The Third Party Vote Fallacy

We've all heard the claim that a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for the least desirable major party candidate. A related claim is that not voting at all is a vote for the least desirable major party candidate. Well, these claims are fallacies and I will show that here.

I will set up an election with candidates A, B and C, voter V, and claim maker K. A and B are the major party candidates, and C is a third party candidate.

Let's say voter V votes for candidate C. The claim is made by K that a vote for C is a vote for A. V casts a vote for C, so C gets one vote. But A also gets a vote? How did that happen? A vote must magically appear out of nowhere for this to be true. One vote is cast, but two are received! K needs to convince V of the mathematical equation 1 = 2. But this equation is false, and so is the claim that a vote for C is a vote for A.

Similarly, let's say V does not vote for any candidate. The claim is made by K that not voting is a vote for A. No vote is cast but A gets a vote that, again, magically appears out of nowhere? The equation that must be true is 0 = 1. But this, too, is false, and so is the claim that not voting is a vote for A.

As a result of the above, I would propose the following axiom: Candidates only receive votes that are actually cast for them.

Now, for a slightly different claim, I will add a piece of information that says that both candidates A and B are very undesirable candidates, and that B is "the lesser of two evils" in the eyes of K. K makes the claim that not voting for B is a vote for A. The error that K makes here is that K has already attributed V's vote to B according to K's own election plan. K is then guilt-tripping V (because K is attempting to be the lord of V's conscience) for failing to vote according to K's plan. Because a vote is already attributed to B, K believes he can take liberty to subtract a vote from B and claim that it goes to A. This is similar to the bookkeeping practice of subtracting from one column and adding it to another on a ledger. The money was already in the first column and was transferred to another column. But if no money was in the first column to begin with, it cannot be transferred to the second column. This claim is especially pernicious as K need to convince V that both equations of 0 = -1 and 0 = 1 are true. But they are both false, and the claim that not voting for B is a vote for A is doubly false.

One last scenario, the one in which we find ourselves today. We have two candidates, A and B, that are each perceived as being very evil, but with differing opinions as to which is the greater evil. Voters are taking such a stand against the candidate they perceive to be the greater evil that they create a motto such as #NeverA or #NeverB. They will voluntarily vote for a known evil just to prevent another evil from being elected. What is missed in all this is that #NeverA and #NeverB combined is a guarantee that an evil candidate is elected. No such guarantee exists for voter V that does not vote for either A or B, or who votes for a third party candidate. So, #NeverA and #NeverB are greater promoters of evil than the one who refuses to vote for a known evil. It is my hope that people can recognize the common fallacies presented to them each election season and reject them.

The Problem Behind Julian Assange

Julian Assange is an interesting person and Wikileaks is an interesting organization.  I haven't read too much about the controversy, but what I have read covers a wide spectrum of beliefs.  To some, Assange is a hero.  To others he is the greatest threat to national and world security there is.  I don't know what Assange's motives are nor do I know all of what Wikileaks has published.  It isn't my point.

There is something else going on, and it is going on behind him.  I've read some quite typical, predictable knee-jerk reactions from the usual conservative types that he's a spy and a traitor and whatever else and should be locked up or worse.  But the problem is that Assange isn't the one who witnessed the things that have been published.  You can say what you want about passing on various types of information, and I think each piece of information and how it was handled needs to be judged on its individual merits.  The greater problem is that somebody else is leaking these items to Wikileaks.

There's a difference between a whistle-blower and a snitch.  A whistle-blower reveals systematized injustices and the coverups that accompany them.  A snitch reveals personal issues that are usually nobody else's business outside of the people involved.  Our culture generally sees whistle-blowers as heroes and snitches as slime.  But whether whistle-blowers or snitches, government officials and military leaders have a bigger problem than Julian Assange.  They are employing people that can't keep a secret.  They are placing trust in untrustworthy people.  They need to take better care what they say and what they do.  I'm not sure whether this reflects worse on the story-tellers or on the people who are trusting them.

I find it ironic - and maybe hypocritical as well - that governments and militaries that spy on and collect massive amounts of information about citizens cry foul when citizens and soldiers do the same in the opposite direction.  Many of these people are getting a taste of their own medicine and they don't like it.  That there are the Julian Assanges of the world might mean that enough technology can be used by common people to keep the powerful in check.  This seems like a growing phenomenon.  Even though there might be some bad individual results here and there, I think overall that all this may be a good thing.

