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Are non-voters immune to the fallout that results when the plainly obvious beforehand and painfully obvious in hindsight greater of two evils in put in charge?

Nope. And neither are those who vote for third parties.

I'm sure the kids who will never see their parents again would have opted for the lesser evil.

We are all stuck eating the proverbial s**t sandwich since most of the country insists it must either be republican or democrat.

That's how your system works, unfortunately.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
We are all stuck eating the proverbial s**t sandwich since most of the country insists it must either be republican or democrat.

These two sides are not equal. Stop pretending that both sides are just as bad. You're making the problem worse for yourself and everyone else by blinding yourself to all nuance, gradation and reason.

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"

Sure

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
Meh. If you feel these people are fit to rule over you, keep voting them in. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

And by not taking action you are allowing worse of two evil to take control. I know I prefer lesser evil over bigger evil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
We are all stuck eating the proverbial s**t sandwich since most of the country insists it must either be republican or democrat.

The way election system in US is set up it is...

I never said I don’t vote

But I guess you can say not voting republican or democrat is an inaction itself, but my conscience is clear and I sleep well enough at night.

"Both sides are bad" is pretty glib when one side is taking child hostages.

Don't let them off the hook for this.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
I never said I don’t vote

But I guess you can say not voting republican or democrat is an inaction itself, but my conscience is clear and I sleep well enough at night.

If you vote in a way that won't have any chance of changing anything due to way US has designed it's voting system voting is same as not voting.

 Spinner wrote:
"Both sides are bad" is pretty glib when one side is taking child hostages.

Don't let them off the hook for this.

Criticism of one party does not mean defense of the other

Well, that's the thing. All the 'both sides are bad'/'the lesser of two evils is still evil' statements always come rolling in when people talk about the GOP doing or supporting something cartoonishly evil, like abducting children and transporting them across the country to use as leverage for that stupid fething wall. It's a shallow bumper-sticker statement that wants to be deep; it's the freshman philosophy student of political stances.

Because while the lesser of two evils may still be 'evil', the greater of two evils is behind government officials telling an asylum seeker 'Happy Mother's Day' before they took her child.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:

But I guess you can say not voting republican or democrat is an inaction itself, but my conscience is clear and I sleep well enough at night.

Sounding dangerously close to "I'm alright Jack".

I don't think anyone is portraying the Democrats as paragons of virtue beyond reproach. They most certainly are not.

Rather, they remain more tethered to objective reality and socially acceptable norms of behavior. That's hardly high praise. I'll take a swift kick in the nuts over a limb amputation too, doesn't mean I'm a fan of being kicked in the nuts.

The Democrats are the kids on the short bus. Yeah they're sitting there eating paste, but they're not trying to crash the bus, and they're at least happy to share the paste.

The Republicans meanwhile are mad they have to share the bus (which they think is fundamentally bad in the first place), the teenage playground bully has taken the wheel and is trying to push everyone else off road, and if you don't have your own paste they're not gonna share.

I don't find it unfair to acknowledge that one of these options is more likely than the other to get me to my destination intact if something makes me get on a bus. But it also doesn't mean I want to ride the bus.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think anyone is portraying the Democrats as paragons of virtue beyond reproach. They most certainly are not.

Rather, they remain more tethered to objective reality and socially acceptable norms of behavior. That's hardly high praise. I'll take a swift kick in the nuts over a limb amputation too, doesn't mean I'm a fan of being kicked in the nuts.

The Democrats are the kids on the short bus. Yeah they're sitting there eating paste, but they're not trying to crash the bus, and they're at least happy to share the paste.

The Republicans meanwhile are mad they have to share the bus (which they think is fundamentally bad in the first place), the teenage playground bully has taken the wheel and is trying to push everyone else off road, and if you don't have your own paste they're not gonna share.

I don't find it unfair to acknowledge that one of these options is more likely than the other to get me to my destination intact if something makes me get on a bus. But it also doesn't mean I want to ride the bus.

And push that analogy further, not choosing one of those two buses isn't an option. Not voting (or voting for a different, basically imaginary bus) means you don't have a say in which bus you inevitably end up riding.

Again, criticism of one party is not defense of the other. I said nothing good about the GOP. But ok then. You want to dismiss my opinion as “shallow and wanting to be deep”, I will leave this discussion so you Ivy League philosophers can continue arguing about who’s better than who.

Reality: "Well good sir that will be a choice between a slap in the face and a knife in the gut, which do you prefer?"

Democrat: *exacerbated sigh* "Slap in the face..."

Republican: "A slap in the face would hurt, clearly knife in the gut!"

3rd Party: "I accept that one of those two will happen, but cast my vote elsewhere to show support for another option exists."

Non-Voter: "Those are both bad, let someone else decide for me."

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think anyone is portraying the Democrats as paragons of virtue beyond reproach. They most certainly are not.

