Are U.S. presidential elections de facto binary choices?

[DiogenesLamp]

To be frank, I think there is some evidence that the actual reasons some of our friends (and I do believe to the core of my being that they are friends) disagree has to do with something outside their conscious scope of realization. That is not to say that I believe that they are dense, or insane or have any other major defect, but only that they are human.

A very diplomatic way of saying they can't see as far as we can.   


I fully believe that most of these people who keep carping about Trump really can't see the bigger picture,  or the larger future.  (or past,  for that matter.)     We talk about binary choices,  and most of these people want to force events into one of two choices.   Good/Evil. 

The problem they face  is that they have been presented with a situation in which the only viable choices are both on the "evil"  side of their preferred Good/Evil  axis.     Their paradigm is unable to cope with "evil"   vs  "Horribly malevolent,  life threatening and screaming in darkness forever"  level of Evil.   


If it's tainted with "evil"   it's simply not good enough,  and so relatively minor evil is just as repulsive to them as really really bad horrible terrible evil.     


Their scope is too narrow.   They are looking at things with a Microscope when they ought to be using a Telescope.   The world is much bigger than they realize. 

[DiogenesLamp]

A couple more years of Trump, and I bet you will

I cannot comprehend what you are suggesting.    Hillary is a National Socialist/ Communist/  Vengeful corrupt psychopath imbecile with delusions of grandeur.   


I can't conceive of Trump enacting any sort of the behavior I would have expected from Hillary.    I don't think he will be spying on us,   I don't think he will be trying to ban our speech,   I don't think he will use the Federal government to target us,   I don't think he will collude with the media powers to mock and disparage us. 


Just what exactly do you expect Trump to do in the future that would seem similar to what Hillary would have done? 

[INVAR]

I also believe that the greater truth is that there is some very real reason that people who disagree with this view are reluctant to assent to what seems obvious to us.

It's simple.

Conservatives are no longer going to vote for liberal Democrats who run as Republicans so as to take the nation further Left.  We're done playing that game of insanity.  We do not care which one is said to be 'better' than the other one decreed to be 'worse'.  We don't care anymore.  We realize voting for the candidate who best represents our principles is all that matters, and we no longer care if those principles no longer exist within the GOP, as it has become self-evident they have been discarded and not wanted along with those of us who have been told to get out and get lost by your party leaders.

So, we are building a new home and coalition elsewhere and leaving your Uniparty to itself.

I've noticed that continuing to pursue discussion of it seems only to arouse resentment, not understanding.

Because 'discussion' and  'understanding' is not the intention.  Shaming, insulting, ridiculing and threatening us into submission or silence out of fear of Democrats is the intention.  Because of that, there is no possibility of 'understanding'.  Besides the fact that we have already explained our intention to uphold our principles since the primaries and that was clearly 'understood' by people like yourself.  In fact, we were told that our principles were 'an enemy of the good'. 

The issue is that voting and speaking our consciences was REJECTED.  We were told we do not have the liberty to vote our consciences because the country was at stake.   It has been a solid bass drumbeat of "VOTE TRUMP OR ELSE YOU ARE THE ENEMY" which has since morphed itself into "CRITICIZE TRUMP AND YOU ARE THE ENEMY".  So fine, having been told we have to shut up, sit down and get out of the party - along with everything that has transpired since, we're done.  We reject the insistence of a binary choice and no longer care which Statist your party and this people want to make as your ruler considering many of us are breathing the fresh air of choosing other candidates in other parties that best represent our principles and values.  Finally - we are getting to enjoy voting FOR someone as opposed to voting AGAINST someone else.

IOW, resistance of this magnitude often has roots in something legitimately worth addressing.

It has already been addressed and has been rejected by the Trump and GOP Party faithful.  So we are done with them and their party.  The divide at this point is irreconcilable and each shaming effort simply widens it and deepens it.

