Behold, the mighty power of cheese

Where does the time go? I notice it has been almost three days since I did an update...I am sure dozens of brain cells have been lost in the interim to tragic events such as movie popcorn and disuse. Loneliness. Both of my brain cells are lonely, for some reason they cannot find each other in that cavernous melon on top of my shoulders. All of which brings me to the serious portion of our show.
Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to peruse some rather interesting sources dealing with various political issues. One of them was talking about how the Bush administration uses hot-button issues to garner voters who will disagree with his foreign policy, then go ahead with his policies which theoretically contradict the wishes of his bait...in other words, the old bait-and-switch. This was naturally counteracted by people pointing out the long-standing Democrat habit of doing this with minorities. This argument, or a form of it, is cropping up more and more often. Essentially the argument is that "emotional hot-button" (with the understanding that these are unimportant and needlessly divisive implicit in the statement) issues are being used to get votes for "actually important" issues the voter disagrees with.
Bullsmurf. To all of it.
First off, assuming what the people vote for Bush, Clinton, Nader, etc., 'ACTUALLY' want as opposed to what their vote says they want can be nothing but a subjective guess. It groups people together unfairly and inaccurately. It misrepresents truth in an attempt for political gain.
Second, it unulaterally assigns values to various issues. Who is to say that to me the foreign policy of the U.S. is more important or less important than issues of life and death such as abortion and capital punishment? Or that either of those is as important as whether taxes are raised and lowered? Assigning more importance to foreign policy because it is important to a specific writer is dangerously flawed.
I will create a hypothetical to demonstrate what I am trying to say here. Let us say that I believe any killing but an individual outside the bounds of warfare is wrong. However, I have studied history and decided the ends justifies the means, and therefore will always gladly support any war regardless of who is fighting it or why.
In an election there is someone who will always support abortion, oppose the death penalty, and will support the war. Opposing him is someone who will stand against the death penalty and abortion and will end the war. Who would I vote for?
By the argument being proposed the correct answer would be the first person...because foreign policy trumps personal interaction. Suppose, however, that I believe personal actions take precedence over cumbersome governmental actions. I am so against individuals killing that the person who stops it by stopping the death penalty and abortion is my candidate REGARDLESS of what their other positions are on anything...foreign policy, taxation, states rights...because in MY world, what is important to ME as determined by ME revolves around MY morality...the source of that morality is irrelevant. It could be religion based, humanism based, anthropological, sociological, pshychological...where the source is does not matter. It is MINE to do with as I see fit.
And that is the problem with many of these arguments. They place false emphasis on things the arguers believe are important without taking into account the fact, inarguable and undisputable, that different people emphasize different priorities.
This leads many people to argue that people are voting against their self interest...a spurious and fallacious argument often brought up whenever any black person votes Republican. Interesting. So they are not allowed to decide what is in their best interest? This is akin to the U.S. Government choosing who will be the chief of various tribes since the tribes frequently, and clearly (in government views) mistakenly choose the wrong leaders. I mean, often the chiefs selected by the tribes refuse to sell tribal lands to the government for large sums of cash and insist on keeping the lands they often believe are sacred. Thus the government, seeing the tribally elected chiefs are not acting in their best interests, remove them from office and install government appointees who WILL act in the tribes best interests...which, coincidentally, result in the tribe selling lands to the government.
Sure, the tribal members temporarily get more cash...but look at the cost; they lose something they believe is sacred (land) which, in turn, destroys part of their religious belief, which in turn changes their identity. Was it REALLY their best interest? According to the government, yes...according to SOME of the tribesmen, yes...but according to most of the tribesmen, no.
I hope you get the point; different priorities mean different things are important. Foreign policy is far from the most important thing for many people who find their life more directly impacted by other features of the political landscape. Saying they did not get what they want because they disagree with the foreign policy is a straw man and not worthy of the accusations that are made. Let's have more intelligent, fact based discussions about what is important rather than twisting truth to make lies appear true.