Romney officially endorseing McCain?

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

RE: Romney officially endorseing McCain?

arbilad · Head Chef

To be fair, I think that Perot did steal some votes from Bush. I knew some people who voted for Perot who would have voted for Bush otherwise. I don't think that people were quite as disillusioned with the political process in that election as they are now. Back then it wasn't that long ago that Reagan had been president, and so it was still fresh in people's minds that there could be a good president. When Perot ran, people saw the need for reform, but mostly they weren't so fed up with the political process that they would not have voted for Bush if Perot hadn't run.
Now, there is a large number of people who, as Coco says, simply would not vote if they could only vote for one of the two major party candidates. In the past 16 years the membership in third parties has exploded. A vote for a third party is no longer a lost vote for McCain because there is a large number of conservatives who feel that the Republican party is no longer conservative. They would not vote Republican for the same reasons that they wouldn't vote Democrat.
I know people who will not vote for McCain and will write in a candidate if the third parties don't provide a candidate that at least somewhat matches their criteria. I know older people who will not vote for McCain because they accuse him of abandoning the POW/MIAs from Vietnam (he voted against legislation that would have tried to find those who remained). These are people with deep set reasons not to vote for McCain. If you were to somehow take away their options, they would not vote. If they vote third party, their vote is not lost to McCain because he never had it in the first place.

Pt314 · Senior Member

As far as I see it, either a Republican or a Democrat becomes the president. When these parties are done nominating someone as their candidate, it is almost as if one of them is already the President of the United States.

The time to get someone who follows your principles more closely would be in the primaries. You are more likely to change things by changing one of the parties, rather then working outside the system. I think Ron Paul did a wonderful thing running as a Republican, even though I disagree with him adamantly on foreign policy, I think that by running as a Republican he was able to make a difference.

Although I acknowedge that if you honestly can't see one of the two major parties as any better as the other one, and will not vote for either one anyway, I am ok with you voting third party.

Euphrasie · Senior Bucketkeeper

Here's a question for you. Is preventing evil good? Why is preventing some evil any different? If you were in a position to help Jews in Nazi Germany, do you help as many as you can or spend all your time talking about how it would be better if they didn't need helping?

In terms of 'evil', if (Democratic nominee > McCain), then contributing a vote toward McCain's election helps prevent whatever the difference in evil is, whether in time or magnitude.

Of course it would be better not to have Nazis. But if you've got Nazis, isn't it better to help forestall as much evil as possible?

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I'll vote to forestall evil!

That should be a campaign slogan! :)

--Ray

arbilad · Head Chef

Euphie, here's another hypothetical for you (again using Nazis, because I don't think that there's anyone here who would doubt that they're evil). What if you had an assignment to assassinate Adolph Hitler as he passes through a town. You have a good plan, good training, and you're confident that you can do it. On the way, you see the SS arresting a Jew and his family. A child breaks away and starts running. An SS guy raises his pistol and is going to shoot. Do you A) Try to prevent the murder in some way, such as trying to grab the gun, jumping in front of the bullet, or whatever, knowing full well that the other SS or the bullet of the first will kill you and prevent your mission of assassinating Hitler, or B) Do you allow the murder to take place, knowing that if you kill Hitler you can prevent many such deaths?
That's what the choice looks like to me. I could judge who is the lesser evil and hope that they're not as bad as the other. Or I could follow a path that looks like it can fix the system and prevent evil altogether. Sure, in the short term it may mean more evil takes place. But if I have a chance to stop the evil, instead of just putting up with it, I should take it. That's why I'll be voting third party.

LoudmouthMormon · Profuse Pontificator

Just for the record, I see nothing wrong with using Nazis to help illustrate points in this thread. We're discussing good and evil, and such discussions tend to go better if everyone can agree on the foundational understandings of what good and evil actually are.

Therefore, by voting for a 3rd party candidate, you have, in effect, ensured the victory of the worst possible candidate. By your terms, an evil act.No, by your terms. I wish you'd stop ascribing your logic to me. I have already demonstrated why I think McCain is not a good man.

I think you're missing the point of my argument. It's not that McCain is good or bad, it's that Hillary/Obama is worse. McCain is moot in my line of thinking. Also, the logic applies based on a shared understanding of political reality, which you claim to share in your post about Perot stealing votes from Bush.

