Seriously, my fellow lefties...

[Bacon King]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge regardless of skin color or religious preference or sexual orientation. We are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

But I'm a special snowflake that deserves to vote for a candidate who is perfect to me! even if it means allowing an unstable racist pedophile madman to become president!

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

If I do decide to cast a completely supererogatory vote for Clinton, it certainly won't be because people I sort-of-know on the internet guilt-tripped me into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv2idE5Aa3Q

Vote against Hitler, you delicate flower and feel good about. What is so difficult about this decision? What's worse about this whole thing is that you're proud to be a Christian. Trump is an abomination. He's arguably one of the most ungodly men to ever walk the Earth. He's basically an Antichrist, a false prophet and you can't vote against that?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

If I do decide to cast a completely supererogatory vote for Clinton, it certainly won't be because people I sort-of-know on the internet guilt-tripped me into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv2idE5Aa3Q

Vote against Hitler, you delicate flower and feel good about. Jesus Christ, what is so difficult about this decision?

It's not a difficult decision. I just don't live in a state where I have to make it. If the United States had a nationwide popular vote, my thinking would be different.

[muon2]

If I do decide to cast a completely supererogatory vote for Clinton, it certainly won't be because people I sort-of-know on the internet guilt-tripped me into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv2idE5Aa3Q

Vote against Hitler, you delicate flower and feel good about. What is so difficult about this decision? What's worse about this whole thing is that you're proud to be a Christian. Trump is an abomination. He's arguably one of the most ungodly men to ever walk the Earth. He's basically an Antichrist, a false prophet and you can't vote against that?

He lives in MA. It is one of the most certain states in this election. What better place to make a statement about other choices than in a state like MA?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

By the way Nathan, no one is trying to "guilt trip" you. We're all trying to make you see reason. Each and every one of us have had our own personal moments where the election become "real" and the stakes became apparent. It's not as if BK, oakvale and I have always felt this way about this contest. BK considered voting for Stein, so did I and oakvale once expressed ironic support for Trump. We all came to see the light and realized the stakes and adjusted our perception of this election accordingly; you should as well, I think. Think about this. Ponder upon it.

[DavidB.]

I largely agree with DFB's posts here, but the "your vote decides who will be president" line of reasoning that is prevalent in this thread is just as Atlas as being overly picky regarding the question which candidate one should support. An individual's vote is a drop in the ocean and doesn't matter.

[Mopsus]

I don't really understand why people treat voting as some extension of their personality where it's important that they can feel nice or whatever?.

Because no important election has ever been decided by one vote.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

If I do decide to cast a completely supererogatory vote for Clinton, it certainly won't be because people I sort-of-know on the internet guilt-tripped me into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv2idE5Aa3Q

Vote against Hitler, you delicate flower and feel good about. What is so difficult about this decision? What's worse about this whole thing is that you're proud to be a Christian. Trump is an abomination. He's arguably one of the most ungodly men to ever walk the Earth. He's basically an Antichrist, a false prophet and you can't vote against that?

He lives in MA. It is one of the most certain states in this election. What better place to make a statement about other choices than in a state like MA?

You are a state legislator and you've endorsed Donald Trump: why should anyone respect anything that you have to say about this election? You are a coward. Thanks for being part of the movement to destroy our global economic system and our standard of living.

[Oakvale]

The issue with that rationale is that if the expected value of your vote is realistically zero in a razor-thin swing state that's decided by 0.1% and a rock-solid, safe state decided by 25%.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

By the way Nathan, no one is trying to "guilt trip" you. We're all trying to make you see reason. Each and every one of us have had our own personal moments where the election become "real" and the stakes became apparent. It's not as if BK, oakvale and I have always felt this way about this contest. BK considered voting for Stein, so did I and oakvale once expressed ironic support for Trump. We all came to see the light and realized the stakes and adjusted our perception of this election accordingly; you should as well, I think. Think about this. Ponder upon it.

Put this way, sure, I'm willing to reassess, but I wasn't feeling particularly moved by the dogpiling or the insults.

The last conversation that I had like this one involved a guy in a kitschy necktie at my door and ended with him trying to leave me with a copy of The Watchtower.

I can't tell if this is in reference to being proselytized to or in reference to moralistic political uninvolvement, and thus whether I should feel validated by it or chastened or some combination of both.

