John Stuart Mill expresses our community (in the larger sense) very well:
It gives a very insufficient idea of the importance of the strivings which take place to improve and elevate human nature and life, to suppose that their chief value consists in the amount of actual improvement realized by their means, and that the consequence of their cessation would merely be that we should remain as we are.
A very small diminution of those exertions would not only put a stop to improvement, but would turn the general tendency of things towards deterioration; which, once begun, would proceed with increasing rapidity, and become more and more difficult to check, until it reached a state often seen in history, and in which many large portions of mankind even now grovel; when hardly anything short of superhuman power seems sufficient to turn the tide, and give a fresh commencement to the upward movement.
The effort to promote progress and oppose deterioration does not necessarily separate "shills" from "whiners" in the Democratic Party; this effort often unites them. To insist on progress is not to say it must be ensured in one arena but wholly neglected in another. It a struggle that demands criticism of wrongheaded policy from our party, even as it demands we defeat Republicans in the election. The struggle against deterioration is fought in determining the makeup of Congress no less than it is fought in determining the principles of a party. Insisting on equal rights need not require staying home or voting third party, not any more than supporting Democrats in an election need require throwing GLBT folks under the bus.
If the One Nation rally should teach us anything, it's this. Our broader aims have everything in common so far as I can see, and the biggest disagreements stem in my mind more from willful misunderstanding and paranoia than explicit differences in purpose. Glenn Greenwald isn't leading many cheers, but he isn't staying home--he's voting D. Obama is not exactly throwing the door wide on equal rights, but he has committed to widening the opening, and will prevent that door from being closed any further.
Depending on your views, you may be disappointed by one or both of the last two sentences. You have a right to that disappointment, but you're also welcome to feel a larger community of purpose that, in my opinion, is the whole reason anyone comes on this site to begin with.
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