Its ironic to advocate that I cede my convictions to political pragmatism, and ignore the abandonment of principal in the HCR bill. Political pragmatism is the reason I'm considering not voting with the party in the first place; the political pragmatism that has led good people like Sanders and Obama to abandon the principles they espoused eloquently in their campaigns - and I'm being urged to follow their example and bow to political pragmatism, also?
Those who feel the way I do are almost never engaged with rationally. Our opinions are invalidated by association, derided as irrational, while we're caricatured as Republican operatives. A strange way to behave - do you think if you yell at us enough you'll convince us to see your perspective? As I think everyone knows, insults are most likely to coerce people to not do what you want.
As we see it - those we worked so hard to elect are working against our interests.
Its not a claim that we haven't got our pony yet - its a claim that we're burning down the stable. This is a representative democracy, and we are not being represented. Why should we renew our support? We need a reason... but all I've seen so far is excuses:
Not supporting Democrats is the same thing as supporting Republicans
By that false equivalence, you probably colluded in the murder of Iraqis. At some point, you paid into taxes or fees that helped fund the U.S. government - if the government received no taxes, they couldn't afford to invade Iraq.
By ignoring intentionality, you can assign blame to just about anyone for just about anything.
We'll fix it later, just work with us now.
If the DNC can work against us after we helped facilitate the 2008 sweep, and yet we vote for them anyway... why would they ever work with us? We'll have demonstrated that we'll always vote Democrat, no matter what they do.
You're a troll/Republican plant/this is another Operation Chaos.
This being the Internet, its difficult to prove I'm not a dog. In the end though, it doesn't matter. Ad hominem is a fallacy; the source does not determine the truth of a statement.
Not voting Democratic in this particular election? Then you don't belong here.
Markos can kick us all off whenever he likes. Until he does, we'll be here, trying to help those Democrats we worked to elect stay the people they campaigned as.
Two-party general elections do not offer any opportunity to send a message to Democrats from the left.
As long as our reason for staying home is clear, they do - that's why we keep talking about it. We're writing blogs, sending e-mails, letters, and phone-calls to our representatives. We're shouting our displeasure from union halls and street corners.
Your desires are unrealistic, aka "Waaa! I want my pony!"
This is a representative democracy - if our desires cannot be fulfilled by the current representatives, then absolutely we should seek alternative representation. I have no idea why people who disagree with us make this point.
I can't believe you don't think there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats
This is a straw man fallacy. I firmly believe there is a difference - and I want to make it much bigger.
What do you want?!
Actually, this one I've never heard anyone ask throughout this entire debate. Very simply, progressives want to be reassured that next time, our issues will not be pragmatically sacrificed to appease corporations. Give me some assurance of that, and I'll get back in line.
Addendum: one thing that is very important to me is to try and keep this as civil as possible. I feel more intellectual kinship with those who disagree with me on this board than those who aren't here. I do not believe at all that this divide is representative of a right/wrong or progressive/centrist dichotomy. All labels are essentially inaccurate, as everyone is an individual. To me, this issue is about the role of personal ethics in public policy, and the most effective mechanism for pulling the Democratic party to the left - it is not a referendum on the 'goodness' of anyone.