[DavidB.]

I don't really understand why people treat voting as some extension of their personality where it's important that they can feel nice or whatever?.

Because no important election has ever been decided by one vote.

The statistical probability that one's vote is the decisive one is smaller than the probability that one dies in an accident on one's way to the polling station.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

This is how I feel right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE

why are we discussing this as if it's a difficult choice? jesus christ people, we know the stakes and this isn't normal, it's anything but normal. so, yes, "i want you to get mad" and "i don't know what to do" about any of these dark winds and dark forces but "first you've got to get mad" and then take a stand against the doom spiral into hatred, intolerance, bigotry and the devaluing of human life that we've witnessed over the past two years. this isn't normal folks. get mad. do something about it. my personal stand is voting for hillary rodham clinton. there are other valid forms of personal stands but i think we all have to work to strangle the trump movement in its crib because it's toxic stuff. a refusal to do something is self-immolation at this point.

that's that i have to say.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

my personal stand is voting for hillary rodham clinton. there are other valid forms of personal stands

Did it not occur to you that I might be engaging in some of them, or are you implying that there are things one can do on top of voting for Clinton but that it's unacceptable to do them instead of it? I don't have any agenda in asking this question, I'm genuinely unsure what you mean.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

my personal stand is voting for hillary rodham clinton. there are other valid forms of personal stands

Did it not occur to you that I might be engaging in some of them, or are you implying that there are things one can do on top of voting for Clinton but that it's unacceptable to do them instead of it? I don't have any agenda in asking this question, I'm genuinely unsure what you mean.

No, I think that anything anyone can do to stop Trumpism from destroying our body politic and our global economic system is good and I don't care what people decide to do. I'm mostly lashing at out at the braindead apathy of my peers right now, who can't seem to fathom that, yes, something terrifying is happening and that the proper response is to get active instead of retreating into PokemonGo and memes and cynicism.

I respect averroes because, even though he won't vote for Clinton, he's hated Trump from the beginning and does his own thing to stand up to these forces. Anyone who acts is good, I think. Voting for Clinton simply happens to be the easiest/most accessible way of confronting the forces that are assailing everything that we hold dear.

I see voting as a symbolic act. It's a way of transmitting information and preferences to politicians and, also, your peers; it's a kind of statement that has more meaning than its role as a mechanism for allocating power. It's more powerful than that. It's pretty easy also.

[DavidB.]

In my experience there's a huge amount of variation in what even many very educated people will tell you about the ethics of voting when you ask them why it's important to vote and how you should select a candidate. Many of them jump straight to the shockingly and transparently weak "deciding vote" argument.

Yes, that's a really stupid argument. I vote because it makes me feel good, not because it would be rational. And this is the case for most people, really. They only don't know or admit it.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

my personal stand is voting for hillary rodham clinton. there are other valid forms of personal stands

Did it not occur to you that I might be engaging in some of them, or are you implying that there are things one can do on top of voting for Clinton but that it's unacceptable to do them instead of it? I don't have any agenda in asking this question, I'm genuinely unsure what you mean.

No, I think that anything anyone can do to stop Trumpism from destroying our body politic and our global economic system is good and I don't care what people decide to do. I'm mostly lashing at out at the braindead apathy of my peers right now, who can't seem to fathom that, yes, something terrifying is happening and that the proper response is to get active instead of retreating into PokemonGo and memes and cynicism.

I respect averroes because, even though he won't vote for Clinton, he's hated Trump from the beginning and does his own thing to stand up to these forces. Anyone who acts is good, I think. Voting for Clinton simply happens to be the easiest/most accessible way of confronting the forces that are assailing everything that we hold dear.

If it helps your opinion of me/my desire to not vote for Clinton, I'm actively trying to persuade Trump-curious people I know to abstain or vote for Johnson; sometimes I'm even selectively lying to them about my own motives in order to do so.

I'm a little hurt that you seem to have jumped to the conclusion that I'm being completely passive, honestly. I don't know how exactly I could have given that impression. I haven't defended Trump. I can't remember implying that I think there's a direct moral equivalency between him and Clinton.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

One of the reasons Clinton is seeking out and getting hawkish support is because Trump is supposed to not believe America has a "role in the world."  I doubt many complained that of Tojo.  Trump represents an amoral foreign policy, which might be called "realist" if it were more grounded in reality. Clinton is the one who has more explicitly championed bellicosity as serving a grand moral purpose.  She'll leave her trail of dead, combatant and civilian, in the far corners of the world. Granted she may feel bad about it being necessary.

