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There is a huge difference between a vacuum and an absence of agreement or acceptance of your philosophical points. Too bad you have to refer to it as such. Displays a further misconception IMHO.

Refer to post 184.

Elections may be "immaterial," as you said, to absolute moral principles, but in a democratic society, elections are the means by which yours and others' moral, economic, political, social, etc. views get expressed. That's all I said. Sure, moral principles may have some metaphysical reality in and of themselves, but politics is a practical art so the Founders chose elections as the means for expressing moral and other views in reality. Politics is politics, and religion is religion. You should not confuse religion with politics. And insofar as most elections are concerned, they are decided upon economic issues more than upon moral issues. As I said before, Bush Jr. seems to have higher, firmer moral positions than his dad, but do you really think that that's going to save him if the stock market stays depressed and people's retirement funds are lost forever? Moral absolutists like yourself often have trouble reconciling metaphysical moral principles with practical, strategic political thinking. This is why Congress has yet to overtun Roe v. Wade, among other things. But it's not so damaging if you and other moral absolutists start to take real-life political considerations into account. America today works on the basis of elections. Elections are the ultimate means for how decisions are made in a democratic society. The Founders purposefully designed it that way, so you can't ignore elections. You can entertain all the moral ideas you want, but at the end of the day, you have to pay attention to elections. And in elections, the will of the people more often turns on economic issues than moral principles. Being a saint will not help prevent Bush from getting booted from office in 2004 if retirees don't recover their retirement money soon. Remember the phrase, "it's the economy, stupid!" America exists so that its people can be happy, particularly economically, and if America's political leaders don't deliver the economic goods, America's people tends to boot them out of office!

America exists so that its people can be happy, particularly economically, and if America's political leaders don't deliver the economic goods, America's people tends to boot them out of office!