Comments | vorkon: Last-Minute Political Thoughts:

vorkon

Last-Minute Political Thoughts:

Nov 05, 2012 10:36

I barely ever post here anymore, and mostly just use this account to keep track of and/or leave comments on other peoples' pages. But with the elections in the US coming down to the wire, I felt it was important to get my opinions out there in public. It's too late for me to influence anyone else here in Okinawa, obviously, but by and large they ( Read more... )

politics

Comments 12

izuko November 5 2012, 11:23:44 UTC

Sorry, Vork, but you lost me at "toxic discourse." You centrists/moderats/independents/third-party types are the worst of all when it comes to that. The only difference is that you're slinging mud in both directions. I would say, even more than the futility of voting for someone you know isn't going to be elected, what's turned me off the most about third parties (and this is from a former capital-L Libertarian) is the sanctimony. I'll take a flawed Republican who is clear about being a Republican over a political hipster any day.

"It's an obscure political party; you've probably never heard of it."

vorkon November 6 2012, 01:37:55 UTC

Fair enough ( ... )

countalpicola November 7 2012, 06:25:31 UTC

> In short, EVERYONE stands to gain if we can drive the tone of political discussion in this direction, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, and everyone else. And personally, I believe that a third party having a bigger spot on the public stage is one way to accomplish this.

I'm not really sure why a third party would have a whole lot of impact, here. The main problem I see with the "toxic discourse" that comes from the media is that the media itself has chosen sides. I don't know enough history to know for sure how biased they've been in the past, but these past 8 years when I have been paying attention, I have noticed them becoming increasingly opinionated. A third party has the potential to add additional menu options to the list of choices, but I don't see it making the media any less steadfast in their opinions. Somewhere along the line, "the news" stopped being about, well, news.

vorkon November 6 2012, 01:39:15 UTC

(Continued, because LJ is dumb ( ... )

Thread 9

haibane_rachan November 6 2012, 23:56:02 UTC

The first time I was eligible to vote in a presidential election, it was 2004 and I voted for Michael Badnarik. I voted for him because he was the candidate whose stance on the issues most closely aligned with my own, but also because the main party candidates were so hopelessly bad. In 2008, I voted for Sarah Palin (willfully ignoring that this meant I was also voting for John McCain) because I agreed with her on a lot of the issues and I could respect her on the ones I didn't agree on. I also really just fuckin' like her, and that was refreshing as hell. I also remember having some feeling that it was too important an election to NOT vote AGAINST the person I didn't want to be president.

Today, I basically had the same reasoning as in 2008. While I won't tell you here how I voted (though you can probably guess), I will tell you that my vote wasn't for anyone; it was against someone. And I think that's what the modern presidential election process boils down to, anymore; voting against someone. Because you really aren't going to get ( ... )

vorkon November 7 2012, 02:18:31 UTC

Note: I'll try responding to this, but as you can probably imagine I'm doing this from my phone at work. Only so much time for discourse, toxic or otherwise! :op

countalpicola November 7 2012, 06:44:54 UTC

I'm not really sure what to think anymore about third party voting. On the one hand, voting your convictions seems, to me, like the way it ought to be done. On the other hand, I can't think of a single third party that would actually be ready to govern if it won. That, to me, is a criteria for voting even if I know for a fact that whoever I vote for isn't going to win. And I say this as someone who voted third party in 2004 ( ... )