[extropy-chat] electing ideas [was Re:Fahrenheit 911 - objectivereview?]

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:

>  (8/15/04 13:29) Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> 
> >Brent Neal:
> >
> >> I personally intend to cast votes based on pure spite in several
> >> elections just for this reason.
> >
> >Sounds like game theory tit for tat. 
> >
> 
> Hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that you may be right. 

Which still doesn't demonstrate any evidence of voting rationally. Tit
for tat is decidedly an irrational, instinctual, strategy.
> 
> 
> I call it voting on the principle of least incompetence. I made the
> mistake in 2000 of voting for Harry Browne, the Libertarian
> candidate, because the thought of voting for an abject moron like
> Bush was morally repugnant (and because anyone that dumb must have
> smart handlers that'd be running the show, and I figured correctly
> that those handlers would be the same people that were in power
> during his father's presidency.) and voting Democrat was something I
> wasn't prepared to do. 
> 
> So this time around, I'm voting "against someone" instead of "for a
> set of principles."  And honestly, I don't see any other way at this
> point to prevent the US from turning into a complete hell-hole. Kerry
> may be just as spineless as any other career politician, but there is
> a possibility that he may be 'educatable.'  So sayeth John Perry
> Barlow, at least. (c.f.
> <http://www.reason.com/0408/fe.bd.john.shtml>)  Actually, I think
> that interview pretty much sums up why libertarians of any stripe
> should not be voting for BushCo.  ("I don’t see anything
> particularly free about a plutocracy.")

The anti-any-war attitude of many US Libertarians is not shared around
the world. The French Libertarian movement, Liberte J'ecrit Ton Nom, is
decidedly pro-Bush, pro-Iraqwar, which, along with the US LP stance,
only seems to indicate that too many libertarians of any stripe are
generally contrarian in nature, not that their foreign policy is based
on a rational principle, despite what many might like to claim.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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