Bible vs Quran—Test Your Knowledge of Who Deserves Death in Which Religion

Quaran versus Bible The world has watched in horror while members of ISIS justify the next mass murder or icy execution with words from the Quran, followed by shouts of Allahu Akbar—God is the greatest! If beliefs have any power whatsoever to drive behavior—and as a psychologist I think they do—there can be little doubt that the Quran’s many endorsements of violence play a role in how exactly ISIS has chosen to pursue religious and political dominion.

At the same time, it should be equally clear a sacred text filled with violence is insufficient to trigger mass brutality unless other conditions are present as well. Culture, empathy, education and empowerment—and other factors that scholars understand only in part—appear to have a protective influence, safeguarding even most fundamentalists against the worst teachings of their own tradition. We know this in part because the Bible contains commandments and stories that are as horrific as those being used to justify butchery in Iraq and Syria.

The following 30 violent exhortations are a mix, drawn from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. The generic word God is used for all deity names, and names of places or people have been replaced with generic terms. How well do you know your Torah, Bible, or Quran and Hadith? Can you tell which is which? Give it a try and then check the key at the bottom.

  1. Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the [holy man] who represents God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged.
  2. I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.
  3. All who curse their father or mother must be put to death.
  4. Fight them until there is no more [disbelief or worshipping of other gods] and worship is for God alone.
  5. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
  6. Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.
  7. Make ready to slaughter [the infidel’s] sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.
  8. [God’s messenger]… was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The [holy man] replied, “They [women and children] are from them [unbelievers].”
  9. Then I heard God say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.”
  10. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
  11. Keep [my holiday], for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die.
  12. The punishment of those who wage war against God and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.
  13. If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.
  14. It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land…
  15. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
  16. I shall terrorize the [heathens]. So wound their bodies and incapacitate them, because they oppose God and his apostle.
  17. A [holy man’s] daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.
  18. So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.
  19. Everyone who would not seek God was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
  20. And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.
  21. But if [a girl wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night] and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against God’s people by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.
  22. The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say.”O [believer]! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
  23. If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you.
  24. God’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but God’.
  25. Cursed be he who does God’s work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood.
  26. God said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. [Prophet], you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But God desires killing them to manifest the religion.’
  27. Anyone who blasphemes God’s name must be stoned to death by the whole community of [believers].
  28. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) [your religion]; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them… If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them [a tax]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek God’s help and fight them.
  29. Anyone else who goes too near the [Holy Place] will be executed.
  30. Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us.

Is the Quran more violent than the Bible as most Americans believe? The question is hard to answer. A tally at the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible counts 842 violent or cruel passages in the Bible as compared to 333 in the Quran. That said, the Bible is a much thicker tome, and even though the New Testament endorses and adds to the violence in the Old, when percentages are compared, the Quran comes out ahead. In addition, the kinds of cruelty and violence vary as do the perpetrator and victim and the extent to which any verse can be interpreted as divine sanction for the behavior in question. Either way, endorsements of violence abound in both.

Bible and Quran believers who recognize verses in this list will no doubt protest that they have been taken out of context, as indeed they have. I think the appropriate response to such a complaint is a question: What context, exactly, would make these verses uplifting, inspiring or worthy of praise? In what context are passages like these some of the most important and holy guidance that the creator of the universe might think to impart to humankind? In what context is a book that contains these passages and many, many more like them the apogee of divine goodness and timeless wisdom?

Members of each Abrahamic tradition are quick to point out the rational and moral flaws in the others. I wonder sometimes, what this world might be like if they were as quick to examine the flaws in their own.

__________________________

Key: Odd numbered quotes are from the Bible, even numbers from the Quran or Hadith. 1. Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT; 2. Bukhari 11:626; 3. Leviticus 20:9 NLT; 4. Quran 2:193; 5. Matthew 10:34-35; 6. Quran 4:74; 7. Isaiah 14:21 NAB; 8. Bukhari 52:256; 9. Ezekiel 9:5 NLT; 10. Quran 8:12; 11. Exodus 31:12-15 NLT; 12. Quran 5:33; 13. Leviticus 20:10 NLT; 14. Quran 8:67; 15. Numbers 31: 17-18 KJV; 16. Quran 8:12; 17. Leviticus 21:9 NAB; 18. Quran 9:5; 19. 2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB; 20. Quran 17:16; 21. Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB; 22. Bukhari 52:177; 23. Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB; 24. Bukhari 8:387; 25. Jeremiah 48:10 NAB; 26. Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 484; 27. Leviticus 24:16 NLT; 28. Muslim 19:4294; 29. Numbers 1: 51 NLT; 30. Tabari 9:69

Cross-posted from Away Point

Restoring Good Karma

Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella created a national uproar when he advised women to rely on “good karma” for a raise. He almost immediately retracted. But if Nadella had instead advised women to ask for raises and urged girls to pursue computer science degrees, that still would have been the wrong answer to the gender wage gap question.

