"The Ethically Correct Position Isn't Politically Feasible"

[Fearless]

This is what I'm hearing a lot of in regards to our defense of politicians and their actions. Guess what? That's bullshit and I'm sick and tired of it. If we as a nation don't stand up for the ethically correct positions on a host of issues then we are no better than the ethically-devoid maleficent and corrupt critters staining the name of this nation.

If we don't fight it, we enable it.

If we don't fight the TPP and those that support it, we enable it and those that support it (ALL of those that support it). If we do not fight for immigration reform, equal rights for all Americans (including based on race, orientation, economic position, gender, and sex) we fight directly for those who are against them. If we don't fight FOR a middle class and REAL middle class economic reforms, then we fight FOR those who are against the middle class and working poor.

We are not politicians trying to strike corrupt deals behind closed doors. We are the American people. We must be activists not politicians. And I look for a time when both are again considered honorable and proud positions to hold. It won't happen though if all we do is fight for "politically feasible" results. Fight for what's right, not what's necessarily popular. In doing so, we push the discussion toward the ethically correct decision. Is it more important to fight the battle for what's right or to be on the winning side of every battle? If we don't fight for what's right, we acquiesce to the will of those who fight for what is wrong.

Just my two cents.

-Fearless

[on point]

1. REAL LEADERS would make the case for the correct position, SO THAT it is politically feasible

They don't cave ahead of time, or fail to make a 50 state strategy.

They go everywhere, all the time, in a relentless effort to make the case, so that it is politically feasible. This is ultimately the problem with blue dog dems, DLC, and the corrupt craven DEM leadership. They are either incapable, or unwilling to make the case, and thus there is no pushback to repub point of view as we slide ever rightward off the cliff to a failed state.

[Doctor_J]

2. as Aaron sorkin put it,

Don't fight the fights you think you can win - fight the fights that need fighting.

The president has been a disaster on that front, although I think it has less to do with his cowardice than with the fact that he is a far right conservative on economic issues.

[Doctor_J]

3. also, most people who make it to Washington abandoned their ethics years before

I was a fool for believing Obama is a democrat in the tradition of FDR and LBJ.

[Scuba]

4. Kickety kick kick.

[bemildred]

5. But it is politically feasible, it is being done now.

Ethical politics is a reality, in Uruguay, in Iceland, in Norway, in many places. it is corruption that destroys, corruption that does not work, corruption that is infeasible.

[dawg]

6. This is why I think President Obama has been a good President ...

but a terrible leader for the Democratic Party.

He's done a good job of getting us the best policy changes that were politically feasible at the time. But he has done little to challenge the center-right assumptions of both voters and the media. In fact, he has often gone out of his way to reinforce those notions. And in the process, he has made it even more "politically unfeasible" to enact any substantial changes in the future.