Let's see. This week Judge Roy Moore lost in Alabama. Earlier in Illinois, Judy Topinka defeated her Alan Keyes-style opponent whose supporters had screamed that Topinka was a homo-loving "anti-family interloper."

While the Moore and Topinka elections involved Republicans, and Don was writing about Democrats, I'm intrigued by Don Surber's post (via Glenn Reynolds) about the nature of moral victories.

Will these Republican Party "losses" be seen as moral victories by the people who lost?

When I thought about this last night I found myself contemplating other famous moral victories in history but I was too damned tired to care. This morning I read the news of the death of Zarqawi -- whose supporters are now claiming moral victory, and I wondered again. As Don Surber suggests, moral victories seem to be a coping mechanism which offers consolation for losers.

To be fair to those who sincerely believe that there can be a moral victory in defeat, history shows that some defeats, when recorded as moral victories, can ultimately result in real victories because of the propaganda value. The Alamo was a good example. So was the defeat of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. (Both are discussed here, along with other examples.)

But in ordinary American politics, defeat is defeat. Few people care about whether the losers were right. One of Barry Goldwater's slogans was "In your heart, you know he's right." Yet Goldwater conservatism (a form of libertarianism which can today be called Goldwater liberalism) was dead, and never to rise again.

Despite my tendency towards Goldwater liberalism, I just can't find consolation in calling Goldwater's defeat a moral victory. That's just another loser tactic.

A somewhat related loser tactic is to label an opponent's victory a "Pyrrhic Victory." It's often wishful thinking, but it eases the pain of losing.

Analysis, of course, is further complicated by the fact that some Pyrrhic (as well as moral) victories are in fact such things.

What about those who think Roy Moore's defeat -- or a "principled" loss by Republicans this Fall -- constitutes a moral victory? Would they subordinate real victory to moral victory? If they would, should we blindly assume moral sincerity on their part? The reason I'm asking is because I think that some of the people who yell the loudest about these things know full well that they will not win. Ever. And further, they don't plan to win -- for the simple reason that they don't want to win. Being a loud minority within the opposition beats being a muzzled minority within the party of power. In politics, shrill minorities who find themselves within the winning coalition have to be coopted or muzzled. Thus, a defeat of the coalition can always be claimed as a moral victory for the unmuzzled.

Easy for me to say.

(Bloggers only muzzle themselves.)