Previous

Contents

Next

How I Plan To Vote
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

This is going to be short and uncomplicated.

I have been voting for forty years, since 1968. Each year the choices—especially for President—have gotten more and more disgusting, while there has been less and less difference between them.

This year is absolutely the worst ever. All that this glorious people's democratic system has left us with, in the end, is a maniacal old fart and a third world hoodlum who may not even be an American citizen.

A very great deal of time and effort and attention was expended, earlier this year, to denying us—those whose principal concern is individualism and freedom—with anything even remotely resembling an acceptable candidate. Congressman Ron Paul's candidacy was targeted for all kinds of dirty tricks and outright illegality, while the Old Media either ignored or laughed at the only man in the race with even a clue about what's wrong with this poor battered nation or how to fix it.

Meanwhile, the moguls of majoritarian mediocrity, terrified out of their tiny little minds that the total cockup they've made of America might finally inspire people to look to a third party, managed to run in a ringer on the LP, hanging a washed-up political toad named Bob Barr around our necks and ensuring no voter would give us the time of day.

Somebody owes Mary Ruwart a groveling apology.

It hasn't helped that Paul has since withdrawn his own candidacy and endorsed that of an organization that fraudulently calls itself the Constitution Party, although, in fact, its members clearly care far more about brutally stifling the basic right of women to control their own physiologies than they ever have or ever will about the Constitution.

That leaves libertarians with nobody to vote for, something I will never forgive and never forget for as long as I continue to live. It is difficult to express how angry I am about this. I am tired of being a political orphan in a country that was supposed to be all about liberty.

In the long run, I will have my own party back, simply by making it ideologically uninhabitable to verminous lowlives like Bob Barr and Libertarian Party national chair Bill Redpath, who regularly urinates in public on the very concept of individual freedom. In the short run, however, there is only one thing to do, and I intend to do it—and encourage everybody within the sound of my cybernetic voice to do it, too.

Cast a blank.

I have no use for those who fastidiously disdain to protect themselves or their loved ones, either with weapons or by voting defensively. I tried that path for a while, myself, and it leads directly to where we are now, a broken subject people, nearly in chains.

Cast a blank.

That's a technical term for something every professional politico detests. You never hear about it on the news, and you probably never will, but it's the best way that exists to send a message to the establishment.

Cast a blank.

Go to the polls. Vote whatever way you will on various initiatives and referenda, establishing your existence, your political presence. Vote for whatever politicians you can stomach—I won't be voting for any libertarian who supported Barr or watering down the LP platform; I'm pissed and I'm going to stay that way forever—most importantly, do not choose a candidate for President, or any other office where those of us who own our own lives have been denied anything like a choice.

Cast a blank.

After this horrible election, in whatever political atmosphere it generates, we can begin to rebuild our freedom movement in a manner, and after a form, that is intelligent, rational, consistent, and effective.

In the meantime, don't give the vermin satisfaction.

Cast a blank.

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas was recently completed and is presently looking for a literary home.

Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. "Baloo" May.

The stunning 185-page full-color graphic-novelized version of The Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was published by BigHead Press www.bigheadpress.com has recently won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, or at www.Amazon.com.

Help Support TLE by patronizing our advertisers and affiliates.
We cheerfully accept donations!