Nonsense. We are faced with a binary choice of 0bama in or 0bama out. A vote for a write-in or fringe candidate does absolutely nothing to harm 0bama’s chance of re-election. You might as well skip the presidential preference vote if you aren't going to support the only viable challenger to 0bama. (At this point there is no question that the viable challenger will be the GOP nominee.) A vote for the nominee cancels a vote for 0bama. A vote for a fringe candidate is a mere protest, which in the grand scheme works against the GOP nominee and in 0bama’s favor (assuming your natural tendency would NOT be to favor 0bama). Pretend all you want, but you are aiding 0bama by voting for anyone other than his most serious challenger.
In theory you are right starting from the idea that to allow an evil to take place without making an effort to stop it makes you complicit in the act. However I think you are making two assumptions and come to the wrong conclusion:
Assumption 1. Anybody really is better than Obama. Of course by anyone I mean Romney, and that debate has been the topic of many other threads. In short, replacing Obama with a man who believes in socialism at whatever level of government may or may not be an improvement. We currently have a federal government that spends half a billion dollars in less than two hours. This country may not be able to wait through a moderate who won't stand strong on spending cuts. If that is true then we may trully be danged if we do and danged if we don't.
Assumption 2:Conscience has it's limits. Even on matter of clear right and wrong like abortion my conscience kicks me if I think of having to vote for Romney. Can I trust him to appoint judges that will protect my rights or the rights of the unborn? Based on his record clearly the answer is no. Can I then with a clean conscience vote for Romney and if I do not heed my conscience what sort of a man am I?
Now then, setting aside my restraint, despondency, and reasonableness.
Amen, Jim. Now is not the time to loose sight of our ideals. Our Liberty is at stake now is no time to almost do something.
“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” Patrick Henry.
I agree, with you and with Jim. To take the argument to a slightly different dimension, let’s look at a hypothetical situation in an attempt to clarify and exemplify the current choices in front of us:
Let’s say you lived in a Nazi state and faced a government-elite-controlled election where you had a choice to re-elect Hitler, or an alternative candidate (to use a random name another poster stated earlier on this thread), Mittler.
Hitler and Mittler are the only two candidates which an authoritarian state apparatus has allowed to run in the said election. Hitler openly advocates murdering all Jews in his manifesto. Mittler says that this is extreme, and advocates instead murdering only 70% of Jews, the remainder being allowed to continue to exist in ghettos.
One line of rational thought advocates voting for Mittler: in so doing, they say, we save the lives of 30% of the Jewish population whose deaths are otherwise inevitable. It’s the lesser of two evils, and there are no other candidates who have been permitted to run. Mittler may, in the long run, be susceptible to some amount of reason and persuasion. We all know Hitler isn’t.
These people ignore the fact that in meekly voting for one of these candidates which the state has selected for you, you are effectively validating such a contest and accepting this political status quo. In voting for Mittler, you also become personally morally complicit in the deaths of 70% of the Jewish population which follows. When he then acts according to these pre-stated aims, he has reasonable cause to claim that he is acting with your knowledge and support.
The morally correct option in such a situation in surely to act as Hans and Sophie Scholl did in 1943: (a) flatly refuse to take part in such a process and (b) fight to overturn such a corrupt and evil system from within, encouraging others to do likewise, irrespective of any cost to yourself or off the odds of success.
I am not, I should stress, equating either Obama or Romney to Hitler, however much I may dislike their beliefs or policies. But I do believe such an allegory stands as theoretically valid on a moral basis.