Voting your conscience, not the 2-parties

"If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God." - RamaKrishna

 

OT to god. Yeah, I'm a mama. Of four. (Hey. What about Jesus, ain't he your kid? LOL!)

 

I've voted my conscience every election of my adult life.

That has included TWO 3rd party votes, and one "none-of-the-above" conscientious abstention.

I'm proud of every one of those votes.
Also proud of the times I did vote for one of the 2 major parties.

 

i am voting my conscience. i'm voting for kerry, and not for any other reason than i think he is the best candidate.

i think nader would be a very weak leader and that he is extremely inexperienced in politics, as he is mostly a social activist - which he is good at, and he should keep doing. i know he's all for the environment (good) and that he loves to talk about legalizing marijuana (i could really care less), but i don't see much substance to him as a candidate. his take on women's rights is to say "i agree with NOW" but lays out no plans for achieving any of their goals.

badnarik doesn't even begin to address women's rights effectively, and he says he's the right choice for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers (wtf?), and his plan for the environment is to allow people to buy up public land and says that "When an individual or business owns property, there's a built-in incentive to steward that property" which is the dumbest thing i've ever heard (and just what will keep some huge oil drilling polluting corporation from buying ANWR or yellowstone?). nor can i really find any evidence of how he plans to handle foreign policy, other than pulling out of iraq (which i also haven't seen a plan for).

kerry is my choice because i think kerry is the right candidate. i've looked at the others, and they're not what i want, so don't assume just because someone votes for kerry it's because he's the "lesser of two evils" or because they just don't know anything about the third party candidates.

 

GanjaPrince, I know the 'madness' you speak of.
Maggie, yea, Jesus was my kid.
Gabino, good for you for voting your conscience.
superNova, good for you for coming to an educated decision about who you want to support.

 

Nice post, those are my sentiments as well.
I'm constantly told by people here that I'm gullible, brainwashed and uninformed due to my choice of candidate. It's ridiculous and shows they have nothing of substance to say.
Most people I know that are voting for Kerry do think he is the best candidate and he represents them. They aren't socialists who want Nader or Libs who want Badarik. The people who support these 2 candidates are so blinded by bias they assume everyone really wants to vote for them, but are too scared. It's not true and you're a good example.

 

Maggie,

I was pointing to the fact that Bush didn't 'win' the election because some people voted for a third party candidate, but rather because the election was not fair or democratic, and this one isn't either. Yes Bush became president, but not because people voted their conscious as you implied with this statement:

 

This and every election has already been decided, the divine plan, this world is a dream, a short stop by, a transformation, a place to learn how to be free, an illussion, a cosmic joke, Krishna's lila, guru's lila, yet to make it a nice dream, let us cultivate the heart of compassion, realize the christ heart and the buddha mind, go beyond the ego identity that keeps us seperate, and merge with the unity of all, flowing this ancient wordless wisdom that heals, gives contenment, peace, love, bliss, truth, everything beyond duality. Because when we merge, we understand the way it must be, our purpose, our part, and we live in peaceful contement. The ego thinks it makes decision, but who we are, is deeper then such things, you are a totally determined being, you know it all, the way it must be, we just get lost in identifying with the part, the social role, the physical body, the mind and so on... Surrender to the pure energy like christ up on the cross, or buddha's giggle under that funky tree. Yet that struggle, the spiritual path, is fun, it is playful and light, displined, YES, serious, NO WAY, it's light and love and dance! Laughing at the paradox!


Let's love each other, and rest in our being. Right here, right now, is where it begins, and deeper and safe and free!

http://static.vidvote.com/movies/bushuncensored.mov

Watch this, it's so funny!

Here's another funny!

"War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war." - Nixon

What, richard nixon said that?

He spelled it out right there, short of changing human nature... Yet we don't need to change our "nature" we need to realize OUR TRUE NATURE, of ONENESS swimming in the ENDLESS OCEAN OF LOVE. DUH, the root cause for all the conflicts in this world, is what is going inside us, in our energy, in our bodies, minds, hearts, chakras, vibrations... We are all interconnected in energy... We must make a statement with our being.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

 

Shit yea, Ganja, sum it all up.

 

I believe what Badnarik understands is that the abortion dilemma is somerthing that will not be solved in the political arena. He believes that making abortion illegal is dangerous and an excercise in futility. At the same time, I think that he also believes that should a woman have an unwanted pregnancy, she should be allowed to pursue options other than abortion should she decide to go with those options. For example, if a church group or other organization decide to take such a woman into a dwelling and provide her with necessities until she has her child, she should be allowed to.

He probably would also support measures which would prevent abortion from happening in the first place, such as allowing for greater availiability of contraceptive options not currently found in the USA (i.e. cervical cap, etc.), which have been shown to have a greater reliability rate than what is currently offered on the American market.

I doubt if Badnarik or any other Libertarian with a brain would sell our parks to a group who would be a good steward for the land, such as the Sierra Club. Do understand that should someone wreak havoc upon the land that they own, chances are the effects will be felt in the surrounding areas. If that were to happen, the owners of the land in question could be held liable for such encroachments. One thing to also remember is that many of these companies get to where they are not solely on their own efforts, but that they lobby the government to protect their monopolies or oligopolies. Under a Libertarian government, these types of activities would end. Conventional oil companies would have to compete with industries that produce biomass and hemp.

www.kenk.org/envi.php -taken from Ken Krawchuck's website from his (PA)gubenatorial run in 2002. Well written position piece on environmental issues.
www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3051
www.theihs/libertyguide/hsr/hsr.php/22.html
www.econlib.org/library/Enc/EnvironmentalismFreeMarket.html
www.libertarianism.org/policy_4 -features many links
www.free-market.net/spotlight/environment/

I feel that you are mistaken regarding Badnarik's foreign policy. He would see to it that American troops are withdrawn from throughout the world and brought home to defend America. In doing so, we could reduce the number of troops needed. He would cancel ALL foreign aid, both militarily and financially, and let those countries know that they would have to provide for their own defenses. This alone would reduce the incentive for terrorists from attacking our country.

