I can relate to this on some level…
Why would I abandon the candidate for whom I had great hopes for change in 2008, a president from my own home state of Illinois, Barack Obama? In fact, I even made a libertarian case for Obama in 2008 at Reason.com—which turned out to be hoping against nothing but hope.
For me, that hope turned to despair when President Obama ramped up another hideous elective war, putting tens of thousands of young men and women in harm’s way in Afghanistan; rammed through a taxpayer and deficit-funded corporate welfare program for drug and insurance companies, in the guise of health care reform; and reneged on promises to slow prosecutions in the assault on personal freedom, the violence-creating neo-Prohibition known as the war on drugs.
While some Democrats may avert their eyes from that record, this libertarian Democrat is going to vote on principle. Gov. Gary Johnson balanced New Mexico’s budget all 8 years he served; he pledges to end the insanity in Afghanistan immediately; he is committed to legalizing drugs, to ending the government-induced black market that drives up profits and causes Mexican cartels to murder thousands, like the Al Capone murder and mayhem created by alcohol Prohibition. And he wants to end handouts to corporations that see the U.S. Treasury as a giant ATM, stocked with cash by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
I have been a slave to political pragmatism during my four decades in these 10 square miles surrounded by reality known as Washington, D.C. But this year, I encourage my Jeffersonian, classical liberal friends, in each party and neither, to send a simple message to both my party and the Republicans, in the form of votes for Gary Johnson.
I most agree with Michaels’ despair about President Obama’s handling of the conflict in Afghanistan and the corporate welfare program for drug and insurance companies in the guise of “health care reform.” What’s more, President Obama’s justification for the assassination of American citizens (whether here or abroad) without due process through the use of unmanned drones and his unwillingness to stand with his allies in organized labor give me reason to question why exactly I’m even thinking about casting my vote for the “Democratic” president when he really seems to be nothing more than the less flawed of two imperfect presidential candidates.
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