And The Losers Cry "Foul"

The losing side always seems to think that the winning side somehow “rigged the game” and cheated them out of what was rightfully theirs, no matter what the vote count may have been or what the nature of the process was. The undesirable outcome is never the “will of the people,” but is always a manipulated outcome achieved by scoundrels who suborned democracy.

(That does happen, of course. Think Florida and the year 2000.)

A piece the other day at Attywood complains that other states have gay marriage, so why can’t Pennsylvania have it as well? The answer is pretty simple, but seems to elude the writer of the piece; when the people of Pennsylvania quit electing representatives to government who oppose gay marriage, then they can have gay marriage. It’s not rocket science. You get the government you elect.

Do these politicians run on a platform of favoring gay marriage and then vote against it once they are in office? They do not. They are proud of opposing gay marriage, they campaign on the issue, they make speeches about opposition to gay marriage, and they win the election. Why are the voters upset and surprised that the state does not allow gay marriage?

Don’t raise the fig leaf of “Citizens United” at me on this. For one thing, voters who allow their vote to be purchased deserve precisely what they get; they are beneath contempt. But politicians purchase ads which feature the views they espouse. The advertisements to which these voters succumb scream the anti-gay marriage views espoused by the candidate.

When we stop electing representatives who oppose abortion, then a woman’s right to choose will be safe in this nation.

When we stop electing representatives who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare then our social safety net will be secure.

In a discussion elsewhere conservative voters were accused of “voting for what politicians said and ignoring what they do,” but on these large issues that is nonsense. Politicians who oppose gay marriage, abortion and the social safety net do not hide their views. On the contrary, they make those issues central to their campaigns, and they win election. At reelection time they boast of having voted against those issues and they win reelection. There is no subterfuge here. You want gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose and a social safety net, quit electing these guys.

The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a Congress that had promised in 2008 to end the war in Iraq and gave us “the surge” instead; a Congress that decried the Patriot Act and then renewed it in 2009.

The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a president who said that he would close Guantanamo and then made no more than token effort to do so; who promised the most transparent government ever and then prosecuted more whistleblowers than all of the presidents preceding him combined; who promised to “change Washington” then named Wall Street to his cabinet.

Complain away, but we have the government we elected.