Word of the day: Purity Troll
Kos has a good post about how Bush used his 4th veto as president to veto the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Not surprising that Bush would choose to burn political capital by denying healthcare to children. What is really fascinating is that Dennis Kucinich, maven of the far left, also voted against the bill. Kos is right on when he classifies Kucinich as a “Purity Troll”.
I am tired of that tendency on the left. Shame on you Dennis, shame on you! We all have to work together, even if compromise is required.
Definitiion of Purity Troll from dkosopedia.
“Purity Trolls”. These are trolls from the left. Otherwise known in reallife as drama queens. No matter how pure your position is, their position is more pure. No matter how compassionate or informed or skeptical or vigorous your opinion is, theirs is more of it. These trolls are insistent that they are the true spirit of liberalism, and spend their time being quite put out that the rest of us don’t turn over our resources, our audiences, and our respect to them, regardless of how thin their positions may be on the merits. Drives me nuts, personally.
I have known quite a few purity trolls in my lifetime. You know who you are. Hell I probably used to be one myself. Even had a lost friendship over this behavior once. Interesting phenomena, quite boorish to be around.
Update:
In doing some more reading on the Kucinich vote I came across a juicy Voltaire quote.
“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.”, from Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)
Literally translated as “The best is the enemy of good.”
Truer words have not been written, and it is this insight that fundamentally defines my personal politics.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:09 am
First  Nader, now this… what about purity party trolls who always need some little guy to kick into a corner & blame for loosing your election. Of my 36 years 20 of them have had a Bush involved in them & 8 a Clinton (who’s looking to tack on another 8)…BORING!
Americas beginning was sparked in an experiment, I say let that experiment continue! Let’s face it; the Left is the mommy, the Right is the daddy & the media is their bitchy little children. I’m tired of being subjected to the roll of family therapist.
Paul + Kucinich with Nader as Attorney General, now that would be must see T.V. !
November 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Agreed. I have said to others in private that if Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination I will vote Republican for the first time in my life. But that is the only scenario in which I would not vote for Hillary.
I guess I have just become more establishmentarian in my old age.
My only complaint about Nader, Kucinich, etc is that they are not consensus builders. And they don’t even want to be. Whatever happened to all that talk Nader had about building a Green party. Only to ditch it in 2004. Baah! I feel like I was sold a bill of goods in 2000 and that my idealism was taken for granted. Whatever one’s politics, it is important to remember that the process is always one of compromise and that is not a bad thing per se. Bush is what you get when you don’t see the value of compromise.
But I agree with your basic premise. A Ron Paul presidency would be interesting because I think it is the only thing that could truly break the back of special interests and their stranglehold over the treasury. He is contrarian enough. But at least he has the dignity to run on principle and not some delusion that he is building a new party which is more than I can say for Nader.