Whose side are you on?
The three most important words in politics are: “Compared with what?” And I am more than a little sympathetic to conservatives’ complaints about the failures of elected Republicans in Washington, who consistently disappoint us even when they are in the majority. I am also sympathetic to the view that our situation may have deteriorated to the point that even a unified Republican government under the leadership of principled conservatives may not be enough to turn things around. And though I reject the notion that Mitt Romney wasn’t good enough for true-believing conservatives, let’s say, arguendo, that that was the case. Unless you are ready to give up entirely on the notion of advancing conservative principles through the ballot box, you might consider looking at things this way: Even if you do not think that it matters much whether Republicans win, it matters a great deal that Democrats lose.
Maybe you were not that excited that 2012 gave you a choice between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I sympathize — I liked Rick Perry. But how is President Romney vs. President Obama a hard choice? How is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a hard choice? How is Speaker of the House John Boehner vs. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a hard choice?
It isn’t.
Read it all. He smashes to pieces the reasoning many passionate conservatives use to justify not voting at all when they are presented with a choice between a hard leftwing Democratic and what he calls a “squishy RINO.” By abstaining they help put radical leftwing Democrats in power, a circumstance far worse for the country.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t put hard pressure on the squishies to make them less so, only that when push comes to shove, they are still a better option than a politician who is liberal and not squishy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The three most important words in politics are: “Compared with what?” And I am more than a little sympathetic to conservatives’ complaints about the failures of elected Republicans in Washington, who consistently disappoint us even when they are in the majority. I am also sympathetic to the view that our situation may have deteriorated to the point that even a unified Republican government under the leadership of principled conservatives may not be enough to turn things around. And though I reject the notion that Mitt Romney wasn’t good enough for true-believing conservatives, let’s say, arguendo, that that was the case. Unless you are ready to give up entirely on the notion of advancing conservative principles through the ballot box, you might consider looking at things this way: Even if you do not think that it matters much whether Republicans win, it matters a great deal that Democrats lose.
Maybe you were not that excited that 2012 gave you a choice between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I sympathize — I liked Rick Perry. But how is President Romney vs. President Obama a hard choice? How is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a hard choice? How is Speaker of the House John Boehner vs. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a hard choice?
It isn’t.
Read it all. He smashes to pieces the reasoning many passionate conservatives use to justify not voting at all when they are presented with a choice between a hard leftwing Democratic and what he calls a “squishy RINO.” By abstaining they help put radical leftwing Democrats in power, a circumstance far worse for the country.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t put hard pressure on the squishies to make them less so, only that when push comes to shove, they are still a better option than a politician who is liberal and not squishy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Given how bitterly disappointed I was when the GOP held both Houses, the White House and we had a conservative majority on the SCOTUS and not only was precious little was done to advance conservative causes, but government continued its unchecked expansion under the GOP watch, I fully sympathize with conservatives who choose not to vote when presented with two sides of the same coin in the polling booth. How often are conservative voters supposed to play the role of Charlie Brown kicking the football from Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip? If the GOP politicians lie to me, how can they expect any credibility when they try to tell voters, “This time will be different.”
That being said, I still vote. I don’t agree with those that choose not to vote, but I fully sympathize with their feelings and I can’t really blame them for the choice they make.
I really like this line of reasoning – I was trying to pound into the head of every potential GOP voter that even if you weren’t thrilled with Mitt (he was not my first choice either), you’re just shooting yourself in the foot to stay home & not vote at all. That would be like negotiating to buy a car, you can’t get the price you want, so instead of buying one you like a little less (but can afford), you buy one that you really don’t like at all & has a terrible repair history! And your justification is, “I’ll show that car salesman!” – but who really got hurt the most? YOU DID ! !
