Reason magazine posted yesterday their responses from various libertarians they sent a set of questions on the 2008 election. Following is the response I sent them last week. (Their initial article did not include my responses, but they added them in after I sent a YO DUDE! email their way.)
** I will post some further thoughts on this subject periodically between now and Tuesday evening.
WHO’S GETTING YOUR VOTE? REASON SURVEY OCTOBER 2008
1. Who are you voting for in November?
Bob Barr. He is the most pro-freedom candidate. He has long done great work against the Surveillance State, in favor of the Second amendment, and on other issues. (Disclosure: I have done some work for the Barr campaign).
2. Who did you vote for in 2004 and 2000?
I voted for Badnarik in 2004, and didn’t vote in 2000.
3. Is this the most important election in your lifetime?
It is the most important election since 2006, and maybe even 2004. Elections are vastly overrated as a means for restraining government abuses. The more people who believe that the 2008 election will end the abuses of the Bush era, the easier it will be for the next president to perpetuate Bush’s noxious principles and precedents.
4. What will you miss about the Bush administration?
If Obama wins, a torrent of Washington conservatives will suddenly proclaim that the federal government poses a dire threat to our rights and liberties. I will miss the honest conservatism of the GWB era – when many conservatives stopped pretending to give a damn about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and denounced as traitors anyone who did not kowtow to the Commander-in-Chief.
5. Leaving George W. Bush out of consideration, what former U.S. president would you most like to have waterboarded?
I would not want to see any of them waterboarded, but I would like to see all of them forced to disclose all of their presidential papers and compelled to sit under cross examination for as many weeks or months as it takes for Americans to learn the extent of their abuses in office. And they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for any crimes they committed.
James Bovard is the author of eight books, most recently Attention Deficit Democracy.
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Your comment # 3 is the most salient point….the hero worship and savior lust is at sickly hilarious levels. The fact that we were offered Obamas final summation in an infomercial …the general redoubt of such classics as “Yogurt Colonics and their Manifold Benefits to Body and Mind”…….well, we must be nearing some outer limits.
Dirk, I shudder to think of the Disappointed Idealist Backlash in ’09.
Maybe it will be enough to revive even Palin’s fortunes.
One thing I disliked about that article as a whole is that the majority of the people approached claim to be libertarian to an extent and yet have consistantly voted for a statist candidate. I have always supported the most pro-freedom anti-government candidate on the ballot since I first started voting (Andre Marrou). There have been a couple of times when I didn’t actually vote, but even then I showed my support for the ideas in other ways (money, signs, etc.). This year I stuck with my previous record and voted for Charles Jay, who I feel is more pro-liberty than Bob Barr who’s voting record in congress is a barrier to my principled support, even if he has changed his tune he can’t change his record and I am not even sure how much of his tune has really changed and how much he is pandering.
I think Barr is by far the least Statist candidate.
But Big Government is going to have a big victory tomorrow regardless.
Hello Jim! Today, I didn’t vote. Here in Maine, neither Barr or Baldwin are on the ballot, and I was going to write in Ron Paul’s name, but the ballot would have gotten tossed, so I didn’t bother.
I frankly am so sick and tired of this Obamafarce! My neighbor had a sign on her front window saying “Mamas for Obama”, and people up here are walking around with buttons saying, “I voted for Change”.
You know this reminds me of what happened in Ukraine with the “Orange Revolution”. People had buttons on saying “Tak”, which is Ukrainian for Yes.
Of course, the American puppet there has been nothing short of disaster.
Me thinks after the first term of “The One”, people will get a dose of reality, and maybe read “Attention Deficit Disorder”.
You predicting Orange buttons?