On August 28th we'll know, officially, who the Democrat nominee for president is. Everybody expects he will be Barrack Obama, but as of now he is merely the presumptive suspect-in-chief. A taxpayer assisted overseas tour is intended to make him look "presidential" but it's all public relations puffery.
Obama has not yet been nominated by his party, but it doesn't matter to me. I don't plan to vote for him. I won't vote for John McCain, either. In fact, I have not voted for a Republican or Democrat presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964. (You may recall Goldwater's slogan, "In your heart you know he's right.") But Lyndon Johnson prevailed in that election, helped enormously by a TV commercial that showed a little girl picking petals from a daisy. She was obliterated by an atomic bomb, illustrating how the world would be if Goldwater were elected. It was a brilliant bit of propaganda.
In late 1964 I was already fuming over the news that Congress was going to relieve Americans of their silver money. Dimes, quarter-dollars, and half-dollars would be made of copper and nickel starting in January, 1965. President Johnson said, with a straight face, that the new cupro-nickel coins would circulate alongside the silver and would have equal purchasing power. However, the silver completely vanished from circulation before the end of 1965, obeying Gresham's Law which informs us that bad money always chases good money out of circulation. That's when I fully realized the folly of believing what politicians say. One must watch what they DO.
"You haven't voted since 1964?" calls a voice from the back row.
"Didn't say that," I respond. "I said I have not voted for a Republican or Democrat presidential nominee since 1964, so don't pin the blame for the expensive parade to the Oval Office for the past forty-four years on me."
My ballot is usually cast for the Libertarian candidate, although I won't even do that in November. I'll just leave that choice blank to convey the message that I'm tired of the trend to national bankruptcy and will not support a candidate who won't offer a plan to do something about it.
I would love to persuade lots of voters to cast "no" votes for president. It would send a strong message to the national political leaders that they have no popular mandate to pile phenomenal levels of debt upon posterity and steal from us every day through their devilish trick of money inflation.
I know this idea will bring e-mail from well-meaning people who will tell me that if "more people voted things would be better." That's nonsense, of course. What they are saying is "If more people who think as I do would vote, things would be better." Can't you picture these enthusiastic voters going door to door offering a lift to the polls for people who will vote for the opposition?
It's not the total numbers that matter, anyway. In the heyday of the Soviet Union the turnout on election day was about 98 percent. Who will say voters of that era got a good deal? The political opinion of America's adults can be accurately tabulated with a sampling of three or four thousand. There's no need to poll several million people to discover what popular opinion is.
A grumpy acquaintance of mine, "Boiling Ed," repeatedly advises his friends to vote the rascals out. The trouble is the choices are usually so thin we wind up voting another rascal into office to take the place of the one we're voting OUT. If the new hire is not an actual rascal he will be once he gets his hands on the controls of power.
Ed is right, though. The country is riding for a fall. Fifty years ago we were on top. The USA was the world's largest creditor nation. Today we're the world's biggest debtor nation and this week Congress proposes to raise the national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion from the present $9.8 trillion. The politicians in Washington hope you won't notice.
Can you fix this mess by voting for Senator Obama? No. He has vowed to make it worse. How about Senator McCain? No. He's pledged to failed spendthrift policies of the Bush administration, which has racked up more unpayable debt in two terms than any other administration in the country's history.
Don't vote for either one. In fact, if enough Americans withhold their vote in the presidential race somebody in Congress will push a bill to make voting mandatory. Such nonsense might trigger an eruption among the people (call it a revolution) leading to a return to the U.S. Constitution in which the federal government ceases its role as operator of the inflation machine that is destroying us.
If we stuffed the federal government back into its constitutional straight-jacket who would rule over our comings and goings? Who would regulate our lives and hold our hands when adversity strikes? The individual states, that's who. They'd get their sovereignty back. If the state legislature went too far out of bounds it would be much simpler for the people to take up their pitchforks and march to the state house to prod the politicians into acting responsibly.
Not voting for president is my way of "voting the rascals out." I refuse to vote another rascal in. I couldn't bear the feeling of guilt.
July 24th, 2008
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