We the editors should have put this up last week. Our apologies to the author whom we know to be a stand-up person. — Ed.
Witness an EAU member’s experience on a well known college campus the day Barack Obama won the presidency:
Well, I voted today! For Chuck Baldwin, of course. I was juggling backand forth between Baldwin and McCain. “How on earth can you juggle twocandidates who differ so much?” you ask.
A simple truth is thatevery vote for Chuck Baldwin takes away a vote from John McCain. Whileit does not “give a vote” to Barack Obama, like one person I knowclaims, it does give Obama a greater chance of winning the state.
Ivoted for neither major candidate because neither candidate representedmy views on the issues. This is how democracy should work, and it’svery sad that I even considered voting for one of them merely becauseone was the “lesser of two evils.”
I’ve heard a quote, though,that more accurately describes it: it’s not a vote between the lesserof two evils, but rather a vote for the evil of two lessers. I likethat.I consider myself a rather principled person, and every day I becomeless ashamed to voice my opinions associated with those principles. Ilearn more every day about how to argue, debate, and talk to people whodisagree with me, especially liberals and leftists. I’ll address thatmore in a future, upcoming post.
But, anyway, after I votedtoday (which took about 15-20 minutes, by the way), I grabbed a freecoffee at Starbucks (which they gave to you if you voted), walked to apopular place on campus, and watched the Obama circus. I thought Ihadn’t seen as many Obama stickers in my life before today; the sheervolume of Obama litter that I saw today made my head spin. The Obamastickers, pins, posters, flags, doorknob hangers, flyers, patches,hats, shirts, sweatshirts, wristbands, hats, and banners spawned likerabbits, with the core of the circus at this central point on theUniversity of Miami campus. I was wearing my “Ron Paul 2008” T-shirtwith a little “I Voted Today!” sticker, graciously supplied to me byMiami-Dade County. I got dirty looks; not just because of myblasphemous shirt, but also because I refused every piece of Obamagarbage that was pushed into my face. I stood amongst the throng ofObama sheep, stubborn as an ox, even when one of theObama-paraphernalia-pushers walked up to me and said to me:
“That Ron Paul shirt is just…like…”
That’sall she said. I stared at her for awhile, waiting for the completion ofa full sentence that was never to come. I finally broke the moronicsilence by saying “Oh yeah? I figured I’d try to balance all this outat least a little bit.” She walked away after scoffing. It waspriceless.