cannabisnews.com: Why I’m Voting for Nader





Why I’m Voting for Nader
Posted by FoM on November 01, 2000 at 10:36:58 PT
By Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute
Source: National Review 
The real libertarian in the race.I'm a life-long registered Democrat; most of my political friends are Republicans; and in my heart I'm a Libertarian. So why am I going to vote for Green party candidate Ralph Nader? Because a vote for Nader, strangely enough, offers the most practical opportunity to actually reduce the power of the government, especially the federal government. 
The choice between Bush and Gore is the choice between growing the government medium-fast versus very-fast. I respect people who vote for Bush because he won't increase government as rapidly as Gore, but the record of Texas Governor Bush, and of former President George Bush, III, offers no reason to hope that another President Bush would actually shrink government. What about Libertarian Harry Browne? The Libertarian party platform is wonderful, and I agree with about 95 percent of it. But there are two major problems with voting for Harry Browne this year. First, it is obvious that Browne will capture the usual dismal 7/10th of 1 percent that Libertarian presidential candidates usually get. Second, as detailed in Liberty magazine, Browne has turned the national Libertarian party into a feeding trough for his consultants, and he has ripped off Libertarian party donors with direct-mail advertisements making patently absurd promises of imminent electoral success. The LP needs to get rid of Harry Browne; to vote for him is only to encourage Browne's crowd to maintain their chokehold on the national party. In contrast, Ralph Nader's Green party is on the cusp of getting 5 percent of the popular vote, and thus qualifying for federal campaign funds. (Which shouldn't even exist, but that's another story.) Voters in states where one major party candidate has an insurmountable lead can still have a national impact by helping the Greens get to 5 percent in the popular vote. With federal funding, the Greens can become an important long-term influence in the political process. Why would the Green's influence be positive, given its hysterical and unscientific positions on environmental issues, and their demands for more federal regulation of the economy? Well, on these issues, the Greens are only worse in degree — not in principle — than the Republicans and Democrats. George Bush believes in the dystopian fairy tale of global warming, while Gore wants to outlaw the internal combustion engine. The first President Bush lobbied for and signed the two biggest regulatory expansions in the last 25 years — the revised Clean Air Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. (Both of which are nice in principle, but badly miswritten, and often pernicious in practice.) The current Bush can't even bring himself to say that he'll end the Clinton/Gore persecution of Microsoft — probably because his campaign has gotten so much money from former Netscape executives and other computer "entrepreneurs" who asked the Department of Justice for help when they failed in the marketplace. But there are two important issues in which the Greens are starkly different in principle — not just in degree — from the Republocrats. The first of these is corporate welfare, which the Greens adamantly oppose — and which the supposedly "radical" Republicans in Congress and the supposedly "populist" Clinton/Gore administration have boosted to record levels. The best way to increase the size of government is to increase the number of people who are directly dependent on it. Political genius Franklin Roosevelt knew this when he created Social Security. Clinton and Gore likewise know that when they call for "a hundred thousand new [fill in the type of government employees]" they are calling for a hundred thousand more families directly dependent on the federal government. The most important reason why most American big businesses have been missing in action from the fight for smaller government is because many big corporations make more money from corporate welfare than they could save from smaller government. When we take big business off the dole, we remove the most powerful political force that supports a complex federal tax code with taxes that are too high for most people, but which can be jerry-rigged with "tax credits" and the like for businesses with good lobbyists. Get rid of corporate welfare, and you'll find a lot more corporations willing to stand up for liberty. Nader also differs dramatically from Gore and Bush in his forthright opposition to the failed drug war. Gore prattles about "privacy" and "choice," but his Department of Justice killed California writer Peter McWilliams, by preventing McWilliams, who had AIDS, from using marijuana in compliance with California law, in order to keep his AIDS medications down. The Texas record of Bush, and the national record of Clinton/Gore/Bush the Third, plainly illustrate that the drug war is the most dangerous current threat to the Bill of Rights. People are being killed by machine-gun wielding home invaders wearing masks and breaking down doors with "no-knock" raids for trivial amounts of contraband. Prison capacity has tripled in the last two decades, and drug prisoners now outnumber violent prisoners. Wiretaps are at record levels, as is the size of the FBI, and the amount of federal money being used to subsidize police militarism in every state. National Guard helicopters fly over people's houses looking for marijuana plants on the front