Voting No For President

Just like for many of California's ballot propositions, I'll be voting "no" for president. I don't like either candidate, so I think I should vote no. Maybe that should be an option. If a majority of the people don't like either candidate (or any of the other party's candidates) we should have the right to vote no on a president. No president would be elected, none would take office. All bills passed by Congress would sit unsigned and would never pass. Neither major party would be able to shaft the people. Maybe I can start a trend on Tuesday. Pass it on. Vote No for president.

Argument For A Three-Party System

James Leroy Wilson nails my beliefs on the head in his post about the advantages of having a three-party political system. With three parties, there would be a vastly reduced chance of one party ruling, or with the two existing parties ganging up on the people through "bi-partisan" legislation. More arguing, bickering, in-house fighting, confusion and chaos would result from a three party system, drastically reducing the efficiency of the government being able to function. Without a functioning government, liberty for the people would be greatly increased. I'm all for it.

Political Worldviews

James Leroy Wilson essentially shows the folly of holding to only one possible solution to our country's problems - a political one. One's political views will only end up giving the opposition a way to label an individual in a negative light. Read his post here.

Glove Romney

When it comes to baseball, I have a good understanding the difference between a mitt and a glove. When it comes to politics, I have no clue.

Polling the Pollsters

Okay, I took the Presidential Candidate Selector poll that James Leroy Wilson and Vache Folle took. My results came out like this: Joseph Biden 100%, Duncan Hunter 94%, Mike Huckabee 88%, Ron Paul 86% and Condoleezza Rice 83%. When I clicked through again to post the results (only a few hours later), the poll changed and had additional questions.

As usual on polls of this type, I can't help but question the reasons for each question. I had no more than 3 selections that were not answered "neither," so without the pollster having a clue as to what I do believe about each issue, how is it even possible to match me with a candidate? Some of the questions are impossible to answer anyway because the question is either the wrong one or disqualifies itself by its contradictions. Question 3 about balancing civil rights and security creates a false dichotomy, because these two items go together, and are not on opposite sides of a balance. Civil rights ensures individuals with the rights and responsibilities of defending themselves with arms, even numerous arms, creating security. The false dichotomy is based on the reality that enabling one to defend himself is itself viewed as an act of terrorism because of the strong emphasis on so-called security.

The updated poll had more specific questions about health care, marijuana and taxes. Here are my new results: Theoretical Ideal Candidate 100%, Kent McManigal 94%, Ron Paul 81%, Chuck Hagel 71%, then a bunch lumped together. The first poll had McCain, Giuliani and Clinton way down about 10%-20%, yet the updated one had Clinton the same, but McCain and Giuliani at 67% and 47% respectively.

Religion, Politics and Life in America

My motivation to write about this comes from posts at The World According To Bruce regarding his definition of Red-Letter Christianity, the intolerance of the Left and Right, and the relation of religion to politics. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with Bruce, but I will give the following with different definitions and viewpoint.

Because God is creator of all things, every thought and action of man is a reaction to God, whether for or against, and therefore inherently religious. Secularism leaves the God of the bible out of the equation, but must fill that void with something else, therefore it is a religion itself, contrary to its own claim.

Because Jesus is the King of kings, every thought and action of man is a reaction to His kingship, whether for or against, and therefore inherently political. So, every thought and act of man is both religious and political at the same time.

For a Christian to desire to be ruled by something other than God is idolatry. So the Christian has no other option in the realm of politics than to promote a theocracy.

Now, to avoid misinformed, knee-jerk gag seizures, strokes or heart attacks to what I just said, a definition of theocracy is in order. Theocracy is simply defined as "rule by God." Well, duh! So the question is not whether God rules, but how that rule is carried out in this earthly world. Starting at the beginning, God rules in this world by delegating that rule to man according to God's word. Genesis 1:26-28. But in giving that rule to man, God maximizes man's rule over his own person and property, and extremely and vehemently minimizes man's rule over other men and their property.

Satan desired to rule this world and all men in it by tricking Adam in the garden, so for man to desire to rule over other men's lives to a greater degree than God allows is satanic, and is the essence of politics. (See my definition of politics.) Both the religious Left and Right (and the secularists too!) would do well to learn this.

