"Winning is more important than how you play the game"

[TahitiNut]

Poll question: "Winning is more important than how you play the game"

Do you agree or disagree? Why?

[Raster]

1. I don't like this poll. I'm taking my computer and going home.

So THERE!

[Joy Anne]

4. all depends on how you define "winning" n/t

[TahitiNut]

5. Well, that's an interesting a.n.s.w.e.r.

:evilgrin:

[Mutley]

2. I disagree.

Look at the last two presidential elections. They 'won' by playing the game in a way that cheated the American public. Winning was more important than ethics. I'd rather be on the losing side then cheat and lie and kill my way to the winners circle.

[bemildred]

3. Mu.

False dilemma. My question: Can you truly win if you do
not play the game fairly and as well as you can? Does getting
to strut on the top of some dunghill for a while before being
thown aside make up for all the shitty stuff you had to wade
through to fight your way to the top?

[UncleSepp]

8. Very nicely put!

[bemildred]

12. Allow me to add Mr. Huxleys' comment on the subject:

Means determine ends; and must be like the ends proposed.
Means intrinsically different from the ends proposed achieve
ends like themselves, not like those they were meant to
achieve. Violence and war will produce a peace and an social
organization having the potentialities for more violence and
war.
A.H. Eyeless in Gaza


:hi:

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Republicans are "Win at all Costs" and Dems "Truth at all costs" parties.

[UncleSepp]

7. History is full of examples of winning the wrong way

Particularly when it comes to taking political power, democratic movements tend to have a very hard time giving power back to the people in whose name power was seized. Issues, once deprioritized in the interests of attaining mass support, tend to stay deprioritized. Further, a political movement that gives a sense of belonging and identity to its supporters, in the sense that a person may say "I am a Democrat" or "I am a Republican" teaches, in its way of public struggle, how a Democrat or a Republican ought to behave in private struggle. A brutal political campaign teaches that brutality is acceptable within the group, and a compassionate one teaches that compassion is desirable.

Just my opinion, worth what you paid for it :-)

[NNN0LHI]

9. It all depends on what the stakes are. Not enough info to answer

A court case where an Innocent mans life is at stake? No holds barred.

A game of Monopoly with my wife? Winning is not all that important.

Don

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Because ends don't justify the means

Morality is more important to me than obtaining something-or as Jesus said, "What good does it do a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"

[MissMarple]

11. How you do something defines the result.

Cheating fosters corruption.

[wuushew]

13. The results of Republican power are war and domestic misery

Arguably the tangible benefits that a populist Democratic majority would bring the average American outweigh the utility lost by sacrificing ethical standards.

Of course such an imbalance would eventually be equalized since behavior would grow in importance as the more important needs like universal health care are checked off the to do list.

[TahitiNut]

14. With 27 votes, we have 22% 'agree.'

Interesting.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Wing_Authoritarianism

[Oeditpus Rex]

15. The first casualty of professional politics

is ethics. Idealism is all well and good once in office, but it doesn't help a candidate get elected.

This is from "Primary Colors":


"The point is — EAGLETON," Libby said. "You remember, Jack? I must have known you — what, two days then? We hear about the electroshock, and it's weird: That was the first time I actually considered the possibility that we might lose to that fuckbrain Nixon. Before that, I was absolutely convinced we would win. I mean, who would ever vote for Tricky? No one I knew, 'cept the idiots I escaped from back in Partridge, Texas. Can you imagine, Henry? We were so fucking YOUNG. And this one, this one" — she nodded over toward Stanton — "he takes me out, we go to this little open-air Cuban joint, and I've got my head in my hands. Life has ended. And THEY did it — the CIA. It had to be the CIA. I couldn't believe that Tom Eagleton would really be a nutcase. They had to have dragged him off and drugged him and made him crazy. It couldn't have been that McGovern was just — A COMPLETE FUCKING AMATEUR. No, they did dirty tricks. And I said to Jack, 'We gotta get that capability.' And you said, 'No, our job is to END all that. Our job is to make it clean. Because if it's clean, we win — because our ideas are better.' You remember that, Jack?"

