Bad Narik! Bad!
Today Uncle waived his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and openly admitted to throwing his vote away on the Looneytarian candiate, Michael Badnarik. I’d throw the book at him if he lived in a swing state like Florida, Ohio, New Jersey or even Hawaii (!), but since he lives in safely red Tennessee I will let him off on a technicality, even if he has cast a half a vote for the more libertarian of the two real candidates to “lose the popular vote,” a concept which means nothing legally but much politically in terms of propaganda value.
For anyone else tempted to throw his vote away on Badnarik as a matter of “principle,” I’d like to remind you just how silly that principle is. It’s one thing to vote for a Libertarian candidate who you know will never win, in order to send the message that you want the major parties to be more like him. It’s quite another to do that for an individual who is totally unfit to hold any elective office whatsoever, thereby encouraging the LP to field more of the same in future races. Like his predecessors, Michael Badnarik is a September 10 moonbat. Unlike any of his predecessors, however, he is also an unrepentant criminal who proudly admits to driving without a license and refusing to pay income tax. His running mate, Richard Campagna, appears to be relatively law-abiding, but scores equally high on the kook index by proudly sporting a fake Ph.D. Yup, these are two guys who deserve your vote, if only to “send a message,” whatever the hell kind of message that may be.
Uncle ignores Badnarik’s objectively pro-terrorist policies, and writes off his criminalilty using with a very strained moral equivalency argument:
Of course, doing cocaine, driving drunk, engaging in unauthorized meetings with the enemy, and lying under oath make you a criminal too. As do importing lobster tails that are less than five and a half inches, lassoing a catfish in Tennessee, and speeding.
I can’t speak to catfish or lobster tails, but speeding is generally not a crime, unless taken to unusual extremes. Bush’s DUI probably was, but comes about as close to an infraction as any DUI can, given that Bush’s B.A.C. at the time was at .10, right at the legal limit. In any event, Bush paid his debt to society for that crime, which in his case amounted to a whopping $150 fine and the brief suspension of his driving privileges, which he presumably honored (unlike Mike “Look Ma, No License!” Badnarik, who drives all the time). As to the largely unfounded rumors about cocaine use, suffice it to say if Bush ever used in the past, he hasn’t for decades, and the 1970s version of George W. Bush isn’t the guy we’re voting for or against on November 2 (unless you’re voting for Kerry, in which case your date is November 3).
Kerry’s crime of meeting with the enemy and perjuring himself before Congress during war time is a fair point, however. That too happened several decades ago, but unlike Bush, who has long since repudiated his youthful indiscretions, Kerry has yet to apologize for his meetings with the enemy, or for any of his anti-war American lies before Congress, which he maintains to this day to have been true. Still, the statute of limitations on Kerry’s crimes, unlike Badnarik’s, ran out a long time ago. Kerry’s pigheaded refusal to admit he was wrong in the 1970s is annoying, but it is not a crime in itself, any more than President Bush’s refusal to hand his opponents three self-admitted mistakes to exploit is equivalent to making those mistakes again.
In that vein, I think I have finally figured out how President should have answered that snooty “lady” in the second debate who asked him, but not Kerry, to identify three of his own mistakes:
You want three mistakes, bee-yatch? I’ll give you three mistakes.
- Appointing Paul O’Neill.
- Re-appointing Clinton’s CIA Director, George Tenet, or at least not firing him on September 12, 2001.
- Answering this question.
UPDATE: SK Bubba says it all: “Good for you. Democrats in Tennessee thank you!”
UPDATE x2: Kevin Murphy, in a comment, links to this open letter to libertarians, purporting to be from John Hospers, the first Libertarian candidate for President and the only one to receive an electoral vote. Regardless of who authored the letter, it’s a must-read for anyone who is considering throwing away good votes for Badnarik.
UPDATE x3: Yup, it was from Hospers all right, and is also mirrored here. Bwahahahahahahahahaha.
October 24th, 2004 at 6:09 pm
The fact I’d rather toss my vote away on some looneytarian than the party I used to support is more a testament to the Republicans than to the looneys. After all, I’m a reasonable guy.
:whip:
October 24th, 2004 at 9:01 pm
Nope. “Reasonable guy” does not automatically translate into “made a reasonable decision in this instance.” I’m a reasonable guy, too, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never done anything unreasonable before, which I certainly have. Voting for Marrou in 1992, for example.
October 24th, 2004 at 10:11 pm
I liked my answer to the 3 questions better.
I am, BTW, registered Libertarian and former LP Assembly candidate. But I will vote for Bush, even in a forgone-conclusion state like California. Why? because the LP has gone, as you say, moonbat. The utterly refuse to become a party that appeals to anything except the absolute fringe of the libertarian-minded voters.