The Real Reason for the High Price of Gas

Well, I don't know what the real reason is, because there are many reasons. But an interview tonight on the local news of an economist at UC Berkeley surprised me. Not what he said, but that it was on the news. His opinion was that refineries across the country were what he called "boutique" refineries. That is, they catered to the specialized formulas of gasoline used in each region of the country. The various environmental laws and regulations in each region necessitate unique gas. California has the most strict environmental laws in the country, and we have the most expensive gas.

But the reason for the relatively high prices is that there is no competition. We can't use somebody else's gas (this situation is forced upon us by law, of course) so supply is extremely limited, while demand remains the same. That results in high prices. Isn't it ironic that the same group of people who blame the oil companies for such high prices are the ones crying for greater regulation that result in higher prices? Well meaning ignorance and the law of unintended consequences always seem to go hand in hand. Indeed the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Daylight Wasting Time

To err is human. To really foul things up requires a computer. But to render unanswerable one of the most essential questions to the ability to live life, "What time is it?" requires a politician.

The Change of Daylight Saving Time fiasco is causing quite a bit of mental anguish out here in the real world. Computer people are scrambling to work their Microsoft patches and fixes into their computer systems to deal with the difference in time change. But if that weren't difficult enough, our office, being an international firm, has added difficulties. We have people who work both in time zones with and without Daylight Saving Time, and use the same software to coordinate meetings, etc, between these two groups. Some of the calendars will be changed, some won't. And these changes will affect the other group's perceived meeting times. It depends on who originally did the scheduling. Not only this, but everyday electronic devices have DST programmed into them, from VCR's to digital cameras to camcorders, ad infinitum. There are no patches for these items. I can't even begin to imagine the logistical nightmares faced by airlines and other time-sensitive industries that have already programmed the old DST into their lives.

The law of unintended consequences in this case just shows the reality that the pen is mightier than the sword. I don't know whether these politicians had any grasp of the destruction they would cause by this legislation. The same is true of all legislation. If they do grasp the gravity of their actions, then they are spiteful criminals. If they don't grasp it, then they are incompetent boobs. Either way, politicians are worthless. Far more daylight will be wasted trying to solve the problems caused by trying to save it than will be saved in the first place.

The Lure Of Democracy

In my last post, I gave a definition of politics: "Politics is the art and science of acquiring power in order to control other people and their property."

Because God is the creator and we are the creation, God has legitimate rule over us. All rebellion against God by man says, "God will not govern over man." Because authority doesn't happen in a vacuum, somebody has to replace God as authority over his human creatures. The only possibility is that man himself is now to rule over man. Man sees himself as God to rule the lessers. All throughout history, the few, the elite, have acquired power to rule other men. Whether monarchies, aristocracies, patriarchies, matriarchies, ecclesiocracies, military dictatorships, what have you, the very few have always been in control, while the masses are oppressed.

Democracy has sought to change all this. Democracy promises to wrench the ruling power from the elite and give it to the common man, but there is a catch. Democracy says, "Now, you, the common man, have the power of God to control other people and their property - provided you can persuade 51% of the people to agree with you." Marx had it partly correct when he said that religion was the opiate of the masses. In the West, Democracy is that religion.

A Definition of Politics

Politics is the art and science of acquiring power in order to control other people and their property.

Giving the Finger to Boston

Commentary

A popular cartoon character has caused mass hysteria in the city of Boston. Public officials are angered to the point of insanity. Or maybe past that point. Two regular dudes, named Bill and Ted (or are they Gomer and Goober?) are accused of being mass terrorists. The public officials are screaming for "restitution" for all the money it is going to cost to cover their own decision to be major spazzes. They are indignant that some people just don't have the obvious sensitivity to life here in the "post-911 world." Members of the public are outraged, too.

Is anybody getting the obvious here, or is everybody a victim of mass brainwashing? Okay, the advertising campaign was on the "extreme" side, and maybe they violated some trespassing laws. But does anybody really believe that the advertisers came anything close to a campaign of terrorism? How could anybody be so fanatically hyper-freakoutish to paralyze a city due to their own fear of, well, nothing? Yes, we live in a post-911 world, but what these public officials don't quite get is that they're the ones who have created it. Fearmongering, panic stricken Chicken Little's are what they are. They've created the panic by scaring the living hell out of America for every little thing out of the ordinary. They're the ones yelling "FIRE!" in the crowded theater because somebody is holding a candle.

"The wicked flee when no one is pursuing," Proverbs 28:1

The Fall Results In The Power State

When Adam was created by God and placed in the Garden of Eden, his task was to rule over the earth (i.e. dominion) according to God's rules. But man rebelled against God, and in doing so became his own god, and in his sin he has desired to rule over other men ever since. Since God rules over His creatures, any rebellion against God usurps God's authority, therefore man must rule over God's creatures in God's place.

