A Vote for Nader...

Great Debates
41

I haven’t posted about this Nader/Gore stuff yet, although it’s been much on my mind. On this board especially, kinda hard to come out with an opinion you KNOW many people will be attacking for its soundness out of the gate, and I’ve been trying to make sure I have my ducks in a row before I open my big mouth. After reading John Corrado’s posts I have to say: That was staed more clearly than I could do it. I am with everything he says, with near-religious fervor. Also, if people are gonna attack him for that, then I guess this IS a religious debate, and no amount of getting-ducks-in-a-row is gonna make much difference. So:

  • I take offense to the Supreme-Court-Justice argument in favor of voting Democrat. I believe, as has been stated, that one, maybe two, justices may be affected. Yes, this may sway the court to a more conservative bent for a number of years. It’s not Armaggedon. I also believe that one, maybe two justices may be affected in the election thereafter, and the one after that, ad infinitum. There will almost always be Supreme Court Justices affected. It’s a lousy argument and a scare tactic, to my way of thinking. I just flat out don’t buy the argument that the Bush regime will overturn Roe vs. Wade, or that a pansy like W will destroy the country. Both candidates appear to me to be leading by watching which way the crows marches and running out in front. A slight shift to the right for 4 years doesn’t scare me.

  • I also think the argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush is specious, for two reasons: Polls show a significant number of those voting for Nader would not vote at all if he were not running. Those votes cannot be said to be taken away from Gore. Also, there are (contrary to popular belief) Nader supporters who lean Republican, and so those votes would also not go to Gore. Hence, if Gore lost by 4% and Nader got 5%, it seems clear to me that Gore just flat out lost, regardless of Nader’s votes.

  • One more thing I gotta chime in with: Gore’s been out here in the wonderful state of Washington trying to drum up support on a state he thought he’d wrapped up. He specifically addressed Nader supporters here today and in Oregon yesterday. His message? That voting for Nader is a vote for Bush. Now, here’s a candidate for the office who himself can’t offer Nader supporters any better reason to vote for him than that they shouldn’t help his opponent! Pathetic. Does he really think people who are passionate about voting for something are gonna be swayed by pleas not to vote against him?

42

the crowd. I think I might just have invented a new (somewhat surreal) aphorism…

43

I would have to disagree with you here. I will certainly not be voting for President simply because I don’t care for any of the candidates, no matter which party they represent. This is not apathy on my part. This is disgust.

I do not feel that either of the Big Two (Gore / Bush), or even the Little Two (Nader / Buchanan), are qualified to run the country. And I know too little of the remaining minor candidates to even contemplate voting for them. I do not wish to send the message that I support any of these people.

If I am to vote my conscience, then I refuse to be limited to “choosing the lesser of two evils.” My conscience says none of them deserve my support, so that’s how I will vote.

44

It sure as heck could be for the millions of women who might find their lives ruined when the bozos in their state legislature get the power to force them to go through an unwanted pregnancy.

The number being bandied around for retirements is three or four not one or two. That’s enough to pack things so that the so called “constitutional literalists” win every time.

Consider ALL the consequences of your vote and then vote your conscience.

45

Thank you for that fine example of scaremongering. Now please read the rest of this thread.

46

To my knowledge, no Justice has announced or even given strong hints of retirement. It’s been said Scalia wants to quit to make more money. Said by whom? Not Scalia. (I’m sure someone will correct me if I am misinformed). Besides, if Scalia quits, I think it highly unlikely Bush would be able to find a confirmable Justice more conservative. Even if a replacement for Scalia would vote against abortion rights, the net result is a wash.

Anyway, my point is, just because a bunch of talking heads, pundits, or campaign advisors are all set to start putting Justices out to pasture, doesn’t make it so. It’s a scare tactic. As ren recently pointed out, there will never be a Presidential election where this is not a topic. Any given 4-year period may see Justices retire, die, or become too infirm to continue. There’s nothing exclusively special about the upcoming 4 years.

47

Legislators can force women to get pregnant against their will? I knew they were randy li’l buggers, but still! :wink:

48

A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush. I’m sick and tired of all these gore supporters. Don’t they realise that Gore has no chance of winning. By blindly coting for him they are casting a vote for Bush. If they go know and start supporting Nader, there is a chance he can still win. Of course they keep bringing up poll numbers, to which Maeglin smartly replied “Do you really want to trust the fate of this country to a few Gallup and Zogby polls?”

