From the Atlantic

This morning I found a great follow up to my recent series of posts. I'd encourage you to read the entire post by Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic.com on "Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama." It's insightful and actually lays out some of the exact reasons I expounded on in my essays.

For those who don't have time, here are a few choice quotes:


"Sometimes a policy is so reckless or immoral that supporting its backer as "the lesser of two evils" is unacceptable. If enough people start refusing to support any candidate who needlessly terrorizes innocents, perpetrates radical assaults on civil liberties, goes to war without Congress, or persecutes whistleblowers, among other misdeeds, post-9/11 excesses will be reined in."


"I can respect the position that the tactical calculus I've laid out is somehow mistaken, though I tire of it being dismissed as if so obviously wrong that no argument need be marshaled against it."


"But if you're a Democrat who has affirmed that you'd never vote for an opponent of gay equality, or a torturer, or someone caught using racial slurs, how can you vote for the guy who orders drone strikes that kill hundreds of innocents and terrorizes thousands more -- and who constantly hides the ugliest realities of his policy (while bragging about the terrorists it kills) so that Americans won't even have all the information sufficient to debate the matter for themselves?

How can you vilify Romney as a heartless plutocrat unfit for the presidency, and then enthusiastically recommend a guy who held Bradley Manning in solitary and killed a 16-year-old American kid? If you're a utilitarian who plans to vote for Obama, better to mournfully acknowledge that you regard him as the lesser of two evils, with all that phrase denotes."

Voting Philosophy: Part 4

In my opinion, then, there are several problems with our system. Those problems rest  with the presidency itself, the two party system, and, finally, the significance with which our votes have been imbued. 

The Problem with the Presidency

Over the past two decades the office of the president has assumed a much more prominent and visible role in our government and in civic life in general. Rather than just the executive of the government, the commander in chief, and the occasional symbol of its people, the president has come to be a very active and prominent part in all aspects of legislation, adjudication, and moral standards for our nation.

I don't think this is a good thing either for the kinds of people who are drawn to office or for the people who look to the president to solve all their problems. Those who believe the president can pay their mortgage, put gas in their cars, send them to college, and save their souls are more likely to accept a lot of the allowances that presidents have granted themselves in the name of the greater good.

The thing is, almost everyone who runs for office goes into it with the best of intentions. They want to change the world, make it better, fix problems and help people. They go into office thinking that they now have the keys to a social change machine. If they push the right buttons and pull the right levers, then they can make a difference. They can fix what came before.

The problem is, government doesn't work that way. The president can't single-handedly save the economy or control gas prices or save us all from evil corporations. If he could, then he would also have the power and authority to act in ways with which we disagree. He could impose martial law, disband companies he dislikes, lock away his enemies, and take anyone else's earnings and give them to those he deemed more worthy. 

Both of our most recent presidents have suffered and thrived under this set of expectations. They have enlarged their power to respond to serious issues and as a result they have had even more expectations laid at their feet. 

Now, there's nothing wrong with people wanting to make the world a better place. But who really knows what is best for your life? For mine? For the millionaire or for the destitute? Who knows how best to address the ins and outs of each and every American's life and would make the exact right decisions that would benefit even most of them? And what do you say to those harmed by your policies? Altruism is a good thing, but what do you do when it starts to impeded on the freedom of the people. Freedom means not just the freedom to make good choices but to make one's own bad choices as well. Freedom also means being able to deal with the consequences of those decisions. 

Am I saying that there shouldn't be a safety net to help catch those who have been screwed by the system? No. I believe in a minimal safety net. But a net that captures all is not one for safety but for fishing.

The other danger in altruistic presidents comes when they start believe the ends justify the means. That the rules are in place for other people, but that because their mission is so important, they can bend the rules and it will be okay. It's how we get the NDAA, Guantanamo Bay, drone strikes, the PATRIOT Act, extra judicial detention, executive orders, outrageous congressional compensation, and more.

Will our economy survive another Obama presidency? Probably. Will the integrity of the Constitution? Less likely. Will Romney be able to reverse the tide of social change when it comes to the major issues today? Probably not. Will he likely continue eroding the freedoms our nation was founded to protect? Almost assuredly.