The unifying theme that seems to reoccur in virtually all cases is the belief that they and their values have in some significant way been disrespected, ignored or dismissed.

Duh!  It's not like you folks were not aware of that fact.  We have been told point blank that those values and beliefs do not win elections and they are a drag on the party and the country.  We have been told that Reagan Conservatism is dead and Nationalist Populism is where it is at and that we must adapt or die.   We have told by your party "There is the door" after attempting to beguile us of our votes via scare tactics and intimidation.  Your party has made itself completely and totally hostile to the fundamental core of principles that govern and animate us, and all your party and people have done is confirm the fact that we have no place among you - and given behaviors exhibited, we are glad this is now so.

What I can't live with is to enable further schism in the conservative cause by allowing my own personal sense of frustration in my failure to convince others, to affect the conservative movement.

Maybe you can convince your pals to take some of that advice to heart.  Each time they attempt to ridicule and shame us of our views, that schism grows to the point of hostility. 

Personally, the damage is already done, and your party is forever as repulsive to me as the Democrat party is.  Trump didn't do that alone, McConnell and Ryan didn't do that alone - the mobs of party fanatics and Trump supporters helped confirm that a divorce was an absolute necessity.

So in our estimation Conservatism will have to exist in a new home outside of the beltway and many of us are working to build new avenues and parties to do so.  We do not care that it may take a generation or more to accomplish.   The existing party is as corrupted and tyrannical in nature as the other party is and our values and principles have been repeatedly said to have no place among them.

So be it.

The message of our Founding principles needs to be preached to a willfully ignorant and brainwashed people and it has become self-evident that cannot take place from within the existing GOP whose goal is to better manage Statism than Democrats.  The split has scattered the seeds, and we may not see a harvest in our lifetimes but unless we want a famine of the principles that make liberty possible, being scattered to the wilderness for a time is necessary.

[DiogenesLamp]

I must have struck a nerve.

More like,  silly arguments are getting on  my last one.   You compare measles and mumps to an election?  Yeah,  that's getting on my last nerve because it is too silly to contemplate. 

You weren't one of those "Not voting for X is a vote for Y" people, were you?

My position was more complicated than that.    In a binary election,  every vote results in a two vote swing.    Candidate one gains a vote at the expense of Candidate two.   

A vote outside the two dominant candidates simply solidifies the race into a position favoring the dominant candidate.   

Whichever of the two is dominant is effectively who you voted for. 

[DiogenesLamp]

As long as we are playing binary hyperbole.

Manson was not on the ballot.    He was not one of the available two choices,  and therefore your analogy is simply false. 


Or as Wolfgang Pauli noted: 

[truth_seeker]

It's simple.

I'm curious. If it is simple, why can't you be brief, concise etc.?

"Conservatives" voted for trump, according to election data. A few neverhappy 3rd party cranks, did not.

They didn't, they won't, nobody even expects them to do anything, but write lengthy and repetitive epistles, trying to prove they are too moral for the real world as it is.

[GrouchoTex]

More like,  silly arguments are getting on  my last one.   You compare measles and mumps to an election?  Yeah,  that's getting on my last nerve because it is too silly to contemplate. 








My position was more complicated than that.    In a binary election,  every vote results in a two vote swing.    Candidate one gains a vote at the expense of Candidate two.   

A vote outside the two dominant candidates simply solidifies the race into a position favoring the dominant candidate.   

Whichever of the two is dominant is effectively who you voted for.

All it takes is courage and will.
You are wrong, and here is why:

To quote @jmyrlefuller from an earlier post:

"So, the question is: how do we change that?

The only way is to get a mass of people to vote, in unity, for a third option—something I advocated this past election cycle.

The great thing about the Electoral College is that a majority of electoral votes are needed. If the vote is split three ways, the candidate with 49% of them (for example) doesn't win. So, the task for a third party candidate is only to get electoral votes, either through shenanigans with the electoral college, or simply by winning a state election, and hope the other two split enough for neither to get a majority. Evan McMullin got very close this past election cycle to doing just that.

There is a viable way forward. Eventually, if neither party represents the right way, that path will have to be explored, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. Otherwise, you end up in the vicious cycle—nobody considers it because they can't win, and they can't win because nobody considers it. It's a cycle that can, and must, be broken."

So, to have 2 major party candidates does not mean you have to chose the better of the 2 bad candidates.

It requires work to do the right thing.

I will repeat, "Not voting for X is a vote for Y", is an emotional, lazy, rhetorical response, started by the left, to raise fear among its constituents, and it saddens me to see some on the right pick up that mantle.

[INVAR]

I'm curious. If it is simple, why can't you be brief, concise etc.?

Because most people on this board have an IQ higher than yours and are not addled with ADD requiring the discussion of principles to be limited to sophomoric one-liners.

[DiogenesLamp]

The great thing about the Electoral College is that a majority of electoral votes are needed. If the vote is split three ways, the candidate with 49% of them (for example) doesn't win. So, the task for a third party candidate is only to get electoral votes, either through shenanigans with the electoral college, or simply by winning a state election, and hope the other two split enough for neither to get a majority. Evan McMullin got very close this past election cycle to doing just that.

But he didn't.   You are banking the prevention of a potentially horrible disaster on the possibility of a "Hail Mary Pass."   


Pardon me if I didn't think my entire future and that of my children was worth the risk of attempting to game the system to produce an extremely rare "black swan"  event. 

There is a viable way forward. Eventually, if neither party represents the right way, that path will have to be explored, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. Otherwise, you end up in the vicious cycle—nobody considers it because they can't win, and they can't win because nobody considers it. It's a cycle that can, and must, be broken[/i]."

It was not worth the risk of having modern Gestapo show up at my door and arrest me for incitement or sedition,  or whatever the hell charge they felt like levying against me. 


Hillary would not have been business as usual.   Hillary would have been a weaponized FedGov against all of us Individual Freedom advocates.   


Hillary would have been Lois Lerner expanded to the entire system. 

[Hoodat]

Pardon me if I didn't think my entire future and that of my children was worth the risk of attempting to game the system to produce an extremely rare "black swan"  event.

Where did your entire future and that of your children come into play when you decided to support a candidate who supported the Obamacare mandates during the campaign and thought favorably of socialized medicine?  Just curious.  Because by doing so, we already lost.

Was that really worth the fantasy of building a wall which we wouldn't even need if we simply cut off the supply of 'free stuff' to immigrants?

[GrouchoTex]

But he didn't.   You are banking the prevention of a potentially horrible disaster on the possibility of a "Hail Mary Pass."   


Pardon me if I didn't think my entire future and that of my children was worth the risk of attempting to game the system to produce an extremely rare "black swan"  event. 





It was not worth the risk of having modern Gestapo show up at my door and arrest me for incitement or sedition,  or whatever the hell charge they felt like levying against me. 


Hillary would not have been business as usual.   Hillary would have been a weaponized FedGov against all of us Individual Freedom advocates.   


Hillary would have been Lois Lerner expanded to the entire system.

I didn't vote for Hillary, or her husband, and I won't vote for their daughter in the future.

It does strike's me as odd that the rhetoric you are using to describe life under Hillary is the same rhetoric the left uses to describe life under Trump.

Neither one as president would bring on the end of the world as we know it.
After all, we still hold the House and Senate, the majority of governor seats and state houses, how far do you really think she could have gotten?
I am glad we don't have to find out, but as you say, look at the big picture.
She would have been a lame duck from day one.

The quotes from @jmyrlefuller won't be easy, but doing the right thing is often harder than doing the expedient thing.

[Axeslinger]

.

I will repeat, "Not voting for X is a vote for Y", is an emotional, lazy, rhetorical response, started by the left ESTABLISHMENT, to raise fear among its constituents, and it saddens me to see some on the right pick up that mantle.

