Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Liberty for Massachusetts? Unlikely, but worth pursuing anyway

I'm taking a break -- just finished another 100 name/phone number matches for the Massachusetts Libertarian "Get Out The Vote" phone banks -- and I'd like to take a minute to formally endorse Joe Kennedy.

He's not one of "those" Kennedys, as he's gone out of his way to make clear (Democrat Martha Coakley's campaign has also been vocal in driving home that point, for obvious reasons).

This Kennedy is the pro-freedom candidate -- the only pro-freedom candidate -- in today's election to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death.

Just to elaborate a bit on that point: If you're a Massachusetts voter and you vote for anyone but Joe Kennedy today, you're voting against freedom, baseball, apple pie, Mom and America.

Whether or not you're a Massachusettsian, if you're voting or working for or donating to or talking up any candidate except Joe Kennedy today, you're pissing on the graves of the Lexington and Concord Minutemen. You're spiking the cannon that Knox dragged down from Ticonderoga. You're making a mockery of the Boston Tea Party and you're dancing in the blood of Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr.

Yes, it really is that simple.

Can Kennedy win? Well, yes -- if a plurality of Massachusetts voters decide to support him.

Is that likely to happen? Of course not. Libertarians haven't yet persuaded a plurality of Massachusetts voters that we represent their highest aspirations while the Republicans and Democrats represent nothing worthy of support.

Does it matter whether or not Kennedy wins? Yes, it does. Because he will not win, the Senate will remain 100% anti-freedom instead of becoming even a paltry 1% pro-freedom. Over the course of Ted Kennedy's unexpired term, it's likely that that one pro-freedom vote would have made a difference in any number of bills -- passing them, defeating them, or amending them to make them better.

Since he won't win, does it matter which of the two anti-freedom candidates wins? Not really.

There are differences between Brown and Coakley, and between their parties, but not differences substantial enough to merit supporting either one. Do you really care that much whether the creatures gnawing the flesh off your bones are coyotes or happen to be hyenas?

Voting for or otherwise supporting Joe Kennedy means never having to say you're sorry. It means knowing that you did the best you could do for Massachusetts and for America. That's something worth knowing about yourself even if 95% of the people around you couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't put down the Demopublican crack pipe.

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