Two possible alternatives to voting for McCain or Obama are abstaining from voting and supporting Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr. Many people believe that voting is irrational because the chance that your vote will influence the outcome is infinitesmally small. I think this logic is incorrect, for reasons I discuss in detail in the first part of this article. To briefly summarize my argument, I contend that voting is rational so long as 1) the cost of voting is low, 2) you care at least slightly about your fellow citizens as well as yourself, and 3) you believe that there is a significant difference between the rival candidates. The low probability of your vote being decisive is balanced by the enormous benefits that will accrue if it is. I'm no paragon of civic virtue; but I do care about the future of the country as well as my own. And I also believe that the cost of voting is low and that there is a substantial difference between Obama and McCain, even though I have serious reservations about both. Thus, it will be rational for me to vote in the 2008 election.
As for the Libertarian Party, back in 2006 I wrote a post entitled "Why the Libertarian Party is Bad for Libertarianism." I still endorse the argument I made there. Readers interested in my thoughts on the LP may want to check out that post.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Knowledge and the Rationality of Voting:
- Should the Rational Public-Spirited Person Vote?
- Why I Won't Abstain or Vote for the Libertarian Party:
- A Vote for Divided Government:
- The Libertarian Vote:
- How Should Libertarians Vote?
- Libertarian Voters:
the concerns in the post seem very practical. Basically, the LP is too small to ever win an election, and all intellectual influence libertarianism has had has come from outside the party.
But that is a little defeatist isn't it? If the libratarians such as you voted for the LP instead of the real candidate they thought was more libratarian, then the 10 to 15% of the voters you think are libratarian inclined would turn the 1% of the vote the LP gets into a 10-15% of the vote.
you are certainty correct that even if this happened, it wouldn't get us a librarian president, or get us any representation, because its an all or nothing election for each office (not a coalition system like Israel or European style governments).
However, there is more to politics than official representation. If it is true, as you say in your anti LP post, that little media/academic/political attention is given to libertarian views, then perhaps this might change should the LP get 15% of a vote (even if that resulted in no wins). Candidates in the major parties would possibly then consider how to change their particular brand of democrat like views or republican like views to more actively fit the libertarian vote. Their positions might change to woo the libertarian voters...and this would happen even if there was not a single LP candidate ever elected.
I presidential elections in the past there were 4rdparty candidates who actually won electoral votes for president. I would assume that next time around, both GOP and Democratic candidates were trying to figure out how to get those voters back (and they successfully did it seems..since the "American independent party" of George Wallace seems to no longer exist..despite winning electoral votes that one time.
on the other issue:
I'm not convinced that voting is rational simply becuase the reward of the possibility of making a difference is large enough to justify voting. The numbers you used in the paper make lots of assumptions that could also apply to the lottery. The lottery is also a very small cost (a couple dollars...about the cost of driving to and form the polls and the time spent). Similarly, the reward of winning the lottery is also potentially quite huge, but i doubt you play the lottery (or do you?)
Of course, there is the factor of the statement you make by voting-ie..doing the "right thing." People cant see who you voted for, but they can only see that you did in fact vote.
We need people to vote to have a democracy..we don't know why people choose to vote instead of staying home (we just know that they do and always have in large numbers)-but we do know that people often do things becuase they see or know about other people doing them. Perhaps by you voting you influence other people to vote. This is particularly true for leaders and intellectuals-who can have influence over the minds of many.
There are 4.9 million registered voters in Virgina, where I believe you're located.
3 polls taken in the last week (10/23-28) each have Obama up by 7%
Assuming 50% of registered voters actually vote, Obama should get about 175,000 more votes than McCain in your state.
Let's assume you face NO COST from voting, and let us further assume you have EXTREME LOVE for your fellow man.
Despite these assumptions, I see no argument you've offered to the effect that care and concern for your fellow citizens requires you to engage in symbolic but KNOWN FUTILE actions.