So got out now, vote for the canidate who can actually make a difference in this election, I know he may not agree with you on everything, but compromise is nessecary in politics.

49

Brilliant post oldscratch!

I always hate to hear about Nader being unable to win. Pardon the French acronym, but WTF? Anyone (35 or older, etc.) who the American people vote for can win. It’s that simple. If one wants to make the case that Nader almost certainly won’t win, go ahead. I think that’s an easy case to make. But claiming that he can’t win is something else entirely.

50

Schucks, oldscratch, I done told you before, I don’t cote for no-one!

51

Perhaps true…But as a humorous sidebar [sometimes we’re so serious here! ;)], having just read that article, you gotta love this quote:

52

Gee ren et.al. , why do you think it’s improper for women to consider the impact of the presidential election on the makeup of the supreme court ? That argument that “this is always an issue, so it’s a non-issue” seems pretty lame, so you must have some more elaborate and mysterious bit of reasoning up your sleeves.
Is it OK for them to think about taxes, education, and the environment, or do these issues also fall into your mysterious “unfair to think about” box ?
What exactly is wrong with the idea of carefully weighing ALL the possible consequences of your vote, and then voting your conscience ?

Were I a less than trusting soul, I might think that you were cynically trying to lull a bunch of young idealists to sleep with lofty talk in order to further your own party agenda ?

53

Mauve Dog:

Take issue if you wish. There are a number of “fringe” candidates on the ballot in most states. If no candidate even comes close to representing your political views, then you always have the option of writing one in. You have zero realistic chance of having your views represented in government, but if you cannot find a single candidate who comes close to representing your views presently then you are already in that boat.

Not voting does send a message of apathy. Choices do exist. Protest candidates are available. Choosing to not participate sends the message that you can be safely ignored.

54

The argument that Bush is not likely to go out of his way to criminalize something the overwehlming majority wants leagal? Makes sense to me.

55

Yeah – what exactly was wrong with Moore’s argument? The Democrats have been using this scare tactic for 25 years, yet nothing has happened to the woman’s right to kill. That’s exactly the argument Buchanan has been making while running to the right of Bush – that Republicans haven’t done anything about the issues the core supposedly cares about.

Still voting for Nader though. It’s the global economy, stupid.

56

[ul]
[li]Overturning Roe vs. Wade does not criminalize abortion. Such a decision would deny the federal government the ability to protect abortion as a right.[/li][li]The nationwide majority may in favor of abortion, but the nation does not vote in state legislatures. By overturning RvW, the federal government cannot prevent the restriction and criminalization of abortion in numerous states whose majorities are anti-choice. This, in my view, tramples on minority rights.[/li][li]It’s not Bush’s decision. It is the decision of the justice he appoints. The Elder Bush appointed Souter, certainly hoping he would be more amenable to voting the conservative line. He wasn’t. Bush may not be willing to rock the boat, but the fact is, justices are virtually impossible to remove from office. There is nothing stopping a supreme court appointee from voting any way he pleases. They are accountable only to their interpretations of the Constitution.[/li][/ul]

jjmullaney, you raise a valid point. So the democrats have cried wolf since 1976. But when the wolf is staring you in the face, do you ignore it?

There are numerous considerations that must be taken into account. First is the fact that this country has undeniably edged to the right in the past fifteen years. Although what remains of the civil rights movement has made definite progress, the backlash has been extreme. Traditional liberals have moderated their views, especially on issues concerning the role of government in creating and maintaining social programs and the legislation of public morality. As far as I have seen in a myriad of recent polls, cutting off welfare and abridging freedom of speech have never been more popular.

Consider then not only the composition of the Supreme Court but the appointments to the federal bench. Reagan and Bush appointed mostly solid, loyal conservatives. Not all of them are raving ideologues, but by and large constructionism prevails. Clinton did little to respond to twelve years of unabashed conservatism. Not wishing to invest too much political effort in pushing liberal nominess across, he appointed mostly moderates, people he expected a Republican legislature would pass with minimal resistance. Sure, Helms continues to shoot down black judges in his district, but by and large Clinton’s picks were moderate, and certainly not liberal by any stretch of the definition.

