Immorality Of Boycotting Election Day

Today is called "Super Tuesday", when many key states are holding their presidential primaries.  I heard from one commentator that this evening's election might well determine the composition of 25% of convention delegates.  I believe he was speaking of Republican delegates.  My focus in this post is on the GOP side.  As far as I'm concerned, the Democratic primary is essentially a choice between Lucifer and Beelzebub.

Already I'm hearing from some good Catholics who say "if my favored candidate does not win the nomination, I'm not voting in the general election".  To be frank, much of the sterling veneer is falling off Donald Trump but he still continues to poll favorably.  The next closest two are Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and they too have their flaws.  In short, we don't have a perfect candidate.  That's the situation.

Both Sanders and Clinton pose clear threats to our nation.  What might help the Democratic nominee ascend to the White House are those faithful Catholics who will be inclined to stay away from the polls in November.  I believe that is a key factor as to why Obama won in 2012.  We knew Romney wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  However, four years after that election, can anyone really doubt that Romney would have been worlds better?  If nothing else, he most likely would not have proactively engaged in the disasters that occurred these past four years.

Shortly before the 2012 election, we heard the snortings from faithful but disgruntled Catholics who said they'd stay home (and many did).  I'll be frank again; in many if not most cases, these Catholics sounded like petulant two-year-olds who were mad because they didn't get their way during the primaries.  Their rancorous declarations of their intent to boycott the election really did resemble temper tantrums.  The same foot-stomping is beginning to happen, and the primaries aren't even over yet.

At that time, I made efforts to examine the "not going to vote" question by applying to it the Principle of Double Effect.  It is something that many mistake for the "lesser of two evils" mindset, but these two ideas are considerably different.  Here is one post.  This is a follow-up post.  Those were from August 2012.  These next two are from the following October - here and here.  Please read the comments in these posts; they can be quite telling.

This time I'm not hearing so much "third-party" talk as much as I'm hearing talk about not voting at all.  Let's look at that, shall we?  Again we're going to examine this question rigorously, attempting to apply traditional Catholic moral principles to it.  And yes, we really do have to take the time and effort to methodically work through these questions, as opposed to making these decisions on the basis of impulsive, "seat of the pants" emotions.

Again, applying the Principle of Double Effect, we have to first address the nature of the act of abstaining from voting.  We, as American citizens have a civic duty to make our voices heard via the electoral process.  How else will Catholic values be brought into the political arena if we don't vote?  Some might say, "the system is so corrupt that our votes most likely won't matter".  Be that as it may, if we don't vote, then we guarantee that our input won't even be registered, let alone matter.

Some erroneously hold that they abstain from voting then they won't commit sin by voting under less than ideal circumstances.  I believe, however, that given what I stated in the previous paragraph, that such abstention would constitute its own sin.  We can sin by omission as well as by commission.  I quote from Baltimore Catechism question 64: "What is actual sin?  Actual sin is any willful thought, desire, word, action, or omission forbidden by the law of God".

Obviously someone sitting out the November election is omitting to vote.  Is such omission sinful?  That's a key question; I think the answer is "yes" (barring illness or some other emergency).  How can deliberate refusal to mitigate probable harm to the moral character of our nation and indeed all civilization not be sinful?  For the sake of our nation and yes, your own souls, I beg disgruntled Catholics to man up (or woman up, as the case may be) and fulfill your duty this November.

I welcome comments from my readers and issue to them a challenge.  Please base your comments on faith and reason as opposed to emotion and "gut reaction".  Thank you.

3rd Party Foolishness

I'm addressing this post primarily to those who insist on either sitting out this election or voting for a 3rd-party Don Quixote because they erroneously - or perhaps stubbornly - avow the opinion that there is no difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama when it comes to life/morality issues.  Their refusal to look at the facts of this election - particularly Obama's past deeds - and to acknowledge the necessity of removing this man from office causes me to doubt the wisdom of these individuals.  I know others are wincing as they read this, believing that I should couch my thoughts in more delicate terms.  I respectfully disagree.  The stakes in this election are way too high; it's high time the kid gloves came off.