Does anyone here think we’d be where we are economically, in job creation, militarily, foreign affairs, ObamaCare, and all the laws that were broken or changed without Congressional approval if Mitt had won in 2012? Sure, we probably wouldn’t have liked some of the things he would’ve done, but it seems to me we’d be WAY better off in a whole host of areas…
Compared to what? How about compared to eliminating any chance of getting conservatives elected. Every time we elect a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, we put a nail in the conservative coffin. Why would any of the RINOs or their backers feel pressure if we keep electing them? Why are the headlines full of Mitt Romney donors backing Jeb Bush? Because they don’t feel any pressure. They like the fact that the conservatives are being told to shut up and just don’t let a Democrat get elected.
This isn’t just about who gets elected and can ruin the country for a number of years. The liberals have entrenched themselves in the minds of the young. With the Dems in power and their policies hurting the country, we have to let the younger folks see what happens with their social justice programs. We can’t convince them with logic. We have to let them fail like they are doing in California.
I don’t vote for liberal policies. It doesn’t matter whether they are Republican or Democrat.
Did you not read the article? No one is arguing that we meekly vote for whatever Republican is running. It is imperative that we push hard for strong conservative candidates at all times, especially in primaries. Dumping unreliable men like John McCain in this way is imperative.
But to make believe there is no difference between McCain and Obama and thus not vote for McCain is to put one’s head in the sand. There is no doubt that the country would be better off with McCain, even though we both know the man would have still done things as President that we both detest. But by not voting you helped give us Obama, a disaster in competence and philosophy.
I can also think of a few other analogies, such as shooting yourself in the foot and cutting off your nose to spite your face. Please think about it.
The lessor of two evils argument is also a false choice argument. We should be outraged. Voting is not fixing anything. We can all see the trends. Voting is preventing us from fixing anything. We need to be outraged.
We can’t pretend anymore that our democracy is working. I’m not saying to stop voting. I’m saying recognize when you are at war not against a party or even an ideology but to regain our souls. People today can’t even imagine exercising the freedom they have every right to. It’s just assumed, at all levels from top to bottom they have the power to tell you what you can or can’t do. They will prove it at every turn by punishing you. They have the power to take away your property without any criminal charges. They have the power to take away your children and deprive them of medical services. They have the power to decide whether you live or die. It’s happening now. Where is the outrage? Where is the effective action? How can they stall and stall until it doesn’t matter anymore. The liberals know how to meet behind closed doors and make an effective plan of action. Because they don’t fight with their hands tied behind them. Are they the only ones? We need to press… and bend… and even break laws when required. Laws are written by people. There are higher laws.
Reporting on the atrocities is all well and good. People need to get together and fight… like a girl if they have to. But they have to fight.
Compared to what? How about complacency vs. not?
Despite the disappointment that we had with Bush, as in abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market (I’m still waiting for it to be saved), he was significantly better than the Tyrant Obama that we have now. Bush never would have thought of coercing us to buy something, whether we want it or not, but Obama did just that. No other tyrant in history had that much audacity, and here we are letting him get away with it.
Then there are the fundamental changes in the freedoms that we used to have in this country, freedoms that have been lost in the past five years. We no longer may choose whether to buy health insurance (we now have free condoms, but at a cost of our liberty, our ability to go to the best hospitals and doctors, and our workweek). Our tyrant now legislates from his pen and his phone, ignoring the Supreme Court as well as Congress.
Would McCain or Romney have done such things to us? That is what it is compared to.
I’m no fan of RINOs. After all, they are so named because they are Democrats registered in the Republican Party (can you say “Bloomberg” or “Specter”?). But on more than one occasion even that RINO Boehner has been pressured into conservative compliance. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid never were.
At least with Boehner, power still resides with the people, but with Democrats, the power resides in the top, and the people must comply or suffer the consequences.
The lesser-of-two-evils, McCain, would not have put us into the permanent tyranny that we are now in. There wouldn’t have been an ACA case that ruled that the government may do anything it wants to us, no matter how tyrannical, just so long as a tax is attached to it. How do we take *that* power away from government?