Compare: You see someone drowning in the ocean. You cannot swim. You care for this person. Since you cannot swim, actually saving this person is out of the question, but you CAN go into the shallow water and splash around a lot to give the impression you're trying to help.
1. Splashing around in the shallow water is of little cost to you.
2. You very much care for the drowning person.
3. Drowning is much worse than not drowning.
Do you really think your futile symbolic gesture is socially, morally, or ethically required?
I find it hard to believe that the odds of such a thing are as calculable as you say they are (indeed-they are much more calculable for the lottery)
the odds change highly based on what state or election we are talking about, what year and what office, whether statewide, locally or president.
Obviously president is the hardest argument to overcome. Suppose you live in Utah? still 1 in 100 million chance? Suppose it was the year after carter was about to be wiped out by Regan? still 1 in 100 million.
The lottery is deliberately rigged such that the expected cost of is greater than the expected benefit. Otherwise, the lottery would collapse. Not so (or at least not necessarily so) with voting.
The key word here is "known." Most likely it will indeed be futile. But there is a small but nonzero chance that it won't. And if that chance comes up, the payoff will be huge. If it doesn't, I give up only a small cost.
The LP has failed to attract such attention for over 35 years. It's highly unlikely it will now suddenly succeed. Moreover, one has to consider opportunity costs. The same rexsources could benefit libertarianism far more if spent in other ways. Finally, I didn't say that libertarian views get little attention. Rather, I said that such attention as they get mostly comes as a result of non-LP activity. That shows that the LP is a poor investment compared to other types of efforts to promote libertarianism.
Unless the election is very close, the odds of a single vote determining the outcome is vanishingly small, too small to serve as a basis for a rational choice.
No, the effect a vote can have is on the direction of public policy, regardless of who wins. For that purpose, the most effective vote is a vote for a minor party candidate with a strong message in an election where that minor candidate gets enough votes to provide the margin of victory. If that happens, both major parties and their candidates are likely to chase the voters for that minor candidate or party, and alter their positions accordingly. That is how a small minority can come to function as a veto group, without whose support the majorities can't advance their positions.
Few things would do more good than for there to be a close election between Obama and McCain with Bob Barr getting at least 10% of the vote. Suddenly, everyone would become a "libertarian".
I didn't say give thousands to the libertarian party or write books or articles supporting them. I said vote for them...no opportunity cost
The problem is that voting for them in any significant numbers will in fact encourage people to give them money, spend time as LP activists, etc.
Or complain that Barr spoiled the election for McCain. At which point, the LP would sink back into obscurity under the weight of having cost an ideologically compatible candidate the election.
If Hitler and Stalin were running for President on the 2 major party tickets, would you feel you had to choose between them? Probably not, I would think.
It seems to me that many libertarians like myself just set the bar far lower when it comes to refusing to sanction evil by voting for really bad statist bozos.
You say Hitler, I say Giant Douche...You say Stalin, I say Turd Sandwich...
Let's call the whole thing off...
The only way to stop that death spiral is if a significant fraction of the voting population draws a line, and says, "No further! I don't CARE if your opponent wants infanticide legally protected, or would ban all gun stores! YOU aren't good enough to get my vote no matter how bad your opponent is!"
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Why do Republicans try so hard to out-liberal the Democrats then? IOW, there isn't a "follow some minority party."
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I think there is a common (roughly, "more central government" or "better management from a central planning authority") force that drives the two majority parties, and while the two major parties are substantially different in many regards, both of them promise "more" or at least "better" government.
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The major parties chase the other's voters, not the voters who subscribe to policies that the major parties ridicule as lunatic fringe.
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That's a good point in the general as well. The loser needs to blame something or somebody outside of his sphere of control. When the Democrats lose, it's Nader's fault. When GHWB lost, it was Perot's fault. Fact is, parties and politicians win or lose on their own merits. Attract enough voters, and you win.