Washington state prohibited discrimination in pay on the basis of sex way back in 1943, when Rosie the Riveters were helping win World War II. At the national level, Congress banned sex discrimination in employment over 50 years ago. Yet the gender wage gap persists in every industry and at every rung of the wage ladder.

Women who worked full-time for the full year in Washington state in 2013 took home 80 cents to every $1.00 a man made, according to the US Census Bureau. Factor in race, and the stats get worse. Nationally, where women overall made 79 cents to a man’s dollar, Black women made 66.5 cents and Latinas 56 cents compared to a White man’s dollar.

Differences in occupation help explain part of the gender pay gap. Here in King County, men held eight out of ten computer and math-related jobs in 2013 and brought home $19,000 more each year than women. Women predominate in occupations such as office administration, health technicians, and personal care services, with much smaller paychecks but still noticeable wage gaps.

While occupational differences are determined partly by employee choices, deeply embedded workplace cultures and employer practices also push women and men into different career paths.

For example, in the typical Puget Sound-area grocery store, nine in ten meat cutters are men while eight in ten meat wrappers are women. Meat cutters, it will come as no surprise, get paid a lot more. Now, those guys in the back room at Safeway aren’t wrestling bulls to the ground and slaughtering them with a hunting knife. Women can achieve the strength and skill required to cut meat and be just as good at is as men.

Even when women do get traditionally “men’s jobs,” many firms prohibit employees from discussing pay, so no one knows if others are getting paid more for similar work.

No matter how many girls take advanced math and science classes, no matter how many women enter non-traditional and higher paying careers, our economy will continue to produce lots of jobs in child care, retail, restaurants, and office administration. So we can’t solve the wage gap by focusing only on high paying careers.

We need a cultural shift to value “women’s work” both in the market economy and caring for family at home.  And cultural shifts don’t happen only through individuals changing their behavior. They also require the push of policy change.

So here is the answer I wish Nadella would now give.

First, he should commit to equal pay for equal work at Microsoft, and lift the veil of wage secrecy within his own company that enables discrimination. Then he should go a step further and pledge Microsoft backing of federal and state Paycheck Fairness acts so that all employees everywhere have the tools to identify and challenge pay discrimination.

Next, he could commit to working with women’s groups and female employees to identify ways to change Microsoft culture to encourage women to seek and stay in tech careers, rather than discouraging them. Beyond that, he could lend support for federal and state legislation that support all workers’ roles as family caregivers, including paid sick days, family and medical leave insurance, and workplace flexibility.

Finally, he could go beyond platitudes about the need for STEM education for girls and children of color, and commit to working with other corporate leaders to change the narrative of austerity that has prevailed for too long in Washington, DC and Olympia. We need ample funding for education, from preschool through university. That means raising federal tax rates on the wealthy, closing state and federal loopholes that allow corporations – including Microsoft –to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, and instituting a personal income tax here in Washington state.

If Nadella did all that, he really would create good karma.

Originally posted at at the South Seattle Emerald »

Forum on saving public housing, Sat. Oct 25

Public Forum

The Fight to Save Public Housing

Stop SHA Rent Hikes!

Saturday, October 25, 7:00 pm
Doors open at 6:30 pm. Door donation $1-5.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Desserts and snack plates, with vegan option,
available for $2.50-7 donation.

Speakers:

  • Yusuf Cabdi – Immigrant rights advocate and former Seattle Housing Authority Commissioner
  • Sidney Carter – Resident and activist at New Holly who has lived in SHA housing for over 22 years
  • Fadumo Isaq – Mother and childcare provider, Yesler Terrace resident and leader
  • Gina Petry – Radical Women president, organizer for low-income families and single mothers
  • Annaliza Torres  – Member of Office and Professional Employees International Union, Local 8 and SHA worker

New Freeway Hall, 5018 Rainier Ave., S, Seattle.
4 blocks south of S. Alaska St. at the Dawson stop of the #7 busline.