The Problem with the Two Party System

The second problem is with the two party system. I can't tell you who will win in November, but I can tell you it will be a Republican or a Democrat. A Republican or a Democrat will also win in 2016. And probably in 2020. We have been limited to only two options for the entire history of the United States, and while they weren't always Republican or Democrat, they did divide along roughly similar ideological lines: conservative and progressive. 

Therefore it's easy to draw lines in the sand. 

"You're either with us or against us." 

"You should vote against the other guy. At least our guy isn't (a homophobe/a socialist/a misogynist/a communist/out-of-touch/a Nazi/out to destroy America/etc)."

"A vote for a third party is a vote for the other guy."

"A vote for a third party is just wasting your vote."

Often that last one is actually true. Usually there's no other viable choice. Any third party offerings are usually so radical that they could never appeal to the mainstream, middle-of-the-road American. They offer things up as single issues, trying to sway the two parties to support as part of their platform some new idea that they feel passionately about.

This year is a bit different. The Libertarian Party has offered up a legitimate candidate who has experience on the national stage, who has worked across both party lines, and who has an actually decent set of policy positions. In fact, I might agree with almost everything he supports. 

I could go on at length about why I'm voting for him specifically, but you've read almost enough already. If you want more, go read what my friend Jacob had to say about the Johnson/Gray ticket. Also, I've met Judge Gray a handful of times, and if any man deserves your respect, it's Jim Gray. 

The Problem with the Vote

Finally, I think there is a huge problem with the significance of the vote, at least as they have been reflected in analysis and research and the media. 

Every time a candidate is elected of late, they are said to have a mandate from the people to act on the platform on which they campaigned. If they campaigned on lower taxes, decreased regulations, clean energy, and no marriage equality, once elected they believe that they are supported in all of their platform because they have the people's mandate. Nevermind that the majority of people voted only for the first three reasons and abhorred the fourth. It was part of his platform and therefore he will see through "the will of the people."

Or the other guy who runs on a platform of ending the war, improving infrastructure, abolishing the 14% sales tax, and instituting a 90% tax on anyone making over $100,000 a year. Every time he will push through that 90% tax on the "rich" because he now has the people's mandate. Nevermind the fact that the people just really hated that 14% sales tax and wanted the potholes on Main Street fixed up.

Every time we vote for the bastards in office, they are imbued with more power to keep doing what they're doing--the good and the bad. Every time we elect someone new with a message full of vim and vigor, we get the vim along with the vigor.

I know a lot of you are voting for Obama because you support his social message. You believe that Romney will roll back the progress we've made in vital areas and that his influence as president will threaten many of our dearly held social causes. Nevermind what Obama will do with the capital gains tax or the rights of terrorists; more important things are at stake.

I know a lot of you who are voting for Romney are terrified about what Obama will do with health care, with the economy, and maybe with foreign policy. You fear that Obama will bury innovation in regulations, that his pursuit of clean energy will make gas and cars even less affordable, and that his healthcare policies will leave us all as wards of the state. Never mind what Romney does to gays in the military or how much he opens our government to corporate and money influences; more important things are at stake.

Yet a vote for either one of these guys for the reasons you want him is (in our current system) a vote for the reasons you don't. I can't support either of their policies with any conscience because the things that I don't agree with them on are that much worse.

So I will be placing my vote and my voice and my small shred of electoral power in someone who supports the things that I do, that recognizes and regularly vocalizes his understanding of the limitations of government, and who isn't beholden to the moneyed power behind the throne that is the two party system.

I'm voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson and Judge James Gray in November, because it's a vote I can stand behind.

Voting Philosophy: Part 3

This Election Season

Now I’m faced with what seems to be the same choice all over again: elect the lesser of two evils. To everyone else, it seems, one is far worse than the other. To me, it's not so clear.

Consider our options:

On the one side we have a challenger who was brought to the fore by a reactionary and emotionally vocal group of grassroots individuals. 

Romney is wildly out of touch with the American public and seems to only find his justification from polling and then pandering to the Tea Party activists. He chokes on his silver spoon every couple of days and then spends his time defending ridiculously stupid statements when he should be using that time to present an actual plan for our economy. He's against the Affordable Care Act, but he doesn't seem to have anything to offer to a medical insurance and health care industry that is collapsing on top of its patients.

