Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils

by Jeff Matthews

Where do you stand?   I found an exchange between some people on the topic and thought it was addressed quite well.   The contents (with typos and grammar errors) are left in the original.   The Pro-Voter is in a bold font.   The Anti-Voter is in a normal font.  It was an interesting exchange.

Sometimes we have to make a choice between the “lesser of evils”.

Everyone should remember though that rarely if ever is such a choice actually mandatory. For example, if faced with being asked to choose Evil A or Evil B, I like to choose “Neither,” because it keeps my self-esteem, self-worth and integrity in 100% tact. And those three things are more valuable by far than being a tool for someone else to use on the end of a stick. This is one application of the idea of Wei Wu Wei – action without action. It is immensely powerful. Leave others to soil themselves with disrespect – keep your hands clean from filth. You will be greatly rewarded.

Great idea and certainly “worthy” but I’ve voted in EVERY election since I was old enough to vote and not once have I seen “none of the above” as a choice.

I do think that the “none of the above” would at times be a good choice though. It would be interesting to see how many elections resulted in “nobody” because all of the candidates just sucked.

I would also like to know how many (if any) “write in” votes have elected anyone.

Correct. They don’t permit you the choice of “none of the above” on the ballot. You must take your own (non) action, to fully express your own integrity and values, and that will most likely mean not following all the sheep into the little booth. It’s not for everyone, I understand. I resisted for quite some time, and allowed myself to be trained to respond to the command “vote.” 40 years of training is hard to break. One day, I decided to resist that command. It was as liberating as anything I’ve ever done or learned. Lesson is clear: Integrity is self made. It is under attack at all times by the system of training and conditioning. If they make me respond by to their command by voting (giving my personal approval) to a candidate who is a scum bag that I would’nt hire to sweep a floor, or who I wouldn’t trust holding my money, then they have made me soil myself. Any and all consequences of that act are then on my conscience, reflecting on my values. I won’t have it. They can piss themselves – I won’t.

Now, if there would be some candidate on some ballot at some time who I admire, trust, respect and find competent for the position, I would lend my “vote of approval.” But, that hasn’t happened on the national level in a long time.

One of the reasons fast food hamburgers are greasy as heck is that we keep buying them. Same for candidates. As long as you keep voting for them, they will be as greasy as heck. Don’t worry too much about not voting. The sun will come up the next day and life goes on just fine. No, better than fine. I guarantee you will feel exhilerated.

Then they have won. A politician told me the secret to winning the election, its not with the independent vote but the lack of independant vote. You break the sides between democrat and republican. You know your base (the ones that will vote for you no matter if you shot someone) and you know their base. If you have a bigger base you clearly do not want the independent vote clamoring it up. You want to mudsling and run negative ads to make sure the independent  vote and people on the fringe do not come out to vote (because they are wildcards) so by not entering the vote, you thus have succeeded in their campaign to get you not to vote.

That analysis is based on viewing voting as a duty. The proper analysis of voting is by outcomes. Let me be first very specific. In your analysis above, the outcome is that a Republican or a Democrat wins the election. Since both are servants to the same corruption, I have accomplished nothing by voting, and I have received no quid pro quo.

In the current environment let’s consider all the possibilities. They include: Obama, Gingrich, Romney, Paul, Santorum and I don’t know – a few others too. As a voter then, the only possible ultimate outcome (in November)  is that one of those cretons will become the next president. How does that reward me? There’s not a name on that list which doesn’t elicit revulsion to me. There’s no one on that list that is going to accomplish anything I value in the way of national policy. What will happen though is that I will invest in an outcome by pulling some lever, and when that outcome doesn’t happen I will be disappointed. Or worse, harmed!

I know a few people who were deeply, deeply suckered by Obama. People who bought the whole enchilada and invested in the dream. They are sufffering real psychological damage right now. They have been duped. It’s a torpedo to your self worth. You made a huge blunder – you voted for a scoundrel. Well, I am not too much the kind of guy that rubs it in with them, but I have reminded them that I warned them 6 months before the election not to fall in. They accused me of being a cynic. Well, today  I feel fine and they are hurting.

The big disconnect here is about the big picture. People look out there and they see the Rs and Ds, and debates, and newsmen, and programs, and talkshows, and political speeches, and think it is some sort of a legitimate civil process – aka democracy. If they could get the 50,000 foot view of what is really happening, they’d learn (you can’t be told, you have to learn) that it is a full-on charade. A means of pacifying the population and keeping them in line with a certain kind of program. Yes, it matters to some degree in some ways which moron gets the nod. But not in important ways. Rivers of wealth were flowing into a certain pot during Bush era, and those rivers have kept flowing and even increasing under Obama, and they will still be flowing under the next guy. The police state was growing under Bush, continued to grow ever more under Obama, and will continue even more under the next guy. If you can’t get high enough up to see the trends, the flows, the momentum, the way the program works, you will keep marching into the little booth and pulling the rubber handle on command.

Here’s what they don’t want anyone to learn. You don’t need the system, it needs you.

Everything in your life is designed to keep you from understanding that simple point. Schools, jobs, advertising, TV, news, politicians, government, elections, newspapers, pundits ,talkshow hosts,  people who play judges on TV, and so on. They rely on YOU.

When you do not [vote], you have no one to blame for things not going the way you wished it to be.

That’s absolutely false. Corruption and lying and cheating and theft can and should be called out by anyone at any time. Voting is not a permission slip to criticize wrongdoing. My responsibility as a member of society is to treat others right, avoid doing harm to people, contribute to the betterment of life, be helpful and charitable to others, and be a good steward of the commons. It is my duty to call out corruption and crime when and where I see, not VOTE IT INTO AN OFFICE as an enabler! That’s an absurd concept.

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Suppose you get captured into a system not of your design. Suppose they tell you that it is the rule that you must procreate. And suppose they offer you a dog and monkey and command you to choose one with which to copulate.  Would you feel a duty to copulate with a monkey? If you chose “none of the above” to copulate with, would you keep your mouth shut, because since you haven’t chosen one to copulate with you have no right to complain?

I didn’t create or design this system. I was born into it. You could just as well say captured into it. I am under no obligation to perpetuate corruption based on the corrupt placing a demand on me to enable it, endorse it, and approve of it.

Jeff Matthews [send him email] is a practicing attorney in Houston. He graduated from the University of Texas, School of Law in 1993 and was licensed that year.

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