Ron Paul/Gary Johnson Supporters wasting votes?

In the past weeks since the RNC I've seen quite a few articles, tweets, quotes, quips, etc stating that a vote for Gary Johnson is a waste and is simply taking away votes from Romney.  I've heard a lot of "We need to unite for the greater good and get Obama out."

Here's the last one I read:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/18/Time-for-Ron-Paul-Fans-to-Support-the-Constitution


Now I agree that not voting is a waste, though I respect the right to make that choice, but I don't agree that voting for a third party candidate is a waste.  I'll get to that in a bit though, first I want to pick on this article a bit.


"Making no choice in this election is a choice – it’s a choice for a collectivist who will get two or three Supreme Court picks over a man who picked a guy, Paul Ryan, who understands capitalism and its unbreakable link to human freedom."

Obama could definitely be called a collectivist, but Paul Ryan "understands capitalism and its unbreakable link to human freedom" made me laugh.  Would a real capitalist vote to bail out bank, auto manufacturers, or manipulate the market in anyway?  No.


"Now, this is a two-way street. Romney and Ryan need to reach out to libertarians over their common ground. Fortunately, there is lots of common ground."

They'd be smart to do so and they talk the talk from time-to-time, quoting the founding fathers and talking about fiscal conservatism, but how often does any of it ever happen?  The party has essentially shunned Ron Paul, though they half-way accept his son, mostly because he's gone ahead and endorsed Romney (only he knows why, though I have some ideas).  There really isn't much common ground, aside from the fiscal conservatism that the Republican Party is supposed to care about.


"You can say a lot about libertarians, but they are principled about their view of the Constitution. They don’t compromise, and in many cases they earn the respect of conservatives (though never, ever, of Democrats). "

I see a lot of this, too...people thinking that libertarianism is all about the constitution.  It's not, it's about natural law.  It's about property rights, voluntary choices, living your own life.  In a way, the constitution is more based on views that coincide with libertarianism than libertarianism is based on the constitution.  I value the Constitution because it was written to limit the federal government.  It obviously hasn't worked, but it's one of our greatest tools in fighting to keep our freedoms.


"It’s hard to count how many times conservatives have watched GOP debates and muttered “Damn, I’d vote for Ron Paul if he’d just stop talking about foreign policy.”  "

Why?  Because he doesn't want our government to police the world and tell other governments how they should be running their countries?  A guy by the name of George Washington felt very similarly about foreign policy.

Here's a quote by G.W.

• " Neutrality in Foreign Relations
• "My policy has been and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfill our own engagements. To supply the wants and be carriers for them all, being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so." -1795, To Gouverneur Morris, George Washington Himself, by John C. Fitzpatrick"

"Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode do not stand for collectivism. But right now, they stand in the way of stopping collectivism."

What?  How do people who want to restore our economy with true, unadulterated capitalism and give the people back the right to make their own decisions stand in the way of stopping collectivism?  The nay-sayers who tell us that we're wasting our vote by thinking for ourselves and choosing someone who has less of a chance of winning are standing in the way. The people who think "I'd vote for him, but he'll never win...so what's the point?" are the ones standing in the way.  How is voting for Mitt Romney not standing in the way of collectivism?


"With the Democrats, you agree on nothing. We all saw the Democrat convention. It was a collectivist congregation worshiping at the altar of big government. Free this, free that, bailouts this, bailouts that."

I agree, though libertarians would agree with the upholding of liberties that the Democratic Party used to talk about...they've obviously abandoned that.  Unfortunately, all of the big shots in the Republican party has similar voting records and support big government nearly as much as the big shots in the Democratic Party.


"The Republicans are not libertarians, but at least libertarian-conservatives make up an influential and growing part of the party. There are exactly zero “libertarian-liberals.” Nor can there be; Democrats embrace everything libertarians oppose."

Well, actually...libertarianism has a strong basis in "classical liberalism" but the terms "liberal" and "conservative" don't mean anything in modern American politics except "Democrat" and "Republican" so fair enough...move along.


"That’s why it’s silly to dismiss Romany as no different than Obama. Some wave off their obligation to choose with a cliché, that Romney is just “the lesser of two evils.”
Even if that’s true, the key is “lesser.” If you have to choose between encountering a hubcap thief and an axe murderer, you'd be a fool to shrug your shoulders and risk some face time with the dude with the hatchet."

No, it's not silly.  I've yet to see one reason that he is any better than Obama, except for false chatter about small government, balanced budgets, and individual liberties.  I see nothing backing it up.  I see Paul Ryan's attempt to balance the federal budget...over 30 years.  Sorry, not good enough.  It's more like picking between an axe murdered wearing a red hat or an axe murderer wearing a blue hat.


"No choice is a choice, and with the polls showing a dead-even race every vote that does not go to Romney is effectively a vote for Obama. There's no debate here; you opt out and you support Obama by default. How can any principled libertarian do that?"

No...if I vote for Gary Johnson, I'm taking away a vote from either of them.  I'm not giving a vote to Obama.


"Obama’s spent nearly four years trampling the First Amendment. Filmmakers who embarrassed the regime are rousted by cops at 1:30 a.m. Administration diplomats work with the UN to put in place blasphemy laws that give foreign mobs veto power over our right to speak. Religious organizations are told they must act contrary to their conscience as commanded by the government."

This is true, it's essentially fascism...but Paul Ryan voted for the Patriot Act and NDAA and Romney is in support of them...so how am I to believe they will respect my inalienable rights?


"The Second Amendment is under fire and is just one Supreme Court vote from being snatched away. Our government sends guns to Mexican criminals in order to justify further crack-downs on American citizens."
   