porch, while sophisticated thermal sensors are used to pry into the privacy of the home. Federally mandated drug testing invades the privacy of the human body, forcing employees to disclose detailed information about their prescription medications. Financial privacy is being abolished, in the name of preventing money laundering. Neo-Stalinist programs like DARE encourage schoolchildren to inform on their friends and family. And drug war forfeitures amount to little more than legalized piracy. More generally, the violence that results from the turf wars which the drug war generates are one of the most serious dangers to Second Amendment rights. Remember that the drug war was the pretext for the import ban on so-called "assault weapons" during the first Bush administration; and the law which led to the creation of the current FBI gun-registration system was part of the 1988 "anti-drug" bill. The biggest group of losers in the whole drug war are the people who don't use drugs, since their rights and privacy are devastated, in exchange for the government "protecting" them from using something which they wouldn't want to use anyway. The Bush/Gore response to this civil-liberties disaster is "we need more." Ralph Nader's response is "we need to end it." Nader's major point is to end the war on marijuana users, but in practical terms, this is as good as ending the drug war itself. Marijuana arrests far outnumber all other drug arrests, and without a large and steady diet of marijuana prosecutions and forfeitures, the current drug-war machine cannot sustain itself. If you're for limited government, think about almost any topic on which Ralph Nader is wrong (there are lots of them), and you'll see that his differences with Gore/Bush are usually only a matter of degree. Do you believe that it would benefit the nation's general political dialogue (and especially benefit the Democratic party), to have a forceful new voice against one of the major foundations of the welfare state? Do you believe that the most precious part of our American heritage is the Bill of Rights, and that the number one political priority ought to be stopping the gravest threat to our fundamental liberties? If so, then consider whether a strategic vote for Ralph Nader might, ironically, be the best way to vote for limited government this November. Source: National Review (US)Author: Dave Kopel of the Independence InstitutePublished: November 1, 2000 Address: 215 Lexington AvenueNew York, New York 10016 Copyright 2000 National Review Contact: letters nationalreview.com Website: http://www.nationalreview.com/ Forum: http://www.nationalreview.com/forum/forum.shtmlRelated Articles & Web Sites:Vote Naderhttp://www.votenader.org/Harry Browne For Presidenthttp://www.harrybrowne2000.org/Peter McWilliams's Memorial Pagehttp://homepages.go.com/~marthag1/Peterm.htmNader Alert On Drug Warhttp://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/nader.htmVote To End The War On Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7505.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Ralph Nader:http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=ralph+nader
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #6 posted by freedom4all on November 02, 2000 at 21:24:02 PT
Greens no better than Demopublicans!!
Government has been battling poverty for years and hasn't accomplished a thing, what makes you think that if Greens try that it will work? The Greens want to increase government regulation of business, which makes business owners less likely to enter a given market, creating less competition, which in turn allows companies to charge high prices for lower quality products. They would help fuel the very thing they are trying to eliminate.They want public financing of campaigns which would also work against what they are trying to accomplish. Do you actually think that if the federal government did the funding of campaigns that they wouldn't set limits on who could get that funding, like the 15% the CPD set for getting into the debates? And why should MY tax dollars go to fund someone's campaign that I do not want to contribute to? Libertarians refuse federal matching funds because they do not believe that you should be forced to fund their campaigns.The majority of the problems in America that have been made into political issues are the direct or indirect result of federal government overstepping the bounds of the constitution.
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #5 posted by FoM on November 02, 2000 at 17:32:44 PT:
US NY: Editorial: A Green Light For Nader
Newshawk: Jo-D and Tom-EPubdate: Wed, 01 Nov 2000Source: Village Voice (NY)Copyright: 2000 VV Publishing CorporationContact: editor villagevoice.comAddress: 36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003Website: http://www.villagevoice.com/Feedback: http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/contact.shtmlA GREEN LIGHT FOR NADER The Village Voice supports Ralph Nader for president. Nader and the Green Party are the only national political force willing to speak out against the stranglehold that corporate America has on our political system. We believe Nader would battle poverty and inequality, rein in globalization and an imperial foreign policy, abandon the war on drugs, and work to ban the death penalty. Click the link to read the complete article.http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1645/a06.html
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #4 posted by eco2 on November 02, 2000 at 06:07:02 PT
Interesting thread on this at Cannabis.com too.
