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Vote with your feet, not your mind

In an astonishing departure from the norm, James Ostrowski blagged about something unrelated to Buffalo, NY, his father’s career in Buffalo, NY, or his own amazing prescience in making political predictions. He’s frustrated that the Democrats look as though they’re about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again. (I have to admit, I’m a little frustrated by it, too, though I should realize it doesn’t make a difference. I do want to see the incumbent party defeated, though.)

Ostrowski says, “First, they chose the far weaker of two candidates for the nomination. Actually, the voters probably chose Hillary but the crazy rules chose Obama.” Pff. False. Obama was clearly the better candidate. Hillary is the most hated, mistrusted, non-down-to-Earth politician in the United States in a long time except for George W. Bush. America would never have tolerated her, especially if John McCain still chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Hillary’s arrogance, her megalomania, her elitism, and that droning, cutting, incessant harpy voice would have destroyed her.

But, the only reason I’m writing this post is the link Ostrowski points us to in this sentence: “Now, Obama’s intellectually bankrupt liberalism has been exposed including by Palin last night. See this nice commentary by Mike Rebmann, a libertarian/Paulian.”

First, in Mike Rebmann’s credit, he is right about several things in this post, so I’ll give him his due by quoting those:

Where Palin loses me is her republicanesque playing of the fear card regarding the “dangerous world” we live in. She still favors a costly, interventionist foreign policy. Until we adopt a policy of defense for our natural borders, combined with free-trade, the military costs we bear will continue to dog any true economic upturn for America. …

At the end of the day, we are still left with one big question that needs an answer, who to vote for. As far as I’m concerned, Obama does not even deserve consideration. He became the Democrat’s nominess based on oratorical skills, school girl-like fawning from the media and a misplaced desire to see a black candidate, regardless of the real costs to this nation. …

The only way to justify a vote for McCain/Palin, is to subscribe to the lessor of two evils philosophy. It would take a large degree of pragmatism, or abdication of one’s values, to support a ticket that views foreign intervention as a vital part of our foreign policy.
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We are going to end up with either a train wreck (Obama) as President, or McCain, a fear monger. I believe that McCain will win. My hope, in that case, is that Congress finally grows some balls and cuts the military budget, forcing a sensible foreign policy.

I’m not sure why he thinks we have to vote for anyone or why he doesn’t even mention any other candidates (he is a “Paulian,” after all), but the real idiocy comes during his discussion of his disagreements with Sarah Palin on social issues. Really they are Constitutional issues—states’ rights, to be exact:

States’ rights are an important concept that our country has strayed from. It gives people the opportunity to vote with their feet. Anyone can choose to live in a State that most closely mirrors their own personal values.

No, it gives retards, ignoramuses, and people who generally know nothing and care less about individual liberty an opportunity to excrete mindless drivel about “voting with their feet” and “choosing a government that most closely mirrors their own personal values.” My own personal values are to live exactly where I want and how I want and interact with whom I want in ways that we agree upon, without having my rights put to a vote by morons like you, while mutually acknowledging everyone else’s identical right.

Good god, when are people going to get it through their thick, State-corrupted skulls that just becuase the “minimal” government they advocate would be much better than our current governments, that doesn’t make it any more just to tell people, “If you don’t like the small government we’re forcing on you, you can always move hundreds of miles away and get a new job and make new friends and cut off any close ties you have with friends and family, to go live under a small government that suits you better. We have the guns, after all, and this is our government, so if you don’t like it, we graciously give you the freedom to vote with your feet.”

That is not freedom, idiots. That is less Statism than before. Fact: A government that most closely mirrors my own personal values is no monopolistic government at all. Fact: I would never force you into my or anyone else’s sytem of governance, or any type of involuntary situation of any kind, and I would never put your rights up for a vote.

Does it bother you to realize you don’t give us the same respect? Does that not bother any of the self-described “libertarian” minarchists out there?

Posted in Constitutionality, Democracy, Elections, Minarchism, Philosophy