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You whole post sums up my thoughts better than I summed up my thoughts. And as for the remedy, that will happen after the Constitution exists in form only. "It's over." I don't foresee any scenario where the public decides it favors self-responsibility (and resulting uncertainty) over the path we're on. We are a defacto democracy, and history is a reliable predictor of where this ends up.
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Not caring about that particular item is suicidal for the existence of a free people. Mao was right about at least one thing. All power flows from the barrel of a gun.
A libertarian so principled that he won't vote for a Libertarian Party candidate.
I love it!
So, in the end, when it comes time to vote, "libertarian" = Republican Party running dog, no?
And, Cboldt, I'm not a single issue voter, and I'm not going to vote for the guy who notoriously said that if it came down to fighting political corruption, or the First amendment, he was ditching the First amendment.
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That is only slightly different from the way I excerpted and interpreted your comment, which was to not care, period.
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My proposition is that if freedom to keep and bear arms is an important issue to a person, then that person should be much less likely to vote for a Democrat or Democrat-lite (Collins, Ensign, Warner in the GOP are either hostile or lukewarm to the 2nd amendment).
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-- I'm not going to vote for the guy who notoriously said that if it came down to fighting political corruption, or the First amendment, he was ditching the First amendment. --
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I think the 2nd amendment is more important than the 1st - and that is not to say that I'd give up freedom to practice religion or the freedom to agitate with words. I see the Democrats as more hostile and less tolerant of political expression they disagree with and religion (e.g., jukeboxgrad asserts it is unconstitutional for a political candidate to express his religious beliefs as part of an election campaign). YMMV, and I see it does.
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Therefore you can not average poll data as averaging assumes the polls are unbiased which clearly they are not.
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Just another example of "garbage in, garbage out." Anytime popular media gets an analysis correct as a matter of rational logic, it's an accident.
My statement, "Therefore you can not average poll data as averaging assumes the polls are unbiased which clearly they are not" is too strong. The report provides only prima facie evidence that the polls are biased.
The network polls fail to inform the public that their reported "margins of error" do not capture all the polling error. The MOE only give the sampling error. The adjustments to the polls for non-sampling errors provide the networks with a opportunity to fiddle with the results according to the political biases.
Message to Obamabots. Do you really think that the media with the exception of Fox do not exhibit a bias towards the Obama and the Democrats? Fox of course has its own bias, but we all knew that.
The Republican Party may once have been the party of small government, but Bush/DeLay/Rove have made it the party of "Spend even more than the Democrats to buy an electoral majority!"
Turns out, that ain't workin' so well.
Pundits are already talking about the "war for the soul of the Republican Party" that will ensue after the looming electoral debacle. This war will pit small government conservatives against big-government religious nanny-staters who seek to expand government power to enforce their view of morality.
Libertarians have a dog in that fight. They need the small government conservatives to triumph in the intra-party conflict.
If one lives in a state where the result of the election is a foregone conclusion (think California, Massachusetts, Hawaii, etc.), then a vote for McCain actually helps the Palinesque Jihadis: "See! We got the base out to vote in Massachusetts and California! If we put a Bible-thumper at the top of the ticket, we'll win next time!"
A vote for the Libertarian Party send the exact opposite message: "I believe in small government and will come home to the Republican Party IF the Republican party stops screaming about boys kissing and actually starts to be fiscally responsible.
Heck, even if you are a Republican who likes bigger government, you ought to vote Libertarian - if the jihadis capture the Republican party, you'll just be guaranteeing that Obama will have a second term. Is there anyone outside of the religious right who actually believes Palin '12 could defeat an INCUMBENT Obama? Dude. Put down the crack pipe.
Finally, a vote for the Libertarians is also a call for moderate Republicans like Powell and the intellectual elites like Will and Brooks to come back home because it will help the sane branch of the Republican Party win the intra-party fight.