Auspices: Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party.

Information: 206-722-6057, RWseattle@mindspring.com, www.RadicalWomen.org.
Everyone welcome. Childcare provided. Wheelchair accessible.

Oil Trains hearing in Olympia, Oct 30

(from InvolvedDemocracy.org)

Stand Up and Speak Out for Your Health and Safety!

Northwest communities are facing an onslaught of coal export and oil-by-rail proposals. If oil and coal companies are permitted to build their proposed facilities, they would turn our beloved region into a fossil fuel corridor.

With their hazardous coal dust and explosive fuel, these trains pose serious risks to our communities. These mile-long trains are an accident waiting to happen. Derailments happen frequently and all too often cause disastrous loss of life and property.

IT’S TIME TO SPEAK UP and demand protection for our families and our children’s future!

Save the date:

WHEN: October 30, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
WHERE: Red Lion Hotel – 2300 Evergreen Park Dr SW – Olympia, WA
RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/Govtransport-Lacey

In June, Governor Inslee funded a Department of Ecology study to assess the risks of oil transportation in Washington. The completed report is here: www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/spills/OilMovement/2014MRstudy.html. The recommendations are totally inadequate, with no mention of limiting oil trains on our railways nor stopping new oil terminal expansions. October 30, the public has a chance to comment. This is a critical opportunity to voice our concerns about the combined impact of oil and coal trains on our communities. We need to fill the aisles and tell our elected officials to stand up to big oil!


Help ensure that the study addresses the whole picture, such as risks and threats to rail communities, terminal communities, our economy, public safety, and our waterways like the Puget Sound, Grays Harbor, the Columbia River, and the Spokane River. Your participation can inform how the state will respond to this very important issue. Don’t miss this incredibly important opportunity to speak up. Join us!

Schedule for hearing:
5:00 pm doors open
5:15 pm pre-hearing rally, outside the Red Lion
6:00-9:00 pm public comment

NOTE: Bus transportation is being arranged for Whatcom/Skagit County, East King County, Seattle, Grays Harbor, and Vancouver/Longview. Car pools for all areas are also being organized. Details are in the RSVP link above.

Thank you for all you do for the environment,

Involved Democracy
www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/spills/OilMovement/2014MRstudy.html

Brouhaha about Freedom Socialist Ad

On a right-wing email list I monitor I saw a message claiming that the Freedom Socialists in Seattle we’re offering $13/hour for a web developer position while, at the same time, demanding $20 for a minimum wage. I found the source of the email: this article: Minimum wage group offers pay that undercuts the wage they’re demanding. Here’s what the email and the article say:

In another case of reality trumping idealism, a progressive group advocating for a dramatic bump in the federal mandatory minimum wage has inadvertently revealed a bit on unintentional hypocrisy.

The Seattle-based Freedom Socialist Party needed a Web developer, so it put out an online job posting. It describes the necessary qualifications and job responsibilities, and it even clearly states the hourly wage.

Problem is the Freedom Socialist Party isn’t offering its future Web developer nearly as much as the minimum wage it’s demanding from the government. The party wants a $20 mandatory minimum wage, but it’s willing to pay a Web developer only $13 per hour.

A similar article has links to the ads, at Indeed.com and at Craigslist.

But when I visit the ads, all I see is “Compensation: DOE, plus benefits.” No mention of $13/hr. What’s the DOE rate?  Is this a brouhaha about nothing?

Pediatricians Give Thumbs Up to Game Changing Birth Control for Sexually Active Teens

Every year more than 750,000 American teens become pregnant, and over 80 percent of these pregnancies are unplanned. That may be about to change. If teens take to the latest wave of birth control technologies the way they’ve taken to cell phones, unplanned pregnancy could go the way of landlines and stretchy handset cords.

On October 2, the American Academy of Pediatrics published updated practice guidelines for medical providers serving adolescent patients. The new guidelines endorse three kinds of long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) including state-of-the-art IUDs and implants that are total game changers when it comes to unintended teen pregnancy.

These methods have been slow to arrive in the United States, largely because of an early defective IUD that caused infection and injury during the 1970’s, traumatizing women, doctors, and regulators. But since that time, later generations of long acting contraceptives have become the norm in other countries. No one method works for everyone, and any contraceptive decision requires that a young woman and her medical provider weigh any risks of a given method against other methods or none at all, meaning the health and life risks of pregnancy.  Nevertheless, in 2012, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists finally gave long acting contraceptives a strong endorsement for Americans including young single women. Since then research has been piling up, confirming that LARC methods are safe and effective for teens.

In St. Louis between 2008 and 2013, 9000 women including 1400 teens were offered the contraceptive of their choice at no cost, and 72 percent chose a LARC. Teen pregnancy and abortion rates plummeted. This summer a teen pregnancy prevention program in Colorado announced equally impressive results. Between 2009 and 2013, Colorado’s teen pregnancy rate dropped 40 percent, with 75 percent of the decrease coming from areas in which low- or no-cost LARCS had been made available through public clinics. The program, funded by a $23 million grant from an anonymous donor, saved the state $42 million in teen-pregnancy related health care costs in 2010 alone, including a decrease of 35% in abortion procedures. And whether we measure the benefits in terms of flourishing families or state budgets, that’s just the beginning.

Here is why a little bit of “intrauterine bling” or “bicep bling” can make such a difference:

Think of fertility as an on/off switch. When a female hits adolescence, her defaut setting toggles to ON. For the next four decades, over 400 cycles, if she doesn’t want to get pregnant she will have to keep switching it back off or else use some kind of sperm barrier whenever she has sex. Pills and condoms work pretty well if they’re used perfectly—but who’s perfect? In the real world, 1 in 11 women relying on the Pill gets pregnant each year, and 1 in 8 couples counting on condoms ends up facing a big surprise. For sexually active teens the statistics are worse.

Don’t go looking down your nose or wagging your finger. Condoms may be a decent fit for the average penis, but every-day and every-time contraceptives are a rotten fit for the human brain. In technical terms, they get a big fat “D” on human factors engineering. To be sure, condoms are the best thing we have going to prevent sexually transmitted infections, and they’re way, way better than nothing when it comes to preventing pregnancy. But people wait too long or leave them on too long, or stretch them too tight, and they sometimes slip; and then, to quote Lena Dunham’s hilarious scene in Girls, there’s “the stuff that gets up around the sides of condoms.”

As for the Pill, it’s almost impossible for ordinary imperfect human beings to take any medication at the same time every day for weeks and months and years and decades on end. Forgetfulness, fights, finances—you name it—life provides an endless grab bag of distractions and barriers, to the point that only fifteen percent of women miss three or fewer pills each month. (It’s not just you, and like I said before, teens are even worse at it.)

Again, in the real world, pills are far more effective at reducing pregnancy and STI’s than alternatives like withdrawal, barriers, fertility monitoring, or abstinence commitments. But, Pills simply don’t compare to “set and forget” methods like IUD’s and implants that toggle the fertility switch to OFF for 3-12 years at a time, or until a woman feels ready for a baby.

No one method works for everyone, and each LARC has an adjustment phase, but once things are settled into place, the annual pregnancy rate drops below 1 in 500 for the least effective, the copper IUD. For the most effective, the implant, that number is one in 2000. Compare that to the 1 in 5 annual pregnancy rate for young couples using withdrawal or the 4 in 5 pregnancy rate for those counting on crossed fingers. The difference means young women (and young men!) can dream big and then put their energy into pursuing those dreams rather than angsting about missed periods.

Speaking of Aunt Flo, shorter, lighter, fewer periods is one of the reasons that some teens are opting for a LARC even before they become sexually active. Heavy cramps and bleeding are a top reason teen girls miss school, but a hormonal IUD reduces cramps and bleeding by, on average, 90 percent by the end of the first year. For a girl with problem periods that can make the difference between regular attendance and chronic absenteeism. For a young athlete it can be a literal game changer. And given that most youth are sexually active for six months before seeking birth control, non-contraceptive benefits like these can open up timely conversations about reproductive health before the first scare or accidental pregnancy.

Today even teens who do use birth control rely mostly on older, less effective methods; only 4.5 percent have a LARC. But health providers and even schools are working to get out the word about new options and to make better birth control accessible for all. If they succeed, more young women will be using their cell phones to text friends about homework assignments instead of abortion services or maternity care. Having a big thumbs up—and some actual practice guidelines—from the top professional organization of U.S. pediatricians can only help.

