A comment Glenn Reynolds made the other day reminded me that everyone has their limit:
Bill Quick begs to differ. Hey, for everybody there’s a point at which they’d rather take their marbles and go home. For me it would be Huckabee. For some Democrats it was Gore in 2000 and they voted Nader instead. For some Republicans it was GHW Bush in 1992 and they voted Perot.
This reminded me of a discussion in an earlier post’s comments between me and Bill Quick, in which he asked me how I would feel about Romney had he hired Goebbels as an advisor.
While Goebbels is of course an extreme hypothetical, these are good questions.
And lest anyone get the misimpression that I don’t have my limit, I do.
I’m tempted to say it’s Alan Keyes, who, by running against Barack Obama, caused me to support the latter in the Senate race (in a fit of pique, I even purchased RepublicansforObama.com and let it lapse). If the GOP somehow selected Keyes as the nominee, the truth is that I simply, absolutely, could not vote for him. (No, I would not vote for Hillary, but I might very well think about leaving the country to avoid the coming civil war.)
But Keyes isn’t my only limit; Pat Buchanan would probably do it for me to. And so would David Duke (who ran in the 1992 GOP primary, believe it or not).
So, I have my limits, and I think everyone does.
I’d be a hypocrite not to understand the refusal of people to vote for McCain if the man so violates their sense of principles, and I’d be the last to demand that anyone pull the lever in such a way as to violate his sense of conscience.
But just because I understand, that does not mean I agree.
And just because I disagree does not mean I am being condescending.
MORE: In the first sentence, I should have said that “everyone has his limit,” which would be grammatically correct. But that’s so politically incorrect that the standard usage in ordinary conversation has changed. It’s now politically correct to be grammatically incorrect.
(And I should probably say “incorrect grammatically,” but some things carry the Culture War too far….)
Comments
7 responses to “Testing my limits”
W. was my limit.
How nice to have the paleocons back in charge of the Republican Party.
I almost feel sorry for the neocon deadenders.
Almost…
No, of course not. But then, you don’t take an explicitly condescending tone or approach.
The bone I pick is with those who act as if we who take a stand on principle are “not calm,” or “not rational,” or “stupid,” or all the other ad hominems that seek to strip us of the very faculties we use to discover and support the principles on which we make our stands.
I am quite disgusted with The Anchoress, for instance, because the tone of her postings lately has taken on the schoolmarmish, as if we who won’t vote for McCain (or Huckabee) for a host of perfectly good reasons are like unruly schoolchildren who need to calm down, grow up, and take our McCain medicine like good little boys and girls. I’ve challenged her to take a similar attitude to her principled stand on abortion, but somehow, I think she will miraculously find her principles much more adult, rational, and calm than ours.
I think I am also disgusted with the unearned sense of entitlement machine Republicans seem to think they have to conservative or libertarian votes. That “lesser of two evils,” “where you gonna go” argument is precisely the one that has kept the Democratic ethnic plantations chained to that party with ever shrinking influence for decades. It was most perfectly summed up by an especially egregious statement from Pat Ruffini:
Must we? Really?
I don’t think so.
Whose to say that Huckabee or McCain wouldn’t be the president we need? Anyone can give a good speech. Anyone can slam their opponent and make them look and sound like a fool or flake. Can one of the candidates convince and prove, to all of the voters or at least, a majority of the voters, that the other candidates are liars and manipulators?
My rule is this: If I wouldn’t have you as a dinner guest, I won’t have you as a public official.
As you might have guessed, I don’t vote a lot.
Oh, but you will. And have, most likely.
…meaning, sorry for the lack of precision, you’ll have people as public officials that you wouldn’t have as dinner guests, whether you vote for them or not.