Frick and Frack, Dis and Dat - Drain the Swamp and Vote Third Party

As a Ron Paul supporter, many of us have been frustrated with the anarcho-capitalist voluntarist wing of the Libertarian movement because many of these folks simply refuse to politically engage or even vote.  They make a perfectly valid point "why bother to vote when nothing ever changes".  It's tough to argue with such logic.  The more things change, the more they remain the same.  Americans keep voting for change but the change never comes.

To be sure, there won't be any change if Obama is re-elected or even if Romney manages to pull off a miracle and defy the odds in a race where he is a clear underdog.  The polls are not looking good for Romney and every major election pundit agrees that the advantage definitely goes to Obama.  Moreover, the gamblers at Intrade.com give Obama a comfortable probability of being elected of 58.1% to a 41.7% probability for Romney.  No one should knock the Intrade gamblers.  They beat every pundit in 2008 and by a wide margin.  Intrade predicted that Obama would win with 364 electoral votes, he got 365.  Nobody got that close.

So here we are again.  It's another presidential election year and the choices are miserable.  Well, they really aren't all that miserable and the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, is a very decent candidate who shares a lot of Ron Paul's views.  Yeah, Gary Johnson isn't Ron Paul but who is?  Nobody.

For those among us who consider themselves liberty activists, it's best to vote for the strongest liberty candidate because this strikes a blow at the entrenched power structures of the corrupt RNC and DNC machines that tend to cavalierly marginalize 3rd parties as irrelevant because they just haven't taken off in big enough numbers to signal any real threat to the two party system.

No third party in America stands any chance of winning a presidential election.  But voting third party shouts "I'm here, I'm politically active and I intend to fight the corrupt two party system".  If anything, the third party voters take away votes from both the Republican and Democratic Parties and disemboweling the two headed monster is the act of self-preservation.  .

The Republican and Democratic Parties don't care if folks don't vote so long as they don't vote third party.  However, if third parties start to register alarming percentages that constitute a real threat to R and D absolute power, the grassroots within both parties will be vastly strengthened as will the power of independent voters.  

While I understand why folks refuse to vote and accept that I cannot possibly change their minds, those of us who do vote and participate in the political cesspool have a lot at stake here.  Defeating Romney strikes a most deserving blow at the GOP.  Four more years of Obama and Gang is better than 8  years of worthless statist neocon Republican socialists.

My choice:  Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party.