As to the idea that voting for Clinton symbolizes respect for the value of human life, I find that laughable for any number of reasons, some of which should be obvious.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

One of the reasons Clinton is seeking out and getting hawkish support is because Trump is supposed to not believe America has a "role in the world."  I doubt many complained that of Tojo.  Trump represents an amoral foreign policy, which might be called "realist" if it were more grounded in reality. Clinton is the one who has more explicitly championed bellicosity as serving a grand moral purpose.  She'll leave her trail of dead, combatant and civilian, in the far corners of the world. Granted she may feel bad about it being necessary.

Who cares about what the Clinton campaign has to say about this election? We have explicit statements from the Trump campaign where he clearly has no desire to "retreat from our role in the world" because his plans to make Mexico "pay for the wall" involve saber-rattling and the use of hard power; he plans on unilaterally making life difficult for Mexicans to extract a demand. How is this not a marker of militarism?

Anyways, I'm not surprised that you, a member of the forced birth movement, would think that fetuses are more important than living undocumented immigrants or Muslims. This is all very banal to me.

[Oakvale]

Glad to see Shua's still out there, fightin'.

In my experience there's a huge amount of variation in what even many very educated people will tell you about the ethics of voting when you ask them why it's important to vote and how you should select a candidate. Many of them jump straight to the shockingly and transparently weak "deciding vote" argument.

Yes, that's a really stupid argument. I vote because it makes me feel good, not because it would be rational. And this is the case for most people, really. They only don't know or admit it.

Well, sure, but really it's just about the basic fact that aggregates matter. I've voted for some right crooks in my time (granted with a transferable vote it's a whole different issue, but still).

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

One of the reasons Clinton is seeking out and getting hawkish support is because Trump is supposed to not believe America has a "role in the world."  I doubt many complained that of Tojo.  Trump represents an amoral foreign policy, which might be called "realist" if it were more grounded in reality. Clinton is the one who has more explicitly championed bellicosity as serving a grand moral purpose.  She'll leave her trail of dead, combatant and civilian, in the far corners of the world. Granted she may feel bad about it being necessary.

Who cares about what the Clinton campaign has to say about this election? We have explicit statements from the Trump campaign where he clearly has no desire to "retreat from our role in the world" because his plans to make Mexico "pay for the wall" involve saber-rattling and the use of hard power; he plans on unilaterally making life difficult for Mexicans to extract a demand. How is this not a marker of militarism?

I'm not following your definition of militarism, as this sort of willingness to enact economic retaliation for what is believed to be in the nation's self-interest seems to me a different sort of thing than what you were describing before and not within the normal definition of the term.

If you are hoping that your vote is going to symbolize something, the campaign of the candidate you are voting for is entirely relevant to whether it is reasonable for it to be interpreted as such.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

One of the reasons Clinton is seeking out and getting hawkish support is because Trump is supposed to not believe America has a "role in the world."  I doubt many complained that of Tojo.  Trump represents an amoral foreign policy, which might be called "realist" if it were more grounded in reality. Clinton is the one who has more explicitly championed bellicosity as serving a grand moral purpose.  She'll leave her trail of dead, combatant and civilian, in the far corners of the world. Granted she may feel bad about it being necessary.

Who cares about what the Clinton campaign has to say about this election? We have explicit statements from the Trump campaign where he clearly has no desire to "retreat from our role in the world" because his plans to make Mexico "pay for the wall" involve saber-rattling and the use of hard power; he plans on unilaterally making life difficult for Mexicans to extract a demand. How is this not a marker of militarism?

I'm not following your definition of militarism, as this sort of willingness to enact economic retaliation for what is believed to be in the nation's self-interest seems to me a different sort of thing than what you were describing before and not within the normal definition of the term.

If you are hoping that your vote is going to symbolize something, the campaign of the candidate you are voting for is entirely relevant to whether it is reasonable for it to be interpreted as such.

