It seems to me that the book would have far less of an element of escapism if Grey weren’t rich. The book’s cynical play for success is all about the vicarious need to be wealthy and sexually liberated and titillated.

It sounds like Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, but considerably less ragged and considerably more raunch.

When a “dialogue” results not only in someone’s religious faith be questioned, but in that perosn being called a rapist for failure to fall into ideological lockstep, something is seriously wrong. This site isn’t a “mosaic,” but rather a idologically echo chamber.

I’ve never been as offended as I am now. I cannot believe that my political moderation has resulted in the vile and hateful insults posted here. I am done participating in this site.

You may want to take a long hard look in the mirror, because trying to open a dialogue with that kind of rhetoric won’t get you very far. if your ultimate goal is to convince people to support your values, it’s a bad idea to start off by insulting them. At this point, all you’ve accomplished is driving me out of the conversation, which means you’ve lost any and all opportunity to convince me your position is correct.

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about preaching to the choir. You had an opportunity to reach out to a democratic voter and try to convince me to do otherwise. But instead, by using vicious and totally uncalled for personal attacks you’ve simply reinforced my perspective.

But the deeper problem I have with your reasoning is that the system _always_ picks one or two issues to hold us hostage to its agenda. So Obama gets to spend four more years pushing a corporate, capitalist agenda that is literally destroying the planet, because we don’t want to lose his anemic health care reform or risk losing our reproductive rights in those states that might respond to a reversal of Roe by outlawing them… There seems, then, no end to the amount of systemic evils which can be perpetrated in exchange for a few centrist/moderate crumbs of policy.

So don’t talk to me about where the Democratic Party is going. I know where it’s going. It’s going to hell. It is unwilling to stand for anything but power. It’s all about winning. What’s worse is that the Republicans take the moral high ground consistently because they do champion their values, which are based upon independence and freedom. People can get ahold of that. They understand values very clearly. The Democrats don’t, because they are always willing to sacrifice principle for power. What does the Democratic Party stand for? Nothing. What does Obama do? His entire agenda is one of war, of assassinations, of depriving us of our civil rights, of failing to follow through on promises. He’s a man no Democrat or liberal believes in except as the man to beat Romney. That’s your kind of politics. It’s empty of value, empty of humanity, empty of anything that promises the soul a vestige of dignity. What are you willing to stand for except sticking with a winner?

Thank you for your comments – and thank you to the editors of political context for organizing this discussion. You have given me more things to think about.