Why I’m Voting for Nader. Thread on National Review article. At Cannabis.com Politics message board. Thread replies are at bottom of messages. http://cann.com/b1/messages/31/31085.shtml
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #3 posted by eco2 on November 02, 2000 at 03:52:08 PT
Drug war, HUGE government debt. Both from REAGAN!
*Greens and the Drug War. Worldwide. LINKS. Green Party candidates, positions, platforms, etc.. Concerning the Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, harm reduction, etc.. Ralph Nader info, links.http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/greens.htm and *9-00. MAP/DrugNews SEARCH SHORTCUT for many press articles about RALPH NADER's September 8, 2000 press conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he called for legalizing cannabis/marijuana, and for harm reduction drug reform. Ralph Nader "called for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation's 'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.' ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products." -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=nader+johnson+santa&YY1=1997*Ideology, Idiot-ology, Political Parties, and the Drug War. Or: "Ideologues Anonymous," "Fundamentalists Anonymous," etc.. Election season is when Drug Warriors really come out of the closet and spin their lies. Year-round too, but especially during the election "silly season." Several charts. And healthcare stats, too. http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/ideology.htm -latest revision. *National Rifle Association. Far-right campaign for longer sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, truth in sentencing. For both violent and non-violent offenders, DRUG offenders, etc.. NRA and Libertarian Party = mutual admiration society. NRA and Libertarians are cults for mass incarceration, whether they know it or not. NRA's Mandatory Minimum Sentencing campaigns. Ban handguns, so we can keep rifles and shotguns legal, and so we can end the drug war.http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/nra.htm *Greens. Drug War Platforms. Also some info from Usenet messages by a webpage compiler of Green Party platform links. Links, processes, history, and sources for Green platform positions on drug war. http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/platforms.htm *Green Party platforms. A collection of Green Party platforms for North America.http://www.greens.org/plats.html *Association of State Green Parties. This IS Ralph Nader's platform according to the the webpage of North American Green Party platforms above, and according to VoteNader.org site.http://www.gp.org/platform_index.htm*5-00. the Greens/Green Party USA. Platform. This is NOT Ralph Nader's platform (according to the webpage of North American Green Party platforms). http://www.greens.org/gpusa/Platform061100.htmlLibertarian comment below is clueless. For the facts see the links above.
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #2 posted by freedom4all on November 01, 2000 at 21:52:26 PT
Nader is NOT for Smaller Government!!!
The Green party are just another group of people who want to use power of the government to further their means. The first thing their platform/program speaks of is giving reparations to people who had NOTHING to do with what happened 200 years ago. They support a MAXIMUM WAGE LEVEL, the polar opposite of the "American Dream" if you ask me. How would they ever expect this to work? -----*/ Quoted from the Green Platform /*-----In the long run, the Greens support moving to an egalitarian pay system of labor certificates based on hours of labor contributed. Each worker would receive back from society exactly the share of labor they contributed to total social production. These certificates would be non-transferable and would expire when used to purchase goods and services. -----*/   End Quote   /*-----They also do not think you should be able to own property...Hence this Quote from their platform...-----*/ Quoted from the Green Platform /*-----The classic justification of private property is that people should be entitled to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. Land, natural resources, and the ecological systems of the Earth are the product of billions of years of evolution, not human labor. As such they should not be privately owned, but their use should be democratically planned.-----*/ End Quote /*-----If that is not communism, I sure as hell would like to know what is... A vote for Nader or the Green Party is not in the least bit a vote for freedom. Like I said in the beginning of this post, Greens are just another group of people who want to say what you can or can't do through the use of force by government!!!Vote for FREEDOM!!!Vote Libertarian!!!
[ Post Comment ]

Comment #1 posted by howard on November 01, 2000 at 15:22:49 PT
nader is the man
Nader is definately the MAN. There is NO other choice.
[ Post Comment ]

Post Comment


Name: Optional Password: 
E-Mail: 
Subject: 
Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message]
Link URL: 
Link Title: