It is ridiculous that the bastards we elect to office, (be it city, state, federal) can accept kickbacks of either monetary or intrinsic value to sway their vote and we are not allowed the same "right".

My vote is worth monetary value to someone. Someone that believes our country is still free and that believes that the way our country is run is actually in the best interest of "the people".

But it isn't worth anything to me. The people I want in office are not ever going to run for office because they are too damn smart and nowhere near dirty enough. We have created a system of life long politicians interested only in the power they hold.

So why not be allowed to sell someone double their dream vote? Maybe, instead of actually blatantly selling the vote we should allow "lobbyists" to "influence" our vote. Something that is written is illegal only if the letter of the law can prove it is worded illegally.

"… depends on what your definition of "is" is."

The 1 out of 10 times idea is silly. You are paying taxes which directly enable them to aggress but you don't feel comfortable using a non-violent means to persuade people to not aggress or aggress less? Your tax dollars go a lot further than your vote does in enabling them. And as I said before… if you applied that logic to every aspect of your life you'd be nowhere with no associates because in every aspect of life there is the possibility that you are enabling another person to harm.

You don't need to quantify harm to make an educated guess on who would be worse. You may be wrong, you may be right. That's how life is. If I were to make a guess right now Obama after 4 years would do less overt harm than McCain. They will harm less people with socialism than war. Likely there is little difference between them even on that broad a view. So perhaps a Barr vote is best. There is no NOTA but at least I can help the LP maybe get on the ballot next time with less effort freeing up more resources for education and outreach. There are tangible benefits to 3rd party voting like the previous example and to take the position that "well it's not going to make a difference" helps make it that way. If someone is going to try to work within the system to get closer to my idea society the least I can do is spend the 10 minutes out of a whole year to walk down to the voting center, which I've already paid for under duress, and plug in the candidate. If I want help in my sphere I'm going to need to show some support in theirs.

It's just not as simple as saying "the lesser of two evils" when it comes to entire platforms, because there are countless different issues and guaranteed, "your guy" is the worst of the two evils on some of them. I don't feel comfortable voting for someone who will do the right thing on 9 issues out of 10, if he'll do the wrong thing 1 time out of 10.

I'm not sure I agree that voting is self-defense, either. Not if the politician is going to use the power your vote gave him to aggress against people.

I never said anything about a vote being step in the right direction. I don't know where you got that. I said that it's not an act of aggression to vote and in fact can be seen as defense. Strategically voting for the lesser of a set of evils is better than sitting on your backside complaining about the aggressors. Especially at the local level. It's a low cost defensive action and a possible educational tool.

So, in a nutshell, it's rarely, if ever, a case of any given politician or political party being a "step in the right direction".

The whole 'is voting moral' debate goes on often enough but I don't see how voting, which in and of itself is not aggression, is illegitimate. Those who say it gives credence to the system place it far above other participation which they do (pay taxes, use parks, roads, etc). I understand that voting is easy to withdraw from and results in no aggression against you by the State but in the least it's a defensive action. Making it so that your stolen money is used to feed people inefficiently is better than your money being used to blow up brown people. Selling your vote couldn't be considered defensive really but you could argue showing the illegitimacy of voting by selling it explicitly is an offensive act against the state and therefore worth the cost.