The above is the title of an article written by Matt Barber, Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. I first read it in yesterday's op-ed section of the Washington Times and now Life News carries it as well. Please read it. I couldn't agree with him more and I don't think I can say it better than he.
The last few lines deserve special emphasis, so I'll quote them here. "My friend and colleague Cynthia Dunbar, a law professor at Liberty University School of Law, recently wrote: “In this election year, we find ourselves with only three realistic courses of action: 1) Don’t vote; 2) vote for Obama; or 3) vote for Romney.
It’s simple: A Christian nonvote is a vote for Mr. Obama in that it fails to affirmatively cancel out an Obama vote. Furthermore, any Christian who votes for Mr. Obama will get to take that up with God.
This leaves us with our third and final choice: Christians must vote for Mitt Romney. A second Obama term is simply unacceptable. We won’t survive it."
I'll be frank. I've been hearing too much foolish jibber-jabber about "3rd parties (I don't give a rat's rump what the reason is!)" and "stay at home". Given the stakes that we face, neither of these is morally acceptable. I believe they constitute sins against the virtue of prudence. Later there will be time to discuss policies and priorites, but that must wait until the November elections. Right now the priority is Obama's defeat. We dare not fail.
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I can't agree with you, Janet, though I respect your opinion. It is certainly morally legitimate for a voter to decide that both candidates stand for positions so evil that they are both disqualified. Then focusing on the other races and working for honorable candidates is the option. I will not argue that everyone has to agree and that those who decide to vote for Romney commit a sin, but neither is it just to claim that those who won't vote for him are committing sins against prudence.
ReplyDeleteTo say that position is not "morally acceptable" and to imply that those who follow another strategy are sinning is just plain wrong in my opinion. Let's take Scott Brown for an example. Everybody said he absolutely had to be supported to save us from Obamacare. What happened? We got Obamacare anyway and now Scott Brown who supports homosexuality and abortion is entrenched in Congress, another RINO who will be hard to get rid of.
Obama is horrible; I couldn't agree more. But Romney is a man with "no chest" who has little integrity and has flip-flopped on abortion, supports homosexuality, and created the same awful health care program in Massachusetts as Obamacare. It is simply a question of degree between Romney and Obama. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
The best thing that could happen at this point is total gridlock and a few bold members of Congress to hammer on the unconstitutionality of Obama's acts.
As for the judges. Some of the worst were put in place by Republicans. William Brennan who is credited with writing Roe v. Wade behind the scenes was put on the court by Eisenhower. Blackmun whose name was on Roe was appointed by Nixon. Why are you so confident that Romney, who is not really a constitutionalist, will name good judges?
Personally I haven't decided what I will do in November, but whichever way I go I'll be confident I am NOT committing a sin with my vote.
Mary Ann, I'll concede that I shouldn't have said the non-vote will constitute sin. That was wrong on my part. I'll still hold that such is imprudent and I'll elaborate below.
DeleteOf course I too had hoped for a different GOP outcome, but it is what it is. We must play the cards we are dealt.
"The lesser of two evils is still evil" in no way means that the two are morally equivalent. Now what happens when we are left with only these two less-than-ideal alternatives? Do we abstain from making a choice at all? No - for that abstention is itself a choice. I think Ms Dunbar made quite clear how such an abstention would logically play out in election results. Practically speaking, such abstention will result in the promotion of "the greater evil".
Do we, as American citizens, have a positive moral duty to mitigate - with our votes - damage done by a politician in keeping out the more dangerous one? Common sense says we do!
You ask me why I'm so confident that Romney will appoint decent Justices. I'm not! However, I am quite confident that Obama would appoint horrible justices - as we saw with Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Let's consider that quite soberly, as Ginsburg and Breyer are said to be contemplating retirement.
Did the GOP appoint great justices all the time? No. But who appointed Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito? GOP presidents! Nixon appointed Blackmun - but he also appointed William Rehnquist, one of the two Roe v Wade dissenters. Rehnquist later became Chief Justice by Reagan's doing. Aside from Byron White, the other Roe dissenter who was appointed by JFK, I cannot think of another decent justice nominated by a Democratic president. I think the odds are much better with Romney than Obama. Of course it will help immensely to get decent Senators in place; both MD and VA have senatorial races.
A "non-vote" will simply play into the hands of the "greater evil" by laws of arithmetic. There's no gainsaying that.
The entry of "third party" candidates into any election has constantly had adverse and counter-productive effects for a century (beginning in 1912 with TRoosevelt's "bull moose" party). All that happens is that it throws the election to the Democrat candidate. Recall the recent memory of Ross Perot. The 19% he got in 1992 came mostly from Republicans, the reason being that the Democrat leaders can better enforce discipline of voting among union members. It is guaranteed that 36% of the voters are rock-solid for the Democrats. The split due to a third party always hurts Republicans.
ReplyDeleteKnowing this, it is to the advantage of the Democrats to encourage people from right-slanting groups (pro-lifers, etc) to be dissatisfied and splinter into clusters that promote third parties.
We had a very wide open primary season (with 8 candidates at one time) and now we must unite behind the winner.