Throwing Your Vote Away

In a post on the "Plague of the Two Party System," Dragan at Dreams of Freedom provides an account of two conversations (one with a Democrat, the other with a Republican) intended to broach the issue of third party politics. After probing the Republican's views (the Democrat proved to be more or less clueless), Dragan pointed out that the Republican party did not in fact jive with the policies and positions he himself espoused, and received the canned response: "He got the point, and humorously told me a third party would not make a difference apart from taking votes away from the "parties that actually have a chance"." (Emphasis added.) The two-party ideology here rears its ugly head, for this is exactly the point of supporting the candidates and party which actually represent your views, rather than throwing your vote away on the duopoly candidate and party you find less disagreeable than the other.