On election day, we learned that it's one thing to dis Ron Paul and his delegates. It's quite another to disenfranchise them. Ron Holland writes:
The world knows how the Romney campaign and GOP establishment trashed Ron Paul and his supporters during the GOP primary season and in front of millions at the GOP national convention.
… The Republican Party would have captured the Senate and they would have millions of young supporters promoting both the party and our freedom agenda. But this was not to be, due to the arrogance and animosity of the GOP big-wigs and the Republican operatives running the Romney campaign.
The Republican Party had an opportunity to bring into its fold a generation of a well-organized grass roots effort. It had an opportunity to appeal to millions of independent, unaffiliated and libertarian leaning Americans who did one of three things, vote for Gary Johnson, write in Ron Paul or not vote at all.
Instead, Mitt Romney and the Republican Establishment did everything they could to silence, hinder and obstruct Ron Paul and his supporters. They changed the rules at the last minute at the Republican National Convention, looked for ways to disqualify Paul’s delegates and tried to disrupt its own nominating process in every state. Simply put, Mitt Romney did not have to cheat to win the Republican nomination, but he did anyway.
I'd like to agree with these assessments, but I can't help but think about how close the election was - even with Paul followers eschewing the GOP. Romney and the GOP machine still got 58 million votes to Obama's 60 million. While I realize that votes by states and electoral paths matter more, and that swing states could have resulted differently with more republican votes, it was still close without Dr. Paul's happy band of liberty lovers.
Maybe we mattered more in local political races? But at the federal level I'm not so sure. Also, I wonder just how badly the GOP really wanted this current mess. With a dodgy economy, a looming fiscal cliff, and Obamacare coming online in 2014, it could be they have more to gain in the coming years with the democrats donning the façade of "conductor" during a train wreck.
Maybe I'm giving them too much credit and that they truly are controlling, power-hungry goons bent on severely breaking their own rules to portray a unified neocon front. Answers to such questions will appear in the future. Hopefully, more liberty will come, bringing with it the answers I wanted to hear.
The standard argument underlying the theorem of rational voter ignorance strikes me as more evidence for (a) academics mindlessly copying academics (including even the excellent Mark Pennington) and (b) academics ignoring the real world.
Mind you, the conclusion that voters are rationally ignorant is correct in my view, but not on account of the reasons habitually given (see "conclusion" below).
It is true, people know infinitely less than they ought to in order to make an informed choice. Hence, voting is based on nonsense. And I agree with Bryan Caplan (hat tip to Laura), who belongs to the last of three schools: (i) the first arguing that democracy works well in that it faithfully reflects the will of the people, (ii) the second school holding that democracy is not working well at all, since it is NOT faithfully reflecting the will of the people, and (iii) the third school suggesting that democracy is a bit of a catastrophe because it DOES represent the will of a highly uninformed and ideologically misled electorate.
As for my introductory propositions (a) and (b), in contradistinction to the theory, virtually no-one is making probability-based cost-benefit assessments in order to decide whether to go to the booth or not. People participate in voting simply because they have been conditioned into a number of habits that encourage them to vote.
Elections are a festival, a virtual orgy of the unthinking, including the fact that few things are less likely than finding a voter who has ever seriously thought through the pros and cons of democracy. When I was allowed to vote for the first time, voting was to me like a rite of passage, a proof of my maturity; and for a long time I did think that my vote mattered - vaguely following the line of reasoning, if at all, whereby my party would have no chance to win if each of its supporters thought their individual vote was not significant enough to warrant participation in the election.
People are divided in their opinion about who is going to win the presidential election. Just compare here (Obama very likely to win), here (Romney sure to win), and here (intuiting Romney will win) - the latter with an interesting link to an article on the manner polling works and fails.
Concerning the first link, I immediately concluded that Obama was very likely to win, but do the permutational options really support my expectation?
I am an uninterested and very superficial observer of the presidential election. But, again, how much gain is there in more extensive efforts at being in the picture?
Conclusion:
Voting is simply a different form of cheap talk. You can get a big kick at very little expense. Finding out what is really going on would be prohibitively expensive and without commensurate reward, indeed depressing. It is better to dream of nicer things, as everyone else does. One votes in order to do the done thing, feel socially accepted, even important.
