Small correction, or maybe it’s bigger than small. It’s Sen. Byrd (D-WVA)
I do resent to a small degree your assertion that I am simply “regurgitating” a notion. I said it because I meant it-- not because someone else who I think has a cool haircut said it. But if I must, I will add the caveats to my statement that I thought went without saying. That is-- voting for a third party in a national election is, at the present time, effectively wasting one’s vote. “Effectively” because you are not going to be able at this time to elect a third party candidate. If we can change the way elections are run, this may change. Right now, the best you can hope for is a protest vote-- and that doesn’t get your candidate elected. In fact, it can get a candidate that you strongly object to elected.
Further, yes it is unlikely that this country will undergo a paradigm shift at the snap of our fingers, but it could happen over a longer period of time if enough people wake up and realize that the two party (really one-party) system is broken.
I had hoped to be able to vote for someone other than a Democrat or a Republican this time, or at least a ticket that didn’t consist of two white males again If Bush were merely a symptom of "corrupt bipartisan dogma, I could still do that in good conscience.
But I find him to be the most incompetent President of the twelve whose terms I have survived. Further, he has surrounded himself with people that I consider truly threatening to our Constitution and the values it represents. I believe that it is crucial that he be removed from office.
In four years, if Powell and McCain are on the Republican ticket, I may well vote for them. Or perhaps I will vote Green.
At the moment: Bush out, Cheney out, Rove out, Rumsfeld out, Ashcroft out.
I’ll be voting for Kerry. My goal is to defeat Bush and that seems to be the most effective way to do it.
Several work lunchtimes, although the ideas expressed have been building up in my head for some time.
SDMB was top in my mind because it has such a wide audience as well as one that can really put political ideas through a tough critical process. I hope to widely distribute it but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being an idiot first.
It’s interesting how you and I arrived at the same place by different paths. Maybe the Jackass in Chief is a uniter after all. 
Regurgitate is a pet word of mine, and I’ll admit my use of it was heavy-handed, as was your use of wasted, imho. Third/fourth party voting may not be getting these candidates elected right now, but it does give those candidates access to more funding the next time around, and you have to start somewhere.
Voting for someone other then a Democrat or Republican is something a voter can do that isn’t status quo, at that moment, on her own, without having to wait for our political process to be overhauled.
Oh yes, Bush needs to go and I am certainly voting for Kerry in November. I don’t regret my 2000 Nader vote, but I have certainly learned from it. I’ve learned to handle politicians more like medical waste, using “universal precautions”, assuming that they could all end up “winning” questionable elections, and having a situation like 9/11 fall in their lap, with the global/social/political/emotional climate going topsy-turvy. I don’t believe I was the only one who didn’t see it all coming. I don’t think I was the only one who thought that Bush would be bad, but not THIS bad.
Here’s hoping that the motives of trying to prevent another Shrub from ever being elected agian, and motives of trying to drive the evolution of our bipartisan quagmire, are not always going to be mutually exclusive.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004352.php
White House blocks a middle class tax cut, but shrugs and says “ah, okay” to spending pork. Small government conservatism at it’s finest.
So, Blackclaw, for those of us who want to pass this essay around, who should we attribute it to? You got a real name and/or email address for us?
Okay, if you promise not to regurgitate the notion that gravity exists.
By… wasting their votes. By voting for a candidate who has a platform that cannot possibly ever win in a national election, you both fail to advance that agenda AND ultimately hurt the advancement of third party politics. Both. You make people forever bitter at the third party efforts. Especially when they are run so monumnetally stupidly as to try and win nationally all in one go without any sort of local base of operations. Neither the Greens nor the Naderites of today are actually in any way serious about actually campaigning. And they can’t be: they have no real local operations to speak of, because they never bothered to spend the time and effort building any. To not do that and then try to run for President is like trying to drive off the used car lot without putting any tires on the car.