In addition to what I've posted previously, others on Facebook have issued statements.  Here is one from abortion-survivor Gianna Jesson.

Here's one that might be a bit hard to swallow, but there's much truth in it.

Why "selfish"?  I don't know why the creator of that graphic used that term, but in some discussions I've actually read some pretty strange things.  One person said, "my vote is about my conscience".  I can name that person.  At any rate, the statement basically says "my vote is about me and how I feel; forget the larger picture and the consequences of my actions on the country."  Is it selfishness?   Poorly formed conscience?  Some combination?  I think many folks fall into that rut.  I beg them to snap out of it, look beyond themselves and do what needs to be done November 6th to save this country.  That means vote for Romney!

More On "Lesser Of Two Evils" Voting

Last week I posted a warning to those Christian and pro-life people who are contemplating abstention from the vote (or voting for 3rd-party candidates) because Mitt Romney's pro-life credentials are iffy at best.  Please read it and the two posts to which it links for relevant information, as I won't take the time to rehash everything here.

In one of those posts I outlined the Catholic moral principle of double effect.  In it I outlined how I believe a vote for Romney fulfills the double effect criteria, but also how "3rd-party" or abstention fails that criteria.  I also reiterated that I do not believe that Mitt Romney is the ideal pro-life candidate.  However, when someone asked me if Romney was an acceptable alternative to Obama, I replied that he's the only alternative to Obama.

Still Planning To Deny Romney Your Vote?

It seems that the Messiah Most Miserable is receiving campaign assistance from a most unlikely quarter.  By and large, the denizens of this quarter are very good, sincere, pro-life and Christian people.  They simply don't think Mitt Romney is worthy of their vote.  Thus they plan to either:

• Vote for some third-party candidate who hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of winning, or
• Abstain from that ballot altogether

In previous posts (see here and here) I explained my opinion that not only is a vote for Mitt Romney morally acceptable, but also that the two options listed above, given the concrete circumstances that we currently face, would constitute objective sin.

This past week I've been engaging in three Facebook discussions on this very topic.  Two of the walls are owned by Catholics, the other by a Protestant.  In all these discussions (and others) I've noticed more than a tinge of anger at the current slate of candidates.  There were plenty of rational people joining the conversations.  One lady explained very succinctly what happens when either of the two bullet-options above are chosen; it reduces the number of votes that Obama needs to win the election.  One less vote for Romney will lower the bar for Obama.  Sounds simple, right?  But some were having none of it.  On a Catholic wall, I posted the following comment to one of the stubborn purists:

Consider the mathematics of how elections work. You need to open your own eyes. I think your own ego is somehow wrapped up in this. I too would have rather had another candidate, but other voters didn't agree with me - and I suspect they didn't agree with you. So what? Are you now going to indulge a little temper tantrum, hold your breath till you turn blue? What tangible, measurable good will abstention do you or the country?

I saw something similar to that on the Protestant wall when one commenter asked what we were doing to "stop Romney".  I felt like telling him that his question might have been more reasonable and relevant last year while the primaries were still in progress.  Rather, I posted the following reply:

Voting And The Principle Of Double Effect

On Thursday, August 15 2012, BlogTalk Radio had a program called Salve Regina.  I’ve never listened to it before, but decided to do so when I learned that Michael Voris of ChurchMilitantTV would be a guest and that Catholics in political life would be discussed.  The podcast is here; please listen.

I agree with him that there has been much degradation in society today, that our departure from our Christian roots has been extensive and pervasive.  I don’t share his opinion that the spiral is irreversible (stated at the 17:00 mark).  It will be if we adopt this opinion as our own for then we will be engaged with what can be called a “self-fulfilling prophesy”.   At the 17:20 mark he starts to ask the question, “where do we go from here?”.