The hunter and the bear

I argue a lot on Fark, and typically, political arguments are of the form "Candidate A doesn't believe in X, so you are an idiot if you vote for him." Of course, this completely ignores who you should vote for. I finally wrote the following:

These threads are a bit like a religious argument between a Mormon and a Muslim. Sure, it's easy for one side to poke holes in the wacky beliefs of the other, but only when their own beliefs aren't subject to the same scrutiny.

Which is probably why a lot of people seem to be against everything and for nothing. There are relatively few arguments like "I believe Ron Paul is mistaken in the role of the Federal government in universal health care, which is why I support John Edwards," while there are plenty saying "Ron Paul is a racist homophobe, and if you vote for him you are an idiot."

There is a joke about two hunting guides walking in a forest. On the other side of the canyon they see a grizzly bear stand up on it hind legs, sniff the wind, then take off running toward them. The first guide looks around the scrubby pines in vain for a tree to climb, while the second grabs a pair of running shoes from his backpack and starts to hurriedly put them on.
"Why are you doing that? You can't outrun a bear!" The first guide exclaims.
"I don't have to outrun the bear," the other replies. "I just have to outrun you."

Likewise, Representative Paul is far from a perfect candidate, but he doesn't have to be perfect, he just has to be better than the others -- as President, not king, or emperor, or whatever, but as a chief executive that must defer in certain matters to the Congress, the Court, the various states, or to the citizens of the United States.

There is plenty of time between now and election day, and there is a very good chance I may change my mind in the interim, either by some policy statement of Paul's, or by another candidate really impressing me, but at this point I don't trust any of the other Republicans to keep us out of unnecessary wars, and I prefer some form of divided government to offset the Congress, rather than a Democratic rubberstamp. With Paul, it would be like divided government no matter which party held Congress, and that situation works for me.