Why I don’t vote Republican

David Boaz beats me to the punch:

This year I’m looking for candidates who stand for freedom across the board, who want government constrained by the Constitution, who believe in the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.

And that means I don’t want to back candidates who support

• the war in Iraq
• the war in Afghanistan
• war with Iran
• the war on drugs
• the constitutional amendment to override state marriage laws and make gay people second-class citizens
• the president’s power to snatch American citizens off the street and hold them without access to a lawyer or a judge
• new restrictions on immigration

Now, mind you I’m no libertarian either. Libertarianism, while a sensible enough platform for policy ideas, leaves much to be desired as a deeper philosophy.  For one thing, I’m fairly uninterested in ‘individualism’ as any real measure of human value.  I’m much more in line with the Red Tories when it comes to placing emphasis on community, localism, and the need for a deeper, more fundamentally moral understanding of markets and economics.

That being said, I like David’s “no” list.  I don’t want these hawkish, war-mongering, busy-body prohibitionists trying to shove their culture wars down my throat either. I want a culture free of war. A culture of peace. You won’t get that from today’s Republicans, that’s for sure.

Well, except for maybe Gary Johnson.