A few weeks ago while watching a Packer game with Ally and one of her friends, the topic of politics happened to come up.  When I mentioned that I was going to vote for Bob Barr, her friend asked why I was throwing away my vote.  I went on to explain (as I have several times here) that I don't view it as throwing away my vote.  Instead, I refuse to reward bad behavior.  Today is the most recent, and perhaps one of the most egregious, examples of bad behavior from even the most principled Republicans I have ever seen.  In fact, I've tweeted today how Republicans are so far gone, they don't even realize it, even compared to their own stated beliefs!  Look at their own platform for this year:

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.

How long did that last?  Not even two months, for today, the largest government intervention in our econcomy was passed through the House and signed by the President with the help of almost half of the Republicans in the House, and almost all of them in the Senate.  Paul Ryan, who I once considered to be one of the most principled Republicans caved into pure cowardice and voted for this bill.  This bill is worse than the one that was voted down just a few weeks ago.  Not only does it contain the pork I mentioned yesterday, but it also includes a section which forces insurance companies to give parity to their mental health benefits if they offer them:

Tucked inside the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill is a controversial mental health provision, one that could give employees the same treatment rights for mental illness as for other medical problems.

If Congress passes the current version of a bill backers say is needed to safeguard the economy, along with it will come a call for employer health plans to let patients continue scheduling $150 psychiatric visits until they're deemed healthy. But some fear employers will respond to the added cost by ending their mental health coverage.

What does any of this have to do with the financial crisis?  Nothing, but apparently that doesn't matter any more.  Many people seem to think that this will all end up alright, because we can somehow trust the same people who got us into this mess with ultimate control to purchase whatever they want to get us out of it.  They'll use their power benevolently they claim.  Already that claim is looking doubtful based on what is happening with Wachovia:

Citigroup demanded that Wachovia call off a proposed deal with Wells Fargo Friday, saying it has an exclusive deal to buy Wachovia’s banking operations, as the three financial institutions became embroiled in a banking brawl.

Earlier Friday, in an abrupt change of direction, Wachovia said it has agreed to be acquired by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo in a $15.1 billion all-stock deal. That deal trumps Citigroup’s plan, announced Monday, to acquire Wachovia’s banking operations.

The Citigroup deal would have been done with the help of the FDIC, but the Wells Fargo deal for Wachovia will be done without it. The head of the FDIC said Friday she is standing behind the agreement it made with Citigroup for buying Wachovia, despite Wells Fargo’s new offer.

Leslie Carbone has more details on the plan, but I don't think she knew at the time that the Fed was actually fighting against Wells Fargo.  Think about this.  A private company has come forward with a better deal, that keeps the taxpayers out of it completely and helps Wachovia's shareholders more, and the Fed doesn't want to back out!

And so we are back to the original question.  Why am I throwing away my vote on Bob Barr?  The question ought to be, why are you throwing away your vote on John McCain, a supposed Republican who has restricted our Freedom of Speech, wants to cap and tax carbon, helped usher through one of the biggest takeovers of our free market economy in history, and so much more?