Correct. It’s also true that “first past the post” is utterly irrational, and that the two existing parties are committed to it precisely because it prevents third parties from challenging their political duopoly. So, the proper response to this situation is: “Third parties, get lost!”?

Because change at the national level will require a large number of changes by the 50 states one at a time, and because in most cases one or both of the two official parties will refuse to accept that.

I wonder if it will help that both McCain and Obama are proponents of IRV.

It shouldn’t hurt. I hope.

The problem with “libertarians” is that they are not organized, as such (aside from a party that hardly deserves to be called a party). And while those who espouse libertarian principles may not be organized around those principles, the set of people who claim to subscribe to those views overlaps pretty heavily with the set of people who gain from upper-bracket tax cuts and various government “corporate-welfare” subsidies. In other words, the set of interests we are talking about is anything but ignored by the Republican Party. It just is not meaningfully—by which I mean organizationally—libertarian.

And indeed, there is no organized left in the US, either.

Regarding Nader, he certainly is not a party builder, which is why he and the Greens (who are in any case only marginally better organized as a party than the Libertarians) split after 2000.)

Or maybe the third step?
27th?
The premises are locking up the whole subject there.
First conceit, that all forms of tyranny are now in the Codex, so anything that happens will have clear parallel precedent and come to us pre-named.
Second conceit, that “fascism” will need to take predictable steps that will be easily identifiable in order to assume control, and you’ll see it coming long before it’s too late.
Third not so much a conceit as a failure of imagination and attention, that the “drug wars” have anything to do with drugs except as economic commodities.
Look at what a perfect rationale the laws provide for the arrest and neutralization of social threats. Not to mention the damage done to the most likely demographics to confront and resist the dominant power.
Look at how easily the drug laws can be repurposed to intimidate and demand the cooperation of the adventurous young.
Busted for weed?
Five years in the big house, unless you want to help us out with some info and surveillance tech placement.
But the big happy thing, the idea that “their use will be scaled back down as the 9/11 continues to recedes and the wars in the Middle East wind down”, whoa there hey.
You’ll want to be eliminating a large piece of the contemporary public to see that happen.
Like say all those millions of Christian Zionists.
Because they’re never going to back off the Holy Land, until they own it or they’re gone from the world.
Fascism’s one thing, psychotic theocrats with guns and legal representation is quite another.

Slocum never disappoints.

The Bush administration has consistently ignored legal restrictions on executive authority in every area whatsoever, torture being only the most egregious of his offenses. there is no reason to hope for a “scaling back down” at any time for any reason.

Shorter Slocum: I’m a libertarian except when things get serious.

I want to give Democrats 2 years to do whatever they want, hoping they’ll scale back the latest GOP grand schemes.

If they do too much corruption in the 1st two years, making up for lost time, then I’ll look at bringing back enough republicans to stop them or better yet bring in some libertarians. I’ve reached the point I don’t trust the GOP for anything, including reining in democrats.

Yes. But my sense of these issues is that they were excesses born of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (or at least amplified—extraordinary rendition began under Clinton) and that their use will be scaled back down as the 9/11 continues to recedes and the wars in the Middle East wind down. If I believed that Gitmo was the first step on a slippery slope into fascism (a la Naomi Wolf) then other issues would, indeed, be immaterial. But that’s not what I expect.

What I do believe, instead, is that the civil liberties abuses of the drug war are much more pernicious and much more likely to persist—middle of the night, paramilitary-style SWAT raids on the homes of private citizens have no place in a free society (and note that this is also something that upper middle-class whites are highly unlikely to experience—though sometimes ‘mistakes are made’). But the responsibility for this problem lies with state and local governments more than the federal government and, because Democrats and Republics are equally responsible, it seems to have a hard time gaining traction. I would, in fact, be willing to be a single-issue voter on an end to the war on drugs—but not, at this point, on Gitmo.

But to suggest that their shortcomings on these issues are reasons to vote Republican in 2008…it just boggles the mind. I can’t begin to get my head around it.

But, then, you’re not a libertarian. And it’s not a parliamentary system—we’re not electing a party that will then appoint a prime minister. I’m not suggesting anybody vote a straight Republican ticket, and I certainly won’t (and never have). In fact, as a libertarian, I hope for divided government—Republicans and Democrats tend to slow down and scale back each other’s grand schemes.

Because change at the national level will require a large number of changes by the 50 states one at a time, and because in most cases one or both of the two official parties will refuse to accept that. As it is now, “first-past-the-post” destroys national third parties. They can be wreckers and nothing else.

As a centrist Perot was as successful as a third party candidate could be, but his movement didn’t last and was only partially successful in attaining a rather limited goal. Most who call for a third party are on the left or the right and for that reason can’t be as successful as Perot was; a left party can’t draw from the Republicans and will always rightly be seen as a splinter weakening the Democrats.

I do not oppose wrecker third parties as such, but the Nader attempt in 2000, which I supported, was a disaster.

I also do not oppose state and local third parties, but I don’t expect them to have a major impact nationally. Most tend to be personality cults.

If so, that differs from Obama on FISA —how?

It’s different because it’s a different issue, Slocum. I conceded the point on wiretapping. I won’t do so on torture, because McCain has been utterly silent on the issue on the campaign trail, and the Democrats haven’t. Obama promised to end torture at the Democratic convention, unequivocally. McCain preferred not to bring it up.

Obama has pledged to close Gitmo and restore habeas corpus. McCain has said nothing.

I would have thought that if there were a bright line issue for a libertarian, torture and habeas corpus would be it. But I think we’ve established that “free trade” and lower marginal tax rates for the wealthy are pretty much the alpha and omega of your libertarianism, and waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, and “stress positions” are trivial details. It’s not like they’re going to start rounding up upper-middle-class white professionals and shipping them to Gitmo anytime soon, so no biggie.

The bitter irony here is that on a hell of a lot of issues, Obama has been a profound disappointment to my lefty, antiwar self. And you’re correct that Bill Clinton’s record on civil liberties was mediocre at best. I wouldn’t describe myself as a “fan” of either man. But to suggest that their shortcomings on these issues are reasons to vote Republican in 2008…it just boggles the mind. I can’t begin to get my head around it.

As for getting support for changing to IRV balloting from major party legislators I think it is more possible than you do. Again, if we had automatic runoff balloting in 2000 I suspect we would have seen Gore win based on the second ranking count of Nader ballots. Wouldn’t this argument help build support for the idea among Democrats? The same logic applies to Republicans who look at the elections in which Perot or Buchanan ran.

Even more importantly, I think a significant portion of un-enrolled independent voters would see this change as very desirable, as should voters who belong to any and all alternate parties. It is the one plank that could and should become part of the Libertarian platform … and the Green platform and the Socialist platform and Constitution Party platform.

J Thomas makes good points in 60 for a possible way to begin to get the change to IRV rolling.

Any more? I mean, you’re doing a great impression of someone motivated by spite, at the moment. Lots about how people somehow didn’t read what you clearly wrote. Lots about how you want to vote out of spite, but you won’t really, but boy you really don’t like people like me. Any more illustrations of what people like you are motivated by that you’d like to add?

This distinction has saved me from many beatings.

Unfortunately it is a bit more difficult to explain your confusion about my planned voting choices. You say:
“You then said that you were going to vote for McCain anyways”

while actually what I said was:
“I plan on supporting Obama”
and
“I was gonna support Obama in SPITE of folks like yourself”

That kind of misunderstanding cannot be ascribed to pure stupidity alone. There’s gotta be some straight up malice involved.