Note: Bush is no libertarian. On social issues he is closer to Buchanan than to any libertarian. On economics he is mediocre. The WoT is the deciding issue for me — the LP has completely gone over the edge on this one.
But consider what the LP could be appealing to. Blogs like Instapundit & Volokh, to name only two, are extremely popular and closer to libertarianism than any major presidential canidate in living memory. There is a large libertarian base out there, completely unserved by two major parties trending deeper into statism. Where are the sane libertarians? Surely not in the LP anymore. I won’t be next time I bother to re-register.
October 24th, 2004 at 10:28 pm
Kevin, there are reasonable small-l libertarians, but they’re in the Republican Party. The way to elect libertarian-minded folk is to register Republican and then vote in the primaries. Then again, if Prop 62 passes, you won’t have the option of voting for a third party candidate in the general even if you wanted to.
You may recall from our prior discussions that I too was an LP candidate for Assembly at one point, specifically the 77th District in 1992. I was never entirely comfortable with the LP’s views on foreign policy, but gave them a pass on that issue since the Cold War was over and the need for the U.S. as a superpower was not so obvious as it is now. I’ve never quite understood the logic behind their foreign policy position, anyway. It seems to be based on the notion that our government has no right to initiate force against its citizens, but every other government in the world does have that right against its own citizens, or even against citizens of any other country, save the U.S. itself.
October 24th, 2004 at 11:36 pm
i lean libertarian quite a bit and voted for brown last time, but the massively stupid things he and the other “leaders” of the LP have said since then about the war on terror and foreign policy have ensured that i’m not going to make _that_ mistake again until saner libertarians take the party back.
October 25th, 2004 at 3:30 am
How Dare You Act On Your Principles!!!
Say Uncle is a blogger I’ve known for a while. I’ll make no secret that as much as a person can become one over the internet, I regard him as such. He posted about his decision to vote for Badnarik…
October 25th, 2004 at 3:45 am
Xrlq,
To say I disagree with damn near everything you wrote & the tone you wrote it in would be akin to me saying I think socialism might not be the best idea for now.
In fact you pissed me off sufficiently that I devote da whole post to you. Well the ideas you spewed forth more than you personally, but you get the idea.
to hit the highlights – the 5th amendment deals with compelled self testimony. Self incrimination would be a subset of that, not merely another way of expressing it.
Throwing a vote away is impossible unless you are saying that only votes for the winner are not thrown away, which would make elections no more politically expedient than gambling.
badnarik may have commited acts which could be prosecuted as crimes, But Bush, Kerry & damn near every public offical have done worse than those you dismiss Badnarik for. Similarly due to the sheer volume & complexity of laws you, I & most other people are probably guilty (albeit in most cases unknowingly) of violating some law.
Badnarik violated laws because he felt they violated his Rights. He risked jail time (if caught) for his principles. Is that different from our founders who committed treason against the then lawful government to start this country? Or the abolitionists who helped run away slaves escape? Or the civil Rights leaders who spent time in jail to make their case?
Lastly I can agree that Badnarik isn’t the best choice the LP had on certain policy issues. I’ll also agree that his stance on Iraq is questionable in some ways. If you’de have stuck to those points instead of the “two party or die” – like rant then I could have spent my time doing something productive instead of defending what shouldn’t have to be defended.
Here, my place or e-mail – you’re welcome to rspond if you feel like continuing the argument.
October 25th, 2004 at 11:01 am
There is no right answer to this.
Vote for who you want, why you want. Want to pass a message to someone, then do it.
That is ultimately what this is all about. The ability of you, to do what you want to do – to elect the people you want, or to vote against the ones you don’t. The people who voted for Nader in 2000 – good for them. That’s what they wanted to do, they should have been able to. As Den Beste has illustrated well, the winner-take all system we have (and have evolved) means basically, there will usually be only 2 parties. (The CA recall being proof of that, in how it was completely different, due to circumstances).
I won’t be voting for Badnarik, because I think he’s a nutcase. I won’t say who I will vote for, and I never discuss who I’ve voted for in the past (That’s why it’s called a Secret Ballot). I have voted for some Libertarian candidates before. I will in the future, I’m sure. But the current one is just as looney as the current Democratic one. Possibly more.
Regardless, Uncle, congrats for making your voice heard.
Congrats, Xrlq, for disagreeing with him.
To quote the great philosopher Smirnov “America. What a country!”
October 25th, 2004 at 11:17 am
see also this by John Hospers, the LP’s first Presidential candidate.