> I was talking about that editorial on the front page telling me to go vote (and hinting strongly I should vote Republican).

Ahh. I checked up on Rinkworks a day too late, then. Which is a shame, because now I'm curious.

> It didn't work. I voted for Badnarik.

As did I. I hadn't heard of him before I got to the polls, but, feeling kind of reluctant to vote for Bush or Kerry (does it seem to anyone else the two major parties are becoming harder and harder to distinguish from each other?) and knowing that in general I like the ideals of the Libertarian party, I chose him without too much deliberation.


> Suddenly things that seem to be to be non-issues or fringe issues are major, all-encompassing issues. Like, for instance, gay marriage. Personally, I'm baffled that this is even an issue. I don't see how you can honestly object to allowing gays the right to get married except on the grounds of "it's against my religion/what I was taught to believe in/common decency!", none of which are good reasons for restricting the rights of a group of people. But suddenly it's part of the GOP agenda to get marriage defined as the union between one man and one woman. WTF?

As a right-wing conservative Christian type, my personal beliefs are that marraige is a sacrament to be entered into by one man and one woman. But, it's none of the government's business. If the state recognizes a union between a man and a woman and confers special status or priveledges on them, they have a responsibility to treat any union between two consenting adults the same way. On the flip side, the government also has no business telling religious groups that they have to recognize those unions as valid. (Not that I know of this happening- just an aside.)

> I have other problems with the GOP besides the increased influence of the religious right. The GOP used to be the party of small government, of fiscal responsibility, of personal responsibility.

And this is what government should be. Government should protect the rights of the people, not restrict them. This is why the Libertarians have my support. Less government, more freedom. Of course, with that comes more personal accountability, which seems to be in short supply these days. People are all to willing to blame everyone else for their problems and then expect the government to step in and fix them.

> I think they're pretty loopy in a lot of aspects

...and they are- the party has a lot of growing up to do-

> but on the points of small, less intrusive government, fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility, they match pretty well. Plus they don't give a crap about gay marriage.

I think once the Libertarian party realizes that even though their ideals are good, changes of the kind they want to make just can't happen as quickly as they want to implement them, they'll have something really solid started.

> I listened to all the arguments about how a vote for a third party was a vote for Kerry, since I'd be taking away a potential Bush vote in the swing state of Colorado.

It's a reasonable argument in a very close election- I think that is a significant reason why Nader didn't have the showing this time that he had four years ago- but in principle I don't like the idea of voting for a candidate you don't support just to keep his opponent from winning. At least in Massachusetts I had no worries about taking a vote away from Bush. Kerry won by over 700,000 votes in this state. Third party candidates took fewer than 30,000 votes. Not what one would call a close race.

~Mina "likes to talk politics about once every four years" moon