None of this applies if you live in a close state. If McCain is within the margin of error in your state, you probably want to vote Republican in the hope that the polls are off in the other states.
How about a Pure Protest Party? The PPP's candidates would 'run' on the platform that if elected they wouldn't serve and that voting for them was the only way to say "none of the above."
I'm reasonably sure that you can't shame politicians, but a substantial protest vote might at least slow them down. And people might be more inclined to cast such votes if they didn't have to vote for the other guy to do it.
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Your imagination is persausive to you, and to others who want the Democratic party ideals and platform to prevail in the long run. Your pejorative invective discloses your position.
#1. RCP's average called 49 of 50 states correctly, a large number of which were won by less than 2%.
#2 RCP's pegged the popular vote as Bush 50.0 - Kerry 48.5. Finaly tally? Bush 50.7%-Kerry 48.3%.
"Except that averaging polls has a tendency to counteract the bias by averaging together pro-McCain biased polls with pro-Obama biased polls."
Your statement would be true if the bias were both random and symmetrically distributed about a mean of zero. Neither is the case.
"That, plus the fact that averaging the polls proved fantastically accurate as a predictor in 2004."
We don't have an analysis of the bias (if any) in the 2004 polls. The report deals with 2008. We would also have to look at the final polling results for bias.
"Regarding polls, the paper you linked to concluded in its final graph that NBC/WSJ and CNN polls leaned more in favor of Republicans than Democrats."
That's why the report abstract used the phrase "taken as a whole."
Huh? First, if bias had a mean of zero, averaging polls would eliminate all bias, regardless of how asymmetrically it was distributed and how non-random it was.
Second, I don't think that Angus's point was that averaging solves all problems, just that it helps ameliorate the problem a bit. That is true under a much broader set of circumstances.
If that wasn't the case, the "divided government" and "rational voting" posts would have been much longer and more numerous than the "Obama is a kook" ones.
Revealed preferences, folks.
http://www.cthulhu.com/
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A variant of "quantity is a predictor of quality" or "quantity is a predictor of position."
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I'll have to locate these "Obama is a kook" posts. Don't you mean "the poster is a kook," for misapprehending Obama?
You may offer your analysis of the posts' veracity. I was distilling their pagelong messages into a single phrase, for effect.
The point is, VC posters who took hours out of their lives to write posts and comments calling Obama a kooky socialist, and minutes to write about divided government, have already shown why they are voting, and it isn't any of the fig-leaves they are bruiting about now.
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Again, I'll have to re-read the posts, but my intuition is that the people you refer to disagree with Obama's positions as a matter of policy, so their decision is whether to vote for his big-party opponent, or to cast what they see as a more principled ballot, in theory. Reality bumps into theory, and they explain why (still rejecting Obama's policies) they choose McCain.
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IOW, I think they've been consistent in rejecting the position you adopt, that Obama is superior to all the other choices.
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"Kooky socialist" is an odd construction. I see the arguments that aim to tar both candidates with the label "socialist" (i.e., McCain and Obama are both socialist, so that's no reason to prefer one over the other), or that neither warrants the label. Pretty common, that, argue over the application of a label rather than compare the choices using other terms. But that aside, what is a "kooky socialist"?
I haven't voted myself since my kids were 5. Since they were old enough to walk they've gone into the booth with me and pushed the buttons I point to, and when we're done they thrown the switch.
Vote because good men died face down in the mud so you could.
Vote because it is the sacred sacrament of a free people.
Instead of trying to keep up with the Jones, a “kooky socialist” worries about keeping up with the Swedes.
You'd understand, if you had your own Minniwegian accent.
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I think that's in error, but understandable because "kooki" is a homonym of "kooky."
- Palinesque Jihadis --
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Your imagination is persausive to you, and to others who want the Democratic party ideals and platform to prevail in the long run. Your pejorative invective discloses your position.