If voting helps you feel good about yourself, so much the better. If it does not, never mind - what cost is there involved? The rational ignorance tenet should perhaps be rephrased thus: It is rational to vote, despite being uninformed and misinformed, for it can make you achieve a desired state of mind at little expense. And since long-term consequences, indeed any kind of consequences can be made part of achieving "a desired state of mind at little expense", they need not bother the voter.
PS
Bryan Caplan as well as his rather short, yet still too long book ("The Myth of the Rational Voter") are overrated, however I do not regret having read the book, and his main conclusion, reported above, alone is worth the reading. Mind you, Caplan seems to dream of a world ruled by economist kings (like himself), rather than representatives of 'the plebs' (i.e. people who do not know as much economics as he does). However, in his exorbitant confidence in the wisdom of economists, he comically fails to recognise the wide spectrum of divergent and incompatible views among economists and the fact that large numbers, probably the majority of them support the same irrational world for which 'the plebs' is casting their votes.
Voting for lesser evil can prove difficult when such evil has become too great in its own right. Columnist Conor Friedersdorf from ‘The Atlantic’ writes how he will vote third party:
I don't see how anyone who confronts Obama's record with clear eyes can enthusiastically support him. I do understand how they might concluded that he is the lesser of two evils, and back him reluctantly, but I'd have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers.
Nope.
There are folks on the left who feel that way, of course. Some of them were protesting with the Occupy movement at the DNC. But the vast majority don't just continue supporting Obama. They can't even comprehend how anyone would decide differently. In a recent post, I excoriated the GOP and its conservative base for operating in a fantasy land with insufficient respect for empiricism or honest argument.
I ended the post with a one-line dig at the Democratic Party. "To hell with them both," I fumed.
… There is a candidate on the ballot in at least 47 states, and probably in all 50, who regularly speaks out against that post-9/11 trend, and all the individual policies that compose it. His name is Gary Johnson, and he won't win. I am supporting him because he ought to.
… If I vote, it will be for Johnson. What about the assertion that Romney will be even worse than Obama has been on these issues? It is quite possible, though not nearly as inevitable as Democrats seem to think. It isn't as though they accurately predicted the abysmal behavior of Obama during his first term, after all. And how do you get worse than having set a precedent for the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens? By actually carrying out such a killing? Obama did that too. Would Romney? I honestly don't know. I can imagine he'd kill more Americans without trial and in secret, or that he wouldn't kill any. I can imagine that he'd kill more innocent Pakistani kids or fewer. His rhetoric suggests he would be worse. I agree with that. Then again, Romney revels in bellicosity; Obama soothes with rhetoric and kills people in secret.
To hell with them both.
I’ve written many times that “If you don’t vote your conscience, why should your representatives?”. The political transgressions appear far more grave than in the past; their existence due, in large part, to a perceived immunity from backlash. Such worrisome traits are then buried under election rhetoric by both parties, who offer up their best argument for victory by pointing out the impending consequences of their loss! Is that any way to run a country?
The trends and precedents mentioned show that elections are not about one president, per se, but the ratcheting effect of government power over time, achieved by a duopoly perpetuated by two opposing camps; very similar to one another but containing just enough variation to entrench the cycle. My hat is off to the system designers. It’s a tough nut to crack. And getting nuttier by the day.
That’s why it’s silly to dismiss Romney as no different than Obama. Some wave off their obligation to choose with a cliché, that Romney is just “the lesser of two evils.”
That’s true, but the key is “lesser.” If you have to choose between pissing off Stalin or Hitler, you’d be a fool to shrug your shoulders and risk some face time with the dude with the funny mustache (no, the other one with the funny mustache). Make no mistake, you are obligated—obligated, I tell you—to choose between one of two pro-establishment candidates! Don’t throw away your vote by denying that obligation and refusing to lend legitimacy to the perpetuation of the status quo!
This is no time to “make a statement” or pout that Ron Paul got treated badly in Tampa. He did get treated badly in Tampa, and that was stupid and unnecessary. Again, let’s put that behind us! If you are truly dedicated to the Constitution you won’t let it be trampled on by a Democratic president in order to make some soon-to-be-moot point to the anonymous GOP party hacks responsible for not giving Ron Paul a primo speaking slot because they knew he would just repeat truths we really just don’t want to hear.
