hilarious thing was none of the poll workers knew who Guy Fawkes even was. One guy said it was a "mad hatter" mask o_O
Oh that is just epic.
Why does it say "10.06.2012" instead of "11.06.2012"?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Al-Jazeera coverage (less condescending and obnoxious than cable alphabet soup news).
Clayton -
Voted Gary Johnson
I wrote in Ron Paul.
Feels good man.
Autolykos: Why does it say "10.06.2012" instead of "11.06.2012"?
You're right, seems I screwed up setting up date and time. It's a new camera.
@Anenome
I really don't know if we're in danger of losing sight of the ultimate objective. I think a large part of what makes people libertarians is that we're extremely principled and not opportunistic by nature. No mater what strategy we adopt, I think the long-term outcome will ultimately depend on how badly we want to reach our goal and how well we spread the message to other people. That said, I think I prefer the 'infiltration' strategy of taking over the Republican Party and also winning local elections. The more airtime we get to reach people, the better.
Interesting. It's very possible that an Obama win means greater resentment between Rethugs and Libertarians, but it also means a better chance that conservatives become more disillusioned with politics. So here's how I see the election in terms of Libertarian strategy:
Romney victory - greater chance for 'infecting' republican party with Libertarian ideas. Nominal 'gain' for mixed economy in the short-term.
Obama victory - more and more conservatives consider direct action to political problems as their worldview becomes apocalypt-ized. more right-wing extremism, which possibly bear the fruits of secessionism or nullification.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/
Handy little map in case anyone's interested in following the horserace
The infiltration strategy can only work as a subordinate of the education strategy - we need to educate people, challenge them to think, provide the ideological tools they need to cut through the soggy-headed thinking and deceptive arguments deployed by the Establishment.
I'm buring my voter registration card in protest... as soon as I can find it.
A coup d'tat can happen at any time. In other words, if Romney doesn't get it, then Santorum will be installed as dictator.
There is no way I could ever see Obama serving a full second term.
Anyway, I didn't vote and I regret being registered to vote.
Clayton: The infiltration strategy can only work as a subordinate of the education strategy - we need to educate people, challenge them to think, provide the ideological tools they need to cut through the soggy-headed thinking and deceptive arguments deployed by the Establishment.
I consider the seasteading effort adjunct to the education effort. I think the two are multiplicative strategies, each driving the other. I don't think we'll be able to achieve traction in education until a libertarian society is up and running, and seasteading is the only immediate way to pull that off (especially with the Honduras effort floundering).
Infiltration of the repubs is really dependent on the education strategy, and also something that very few people that I know of have written much about, and that is the influence of political-intellectuals within the parties. You might say that the right was influenced in recent decades strongly by people like George Will and WF Buckeley.
We'll need intellectual popularizers of our own to achieve influence in the party. Someone perhaps on the level of Stefan Molyneux who is at least a good communicator of libertarian ideas and ideals.
No2statism: A coup d'tat can happen at any time. In other words, if Romney doesn't get it, then Santorum will be installed as dictator. There is no way I could ever see Obama serving a full second term. Anyway, I didn't vote and I regret being registered to vote.
Wut. Of course Obama can serve a second term. Where are you even getting this from?
Santorum? I don't even know why you think he's in the picture.
Kentucky is reporting, 17% counted, 3% more votes for the repub candidate this year than in '08, and 3% less for Obama than in '08. If that holds up generally, Obama's in trouble. What that would constitute is the enthusiasm gap.
Florida has 1.1% reporting, 50.3% Obama to 49.0% Romney and 0.4% Johnson, woo Johnson! :P
I know. It's way too early to think it's meaningful.
Officially meaningful, at least :P
Meaningful towards the actual policies of the government? Not really. It will, however, be somewhat meaningful in what kind of debate people like us are going to have engage in with others. Which ammo do I have to load for this term? My "Romney is not capitalist!" ammo or my "Obama is not peaceful" ammo? :P
Weird - the Google News election coverage has Romney with 33 electoral votes and Obama with 3, but the interactive map doesn't reflect this. Is anyone else seeing the same thing?
Autolykos: Weird - the Google News election coverage has Romney with 33 electoral votes and Obama with 3, but the interactive map doesn't reflect this. Is anyone else seeing the same thing?
As of this moment, that's exactly what Politico's real-time map reflects.
So Politico has the same mismatch between the electoral-vote total and the interactive map? Hmm...
Edit: I checked back at Google News and the results had just changed dramatically - Obama now with 64 electoral votes and Romney with 40. Still a huge mismatch with the interactive map. I might as well that tab.
@Auto: Al-jazeera also beamed out those numbers (3/33, BO/MR) about 30 minutes back... they've since revised to 65/83 (BO/MR). Little bit of gang-sign flashing? :-P
I think Obama will probably win Ohio.
Clayton: I gave up. It's not like it really makes a difference who wins anyways. :P
"hey everyone, look who controls the numbers"
It's pretty clear all these map things are connected to the same feed. Probably run by AP or w/e.
So Clayton, I remember you continually talked about the "November farce" over the past few months. Were you just talking about the election? I thought you were insinuating that this place would be filled with spam on, well, today.
It could all come down to Wiconsin and Colorado...
Ooo, Florida looking pretty strongly Obama. Could be the big cities reporting earlier tho, last time the more right-leaning counties reported last too. If Obama wins Florida it's over for Romney basically.
@Neo: Oh, no, I meant just the election... however, I seemed to notice an uptick in trolling during 2012 and also back in 2010 during that election runoff. Based on my experience in other forums, I believe that the political parties as well as other, more shadowy organizations (private and public) deploy people on the Internet at certain times to generate "traffic" or inject noise, or just to generally pamphleteer under the guise of giving their heartfelt opinion. Then there are the ubiquitous DHS snitches - remember, DHS classifies constitutionalists and Ron Paul supporters as high risk individuals for domestic terror activities.
All of that is a farce too, but "November farce" was referring to the voting nonsense.
florida also has 2 time zones and later time zone is much more republican. so mitt should start picking up later on.
Ah, I see.
Well, lookin like Romney right now... Huzzah.
If Obama wins, only four more years of a Kenyesian. If Romney wins, eight more years of a Kenyesian (Democrats are not going to nominate anyone who isn't a Keynesian, unless of course they nominate a Marxist :P)
If Obama's in office when the market tanks, Republicans (again, more likely to embrace non-Keynesians) can sweep into office in 2016. If Romney's in office (provided the Dems don't embrace their Van Buren/19th Century laissez-faire roots), expect a replay of 1932: Elizabeth Warren 2016? God help us.
Aslo with Romney (as Tom Woods points out), "Secretary of State John Bolton". Sheesh. Maybe Obama will appoint someone decent like Wesley Clarke for SecState.
I voted for Johnson, but I'm [Wayne Allen Root]ing for Obama. I hope Republicans get beat bad. The shock of losing two cycles in a row will encourage them to think about bringing in some new ideas.
We'll find out who the Power Elites wanted before the night is out. There is no such thing as TPTB "rooting" for their guy. They own both candidates and select one on whatever basis. My rule of thumb is they don't fire the incumbent unless he's not following orders or screwed up badly in some other way.
Just to keep the pointlessness of this Presidential election in perspective:
We've been doomed for nearly a century. The Fed and cosmic expansion of Federal spending has seen to that.