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Comment by sd8f9iu | Hacker News Reader

So I should support a third party that will get no representation in the government and have no impact? We live in a two-party system whether you like it or not, and it's not changing anytime soon.

I quickly grow weary of the constant anti-establishment chant on HN to "vote out all the incumbents" (not going to happen) and support an independent candidate (not going to get elected). How about I vote for the one of the two major parties that didn't opt for the useless wars that spurned this and didn't authorize torture in the first place? I know Obama hasn't prosecuted Bush, Cheney, and the other torture enablers (it's political suicide in case you didn't know), but at least he didn't let it happen under his watch.

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Either way, your vote is thrown away. Even if you live in a perennial swing state like Ohio, you're vanishingly unlikely to swing the election to the party that beats you with a velvet glove instead of iron knuckles. And if you don't live in one of those states, it's... even more vanishingly unlikely.

The issue with voting isn't that it influences the government one way or another: it doesn't, and pretty much any of us can get more influence by working all those hours we would otherwise think about politics and using that money to purchase connections with actual power brokers (though even that is mostly a waste).

The real issue with it is its influence on your identity. Electoral politics is a twisted parody of real politics, morphing autonomous values and communal choices into something closer to the emotions felt when watching team sports. My guy good, your guy good. Which isn't bad, in itself--it's a form of entertainment like any other. But it's not real politics.

My suggestion would be to skip voting for all federal offices and maybe even state offices, and focus on the local, if you must do electoral politics.

This is a nonsense attitude. If you vote for a party, then you 're acknowledging that you want them in power. If you don't want them, stop voting for them. Sure, your action won't get a 3rd party elected, but neither will your incumbent vote be needed for the incumbent to stay in power. It's just a psychological illusion of "voting for the winner" and not "wasting" it that drives people to oppose their own interests. Within the past 20 years there have been several 3rd parties with some chance, but enough of their supporters decided not to "waste" their vote that none of them ever made it.

For the presidency, under which the power to enact or prosecute torture lies, there's been no chance for a third-party candidate in my lifetime (and I've seen one election, 2000, thrown in the wrong direction because too many people voted for Nader).

In any event, 3rd parties often look so honest and admirable because they've never had to hold power and make tough decisions. If any of them managed to hold power for a significant portion of time, we'd be clamoring to vote them out of office for their misdeeds all the same. Part of politics is about accepting the dirtiness of the game and doing the best with what you have. I'll throw my support behind the party that's good enough for me, and has a chance of actually bringing about some meaningful change.

There's a lot of horrible things happening "under his watch"

e.g http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/obama-drone-program...

When the parties change and there's some more files revealed and what not, you'll be part of the people who voted for the party that did opt for X.

> So I should support a third party that will get no representation in the government and have no impact?

In a word, yes. If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you've still voted for evil. The government derives its legitimacy through votes. Even if you "throw your vote away" you can at least say that the ruling party did not derive a single quantum of legitimacy through you.

In that case you effectively voted for the greater evil. They probably played you too, by lending support to the third party to split the vote of the good people.

"at least he didn't let it happen under his watch."

People know so little about how the executive branch, including the President, must do the jobs that we, in our comfortable ignorance that maintains our lifestyle, need them to do for National Security.

At least Cheney is honest when he says he would do it again. There are many things that happen when you and your kids are comfortably sleeping or having hot cocoa.

Trust me. There are worse people in the world than the ones prople are blaming today. And it is just a matter of time before a drone takes care of them. And you want it that way.

If someone is uncomfortable with that notion, then maybe they should run for office or serve in some public capacity. But he or she will then discover the harsh reality.

Just watch a few videos of the news in 2001 or 2002 to refresh your memory a little about what we were asking our leaders to take care of.

I upvoted you. But Cheney is still rotten despite being honest. He doesn't deny that many in Gitmo are innocent (or not known to be guilty), yet still declares them terrorists. In that way he worked against your kids.

Of course, "there are bad people in the world, and hard, tough men like ourselves have to take care of them, even if it's unsavory to weak-minded civilians who just don't understand" is what the leaders of ISIS tell themselves to justify beheading reporters, Putin tells himself to justify shooting down civilian airliners, and Cheney tells himself to justify anal rape and murder of innocents as instruments of public policy.

All of them should be imprisoned to protect society from their machinations.

Consider that if you're so willing to compromise your principles on human rights for the benefit of your family then you're basically practicing tribalism. You might as well enslave a race, or subjugate a class, or annex a sovereign nation for the lebenstraum.

> There are many things that happen when you and your kids are comfortably sleeping or having hot cocoa.

Torture isn't even effective in getting any information. So you can't justify it on pragmatic grounds.

Anybody who feels the need to bolster their argument with "trust me" is trying to fuck you over. It's an ironclad rule that people will only say that when they know they shouldn't be trusted.

in a two-party system you get to democratically control your government through a single bit of information!

that's not a lot, unless you really up the frequency--except that one's fixed at per four years.

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