Our Voting Options

[ClayBarham]

If you could boil it down to its smallest common denominator, how would you describe the reasoning behind the way you vote? Is there a simple answer to this question? I think there is, and it goes to the source of the vote, the head or the heart. Am I saying you have two minds in which to decide a course of action, such as voting? Sure! Just the same as when you buy a new car or suit of clothing, you use your heart or gut, what we call the subjective, sometimes irrational mind. You do not buy things like that using your head, your reasoning, objective mind. The heart most often rules, and it applies to the way we vote.

Political candidates and parties today offer two options from which people chose and vote. The dominant option is altruistic, in that community interests define our voting choice on the one hand. This is the feeling, heart-generated source of our decision-making. On the other hand, legitimate individual self-interest is the egoistic or rational option, only found in America, and the head is its source. For the most part, choices in the rest of the world originate more from the heart. It comes from fear, hate, anger and envy of how people see each other, in or out of their own borders. They accept monarchs and dictators of all shades, from all parties, who claim to support their own community interests. They promise to serve communal interests. Misery has always accompanied their programs, however. The heart is proven unreliable in politics.

America began with the values and actions of a few immigrants who landed in New England almost 400 years ago. They had no big government or army to protect them or guide their choices. They had to use their own heads and reason to make choices as free individuals. It became a habit. They pursued a course for individual freedom, where individuals could chase their dreams and visions, create, build and do as their interests, skills, talents and aspirations told them. When the time came to vote for people to run essential government services, they did not vote altruistically, from the heart, but from the head for those who would do the job and not meddle in their lives. Achieving comfort in their freedoms, they got lazy and the heart tended to overcome the head. They began to vote more with the heart, growing a more meddling government to take from those who have to give to those who have not, bypassing all the ordinary charitable inclinations people had shown before.

The source of our voting decisions, then, is the heart, from altruistic feelings toward the needs of community, or the head, to stay the course for individual freedom, the proven source of our prosperity and happiness as a nation.

What does it look like for the 2008 choices Americans will make? The heart is always stronger than the head in leading us to choices. The heart makes quick decisions. The head must stop and think about it. If you have to think about it, chances are you will vote to keep our freedoms intact, to support the laws already found best for America. The sales representative trying to get you to buy his automobile wants you to have feelings of love and admiration for the beautiful vehicle you can see and touch before you. He really does not want you to stop and think about it. The politician wants you to feel for the community and its needs and give them the keys to power. If you stopped to ponder it, you would see that free people provide prosperity, not politicians planning and managing everyone’s communal life. That prosperity and happiness only comes from people being free to live their own lives with no dictates from government telling them they cannot.

Democrats have positioned themselves to attract the heart vote, to give you warm and fuzzy feelings of doing something for the little guy. Republicans are left with the head vote, to keep America as it was founded, a free and prosperous nation ruled by the people themselves and not the government. Which option will you follow, your heart or your head?

[Elrathin]

Sorry to burst your bubble Clay, but people vote with both, whether you like it or not.

Your posts seem to always want to generalize people into two categories (Either Republican/Democrat or Conservative/Liberal) and then you proceed to make wild accusations about the Democrats or Liberals without any sort of evidence to back up your claims. Maybe that type of debating works with a 5 year old, but it doesn't work with adults. Try again.

[ClayBarham]

So, all my years as a psychologist's have been for naught. Oh, I am so ashamed of myself for thinking when I should be feeling and weeping. Evidence, however, implies thinking, doesn't it? And where do I get the evidence to support my statements if not the thinking of other people? And, from where do they get their evidence? So, I can see your point, that thinking is wrong and should be avoided lest one stumble accidentally on a fact.

[Deadshot]

Clay, the GOP claiming to be the "head" or "smart" party with Bush in power is a joke!

But do you really want to know why we only have a limited choice of to vote for? It's because anyone with a skeleton in his closet (drug related, sexual, family, etc.) has to know that their life will be gleefully dragged through the mud not just by their opposite number but the blood hungry press!

That's why your choices are limited. Many good, good people would not run knowing that their spouse or church or family would be deluged with hate!

[Elrathin]

So, all my years as a psychologist's have been for naught. Oh, I am so ashamed of myself for thinking when I should be feeling and weeping. Evidence, however, implies thinking, doesn't it? And where do I get the evidence to support my statements if not the thinking of other people? And, from where do they get their evidence? So, I can see your point, that thinking is wrong and should be avoided lest one stumble accidentally on a fact.


Clay if you were truly a psychologist you would know that you are unable to lump Americans into two categories only.

And I have proof of my own, I don't fall into just one of two categories and neither does anyone else I know. So what does that say about your generalizations? That not only are they flawed and full of errors, that the premise of you being an actual psychologist is now put into question because there are none that I know of practicing that would put over 300 million people into just two categories.

[Buck Laser]

So, all my years as a psychologist's have been for naught. <snip>

As a psychologist's what, Clay? :madlaugh:

[bobbylien]

I'd vote for a strong fiscal conservative but there aren't any of those anymore.

[ClayBarham]

El Rathin.....think back to the last time you bought a car, and tell me that was a true rational decision without any feelings. Also, I did not lump Americans into two categories, but all people into two means of making choices, with the head or the heart, thinking or feeling. Whoopi Goldberg, when interviewed on Bill O'Reilly's show, said she feels and Bill thinks, which she said was the difference between liberals and conservatives. However, everyone feels about the things around them, and few think about them.

[Elrathin]

El Rathin.....think back to the last time you bought a car, and tell me that was a true rational decision without any feelings.

It was bought by using BOTH rational thought and feeling. Do you understand that? Both were used, not one or the other.


Also, I did not lump Americans into two categories, but all people into two means of making choices, with the head or the heart, thinking or feeling.

And again it is false to say EVERY decision process is either one or the other. Both can be involved when making a decision.


Whoopi Goldberg, when interviewed on Bill O'Reilly's show, said she feels and Bill thinks, which she said was the difference between liberals and conservatives. However, everyone feels about the things around them, and few think about them.


I'm sorry I wasn't aware Whoopi Goldberg spoke for all liberals. She doesn't speak for me. Again, its that whole gneralization thing that gets you in trouble each and every time because you are proven wrong.

[ClayBarham]

Yes, I believe you when you say you used BOTH when buying a car, the "feeling" that attracted you to the car and the THINKING used to justify the FEELING, kinda like everyone else.

[moses2792796]

I'd say anyone who thinks realistically and thinks outside the narrow paths they are presented with would realise that both sides are doing virtually the same thing with slightly different methods. I find it amusing that the op is so adamantly against emotional decision making but his ideas seem to revolve around emotional symbolism, freedom, equality etc. None of which seem to have any basis in reality. What we need is not to think, left or right, we need to think about a system of government that genuinely directs the community towards a constructive, ascendent goal. ClayBarham, every major political party in a democratic system tries to appeal primarily to the emotions, because 90% of people make their decisions based on a feeling, whether they would admit it or not. Most factors that people take into account when voting revolve around something with very little real significance, therefore they vote subjectively/emotionally.

[ClayBarham]

You've hit the nail on the head, when you say "We need to think about a system of government that genuinely directs the community towards a constructive, ascendent goal." This way, you can return to the years of old when kings and queens did all that thinking for us, and we can all "feel" good or bad about it, though no one will care how we fee.

[moses2792796]

All it means is that the direction of the community isn't controlled by individual self-interest, that doesn't mean anyone is forced not to pursue them.

[ClayBarham]

Yeah, but the justifying comes after the decision was made.

[Osborn F. Enready]

I vote based on the individuals record, (voting record if they have one, preferably they don't) and on their integrity.

The things I think are essential in the person I vote for:

A strong supporter of individual rights, as enumerated in the BOR.
A supporter of limited government.
A supporter of the Constitution, and its original intent.

The only person I can vote for in '08 for President, that wears a "major party" identification tag, is Ron Paul.

