I’ve been following the comments by the anti-voters on several Facebook threads. Their argument is that if you vote for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama, you’re a pragmatist. I’ve been following the conservative movement for more than 30 years, and I’ve been hearing the same rhetoric for 30 years:

“No candidate is good enough. We have a better candidate. Sure, he’s never won elective office, but he’d be a great president, so you should vote for him. And if you don’t, and decide to vote for one of the two other guys, you’re a pragmatist.”

So don’t be a pragmatist. Vote for the sure loser, and guess what, you’re still going to get one of the two guys who are legitimate candidates. One of them is going to occupy the White House. One of them is going to appoint judges. Same result, but the non-voters will have bragging rights the next morning and will bitch, moan, and pontificate politically for another 30 years with nothing to show for it.

The anti-voters say that their non-vote is sending a message. They’re right. Their message is simple: “We are irrelevant to both parties.” They’ll jump and cheer on November 7^th and tell everybody, “We didn’t vote. Look at the difference we made! We showed the two political parties.” You showed them. You’ve been showing them for decades that you haven’t been any competition.

Is it pragmatic to vote against someone who’s going to raise your taxes or someone who’s going to lower your taxes? “But I want to abolish the income tax, and if neither candidate is going to abolish the income tax, then I’m not going to vote for either one, and if you vote for either one, you’re a pragmatist.”

Ron Paul has been working within the system since the mid-1970s. He has credibility because he paid his dues . . . as a Republican. (He did run as Libertarian a few times.) His son is a (dare a say it) a Republican. But he’s a Republican that’s in the Senate. What a pragmatist! That’s one vote we couldn’t have gotten if we followed the “we’ll-show-them-don’t-vote-I’m-a-recovering-Republican” methodology.

These non-voting anti-pragmatists are like the football fans that paint their faces, scream from the stands that the players aren’t doing a good job, but if their team wins they give high-fives all around. The thing of it is, they didn’t do a thing on the field. They’ll call into a sports talk show the next day and discuss every detail of the game as if they are experts and if given the chance they could have done a better job.

Give us a real alternative. Ron Paul gave it a good shot, but he didn’t win. And please don’t tell me that it was stolen from him. The popular vote wasn’t there. It’s still not there.

I want to know what the anti-pragmatists are going to do for the next four years. I’ll make a prediction. Paint their faces, yell from the stands, go home and have a few beers, and mumble under their breath, “What till next year.”