The announcement was made today that the Libertarian candidate for President, Michael Badnarik, was officially put on the PA Ballot.
Now I can actually feel good about voting.
See, I don't believe that it's moral to push your way of life, or personal choices on other people. That was part of the problem with the Prohibition in the 1920's. Teetotalers thought they could just force abstinence from alcohol on everyone. We saw how well that worked. People try to do that now with drugs. Or guns. Or religion. It seems like I can't swing a dead cat anymore without hitting someone who's trying to legislate their way of life into law.
Badnarik's not going to do that. One of his campaign slogans is "I trust you to run your own life". Wow. That's a powerful statement. Where the other candidates are telling us that we can trust them to do what's best for us, Badnarik's saying "No, I trust you to do what's best for you". I don't understand why people would want to elect a leadership that's immediately distrustful of them.
That's why I vote Libertarian. I'd rather have someone in office that's going to get out of my face and everyone elses and let me live my life. I don't understand why that's considered a radical idea, but apparently it is.
Whatever.
The theory of trusting people to run their own lives is great in theory. Take for example, Maurice Reeves, swell guy. Smart, well read, and damn handsome. I'm sure he does a bang up job running his life the right way, as well as respecting others enough to do what's right for the community. It doens't hurt that I know this guy as well.
No problems there.
Here inlies the rub....Have you met some 'other' people? Some of them (not all mind you, remember our example chap: Maurice), to be completely frank, a little on the scary side. Not so smart, a little dorky looking, and quite frankly, would probably sell me and my family down the river for a package of Ho Ho's and 40 ounce Pete's Wicked Ale. Other people frighten and confuse me.
Remember that scene in Spiderman 2 where the people in the subway, without one word between them, unite in gratitude to conceal Peter Parker's identity. Nice, but never would have happened. In the real world Spidey's unmasked self would have appeared on the front page of the NY Post the next day in a grainy camera phone shot with the headline blaring, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SPIDER? and some guy with a souped up Nokia would have been about 5 thousand dollars richer.
Hell, almost half of our country voted for W, how can I trust them to do the right thing most of the time? I don't even trust myself for Pete's sake! All this is not saying I want some politician to decide for me unchecked, but to say that I trust most people to do the right thing for our country....uh no. Not so much.
But I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy.
Also, If I'm going to vote for a Badnarik (or a Bednarik) to lead me, it's going to be this guy:
http://www.michaelmancusophoto.com/index_files/page0006.html
DAMN! any guy who scrapped hard enough to have a physical legacy like that I would follow to the depths of heck and back....