The Minor Candidate Lament

If I thought he had even a remote possibility of winning the nomination, I’d vote for Mike Gravel.  He doesn’t, so I won’t, which is too bad.

As some others have observed, I dislike broad category labels.  I tend to find that they range between useless and damaging by creating undue connotations.  I think when people ask me about my political philosophy I say something overly hyphenated, like, “libertarian-leaning-liberal”.  “Liberal” and “Conservative” are utterly useless terminology.  They tell you nothing; they’re the political equivalent of racial slurs.

If I actually described my political positions, I think basically everyone would say I was a Libertarian.  Except for actual Libertarians who would ask me I’m so in love with big government.  I can’t be a Libertarian.  Why?  I’m not fundamentally opposed to welfare systems, for one thing.  And I generally think the appropriate scope of federal government action is considerably broader than an actual Libertarian could allow.

I’m supportive of Ron Paul even though I disagree with him on several major issues and am very disturbed by his rather nuanced reading of the Establishment clause.  But I’m supportive of him because he’s closer to my philosophy than the major candidates.  Also he has at least established some presence in this election year.  Whether he’s winning crap or not, he’s doing well enough that people are likely to *look* and *listen*.  And I think that’s a big deal.  A lot of my movement toward a philosophy of limited government came from addressing simple assumptions I’d always had.  Sometimes ideas are so distant from the status quo and the way we are used to thinking about things that they just seem laughable!  And that’s fine.  Skepticism is healthy.  But so is consideration.  Somebody says something crazy.  Is it so crazy?  Maybe it actually makes sense.

I think drug policy was the first one like this for me.  I never drank or smoked or used any recreational drugs except for caffeine when I was in High School.  I grew up in the culture of D.A.R.E. and “This is your brain on drugs” and so forth.  “Drug” people were like this evil underbelly of society.  But then I got pretty open-minded in high school and I looked around on the internet to see what the crazy-loony-druggie opposition said (where the hell would I have found this kind of thing without the internet?  anyone who doesn’t understand how this technology has totally altered the nature of my generation is pitifully blind).  And I thought about it.  This actually resulted in a major change in my thoughts about the role a criminal justice system ought to play in general.  Why the hell are we putting people in jail for this?  I have trouble even remembering the context in which that notion could have made sense.

But anyway, i was reading over Wikipedia Pete’s “Political Positions of” article for Mike Gravel.  It turns out he’s even closer to my philosophy than Ron Paul.  He’s also fucking hilarious.  He’s so hilarious you can tell that he’s an actual person.  An old ornery Alaskan who thinks government can play a PROACTIVE positive role in society, but right now it’s just…full of shit.  He’s pro universal health care and pro drug decriminilization.  He also has weird and interesting ideas like a constitutional amendment to let the public vote on federal issues (as many states already do).  I mean I’m not sure if I think that’s a good idea or not, but I think it reflects the kind of open-mindedness our political leaders seem to sorely lack.

So, yeah, too bad Gravel’s campaign isn’t Serious Business.  Sighs.