Here is an article on the Contrarians Review that lays down the argument for witholding your vote in an election when none of candidates are acceptable from a Catholic viewpoint. Mr. Triolo presents the argument much more eloquently than I can, and I highly recommend it.
11 comments:
Look here
I've heard all of the voting garbage. Especially since I have let it be known that I am not voting in this secular election but casting a vote with our Lord. Thanks, Boniface, hopefully more will see and read.
This secular" election will produce a president who will choose one or two Supreme Court Justices.
If you have no concern as to who could help determine a future level of "morality", so be it. At that time you must also be silent.
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Whether we elect Hillary, Obama or McCain, either one will appont liberal judges, so it doesn't really matter.
Also, I think it is a fallacious argument to say "If you don't vote, don't complain." I didn't vote for Jennifer Granholm either. Do I therefore have no right to complain? Sure, I voted for the opposition, but he didn't win. Therefore, I did not cast my vote in for the winning canidate and my vote essentially didn't matter.
Citizens have a right to complain about their rulers no matter how they get into office. Can people living under a monarchy not complain about a bad king simply because they had no part in bringing him to the throne?
Now I am reminded - this being Lent and all - of Pilate. He too chose not to vote, and in fact washed his hands of the matter.
Judas did vote and bore the consequence.
Peter too voted wrong 3 times and suffered for it.
Now I grant you that none of the candidates is Jesus....... and none of us are either Pilate or Peter.
So perhaps the easy way out is to not vote at all. Then no one can accuse you of supporting the wrong person....and the one least likely to get your vote will be happy with a higher percentage of backers.
Witness Wisconsin.... dems turned out 3 to 1, repubs stayed home. Expect the same in November.
If you honestly think your vote does not matter.... then it does not.
Mr S-
I am not saying that voting does not matter, but I am saying that when you vote for a losing candidate, your vote didn't matter in that election because the person you voted for lost anyway. For example, when I vote for Ron Paul or some third party candidate who gets .06% of the vote, it does matter that I exercised my right, but as far as that particular election is concerned, that vote did not matter because my candidate lost.
So, if you voted for Kerry in 2004, that's great that you stood up for what you believed in, but it didn't matter in the end.
So, okay, I'll vote in 2008. But it won't be for McCain. It will be for a Third Party candidate whom I know will lose. So, does that vote really matter in the end? The CCC does say we must exercise our right to vote, I'll give you that, but you can't make me believe it says we have to vote for only somebody who has the possibility of winning.
If McCain said, "Look, I'll appoint pro-Life judges, I'll revoke Roe vs. Wade, but I'm just going to allow abortion in cases of rape and incest because I think that is okay," then I would not vote for him because he is still proposing the direct destruction of human life. You can't just choose the lesser of two evils, and you can never do evil so that good may come of it.
What if somebody came up to you and said, "I'm going to kill 100,000 people, but I'll spare them all if you blaspheme just once." I'd say, "Go ahead and kill the 100,000, cuz' I'll never blaspheme." You can't support one sin to put off another. I can't support somebody who is in favor of embryonic stem cell research and abortion in some cases just to stave off a candidate who is worse. Besides, as I said before, McCain will just appoint liberal judges just like Hillary because he is not a conservative at all.
Now I am curious....
You said:
"So, okay, I'll vote in 2008. But it won't be for McCain. It will be for a Third Party candidate whom I know will lose."
That is an exercise of your priviledge to vote, earned by citizenship and reaching the voting age. So far, so good.
But then you say:
"You can't just choose the lesser of two evils, and you can never do evil so that good may come of it. "
That too is correct and laudable.
Now I can only assume that you have thus found a "3rd party" who is NOT the lesser of any evil, and thus perhaps is "good" on all issues.
That is wonderful. Please let me know that candidate's name, so I can vote for him too.
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Ron Paul
Abortion: An unspeakable crime; pushed to have Congress define Life as beginning at conception, says Right to Life is fundamental to all other rights. The only candidate to march in the March for Life.
Gun-Control: opposes
Government: Smaller government
Immigration/Border Control: close the damn thing down and deport the illegals
Same Sex Marriage: Opposes
Economics: Eliminate Federal Reserve Board, lower taxes; supports protestors of the income tax
There you go.
You do realize that states' rights issues are not under control of a president, right? Like abortion, border control, marriage issues etc.
And Income Tax protestors are safe until they get to a federal court -unless Paul will close them down too.
And I suppose his running mate will be Alan Keyes.....
Ron Paul is a wacko. He might have made sense in 1776, but quite frankly it is easier to say no to a President Obama than yes to a President Paul.
Try again.
Maybe you should join me in touting for the future..... someone like Bobby Jindal for instance.....
and in the meantime vote for a sort of status quo to avoid further decay of this country.
A vote for Ron Paul results in a vote for Obama...... same results.
:)
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Mr. S,
I have a lot of logical problems with almost all of your points. The first is your statement:
Pilate. He too chose not to vote, and in fact washed his hands of the matter
Pilate could not vote. He was a judge rendering judgment according to Roman Law. Roman Law was a system of law geared toward one thing: the maintenance of order. Not Justice, and not votes by any scheme. This is not a vote and to claim so is absurd and fallacious. Pilate did in fact render a decision, that our Blessed Lord should die. He did not wash his hands of it (i.e. stay home) he "went to the polls" if we follow the false analogy, and he voted for the lesser of two evils, get killed by a mob of rioting Jews, or do something he knew was wrong such as kill a just man he believed to have some divine origin (in a pagan sense of course).
The Catechism requires us to be involved in the civic process of our society, it does not mean we must vote for a candidate who will enforce abortion, or one who will merely authorize stem cells and who unequivocally supports unjust wars around the globe. It also does not require us to vote for someone else merely because they are there.
Half the people who say "you have to vote" (especially Catholics for some reason) can't even name one of the local officials who run their local and state governments, which affect their lives much more aversely than what those clowns in Washington. To be involved in the civic process means to call our leaders to account for their rule. It does not mean we must support someone in an election. If we spent more time, and interest, with our local leaders and less with our federal ones we would be far more involved in the civic process, and then perhaps we could restore politics to something remotely honorable.
Glad you grabbed the line I tossed out. The key word is decision, and you rightly picked up on it. I was hoping to engage B on the issue, but thanks for jumping in.
It is every bit a decision. And often our decisions are governed by our limitations.
Thus the point that someone like Paul cannot affect many of the States' "rights" that we should be able to decide.
In not so many words, I believe that the CCC does require us to make a decision. If we choose to "protest" with our vote, so be it. But even that action will have consequences. And unfortunately we must often decide for the longer term goal when faced with simple status quo in the short term.
Hilary or Obama are short term problems of hugh consequence. The minor candidates are of no consequence other than self satisfaction to say we voted in "good conscience"
Tough call for all.
Pray for Bobby Jindal,
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