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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

Holy ad-hominem, batman! Who are these "people" that "wear cynicism as some kind of badge of honor?"

I'm stating, using facts and figures, what the world is. You are stating what you wish the world to be. "Realism" isn't "pride" any more than "idealism" is "pride". When I say that Hillary Clinton is objectively a good candidate (which, I think, is what our beef is about), I'm placing her on a continuity of actual, viable candidates for president. And don't get me wrong: I support Bernie Sanders, I agree with Bernie Sanders, I gave money to Bernie Sanders but honestly?

Bernie Sanders is far more useful, objectively, as a mobilizer of the youth and disaffected. He's an excellent rallying point for leftist values. He is an excellent social conscience for a fractious party, a much-needed gadfly to shape the core conversation and a vitally important spokesman for an entire demographic that had been largely abandoned by the Democratic Party.

But he hasn't been a particularly vital legislator.

The error you're making is in assuming a person can't be both a cynic and an idealist. Cynically, I'm totally down with a center-right legislator with ties to big business and 30 years experience in backroom dealing running the country. Idealistically, I support anyone who can shine a light on the whole process and drag the country in a better direction. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.





johnnyFive  ·  2716 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You talk down to me as an "innocent," but I'm the one engaging in ad hominem. Sure.

I'm not willing to judge Clinton based on who happens to be running, I'm judging her on her quality as a candidate. If we keep accepting "the best we can do," it's a race to the bottom, as we've clearly seen. We either decide to change it or we don't, and your position amounts to the latter.

kleinbl00  ·  2715 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm sorry if I offended you by insinuating that you were "an innocent." That was not my intent. Perhaps "idealist" would have been a better choice.

I think our fundamental agreement is that I feel we should live the life we have, not the life we want. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reach higher, it doesn't mean we shouldn't dream bigger. So I ask you: if Hillary Clinton isn't an "objectively" good presidential candidate, who is? And why?

johnnyFive  ·  2715 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No one out there is for me. Sanders or the Greens came closest, I'd say.

When Jill Stein ran in 2012, she was much more reasonable (as shown by her AmA on reddit. The Greens this time around went far too into the liberal version of anti-science for my taste, and have generally done a piss-poor job at explaining their positions on much of anything.