A vote of conscience is hardly symbolism. Its just the right thing to do. Sometimes life presents hard choices. Character is doing the right thing even when you know the immediate consequences will not be pleasant. If we continue to sell off bits and pieces of our conscience every few years, simply because we fear the future, we will eventually have nothing left to sell, and our would-be overlords will no longer need to pretend they care.
In WWII we teamed up with the Soviet Union--pretty close to the devil himself--to defeat an enemy that actually was the devil himself: Hitler and the NAZIs.
People of "conscience" did argue at the time that teaming up with the Soviet Union would only ensure that the Communist would be a major problem we'd have to deal with for decades.
Of course, the alternative would have been to allow Hitler and the NAZIs to dominate central Europe and be a problem we'd have to deal with for decades. But, would that really have been a choice of conscience?
Where are we today? The choice is between allow the RINOs back into power (meaning they will certainly be a problem for a long time) or allowing Obama and the radical left to remain in power, thus allowing them to seal their changes to American society for decades.
Which is the choice of conscience?
You've got to make make decisions based on how the world actually is right now--not on how you'd like it to be.
In WWII we had to make a distasteful choice (team up with the Soviets) to prevent an even worse outcome (a victory by the NAZIs).
What's our choice today? Team up with a RINO (distasteful, to put it mildly), or allow Obama to win reelection (a long term disaster for our country by any measure).
This is where we stand (right now, at this moment). We're down to two choices and we've got to choose between one or the other.
In elections past I might have agreed with you, but there is much more at stake in this election than any in decades. I don't think I'm overstating the importance of this election by comparing it to WWII. In my opinion, the results of this election will shape the future just as much as WWII did.