FIXED!   

[txradioguy]

It's simple.

Conservatives are no longer going to vote for liberal Democrats who run as Republicans so as to take the nation further Left.  We're done playing that game of insanity.  We do not care which one is said to be 'better' than the other one decreed to be 'worse'.  We don't care anymore.  We realize voting for the candidate who best represents our principles is all that matters, and we no longer care if those principles no longer exist within the GOP, as it has become self-evident they have been discarded and not wanted along with those of us who have been told to get out and get lost by your party leaders.

So, we are building a new home and coalition elsewhere and leaving your Uniparty to itself.

Because 'discussion' and  'understanding' is not the intention.  Shaming, insulting, ridiculing and threatening us into submission or silence out of fear of Democrats is the intention.  Because of that, there is no possibility of 'understanding'.  Besides the fact that we have already explained our intention to uphold our principles since the primaries and that was clearly 'understood' by people like yourself.  In fact, we were told that our principles were 'an enemy of the good'. 

The issue is that voting and speaking our consciences was REJECTED.  We were told we do not have the liberty to vote our consciences because the country was at stake.   It has been a solid bass drumbeat of "VOTE TRUMP OR ELSE YOU ARE THE ENEMY" which has since morphed itself into "CRITICIZE TRUMP AND YOU ARE THE ENEMY".  So fine, having been told we have to shut up, sit down and get out of the party - along with everything that has transpired since, we're done.  We reject the insistence of a binary choice and no longer care which Statist your party and this people want to make as your ruler considering many of us are breathing the fresh air of choosing other candidates in other parties that best represent our principles and values.  Finally - we are getting to enjoy voting FOR someone as opposed to voting AGAINST someone else.

It has already been addressed and has been rejected by the Trump and GOP Party faithful.  So we are done with them and their party.  The divide at this point is irreconcilable and each shaming effort simply widens it and deepens it.

Duh!  It's not like you folks were not aware of that fact.  We have been told point blank that those values and beliefs do not win elections and they are a drag on the party and the country.  We have been told that Reagan Conservatism is dead and Nationalist Populism is where it is at and that we must adapt or die.   We have told by your party "There is the door" after attempting to beguile us of our votes via scare tactics and intimidation.  Your party has made itself completely and totally hostile to the fundamental core of principles that govern and animate us, and all your party and people have done is confirm the fact that we have no place among you - and given behaviors exhibited, we are glad this is now so.


Maybe you can convince your pals to take some of that advice to heart.  Each time they attempt to ridicule and shame us of our views, that schism grows to the point of hostility. 

Personally, the damage is already done, and your party is forever as repulsive to me as the Democrat party is.  Trump didn't do that alone, McConnell and Ryan didn't do that alone - the mobs of party fanatics and Trump supporters helped confirm that a divorce was an absolute necessity.

So in our estimation Conservatism will have to exist in a new home outside of the beltway and many of us are working to build new avenues and parties to do so.  We do not care that it may take a generation or more to accomplish.   The existing party is as corrupted and tyrannical in nature as the other party is and our values and principles have been repeatedly said to have no place among them.

So be it.

The message of our Founding principles needs to be preached to a willfully ignorant and brainwashed people and it has become self-evident that cannot take place from within the existing GOP whose goal is to better manage Statism than Democrats.  The split has scattered the seeds, and we may not see a harvest in our lifetimes but unless we want a famine of the principles that make liberty possible, being scattered to the wilderness for a time is necessary.

Excellent summation @INVAR

[Axeslinger]

I'm gonna let y'all in on a little secret...the only reason the shooting has started already is because the sides haven't fully coalesced yet and the leaders that will cause coalescence haven't stepped up yet.

Our side still has faith in the system, although it's taken a real beating lately.   As soon as that faith is unalterably damaged, gird your loins folks...and until it is shaken we will continue to be taken to the woodshed....precisely because we DO still have faith in the system!

