When you said you believe a vote for anyone not Democrat or Republican is a throw-away, you merely repeated what you’ve already expressed. You didn’t answer the question I posed, however: if you vote for Bush and Kerry wins (or vice versa), would you still be able to tell me you didn’t throw your vote away, that your vote mattered more than a vote for a Libertarian candidate? The logic that you use – not enough people consider third-party candidates a possibility – is the reason the Twin Behemoths have a death grip on power. It’s also the reason so many of the lazy government workers and enormous spending programs you lament are allowed to stick around. Without competition, there is no incentive for the big parties to improve. They know that the herd logic so many people use reduces to nil any chance of them being held accountable for their actions.

So far as what Radley’s vote tells me – all it tells me is for whom Radley voted. Nothing more, nothing less.

I fully agree with you that cutting spending and eliminating wasteful government jobs is a great idea. I think we ought to enact those changes immediately. The problem is that our overspending is so entrenched that we can’t get rid of it. None of our politicians have the will to cut spending because the constituencies they “serve” because they’d stand no chance of being re-elected. Even if by some miracle we are able to cut spending to reasonable levels within 10 years, the interest on our debt will still have continued to pile up over that time, compounding every year. When your debt grows faster than your income, you’re placed into a tight situation. Taxes will have to be raised then to make up the difference – unless we just decide to collect tribute from our Middle Eastern provinces instead. (That’s a joke, folks.)

Our spending habits have dug us a hole so deep that, outside some miraculous economic windfall, we can’t get out of it by simply cutting spending. Taxes will have to be raised, either now or in the future. I don’t like that at all, James – I’m no Democrat and I’m certainly no liberal. But then again, I don’t like the fact that I am being forced to pay for previous generations being completely irresponsible, either. At least with credit card debt you’re paying for your *own* irresponsibility -you have no one to blame but yourself. In this case I have no one to blame but the people who refused to to do anything about their “leaders” handing out cash to anyone who asked for it; even worse, I have nothing I can do about it because no one else wants to realize that the Twin Behemoths are the root of the problem.

I DO think that voting for anything other than Dem or Rep is throwing your vote away. I don’t LIKE that reality but the fact is most people in this country do not consider a 3rd party candidate as even a possibility. Even Radley is voting Dem instead of libertarian, what does that tell you?

And when I say ‘F*ck the deficit’ I fully expect something will have to be done later to fix it. But how about that something being firing lazy, worthless govertment workers and cutting back spending … raising taxes isn’t the only solution despite what the Dems say. Like your credit card example, I could just cut back my monthly spending and then my monthly income will allow me to eventually pay off my credit card, right? I don’t need a ‘raise’ to pay off the cards (hope my boss isn’t reading this).

Keep in mind that any vote that isn’t for the winner can be considered a “throw away” vote. If you vote for Bush and Kerry wins, how can you tell me with a straight face that your vote mattered any more than a vote for the Libertarian candidate? Or, for that matter, the Natural Law or Socialist or Communist candidate? Your logic doesn’t allow for anyone but the winner to matter.

Don’t forget that while your taxes are lower right now, someone will have to come in and raise them later because the guy who wants to “keep your taxes low” is running a gigantic deficit that you don’t care about. Whether you care about it or not, though, low taxes + deficit = higher taxes in the long run. Ever seen somebody run up a huge credit card tab and think of it as income? That’s basically what the government is doing right now. The only difference between the individual doing this and the government doing this is that the government has more guns to protect itself from creditors.

Of course, we could all just say “fuck the deficit” and watch everything collapse. When we say debt doesn’t matter to us, what’s to stop everyone else from saying the same thing?

In answer to your redefined question: yes, it will probably be easier to find fiscal conservatives among the GOP (for a while anyway). But a question you didn’t ask is, will it matter if you manage to find a handful of fiscal conservatives in the GOP while on your Capitol Hill scavenger hunt? The answer to that is “no.” That’s because the GOP leadership might as well be Democratic for all its concern about fiscal policy. Both parties are liberal now; liberal in this case meaning “it’s okay to tax the hell out of the populace and spend their money on anything our members’ districts would profit from,” not “gays are awesome and Al Franken is my hero.”

Don’t let the socially conservative window dressing fool you. True conservatism in the GOP is dead. Better to vote Libertarian, or not at all, than to vote for either of the Twin Behemoths.

Nope. I think they both believe it’s okay to spend like there’s no tomorrow. The GOP of today is not the GOP of yesterday, but they’re still milking yesterday’s image for all it’s worth.

“Bush did the same during his campaign. Whatever happened to his promise of “no nation-building?”"

Ummmm, 9/11. He had to do something about Afghanistan. After taking out the gov’t he had to stay to rebuild. Maybe you disagree about Iraq, but 9/11 colored his decision on that one too. I believe that he felt he had no choice. Or at least only one good choice.

He’ll say whatever he believes is necessary to win votes. Once in office, he will do whatever he needs to do to stay in office and reward those special interests that put him in office.

Bush did the same during his campaign. Whatever happened to his promise of “no nation-building?” Smaller government? Now Bush is in office, he’ll say and do whatever he must to stay there.

C’mon, Radley. How long have you been watching our political process at work?

That’s why he says things like that – no other reason.

Could anybody give me one thing that’s on Kerry’s agenda besides being president? I suppose he wants to stick it to the rich guy, so he can spread it around to his far richer buddies, but there doesn’t seem to be any focus beyond getting the power and schmoozing more with unnamed foriegn leaders.

Today’s promise from the Donkeys is about as good as that one.

And no, we’re not vampires, I just happen to live on Pacific time (Arizona never changes clocks so we’re on PST). :)

I guess it takes one to know one.

Are you two vampires?

Logically these don’t seem to go together, James. If we really know what we’re getting with Bush, shouldn’t we know for certain whether he’ll slash spending on Nov. 9th?

Actually there’s a very precise mathematical formula. With X being Kerry’s poll numbers today and Y being Kerry’s future poll numbers, whenever X>Y John Kerry will change his position.

Oddly enough, this applies to George W. Bush too. As well as [insert major-party politician here].