While it is true that every person’s vote is an expression of their principles, it does not follow that those principles are necessarily conservative principles or Christian principles.
It is not possible to vote for Romney and be voting for conservative principles or Christian principles.
I would call that classic situationism for those who had formerly guided themselves by their Christian or conservative principles.
Here we have an application of the Law of the Excluded Middle, in spades — a system of two-value logic, in which the only possible answers to any question are "yes/no," or "true/false." You stipulate, in consequence of this type of reasoning, that a conservative or Christian cannot vote for Romney without betraying his or her core principles.
While the Law of the Excluded Middle comes in handy in situations requiring the determination of simple fact (where that Law is appropriate), it is far too crude a tool to engage the far more complex problems of human experience and judgment; for the Law requires that all answers must be given in terms of "true/false." Thus it works best in discrete situations involving either (1) direct observation; or (2) digital (machine) "thinking."
But for the vastly more complex problems of human experience and judgment, a three-value logical system is necessary. In three-value logic, there are three possible answers to any question: "true," "false," and "undecidable" (given any particular fact situation). The question must be undecidable unless we know all the relevant factors involved, which in human situations is rarely the case; and such relevant factors wouldn't be "direct observables" in principle anyway.
To employ the language of "Gagdad Bob" (a/k/a Dr. Robert Godwin, forensic psychologist), a two-value logical system moves along the horizontal time extension (like Newtonian mechanics). A three-value logical system has a third projection along the vertical time extension, which approaches the timeless....
Existentially, man lives "in-between" time and timelessness....
Which observation is probably as clear as mud to folks who don't worry themselves over epistemic problems. So let me put it another way: We have to say a question is undecidable unless we are in full possession of all the relevant factors bearing on the question. And arguably, you — and we — are not in possession of all the relevant factors. Indeed, no human being ever is. But — you evidently think you are, or you wouldn't speak the way you do.
But it seems to me that there are some relevant factors that you rule out in advance, preferring your own "true-and-false" notions, and closing your mind to all other factors that do not fit the criteria that you are attempting to impose on the question.
And then, rather gratuitously it seems to me, you wrote:
I would call that classic situationism for those who had formerly guided themselves by their Christian or conservative principles.Which to me is a breathtaking statement. Here you suggest that "conservatives and Christians" who don't see the problem exactly as you see it (and vote for Virgil Goode) are neither conservative or Christian.
Talk about the misapplication of the Law of the Excluded Middle!
Not to mention that your entire position suggests that people who don't agree with you are judged (by you) to have fallen away from God and His order....
Jeepers, dear brother in Christ — I just find that sort of thing totally appalling. Where is your Christian charity, your Christian humility?
Did not God say to us, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?"
Ultimately, God will judge me. For you to do that strikes me as being "way above your pay grade."
May the Grace of God be with you.
While it is true that every person’s vote is an expression of their principles, it does not follow that those principles are necessarily conservative principles or Christian principles.
It is not possible to vote for Romney and be voting for conservative principles or Christian principles.
I would call that classic situationism for those who had formerly guided themselves by their Christian or conservative principles.
Xzins is absolutely right, here. Let's face it - BB and others can dress up their support for Romney all they want, but the fact remains that Romney is a progressive leftist. When we look at the sum total of his record, this fact becomes undeniable. It's not a "straw man" or a "caricature," it is a fact. Up until the point where Romney decided to run for President in the GOP primary - a decision he made sometime in early-to-mid 2007 - he was a leftist, even on things and at times when he did not "need" to be because of the "necessities" of being the governour of a state like Massachusetts. Face it - until 2007, Romney was a liberal. His decision-making, and the general results of his time in offce, were virtually indistinguishable from your standard left-wing Democrat.
What I find very telling is that for all the hee-hawing at me about how horrible I am for pointing out Romney's record by BB, Agamemnon, and the (if we're honest here) small contingent of the really committed pro-Romney people on here, the fact remains that they have not really ever been able to answer the points I've made about his record. Simply pointing fingers at me and accusing me of being anti-Mormon or of being a closet Obama supporter is not the same thing as making a reasoned defence of their candidate by actually refuting the arguments I make. Even in the few cases where the attempt has been made, the person arguing with me has been arguing with a straw man of what I said, and when forced to deal with what I was actually saying, have gone strangely silent.
The reason for this, of course, is that supporting Romney is simply indefensible for anyone claiming to be a conservative or a Christian. I am not saying that the people doing so are not conservatives and/or Christian, but that they are engaging in something that runs counter to the profession and principles that they believe themselves to hold.
It's one thing to be someone who sees no hope in a third party, and resigns themselves to taking the bitter pill and "having" to vote for Romney because "there's no other alternative." It's quite another to actively stump for the guy and to do so by basically ignoring everything he did and said prior to 2007 while spouting obvious nonsense like "Romney is pro-life" or "Romney doesn't believe in global warming."
Let's face it - for all his other faults, Romney IS cunning. He IS a political animal. He knows that there's no way he could win in the primaries if he campaigned as a liberal, hence his sudden "conversion" on a number of issues coinciding with his decision to run in the GOP primaries. He's smart enough to understand that Rudy Giuliani's approach of unabashed campaigning on leftist principles will get you about nowhere in the GOP primaries.
But all of you who actually believe that he's now the second coming of Ronald Reagan are being taken for saps. You're buying beachfront in Nebraska. You're all lucky that your telephone numbers are on the telemarketer do-not-call list, otherwise you'd be flat broke by next Wednesday.
Seriously people, a candidate's campaign can write whever it wants on its website, and a candidate can say whatever he thinks he has to in a speech. These don't really mean anything. None of it precludes Romney shaking the Etch-a-Sketch once again once he doesn't need to pander to conservatives anymore. Really, supporting Romney is like a hiring manager choosing to seriously consider a candidate for employment who is obviously lying on his resumé.
And don't bother trying to make the argument with me that "we can't really know what's in his heart." True. but give us enough credit for a little blithering common sense to be able to figure out when somebody's trying to sell us a bill of goods, okay?
It's really sad - over the past month, I've seen people who I *know* wuld otherwise stand for things like objective truth and non-situation morals suddenly turning around and make arguments that people who are actually standing on principles are the bad guys - not just that maybe we're wrong about something, but that we're just psychologically defective because we refuse to jump on board the Romney bandwagon. Sorry boys and girls, but I reject those arguments. I reject your attempts to turn it back around and to make it look like situational, pragmatic, whatever-it-takes-to-win-the-election-for-the-guy-with-the-R-after-his-name shifting sand "principles" you're espousing are the "true" principled position. It's not, and it never will be, no matter how much you pat yourselves on the back and try to fast-talk your way around the facts.