There’s something that I’ve said for a long, long time. Pretty much since I made the discovery that you could argue with people on the internet: If you have to lie to win an argument, you know in your heart that you’ve already lost, and that you think victory is more important than having a moral compass.
This is not meant to be a compliment, by the way.
Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time, not very long ago, I was a Republican. I voted for George W. Bush both times. And I’m only actually ashamed of the second time, when it became apparent just how much we’d all been lied to a matter of weeks after I cast that vote.
So I don’t think Republicans are, in general, evil. I don’t think they’re trying to destroy the country. I think a lot of them (the social conservatives) need to examine their own prejudices and mind their own goddamn business, but that’s a matter for a different post.
I am, however, starting to have my doubts about the party as a whole. Because if you have to lie to win an argument…
Which could just as easily be: if you have to stop people from voting in order to win an election…1
If you tout a voter ID law that makes it harder to vote because it’ll deliver the state for your candidate.
If you “don’t want everybody to vote.”
If you don’t want to accommodate a “voter turn-out machine” because it’s “urban – read African-American.”
If you think the answer in democracy is less democracy for the people you disagree with instead of more for everyone.
You have already lost. You have lost any claim to morality you ever had. And you have lost your right to say that you love democracy and wish to defend it.
You have already lost something far more important than an election. You have lost your soul.
Stop. Just. Stop.
1 – Large scale in-person voter fraud is a paranoid fantasy. Get the fuck over it and honestly examine who you are really trying to stop.