Molon Labe.


"Romney’s not your dream candidate. We get that. He’s not most of ours either. But the inescapable fact – whether you like it or not, whether it’s fair or not – is that either he or Obama will be the next president."


It's because of this mindset that our country is in the toilet.  Voting for the "lesser of the two evils" is still voting for evil.  What guys like this don't seem to get is that people who really want their liberty and want to live a life of freedom with a strong economy still want to fight for it.  We knew that if Ron Paul didn't win the Republican nomination we'd write in his name or go with Gary Johnson.  I personally am going with G.J. and I wish that all libertarians would come together and vote for him.  If we did, he could possibly win, and even if he didn't, his vote count would make a huge statement.  It could show those who didn't believe that voting for a third party could work that they should have voted.  If we can awaken more people, they in turn could awaken more people and it can spread, then by 2016 maybe we could have a libertarian win the election.  The growth of the libertarian and liberty-oriented mindset has been substantial in the past 4 years.  Ron Paul got something like 15 votes at the 2008 RNC. He got 190 this year...and that's with Maine being blocked.

An Introduction

The Blogger:

My name is Lee LeTourneau and I'm a 25 year old IT guy who lives just outside of Richmond, VA.  I married the love of my life in May and have 2 children, age 7 and 8.  I play bass guitar when I can and love cars.  I've always found politics and economics interesting, though when I was younger I had a tiny understanding of them in comparison to today.

I'm not a writer, and I find it difficult to convey my thoughts through words, but there is so much going on in my brain lately that I decided I needed to at least try to put some of it in words.  The main focus of this blog will be my views on life, government, society, etc... as I've grown more and more libertarian over the past few years of my life.  I keep up with the events of our country to the best of my ability and find that I have a completely different opinion of things than the mainstream media, which I'm sure most libertarians understand.

I wasn't always a libertarian; in fact, I considered myself a Republican from the time I was middle school until fairly recently.  As a teenager I frequently found myself siding with the Republicans and showing my support for ideals that I now find pretty ridiculous.  I remember when the Patriot Act was signed into law in fall of 2001; I had just turned 14 and was hearing a lot of complaints from people who claimed it would "steal our freedoms."  At the time, my answer was "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you don't have anything to be afraid of."  Thinking about that now, I can't believe that I would ever have a thought like that, but I was just a dumb kid who knew nothing about real life.

My understanding of the constitution when I was younger was that it was there to separate the three branches of government and outline how laws would be made.  I wasn't incorrect, but I never considered the importance of the limitations that it (tried to) put on the federal government.  After I graduated high school, I started attending ECPI Technical College.  At my home we only had dial-up internet due to it being far out in the "boondocks," but at school I had unlimited access to high speed internet and would frequently read the news and just explore wikipedia during class breaks or once I was done with my course work.  I recall one day coming across the wikipedia page for "libertarianism," a term that I had heard a few times in high school. Since we never really discussed the details of it in school (go figure), I figured it was some dead ideology from the 1700s that a few nutjobs probably still followed.  As I read the page, I was surprised to find that a lot of it made perfect sense to me.

At that point, I had a lot going on with my life...school, work, hanging out with friends, and playing music, so the idea of libertarianism didn't sink too deep into my mind.  The next time I really began to consider it again was in 2008 as the Presidential Election grew near.  Strangely, I heard about Ron Paul but kind of blew him off at first due to the "third party candidates don't matter" mindset that so many still have today.  I remember reading a lot about Obama and McCain and all I could do was facepalm.  It was the real-life version of the "giant douche vs. turd sandwich" episode of South Park.  At the time,  McCain seemed rather average and I figured he would probably do less to screw up the country than Obama, who had what seemed like radical views of massive government intervention.  I had just gotten hugely into dystopian fiction and imagined a dystopian USA in 4 years with Obama as President.  Because of this, I voted for McCain...I picked the "lesser of the 2 evils," but as we know, Obama won.

After that, my frustrations began to grow, especially when I would watch the news.  Anti-Obama blabber from some places vs. deification of him from other places.  It seemed impossible to get factual information from the news, so I took to the internet.  I started to rediscover libertarianism again as I began to read about natural law and property rights, small government, self evidence, and self-ownership, but I really struggled with the libertarian view on drugs and prostitution initially.  After thinking about the legality of drug use and prostitution in relation to natural law, I started to realize that making the choice to do drugs or get a prostitute was the same as making a choice to eat unhealthy food, smoke cigarettes, drive your car off of a cliff, stop exercising, etc.  Once I made this connection, it was like an awakening in my mind as I started to consider things that I held very firm views on from a different perspective.  A lot of my personal beliefs changed and at that point, I really felt I could not relate to the Republican party any more and definitely could not relate to the Democratic party either.  At this point, I feel like I really became a libertarian as opposed to a liberty-minded Republican.

I started reading about Ron Paul again and his fight against bloated federal government, wars, and especially his anti-federal reserve stance.  This interested me because I, like many, thought "The Fed" was just another government organization that monitored economic change or something.  Once I started to read, I was shocked!  This was another huge awakening for me and I started to read a lot about the "Austrian School of Economics."  As I learned about the Austrian view vs. the Keynesian view, I realized that my view of economics, which was mostly based on common sense pretty well aligned with the Austrian view.

With the next election growing near, I find myself more and more interested in the ideas around natural law, capitalism, and self-governance and I find that a lot more people are waking up to the huge problems with our federal government in the same way that I have.

In this blog I hope share some of my understanding of libertarianism and help educate other of the possibility of restoring our country to the great nation it once was.

-Lee