Monday, April 16, 2012

The "Lesser Evil" Is Insufficient

I was asked the other day why, when I claim to consistently vote Democrat, do I tend to write posts on my blog which are critical of Democrats and not Republicans. The answer, dear reader, is that I criticize Democrats because I voted for them.

I have no expectations of Republicans. I know who they are, which is why I don’t vote for them. I do have expectations of Democrats. I voted for them based on their promises to exercise a certain type of leadership, and when they fail to do that I call them out on it.

Obama, for instance, claimed to be against “stupid wars,” and now he has us in this upscaled quagmire in Afghanistan for the expressed purpose of “denying them space in which to plan their attacks.” Could anything be stupider than that? Of course I’m going to criticize him for that. There is no point in criticizing Republicans for wars. You might as well criticize a fish for swimming. Wars are what Republicans do, and that’s part of why I don’t vote for them.

Obama promised “health care reform” and we got a lot of rhetoric about “bending the cost curve” and a massive program that requires everyone to purchase health insurance. Defenders point out that, “Oh, but it provides for community clinics.” Yes, it does, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. The bill still requires everyone to purchase health insurance and does not adequately regulate the cost of that insurance.

The point is that I don’t expect the other side to do the right thing. I do expect my side to do the right thing, and when they don’t I’m going to express my displeasure with them about it. Complaining about what the other side does is an exercise in mental masturbation; it feels good, but it serves no constructive purpose.

If enough people were sufficiently critical of our present Democratic leadership, we might find that leadership challenged by better quality leaders. Instead, we slavishly support this batch of corporatist panderers because they are the “lesser evil” and we wind up with a government which consistently acts against the best interest of the people it governs.

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