Originally published at AwayPoint

Boycott Microsoft (Black Friday Mourning Picket!) November 28

Join us in our #BoycottMicrosoft Black Friday Mourning Picket! The Badass Teachers of WA are calling on everyone who cares about the future.

Black Friday #Boycott Microsoft

Come prepared to:

Carry a light for every child who didn’t get the attention their teacher wanted to give them because of criminal underfunding of schools.

Mourn the learning opportunities lost in our classrooms because of tax loopholes.

Mourn the loss of revenue for our most vulnerable citizens while protesting tax loopholes given to the wealthy.

Microsoft is shirking their responsibility for meeting society’s needs and putting the tax burden on the backs of workers, thus perpetuating inequality (while profiting at record levels).

We MOURN economic fairness. But we have hope. We have a clear struggle ahead of us and we have solidarity.

Microsoft owes $8.16 billion to our state from tax years 1997-2014 (according to investigative journalism by Crosscut. The article link with the facts is below).

The time is NOW to call the public’s attention to the reality of our most vulnerable citizens; Washington legislators are in contempt of court for not meeting our own state constitution’s paramount duty to fully fund basic education. Microsoft has helped this travesty along.

Safety net programs will be on the chopping block this legislative session because of false choices. State funded programs should not be fighting each other for scarce resources when corporations like Microsoft enjoy huge tax gifts year after year.

***Wear black, bring flashlights or other lights to carry in solidarity as we picket the overpass between the East and West Microsoft campuses.

***Join educators, health care workers, public servants and concerned citizens to protest the perpetual under-funding of public schools, basic health and other state programs that improve the quality of life for EVERYONE.

***Signs & artful resistance messages will be available for you.

LOCATION: Park at Overlake Transit Center, just a block from the overpass: 15590 Northeast 36th Street
Redmond, WA 98052. Follow the signs to the picket.

The picket theme is similar to a funeral procession:
We MOURN lost revenue, lost lives and lost learning opportunities to corporate greed.

We are public servants in MOURNING of amply funded classrooms and safety nets. Because the legislature relies on regressive sales taxes paid by families who NEED to buy cheap this one day of the year, we protest the growing riches of the 1% while poverty is on the rise.

Attendees will demand:

1. Microsoft pay back taxes owed from their manipulation of licensing laws and moving certain financial operations out of state specifically to avoid their tax responsibility.

2. The public boycott Microsoft products including: Microsoft Office, Minecraft, Surface Tablets, Windows, Xbox, Skype, & Nokia phones until Microsoft pays their fair share for Washington State services.

3. Legislators reform tax laws! Each and every legislator swore to uphold their paramount duty when they were sworn into office. Demand legislators change revenue policies to eliminate tax loopholes for corporations. Fully fund basic education. Support students, teachers, small class sizes, and all workers in Washington with a fair budget and sustainable revenue. Support our most vulnerable citizens across the state.

“We can conservatively estimate Microsoft’s savings from lobbying and dodging the state royalty tax between 1997 and 2014 at $5.34 billion. If we factor in interest and the Department of Revenue’s typical 25 percent penalty on unpaid corporate taxes, that number jumps to $8.16 billion”.

“The sophistication with which these men have manipulated the law and enforcement in Olympia has tremendously harmed our state and our schools, and undermined constructive dialogue over tax fairness. Ballmer and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos both fought the progressive income tax in 2010. In 2012, Smith suggested raising the sales tax was the best approach to fund education.”

“Since this is the same state government whose auditors scoured Yelp listings to collect taxes from dance clubs while ignoring billions in tax breaks to Microsoft and Boeing, it’s likely the court will need to firmly guide the Legislature’s hand to prevent them from making the most regressive tax system in the country any worse.”

Read the entire article here:
Where are Washington’s K-12 dollars? Just ask Microsoft shareholders

And on the national scale they admit to avoiding paying $29.6 Billion in taxes by hoarding them off-shore:
Microsoft Admits Keeping $92 Billion Offshore to Avoid Paying $29 Billion in U.S. Taxes

Visit the picket’s facebook page and sign up.

Why we should vote for Hillary in 2016

Someone on another site said he doesn’t know any liberals who WANT to vote for Hillary in 2016 other than the fact that she’s less objectionable to any Republican candidate.I am a liberal, and I will happily pull the lever voting for Hillary in 2016. And I’ll tell you why.

