believer;1520328 wrote:Oh I understand but I'm a pragmatist and a realist. I can cast my lot and money to the "right" or "moral" or "just" Paulist candidate and know for a fact I'll come out the loser. OR I can vote for the lesser socialist and help delay the inevitable downward spiral.
But you're still coming out the loser.
Let's look at this from a long-game perspective.
So long as you, and those who think like you, continue to vote in the same way, the longer it takes for more and more people to vote for the good instead of voting for the arguably equally bad (it's debatable, but a strong case can be made) merely because (a) they pay lip service to something slightly less destructive, and (b) they have a better chance to win. As a result, the longer it takes (perpetually significantly) to actually work ourselves out of the current political rut of choosing between Thing 1 and Thing 2, even when they're both bad options.
believer;1520328 wrote:Perhaps but toss in the phony votes, the multi-votes, the illegal votes, and other similar voter fraud, the Paulist votes might have given us the lesser socialist and we'd still be debating the healthcare mess rather than facing individual mandates and Obamacare ineptitude.
Eh, not realistically. Those fraudulent votes do happen on both sides, and whether or not they ended up more on one side than another, they were neither the fault of third-party voters nor significant enough to change the entire election's outcome, no matter what the third-party voters did.
And again, I refer to the long-game cited in point 1. Suppose it HAD made a difference. It's potentially taking a loss now in light of a win later. The best chess players play the long game.
believer;1520328 wrote:Just not as inept and we probably wouldn't have any NSA, IRS, and Benghazi issues.
Eh, again, a case can be made that they are equally problematic.
For what it's worth, the IRS's pattern has progressed steadily through the administrations, both Republican and Democrat. There is no logical reason to suggest that would have changed with Romney.
As for the NSA ... Romney supported the PATRIOT Act, the "advanced interrogation techniques," Obama's position on drone use, and enough phone-tapping and monitoring policies that, really, the NSA was going to be abusing the American people openly by this time, no matter who was in office.
As for Benghazi, based on Romney's own military views, it might not have been the same, but I have little faith in him being any less of a military screw-up. Perhaps we might not have KNOWN about things like the Benghazi incident, but there's nothing to suggest he would have been drastically different, militarily.
eople:working for their own money to buy food