Your belief that objecting to a Christianist government makes some a (gasp!) Democrat illustrates my point. There is a fundamental tension between small government Libertarians and folks who want to use the power of government to promote their view of Christianity.
There are many people who would vote for a smaller government Republican party if such a party existed. Since these small government types don't have tha option, they will default to their social values and conclude that the social goals of the Jihadis (oops! I did it again!) are immoral and will vote against them. You can see this with Palin - many people who would otherwise vote for McCain are turned off by her description of the witch doctor as a prophet of God and by her support for the anti-Gay Marriage Amendment.
Parties are bog-tent entities. The Democrats have similar factional differences that can be counter-productive (Blue Dogs vs. Northeastern libs).
When the Republican party was balanced between the poles of their factions, many small government types could make a cost benefit analysis and pull the lever for Reagan, Bush Senior, Dole and even G.W. the first time. But under G.W.'s first term, it became clear that it was the culture warriors who were driving the party.
So, cdbolt, this isn't some Liberal Dem rejoicing in the fall of the enemy. I'm simply offering an alternative game strategy to Professor Somin. Even if you think I'm some type of commie symp liberal, how is the analysis wrong? YOU may support the jihadi branch of the Republican party. But the question is: how would a Libertarian game the current situation?
I maintain that a vote for McCain plays into the hands of the part of the Republican party that is hostile to small government.
One more thing in the interest of full disclosure. I don't want the Democratic party's platform values to prevail. I want a smaller government, individual responsibility, and I want ALL of the Constitution to be enforced. I can't vote for that right now. I can only choose between a big-government party that openly narrows its base to "real Americans," and only supports the 2nd Amendment OR a big-government party that advocates collective responsibility that only supports the 1st Amendment.
If the small government conservatives can retake the party, I'll vote for you next time. But this time I'm voting for the guy who doesn't hate gays, and non-Christians.
If you've lost this real American (I'm White, a farmer, a gun owner, a Christian, married and a heterosexual), you are in trouble.
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I think the analysis is flawed because it flows from an incorrect factual basis. What you see as "jihadi christians" haven't been able to impose whatever policy it is that you object to. Maybe you are just hostile to people expressing Christian belief, I don't know - but your screed comes off that way, and most people who are hostile to public expression of religious belief also advocate (as you do today) that the Democrat be given the favor of a vote.
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I don't think any libertarian gaming can be effective. I'm a defeatist/John Galt in that regard.
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-- I maintain that a vote for McCain plays into the hands of the part of the Republican party that is hostile to small government. --
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I don't disagree with that. My point is that a vote for Barack Obama plays into the hands of the part of BOTH the Republican and Democratic party that is hostile to small government.
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I don't see the GOP as any more or less hostile to the 1st amendment - shared blame on McCain/Feingold, and that abomination seems to hurt the GOP more than does the DEMs.
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I hear you on your preference for "collective responsibility," and that goes a long way to helping me understand that given a choice between DEMs and GOP, you choose DEM. I am averse to the notion of collective responsibility, when that is forced by the government.
I have no quarrel at all with those who feel that the voting bang is worth their buck, but I have long felt that not voting in certain circumstances (which I find obtain for me in most elections) is fully rational for some of us.
At least when you look at the entire range of voting - presidential candidates, propositions, Congress, Senate, state elections, etc., you can give a slightly more nuanced signal. Even if your vote doesn't count for any of those races, candidates will know how much (or how little) support they have for their positions. While candidates who win by one vote and one million votes both win, the latter has a much larger base of support of his positions; the former knows that if he pisses off one supporter, he could be ousted the next time around.
Republicans talk a good game about small government, but once you put them in power they start making it bigger again.
I should have written:
"Your statement would be true if the bias were both random and symmetrically distributed about a median of zero. Neither is the case."
I'm a believer in individual responsibility. I don't like collective responsibility.
The First Amendment isn't just speech - it includes freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion. Many Jihadi Republicans want to legitimize their brand of Christianity. I disagree on the theology and think Christianity isn't well-served by "official support."
