Yesterday, I said that I was going to try to convince you to "waste your vote" and send a loud "I'm not gonna take this any more" to Washington. Although I sense that a great many people already feel that way, I cannot emphasize too strongly that we must stop this monstrous runaway Federal government before they destroy our nation. All three branches of government have become completely corrupted by power. Both Congress and the Supreme Court have ceded their powers to the Executive branch, and its many oppressive agencies, in gutless response to claims of "wartime patriotism" and "national defense". If you want to know how devastating that power shift is, read Elaine Cassel's City Pages cover article "The Other War".

Make no mistake... the danger is not just from Bush and the Republicans. The Democrats are full accomplices in this mess. If Kerry is elected, all that power will be transferred to him, and we'll just have different faces hovering over us. The loss of our civil liberties does not depend on the party holding the White House. As Cassel notes:

Most critics of the terror war's assault on civil liberties mark its beginning with the Clinton administration's Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. But the US government's propensity for spying on its own citizens on the professed grounds of national security goes back much further...

It's all about power and votes. We've allowed ourselves to become burdened with two major parties who have become expert at maintaining the ever-increasing and balanced power between them. If those parties were corporations, they would have long ago been convicted of anti-trust and collusion, and their leaders would be in prison. But, they're not just taking excess profits, they're stealing liberties and corrupting the very foundations of our nation.

Last September, in Who do you trust?, I wrote of the American people:

• only 35% trust members of Congress to tell the truth.
• 80% say that big companies have too much power and influence in Washington,
• 78% say the same about political action committees,
• 72% say the same about news media
• 69% say the same about political lobbyists

The only reason corporations, PAC's, media, and lobbyists have too much power and influence is because the politicians in Washington, of both parties, SELL it to them. That is the inevitable result of political power; that it will be corrupted and corrupt all those who come in contact with it.

The only solution to corrupting power is to REDUCE THE POWER. Our Constitution did that, but politicians SEEKING more power have gradually torn that document to shreds. Virtually every piece of legislation introduced in Congress violates the Constitution and the oath that elected officials take to uphold it. Those officials are perfectly aware of what they're doing, and they don't give a damn. They do it because they CAN, and they CAN because American voters have let them get by with it repeatedly, returning more power-hungry R's and D's to Washington to share in the rape and pillage of the rest of us.

Voters must not continue to fall for the "we gotta keep XXXX out of office" argument. It's a very deliberate tactic used by both parties to scare their own partisans into not straying, and to insure that only the two parties can effectively compete. Voting for someone you dislike and don't trust because you dislike and distrust someone else even more is a recipe for disaster. When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always end up with evil.

Who to vote for? It's an easy choice for me... for many reasons, but the primary reason is a very simple one. For a previous election, I created a little animated ad for the Libertarian Browne campaign. It's been updated to Flash and for the current candidates. You can see the new version on the Badnarik website.

We don't need someone to tell us how to run our lives, and it's that open invitation we've been giving to ambitious power-seekers that has moved all that power to Washington. They've sucked it up as fast as we would allow. Many of us have begged them to take it from us.

Badnarik and all other libertarians know that we, THE PEOPLE, are the strength of our nation, and that we, with a small, responsive, responsible government, can run our nation with a dignity and peacefulness that have become only memories from our grand past.

The idea that our President is the "leader of the free world" and can dictate what other nations do, is both wrong and doesn't work. It's power run amok.

The idea that Washington can decide what is best for your family and mine and force it upon us is both wrong and doesn't work. It's power run amok.

As long as our government has the power, it will use it and abuse it, and it will do so until enough of us put our foots down and make it unmistakably clear that we've had enough. There is only one way to get that message to Republicans and Democrats, and that is by taking VOTES away from them. They may still win lots of seats, but we can at least get their attention by creating a THIRD FORCE to break up the D&R unholy alliance.

Libertarians have worked hard to provide the voters a consistent, workable, small-government choice for over 30 years. The Libertarian Party has presented candidates who do not want political power over you, who do not want to make your choices for you, and who do not want to make a career of politics. Libertarians can and will say NO when it counts. It's a matter of principle with libertarians. As proof that we're different than all other parties and candidates... Libertarians have turned down hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for their campaigns. Winning is important, but winning through the use of FORCE is winning nothing... it's a loss.

As you read yesterday, all of the "third-parties" have been redefining themselves and hustling to find some way to have an impact. All, that is, except the Libertarian Party, which is still larger than all the others combined, with more people in office, and organized in all 50 states.

The Libertarian platform is still the one you can read and understand, and that is complete and consistent from year to year. Libertarian issue positions are probably the only ones you can honestly agree or disagree with, because they're the only ones that mean what they say, and say what they mean. Isn't that refreshing?

Only one candidate and only one party wants to throw that power back where it belongs... in the hands of the people, away from centralized government. Our Federal government is completely out of sync with the American people, treating us like helpless slaves. If we don't put a stop to that very soon, it will continue to get worse. In another four years, it may very well be too late.

Tomorrow... more about the Libertarian candidate and issue positions.