Archive for June 14th, 2007
The Fallacy of the Third-Party Vote
While away from blogging and engaged in film shooting with other like-minded Christian filmmakers, I overheard two people discussing politics. One said to the other the common line found among the so-called far-right elements of the Christian conservative base, that being: “We cannot vote for the lesser of two evils.” I thought so myself at one time.
I don’t anymore.
The immediate thought that beat a quick path through my head at that moment was this: “Well, then you would be voting for the lesser of three evils.”
Can we justify that any more than we can justify voting for the lesser of two? In fact, if voting for the lesser of three evils means that the greater of two evils wins, are we actually sinning greater than if we voted for the lesser of two?
Or is sin even to be measured in degrees?
The fact is that no one man is going to completely line up with the views of any other one man on every single issue. Period. End of story. Men are not mass-produced robots and God is not Henry Ford. Men are individuals. Every individual has his own set of opinions and beliefs that, I guarantee you, are not completely identical to any other man’s beliefs on the planet. Granted, some are closer to the truth than others, but no mere mortal man knows completely all truth. To follow the logic of the lesser of evils, than every time we vote, we commit a sin.
It is not a sin to vote. When we vote, we are not choosing mini-gods. We are choosing people to represent us. These are not perfect. But they are to be the best available option.
Some things we must compromise on. Some things we cannot compromise on, at least not very much. I happen to believe that abortion is one. But does that mean that we merely find the most pro-life candidate around and vote for him, regardless of his other policies? Ron Paul is apparently, so I’ve been told, pro-life.
In reality, in a nation with a two-party dominated government, we cannot afford to not vote for the lesser of two evils. Anything lesser, or greater, is signing America’s death warrant.
