Pete The Elder

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October 25, 2004

Libertarians: Huh? Part 2

This shows that not all Libertarians are nuts. John Hospers was the first Libertarian candidate for president back in 1972 and he is voting for Bush this year. He knows that there are major differences between the two major candidates and parties and that the issues this year are important enough not to vote for a third party. He is particularly disturbed by the violent acts of Kerry supporters this year and the lack of any Kerry condemnation and media reporting of this violence.

I would say this is the criteria for determining if third party members are not nuts is if they deny there is a difference between the two major parties. If they dispute how important these differences are or say they can not go against their core principles and must vote third party, then they are probably not nuts. I had a conversation with a Green a few months ago and a Libertarian a few days ago who both said that there was no difference between Kerry and Bush. This despite the fact that if Kerry had been president the past four years, Hussein would still be in power, there would have been no tax cuts, no no child left behind, no insert most/least favorite Bush policy/appointment here, etc.

There are three basic responses of third party members to this statement. An idealistic third party member will say that may all be true, but sticking to my principles like eliminating all income taxes (Libertarian) or eliminating all SUVs (Green) is more important. A pragmatic third party says these differences may all be true and say, like Hospers does, that convincing people will take years and in the mean time this current election is too important not to vote for one of the two major candidates. A deluded third party member says that there is no difference and you are fooling yourself if you think there is.

The idealist and pragmatic are worth listening to and may even convince some people to agree with them. The deluded one will likely convince no one because they usually do not understand that people honestly disagree with them because they can not even see that people as different as Bush and Kerry disagree with each other in significant ways. There are deluded people of all political stripes who do not understand how any one could disagree with them unless it is because they are ignorant (sheeple) or evil (Bush is Hitler!!!). I once had a conversation with someone who argued that all opposition to Israel was anti-Semitic. I agreed that much, if not most, of the opposition was anti-Semitic, but I could imagine many situations where this was not true such as a dislike for the west or democracies in general. That was not good enough for him. It all had to be because of anti-Semitism. Whatever you believe do not be delusional about it or about what other people believe.

Libertarians: Huh? Part 1

Posted by Pete at October 25, 2004 07:50 PM

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Posted by: Mosey at October 26, 2004 08:47 AM