If you're going to attack or blame anyone, it makes no sense to attack Nader for running; attack the people voting for him if you're so afraid of his campaign "spoiling" your tidy little race.
If you're going to attack or blame anyone, it makes no sense to attack Nader for running; attack the people voting for him if you're so afraid of his campaign "spoiling" your tidy little race.
If you're going to attack or blame anyone, it makes no sense to attack Nader for running; attack the people voting for him if you're so afraid of his campaign "spoiling" your tidy little race.
Nader would be responsible for putting his name on the ballot with the full knowledge that he would have no chance of winning. All he would do is siphon off votes from the Black Jesus. He knows he will get votes, whether it is a few hundred thousand or more, and these votes might matter.
Not that I personally care as I don't get fooled by public hysterias like Obamamania.
If Nader's 0.5% of the popular vote is enough to blow the entire election for your party, it might be time to get a new candidate.
This could affect either democratic candidate you doof
Not only that, you're comparing people voting their conscience to someone doing themselves violent bodily harm, which is complete hyperbole at the very least.
Oh, and actually people can in fact vote for him, even if he's not on the ballot, and in fact Nader ran a write-in campaign in the 90s:ONLY IN A PRIMARY! Did you think that I wouldn't actually read the wikipedia page that you linked to?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate
Actually, you can be a write-in candidate in the GE as well as in primaries, despite Wikipedia not saying that explicitly.
In any case, what then is the essential aspect of the analogy? That it begs the question? Are we not talking about who is responsible for their actions? But the fact is, children are not inherently responsible for themselves--at least not as far as both reason and the law see it,--whereas adults, in fact, are. The foundational premise of your analogy is horribly flawed, at least in as much as we're debating responsibility, which is the point I at least am debating.
Not that I personally care as I don't get fooled by public hysterias like Obamamania.
It means personal responsibility for any particular event or outcome isn't a finite quantity.contributory group responsibility?
I'm sure there's a fancy pants philosophical term for that, which I'll outsource to Prole, TVC, or malek.
While I myself prefer to think of it in terms of appeal: if you do not appeal to a person, they may not vote for you, ie Democracy. Whether they choose to vote for someone else, or choose not to vote for anyone is inconsequential. If the presence of a minor political figure of limited appeal is so powerful that your entire campaign falls into disarray, leading to the most horrible outcome imaginable--an ~moderate winning the Presidency by a tiny margin and a Democrat-dominated Legislature,--then perhaps you may need to rethink the strength of your candidacy in the first place.I don't think Nader will have much of an affect on the campaign. I was more interested in the abstract argument regarding responsibility.
One would think this wouldn't be an issue for someone of such allegedly-universal appeal, vs a curmudgeon whose political capital has waned drastically over the last eight years, but then the further left you go the more paranoid and irrational you become, I fear. Tsk tsk.Though this is not saying much, I'm probably one of the most conservative posters on the forum.
While the concept of "responsibility" is of course not a concrete "number" to be crunched, the idea that personal responsibility is not personal, is a bit of a stretch IMO.
Please. Gore "lost" the race in 2000, he deserves the blame.
I wasn't characterizing Malek as "far left" in that comment, even though I was responding to his post.
So by saying it's not "a finite quantity," you're saying there's an infinite amount of personal responsibility to be shared by people who are not your person? I'm not too much of a philo guy, so I think what's tripping me up is the concept that something that is your personal responsibility is not your personal responsibility. It seems to me that by saying responsibility is "personal" it is inherent to your person, and not the responsibility of another. In reality, I think what you mean to say is that the responsibility for the outcome is not solely a matter of personal, individual responsibility, and is rather a collective responsibility thing, to be shared by Nader and his supporters. But in making that assertion you're reiterating something we've moved beyond; that's the starting point, and the argument is more whether the real people to "blame" are the voters swayed by Nader's message and the failure of Obama to capture their hearts-and-minds, as opposed to Nader reminding people Obama isn't necessarily their dream candidate.
Please. Gore "lost" the race in 2000, he deserves the blame.
Once again, PD, the US's shitty media had more to do with Gore's loss than Nader. And if you want to get closer to blaming Gore than that, the DNC fucked up his campaign more than he himself did.
Please. Gore "lost" the race in 2000, he deserves the blame.
Once again, PD, the US's shitty media had more to do with Gore's loss than Nader. And if you want to get closer to blaming Gore than that, the DNC fucked up his campaign more than he himself did.
Many things contributed to Gore's loss, from the media to the shitty way he ran his campaign. I've never heard the DNC angle though; care to expound? :-*
Anyone who joins the race at this stage in the game has no interest in winning.
Not finite does not mean infinite. Infinite is included in the concept of non-finite, but it does not exhaust the definition; in the same way cold is included in the concept of not hot, but it does not exhaust it. Something can also be cool or warm. I think Mandark is saying that responsibility in this case is not finite in the sense that it cannot be measured. Nnot that there is an infinite amount of responsibility to go around.
Blaming Obama is silly. No candidate can ever win everyone over. And he also has to pretend to be more centric than he really is in order to broaden his base, something Nader doesn't have to do.
nader's not getting the coverage he did in 2000. he has as much chance of hurting a dem victory as badnarik or larouche does a republican onep. much.
If that's the case--that the contention was with "responsibility" not being quantifiable--then why take issue when I say I understand that of course responsibility is not a number to be crunched? Is this not saying precisely the same thing?
"Blaming" Obama is far from silly: balancing-out the needs-and-wants of different potential constituencies is at the very core of politics and campaigning. If he is unable to do so, knowing full-well that his campaign theme as running as a in-name centrist favorable to Republicans--rhetoric which will only increase once we're in the GE--will alienate the far left and other potential Nader voters, then he's running a poor campaign based on rhetoric that will torpedo his chances of winning. The idea that the Obama campaign is not responsible for the effectiveness of its own message, and should not be responsible for alienating those for whom that message runs counter to their conscience, is I fear not a message that resonates with me at least.
Since we know an original Lostie is going to die, smart money iswrong thread? :rofl :rofl :roflspoiler (click to show/hide)on Claire. We know she gets on the hekalopter, but that doesn't mean she gets off the island. Rumor is she gets pushed out the whirlygig.[close]
Anyone democrat that spoils the chance of a democrat in the white house cause their particular democrat which is running on essentially the same platform didnt win nomination has issues.
More people will worry about Nader potentially spoiling the Dem. candidate's chances than will actually vote for Nader. smh.
I suppose I should toss up an asterisk- if, for some reason Hillary is the candidate I could see a scenario where enough pissed off Obama voters would get Nader 2-3%, enough to potentially swing the White House to McCain. I wonder what APF would say about Nader then.