Victor,

I'm curious why in the first case where everyone knows Sanders is a pedophile, you vote Sanders, while in the second case where only you know, you lean towards staying home. It seems a little inconsistent as in both cases the opponent is Trump. I can imagine some possible reasons for your different responses, but what exactly is yours?

So being the idiot glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to cruise over to The_Donald to see their response to this situation

For the uninitiated they call themselves peds or pedes, after some centipede meme about Trump.

Pull the lever and then suicide bomb Putin. EZ game

Also these comparisons/hypotheticals are stupid. " in the mind of the trumpers, they're doing what you'd do for a democrat. "

Democrats pretty much always take out their trash when their leaders are exposed for sexual misconduct and Republicans pretty much always try to bury/defend their guy. You don't need hypothetical, there are countless real life examples.

" in their mind Jones is as bad as Moore is to us. " Ok, well their minds are broken. You can't compare morals to people who don't have them. Moore wants to put people in prion for being gay.

All that said I wouldn't vote for Bernie if it turned out he was a pedo. But the entire reason I like Bernie is because he clearly has a ****load of integrity and has been standing up for civil rights since he was a college student. The reason Trumpers like Moore/Trump is because they stand up for sexual assault, racism, homophobia, and sexism.

jfc. Just reading raw numbers/data is one thing, but reading a personal story like this really brings to light how disgusting these people and this religion are.

And on that faithful day young Maranatha waited, and Matthew finally came to claim her like a sooner staking out a plot of land with a winding creek before the Oklahoma land run. Praise the lord.

Roy Moore claims a moral superiority to atheists, Muslims and gays and to save the soul of the nation people like him need to be elected. His pedophilia directly cuts at his argument for leadership by his own standards, unlike Obama or Clinton.

I don't disagree. The problem is that with all the real life examples you end up with someone like Romney or even GWB. While suboptimal, they are nowhere near as bad as Trump. It's not even a contest. That's why we need some hypothetical examples. No one as uniquely bad as Trump has come up

Agreed and I pretty much said the same thing. You could have just quoted that whole section and saved time. That's the real problem. It's that they see Jones as some sort of horrific evil. And that they see Moore minus pedophilia as the ideal candidate.

So what would you do? Vote Trump or not vote?

Yeah, that's true, and I concede that this whole thing was far-fetched to begin with. That's the way hypothetical scenarios go sometimes.

No it doesn't. If it did, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It undermines his credibility when you're looking at contemporary US social standards, but by hardcore evangelical standards it is not a problem at all. His water carriers didn't pull stuff like the Mary and Joseph defense out of thin air. This stuff has been there, barely under the surface, for years.

You would think so. However, it looks like team Moore is going to take the line that thrity-something-year-old who has "consensual" sexual contact with a 14 yo is not only not immoral it practically has biblical support. So from their perspective there is no inherent contradiction.

Also let's not forget their deeply-held belief that white men should get whatever they want, when they want it.

I've said a few times ITT if Bernie was outed as a Pedo I'd sit out the election or vote 3rd party. Even knowing it'd be terrible for our country, no way I could morally vote for a pedophile. Plus if he was a pedophile, he clearly wouldn't be the person of integrity I thought he was, so I'd have to question everything else about him.

I hope I am wrong, especially because democrats desperately need senate seats with the 2018 senate elections being so one-sided, but I wouldn't expect this to throw the election blue in Alabama considering that Moore is white, 14 years old is past puberty and he stopped when she told him to stop. That trifecta is going to be enough justification for Alabama. Religion definitely creates the atmosphere of acceptance for this sort of thing.

I moved to a small southern town when I was 13 and the kids there were miles ahead of me in terms of experience and exposure to sex. Multiple girls in my middle school got knocked up. The teenage girls are all being chased by adult men. Sadly, it's really ****ing normal.

Voting for pedo Bernie is a terrible answer. Don't cede your authority to a candidate you don't agree with, especially on such a major issue. A vote for pedo Bernie would be a vote in support of pedophilia, period.

You certainly lose all right to claiming the moral high ground by electing a known pedophile.

There's no such thing as Bernie only a pedo. This whole ****ing hypothetical is idiotic. The person doesn't embody any of the traits that people are drawn to in Bernie if he's a pedophile. I guess what you're going for would be is literally anyone better than Trump. And yeah I don't know, I'd definitely take the waaf attitude and write someone in. I'm not going to tear myself apart trying to parse which pure evil is 5% less evil.

https://twitter.com/brfreed/status/929392947161980929

lol typo aside, framing a 30-something groping a 14-year-old as a "sex claim" is pretty ****ing exceptional.

#ConservativePrivilege

Because it sure doesn’t apply to people like Weiner or Weinstein

Well, I guess I'm saying he'll drop out.

Anyway, now they're floating other ideas:

New precedent of republicans canceling elections they think they might lose. Who needs democracy and voting anyway?

The fact that pedo Bernie doesn't exist doesn't make it a bad hypothetical, that's what hypotheticals are. Recognizing that as a fundamental change in what he represents, making it impossible to cast a vote for him, is a reasonable response that says something about your voting philosophy. Ignoring that information and voting for him anyway to enact policies you're in favor of is also a reasonable response (meaning it's a response that the hypothetical is designed to elicit in some people, not that it's a response I agree with).

The point is to illustrate why we're having such a negative response to the people who continue to stand with Moore. Is it because Republicans are deplorable in general (and in particular the extreme right fundamentalist Christian types)? Or is it because pedophilia should be disqualifying for an elected official? It's important to understand your own position if you're going to express an opinion on the matter, otherwise people will quickly spot the inconsistencies in your logic and dismiss you entirely.

Canceling the special election is unconscionable.

No ****ing way it stands up in federal court.

Why do I seem to be the only one greatly bothered by the fact that major aspects of our lives can hinge on whether, the liberal or conservative Supreme court Justice dies, the liberal or conservative Senate candidate is a pedophile, or the liberal or conservative part of Pennsylvania is hit with a blizzard on election day. I mean even the far less important decisions as to what happens to an all in PLO pot are often smoothed out by dealing it twice. There should be some mechanism to revisit close decisions in the political world as well.