Six years ago, would you have imagined the US government coercing us into purchasing something? Or denying people their religious freedoms, or full time employment becoming 30 hours rather than 40 – forcing people to take two jobs in order to earn a living (and the work beyond 40 hours would not be paid overtime, because you would not have worked more than 30 hours for either company)? Or that our military would look like a traitor were running it (e.g. we are about to reduce our military to so few people in the uniform that the last time we had so few, the Japanese thought that they could beat us)?
These are some of the evils that win when good men do nothing, such as failing to vote.
Welcome to Obama’s America, land of the formerly free.
I just vote for the person the MSN most hates.
I win no matter what.
Yes, I read the article. I also didn’t make my point. My point is not about who will do less evil. My point is about who is winning the national conversation and the minds of the young. After years of schooling, the young believe it’s a GOOD thing for government to run this way. They also believe you don’t have to listen to conservatives because they are evil. Until we get to a point in our country where we have failed so gigantically, the young will continue to believe their indoctrination. They have to feel the pain before they will listen to logic.
I am not happy about the current situation in the least. I voted for Romney and McCain and Bush, etc. But, there’s now a growing Tea Party in Britain. There’s rumblings that the French are sick of government. Australia elected a conservative and part of his campaign was to get rid of the Carbon Tax crap. Germany is looking at the same thing. The King of Denmark told the people they can expect fewer government services in the future because they can’t afford it anymore.
I firmly believe America will survive and come out stronger. But, the only way to do that is to get the young to see the world in a little more realistic way. Unfortunately, that’s only going to happen through pain.
These are some of the evils that win when good men do nothing, such as failing to vote.
Suppose Obama had not won, then what? We would have continued to follow the decline but now without an object lesson. It would have been much easier for them to get away with blaming the RINO. So when an Obama does get elected down the road he’s even more powerful and destructive.
It’s not about the elected, it’s about the electors. They must be educated. If not the way they should, then by pain.
“It’s not about the elected, it’s about the electors. They must be educated. If not the way they should, then by pain.”
Oh, that worked *so* well in the Soviet Union. Not only did it take seven decades for them to correct their mistake, after the breakup and destruction of their nation, but it looks more and more each month like Russia is going back to the tyranny of the Soviet era.
Pain felt, lesson not learned. What makes you think that we can regain our freedom in less time and without the complete destruction of our Constitution, which has been misinterpreted by our government (Judicial branch, and now the Executive branch) for decades?
And once the government takes over the education system, then they will educate the children to accept tyranny, not the ways of freedom. Oh, that’s right, they *did* take over the education system, and they *are* educating the children to accept tyranny. Just as they did in the Soviet Union.
I propose that the solution involves avoiding the tyranny in the first place. It seems to take revolutions, and the accompanying death and destruction, to overthrow tyrannical governments.
It *IS* about the elected. Under our Constitution, those are the leaders, the decision makers, the law makers and enforcers. It matters not what the electors think when the elected will do anything they want anyway. It reminds me of the summer of 2009, when the elected were faced with multitudes of angry electors telling them that they did *not* want Obamacare, but the electors passed and enforced it anyway, complete with unconstitutional Executive branch unilateral changes to the law and Judicial branch redefinition (not misinterpretation) of the law. The electors were helpless.
“Suppose Obama had not won, then what?”
Then support for the law deteriorates rapidly, the House of Representatives pass a repeal of the law, the Senate feels pressure to agree, the non-Obama president signs the repeal, and we have our freedom back. It is the elected that matters. Failing to elect freedom-loving representatives and presidents has only resulted in lost freedom, and I doubt such evil is what those who did not vote hoped for, otherwise they would have voted for the tyrants, as did the majority.
Edward, you make good points, but all governments are tyrannical.
We are living in tyranny now and voting will not change that.
It is a matter of degree, but I can not believe the degree which we now allow.