[ExI] Nobody can say we weren't warned

[Chris Hibbert]

> ?But that's not the chose you've been given, we both know Gary Johnson
> will never be president. The choose you've been given is between somebody
> who wants to torture people and somebody who doesn't, between somebody who
> wants to order the military to murder the children of people he does't like
> and somebody who doesn't, between somebody who doesn't know why we don't
> use nuclear weapons and somebody who does know, between somebody who won't
> obey the order the American people give on November 8 and somebody who will
> obey it even if she doesn't like it. I know which side of history I want to
> be on.

I don't know what country you're living in, but *I* don't get to choose 
who'll be the actual president. I get to cast a ballot, and I get to 
talk about the possible choices with people I meet and on-line.

On my ballot, I can vote for the candidate that will carry my state, the 
other candidate whose votes will be reported everywhere, or one of two 
other candidates whose votes will be reported a little less frequently. 
I can write in a name that will be completely be ignored, or I can not 
vote in a variety of ways. On-line, I can advocate for policies I agree 
with and politicians who represent positions roughly in alignment with 
my views, or I could advocate for any of several lesser evils.

In the ballot booth, I don't see any advantages for voting for any 
candidates who don't at least roughly represent my views. The raw 
numbers are always treated as support by politicians and pundits. A vote 
for clinton is not read as a vote to keep the country from going to the 
dogs, it's read as agreement with her policies on health care, free 
trade, international interventions, minimum wages, etc. Why would I add 
a single molecule to that side of the scale? The same goes for trump. At 
least the day after the election, I'll be able to say "more people voted 
for a socially liberal and economically conservative than ever before". 
Or at least that I contributed to whatever total there was.

In public advocacy, you can think there's some benefit from keeping one 
madman out of the white house, but I'm pretty much as worried about a 
self-aggrandizing power-at-any-cost madwoman who wants to double down on 
all the mistakes that have been made by the last few administrations. If 
I'm going to talk about the consequences a presidential choice can have, 
I want to argue for decriminalizing non-violent and economically product 
behavior, staying out of other countries, and other values that liberals 
and conservatives used to agree with libertarians about.

Chris
  --
Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited,
confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts.
   -- Scott Alexander

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
Blog:   http://www.pancrit.org
http://mydruthers.com