[ClayBarham]

I saw Ron Paul on Beck's show today, where he had more time to express his views. I am a Libertarian of the Albert Nock, Leonard Read variety, but not a Party Member because I have never come to a point where I could deal with their liberty of decision to allow the sale and use of dangerous brain poisons, although that violates even my own libertarian leanings. In other words, even of that issue I wobble from side to side. I do not see anyone else, aside from Ron Paul and Alan Keyes, talking about restoring America to her roots and individual freedom and I am concerned about abandoning the GOP and the hope of keeping the Supreme Court out of Hillary's hands. That is my main concern, the Court, even though there is no guarantee we wouldn't get another Kennedy or O'Conner, who were both Reagan appointees.

[Osborn F. Enready]

Clay said:
but not a Party Member because I have never come to a point where I could deal with their liberty of decision to allow the sale and use of dangerous brain poisons, although that violates even my own libertarian leanings.

So you don't recognize peoples inherant right to liberty of consumption?

I have to ask how you think this falls into the powers of the state or fed?

[ClayBarham]

It is the one issue where I must admit confusion. My libertarian side says the government should have no business getting in the way of anyone's choices, as long as those choices hurt no one else. The problem is those choices do hurt others, and the hurt should be prevented and punished. It is obvious the Federal Government cannot punish or prevent, and it spends billions of our money on their incompetency. I really have to lean more for the Libertarian answer which was, in the beginning, the only answer and we did not all die off under it. (I'm convincing myself). It is like abortion, and the so-called choice. That does harm, if you see the child as a human being (and I do). I believe that choice is also part of the Libertarian philosophy, and I cannot accept it. On the other hand, I cannot accept the idea that the incompetent bloated bureaucracy can do anything about it either.

[Shintao]

So, all my years as a psychologist's have been for naught. <snip>

As a psychologist's what, Clay?


Well, Bush self-diagnosed his mental health. Maybe conservatives think they are psychologists as well? Heck, I'm a psychologist to, and I tend to disagree with about 90% of Clay's hypothesis. So maybe we all are political psychologists. Liberal psychoanalysis of political diagnosis. :ecstatic::evil::bye::help::dizzy:

[Mark L Hamburger]

It is the one issue where I must admit confusion. My libertarian side says the government should have no business getting in the way of anyone's choices, as long as those choices hurt no one else. The problem is those choices do hurt others, and the hurt should be prevented and punished. It is obvious the Federal Government cannot punish or prevent, and it spends billions of our money on their incompetency. I really have to lean more for the Libertarian answer which was, in the beginning, the only answer and we did not all die off under it. (I'm convincing myself). It is like abortion, and the so-called choice. That does harm, if you see the child as a human being (and I do). I believe that choice is also part of the Libertarian philosophy, and I cannot accept it. On the other hand, I cannot accept the idea that the incompetent bloated bureaucracy can do anything about it either.


The government has no place to say what you can and can't put in your body. It's not what you put in your body that hurts others, it's what you do under the influence of that does. You should be punished for your actions toward others, not for what you put in your body.

And they aren't children, they are fetuses. There are many pro-life libertarians, they just don't believe it's the federal governments place to regulate (ban) OR finance abortions as they do now. It should be done at the state or even local level.

I'm a libertarian of the Thomas Jefferson and David Nolan variety ;)

[Yarp]

clay check your pm, I asked you a question.

[ClayBarham]

I too go along with Jefferson and Madison, but know nothing of David Nola, so I'll Google hi. I agree that it matters not what you put into your body, but how you act under its influence. As to the fetus, I disagree with you and agree that it is a baby in progress, and if it can be killed in the oven, it will be possible to euthanize it later when it may become a nuisance.

[Mark L Hamburger]

I too go along with Jefferson and Madison, but know nothing of David Nola, so I'll Google hi. I agree that it matters not what you put into your body, but how you act under its influence. As to the fetus, I disagree with you and agree that it is a baby in progress, and if it can be killed in the oven, it will be possible to euthanize it later when it may become a nuisance.


David Nolan was one of the co-founders of the LP.

I was joking about the fetus comment, but I still believe that abortion is something that should be left up to the mother, it is still a part of the womans body. The line is very clear on the issue, it's called birth. Before that, it's not murder, after that, it is.