With only two weeks away from the election, there are still millions of Americans who feel they are without a candidate. And not because they’re undecided. They’re actually decided on the fact that neither Obama nor McCain represent anything they stand for.
Neither candidate is willing to openly support the right for gay marriage. Neither strongly support the second amendment right for individuals to bear arms in their own homes. Neither have clearly distinguished the crucial difference between actual environmental pollution from the global warming/climate change hype and its trillion dollar cap and trade boondoggle attempts. Neither have delineated a foreign policy that is any more competent than the Bush administration’s; McCain seems way too aggressive and is setting his sights on Iran, while Obama seems to say whatever it takes to appease the media. But most importantly, neither have any sound or practical plans to ameliorate the current financial crisis. McCain has expressed the need for some serious cuts in government spending, which is a great start, but most fiscally conservative voters are doubtful given the Republican party’s record of reneging on such promises.
And yet the millions of Americans who are painfully aware that neither candidate truly represents them, are equally aware that their vote for a third party that does, such as Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, will fall on deaf ears. And thanks to efforts by the Republican party to keep Bob Barr off the ballot in certain states, and having kept him from any of the presidential debates, millions of more Americans will have no idea they had much of a choice outside the two parties other than Ralph Nader.
The tragic irony is that the Libertarian party’s principles of true liberalism and limited government are not only the most pragmatic and cost effective solutions to our fiscal and foreign policy problems, but are the very principles this nation was founded on. George Washington was wise enough to warn about partisan politics back when it was between the Federalists and anti-Federalists. It’s curious how the anti-Federalists then became the Democratic-Republicans, which later split into the myopic duopoly our political system has unfortunately become. One in which both parties are almost indistinguishable from each other in their zeal to spend our tax dollars against our best interests by conveniently confusing the difference between inalienable rights and multi-billion dollar entitlement programs, and then mistake our disillusionment for indecisiveness.