Since the people's vote for the president doesn't mean jack ****, why not just vote for who you really want?

Why do people just continue party-based voting? Why is "go vote! Rock the vote! VOTE VOTE VOTE! That's the only way you can make a difference!" the thing that gets pushed all the time? Is media really THAT dishonest?

Is it just that element of keeping up appearances? Is it because the general public really IS that ignorant about the voting process for presidents?

I'm going to either be voting for Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich as a write in. I am not voting for Obama and it would have to be a frozen day in hell for me to EVER vote for McCain. Neither one seem to be mentally connected with what is wrong with our economy and neither one have a plan to fix it--they just want to apply more bandages to the gaping holes. Paul and Kucinich are really the only ones that aren't lock and step with their party--I know they're not "officially" running anymore, but I don't care: My vote doesn't mean jack anyway because I'm not part of the electoral college.

Why not just vote for who you really want? If it's about sending a message, why not REALLY send a message? The message we keep sending is that we're satisfied with this crap.

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I'm voting for who I really want. I'll be writing in Ron Paul's name. But the problem is that the media has people convinced that there are only two choices. Here is an example of the brainwashing, a conversation I had with my straight-ticket-voting-Republican parents this weekend. Note Mom's response:

DAD: If Obama wins, we're going to have a revolution.

ME: If McCain wins we may have a revolution, too. Congress completely defied the will of the people. Some reported calls were 300 to 1 against the bailout, but Congress passed it it anyway. The people are fed up. Either way there's going to be a revolution.

DAD: You may be right.

ME: I cannot in good conscience vote for either MCain or Obama, so I'm writing in Ron Paul's name.

MOM: A VOTE FOR RON PAUL IS A VOTE FOR OBAMA!

ME: That's not true. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for Ron Paul, not Obama.

DAD: You need to vote your conscience.

ME: I will.

My Mom is no dummy. She an educated woman who watches the news and keeps up with current events. Yet she, like so many others, is convinced that there are only two choices, because, frankly, those are the only two that CAN win. The system is rigged and we are all the losers.

Something has to change and it won't be done by Obama, that's for sure.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

Some of us vote for third parties because parties become viable when people vote for them.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Third parties become viable when people vote for them.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I have voted 3rd party before, and I likely will do so again, should any candidate prove worthy of my endorsement.

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"Oh, bother", said Pooh, as he chambered another round...

I have voted for the Libertarian Party in every election for years. I won't be doing that again. It obviously didn't make a difference, anyway.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

Voting for third parties isn't strategically sound. It's idealistic, but unrealistic. A better strategy is to vote for the least of the two realistic evils. Voting for x when he never has a chance of winning, and wouldn't until the system changed, only makes it easier for one of the others to win. And the one who wins won't necessarily be the better of the two.

A worse consequence out of idealism is still an inferior choice.

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This set of thinking is exactly why we keep ending up with crap.

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May your paradise always be green, you liberties always be full, and may the ignorance of you enemies not drive you to be pro-nuke.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle."-Winston Churchill

I am voting for who I want for president.

I support people voting for third party candidates and if you get enough votes you win. I dont see it happening especially for a party like the libertarians but hey the bull moose party almost pulled it off.

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Walt Whitman
"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."

It's correct thinking. Most people are not going to vote for radical third parties with their extreme, half-assed myopic platforms. The people who vote for them are stuck in the ivory tower. By voting for them you are, in reality, making it much easier for something worse. That's a realistic probability. I am not going to risk voting in some republitard because I voted for the socialist worker's party, which I probably would. But there aren't enough people here who would want to to make it worthwhile anyway. Even if they DID have third party's easily available.

We don't have a coalition style government. It's first-past the post. Which means I am still throwing my vote away and getting no representation.

The only right choice is the choice which leads to the least bad result. Voting in such a way that you know will likely not do that is morally irresponsible imo. A clear example of this is voting for the hippie party if the alternatives are either liberals or fascists. Obviously, you might want the hippies really bad, cause you hate "the man." But by voting for them, if they are a larger third party, might detract from voting for the Liberals, who are closer by far than the Facists. So in effect, you can realistically be helping bring about just the opposite of your ideal, which is moronic. I don't want to sabotage my own interests. Which too many people are seemingly wont to do.

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