Priorities, people. Nothing less than the Constitution is at stake here. And I think we can all agree that it would be much better to have a Republican president trampling the Constitution.
As Laura promised more than a week ago here is my update of the RNC convention for 2012. This update is late thanks to not having any Internet access at the Nebraska delegation hotel. Likewise there wasn’t anything available near the hotel. Somebody made the comment that hotels are either Presidents, Minerals, or Animals. The Presidents are luxury, the Minerals want to be Presidents but aren’t, and finally Animals are the dogs. We stayed in an Animal on the beach. Nice location even though we were 45 minutes from the convention, but certainly not what you’d expect in regard to “deluxe” accommodations.
Paul Fest on Saturday night and the Ron Paul Rally on Sunday are what you’d expect. The Sunday event had a kind of “finale” appeal to it where we were summing up the efforts of most of us over the last 5 years.
Monday saw the convention cancelled, but we still had a delegate breakfast and lunch reception. Pretty much a down day since the weather wasn’t all that great due to the hurricane flying by in the gulf.
The biggest day of the convention came on Tuesday. With Monday’s business portion of the convention pushed to Tuesday that meant that the normal afternoon session would conflict with anything that may have been scheduled during the afternoon down time. For the Nebraska delegation that would mean making a choice between being there for the credentials report, rules reports, and the roll-call vote or participating in the booze cruise.
From what I could see on the floor, it looked like the current Chairman, Committeeman, Committeewoman, future Committeewoman, two establishment delegates, and two Ron Paul delegates stayed behind. The rest of the delegates, alternates, and guests were on the boat during the votes.
A couple notes about this part of the day. The two establishment delegates were somehow able to stay for the credentials and rules vote but left before the roll-call vote and headed to the boat which was waiting for them. Why didn’t the rest of the delegation stay on the floor for the credentials and rules vote since the boat was going to wait for them?
After the delegation returned, it was reported to me that one of the establishment delegates that left after the credentials and rules votes reported to the Governor that the two Ron Paul delegates booed the results of the credentials and rules vote. This made it sound like we were one of the few on the floor that were against the vote. Remember, none of the people on the boat knew what happened and many probably haven’t seen the video below even to this day. See the video below and you judge for yourself if only two people could make that much noise. Oh, and you might want to discern who won the vote, the Yay’s or the No’s. Also, can only Ron Paul delegates make this much noise? Not at all. There are many in the party upset at the centralization of power at the top. (My apologies for reshowing this video from a previous post here at RedStateEclectic.)
The roll-call vote was a lot of fun. Both Ron Paul delegates were asked for their vote earlier in the day at lunch. They both held firm. I asked the Chairman if he could just say Ron Paul’s name, and he wouldn’t answer that. I told him I understood he has his orders. It is the Governor who runs the Nebraska GOP and thus obvious where the Chair’s direction comes from. You can see the Nebraska vote below. Pay attention to how many votes Nebraska gets and how many Romney received.
As I said earlier the Nebraska delegation was told that there wouldn’t really be anything going on while they were gone. Two problems with this. One is that voting on credentials, rules, and the roll-call is the meat of the convention besides electing the nominee. The other problem is that they didn’t miss anything. It was a forgone conclusion that the RNC lawyers would shove the credentials and rules down the delegates throat, and of course Romney would be the only candidate’s name read aloud, or at least mostly read aloud and counted.
Tuesday’s business (or rather Monday’s business) was modified from the previous schedule for two purposes. For one, the roll-call vote which is normally a prime-time event and broadcast on television was originally moved to Monday night in prime-time. When they cancelled Monday’s session and began rewriting the RNC rules the RNC could tell that the rule changes were going to be unpopular. They were also concerned with Ron Paul’s name being used on prime-time TV during the roll-call. Thus, to ensure that more delegates would not skip the first session on Tuesday, they moved the roll-call vote to Tuesday’s afternoon session. This move made sure that the roll-call vote would not be televised and that more people, as in party regulars who don’t normally care about rules votes, were in attendance to help with the rules vote. In politics nothing happens by chance and the manipulation of the schedule is yet another example of this.
