I’m just going to say one thing about the third party presidential debate that’s being held Tuesday night. I won’t be watching the debate and I don’t much care about it. I’m sure my rhetorical sympathies would be with the things said by Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, but I can’t say that I want anyone to vote for him. I don’t want anyone to vote for anyone, because I don’t want a ruler.
I don’t want a conservative ruler or a progressive ruler or a Green ruler or even a libertarian ruler. The problem is the fact that someone — anyone — is given power over you, not the identity or party label of the person given that power. Even if a third party had a chance to win, it wouldn’t change the root cause of our political situation. It would just hand power to someone slightly different — until the Establishment took back over. So the problem is the system itself, not who gets elected, which is why the third party debate is irrelevant to me, at best.
If you’d like to argue that the two mainstream parties unfairly keep out the other parties, I’ll agree with you. If you want to argue that the “winner take all” system here makes it impossible for smaller minority opinions to have much of a seat at the table of democracy, I’ll agree with you there, too. But arguing about those flaws overlooks the basic issue.
I don’t want any ruler, no matter what party he comes from.