Vote for any 3rd party.

[1EZduzit]

I agree, but like I said before, it doesn't take half a trillion dollars to have a strong defense. By the way, the U.S. has a defense budget that is greater than the defense budgets of the next 20 nations combined. There is no one in the world that can threaten us in terms of military strength, and there still wouldn't even if the military budget was slashed significantly.

Our military actions are now offensive, not defensive, to say the least, and military operations have now facilitated welfare handouts to foreigners who hate us. There are commanders in Iraq walking around with hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars just handing it out to people on the street. Not only that, but the U.S. is subsidizing gas to the tune of half a billion dollars. Iraqis get gas for 5 cents a gallon, while everyone here pays $2.00+. This is insanity. The foreign welfare and the attempt at being the world's policemen needs to end. Hopefully it WILL end if Bush is out of office, but somehow I don't think it will.

It seems we agree on the basics. As far as the foreign welfare is concerned, I would have to agree with you on that also. I live in a very rural area (South Dakota) and I've often felt like the US goverment treated 3rd world countires better then they do country bumkins. I do believe we were justified in Afganistan, but I haven't seen any real evidence that Iraq was on the door steps of being a nuclear armed nation as I feel I was led to believe. The Bush camp led people to believe the threat was iminent and needed to be acted on ASAP. After 9/11 it wasn't too hard to convince people of that.

I don't think they found much at all in the way of WMD's. Now they are trying to put a spin on it that the terrorists got it all out the back door into Pakistan. Maybe they did, it seems we left that door wide open which makes me ask myself "Why?". Was the Iraqi war to end the threat of terrorists having WMD's or a personal vendetta against Saddam? Will we now have to escalate the effort to find the WMD's or is it now OK that they have them? It makes no sense at all to me.

It seems rather ironic to me that Clinton spent most of his administration defending himself against charges that were basically not even worth the nations attention and would have been better suited for a 2nd rate soap opera then prime time news coverage while GWB can lie straight to our face about a matter that has cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and the media doesn't seem to want to follow up on it. Then the players involved in it all come out with prepared statements (one time they all said the same thing, word for word) denying any wrongdoing and calling it bad intelligence, LOL. End of story, move along people, nothing to see here, LOL. They remind me of a bunch of kids who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and are trying to lie their way out by getting their story together and sticking to it.

I do have to admit that I think the world is a better, safer place with Saddam in captivity. I believe he was about as evil as they come and perhaps we were doing the world a favor by taking down a potential Hitler before he had a chance to become too powerful. At least from that viewpoint I don't feel like our soldiers died totally in vain, but I also think we could have accomplished that objective without a costly, destructive war and not alienated so many of our allies. I also think Bush Sr. missed the boat by not taking him down the first time we were over there. We had a valid excuse then and a "real" coalition. Why didn't he?? It all most seems they wanted to have another war.

In any case, I think Bush needs to go. Kerry isn't my personal pick but is the better canidate. He has way more appeal Gore and I think he will surprise the Republicans come November. If he doesn't do a good job, then someone else will get a shot at it.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain
Of course, if you are in one of the battle ground states: choose the lesser of two evils.

But as a member of the other states please vote for one of the third party candidates, anyone. Even if they get no electoral votes, voting for a 3rd party candidate will help them do better in the next election by helping them qualify for federal matching funds. Voting for a third party is the only way to make your vote truly count in a non-battleground state.

In order of 2000 results:

1. Green Party - 2,882,955 (2.735%)

2. Reform Party - 448,895 (0.426%)

3. Libertarian Party - 384,431 (0.365%)

4. Constitution Party - 98,020 (0.093%)

5. Natural Law Party - 83,714 (0.079%)

6. Socialist Workers Party - 7,378 (0.007%)

I'm voting Constitutional Party but that's not for but .1% of the nation.

No matter who you are or what you believe is important, we need to rotate out our current compromised parties.

LOL - LMK. I don't know how I missed this thread, but I am glad I decided to search for it, as i was about to create a nearly identical one! I was just considering whether or not I should vote 3rd party. I strongly relate to the Libertarian (and to a lesser extent, the Constitutional) Party, and have been researching a bit.

MY reasoning is this. It seems to be very short-sighted to only look at the next 4 years, like a lot of voters do. Yes, I may be contributing to the election of someone for whom I wouldn't normally vote, but so what? That's a small price to pay for the possibility that 3rd parties may start to grow and receive additional funds and may eventually become viable alternatives in the near future. I can't just worry about my near-term self, but also my future and that of my children. The current system is fast becoming a deadlock of a single mindset with 2 different names. There can be little progress with the current system. Larger changes are in order, and they will take time. I think I may do my small part to whittle on the tree a bit.

:beer: