barr is the new nader

the gop is worried that bob barr’s libertarian candidacy will steal votes from mccain’s base and risk a naderesque democratic win.

which is of course ridiculous. first off, yes, any votes any libertarian gets will come from the republican side, because that’s what libertarians are, anarchist conservatives. not all of them, of course, i’m sure you, yes you particularly, are a perfectly reasonable libertarian idealist, it’s just that the philosophy as usually expressed is about as practical in a modern society as communism. theoretically sound and idealistically nice, but practically impossible.

instead of the state keeping everything and sharing equally with all as needed, which fails due to corruption and abuse of power, libertarianism puts the money and power in the hands of individuals and corporations, and fails for the exact same reasons.

the liberal devil plan of taxing the fuck out of everyone and socializing health care and etc. has its own systemic corruption issues, but since the rich usually won’t voluntarily pay for stuff that poor people need but can’t afford, it’s kind of necessary for a balanced society. otherwise you get all the aristocrats being guillotined in the public square. or private armies defending fortified communities from the poor starving masses.

the republicans who think mccain is too soft would vote for bob barr. he’s not getting any democratic votes unless they’re insane old-democrat relics like old man zell. and yet, he’s still not really going to be a ’spoiler’, the same way nader wasn’t really either. barr puts it best himself.

Barr scoffs at talk that he will play spoiler, saying he is in the race to win it and it won’t be his fault if McCain loses.

“If Senator McCain is not successful, it will be because his message and his vision did not resonate with a plurality of the voters,” Barr said in an interview with The Associated Press.

you see, the people who voted for nader and not gore didn’t get bush elected. the half the country who voted for bush got bush elected.

twice.

supreme court rulings and hanging chads aside for the moment, let’s look at the facts. the 2000 election was close enough to call by a few miscounted votes. even if nader’s votes had gone to gore, it still wouldn’t have been a landslide. not as bad as bush senior, who got half of the vote, and only half the voters voted, giving us an election where the president was decided by one quarter of the population. but still.

there is no silent majority. if there had been in 2000, they’d have picked sides and voted in 2004. and it was a deadlock again there, and most of us didn’t even really like kerry until he was on the daily show right before he lost. so if barr does steal votes from mccain, and i hope he does because it makes the math easier for us, it won’t be barr’s fault. it’ll be mccain’s for being uncompelling to hardline super-conservatives.

and if obama wins, it won’t be because of bob barr. it will be because of us.