You said this all with great eloquence! LOL! I do empathize, but I still hold firm in my conviction that there are battles to pick.
For example, let us stay with the Churchill analogy: When the English were cornered in Dunkirk, with the channel between their armies and their home, should they have stood firm there? Was that the proper hill to die on? Or, perhaps, was it wisest to let a little battle go, so that World War II could be won?
Laz, I admire your spirit. Let me say that first off. And I do agree that the 2012 battle is one that can and must be won.
However, I look at my kids and I say to myself, “have I advocated for everything I can that will ease the crushing debt burden my generation is placing on them, and on my grandkids?” I have to conclude, very reluctantly, that the Republican Party didn’t do all it could do. Yeah, I’d have shut down the government over this. I could advocate for no less and still be able to look my kids in the eye.
Don’t forget: IIRC, about 40,000 British soldiers were taken prisoner at Dunkirk. They went into captivity — fighting the hopeless fight — so the greater war could be won.
I do too. And I will maintain until my dying day that if we had ever chosen to die on the hill that innocent, beautiful children are being ripped to bloody shreds upon, God may have granted us a modicum of mercy.
But we haven't. And He won't.
This isn't a throwaway "social issue" or barter tool in some political horse-trading session. This is the ball game. The entire essence of our existence. Stand for life or you stand for nothing.
I like you, Laz. But you're missing the big picture on this one. We needed to stand our ground for these kids. We failed them once again. And we're running out of time to try to make this right.
The trouble is when there never seems to be a hill on which we’re willing to fight.