Part 1: A Defense of Third Party Voting

Fundamentally, the United States political system is a two-horse race between the Republicans and Democrats. Come election day, if your ballot has not been cast in favor of a Donkey or an Elephant, you have wasted your ballot on a candidate who has no chance of winning. Or perhaps you've been even more irresponsible by not even showing up to vote. If that's the case, then you simply don't care about the major issues facing our country.

Or at least, that's what politicians and Hollywood celebrities have conditioned many of us to think. In fact, I used to think along these lines simply because I didn't think that challenging my pre-concieved notions about party-based voting paradigms would be practical or comfortable. Yet, over the last few years, I have re-evaluated my commitment to such a paradigm and as a result, I have come to realize how destructive and dangerous it really is.

As a youngster, my loyalty lay with the Republican party. I was euphoric when George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election and again was happy when he defeated John Kerry in the 2004 election. My loyalty to the Republicans continued despite their loss of the congressional majority in 2006. I was sure that they would rebound and take back control from the Democrats in 2008.

But, beginning in 2007, my disenfranchisement with the Republicans began as the primaries kicked into gear. In 2008, I would turn 18 and be old enough to cast my first ballot for the United States president. It had been something I'd looked forward to all my life.

But who was I going to vote for? Mitt Romney was as slick as a bucket of molasses. Mike Huckabee was trying to play the "compassionate conservative" card (a political philosophy I disagree strongly with) and he didn't seem to have a professional and intellectual presence about him. Telling everyone he wasn't going to show the attack ad on Mitt Romney and then showing it to a room full of media personnel was a real bright move too. Rudy Guliani is not a friend to the pro-life movement in the least, perhaps the issue that most deeply convicts me. Fred Thompson seemed ok, but he portrayed little vigor in defending his ideas and expressing strong leadership qualities. Ron Paul had (mostly) the right ideas about defending the unborn and Austrian school economics, but his speaking ability and somewhat hectic charisma took away from his good ideas.

And of course, John McCain had come to represent a symbol of liberal compromise on many issues. I still consider the McCain-Feingold act to be a violation of free speech in the name of cronyism and corruption. But his willingness to support "cap and trade" legislation and his mediocre stance on abortion also played a role in convicting me that a vote for McCain would be an ethically and logically unjustifiable vote according to my standards of conservatism.

So this was the field of Republicans I had to choose from. I teetered between Fred Thompson and Ron Paul before deciding on Ron Paul, despite the fact I knew he wouldn't represent the Republicans in 2008.

When John McCain won the Republican primary and was chosen as the Republican selection for presidential candidate, I decided to give him a fair shake and re-evaluate my beliefs about his policy stances. After all, if I was wrong about him, then I would be happy to know it.

Unfortunately, I was not wrong and my findings gave me great heartache. Recently, many Republican voters have become upset about the passing of "cap and trade" legislation through the House of Representatives. They should be very upset about it for its immoral and idiotic regulations on normal economic productivity, so I don't blame them. However, many of these same Republican voters supported John McCain in November, 2008. However, in March of 2008, McCain himself strongly supported the concept of "cap and trade" as a means of environmental protection and international unity.

According to Ontheissues.org, when McCain was reasonably confronted by Alan Keyes regarding vague and irrational comments made by McCain on the issue of abortion, McCain simply responded: " I am proud of my pro-life record in public life, and I will continue to maintain it." Unfortunately, McCain completely ignored the important issues that Mr. Keyes presented. From the same source, McCain also said that he did not oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest, nor did he even advocate ensuring that the claim to rape or incest was legitimate, saying "I think that I would give the benefit of the doubt to the person who alleges that." As a convicted pro-lifer, I could not accept this mediocre stance in defense of the unborn.

Finally, McCain decided to "play the sacrificial hero" by suspending his campaign to run to Washington to help solve the economic crisis that was draining the country at the time. As an advocate believer in free markets, I gawked. Since when has Washington ever been the source of economic recovery? Since when is government a solvent for the market? Shortly after, McCain voted with Obama for a $700 billion recovery package which was immediately signed into law by President Bush.

As I continued researching, I came to a greater realization that my earlier concerns about McCain were true. In fact, they were more real and disconcerting than I originally had supposed. From his flip-flop stances on ethanol to his criticism of Big Oil companies for price gouging; from his advocacy of "cap and trade" legislation to his complete lack of knowledge regarding economics; from his wishy-washy stance on abortion to his votes of approval for pro-choice justices Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer, I realized that this Republican candidate for president was someone who stood in opposition to many of the conservative ideals I held dear.

It was at this point that I made my decision to either write in a candidate or vote third party. Undoubtedly, Obama was a horrible candidate (and he's proving to be a horrible president), but I resolved that I would not vote out of fear of Obama, but out of loyalty to whichever candidate I decided to vote for. After all, what good would it be to keep Obama out of office just so McCain could ruin things a little differently than Obama would?

And thus, last November, I voted for neither McCain nor Obama. I voted third party. Who I specifically voted for at this point does not matter in any practical sense. What matters is that I refused to vote for McCain based on a fear of Obama and decided to place my principles above everything else.

Some, particularly Republicans, might be very angry with me for making this decision. They might accuse me (and others like me) of betraying "their cause," but since I don't know what cause they stood (or stand) for, I really don't think I can be blamed.

But if I were to end here, I would accomplish very little. A personal anecdote about my frustration with the Republicans does not convey much in the way of formal persuasion and argumentation. For that, I encourage you to read on in the ensuing articles to follow.