{"id":1713,"date":"2011-07-26T13:47:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T18:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2011-07-26T13:47:50","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T18:47:50","slug":"making-the-right-enemies-shouldnt-make-a-politician-electable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=1713","title":{"rendered":"Making the ‘right’ enemies shouldn’t make a politician electable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What do you think about Michele Bachmann<\/a>? Obviously, if you’re a\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0conservative, you’ll love her. Why? Because “those\u00a0evil liberal Democrats<\/em>” hate her, of course. Isn’t that good enough?<\/p>\n

It’s true that Democrats most hate Bachmann. (Check out the\u00a0hyperbolic comic book treatment<\/a>\u00a0she’s been given recently.) But if you’re a Republican or a conservative, is that a good reason to support her? Does it make her reasonable, right or sane?<\/p>\n

I started thinking about this a few minutes ago when I heard a well-educated and generally well-informed lawyer tell someone that he liked Bachmann:<\/p>\n

“I haven’t taken the time to carefully study Bachmann as a candidate, but I’m supporting her because\u00a0the most impressive thing about her is the fear and hate that the Democrats have for her<\/strong>. If the liberals hate her, that’s my kind of president.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder whether this guy knows that Bachmann’s only employer as an attorney was the IRS? Yes,Bachmann was an attorney suing taxpayers for the IRS<\/a>. That was her job. And\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0is the candidate that so many anti-tax Tea Party types love?<\/p>\n

\"\"There have been plenty of crazy quotes attributed to Bachmann. She is said to have opposed the census because the forms were going to be used to round people up to send them to concentration camps built by FEMA soon. Her comments about historical events have made it obvious that she’s ignorant of history. For instance, she once said something about the Founding Fathers of this country working until they had eliminated slavery. (That must have been news to slaves in the early- to mid-19th century.)<\/p>\n

But my purpose isn’t to take down Bachmann here, so the specifics of those claims don’t matter right now. It would be too easy, just as it’s too easy to make all of the presidential candidates look foolish. The point is this. If you’re going to participate in a system that I now believe is an immoral sham, at least take the time to support someone for the right reasons. Don’t support someone you know nothing about because “the other side” hates her.<\/p>\n

If I were still at the point of participating in the political process today, I’d be working for Ron Paul, although I’ve made it clear before why\u00a0I won’t be voting for a man who I admire very much<\/a>. But if you’re going to participate in the system, at least place your trust in someone honorable.<\/p>\n

Electing a Republican president isn’t going to change things anyway,\u00a0especially if you’re talking about the mainstream electable candidates<\/a>. But if you want to even pretend to have hope of change, don’t choose a candidate because the other side happens to hate her, even if she has<\/em> inspired several comic books about why your enemy hates her. Choose someone with ideas and integrity and vision.<\/p>\n

The enemy of my enemy isn’t always a sane and rational person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you think about Michele Bachmann? Obviously, if you’re a\u00a0real\u00a0conservative, you’ll love her. Why? Because “those\u00a0evil liberal Democrats” hate her, of course. Isn’t that good enough? It’s true that Democrats most hate Bachmann. (Check out the\u00a0hyperbolic comic book treatment\u00a0she’s been given recently.) But if you’re a Republican or a conservative, is that a good Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-rD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}