>>When you vote Republican, you are empowering the people whose view of America is some sort of Zionist-type latter-day Israel

By that logic, when you vote Democrat, you must be empowering those that would turn America over to socialists and commies.

And when you vote Libertarian, you would turn power over to those people that would have anarchy.

There are kooks in every political party. You say Buchanan, I say Nader. You say Duke, I say Byrd.

Christ on a pogo stick, Lope. Did the aliens forget to remove their anal probe, or is that your head up there?

Political parties are vote-maximizing machines, nothing more. A fixed allegiance to any party is foolish. But to support a party's candidates based on its and their current postures -- their promotion of particular ideas and policies -- is perfectly sensible. Allocating your electoral support thus is all anyone can do...or are you proposing that all votes should be cast for write-in candidates?

At this time, Republicans' positions are immensely much more attractive to me than Democrats' positions, so I vote for them. The tiny fringe of the GOP that advocates theocracy is essentially unimportant, just as is the tiny fringe of the Democratic Party that advocates outright Marxism. To say otherwise without compelling evidence makes you look like a horse's ass.

This brief rant was brought to you by a former high official of a nationally organized political party: your humble Curmudgeon.

Francis:

I didn't really want to reply to you because I was afraid I'd escalate a war of words and name-calling, but aside from your disrespectful tone and minimalization of the influence of the religious right in GOP affairs, we agree completely.

The documentary about Oliver North running for Senate in Virginia was a real eye-opener on how the GOP cynically panders to the religious right. And I'm sure political machinations on the left are as bad or worse.

Even so, the so-called religious right wield far more power in the GOP than marxists do in the Democrat party - especially at the grass-roots level.

You don't have to agree with me - and I understand your motivation to discount the influence of the religious right - but I ask you to kindly refrain from corresponding with me in a disrepectful tone again.

What I do with consenting adult aliens and an assortment of colorful flavored probes is my personal business -- until I blog it. :)

I find it quite interesting that you at once argue that the Religious Right has too much power in the GOP and then argue against diluting that power with an influx of libertarians without a specific goal as to what one who wants their vote to be something more than Harry Browne's .5% of nothingness should actually do...

Are there enough libertarians to make a difference?

Okay.. let's have a head count. Everyone stand up.. 1, 2, 3, 4..

I think there are a considerable number of libertarian-minded people out there. Enough to influence the GOP? On some issues, though probably not others. And it's not just libertarians, any number of people who do not consider themselves evangelicals who tend towards the GOP, one by one, become a segment of the party. The bigger a segment gets, the more sway they'll have.

I'd argue that there is a big enough segment that anyone who wanted to legislate straight from the Bible in a fundamentalist vein would likely not win the GOP nomination. To a degree, this is backed up by the fact that there are various hardline fundamentalists who, instead of loving Bush, criticize him for not fighting harder for Christian values.