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Edited on Fri Apr-24-09 09:47 AM by Tierra_y_Libertad
Political parties are the means to an end, or any number of ends. At best, they serve the purpose of focusing the concerns of a number of people who desire certain ends. At worst, they offer a vehicle for ambitious, frequently unscrupulous, people to attain power. I registered as a Democrat in 1965 and usually vote for the Democratic candidate as "the lesser of two evils". On very rare occasions, I have voted for the Democratic candidate, because I agreed with him/her on most issues. Usually, I hold my nose and vote against the Republican candidate. On a few occasions, when the candidate run by the Democrats insulted my nose to a high enough degree I have voted 3rd Party without compunction.
I would much rather consider myself "a free moral agent", as Thomas Jefferson put it in the quote below, than a "good" Democrat.
"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.
"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --John Quincy Adams
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