I will not be frightened into voting against my conscience

We've all heard the dire warnings: "Now more than ever", "This year it is too important", "There is too much at stake".

Pick an election year in your life time -- no, the last century -- and tell me which year would it be ok to go ahead and vote your conscience on a sure loser? Which year would it be ok to throw away your vote, allowing the opposition party to win? Which year would it be ok for the greater of two evils to occupy the white house?

There have always been wars and rumors of wars. There has always been the threat of cities being leveled by a foreign power (by razing, sacking, bombing or nuking). There will always be the possibility of the economy, our culture, and our future being decimated by foolish policies.

We can't have a perfect candidate? Perhaps not. But there are still candidates out there that more closely resemble the beliefs of the people than others. Why shouldn't we vote for them?

Just what are we supposed to wait for to vote our consciences? At what point in the future will there be an election in which the fate of the world is not involved? When will the threats to this country both foreign and domestic be such that we can afford to flush our vote down the drain? The answer, of course, is never. There will never come a time when voting one's conscience will be acceptable to those involved in party politics. It's us against them, and if you aren't with us, you are against us.

The proscription "not this time", in a two-party system, can and will never change. So my options according to the repub-party-crats are these: vote for the "lesser of two evils", or vote my conscience and allow the other candidate to win.

The way I see it, I must vote the way I see fit regardless of the consequences. If enough people are conscientious there will be a change. If people do not think past their rooting for the team to which they belong, then we are lost anyhow, and my one vote will not have made a difference even if it did elect a "lesser" candidate.