Boiling It Down To Two Choices

If as a liberal, you object to the Obama administration's use of drones, you have that right, as fellow Balloon Juicer Freddie demonstrates:

I don't know how else it say it, considering I've said it a thousand times. I want my country to stop killing innocent people. I want it so bad I don't know how to act or what to do. I want it so bad I can't sit still or sleep at night. I want it with everything I have that's capable of want. And I know that this is the kind of talk that invites pure contempt from those like Tbogg, who have only the idiom of sarcasm and derision and cannot imagine straightforward moral sentiment. But that's the truth. I want my country to stop killing innocent people. And the innocent people we kill the most, these days, are Muslim. And the policy of the Obama administration has expanded the zone in which we kill innocent Muslims, they have shown no interest in stopping killing innocent Muslims, and in fact their campaign constantly brags about the drone program which kills innocent Muslims. That's just true. All of it is just true. Obama is directly responsible for the expansion of hostilities against Muslims targets which result in the death of people who have taken no violent action against the United States. Voting for him cannot, does not, and will not challenge that reality.

So what do you want me to do? Break bread with the establishment liberals, try to reason with them, bring these ideas into the discussion? I've tried. Many have tried. Check a Tbogg comment thread. See what happens to people who criticize the drone program. Try a Balloon Juice thread. Try and insert some anti-drone sentiment into the comments. Believe me, I've tried. The result is total, immediate, and angry dismissal. Always. These ideas are not permitted. For all the talk of "lesser evils," you are far more likely to find conventional liberals defending the drone program than speaking of it as evil at all.

If the use of drones killing innocent civilians is a big enough single-issue to you to abdicate your responsibility to vote when you know that A) President Obama's opponent will expand the drone program even more and B) most likely start a third war, this time with Iran where hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims will be killed, then I have to right to say that I disagree with your tactics, and that I find your logic to be flawed.

You claim voting for Barack Obama will not change the use of drones.  That's worth a pretty detailed discussion.  But either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be President.  Not voting will not change that.  That's not up for discussion, that's simply fact.  Pretending that neither one will be President in January is delusional.  I'll take Obama every time in that situation as a result.

We only get to have the drone discussion about Obama's use of drones if he's still President.  The alternative is Romney.  This is a binary choice here.  Make it.  Don't be a coward and run away from it, or justify your abdication of your responsibility to vote.  Make the choice.

Really is that simple.