It’s because we live in an imperfect world, Norm, where lesser of two evils type choices are fairly common. You want to pretend that the fix is as easy as just voting in some kind of pure way but it’s not. We have much more work to do than that, and until that work is done we’re going to face choices that are unpleasant. We are not entitled to getting to vote our conscience. We have to earn it.
And this is where I see a dazzling irony in the whole liberal/conservative thing. Liberals are totally into entitlement as a governing principle but their practical politics is totally entitlement free. They are bare-knuckles, tenacious, patient fighters who take nothing for granted. They are willing to slog through the impure quagmire for as long as it takes to emerge with their ideas on top.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are all about ruggedness and self-sufficiency as a governing principle — but in the political realm they are too often a bunch of brittle, whiney, pathetic losers who throw in the towel and stamp their feet when they don’t get their way right off the bat. It’s like we think we’re entitled somehow, just because our ideas are right. Hey, I got news for us: you have to endure and be flexible and persistent in this mean old world of ours. Ain’t nothin just given.
Falling on deaf ears. I choose conservatism, you do not. Tell whatever you have to blather about to a fellow liberal.