Not Every One Is As Forgiving As I Am

In the comments at Eric's post If I may strain a strained analogy, how many "legs" are under the Tea Party "stool"? A commenter made this point about my political position:

I know how M. Simon has chosen. He has chosen poorly. Given the extreme choice between gulags and blue laws, I'm not certain which he would pick.

Isn't it obvious what I have picked? I'm with the TEA Party. I vote Republican.

But the Blue Law folks represent a danger to the coalition. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am.

You will excuse me if I articulate the view point of those not as committed as I am. But it needs to be said. I want to hold the coalition together.

The policies of a coalition are defined by its weakest members. Otherwise you lose those at the margins. Lose enough of them and you get defeat instead of victory. I'm not interested in defeat.

I think this story is emblematic of my point:

Exit polling reveals that gay and lesbian voters played a critical role in the Republican Party's historic gains in the U.S. House on Tuesday night. According to CNN, 31% of self-identified gay voters supported Republican candidates for the U.S. House. This number is a dramatic increase from the 19% GOP House candidates won among gay voters in 2008.

Of course exit polling is not as reliable as regular polling. But a 10% shift (50% increase) is probably significant.

This is politics not religion. You can hate gays in church. In politics it is wiser to be more accepting. i.e. if you can't say anything nice it would be wise to say nothing at all. The same goes double for the pogrom against the 15 to 45 million pot smokers in America. If Republicans were in the lead in ending the gulag (a real gulag - though not quite as harsh as the Soviet ones) for pot smokers and their suppliers we might win at least a few million of those folks. Every little bit helps - at the margins. Think of all the races the Republicans lost by a few percent. Think of what a few million extra votes for Republicans might have meant in the last election. Instead of 60 house seats it could have been 100. Or 120.

Also noted in the comments was a fellow who complained about the "gay agenda" being forced on children by the public school system. And instead of diagnosing the problem correctly the commenter went off on gays. So what is the problem? Public schools. Which were in part a social conservative project to make sure newly arrived immigrants were properly Americanized. The reaction to that was Jewish and Catholic private schools. You can look it up. So instead of going off on gays why not do something about the real problem? Advocate for vouchers. I must say it amuses me to no end that current social conservatives hate the fact that public schools are indoctrination centers. When that is in fact exactly what their ancestors hoped they would be. Another social engineering project gone awry.

It is too funny hearing current social conservative railing against social engineering. When at one time their ancestors were avid practitioners of same. What goes around comes around. Heh.

Cross Posted at Classical Values