River of shit.
Once more, I’m being asked to choke on my vote in the 2000 elections. —Meanwhile, the registered Democrats who voted directly for Bush get a free ride. (Presumably, their choice was in some fashion more moral? more honest? than mine.)
You know what? I just don’t care anymore. I don’t give a good God damn. I’ve had all the fights I can stomach and all the arguments I can stand and I know why I did it and given it to do all over again I’d do what I did, and let me tell you what you already know: the Democrats in power have not acquitted themselves terribly well in the past two years. There’s plenty of Congressfolk with Ds after their names who I myself hope have a hard time swallowing around some of their votes. But you need to piss all over me and mine to make yourself feel better, get it out of your system? Fine. Go right ahead.
Feel better?
Now. Can we each in our own way go do what needs to be done about our current situation? Or is that too much to ask?
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Thank you. I just got savaged on a liberal forum for saying my conscience was clear for having voted for Nader in 2000. My conscience is still clear.
Funny you should choose that title. I was singing that song to myself all morning. Must be that kind of day in the Greater Portland Metropolitan Area. Which, of course, leads to the question: What is the Lesser Portland Metropolitan Area?
Yeah. I remember a friend saying he was "proud" to have voted for Bush.
I couldn't imagine an alternate universe in which I was capable of saying that.
(Does he still feel that way? I can't guess.)
I voted for Nader. I might have voted for Gore had I been living in one of those closely-fought swing states. But I live in California. And I felt unconflicted (if that's possible for me). It was one little vote. At least I voted! I don't understand why the folks who get all red in the face about Nader voters aren't directing more anger toward the HUGE numbers of people who didn't vote at all.
The people who scold people for having voted for Nader are wrong (and people who are wrong and nasty about it are especially annoying!).
The cost-benefit analysis is something like: (probability that your vote will cost Gore the election) * (how much worse Bush is than Gore) [that's the cost] against (amount that your vote will make the Green Party's total look more impressive) * (how much an impressive Green Party total might cause a change in government policy etc). [That's the benefit.]
(You can add (probability that your vote will win Nader the election) * (how much better Nader is than the runner-up) to the benefit if you want; but the scolders will insist that that's zero.)
It is by no means blindingly obvious how the above analysis comes out; the people who claim that the Right Thing To Do is obvious have just not thought about it hard enough.
In general the notion that it's immoral to refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils really annoys me. I have no problem with people who vote that way themselves; if that's what they want to do then they should go ahead and do it. But I'll always do the cost-benefit analysis above, and that pretty much always leads me to vote for the party whose stands I like the most, and that's How It Should Be anyway.
(And just to show that I'm not just One of the Choir here, I'll mention that the third-party candidate that took my vote away from Gore was Browne, not Nader. Heh heh.)