WT was on a road trip, visiting small California towns.

Most likely, he is without access... or perhaps wining and dining.

-In fairness to them though, they usually can arrive at the correct choice of indefinite article.-

Really?

Like what, say, " so the OBGYNs can practice their love"?

Procto, I think we may have mis-underestimated you.

I was just questioning the idea---and trying to do so as carefully yet precisely as possible---of throwing one's vote away entirely.

If all the presented choices are odious to me then I do not see abstaining from voting as "throwing my vote away".

I'm not taking a dip in the cesspool just because everyone else is doing so.

Much clearer, thanks.

I almost posted, the other day, a comment about how libertarianism as Americans know it (whatever it is) does not seem to be practiced in Europe---that it appears not to be needed there, and therefore I don't see why it should be needed here. But I lack a sufficiently good perspective on Europolitics to say that with any certainty.

I find it indistinguishable from a kind of corporatist anarchism. By devaluing the public space, it leads inevitably to providing excuses for the corporate feudalism---or, as you suggest, theocracy---that fills that space. Even setting aside the ingrained fear of anything social as socialistic, it is this disregard for---and devastation to---the public space that I despise the most about life in the US.

You don't need to know anything about politics or Calvinism to see it---just compare the architecture, or parks.

-Comment Section Request-

Thanks, that shit gets boring, old, and so-not-of interest to new and casual visitors to the comment section that it creates scroll-trolls out of curious and interested new vistors and repeat customers. Protracted personal bickering is not a good fit here and I am surprised and elated to see something done about it and I would expect that many observers would agree. Nobody is perfect and everyone is allowed to have a hormone rupture now and then but enough is enough.

Thanks for addressing this issue.

If all the presented choices are odious to me then I do not see abstaining from voting as "throwing my vote away".

Would you vote for a write-in or third-party candidate?

I agree that reluctantly supporting someone you disapprove of does nothing for you. But surely voting for a sure loser for the right reasons is better than that, and better than disappearing completely.

I generally accept that politicians are people I would not want in my house. Nor do I invite in the guys picking up my trash, or have the plumber over to dinner. As far as I'm concerned, the people I vote for work for me in the same way---but there is no way to give them specific orders attached to your vote.

How do you know you're not being too picky? What are your standards? How odious is "odious"? How do you expect to have any influence as a nonvoter?

-Completely off topic... but has anyone seen this news?-

Thanks for for bringing this up.

How do you expect to have any influence as a nonvoter?

I don't..

Just as I don't expect to have any influence as a voter either.

As I think I wrote the other day, the only way I can keep from being constantly enraged by politicians is by expecting perfidy from them. That way at least I get a pleasant surprise every now and then and I don't constantly stress out over whether I'm going to get screwed yet again.

Who was it that said that if rape is inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it?

well, we do have it, but it isn't seen as something spiritual, just as an ultra-free-market economic doctrine : Thatcherism, asset-stripping, privatisation, rolling back the "welfare state," etc. This last point about the "welfare state" is extremely imnportant, I think for this reason : immediately after WW2 a "Labour" government came to power, which promised to provide cradle-to-grave basic services for all, without means testing. This was to include : comprehensive unemployment benefits to a modest but tolerable standard of living, including rent ; "council housing," i.e. publicly subsidised housing administered through local councils, which are what we call our borough administrations ; a "national health service," i.e. 100% subsidised basic health care ; and subsidised primary and secondary education, including 100% grants for both tuition and maintenance expenses for those who passed fairly basic entrance exams qualifying them for further education. Of these currently only the "national health service" remains. The roll-back of all these things and the re-privatisation of "the commanding heights of the economy" such as power and telecoms has been accompanied by a strident Hayek-style rhetoric under the "Conservative" governments and a more shamefaced version of the same doctrine under "Labour" ones, but grandiose claims of spiritual superiority have not been so common, and I really think this is because, at least in south-east England, the dominant area in mass media terms, Calvinism is not and has never been fashionable.

Anonymust is right, I am traveling. I've been following the threads as best I can, but as good as they've been, it's not easy reading 26 pages of comments on a cell phone.

Regards to all....

If you miss an occasional post, do not fret. You can always drop into your local FBI office and read their copy.

Have a good trip.

The Straight Talk Express took another sharp right turn today as John McCain promised his conservative base four more years of out-of-touch judges that would threaten a woman’s right to choose, gut the campaign finance reform that bears his own name, and trample the rights and interests of the American people. Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.

Now, Glenn, you're a constitutional lawyer. Should courts stand up for social and economic justice?

It is simply remarkable that one single human being could compress so much inarticulate stupidity into 39 words.

I’m sure this stupid fuck is up to his eyeballs in debt, his house is worth less than his mortgage, his job is at risk, and he can barely pay his gas bills to get to that job, where he is forced to suck the dick of another right-wing dumbshit asshole who is his “supervisor”. Remember, it’s delusional freaks like this fucknozzle who are exactly the “base” of the Republican Party who McCain is sucking up to.

We can sympathize with the plight of idiots like this, who are understandably under a huge amount of stress and unable to provide for and protect their families, and angry because they have finally realized that the right-wing “conservative” koolaid they have been drinking for decades has really been plutocrat diarrhea, scientifically designed to appeal to their basest most ignorant impulses. But we cannot allow sad sick fucks like this angry incompetent demented shitbag to set the course for the future of our nation.

With many thanks to physio prof.