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Essay:Ralph Nader sucks
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This essay is an original work by AmesG. It does not necessarily reflect the views expressed in RationalWiki's Mission Statement, but we welcome discussion of a broad range of ideas. Unless otherwise stated, this is original content, released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 or any later version. See RationalWiki:Copyrights. Feel free to make comments on the talk page, which will probably be far more interesting, and might reflect a broader range of RationalWiki editors' thoughts. |
Warning! The following contains the angry rantings of a bitter man! It's also a response to the Ralph Nader article, and the pro-bastard position I think it takes.
Ralph Nader is the ultimate sophist, who routinely subordinates the best interests of his country and his philosophical peers to his own quixotic quest to "make a point" about his version of politics. The most famous case, of course, was the 2000 Presidential election, in which Nader effectively split the liberal vote, siphoning off enough votes from Al Gore to cost him the state's electoral votes, and, ultimately, the Presidency.
Nader spurns blame for this catastrophe, arguing that if Gore couldn't beat Bush, it's his own damn fault. This argument precisely misses the point. Whether or not Gore was capable of beating Bush in an abstract, philosophical sense is not the issue - the issue is whether Nader's pursuit of his own self-interest over that of his country materially altered the election results, a question to which the answer is a resounding "yes." Viewed another way, Nader's argument amounts to, "So what, I cut off your leg! If you can't win the race with one leg, you don't deserve to win!" Maybe Gore could've done better, but Nader sure as hell didn't help.
The man ought to be put in a carnival dunk-house, for the widows and bereaved mothers of the Iraq war to throw balls at all day.