I'm not advocating a vote for Obama - I'm advocating a vote for Barr. If your small government vote cannot elect McCain as the lesser of two evils (note how I made my case ONLY for areas where Obama had an insurmountable lead like Hawaii or Massachusetts), then a vote for Barr can give support to small government Republicans in the party realignment.
Excellent. Thank you. This should be the norm.
I think for some people it's most convenient to vote when the kids are in school. We can probably think of ways to make this less of a problem.
Please note the following facts:
A) Until just now, I have not been present in this thread
B) You aren't providing a link to what I actually said
C) Instead of providing a quote, you're providing a somewhat misleading and oversimplified paraphrase
Considering those facts together, I think what you did is poor sportsmanship.
What I said is here.
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I owe you (and freely give) an apology for mistaking your point of view. Entirely my fault for jumping to a false conclusion, as that point of view is fairly well stated in the post I first responded to.
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What set me off was my perception that you have an aversion to the Bible-thumpers, on account of them being effective at setting government policy. II see them making plenty of noise, bless their hearts, but not getting much in the way of policy. My aversion is to the Rockefeller/Country-club wing of the GOP. Those twits grow government, and energize a revolving door between pet private enterprise (personally owned) and government.
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— Instead of providing a quote, you're providing a somewhat misleading and oversimplified paraphrase ... What I said is here [10.26.2008 8:51pm]. --
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I'm referring to your 10.23.2008 9:17pm (in the same thread):
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I think it could cost a candidate an election if he said something like "pick me because Christianity is better than Islam" [substitute your choice of religions/denominations], but I don't assert that such a statement is unconstitutional.
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The subject of our conversation at the time was the contention that Palin's campaign cast her opponent as a non-Christian, and you intimated that sort of activity is prohibited by the Constitution.
I don't think we need to recapitulate what was said in the other thread. And I've already explained why I object to the statement you made in this thread. You should have used an actual quote rather than a casual paraphrase, and you should have linked to where the quote came from. Especially because I was not present in this thread to speak up on my own behalf.
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Yes, you did explain. I didn't quarrel with your explanation or suggestions, but that doesn't mean I'm going to comply with your suggestions in the future. Obviously, I think the paraphrase was accurate. Obviously, you think it was inaccurate. Since neither of us is amenable to change our point of view, debate on the point would be futile.
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With regard to the credibility that should be accorded a paraphrase, others who read here can make exactly the same observations you did - a paraphrase is not a quote, and in this case, it wasn't substantiated with a link citation.
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With regard to the importance of that particular paraphrase, it was used as anecdotal support of my impression that those who express hostility toward public expression of religion tend to also support the platform and candidates of the Democratic party. Whether I characterized your hostility "perfectly" isn't important in that context.
There you go again, misrepresenting my position. It's definitely not about "public expression of religion." In the other thread I explicitly supported the "public expression of religion." The problem is "public expression of religion" by a candidate in the context of a campaign (especially when that expression is about drawing a contrast between my religion and the other guy's religion).
Not the same thing.
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jukeboxgrad: -- Instead of providing a quote, you're providing a somewhat misleading and oversimplified paraphrase ... The problem is "public expression of religion" by a candidate in the context of a campaign (especially when that expression is about drawing a contrast between my religion and the other guy's religion) --
"Fuck them to hell."
At least then you wouldn't be lonely there. Good plan.
Also, 'express my religious beliefs as part of an election campaign' can mean a bunch of different things. Consider:
A) I oppose/support the death penalty for various reasons, including my religion
B) I am religion X, and he is religion Y, so therefore you should vote for me
Both A and B fall under the rubric of 'express my religious beliefs as part of an election campaign.' However, A is defensible (in my opinion), and B is not. Romney rightly complained when people did various forms of B. Trouble is, that's what Palin did.
How did it come to this? How did we lose our way?