Lesser Evils

Tomorrow will be the first time I vote for a president.

“But Dale, you are 25 years old. That means you should have voted last election. Are you un-American, or just lazy?”

Neither.

During the last presidential election, I would ask people who they were voting for and why. Most of the people I was spending my time with weren’t huge Bush supporters. Some of them were Kerry supporters. But most of them replied with some non-commital “lesser of two evils” argument. The argument went, “I don’t like Bush, but at least he isn’t a godless, pinko, commie bastard” or “The only thing I don’t like about Kerry is his views on the war, but I think that the war is the most important issue, so…” or, my favorite, “Well, Kerry is a certifiable douche, but he has to be better than Dubya”.

I would then reply that I wasn’t going to vote. They would launch into a tirade about my responsibilities as a citizen, my importance to the democratic process, the exorbitant price that our forefathers had paid for the ability to vote, and my abdication of any and all rights to speak meaningfully about politics.

I would nod my head, and then ask, “So, if voting is that important, and has been bought with such a high price, why are you willing to throw that all away on someone you can barely tolerate more than the other guy?”

Since then, I’ve come up with more questions. Like, why doesn’t either party seem to deliver on any of their campaign promises? Or, why should I vote for a different guy to hold office when the same lobbyist is still going to be buying his lunches? Why can’t I really tell who the Republicans or the Democrats are anymore? And when did we start confusing social conservatism, fiscal conservatism, and political conservatism?*

Then I started getting friends that told me I should start voting third party. And I like the idea of third parties. But then all of my other, two-party friends started flipping out, saying “You’re throwing away your vote. OMG, it’s like you’re voting for the other candidate”. And honestly, they are partially right. I would be throwing away my vote. Our system of government has evolved to the point where a third party candidate simply isn’t viable. Look at Ron Paul. Why would someone as completely opposed to the current Republican party run as a Republican? Because he recognized that it was his only legitimate chance of being taken seriously. The two party system has effectively squelched all dissent, at least on the national stage.**

But what if throwing your vote away, or not voting at all, is the only thing you can do in good conscience? What if that vote, or not vote, speaks to nothing more than the fact that you are dissatisfied with the current system? That you have been disenfranchised by a system that caters to the base and makes empty promises towards the middle. That you are part of a party that claims the moral high ground in one area, one area you can’t seem to get around, but then that party rejects any concept of morality in every other decision it makes. What if you could vote not on the election, but on the system itself?

Having said all of that, I am going to vote tomorrow. And it will be for a major party candidate. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to explain that when I get home from work tonight.

*http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-31/obama-is-the-true-conservative/

**Actually, I think that today’s two-party system is to the original republican democracy what modern corporatism is to Adam Smith capitalism. But that is a different post.