So we have twenty years of relatively conservative appointments to the federal bench. It is from an already right-leaning body that the next Supreme Court Justices will be drawn. Compare this with the condition of the federal courts in 1970s, still populated by Kennedy and Johnson’s appointees. Furthermore, the Supreme Court under Burger shut down capital punishment in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, a rather liberal judgment in my view. Liberal activism was the name of the game, and the conservatives (in many cases rightly, IMHO), worked to scale it back. Moore demonstrates unwillingness to look beyond the surface of the issue when he dismisses the Supreme Court argument just because he heard it before and nothing came of it.

Today, conservative judicial activism is on the offensive. The Boy Scouts can discriminate against gays, public schools can purchase equipment for parochial schools, and the dilation and extraction abortion law was only struck down with a concurring proviso from O’Connor that said, in several more words, if the law had contained different language I would not have struck it down. The sheer difference between 2000 and 1976 could not be more obvious, especially to someone as astute as Michael Moore.

Finally, the importance of Supreme Court appointments is a much more important voting issue in the public view. After the massive media coverage of the Bork and Thomas hearings, the public is aware that its vote has real impact on the state of America’s jurisprudence. More people are voting with the Supreme Court in mind regardless of the lacuna between the present time and the last appointment. So even if you don’t believe that the Supreme Court is an inherently important issue, the sheer volume of people who do make it so.

Regards,
MR

57

Pretty good post, Maeglin, with one exception.

If you could hand pick 9 people for the Supreme Court, with the intention of making it as balanced as possible, I don’t believe that you could make it any more centrist than it is now.

They support abortion rights (5 to 4) and have minimized Miranda (5 to 4). The vast majority of their decisions are 5/4 or 6/3. I don’t recall a decision of profound impact or one that overturned a lower court by 7/2 or greater.
True, one appointment in the right place could make the new court markedly more right or left, but IMHO this centrist court has been pretty good for the nation. And a slight leaning more toward either side won’t have a profound impact on our future.

58

Interesting post, MR. Although…

That undermines everything! So, what is to keep Gore from accidently appointing someone who turns out to be a whacko?

I mean, did Bush the elder really know Thomas thinks standing on a public sidewalk without doing anything is not a protected right? (minority opinion, luckily). The subject probably didn’t come up.

Sure I’m disturbed by the undermining of the bill of rights, but we all know a lot of the debated issues especially ones that SCOTUS look into can clearly go either way. Shouldn’t the Boy Scouts have the right to hire who they want? Are the feds going to come in and make the Church have women priests next? Where do you draw the line? Domestic tranquility versus gun rights? Look, George, now the Hendersons have the bomb. Or should only criminals have guns? Hang on – hang on – don’t shoot me yet, that wouldn’t be fair – I just got to unlock this here trigger lock – I’ll be with you mister burgular in just a second soon as I remember where I put the key…

The other side always has a valid position. If we keep appointing justices with no wisdom what-so-ever because they wouldn’t be confirmed by the senate otherwise, that is when things will start to slip.

59

There was the 9/0 ruling that Clinton had to testify in the Paula Jones sexual harassment civil suit. That had an impact, as he went on to lie anyway and almost got thrown out of office. Don’t know if it meets your definition of profound though. :stuck_out_tongue:

60

SouthernStyle

Thank you.

Since the court really is so centrist, minor deviations in either direction could be enough to tip the balance.

That depends on what you mean by ‘our’. If you are not poor, female, homosexual, or non-Christian, then you are probably right. A slight leaning to either side probably won’t impact your future a whole lot. So I can understand why you are not terribly receptive to the Supreme Court argument.

jmullaney, thank you also for your kind words.

[quote[That undermines everything! So, what is to keep Gore from accidently appointing someone who turns out to be a whacko? [/quote]

Nothing. But that is not exactly the point. It doesn’t take an ideologue to tip the balance of the Supreme Court. All it takes is a relatively conservative individual with constructionist leanings to permit state legislation restriction abortion. Even O’Connor would support such legislation to a certain degree.

Gore certainly could appoint a right-wing wacko to the court accidentally. But consider this. Are the odds of that really greater under a Gore administration than under a Bush one?

Please see my remarks on the previous page of this thread regarding the Senate’s confirmatory power.

Regards,
MR