It's rather obvious how "the willingness to enact economic retaliation" is related to the militarism that I've described: it flagrantly flaunts diplomatic norms in favor of exercising blunt unilateral mechanisms that effectively operate as tools to bludgeon opponents. It is the type of behavior that, most assuredly is part of the militarist's state of mind. Besides, there's plenty of evidence that Trump is a militarist. He's said so himself.

"I love war." - Donald Trump

"I know more about fighting ISIS than the generals." - Donald Trump

there's also every quote averroes shared..

He went to a "military school" and his father's terms for the "genetically best" people was "killers". If you can't see any of this, you are blind to reality. Your willingness to shield yourself from the damning reality of the Trump campaign so that you can sit back and argue that both candidates are equally bad is tantamount to cowardice.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What makes the refusal to vote for Hillary Clinton even worse, is that the people who refuse to vote for her can't comprehend the idea that, yes, this country and, more broadly, the world could easily become a toxic heap of radioactive sludge that would be deadly to all, regardless of one's skin color or one's religious preference or one's sexual orientation. Ultimately, our continued existence as a species is what is at stake in this election: we have a candidate who is mentally unstable and one who is not. We have one who believes that climate change is a hoax and one who acknowledges that is real. We have a candidate who believes that the Geneva Convention's binding rules of war ought to be shredded and we have a candidate who pledges to respect the Geneva Convention. I could go on and on and on like this but you get my point: we are standing on a precipice right now. There's a clear choice between someone who embodies evil in every possible way and someone who is totally palatable. Make the right choice and feel proud about this. Own your decision to vote for Hillary Clinton and feel proud about it: you are doing your part to save the world and you will be pumping the breaks on the doomsday train.

I don't think I'm exaggerating about this: over the past few years, the world has become increasingly dangerous, increasingly intolerant, increasingly militaristic and increasingly Evil. No more. I'm not willing to put up with this anymore and my vote for Clinton has symbolic value as a vote against the monsters who thrive on bigotry and hatred and Know-Nothingism and militarism and racism and ignorance. Make it stop: vote for Clinton.

A vote for Clinton has symbolic value against militarism?  Good grief.

Of course it does; being a hawk is not the same as being a militarist. The idea that there's a comparison between LBJ and, say, Hideki Tojo is insane. There is no comparison. Hawks don't glorify war. Militarists believe that war is morally good, worth pursuing. Make no mistake, Trump is a militarist and his fanboys would love to annihilate civilians. They must be stopped.

edit: more generally, Trump has consistently undermined the idea that human life has value throughout his campaign by bullying, harassing and trashing entire groups of people and engaging in vicious character assassinations of "little people" like Alicia Machado for no apparent reason and his supporters love it. These sentiments lay the foundations for militarism.

One of the reasons Clinton is seeking out and getting hawkish support is because Trump is supposed to not believe America has a "role in the world."  I doubt many complained that of Tojo.  Trump represents an amoral foreign policy, which might be called "realist" if it were more grounded in reality. Clinton is the one who has more explicitly championed bellicosity as serving a grand moral purpose.  She'll leave her trail of dead, combatant and civilian, in the far corners of the world. Granted she may feel bad about it being necessary.

"Take the oil."

"I would bomb the sh**t out of them."

"I would bomb the hell out of those oil fields."

Look, the fact that Clinton actively sought to be potentially the last presidential candidate endorsed by Henry Kissinger before he spends an eternity in hell is a significant reason why I can't stomach voting for her, but the difference here clearly is not just a matter of Clinton knowing how to dance. The best-case scenario under a Trump administration is a foreign policy no less sociopathic than that offered by Bush, McCain, and Romney, but with even less respect for human rights and international norms.

I fear the way that Trump would engage in war more than I do Clinton. But as I expect there are wars Trump would lead us into that Clinton wouldn't, also vice-versa. Trump seems less likely to get us involved in any sort of proxy war with Russia for example.   

Maybe the fact that Trump doesn't even pay lip service to the human rights and international norms that are routinely ignored should scare us more than anything. But the idea that every extra vote for Clinton symbolizes any kind of victory for them isn't something I can take seriously.

[OSR stands with Israel]

You should be glad that the Republicans nominated that moron Trump. I just wish Democrats had nominated a decent person like SandersWebb or Chafee.

FTFY

Webb fanboyism is so weird.

Except I'm not i would have preferred kasich Rubio Romney over Webb easily