I've put it as clearly as I can - perhaps you could read it again and try to grasp what I'm saying? I mean, maybe it has a critical flaw somewhere, but I'd hope in this very foundational battle for opinions, it makes sense that I ask you to find a better understanding of my opinion, that you may truly respond to it.

Everone I know that is planning to vote third party would otherwise not vote, so that is not lost votes for McCain.If you broaden your anecdotes to include everybody, you'll find the picture somewhat different. 3rd parties steal votes from whatever side they campaign on.

And yes, third parties can win - they have been locally.
Right - locally does not equal nationally. Again:
You wanna 3rd party to win? You need to do something more than talk about why the only real choices are not acceptible. You need to have a clear, articulated, realistic, persuasive plan on how you will overcome the political realities. Appeals to scripture ain't gonna win elections.

And the numbers of the Constitution party are constantly growing. That will translate into more victories in the future. We're making headway towards good on the local level, and soon will be on the national level (greater numbers = greater votes). So, this thing that you claim will lead to greater evil is actually leading towards greater good.

Well, we got ourselves an honest disagreement here. I actually wouldn't mind being wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right and you're wrong. We'll see in November, won't we.

All of what you say sounds good in theory, but it's demonstratably untrue in practice.I'm thinking we've got a really big disconnect here about what's reality and what's theory. For example:
Do you A) Try to prevent the murder in some way, such as trying to grab the gun, jumping in front of the bullet, or whatever, knowing full well that the other SS or the bullet of the first will kill you and prevent your mission of assassinating Hitler, or B) Do you allow the murder to take place, knowing that if you kill Hitler you can prevent many such deaths?
That's what the choice looks like to me. I could judge who is the lesser evil and hope that they're not as bad as the other. Or I could follow a path that looks like it can fix the system and prevent evil altogether.
So let me get this straight. In your example, you don't take either action? The Jew gets shot AND Hitler continues on to preside over many more such deaths? You just sit back and do nothing? You refuse to judge, preferring rather to plan for a better tomorrow?

Is that your final answer?

LM

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

I think the options were either saving the child, the immediate in-your-face evil about to take place and which you were indeed capable of stopping. or... "Sitting tight" as it were and completing your mission of assasinating Hitler which might still be a few minutes in the future. Maybe I didn't read the scenario correctly...but it seemed to me there was not the option of sit back and do nothing.

The question was (at least how I read it) was do you stick to your plan, what you think will make actual meaningful changes, or do you cave when an urgent but short-term evil pops its head up in the interim?

Maybe I'm not getting it. And since I feel a thorough verbal thrashing coming on as I am in no way confident in my abilities to debate politics, I shall quietly step to the back of the room now...

... and look for the refreshments at this shindig...

arbilad · Head Chef

Coco got it right - there wasn't a "don't do either mission" option. I'm at a loss to see where I failed to explain that. My point was that if you can achieve a greater good, e.g. killing Hitler, sometimes it means that you won't be able to prevent everything in the nearer term. It's the same with politics. I honestly don't think that the Constitution Party will win this presidential election. But our numbers are growing, and I have hopes for elections after this one.
And LM, I have legitimately tried to see how my simple aphorism of "you have to choose good to get good" translates into "Don't vote third party". Either I'm badly misunderstanding something or you are. And since both of us have tried to make our position more clear, perhaps it's better at this point if we both drop it.

Dyany · Senior Member

Actually, from my understanding of 1930s German politics, it was a multiple party system that got the Nazis elected. The better votes were spread so thinly across a broad spectrum of parties that the evil or stupid supporters of the Nazi party won the election that put Hitler into power. I.e., if everyone who disagrees with McCain or Obama/Clinton 'voted their conscience', the results would probably NOT be Ron Paul, whom I dislike even more than McCain because of his foreign policies. The results would be a plethora of votes for small runners (which would come out of the woodwork looking for votes, believe me), spreading votes so thinly that only some sort of block voters would have any power. If those block voters are Democrats, they win. If they are an ethnic group, such as blacks, you might get someone like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. If they are TRULY evil, such as a mafia group or something like that, we'd end up with quite the nightmare. So still do what you want, but don't tout your third-party idealism as a cure-all.

LoudmouthMormon · Profuse Pontificator

arbilad wrote:

And since both of us have tried to make our position more clear, perhaps it's better at this point if we both drop it.

Fair enough. I think I'll start a new thread on why Israel's multi-party system stinks worse than ours. biggrin

LM