[ABX]

Manson was not on the ballot.    He was not one of the available two choices,  and therefore your analogy is simply false. 

It wasn't an analogy, it was a joke. More information can be found here:
http://www.livescience.com/13738-trouble-detecting-sarcasm-dementia-sign.html

[ABX]

FIXED!   

It is also an elementary logic error called a false dichotomy and commonly used as a propaganda technique. If you see it being used, it is a red flag for manipulation into a choice you should not be making based on the variables being presented as the only choice. It is either someone being lazy or manipulative.

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/nicole.hughes/courses/engl1aspring13/s1/Fallacies-and-Propaganda-PowerPoint.pdf

[ABX]

My position was more complicated than that.    In a binary election,  every vote results in a two vote swing.    Candidate one gains a vote at the expense of Candidate two.   

A vote outside the two dominant candidates simply solidifies the race into a position favoring the dominant candidate.   

Whichever of the two is dominant is effectively who you voted for.

I'm going to start throwing flags on the field. These are age old logic errors that one used to be taught to avoid in around 5th grade (you probably don't get to that until college these days if you are lucky)

[DiogenesLamp]

It is also an elementary logic error called a false dichotomy and commonly used as a propaganda technique. If you see it being used, it is a red flag for manipulation into a choice you should not be making based on the variables being presented as the only choice. It is either someone being lazy or manipulative.

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/nicole.hughes/courses/engl1aspring13/s1/Fallacies-and-Propaganda-PowerPoint.pdf

Bravo!  You are attempting to force us into a false choice by presenting the fallacy of false choice as itself a false choice. 


Ballots really are almost always a choice between two viable candidates,   and you are trying to eliminate that *REALITY*  as a choice. You are trying to withhold it. 

Chutzpah, You've got it! 

[DiogenesLamp]

I'm going to start throwing flags on the field. These are age old logic errors that one used to be taught to avoid in around 5th grade (you probably don't get to that until college these days if you are lucky)

Point out the error of logic,  don't just assert it. 

[truth_seeker]

Because most people on this board have an IQ higher than yours and are not addled with ADD requiring the discussion of principles to be limited to sophomoric one-liners.

Sophomoric one-liners are the currency of this site, sir.

I believe the last time my IQ was tested was when I entered the Army. You have done what again, in service for your country?

[txradioguy]

Sophomoric one-liners are the currency of this site, sir.

I believe the last time my IQ was tested was when I entered the Army. You have done what again, in service for your country?

OFFS are you seriously gonna pull that kinda BS out?

That's a real chicken bleep tactic in the 21st century when only 1% have ever worn the uniform.

If you were any kind of real current or former soldier you would know we volunteer so others don't have to.

It's a privilege to wear the uniform. You don't use it as a damn hammer to beat someone else over the head with because they chose to do other things with their life.

[Oceander]

Sophomoric one-liners are the currency of this site, sir.

I believe the last time my IQ was tested was when I entered the Army. You have done what again, in service for your country?

Then why are you still here?  Or are "sophomoric one-liners" just your speed?

[INVAR]

Sophomoric one-liners are the currency of this site, sir.

Now that the other site is back up, you can go trade your high dollar witticisms over there then so you don't have to sully your uniform by associating with the grunts over here on this board.

You have done what again, in service for your country?

I put up with people like you.  That's what I do in service for the country.  How do you like them apples?

OFFS are you seriously gonna pull that kinda BS out?

That's a real chicken bleep tactic in the 21st century when only 1% have ever worn the uniform.

If you were any kind of real current or former soldier you would know we volunteer so others don't have to.

It's a privilege to wear the uniform. You don't use it as a damn hammer to beat someone else over the head with because they chose to do other things with their life.

It's okay sir.  Some people have to brag about their service.

It's all the currency they actually have.