RE: Patriotism and Citizenship

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 14:23:47 MDT


Dale wrote:

> these. I've been voting for nearly two decades and cannot remember a
> single vote at any level of institutional generality that did NOT
> feel like it could be properly described to some extent as a vote for
> "the lesser of two evils".

### As Michael Dickey remarked in a previous post, the reason we have the
two evils is because 98% vote for them.
------
 Maybe it's because I'm an
> atheistic anti-authoritarian technophilic queer vegetarian viridian
> green, but honestly I rarely find or expect universal assent when I
> wend my way to the public square. This doesn't keep me from
> collaborating with my peers in making a better future.

### If your peers are in one of the major parties, indeed collaboration is
in order to achieve your collective goals. For a person for whom freedom is
the defining part of a better future, neither of the two current (almost
indistinguishable) political powers is a suitable companion.
------
>
> Not to belabor the obvious, but if one is speaking of a "libertarian
> state" and voting for "libertarian candidates," one should already be
> alive to the notion that the political is definitively about
> compromise.

### Yes, it's amazing how much mileage a small parliamentary minority can
sometimes squeeze out of warring giants. As long as there are enough voters
unwilling to compromise, and striving to elect those they believe in,
instead of those who will (in the short) run hurt them less.

Rafal



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