[Apologetics] Fw: Obama Resigns From His Church

[Stuart D. Gathman]

> I still plan on voting for Ron Paul - even if it means a write in.
> Can anyone tell me a reason why not?

On Mon, 2 Jun 2008, Marty Rothwell wrote:

> Because it has the same effect as voting for Obama.  Since Paul can't win,
> any vote not for McCain is a vote for Obama.

That is how the two party system achieves its lockin.  But in this case,
explain how Obama is worse than McCain.  I can see that they have a
different emphasis - McCain favors 1984 style control ala McCain FeinGeld,
Obama favors the smile attractively while robbing you blind approach.
Now explain why one is significantly less evil than the other so that
I shouldn't vote for what I think is the best candidate.

BTW, each state can pick its own method of choosing electors.  One
long term solution is to campaign for approval voting (vote for up to n)
instead of the current plurality voting (vote for at most one).
Approval voting doesn't have the mathematical two party lockin.
There are theoretically better voting methods (involving ranking
candidates), but they are more complicated for both voters and voting systems.
Current voting machines all handle approval voting just fine.

In the case of electors, I should be able to vote for electors - not which
candidate they promise to vote for.

So in the current case, I could vote for both Ron Paul and McCain.
That wouldn't likely get Ron Paul in this year, but it would show the *real*
approval of Ron Paul (but still show an inflated approval of McCain).  With
voting results not distorted by the "lesser of two evils" effect, 3rd party
candidates can realistically build support much faster.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.