Viable Alternative

Ever since Bush’s crappy foreign policy, horrible stance on the environment and the consisten eroding of my rights made me mad I’ve been shopping for a political party to register as and vote for. Easy you say. Wrong. Both Democrats and Republicans play to special interests, generally abuse the government and, overall, suck. So who do you vote for?

You vote for a viable alternative.

The Libertarian Party is an interesting hybrid of the Democratic and Republic platform, most of which are common sense. The end result is a great platform that includes all sorts of things I agree with and a few I don’t.

  1. They would eliminate the income tax. How? By drastically reducing the size of the federal government. This includes ending military welfare to defend countries like Japan and NOT bailing out failing industries.
  2. They promote the legalization of drugs as a way to both reduce crime and reduce tax burden (no war on drugs means we don’t have to pay for tons of DEA agents).
  3. Privatize the running, control and operations of federally protected lands to such environmental groups as the Nature Conservancy.
  4. Abolish foreign aid.
  5. Abolish Social Security. I like this idea the more I think about it. Let ME invest my money how I see fit – I don’t need the government’s help.
  6. They aggressively believe in freedom of speech, which includes staunch support for the free and unrestricted use of cryptography and censorship.
  7. Abolish the current welfare system.

All of the above makes a ton of sense to me. Who better to run our nation’s parks than the tree hugging hippies? How better to get rid of the violence the drug trade produces than to make it legal? The running theme throughout the entire platform is that the people who vote Libertarian do so because we trust people to run their own lives. It’s a party that promotes responsibility.

They have a great ad on their site that says the following.

I’m George W. Bush and you can trust ME to run your life.

I’m John Kerry and you can trust ME to run your life.

I’m Ralph Nader and you can trust ME to run your life.

I’m Michael Badnarik and I trust YOU to run your own life.

Classic. So this year I’m voting for the Libertarian Party and I highly suggest you look into it as a viable alternative.

9 thoughts on “Viable Alternative

  1. 1.) What if japan were to be controlled by radical communist/america hating/sushi loving warlords? Would they stop exporting all their junk over here?

    2.) No DEA = more crime, less jobs. Everyone is High so nothing gets done. Might as well legalize prostitution as well.

  2. 1.) Who cares? It would merely promote jobs here (since we’d need to make up for those imports).

    2.) Ummm. You missed the point on that one. No DEA because there are no drug crimes (smuggling, turf wars, etc.). I’m sure the few thousand DEA agents can find ample employment.

  3. You think legalizing drugs would make drug problems go away? We would end up a nation of junkies and turn into a 3rd world country. We would end up begging Brittian for money because we need just one more hit… just one more.

    If you legalize drugs, which drugs? All? Do you think it’s wise to let people run around on heroin, morphine or opium? Can you imagine how many deaths through driving while under the influence? How about the apathy that would run rapid through our lands. But then it’s ok because the government would be profiting off that right? At least we’re paying off the national deficet. Not everyone can run their own lives, every single person knows someone somewhere who is just horrible at the game of life and they need help. If you were in some of these peoples shoes, you wouldn’t say those things. Try being hooked on drugs because your mother told you it was ok to try it. Try getting a job once you’re hooked and you have tracks across your arm. Then you’ll realize, there are situations where people really need help.

    I agree with caller #1 on Japan. It won’t promote jobs, it’ll make us look to countries that can offer similar products that are made by 4 year old kids. Americans are lazy. It will never change, we’ve gotten fat off the land. Why do the work when we can buy it for a 3rd of the price? Oh wait, then because japan’s resources are being held captive by communist freaks, we as americans can jack the price up of an am/fm radio to 4x the amount and allow the 5% rich people get richer and our drug infested low life apathetic people get poorer.

    In conclusion, yes, we can run our own lives. Most of us at least can. Everyone gets down on their luck sometime and needs assistance. Personally, If drugs were around me everyday, I would hate my country even more. I work hard, and I don’t want to see drugged out people laying around pissing on themselves. I like my nice neighborhood, my city cleaned street, and my stereo that I got on sale at radio shack.

    Peace out

  4. 1.) At least have the guts to post your name or a URL.

    2.) Everyone thinks it’s wise to let people run around with booze in their system. We have DUI’s for a reason. People know drugs are bad. No one on the planet thinks that coke is *good* for you. I have a few arguments that support this: a.) How many people would not be interested in drugs if they weren’t taboo? b.) How many people think on a daily basis that coke or heroin is a great idea? c.) DRUGS ARE AROUND YOU EVERYDAY (1 out of 16 admit to smoking pot DAILY). d.) Americans aren’t rich “off the land” they’re rich because of hard work. If they want to be stay rich they should get off their lazy asses and work again.

    3.) You make the assumption that if drugs were legal poeple would run to them in droves. If that’s the case then we’re only thinning the herd. If you’re dumb enough to do line after line of coke you deserve what you get.

  5. Do you think that’s a good mentallity, “Thin the herd”? Do you think that most 14 year olds know better than to do a line of coke or smoke that doobie when their dope head friend offers it to them? You said it, alot of people smoke pot, pot is a gateway drug, as well as one of the easiest to obtain. So now all these drugs are available. So now my 14 year old son who smokes dope occasionally at a party is presented with heroin. Would you be ok with your son *trying* heroin? I mean, legally he/she. So really you can’t stop them from trying the most addictive substances known to man. It’s ok though right, I mean, it’s legal isn’t it? Mind altering substances will always remain taboo, even if they are legal. Alcohol is still taboo to underage people which raises future alcoholics. It’s great mentallity you have there, maybe you should vote for the communist party? Lets just become anarchists and be run by mob and gangs. They do work hard don’t they? They deserve to beat you to a pulp if you don’t just give them your money. Being liberal is one thing, but thinking the world doesn’t need rules is a remarkably asinine idea. I agree with you, Bush is an asshat. Pushing religion ideas on a nation that promotes freedom of religion is straight up bullshit and he should be impeached.

    I’m not saying the rich didn’t become rich through hard work. I’m saying once you’re rich, you’re rich. To stay right in this country is becoming increasingly more difficult. Outsourcing and moving to countries were people aren’t as greedy and not nearly as lazy and are all around happier to do our job is what’s hurting us. The problem comes with the process of staying rich. You want to stay rich, you gain resources outside of this country.

    Real quick, alot of people think drugs are not bad. This is because parenting is at an all time low. That’s an issue I’d not like to get into. We could go on and on about this forever, vote for your anarchist ideas and maybe you’ll get what you want.

  6. It all comes down to personal responsibility. As a country we have completely lost focus of our duty to take care of ourselves, instead opting to let the government hold our hands.

    If a person chooses to smoke crack until they die, that’s their choice. Just as they can choose to drink alcohol until they die, morally there is no difference. Legalizing drugs would take them off of the streets and into legitimate stores where they could be sold, assured of purity (and not rat poison) and sold only to adults, just like beer and alcohol. Right now, kids have a far easier time getting ahold of marijuana than booze, that’s a complete failure of the drug war and has little to do with parenting.

  7. You’re missing the point.

    That 14 year old can already get coke easily and try it if he/she wants. Legalizing drugs doesn’t mean we get rid of all of the anti-drug messages on TV and in schools. Just because they are legal doesn’t make them “ok”.

    Just because beer and cigs are legal doesn’t make them “ok” and we have rules, anti-drinking/smoking, etc. all aimed at curbing smoking and drinking.

    You make too many assumptions in my statement to legalize drugs:

    1.) That the war on drugs is working and that there isn’t a proliferation of drugs currently in America.

    2.) That once drugs where legal everyone would rush en masse to do them. So you’re telling me that you and your friends don’t use drugs JUST because they aren’t legal? Give me a break! You don’t do them because you paid attention in school and realized drugs are bad for you.

    3.) That once drugs are legal they wouldn’t be REGULATED. Cops are already trained to notice people on drugs. Why do you think it’s called a DUI and not something else?

    Prohibition didn’t work and neither is the war on drugs. People like to smoke pot, some self-destructive people like to do harder drugs – these facts don’t change whether it’s legal or not. For this reason I’d rather have drugs legal and tax the hell out of them like we do smoking and booze with vice taxes.

    Oh and by the way, the Netherlands hasn’t fallen apart and pot is legal there.

  8. You can’t possibly think it would be benificial to legalize drugs and then “tax the hell out of them”? By doing so, you are not only keeping those back channels open for drug dealers to peddle their drugs and violence, but now you’ve made the government into a drug dealer.
    I would have to leave the country. I just couldn’t handle my son/daughter being subjected to such idiocy.

    As for the Netherlands, hard drugs are not legalized. It is very much against their law to sell coke or heroin. It’s one thing to legalize pot, it’s another to “Legalize drugs” in such a broad dimenor.

    Peace out

  9. it’s funny because i’ve said the exact same thing about legalizing drugs as you, joe. and for the same reasons it sounds like. i think the major point is that people too often try to pretend that things aren’t happening. teenagers aren’t having sex, so we should continue to promote abstinence as a way to prevent HIV. people aren’t doing drugs so we should continue making sure they are illegal. but as we all know, teenagers are having sex. give them condoms. people are doing drugs. make them safer.
    these things are not going away, and too many people are falling into this ignorant trap of “if we pretend it’s not a problem, it won’t be a problem.”
    i wanted to vote libertarian in high school, and i’d be willing to do some more research on the party. but in 2004 my major focus is getting President Asshole out of office, and it seems like Kerry is the quickest way to do that…

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