He does seem to appreciate the role of entrepreneurs in stabilizing our economy and the fact that government too often gets in the way of innovation. But he doesn't seem prepared to recognize the dangerous role that large and wealthy companies play in setting policies in this country, policies that protect their own interest while hindering the development of overall well-being. He does want to lower the tax burdens on small businesses and the middle class, but he wants to do so by supporting those huge donors and companies that support his campaign. 

He also truly seems to not care about huge swaths of the American population. His 47% statement has been taken out of context a lot recently, but even in context, he admits that he isn't really interested in addressing the concerns of those who would never vote for him. He truly does not care about gay marriage, but he's willing to pander to the bigots who do care if it gets him elected. I don't think he cares either way about women's rights or the right to choice, but if it will get him elected, he'll cut right through the issues. (And I'm not talking about the issue of government funding abortion on demand, so don't try and color the argument that way. Women's health issues are dramatically being cut by insurance companies with no claim to religious freedom or government funding. That's another post, though.)

Romney is a politician--nothing more and nothing less. He will treat power much the same as any other that has been elected in recent years. A vote for Romney, though, will be seen as an endorsement of everything he stands for. Even if someone votes for him because they support his economic policies, their vote will be seen as an implicit endorsement or at least acceptance of his stand on social issues as well.

So let's consider his opponent.

President Obama rode into office on a riptide of enthusiasm. His message of hope and change was exactly what a worried and depressed nation needed. We had great hopes for him and his presidency. He was going to change things, right?

Well let's look at the record.

Gay marriage? Finally! We have a president who supports marriage equality. Granted, it took him until this year to actually come forward and say so. And even then, he refused to go further than to say that he personally supported marriage equality. He still holds the official position that it is an issue for the states to decide. So... a qualified success?

Healthcare? Managed to pass a huge bill that has made absolutely no one happy. The process it followed to get passed was all but completely illegal, it may actually increase the cost of healthcare for almost everyone involved, and it served as the ultimate gadfly to coalesce an unhappy right into a powerful voting bloc.

International relations? Strained at best. Obama skips out on meetings with world leaders and allies to appear on Jimmy Kimmel and the View. At times he seems to care more about posturing and electioneering than attending to the duties demanded of him as a world leader. It's not to say he doesn't care about riots in Libya or Syria, but when he calls casualties "road bumps" he comes across that way.

Increased transparency?  Obama has dramatically failed on his promises for increased transparency while claiming the mantle of the most transparent administration in history. He has actively prosecuted whistle blowers, failed to provide open documents on many issues even when ordered to do so by Congress, and he has invoked executive privilege in 4 years as much as Bush did in 8 years. Freedom of Information Act filings are routinely ignored or supplied with heavily blacked out reports that obscure the intent of the law.

No bid contracts? Actually up in the past 4 years. Guantanamo Bay? Still open for business. Regulations? Increased. Government spending? Dramatically up. The deficit? Growing at a record rate. The economy? Still tanking.

I know a lot of these issues he has little to no control over. So let's look at some things he does have control over.

Extrajudicial detention? Obama has argued consistently for the National Defense Authorization Act which allows him to ignore things like the 4th and 5th amendments. Habeas Corpus has been suspended for countless combatants and even American citizens. Indefinite detention is now a power that the president can unilaterally employ.

Extrajudicial executions? The president has authorized and defended the use of drone strikes against enemy combatants and American citizens alike. The Defense Department has defended the use of drones saying that there is no geographic limitation on the use of drones and that "US citizens do not enjoy immunity" from targeting. They argue that such executions are not illegal because they are used in self defense. Considering these practices have been used against mourners at funerals and killing rescuers for injured on the ground, one must question their reasoning and a president that would support and condone these practices. The existence of a "hit list" is likewise terrifying to me. 

Respect for States Rights? Well he says he wants to leave marriage equality to the states, right? But when he's confronted with an actual issue of states rights, Obama and his administration have failed miserably. Several states have approved medical marijuana and have licensed select dispensaries and clinics to provide the substance to those with a prescription. In response, Obama has specially ordered his ATF, DEA, IRS, and DOJ to raid these clinics and arrest anyone operating there. They confiscate goods, money, and property through asset forfeiture, costing legal business owners hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of this is done though they the dispensary operators are working legally under state law, his administration has said that federal drug law trumps the issue.

These are serious violations of civil and human rights on display. Couple these policies with Obama's financial policies, and there's almost no way I can vote for him in good conscience.

