08-08-2016, 11:40 PM
rjmacs wrote:
[quote=August West]
A party crony insulting dedicated Bernie-ites isn't the way to win their votes.
I am the very last person here to be defending Clinton as a great candidate or someone whose politics I generally like. I'm also making exactly zero comments about how well or poorly she and the party handled Bernie's campaign. That, like many things, is irrelevant to this discussion.
August West wrote:
Sorry, August West - voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or god help us Drumpf is a fool's errand. There's no defending it.
There certainly is quite a history defending a citizen's right, one might say obligation, to vote their choice, there is also a philosophical history that defends the value of opposing viewpoints, and hardly least, do we need to explain the consequences of ideological purity?
You know, and I'm sure it's clear, that I'm not implying that anyone should be prevented by the government or by anyone else from voting for whomever they choose. I'm saying anyone who uses their vote to choose a third-party candidate is acting recklessly and probably doesn't appreciate how voting works.
The key potential consequence of ideological purity in this case is that Drumpf is elected president. That's it. It's not complicated. The voting booth is not a good or effective place to make an ideological statement or lodge a protest against the system. The voting booth is a practical place where real-world decisions with actual consequences are made.
First, please try to keep your quoting straight, you have attributed statements to me which I have not authored.
Secondly, I bring up ideological purity in relation to your judgment of others who do not hold your ideological viewpoint, to wit, "...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...". Those sort of statements might seem inconsequential to you, but they are not. They are a characterization more akin to the hard right you seem to disdain. What is the difference between your marginalization of Sanders' supporters and Hair Furor's marginalization of the left as a whole?