Nov
5
2006

URLs du Voting

Here's irony for you: it's increasingly tough for me to get all excited about politics just before an election.

  • For one thing, as they say, no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. Russell Roberts reminds us what that means.
    A woman asked me if there was anything I thought government did better than the private sector. Sure, I replied. Killing people.
    His Exhibit A is "Theory, Evidence and Examples of FDA Harm" from http://www.fdareview.org. It's not just vegemite, mates!

  • As a related treat, Greg Mankiw offers a column he wrote for Fortune magazine back in 2000—that they refused to run:
    As election day gets close, get ready to hear the usual exhortations about voting. … responsible people all agree that everyone should be encouraged to vote. It's a national disgrace, the hand-wringers say, that millions of eligible voters fail to turn out in presidential elections. Voting is a civic responsibility, they tell us, because democracy works best when everyone participates.

    The problem is, this isn't true. Sometimes the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home.

    Read the whole thing to find out why.

  • On the other hand, Orson Scott Card has not gotten all above-it-all and cynical, and he has a pretty strong recommendation for you and me:
    There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

    And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

    If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

    Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

    But at least there will be a chance.

    The remainder of the essay is a strong big-picture view of the War on Terror, and if you've overdosed on the mainstream media's negativism, it's a bracing change of pace. (Via LGF.)