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Why not a third party vote?
June 17, 2008 | Tagged Elections, McCain, Obama, third party vote |
Thanks to Dan for his comment on my last post regarding the possibility of actually trying to put a third party presidential candidate over the top with a coalition of gun owners. It’s always refreshing to discuss issues with conservatives, Libertarians, and gun owners, because we tend to be independent thinkers and not progressive/liberal groupthink herd animals. Do you know that Moveon is setting up cookie sales all over the country to raise money for Barack Hussein Obama? Imagine gunnies holding a cookie sale! We have enough independent cusses with independent ideas at gun shows.
I also appreciate the idea that “True insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” (I think this quote has been attributed to Einstein.) The problem that I have with third party candidates is that their history is one of throwing elections to the opposition party. Perot gave us eight long years of Bill Clinton. Nader (thankfully) saved us from Al Gore. I’m not personally anxious to emulate either of these historical precedents and put BHO in the White House by doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
I don’t share Dan’s opinion that the two major parties are the same. Under Bill Clinton, we got the so-called “Assault Weapons” ban and a devastating assault on the number of citizens holding Federal Firearms Licenses. Under the admittedly imperfect George W. Bush Administration, we got the sunset of the “Assault Weapons” ban, The Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that protects the gun industry from predatory lawsuits, an Attorney General opinion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, the possibility of concealed carry in national parks, and the blockage of 14 anti-gun bills now pending in the U.S. Congress.
I am concerned about the potentially disastrous effect that a BHO Presidency with a 60 vote supermajority in the U.S. Senate would have on judicial appointments and U. N. interference with the rights of our citizens. I believe we can not afford to do a “Perot” or a “Nader” and hope to survive as free citizens for even one four-year term, if BHO becomes President.
BHO voted to allow reckless lawsuits against gun makers; wanted to re-impose the Clinton gun ban; voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition; has endorsed a ban on handgun ownership; supports gun owner licensing and gun registration(often a prelude to confiscation); opposes right to carry laws; supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park(no more gun stores); supports one-gun-a-month sales limits; and is associated numerous other draconian anti-gun measures. (See NRA-ILA information sheet in NRA Magazines or on the NRA website for source documentation of the above facts.)
Please also review my post of 05-13-08, “McCain can win. Barr and Paul can not,” under the category of “Elections” on this site. There are some interesting comments with opinions different from my own.
I believe that politics is the art of the possible. If gun owners and civil libertarians support an electable candidate, a Reagan-type “big tent” coalition may be able to keep the most left-wing junior senator in the country out of the White House. If we indeed fragment our efforts in this election, we may become footnotes to history like the Samurai, the European knights, and Native American warriors, who were great fighters in their own right, but who were overcome by the superior numbers of a less-able, but better organized opposition. Remember those Moveon cookie sales. The Democrats will be unified. As Benjamin Franklin said with regard to the initiation of the great American experiment in Republicanism, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” I believe a third party vote almost certainly condemns gun owners to the latter fate.
Def Mech
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Agreed. Is there a legitimate hope that if libertarians join a big-tent Republican Party, they can hijack it for their own purposes (not that I oppose the notion)? Evangelicals entered the party and moved the entire conservative movement. If seen as a valuable, and vocal, voting bloc, libertarians might actually earn some sway with a Republican Party desperately trying to find a new voice.