Sometimes people on the other side of an ideological, social, moral, or ethical debate have a point. And when they have a point, it’s intellectually principled to acknowledge the point. Though it might be emotionally painful.

Here is the point, once made by a politician, in response to an online activist’s criticism of her political decisions: “A Tweet is not a vote.”

By which she meant: No amount of blogging, tweeting, posting, meme-dropping, or complaining online is a substitute for doing the work of going out to vote, encouraging people door-to-door to vote, or taking people to the polls to vote.

But that work is hard. And just as in so many other areas of the civic, public, and even corporate life of modern Americans, we’d rather perform what is easy than practically do what is hard.

When your ideological, social, moral, or political opponents do the hard, simple, and unglamorous work, they win the power. And all you get in return is the opportunity to complain, tweet, meme-post, or blog more about what they’re not doing right.