trythil wrote:CodeZTM wrote:Actually, I was celebrating progress, not so much who won the damn election. I could give two flying dinos who's president or which side wins, all I care about is them forward marching us towards social equality for all. And until Republicans put up someone who's socially/morally/ethically bankrupt, then I'm putting on my damn party hat when Democrats win some seats or the Presidency.
First off, you edited "socially/morally/ethically bankrupt" to "socially/morally/ethically moderate". In repeated previews, I noticed that you truncated even more of your original post.
I will respond to your original post.
Second: This is an instance of the problem I'm talking about. I think there's a big jump from "disagreeing with Romney's morals" to "morally bankrupt" and I don't know how you're making that jump. Nor do I think it's productive.
I do not agree with some of Romney's policies; I made some arguments against his energy policy in a previous thread, for example. I don't think, however, that attacks on his character really get us anywhere.
If you're referring to comments made by i.e. Todd Akin on "legitimate rape", then yes, those were some bizarre comments, and probably don't speak well of him. I don't think, however, that they are
relevant to politics.
If or when he attempts to introduce policy that reflects a "legitimate rape" philosophy, that policy can be challenged (and likely shot down). Repeated attempts to introduce such policy can be taken as evidence that Akin (or whoever) is serving as a poor representative, as he is introducing policy that is not in the best interest of the nation. (That's actually a tricky thing to define; sometimes "best interest" hurts. In this particular case, though, the answer is less fuzzy.)
While killing time between returns coming in, some of the talking heads brushed the surface of this. They noted that exit poll questions seem to be reaching some sort of weird consensus over what people claim to be the most concerned about when asked by a pollster. It was the same sort of response everywhere, regardless of political leanings, even though the votes were for different people. When asked questions about politics in a political context, people tell you their most important (political) views. Problem is, a huge swath of the population on both sides of the political spectrum don't see social issues as political. They see them as moral choices. Energy, education, foreign policy, spending, those are political topics to them. Social issues are good/evil moral choices. So, while most of the country will swear up and down their focus is on the economy, their own moral compass won't let them vote for someone who's fiscal, diplomatic, education, etc. policies might be more in line with their own if that person is someone who violates their social values or is part of a party they believe does the same. As cliché as it sounds, the "lesser of two evils" flippant remark is on the right track. It's not just about why you'd vote for X, but also why you'd never vote for Y. Polarization on political issues is in the mind, polarization on social issues is in the heart. This is true on both sides. Social issues don't present compromise as well as budget balancing.
The insidious thing is that people have started answering polls entirely with the "political" answers even though the social answers are more important to them and they either don't realize it, or are afraid to admit it. Wanting to be (or at least seem to be) outside of this 2 party system (and actually have your vote really count for something) is the biggest cause of this.