Because she is a woman, and its time we had a female President. Full stop.

Because she is tough and I can’t see Republicans walking all over her like they have Obama for the past six years.

Because I personally like her.

And because she drives Republicans insane. They won’t be able to control themselves, they will go full misogyny. And they will turn off every female voter with half a functioning brain cell, much as they have done so with Hispanics and African-Americans by going full racist the last 6 years. And womenfolk are 51% of the electorate. Republicans will merely engineer their own defeat a decade earlier than they would have.

There are between six and fourteen vulnerable Republican Senators up for re-election in 2016. We need a Democratic wave election to wipe out as many of them as possible. Hillary is beloved by a large swath of the country and really is the only candidate who could create a wave election.

Although a lot of liberals will only vote for her while holding their nose, we all will do so (much as the Republicans voted for Romney) because the alternative of having a Republican appoint additional Scalitos to the Supreme Court is far, far worse.

Yes, if Warren or Sanders had a reasonable shot, I guess they’d be my preferred candidates, but every poll I have seen has them both losing to Generic Republican, while Hillary is able to defeat most Republicans in places like Georgia and Arizona. Neither Warren or Sanders stands a chance in a general election, and I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is right now until the country changes demographically.

When you sacrifice pragmatism (picking the candidate who will most likely win) in favor of ideology (picking the most ideologically pure candidate no matter what), you are going to end up like the Tea Party. Go look at the times that an ideologically pure candidate won their party’s nomination in 1964 and 1972 and 1984. The results have not been pretty. Romney managed to get enough moderates to vote for him in 2012 so that historically he will look like a credible candidate, but imagine if the GOP decided to go full ideology and nominate Santorum. Polls show that Santorum would have lost to Obama by around 10 to 13 points. Romney actually lost by 4. Santorum, had he only lost by 10 would have lost Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska CD2, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In real life, Obama won 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206. A Santorum “pure ideological” campaign would result in an Electoral Vote count of 411 Obama to 127 Santorum.

When people on here and elsewhere state they want Warren or Sanders to run, they don’t understand how politics and voting works in this country right now. They are unwittingly saying “I want to lose the 2016 election so I can vote for my preferred candidate”, because that’s how winner-take-all elections work. I know this sucks, but you have to vote strategically or your vote ends up being irrelevant and your preferred “perfect” candidate loses.

Now, I’ve presented this argument to the ideologically faithful, especially those that profess to habitually vote third party, and they have always come back with some statement to the effect that if you let Republicans run the government, they will do such a poor job that their preferred candidate or party will win next time. That also is short-sighted and fundamentally wrong. People said that in 1980 when Reagan ran and look what happened. For the next 30 years we’ve had to deal with the mess he created. People said that in 2000 when Bush Jr ran and look what happened. We’re probably going to have to deal with a destablized Middle East for the next 20 years, not to mention the death toll of 9/11, two wars, and 18,000 plus Americans dying every year from lack of health insurance.

On top of the sheer death toll resulting from an incompetent presidency, the ideologically pure don’t understand that just because one party fails does not mean that the extreme of the other party (or a third party) is going to be embraced by the electorate. The voters by and large will vote for the least extreme candidate of the other party, even after a disastrous presidency. Dennis Kucinich was not going to win against McCain in 2008, sorry. Again, we are dealing with ideologues who believe the country to be they way they want it to be, and don’t understand that their belief does not equate with reality.

On its current trajectory, the Republican party will commit demographic suicide somewhere around 2024. It is vital that Democrats keep control of the White House until then. Hillary is the most likely candidate to be able to accomplish that. The country IS changing to accept the vision of men and women like Sanders and Warren, but it isn’t there yet. We have to run a candidate acceptable to the majority of the overall electorate until such a time that someone ideologically to the left of Hillary can actually win a national election.

I know this point of view probably isn’t popular, but it is reality, and life isn’t always fair. In politics, you don’t always get 100% of what you want. You are going to have to hold your nose and vote for Hillary (or happily vote for her like I will) in order to win elections and keep the country from going into the toilet. Or you can ignore my advice and vote for Sanders or Warren, who weaken Hillary (or drive her ideologically leftward, which is the same result) and let the Republicans win in the general election. Or vote third party and let the Republicans win in the general election.

Vote strategically, not ideologically.