Election 2016

Are Selfies of Absentee Ballots Illegal? Hope Not, Because Here's Mine For Gary Johnson

He's unlikely to be indicted or investigated between now and Election Day.

|

Instagram

Remember how Justin Timberlake's early-voting "ballot selfie" nearly destroyed the American Experiment last week? We got lucky, didn't we?

In an hour or so, I'll be debating economist Walter Block in Manhattan on the subject of whether libertarians should vote for Donald Trump. Block created a group called Libertarians for Trump, which urges believers in "Free Minds and Free Markets" to do just that. Among the main reasons that Block—unconvincingly to my mind—wants Trump to win is that he believes Hillary Clinton will kill us all.

No[t] only are two and maybe three Supreme Court nominations likely to be in play in the next four years, but more important, far more important, a second President Clinton (gulp, I can barely make myself write those words) is likely to usher in World War III, with nuclear not atomic bombs, this time.

There's no question that Hillary Clinton has what Thaddeus Russell has rightly called a "dangerously coherent foreign policy," by which he means that she's "never seen an opportunity for American military intervention she didn't like." But is she actually "likely" to create a global conflict that ends like Dr. Strangelove? I'd argue no more than Donald Trump, whose foreign policy statements are bombastic and generally incoherent. He is less hostile to Russia than Clinton seems to be but makes up in his stances toward China and Islamists in the Middle East, whom he alternately wants to bomb the shit out of and kill their wives and children.

Neither major-party candidate has a foreign policy that sits well with libertarian principles of military intervention as a last resort and one only fully justified when used as a true defensive measure. Not surprisingly, the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson has articulated a foreign policy that is based on skepticism toward the use of military power and focused more on commerce, trade, and diplomacy. As part of Reason's quadrennial presidential-election survey, I've already announced my intention to vote for Johnson and, given tonight's activities, I figured I'd just up and fill out my absentee ballot on the way to the debate and reveal it dramatically at some point during the proceedings.

So here it is, in the flesh (?), folks, for any of you who can't make tonight's debate.

Nick Gillespie