However, in elections where the electorate is divided 50-50 for each candidate the practical power of the vote becomes 1/(differnce of votes between candidate A and B) which gives the voter a higher power rating, if you will. As an example the power of the single voter became much more important in the recent win by Al Franken in Minnesota where he won by a little more than 300 votes.

Now having said all of that the fact remains that whether you vote for candidate A or B, or don’t vote at all you are still stuck with the winner’s representation whether you agree or disagree with how your representative votes in the House of Representatives, Senate, or at a local level.

This will always be a problem at some level in a representative based government. The founders had a much tighter set of requirements for who could vote and for what office. Voting was initially limited to those who had a stake in the outcome. If I remember correctly you had to be a white male landowner to vote (I don’t remember the limitations on age). So in a very real sense the founders not only provided a means to success in terms of limited government and capitalism. Becoming a land owner gave the individual the right to play a more active role in what was then a more limited electorial and governmental process. Those who had a real stake in system had voting rights not those of us who would just vote to increase the benefits paid to us by Federal largese.

As a side note in 1993 I made a business trip to Italy. We stayed in Ostia on the Mediterranean Sea. It was pretty obvious that land was not available to the vast majority of the Italian people. I came back to the States with a whole new appreciation for the founders’ respect for private property rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/opinion/31rich.html

And a Lew Rockwell article skeptical of Tea Party people who have objected to Obama acting as Bushx2 (double the bailouts, double the Afghan war, double the TARP).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/stevo8.1.1.html

Laurence Vance on a real “libertarian/constitutional” “Pledge to America”:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance213.html

Alternatively, we have James Huggins: “But, we need to do all we can to fight the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is all we’ve got…. I would be certainly interested to hear what some of these folks consider to be solutions.”

My response: (1) Suppose McCain had beaten Obama in 2008 – so he would have continued the TARP and AutoBailouts that he supported and doubled the troops in Afghanistan (2) He probably would have also passed some sort of Romney-Huckabee-Care instead of Obamacare. So what is the solution? We replaced Constitutional (limited) government with Democracy (unlimited) in the 1930’s with popular support for massive federal government intervention in the economy, business, world affairs, and individual health/retirement/education.

ONLY when a majority turns from that interventionist philosophy will there ever be any “SOLUTION” beyond biennial “crook rotation” in Washington DC.

My position is simple: vote by absentee ballot to avoid wasting time going to the polls. Vote no on all spending and regulatory measures. Anything that reduces personal freedom gets a thumbs-down.

As for candidates, unless the name is Ron Paul, be prepared to be disappointed. I leave it blank or vote libertarian in protest.

My conscience dictates that I refuse to participate in the looting and killing machine.

We have 435 members in the House of Representatives. In 1970 the USA had about 200 million people. This put the size of a congressional district at 460 thousand. In 2000, the USA had 300 million people. This increased the size of a congressional district to 690 thousand. In 2050 the USA is supposed to have a population of 450 million. This would increase the size of a congressional district to over 1 million.

Since almost all of this growth is attributed to immigration, we have yet another side effect of open borders, the watering down of the vote.