That wrapped up Tuesday and the first and only day with any real business. The rest of the week was spent with some great events for the Nebraska delegation. The convention in the evening had the typical speakers with maybe the exception of Clint Eastwood.
The convention is a political junkie’s final game. Having the floor fight and Ron Paul element there, even though squashed, was a great experience. Convention politics is a lot of fun. The RNC convention though is nothing but a marketing event where any dissenting voice in the party must not be seen by the public. Unfortunately, the rules changes that were adopted, even though watered down, will ensure that dissenting voices don’t even get to the convention next time. Perhaps more on that some other time.
For someone who has made a career out of being a government parasite, the honorable Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has the audacity to demonize the poor who are merely the victims of the wealth-destroying policies his party is guilty of engineering. Ryan has produced nothing, created nothing, and has spent all of his adult life sucking on the teat of government and enriching himself at the expense of the taxpayers he purportedly defends. At least the poor worked in the free market.
Paul Ryan represents the fakery at the heart of the Republican project today. It starts with the contradiction that Mr. Free Enterprise has spent his life in the bosom of government, enjoying the added protection of wingnut welfare benefactors like the Koch brothers. If Herman Cain is Charles and David Koch’s “brother from another mother,” as he famously joked, Ryan is the fourth Koch, swaddled in support from Americans for Prosperity and other Koch fronts. The man who wants to make the world safe for swashbuckling, risk-taking capitalists hasn’t spent a day at economic risk in his entire life.
I agree with Joan Walsh's analysis of the odious Ryan. He was George W. Bush's lapdog in the House and because of this partisan loyalty, he is awarded by the Republican Party establishment with a vice president slot. This is the man that voted to make permanent the Patriot Act, sided with Barack Obama in passing the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA, sided with corporatists in passing TARP, sided with corporatists in voting for the auto bailouts, voted for the massive expansion of the healthcare-industrial complex with Medicare D, and advocated for the liberty-infringing individual mandate. Does any of this sound libertarian? Yet the deceit that Ryan is libertarian is aggressively marketed by the Romney campaign and the establishment. Dave Gilson of the liberal magazine Mother Jones--not a real friend of libertarians--asked the question, just how libertarian is Ryan? And their answer: not at all.
Ryan's parody of a "budget plan"--hardly a plan and hardly a sensible budget-- eviscerates his claim to be a "deficit hawk." His plan does not cut spending for decades and any spending it does cut disproportionately affects the poor and underprivileged. Furthermore, it does not touch a single cent in defense spending and in fact increases it.
Ryan claims “years of ignoring the real drivers of our debt have left us with a profound structural problem,” and to him this means throwing grandmothers out in the street rather than cut one dime from billions going to Lockheed. The “Ryan budget,” endorsed by House Republicans, would cancel planned cuts in the growth rate of military appropriations, and increase the Pentagon’s budget by $20 billion. He’s right that the trajectory of our debt-to-income ratio is “catastrophic,” yet is patently dishonest in describing what or who is driving us over a fiscal cliff.
Ryan's chickenhawk bloodlust for more imperialist carnage against brown-skinned foreigners with "funny names" is completely at odds with the foreign policy of peace and prosperity that unites grassroots libertarians. Jesse Walker is more explicit, saying that libertarians should find it easy to reject Ryan, echoing the same points that Adam Kokesh raised (as depicted in this article's image) and the foreign policy issues Raimondo addressed. Jack Hunter laments, "If Paul Ryan wants to go down the old neocon route, Americans can expect Bush-Obama Part 2--the same foreign policy with the same tragic cost, debt, despair and hopelessness."
If I was not clear, I will say it much more explicitly: Ryan is a neoconservative with a very tenuous claim to libertarianism or the Tea Party movement. Ryan is as much of a "Tea Party libertarian" as Obama is a "bleeding-heart progressive." Libertarians should be wary.
That some “libertarians” are ready, willing, and able to swallow this guff, I have no doubt. They claim Ryan “gets the free market.” Well, whoop-de-doo! So does the Chinese Communist party, these days.
Of course, the hyphens add a touch of class. Maybe I should start a PAC: Whoop-dee-doers for Freedom.
So long as Paul appears in the name, so it seems. Ryan voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. He also voted for the TARP bailout and the auto bailout. With conservatives like these, who needs liberals?
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