Regarding the Sept. 14 opinion article entitled “Ron Paul is ideal president, wasted vote,” I agree, for the most part.
Yes, Ron Paul would be the ideal president. He would be the best president since Thomas Jefferson. I am even including Reagan’s first term. First of all, Paul is the only presidential candidate of the two major parties that strictly adheres to the United States Constitution.
Because of policies pushed by President Obama and past presidents (especially in recent decades), we have lost many of our civil liberties that are explicitly expressed in the Constitution in areas such as, but not limited to, privacy and the right to a fair trial.
I am speaking, of course, of policies such as the Patriot Act, NDAA and, let us not forget, drone strikes, one of which targeted and killed a 16-year-old U.S. citizen.
Sure, he may have been guilty of what he was accused, but he was denied his right of due process. I ask you this: Does this sound like the policies and actions of a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize? I submit that it does not.
I also submit that votes for President Obama, Gov. Romney or Congressman Paul are all wasted votes. In the case of Obama versus Romney, there is so little difference between the two and neither will strictly adhere to the Constitution, so, in the end, it does not matter which of the two wins (and one of them will win); you still get the same old policies.
Therefore, the logic of voting for one simply because he “is not the other” is not valid.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is also failed logic because the lesser evil is still evil. In the case of Ron Paul, he will not be on the ballot come November, and many states, including Mississippi (as well as my home state of Arkansas in case you were wondering) do not count votes for write-in candidates.
This leaves one option: Gary Johnson. The former New Mexico governor is the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president and will appear on the ballot in at least 47 states, including Mississippi and Arkansas.
He is essentially just a younger Ron Paul because they share the same values. I know Johnson will not win the presidency, but it will show the public that there is another candidate with a large following.
People will be looking for another candidate to back if Obama gets reelected and we experience four more years of the same old thing, or if Romney gets elected and, surprise, we still experience four more years of the same old thing.
All said, I am voting for liberty. Johnson has my vote; at least until 2016 when Ron Paul or his son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul are in the race as well, and we’ll just have to see how that plays out.
The main point of my writing, though, is this: Generally, people don’t want to vote for anyone other than the two major candidates because, frankly, they do not believe anyone else can win.
That may be true for this election, but a vote for someone else is not a loss. People will question why someone else got your vote and will do research on that person. Eventually, they may just find that person to bebetter than the two major candidates and may vote for them as well.
Let’s face it, recent presidents and the choices for president we have now, just have not worked out for us. It’s about time we try something else. Why not liberty?