{"id":302,"date":"2012-11-09T16:09:42","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T20:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=302"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:25","slug":"the-responsibility-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"The Responsibility to Vote?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presidential elections bring more than political ads and disappointment; they also mark the season for a peculiarly American form of moralizing.\u00a0 We are reminded that voting is a great honor & privilege that we have received at an equally great cost in lives.\u00a0 Attached to these reminders is always the suggestion that voting is a moral imperative.\u00a0 And not just any voting will do–any vote that isn’t effective (i.e. that doesn’t help decide between the two major candidates) is a vote that is deemed wasted.\u00a0 Is voting in America in general and voting for a major candidate in particular really a moral imperative?<\/p>\n

I did ultimately vote this year.\u00a0 However, because I seriously considered not doing so, I obviously think there is a case to be made that voting is not a moral obligation in every circumstance.\u00a0 Say, for example, that there were only one candidate on the ballot, and you had no input on selecting that candidate.\u00a0 In such a case, voting would not be a particularly meaningful privilege.\u00a0 Neither would voting be an opportunity to serve our neighbor.\u00a0 We can conclude, then, that voting per se<\/em> is not obligatory–it is not a moral absolute.\u00a0 It is only imperative in circumstances in which it would be beneficial to our neighbors.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I believe the American situation is too close to the example when it comes to national politics–not because our elections are rigged, but because our society is.<\/p>\n

In this presidential election, the differences between the major candidates were, for the most part, rhetorical.\u00a0 Despite constant disagreement in speeches and debates, the actual records of President Obama and Mr. Romney were not substantially different.\u00a0 Furthermore, on the Republican side, at least, the candidate was selected by a combination of party officials and a media that hates Republicans.\u00a0 In essence, conservatives allowed them to run an unaccountable meta-election during and before the primaries that determined which candidates were \u201celectable\u201d or \u201cviable.\u201d\u00a0 The GOP candidate was selected solely on this basis–elected for being electable rather than for any particular qualification to govern.\u00a0 Electability, however, was not determined by actually winning the election in question, but rather by pollsters and analysts beforehand.\u00a0 The end result is that the course of this country\u2019s leadership was determined well before Nov 6th\u2013and not by the people.\u00a0 We merely got to decide whether the President has an \u2018R\u2019 or a \u2018D\u2019 after his name.<\/p>\n

In short, at the highest levels of government, we have less of a two party system and more of a single party system with two factions.\u00a0 They decide where the country goes, not the voters.\u00a0 The ability to frame both sides of an election is far more powerful than deciding who wins it.\u00a0 The people may be able to decide on whether to use the right lane or the left lane, but the destination is no longer up for debate.\u00a0 I therefore considered not voting because I do not think that destination is good for my neighbor and I did not want to legitimize the fiction of American self-governance by participating in it.<\/p>\n

So why then did I vote?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We let the media and party officials run that meta-election.\u00a0 We allowed this situation to come to pass by the way we vote.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe there is a solution to be found in voting, but one should not be part of the problem either.<\/li>\n
  2. There are other options than the two major parties, and I exercised one of those.<\/li>\n
  3. Local elections do still matter.\u00a0 Though voting per se<\/em> isn’t an imperative, it’s not the problem either.\u00a0 Our national political culture diminishes the value of national voting, but elections are still an effective way of governing locally.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I found this to be the best way to use my vote to help my neighbor.\u00a0 However, I do not in any way begrudge those who concluded that their countrymen would be best served by not voting at all.\u00a0 “Thou shalt vote” is not a moral absolute, and so it falls to sound judgment to make the wisest decision it can.<\/p>\n

    Some<\/a> would charge, however, that I did not fulfill my obligation to my neighbor.*\u00a0 This charge is not at all uncommon, and according to such folk, any vote in the presidential race that was not for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney was a vote that was “wasted.”\u00a0 After all, voting for someone without a chance of winning is nothing more than making a statement that few or none will hear.\u00a0 Once again recalling that our vocations (including voter) are there for the service of our neighbor, let us consider this charge.<\/p>\n

    Say you have been given the privilege of voting on whether to A) Punch your neighbor in the face;\u00a0 B) Kick your neighbor in the butt; and C) Pat your neighbor on the head.\u00a0 Polls show that A will get 54% of the vote, B will get 45%, and C will 1%.\u00a0 Voting for C or not voting at all seem like better ways of serving than participating in either A or B.\u00a0 It boggles the mind that otherwise intelligent people consider C to be the “waste” all the while vehemently arguing whether a punch in the face is better than a kick in the butt.\u00a0 C may not win, but at what point has “try to be on the winning side” replaced “love your neighbor?”\u00a0 It is even worse to go further and self-righteously condemn those who elect not to try and spare their neighbor a kick in the butt by punching him in the face.\u00a0 It would seem that even conservatives have now become closet utilitarians, for neither God nor natural law instruct us to wrong our neighbor in order to spare him a slightly worse wrong.<\/p>\n

    At the very least, “first do no harm” seems a more sensible guide to serving our neighbor than “vote for the winningest villain.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Presidential elections bring more than political ads and disappointment; they also mark the season for a peculiarly American form of moralizing.\u00a0 We are reminded that voting is a great honor & privilege that we have received at an equally great … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Responsibility to Vote? - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Responsibility to Vote? - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Presidential elections bring more than political ads and disappointment; they also mark the season for a peculiarly American form of moralizing.\u00a0 We are reminded that voting is a great honor & privilege that we have received at an equally great … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-09T20:09:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"The Responsibility to Vote?\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-11-09T20:09:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\"},\"wordCount\":983,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Ethics\",\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-responsibility-to-vote\/\",\"name\":\"The Responsibility to Vote? 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