Voting Philosophy: Part 2

A New Approach to My Vote

I swore to myself that I would not give my voice to another candidate I could not support. In 2004 I voted not for Bush, because I was already disappointed in his performance. I voted against Kerry.

That was a mistake.

I felt partially responsible for the illegal, unethical, or sometimes just philosophically unwise decisions that Bush made in the next four years. Though intellectually and academically I disagree with the political philosophy that says that elected representatives are the tools of the electorate (because they clearly are their own operatives and have extreme distances between the voters and their actions), I still felt responsible. Because of the way I voted combined the way millions of others voted, Bush believed he had a moral mandate from the people to act in the same way he had been for the previous four years.

I vowed in the next election to vote only for someone I could believe in and throw my true support behind them. I wouldn’t be someone who voted against the other guy or who voted for the lesser evil. I would only give my voice, my support, my piece of power to someone who would exercise it in a way I could condone.

That didn’t mean I expected someone to come along who would never make mistakes. Every candidate becomes someone else when they get into office. They have to make hard decisions and compromise many of their ideals to get the job done.

But I wanted to vote for someone who would put the right ideals forth, who would act in the interest of all instead of in the interest of a few, who would rightly understand the role of government and not overreach into the bedroom, into personal conversations, into the private realms of citizens. I wanted a candidate I could at least believe in and who would respect what our nation was founded on. I wanted a candidate I could vote for and not be ashamed of two years into his or her presidency.

That candidate did not come.

2008 Election

In 2008, the atmosphere around the election was intense and even more partisan than I remember the 2004 election being. People who had never cared about politics before were ready to get involved. Friends volunteered for campaigns, donated their time and money, and got truly involved in political life.

As a graduate student at the University of Virginia studying political theory and focusing, in part, on the isolation of modern America and the increasing effects of individualism on political involvement, I was ecstatic! As a member of the voting public, I was disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I got swept up a bit in the fervor of Obama’s presidency. He held such promise, and he supported overturning many of the policies I hated from the Bush presidency. He swore to increase transparency in the federal government, opening up the secrecy and rooting out corruption with just the light of exposure. He said that there would be no more “no-bid” contracts for federal projects, ensuring that spending would come down and flunkies would stop being rewarded. He was going to shut down Guantanamo bay and end the detainment of anyone without habeas corpus. He was going to expand the role of science and diminish the role of favors in government decision making, address global warming, clear red tape for small business owners, and use independent watchdog groups to address political corruption!

Yet still Obama’s campaign, though dazzling in its enthusiasm and its historic significance for race relations, fell flat for me in a number of ways. There was so much talk of Hope and Change, talk of moving forward in such a momentous way, and the idea of a fresh new day for our country, that I grew nervous. Obama had no experience on the national stage, and was certainly unprepared for international relations. We had already seen what a candidate with no world experience could do in the aftermath of 9-11, that I was worried someone who ran on a purely reactionary foreign policy platform would do to already unstable relations around the world.

On top of that, the economy was already in the worst downturn most people alive had ever seen. Several industries were hemorrhaging jobs at a terrifying rate, and Congress had decided earlier that year that the best decision was to bail out every business that was “too big to fail.” My free market economic background and my (admittedly limited) understanding of the limitations of fiscal stimulus and government spending made me question a candidate who could base so much of his response to this crisis on more bailouts, stimulus, and government spending. I didn’t believe that Obama would do what was right for our country when it came to either our foreign or our domestic policy.

Granted, McCain would probably do no better. He had experience, sure, but my God did he run a terrible campaign. Sarah Palin was a mistake. Posturing over how concerned he was for our economy and then failing to show up for key votes in the senate was a mistake. His statements on immigration reform were mistakes. His inability to stay consistent with his message was a huge mistake.

Sure, he had the experience, and his foreign policy credentials were among the best of any potential candidates. Yet, the issues of the day were the economy, jobs, and the bailouts. He couldn’t stay on message and assure the people that he would be a strong leader, and he didn’t give much hope to voters desperate for just that.

The fact that Sarah Palin overshadowed him at every turn made it even worse.

I couldn’t vote for McCain, and I couldn’t vote for Obama. Whoever won I knew that I would be burned again. Neither of these men would represent me the way I wanted to be represented. They both would act in ways that I would be ashamed to admit that I had voted for them.

So I abstained.

I filled out my ballot for every other office on the ticket, but I left the office of president blank.

