IMy questions was founded on "The issue here was not the rules, but the ethics of misleading voters by saying you are a supporter of X when in truth you are a supporter of Y and will turn on X at the first opportunity." The context was the GOP candidates and who you represented you favored as a delegate.

That is not what I am saying. I am saying is "The issue here was not the rules, but the ethics of misleading voters by saying you are a supporter of X when in truth you are a supporter of Y and will turn on X at the first opportunity." This is not a matter "changing one's mind later, it is a matter of deceit from the start.

Both are the least likely as among the other candidates to get us into WWIII, and neither understands much about economics. One can hope Trump will at least listen to the evidence his goals cannot be had via his plans.

What I think is a travesty is that we live in a time of situational ethics. You say you're acting ethically if you have an argument to justify your actions in YOUR mind. We can't truly follow ethics in this PC world we live in now. If you stand up for something now, you're called names (bigot, racist, homophobe, etc.) just because you take a stand that isn't popular in the court of public opinion. People who risked everything because they were standing up for what was right, could have also been considered traitors. Look at our founding fathers, if we had not won the revolution, we'd be praising Benedict Arnold instead of George Washington.

I base my ethical judgment calls on this criterion:

1. Is there an issue here or is an issue being created (including giving false or misleading information)?

2. If there is an issue, are reality and reason going to prevail or are lies going to win the day?

3. Is the issue at hand an attempt to overtake reality and reason and replace them with a counterfeit reality?

Deception is always an indicator of ethical misconduct. Look for deception and you will find ethics are under assault.

Then who selects the actual delegates? Are they selected in secret by party bosses? If the process is that non-transparant and primary/caucus voters are willing to put up with it, they deserve the Cruz-in-Trump's-clothing delegates they get.

Are you talking about the delegates or the presidential candidate? With all the Cruz-hate in this forum, can I question the ethics of Emperor Donald, who often changes his position on issues, sometimes in mid paragraph of his incoherent discourse?

We who laud ethics often get most upset with the ethics of those we would like to respect. Let's have a shout out for the vile "ethics" of the utterly corrupt Clinton. Or the jovially perceived monster in the Bernie suit, selling the poison of socialism to unwitting children.

Delegates who will actually vote for what they promised by law fall a lot closer to the ethics tree than most of what transpires in presidential campaigns.

By a "supporter for candidate x" I don't mean that you think that they are the best of all possible candidates, only that they are the best of the candidates in reasonable contention.

Like Treebeard in "Lord of the RIngs", since no one is entirely on my side, I'm not entirely on anyone else's side. But that doesn't mean I stay in the forest and don't fight in the battle for Middle Earth.

Actually, the Electoral College faced this very same problem in the elections of 1800. They couldn't decide even after multiple votes on who would become President, so the House of Representatives actually elected the President that year. And until the Twelfth Amendment was passed, the system actually was to put the highest vote-getter in as President and the second-place finisher to become Vice President. The Twelfth Amendment instituted political parties by declaring that the President and Vice President must be on the same ballot (ie political party).

Our entire nation would be very different sans the Twelfth Amendment because third party runs for President would be the norm - not the exception. A repeal of the Twelfth Amendment (IMO) would go a long ways towards eliminating much of the power of the current two-party political system we have had for the last two centuries.

You want to argue that somehow it is disingenuous of a person to be called upon in one instance to vote in favor of a particular nominee and then to change their vote in a subsequent round of voting to support a different nominee. I understand what you are arguing. I simply argue that you are superimposing an ethical issue of your own making onto a situation where everyone understands the rules going in.

You are arguing "fairness" - not ethics at all! It is not unlike Donald Trump's continual whining about how "unfair" the process is despite the fact that the rules were the rules before the campaigning began, but because the outcome wasn't in his favor that somehow it is an ethical dilemma.

Ethical dilemmas arise when there is a conflict between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. You are implying that there is a spirit of the law with respect to delegate voting that delegates must continue to vote for the same candidate no matter what. I do not see that implication anywhere in our current voting system, which is what I pointed out with Jefferson v Adams. It is an argument concocted by Trump supporters merely to gin up emotional outrage and manipulate public opinion. I reject such attempts as the resort of the immature: a temper tantrum of a spoiled brat.

The issue here was not the rules, but the ethics of misleading voters by saying you are a supporter of X when in truth you are a supporter of Y and will turn on X at the first opportunity

How about Trump as president and Sanders as VP. They both are anti-establishment and they both say what they think openly. I sometimes wonder how that would work out- at least the whole country would be represented in washington.

Figures.

The rules of being a delegate are that - according to the rules of that State - one is bound to vote for a particular delegate only on the first vote - which votes are the current tabulation shown to the public leading to the "magic" 1237 number.

However, what one must recognize is that this very style of election was first used to select our President of the United States. If the votes are distributed in such a manner in which no candidate achieves the critical number necessary to secure that seat (or in this case nomination) than some votes must necessarily change to break the impasse. So to say that changing one's vote after the first/obligated vote is unethical is ridiculous. It would result only in perpetual stalemate of the system. Voters must be able to be swayed to break such an impasse. Otherwise, you would have no delegate at all from that Party.

Hmmmm... Maybe I inadvertently hit on something there...

Anyway, going back to the mention about the original elections for President, I think the original election between Adams and Jefferson to be highly instructive as to the ramifications of such a system (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_.... As a result, we got the Twelfth Amendment, which also instituted political parties and neutered the threat of Presidential veto.

RIP
Republican National Committee
1854-2016

The electoral college at least has a legitimate purpose in mind when adopted, which was to keep the lower populated and smaller states from being overrun by the larger and more populated states. The senators were appointed by the states, not elected — and that should be the method to keep the intended purpose working. In fact, political parties were not envisioned and there was talk about having the #1 vote-getter be president and the #2 be vice-president. Picture that: Trump resident and Hillary VP. Well, there goes lunch.

The delegate arrangement is a crooked system, period, and should be abolished. Its designed to allow the power brokers to run the country- at OUR expense.

The entire republican party is crooked and full of cronyism. Its a business that picks a candidate that will fulfill its monetary and power-hungry goals. We the voters have been duped into trusting this system, which has been a mistake for a long time. Trump is exposing this, as is Sanders on the Democratic side.

Perhaps its the end of the two party ram-it-down-our-throats system. I hope so. The whole delegate system is VERY unethical and crooked, as is the electoral college.

Exactly how does one vet the delegate under these circumstances? Typically we do not even get the individual's name, we get only they are pledged to a particular candidate.

Funny. Either Cruz or somebody in his campaign was asked about it, and you are right, all they did was spout rules as they were chisled in stone tablets without regard to whether the actions were eithical.

"It is unethical. If you are a delegate for candidate X, then you are supposed to honestly be a supporter for X."

Then is it ethical to vote for a candidate in the general election if you do not truly support that candidate's views, that is, if your "hidden agenda" is really to advance a cause contrary to the one that candidate supports? If not, then your only ethical choices are to vote Libertarian, cast a write-in ballot or stay home.

I think you are right. "Got to be pragmatic," as would be said in Atlas, and to hell with ethics and principles.

My question was more basic than this one instance.

Then I would argue that yes, it is ethical. The delegate has agreed to do what is required if elected, that is, support Trump on the first ballot. It is up to those voting in that caucus or primary to "vet" that delegate and find out whether he/she is a true Trump supporter, before electing that person as a delegate.

I'd like to ask Ted Cruz if in his opinion such deception by delegates is ethical.
Should he evasively start to talk rules, I'd tell Ted that Trump was right about him after all.
As for the two delegates, I'd like to send them rat costumes for Christmas.