1) There was nothing distinctly feminist about anything I said, so I don’t know what that has to do with anything.

I could go on, but I hope you get the gist. The onus is on you to come up with more than bitter non sequiturs.

“Saying, ‘I’m voting third party’ in an election year is meant to portray someone as free-thinking or too personally virtuous to stain their hands with the evil that is the “establishment” candidate, whatever the heck that means.”

He’s basically saying that he is incapable of comprehending the strategic value of voting for anyone who isn’t going to win, this time. Doesn’t even consider the possibility that the issues *you* care about can, in fact, be granted greater legitimacy for future growth by lending your support now. He’s saying that you should abandon any foolish thoughts of making things better and just let yourself sink into the mud, and that the only possible motivation for not supporting criminal behavior is vanity. He’s literally trying to paint “personal virtue” as something to be disposed of when things become difficult and that he doesn’t even really understand what virtue means. Really?

He goes on to say…

“It’s a matter of conscience, apparently, though I question the conscience of people who are that concerned about proving they’re smarter and better than all the rest of us.”

Who the hell is Jef Rouner to question anyone’s conscience that he hasn’t actually spoken to or to assign frivolous motivations to their exercising it? His use of the word “apparently” is a direct admission that he has no interest, and therefore hasn’t examined any data, about what those questions of conscience might be. He sounds like he would have been a royalist during the American revolution. “Come on guys. You with your fancy ideas about democracy and self-rule are going to get us in trouble with the King. He’s not such a bad guy and this tea is delicious!!!”

Then he goes on to smear Stein and Johnson, as if any of their foibles comes anywhere close to the epic baggage the two front-runners are carrying. Okay, I’ll admit Johnson is probably just as stupid as Trump is, but at least he doesn’t publically declare that people’s value should be judged based on their race, sex, religion, or country of origin. Or stand in front of her supporters and recount the harrowing story, multiple times, of how she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire and had to run to the terminal to escape being killed when the video showed her calmly inspecting troops and doing photo ops with girls clubs on the tarmac like Hillary did (this being just one lie in a list so long it staggers the mind, bearing in mind that I’m dismissing the boilerplate Benghazi, Whitewater , Bill, Email nonsense). Being a veteran, this one is especially galling to me. It’s called “Stolen Valore”, where someone pretends to have placed themselves in harm’s way to enhance their esteem in your eyes.

Yeah, why should my conscience interfere with her ambition to power? It’s not that I’m “smarter than the rest of us”, it’s that I *am* better than her insomuch as I care more about my fellow citizens than I care about sucking up to powers who view us as nothing other than consumers.

Here’s how the super-ultra-rich get things done: they make sure that no matter who wins, they benefit. They groom and support people who can present themselves as leaders of the largest factions, regardless of ideology, while making sure their ultimate loyalties are to them. Primarily through money and blackmail. Perhaps Trump can’t be bought, but he certainly knows on which side his bread is buttered, and that as the CEO of the country, how to make it even butterier.

They also fund think tanks, and pretty much anyone with an audience, who’s willing to create high-minded sounding arguments for corporate conformity. We’re talking billions and billions of pay-offs for traitors to humanity. I know I’m not quoting the exact numbers here, but I’ve read several reports that were along the lines of something like 50 companies spent 30 billion dollars lobbying congress, which then granted them more than 6 trillion dollars in benefits. And I’m expected to cooperate?

No, Jill won’t win, and I’m not even sure I would want her to. But if Hillary’s margin is slim enough, the bean counters at the DNC are going to have to be asking themselves if it’s wise to keep drifting farther to the right at the risk of losing the next one. If you live in a swing state, then for god’s sake, vote for Hillary. If not, send a message. Tell the DNC you ARE a voter and that they have to earn it. Gatherings in the streets are easily ignored and soon forgotten. Votes are not. Which do you think is the more effective protest?

I see this as Jef’s attempt at victim blaming. “you’re just asking to be assaulted if you don’t think like ‘the rest of us'”. Whoever, in his mind, “us” is.

2nd, from Confucious: ‘ A long journey starts with one step’.

How about this — vote your values, your priorities . It is is absurd to vote for someone you oppose. It is morally and rationally foggy at a minimum. When the millions of votes are tallied at the end of the day, CLinton and the system will think that those votes are for going to war over a cyber hacking episode , or in the ramping up of surveillance to increase the security of our state, for example.

There is no ‘ Well, I just didnt like the other guy’ box on the ballot, so the system has no way to id this. And when we get lots of stuff we dont like, such as continued corporate cronyism , pay for play, unhinged military spending, endless war, and reckless foreign misadventures, the continued march towards a 21st century police state and the movement towards climate catastrophe , people will point to YOUR VOTE.

You should have stuck your conscience , and your thoughts and prayers. At least you can look at your kids and sleep at night , sort of.

As in like, oh, I don’t know, supporting a third party candidate?