Libby had tears in her eyes now.

"It was a long time ago," Stanton said gently.


If by "cheating" you mean manipulating the polls, then, yes — such tactics have NO place in politics, and those who employ them should be strung up by the cubes and buggered in the town square at high noon. But let's face reality: * won in '04 because of the Swifties — more to the point, because Rove is an evil fucking rat bastard genius. And all through the Swift Boat campaign, I was screaming, "We've got to counter this! We've got to get as nasty as they are!"

Because that's how you get elected. It's a sorry state of affairs, but it's true. And all the idealism in the world isn't worth a goddam hanging chad if you aren't in a position to put it into practice.

[bemildred]

16. So you vote for the "The end justifies the means" approach.

FWIW, some of us here believe that McGovern lost because the
Democratic National Party wanted him to lose and took steps
accordingly. He was not, after all, a national party candidate,
but rather one elected by the anti-war crowd under the new
primary rules and therefore a threat. I can't say I think
he ran a good campaign, but I do think he had help in that.

It was notable that Kerry ran such a crappy campaign and allowed
himself to get "swift-boated" too. Do you think the Democratic
National Party leadership does not know how to fight dirty, or
that they just decided not to? It's not like Bush has no skeletons
in his closet. He's no Mary Poppins by any means.

In any case, some blather in a novel is not much in the way
of an argument.

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. I vote *conditionally* for that approach

It depends on what the means are. I'd frown on breaking into hotel rooms, writing "Canuck letters" or engineering whispering campaigns, for example — as well as Swifting a dissemination of lies. But if you know of a hole in your opponent's history, you'd be a fool not to exploit it. (I think the Dems should've conducted a tireless investigation into *'s TANG records, even after the CBS debacle.)

The quoted passage from "Primary Colors" illustrated my point. I'd hardly call it or the book as a whole "blather."

[bemildred]

20. Well then, you think "how you play the game" matters.

So we would agree there, I think.

I think that book was drivel, but that's just my opinion,
and you are certainly free to think better of it than I.

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. Fair enough

:toast:

[TahitiNut]

18. Fascinating.

Is this really Democratic Underground?

[Individualist]

19. I value integrity above gamesmanship

[berni_mccoy]

21. Define "Winning"

The question can not be answered without the proper context.

The Republican's lied, cheated and stole their way into office. Do they 'win'? Apparently not. People are becoming more and more outraged now after 4+ years of total 'conservative' control of all branches of the gov't. The American people are waking up to a country that is not safe or economically sound. And the American people are very angry. I would say that the republican's have not 'won' anything, and perhaps may have lost more than they bargained for.

If you define 'winning' as getting (s)elected into office, then the answer to that is politics has been played this way for many generations and is accepted by this society that politics trumps platform. But I don't define 'winning' simply as that... once you are in office, it is the platform (how you play the game) that you ran on that determines if you come out as a winner or a loser.

[dhinojosa]

23. No wonder us Democrats lose in elections

Damn I am answering Totally Fucking absolutely agree.

[proud patriot]

24. Strongly Disagree

Why ? Because my honor , integrity and soul are far
more important to me than winning some competition .

That's Why :-)

[TahitiNut]

27. Well, d'oh, Trish ...

... tell me something I DON'T know about you. :silly: :dunce:

:yourock: :loveya: :hug: :loveya: :hug: :loveya: :yourock:

[MrSlayer]

25. Nice guys finish last.

When you fight with pigs you have to get into the mud. And a thousand other cliches. Taking the high road gets you nowhere but beaten down. Just look at the political climate, by trying to be "fair" we have allowed the Pukes to turn every good thing we stand for into contemptible even laughable ideas. The coward is the hero, war is peace and simple equality is immoral. You can't get anything done unless you win and unless you're willing to fight harder and dirtier than the other guy you never will. Integrity is nice but victory is better.

[Silverhair]

26. That depends on the game and the stakes. NT