((But what about Bob Barr? I hear you ask. He’s libertarian and surely would give you at least someone to vote for.

I’ve met Bob Barr. Bob Barr has eaten at a restaurant I worked at as a teenager and failed to leave any tip, even after he was rude and demanding and a real ass to eighteen-year-old me. That alone would convince me not to vote for him.

However, he’s also an insufferable ass as a politician. Though he recognized what the Republican Party had become back in about 2003 and became a vocal critic of policies like the PATRIOT Act and the dangerous and politically backward policies in the Drug War, he approached them in a way I found ideologically appealing but interpersonally erratic. He relied on a number of attacks and contrary approaches to politics and has behaved in a number of political arenas as one of those crazy libertarians. I do not believe he has the temperament or composure to represent our country as President.

That and he stiffed my table 11 years ago.))

Voting Philosophy: Part 1

(In order to avoid inflicting a huge ridiculous post that no one will read in its entirety explaining my voting philosophy, I'm going to be posting over a few days exactly why I vote the way I do and why I will not be voting for Obama or Romney in the next election. If you just want the outright explanation, wait another day or so. I'll get there. I promise.)

A good friend of mine who works for the Tax Foundation and whom I met through a summer internship in Washington posted something political on his wall. He explained why he would be voting for the libertarian ticket in November, and why he thinks other people should as well. Seeing as the fellowship we both attended was sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies and is an organization dedicated to the spread of free market ideas, libertarian philosophy, and principles of classical liberal thought, this was unsurprising. Seeing as I (occasionally) write in a blog called "The Sane Libertarian," it was unsurprising that I would share such views and plan to vote for Gary Johnson and Jim Gray.

However, I have gotten a good deal of response to that posting, both on my Facebook wall, through messages from friends, and even from some family members. Several of them wonder how I could, in this MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL ELECTIONS (at least that is the consensus), vote for anyone but their favored candidate. It is utterly unconscionable to many that I could "waste" my vote and support someone who will obviously not win this election. What is worse, though, is the idea that I could not use my vote to help stop the evil of whatever party they are opposed to.

Since I get this argument from both sides, and friends on both sides have asked why I am voting the way I am, I have decided to lay out some of my voting philosophy here. I will also explain why I will vote for neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, nor any other candidates the Democrats or Republicans nominate any time soon.

My First Presidential Election

I turned 18 in 2001 and just missed taking part in the epic, game-changing election of 2000. It was the first year I became truly aware of politics, and it couldn't have been a more exciting time. Book after book analyzing the election where Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in a court case convinced me how important every vote truly is. If an election can turn on a single state and come down to a handful of votes in a single county, and then those votes can be accepted or rejected by the highest courts, then truly it matters whether every person votes.

In 2004, then, i was ready. I was in my final year of college having majored in government and philosophy, so I was more well-read on the subject. I knew the ins and outs of the electoral college, and I knew the importance of researching my candidates. I read everything I could get my hands on to learn what Bush and Kerry were all about.

I read Bush's biography and thought he sounded like a decent person in a tough job. I thought Kerry was a bit out of touch with the everyman, but that his intelligence would serve him well. I hated many of the policies Bush had pursued in the aftermath of his wars, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the compromises that had been made when it came to our civil liberties. But then, I thought Kerry would do no better. Foreign policy was the topic du jour, and I truly believed that Kerry couldn't handle the job.

So I voted to reelect President Bush.

(Cue the shaming now.)

For the next four years, I had to live with that decision. Every time President Bush passed another policy that abrogated human rights, every time he gaffed it up and diminished our international reputation, every time he backed legislation like No Child Left Behind, the Federal Marriage Amendment, and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, I cringed. But I also felt responsible. I had placed my name, my vote, my integrity behind this man. I had been one of the millions who gave him the power to do these things. All because I believed Kerry would have been worse.

I still believe that to be true. As painful as parts of Bush's presidency were, I truly believe that a Kerry/Edwards administration would have been besieged by worse decisions, scandals, and corruption.

But I had to admit to voting to keep in power someone I did not believe in. I voted for a man who was willing to compromise on the integrity of our Constitution in the name of Homeland Security. I voted for a man who expanded the power and spending of the federal government, even as he called himself a compassionate conservative. I voted for someone I was already disappointed in just to keep someone else out of office.

And I regretted that vote.