Hey, that's your choice! However, I believe that people need to start looking at the bigger picture and not simply concentrate on the "here and now." We need to deal with the root cause of problems and not symptoms.

 

The Ganja Prince goes to vote


Well I toked up with some friends, smoking a joint and praising Shiva, reconcilation of opposites! Then I went all stoned to the polls, laughing and listening to some tunes. I walked into the place, stumbled around, my friend Todd was helping me out since I never voted before. I remember this beautiful goddess walking in and being distracted. It turns out those Kennedy killing mother lovers that should go right to heaven, didn't have "my" name on the list thing... so I had to fill out these forms and a seperate voting sheet. I went into the booth things, and just started cracking up, giggling reading the whole thing as God SANG love songs to me in all the voices around me. It seemed so silly, why taking voting seriously, the real change comes from being, YOU ARE a statement of your being, this is just a game to play for the beloved. "I" ended up voting for Nader, and wrote in "NOBODY" for congress. Anyway, I took a real long time because I was lost in the eternal moment, where there IS NO TIME! And all the people were hassling me because they were in a rush... but there was nothing they could do about it. The dance carried on, and I ended up going back to my dorm and tripping on mescaline, celebrating the inevitable victory of spirit and love and peace over all that goes against it, like caterpillars into butterflies, all beings will come home to the place where we are one! Because all is already in harmony, I trust the universe, she is my mother!

 

I wrote this a few weeks ago. It is now true again.

 

Simply put, no it isn't. And based on your previous posts over the years, I know you're intelligent enough to understand this, Maggie.

There wasn't a SINGLE state this time around where a 3rd party amassed enough votes to effect the electoral outcome. NOT ONE!

If you want to assign blame, how about all the people who didn't even bother to vote? Even with the record-breaking turnout, Bush was put into office by LESS THAN 25% of the eligible voters!!!

How about the "youth voters" who Kerry was going to draw in droves? Even with a draft hanging over their heads, only 17% of those who could have voted bothered to cast a ballot yesterday! Much "cooler" to kick back in the dorm doing bonghits, I guess... Enjoy your free vacation in the mideast, boys and girls....

How about all the people who are so brainwashed by fundamentalist religion and mass media that they are willing to vote AGAINST THEIR OWN CLASS INTERESTS?

How about the Democratic party for running yet another uninspired candidate who failed to get the REAL "swing voters" to the polls--the unregistered and the non-voters?

How about John Kerry for folding like a house of cards, even before all the results were counted? He went from "We will fight until EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED!" to "I concede!" in a matter of a few hours! No wonder the GOP labeled this guy as a "flip-flopper"--he is!

How about Diebold and the other manufacturers of the "black box" voting systems that will prevent a meaningful recount in areas that may have swung the election to Bush?

How about Karl Rove, the "Swift Boat" crowd, and the rest of the GOP spin machine, and the voters who were stupid enough to be influenced by them?

I understand that you are upset about the results of the election, like everybody else here. But to blame Kerry's defeat on acts of conscience on the part of third party voters, or on the third parties themselves is not only unproductive, but intellectually dishonest and downright UNDEMOCRATIC.

Did you ever consider that if, instead of simply blaming Ralph Nader for the 2000 results, the Democrats actually took a long, hard look INWARD, this time around might have gone differently? Hell, Al Gore couldn't even take his own home state, but Nader was to blame for his defeat? If rather than running a candidate who tried to "out-republican the republicans", they had the collective "'nads" to run somebody who might actually energize the populace and draw in people who usually shun the process as irrelevant or outright rigged, we might be celebrating the defeat of King George today.

But accepting responsibility for their own failures would have been much harder than just bitching about the "Nader Factor", right? It would have required BACKBONE, something that Kerry just proved is a rare commodity in the Democratic party....

 

How many people know that the CIA and Friends have been running the political scene since they shot Kennedy?

 

Ellis is right this time.

I do think the 2000 vote MAY have gone differently, if Nader votes were not so large. That being said, although I was psychotically angry the day after the election, I support people's right to vote for WHOEVER they want, even if it does cost an election. (My own love and life partner is a 3rd party voter, he hasn't voted for a major candidate in 16 years, beleive me, we have some heated um discussions about the 2 party system. (and he still gets laid....LOL! )

Do I think the 3rd party had a significant pull this time? NO. I think it was not nearly as close (which is weird, IMO, as I think Kerry was more popular with the people than Gore was) I think we need to look into voter fraud, Tiebolt machines, people who were not allowed to vote, Provisional ballots ect. (ALso, why was third party voting so much lower this time?) I over reacted. Shit, hormones. :&

The DNC does need to get it's shit together! There was too much emphasis on long ago events, and less on the issues again.

As for 2000.......I reserve my opinion that the Nader factor MAY have had some effect. But that is what happens in an open election. I would never say ANYONE doesn't have the right to "vote their conscience." But I, personally, would have voted for just about ANYONE who had a chance to beat Shrub.........and I did in 2000 as well. I think he is that bad. And I do beleive that when a house is burning down, you put out the fire, you don't start remodeling. Let's start remodeling now!

Now with people like Dan Rather being attacked and it looking like it will become a "crime" to disagree with the Shrub, I am really scared. My anger has numbed me.