My other choices left or right are statists.

It’s a fact that the candidate of one of the two major parties will be elected.

Therefore, as Neo says, Not voting for the lesser of two evils allows the greater evil to get into (or in this case stay in) power.

It really is that simple, and this year the choices are particularly stark.

Seems like part of the problem is that folks keep looking for a political “savior” and keep finding humans instead. I agree with Neo, in that I don’t think its the line up of candidates that’s so different now. I think it’s the perception of the situation and the increased desperation of the voters.

Biden, heck no. The crop that ran last time. Well, Kucinich may run again, but he’ll do no better. Hillary, after 4 more years. I don’t think so.

Unknowns and has beens.

2016 may well be too late to avoid full nanny statehood but I’d point out that Europe provides proof that socialism is unsustainable. Their whole house of cards is going to collapse, they’re teetering on the edge of Thatcher’s aphorism; “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend”

They and we, are going to learn a brutal lesson in living beyond our means by implementing socialism; “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. “ C.S. Lewis

“I guess you probably know that it only took 5 yrs for Peron to “fundamentally transform” Argentina.”

Studied Peron in college; Latin American history, the prof. claimed he was the “most successful dictator in history” and made a hell of a case for it 🙂

Of course, we’d all rather avoid becoming another Argentina but they survived and so will we.

Thanks for fine tuning your post. I think we are mostly in agreement except that you and Neo are probably more optimistic than me.
I am unfortunately of the opinion that, if Obama is re-elected, 2016 will be to late. In the sense of living in a country that more resembles Europe. No longer prizing and protecting individual liberty, extreme wealth redistribution and the disincentives it provides, and the alarming totalitarian tendencies.
The reasons I don’t think “…the left’s whole rationale runs up against reality…” is going to happen is twofold. One – what is happening in Europe now. Very few of them seem to want to face reality. And second, were the lessons of communism’s failures learned or even FDR & LBJ?
Obama has set the wheels in motion. That is why he spent 2yrs getting healthcare passed. Why he risked losing Congress and ignored the public. He knew that people like “free stuff” and they really don’t like having it taken away from them. I agree with Mark Steyn that nothing will more fundamentally change the relationship between the citizenry and their government.
I guess you probably know that it only took 5 yrs for Peron to “fundamentally trasform” Argentina.

Sorry for not being clearer. I thought my first paragraph clearly established that my view was just the opposite.

Under no circumstances would I vote for Obama. I’d rather cut my throat.

I don’t think it would be ‘better’ for him to win at all. I just pointed out what a winning republican will face upon election and what is needed to turn our ship of state away from the rocks ahead. Don’t shoot the messenger, though I’m open to having a reasoned rebuttal show me where I am in error.

“The people that buy into the lies of Democrats and their propaganda media aren’t going to wake up just because things get even worse. HELLO. The Dems will just lie more loudly and more outrageously. And those few people that aren’t too stupid to finally figure things out will find that the train already left the station.”

The people that currently buy into the lies of the democrats and MSM comprise a solid 30-40% of the American people. And that’s the folks in the middle; (independents, ‘moderate’ democrats & RINO’s). While perhaps another 25% of the American public are committed leftists.

If things get bad enough that “those few people that aren’t too stupid to finally figure things out will find that the train already left the station” it will be too few to prevent consensus.

“you think these poor duped people are going to wake up when a Republican wants to tell him the gravy train has to stop?”

Of course not, which is why a strong mandate and overwhelming consensus is needed.

My point is that such a consensus does not exist in 2012, but that after 4 more years of over-his-pay-grade Obama ‘leadership’… that one may exist in 2016.

My point is that we are slowly sinking into the morass of an all inclusive nanny state and that only great pain is going to awaken us from it. That in my view is demonstrated by the fact that so many still think Obama is doing a good job! Sadly, 20-35% of Americans are drinking the koolaid. And no, I don’t think they’re stupid, just brainwashed by incessant propaganda by the media, academia and other organs of the left.

Until the left’s whole rationale runs up against unyielding reality, no further progress will be made in exposing its intellectual bankruptcy.

“So, you must work for gradual change”

We have before, we just have to remember where we started (as the underdog and we got this far)… before starting over and compensating for our mistakes… one of the biggies; I think we have to encourage some of our kids / grandkids to go into education, government, and law… to save the country…

When a tree falls in the forest it does make a sound even if no living creature possessing auditory organs is there to hear it. IMO an intentional non-vote is a tree falling in a vacuum and living creatures with auditory organs hear nothing beyond the silence of a vacuum. You might as well intentionally non-vote in a black hole.