Rather, they remain more tethered to objective reality and socially acceptable norms of behavior. That's hardly high praise. I'll take a swift kick in the nuts over a limb amputation too, doesn't mean I'm a fan of being kicked in the nuts.

The Democrats are the kids on the short bus. Yeah they're sitting there eating paste, but they're not trying to crash the bus, and they're at least happy to share the paste.

The Republicans meanwhile are mad they have to share the bus (which they think is fundamentally bad in the first place), the teenage playground bully has taken the wheel and is trying to push everyone else off road, and if you don't have your own paste they're not gonna share.

I don't find it unfair to acknowledge that one of these options is more likely than the other to get me to my destination intact if something makes me get on a bus. But it also doesn't mean I want to ride the bus.

Ok, thats a fair analogy

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
Again, criticism of one party is not defense of the other. I said nothing good about the GOP. But ok then. You want to dismiss my opinion as “shallow and wanting to be deep”, I will leave this discussion so you Ivy League philosophers can continue arguing about who’s better than who.

You made a statement, got called on it, and are trying to walk it back by saying "well I didn't technically make that statement".

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
We all know republicans will never admit or even realize their hypocrisy. They’re the party of christians after all. And christians wrote the book on hypocrisy!

But the insistence that the democratic party is a shining paragon of virtue and morality beyond reproach is either naive or disingenuous.

You’re all arguing about different sides of the same coin.

Emphasis mine.

I’m not walking back anything I’ve said. I never said I didn’t say anything. I did say I never said anything good about the gop. Which I haven’t.

Wow, you literally just did it again.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
Again, criticism of one party is not defense of the other. I said nothing good about the GOP. But ok then. You want to dismiss my opinion as “shallow and wanting to be deep”, I will leave this discussion so you Ivy League philosophers can continue arguing about who’s better than who.

To be clear, I am not criticizing your opinion as shallow.

I am surprised that, unless the GOP is 'your team', that one cannot see they are objectively worse than the previous administration, by a large margin

The GOP is not my team.

And I misconstrued your post as a personal attack. I’m sorry. For that and my snooty response.

 feeder wrote:

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
Again, criticism of one party is not defense of the other. I said nothing good about the GOP. But ok then. You want to dismiss my opinion as “shallow and wanting to be deep”, I will leave this discussion so you Ivy League philosophers can continue arguing about who’s better than who.

To be clear, I am not criticizing your opinion as shallow.

I am surprised that, unless the GOP is 'your team', that one cannot see they are objectively worse than the previous administration, by a large margin

I am

It's either saying that state-sponsored child abduction, turning over the EPA to a Captain Planet villain, and blatant rejection of reality is equivalent to the Democrats' screwups, or that they're not, but since they're also not perfect it's okay to hand the country over to a racist con artist and his cronies.

I'm not saying my own position is particularly deep. It's not. It's pretty simple, actually, and you're welcome to your own.

And the only thing I’m refuting is that I said anything good about or somehow am defending the GOP. If you believe differently, you are wrong.

 feeder wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think anyone is portraying the Democrats as paragons of virtue beyond reproach. They most certainly are not.

Rather, they remain more tethered to objective reality and socially acceptable norms of behavior. That's hardly high praise. I'll take a swift kick in the nuts over a limb amputation too, doesn't mean I'm a fan of being kicked in the nuts.

The Democrats are the kids on the short bus. Yeah they're sitting there eating paste, but they're not trying to crash the bus, and they're at least happy to share the paste.

The Republicans meanwhile are mad they have to share the bus (which they think is fundamentally bad in the first place), the teenage playground bully has taken the wheel and is trying to push everyone else off road, and if you don't have your own paste they're not gonna share.

I don't find it unfair to acknowledge that one of these options is more likely than the other to get me to my destination intact if something makes me get on a bus. But it also doesn't mean I want to ride the bus.

And push that analogy further, not choosing one of those two buses isn't an option. Not voting (or voting for a different, basically imaginary bus) means you don't have a say in which bus you inevitably end up riding.

Sounds exactly like a dictatorship, except that you get to choose between a really bad dictator and an even worse dictator. What happened to the land of the free?
I know I often say this as a joke, but I am starting to think it genuinely is revolution time for the US (non-violent, of course). Seriously, the US needs a better political system. What about representative democracy with more than two parties?

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
And the only thing I’m refuting is that I said anything good about or somehow am defending the GOP. If you believe differently, you are wrong.

I didn't say you were or had, actually. That's not my point at all.

 Spinner wrote:

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
And the only thing I’m refuting is that I said anything good about or somehow am defending the GOP. If you believe differently, you are wrong.

I didn't say you were or had, actually. That's not my point at all.

Well you lost me then pal. Guess I should’ve stayed in school.

Edit-wasn’t directed at you.