Mark Rushdoony, in "Faith for All of Life" magazine (no link), writes in an article entitled "Don't Pray for the Peace of Babylon" the following:

Man's quest of autonomy, or self-rule by his own truth and word rather than that of God, tends to result in one of two manifestations. The individual may become anarchistic, seeking his "own rules" and his "own thing." The individual autonomous man, however, is either irrelevant or a nuisance to collective man, and so humanism's autonomy has always tended toward statism. The real autonomy is thus of the state, not individuals, which illustrates the Biblical teaching that man's rebellion against God represents an enslavement to sin. The moral reality of slavery to sin is manifested in the institutional enslavement of men to the highest collective voice of mankind, the state.

As a moral rebel, man perverts the things of God. Since man is not god, but only a creature, all he can do as a rebel is counterfeit the Creator's reality. Man was made to have dominion over creation (Gen. 1:28), for instance, but his moral rebellion in Genesis 3 means that all his attempts at dominion without God end in manifestations of his sin. The sinful lust for power rather than godly dominion stems from the original sin of desiring to be as gods. Man's constant grasp for power is manifested in aggression and exploitation. Power-hungry men create a power-hungry state as the utilitarian means of controlling others.

Christians do this when they lobby government to control others or when they vote for politicians who promise the same. Taxes, minimum wage laws, anti-smoking laws, and all other regulations of any kind are affronts to private property and property owners. Man, even sinful Christian man, is not content to let God rule this earth, but asserts his own godhood in ruling over others. May God grant us all repentance.

What To Do When Dope-Smoking Liberal Pinko Commie Leftist Radical Berkeley Wackos Are More Biblical Than You and You're a Conservative (Part 2)

Read part 1 here.

I spent five years of my life in Berkeley, California. Yes, the place famous for riots and demonstrations in the 60's, hippies, tie-dyed t-shirts and Grateful Dead concerts. I went to school for three years at the University of California, Berkeley, then lived in Berkeley after school for another two. During that time, the city council passed a city ordinance declaring that the Berkeley Police Department wouldn't arrest anybody who was found in possession of marijuana in an amount small enough to be considered for "personal use."

As a conservative kid from the suburbs (engineering major), my friends and I were incredulous at such a proposition. This also made national headlines. Marijuana was, after all, against the law, and the city of Berkeley was saying that it would ignore state law, which was against the moral law of obeying state law. I was raised within a culture that put state law above everything else (including God's law). Politicians, even though they were idiots, somehow were gods when legislating, and disobeying state law in any sense was tantamount to hating God or something.

But now, looking back on those wild times, I've come to a completely different conclusion regarding marijuana, Berkeley and conservative suburban culture. In the Bible, God tells the whole human race through Adam,

"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food" and it was so. Genesis 1:29-30

Well, not only does marijuana fit this list, but so does opium and cocoa leaves. God plainly gave these things to man to use, so who is man to disagree? Even though I was a conservative "law abiding citizen", dope-smoking liberal pinko commie leftist radical Berkeley wackos, whether they knew it or not, held to a more biblical position than I did. So, now, I have no choice but to believe the bible. I've found so many of these things that I can no longer call myself a conservative.

Pharisees and Politicians

Ron McKenzie at Blessed Economist recently ran a series of posts that showed the close parallels between today's politicians and the Pharisees of Jesus' day. He applies Jesus' scathing condemnation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, point by point, to modern politicians. The implications are frightening. He has condensed his entire series into a single, relatively short, piece. Read it here.

Adoptive Parents Are Suspected Terrorists

Shortly after we adopted our youngest child almost two years ago, my wife and I discovered that, thanks to the Patriot Act and various other regulations created by Homeland Security, adoptive parents are now suspected terrorists. We were put on a no-obtaining-of-documents list, similar to the no-fly lists we hear about in the news. We were prohibited from directly obtaining official documents for our very own child, even after the adoption was complete. The only workaround was to secure the services of an attorney that could lobby on our behalf to obtain any necessary documents.

Long ago I decided that I would do the utmost I could to live my entire life without ever using the services of a lawyer. So much for that. I compromised on my principles and decided that keeping my son was more important.

