This is copy of an email I sent to my dad just now.
My concern about the libertarian candidate, besides the fact that he
cannot win,
That's no reason not to vote for him. A well-functioning democracy
requires a choice of more than the people who are "obviously" going to
win. Otherwise, it isn't democracy so much as a decree by the political
parties who will be the next president.
My is that his economic plans are hopelessly naive. He pretends
that, given Congressional cooperation, one could dramatically cut spending in
2013.
Again, for democracy to work, you need people who are going to
do more than what will easily pass.
My The prospect of a much smaller cut is labeled the fiscal cliff
and would send us into recession.
I'm not so sure it would be quite that bad. It strains credulity for a
trillion-dollar increase in federal spending to be little more than an
academic nuisance, but a symmetric decrease to bring about the
apocalypse.
I might love to see federal spending go down to 15% of GDP, but if
that happened in one day we would have a depression that would make the 1930's
look like the good old days.
It just seems weird that spending can shoot up by an enormous margin in
one year, but for it to drop by the exact same amount would throw the
country into ruin. As a counter-example, I would point to the
demobilization following WWII. Government spending fell through the
floor, yet the economy boomed, even as it had to absorb the mass of
people coming home from the war.
Since Obama will carry MA by a landslide, I want the message of my
protest vote to be unambiguous. Voting for Romney says my concern is economic.
Voting for a fringe candidate could mean anything.
Well, the fringe candidate has a much clearer message: that neither of
the two parties offer particularly attractive directions for the country
and that both parties are to blame for the mess we're in.
Besides, whether you vote Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Wizard,
or not at all doesn't make a measurable difference in the outcome of the
election, so you might as well vote for your highest preference. See the paradox of voting.
Since you personally are never going to be the tiebreaker, vote for
the person who most closely matches your preferences. But what if
everyone thought that way? They don't. You are not a collective. And
your choice of candidate does not effect a change in other people's
voting behavior.
As long as the Republicans hold the House we may stave of the
Spanish food riots here. I have great sympathy for them, but they are still
thinking there is the alternative of just spending more of that free
money.
Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I am in favor of a smaller role
for government: there's no one to whom to complain when things don't go
your way. People riot against the government in the hopes that the
bureaucrats will deign to bestow to each according to his need. Against
whom do I riot if the ending of Mass Effect 3 is a major letdown? I can
raise money for charity in protest of the botched opportunity, or send
ending-related colored cupcakes to the developer's offices (both of
which people did), but that's about it. The most impactful thing I can
do is refuse to buy their products in the future, since I possess all of
the power in that relationship. I bear the burdens and benefits of my
actions.
When the target of protest is the government, on the other hand, I can lobby or
attempt to vote myself a job and cash. Politicians can try to sell me a free
lunch, and since my vote is infinitesimal, which way I vote doesn't have any
personal ramifications. It is quite understandable that the Spanish and Greeks
want jobs, but when the government is seen to be the solution to unemployment,
the focus changes from job creation to job bestowment.