But I just don’t think that’s the case. Those steps did not lead us in that direction at all: they led us away from it, if anything. Bipartisan politics is stronger and even more entrenched than ever.
We’ve gone over this in GD and the Pit several times recently, but the upshot is (I argue) basically that unless you have absolutely no preference (zip, zero, zilch, nada) between the smallest number greater than two of candidates likely to win, you probably shouldn’t vote third party. Some people claim this is actually the case. I don’t care to argue that point, only you know what you feel. I find it hard to think any significant number of people would actually have no preference, but I have to admit it is entirely possible.
Until it is overhauled, you just are extremely unlikely to see a change. Third parties have been around for a long time. When was the last time you saw a third party president? When was the last time a third party set up a base in a favorable district to secure congressional seats? (This latter seems like a much better potential effort than presidential elections, and might manage, might manage, to give third parties more headlines, to start making serious waves; but generally speaking, there is only enough room for two contenders in our election system.)
True, true, all of it true. I never intend to suggest people should feel ashamed for their vote, I see the idea behind it, it is somewhat laudable though I personally think misplaced.
Greater than or equal to two, that is.
A real name? No, but I do have a large number of good sounding aliases. 
Michael Burnside
mburnside@woh.rr.com
Or entering the Indy 500 without a pit crew, spare tires or fuel.
That’s the beauty of the Constitution, though. Sometimes the language surpasses the original intent. I doubt the original Bill of Rights was intended to apply to anyone other than while males, yet, looking at it today, it’s clear that those rights apply to everyone. “Original intent” is a factor in interpreting law, but not the only factor.
As to the actual intent of the framers at the time the Constitution, the only extensive record of the debates in the convention that is extant is that of James Madison. So when we look at that we get Madison’s interpretation of the intent superimposed on the words, some of them, that the delegates actually used at the time. And in one case, that of Charles Pinkney, Madison later admitted that he had mischaracterised Pinkney’s position in his journal of the convention to the detriment of Pinkney’s reputation. So maybe that wasn’t Madison’s only slip from an objective report.
As you point out, the intent of the framers was a product of the 18th century. For example; to leave slavery intact and not touch the slave trade for a number of years. That certainly wouldn’t be an intent that we would want to follow today.
The Constitution defines the power of the government and places limits on that power. The Preamble makes clear that the basic intent was to enlarge the rights of the people by “securing the blessing of liberty to ouselves and our posterity.”
And as Jefferson said, the world is for the living and not the dead. It is for each generation to determine for themselves what is best for their common good. As Jefferson also wrote in the Declaration of Idependence, it’s not prudent to alter governments for light and transient reasons, but it’s also not prudent to stick with the rigit interpretation of an intent that was applicable over 200 years ago. The conservative position would be to consever what works and bring that which doesn’t up to date.
No doubt friend David is breathlessly awaiting my concurrence, it would be wrong to forestall such reassurance.
To my interpretation, mutual mistrust is the very germ of the Constitution’s genius. The Founders, bless 'em, didn’t trust each other further than throwing range, they labored mightily for a structure of checks and balances not to restrain thier own noble and blameless intent, but to keep the other scoundrel at bay. The better angels of our natures were otherwise engaged.
Disagreement is more than necessary, it is sacred, it is holy, it’s sanctity is preserved by men who realise the corruption and venality of other men, and protect against it. The Constitution is the wonder of its age precisely because Hamilton knew what an utter creep Jefferson was, Jefferson knew what evil plots lurked in the mind of Hamilton, and they both agreed that Paine was, well, a pain.
We are the happy inheritors of a generation of treacherous backstabbers. It is well.
The flaw in your argument is that there is a well defined process to amend the constitution-- to bring it up to date as needed. Were that not so, I’d agree with you. To the extent that you go beyond the intent of the law, you undermine the concept of the rule of law.
And how, exactly, would you bring a plain text reading up to date? By adding, “And we mean it this time” to it? 