Then, after we received the paperwork from the state, we were required to immediately return the paperwork to the state so that they could confirm that the documents were legitimate before they returned them to us. Yes, you read it right. All this screwed up our taxes and tied up thousands of dollars of our own money for quite some time, with some still being tied up.

How interesting that the political party in control of both houses and the white house when the Patriot Act was passed claims to be the "Pro-Family" party. Well, I'd like to thank them again publicly for being so pro-family to us. I already thanked them in private on November 7th.

Counting the Cost of the "War On Terror"

"For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace." Luke 14:28-32.

Gene Redlin at Northern Gleaner posted a short piece that links to a lengthy, detailed defense (by Orson Scott Card) of Bush's noble "war on terror", and asks opponents of the war to read the article and consider how Christians can sincerely support it. Then, if we still disagree, he wants to hear opinions as to why. I've read the article several times and, contra Gene, am more convinced of the wrongness of the war as a result of reading the article. Here's why.

I'm not going to deal with the morality of a generic war on terror, or even other potential wars or types of wars against it in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the Bush war specifically. The above passage from the bible is one that Jesus used in reference to counting the cost of being one of His disciples. But since He used obvious earthly principles as applications to spiritual realities, they are valid here as well. Much is made in this article of necessary support of the war from both Congress and the American people. The lack of or withdrawal of support will doom the whole effort, and the end result will be worse than what we started with. I don't disagree with that at all. It also points to our kicking ass in Germany and Japan in WWII because of an unwavering commitment, and the result is two free, economic superpowers that benefit the world. It also points to our wavering in Vietnam and the first Gulf war and the eventual withdrawals resulted not only in defeat, but of defeat of our allies:

As happened in South Vietnam. The negotiated peace was more or less holding after American withdrawal. But then a Democratic Congress refused to authorize any further support for the South Vietnamese government. No more armaments. No more budget.

In other words, we forcibly disarmed our allies, while their enemies continued to be supplied by the great Communist powers. The message was clear: Those who rely on America are fools. We didn't even have the decency to arrange for the evacuation of the people who had trusted us and risked the most in supporting what they thought was our mutual cause.

We did it again, this time in the Muslim world, in 1991, when Bush Senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam. He meant for the senior military officers to get rid of him in a coup; instead, the common people in the Shiite south rose up against Saddam.

Bush Senior did nothing as Saddam moved in and slaughtered them. [Emphasis mine]

With a Democratic takeover of both houses, and a promise to do what it takes to withdraw our troops, and severely waning support from the American people, we stand just two years away from also a possible Democrat as president. Also, as the article points out, a war on terror could last for decades and in many more countries than just Iraq and Afghanistan. Now for the rub. Wasn't all this part of the Bush administration's counting of the cost of the war on terror? If not, why not? Conservatives are as of this election year criticizing the Democrats as a party that would purposely sabotage this war effort, severely compromise America's future and leave it ripe for future attacks from terrorists. Would Democrats do this just to gain a political twisting of the knife in the Elephant's side? Of course they would. They're Democrats. And Republicans have not only known this for decades, but they remind us every chance they get.

Yet the Bush administration counted them in as supporters in the war on terror. Every last Republican on Capitol Hill and every Democrat save one supported this initially. So did about 90% of the American people. But was his memory so short as to what happened to his father? One simple broken promise on taxes brought about a monumental crash of support for Bush the First. If he had only kept this one simple promise, the world may never have heard about Bill - or Hillary - Clinton.

If the Democrats are so untrustworthy and the American people are so fickle and have such an instant gratification, video game mentality, then how could they be counted on for continued support in such a war? If this current war strategy is going to be successful, it will need full-blown, unwavering, committed bipartisan and popular support for several decades. I can't think of a single thing in American political history that has enjoyed such support, so why would anybody think something would suddenly attain to this lofty necessity? Yet Bush pledged this support - no, he promised this support - but in reality, because of our political system, he had only a maximum of two years political support from both houses, only six years of his own oversight, and only enough popular support to last until tomorrow's headlines. In short, Bush relied on America in counting the long term cost of such a war. And as I highlighted from the article, (notice the irony here), "those who rely on America are fools." He promised something that was impossible to deliver.

This brings me to address the foolishness of a military solution to terrorism. We kicked ass in WWII because Hitler and Japan were engaged in a military conquest of the world. We also had a stake in it as a nation because both countries declared war against us first. Fire could be fought with fire. Vietnam, Korea and the Gulf are somewhat different because we had no direct defensive reason to win a military war, even though it could still be possible. But this current "war" waged by the "terrorists" isn't the same kind of war. It needs to be fought in a completely different way. It's funny how conservative supporters of this war continually warn of a misunderstanding of what radical Islam and terrorism are about and how they operate, but fall back on a military solution.

Another puzzling thing about conservative support for this war is how they fail to see it as just another form of a government welfare program. The people are coercively taxed to help some underprivileged group of people somewhere else. Instead of the poor living in inner city ghettos or trailer parks, they're in some other country. Soldiers are the equivalent of social workers. And the "exporting of freedom" is merely a transfer of freedom. The freedom of Iraqis increases while ours decreases through draconian "der Homelander Sekkurity" nonsense. We have enough problems with freedom in our own country. Concentrating on freedom in the Middle East is the political equivalent of removing the dust speck from somebody else's eye while ignoring the national forest in our own.

Even if all the principles behind such a war on terror were morally right, the guaranteed folly in carrying it out the way that it is currently is morally wrong. And all the backlash against American citizens abroad and increased hostility, etc, will be the responsibility of the one who really didn't count the cost as he should have in the first place.

America's One Party System: The State

I remember a number of times during the cold war seeing stories about elections in communist countries. They had ballots and showed up to vote just like we did in America. With one small difference. There was only one candidate for each office, the communist state party candidate. Of course, he won. Naturally, this was a source for ridicule. Here in America, we had more than one choice. Each candidate had differing views and different ideas. We had true freedom - or so I was taught.

I wrote a few posts ago on the idea of divided government as a political strategy, or at least as favorable to one party rule. The idea is that if the different branches of government are divided between parties and ideologies, they will have a greater tendency to cancel each other's ability to dominate the people. But, I'd like to look at this from a slightly different angle.

Imagine a huge tug of war match between the Democrats and Republicans. It takes place on a football field, and the rope is placed in the center of the field on the 50 yard line. The winner will pull the opposing team across its own goal line. There are a few dozen people on each side. The match starts, and after a few minutes one party takes a good advantage. The other exerts a large amount of energy and stops the progress. Then they take the advantage. On this goes for quite a long time, back and forth. Hopes rise, then fade, then fall, then rise again. But the match keeps going.

But going quite unnoticed, one team has a slightly larger percentage of people anchoring with their left feet, and the other team has a slightly larger percentage anchoring with their right feet. This is a small effect, but since it is mirrored from one side to another, the net result is movement in the lateral direction - toward one of the sidelines. While everybody is focusing on the visible back and forth tugging, the real story is that the whole group is heading out of bounds.

So while we see the liberals and conservatives fighting back and forth, pitting ideals against each other, the real story is that they have something far more destructive in common. Despite their differences, they are all still politicians, all public masters and not public servants, all power hungry statists, all desiring to control other people. Their very visible differences mask what they have in common. Yes, it's true that there are ideologues on each side, fighting for their pet causes, and this tends to slow the real agenda of state control, but it only limits it - it doesn't stop it.

Although the communist countries have only one "choice" in an election, we still have something very dangerous in common with them - one state.

Divided Government - A Viable Political Strategy?

James Leroy Wilson, a contributing blogger at Indie Castle, used one of my posts about the ping pong mentality of voters in a post (read it here) to suggest that rather than voters being stupid enough to switch party voting because the party they last voted for just screwed them, maybe they were realizing "we are screwed over less badly when we have divided government (President from one party, one or both houses of Congress controlled by the other), than when one party's in charge." I have no idea if this is the case with the voters.

But I have for a long time rejoiced at political stalemate that resulted in civil government's lack of ability to act legislatively. In California, it's almost an annual occurrence that the two parties can't agree on a yearly budget, and by law, the government shuts down until a budget is in place. A few years back, I read a piece by Joel Miller praise a stalemate in the New York state legislature because nobody was getting screwed as a result. When divided government has occurred to the benefit of the people, I have rejoiced, but until James' post, it never occurred to me that this could be used as a political strategy.

Although no longer either a political conservative or a Republican, I still have trouble voting for a Democrat for office. But if I viewed both the Democrats and Republicans as my evil enemies, could I vote for the slightly smaller greater evil to fight the larger lesser evil to gain the result of the two being so engaged disabling each other that they turn a blind eye to my own peaceful agenda of governing my own life? I'll have to sprinkle a dash of this on my next steak. Thank you, James, for turning the light bulb on.