(Hat-tip to Andrew Sullivan)
I’ve blogged before on MacIntyre’s thesis that we should resist the argument that one MUST vote, even if all choices are reprehensible. Rather than rethink the questions, or propose a new paradigm for conceiving and dealing with our cultural problems, the antagonists usually propose the dilemma something like this:
To those thinking about “sitting it out,” or “supporting a third party” now, consider an analogy. We are facing a burning building. There is a day-care center full of children burning down and we have three options before us.
A. We have a candidate named John who will rescue most everyone in that building. He hasn’t pledged that he’ll get everyone out just yet, but the vast majority of those kids are going to be carried out alive with his pro-life policies and judges.
B. Or you can protest (with a third-party candidate). Pick up a sign and march because you didn’t get the candidate you wanted chanting, “Rescue all the children! Rescue all the children!” while the building burns and all the children die.
C. Or you can sit it out. Don’t endorse. Don’t vote. And Clinton or Obama will deadbolt the fire exits and rip out the sprinklers. They will then lock arms and prevent any of us from entering the building to rescue the children inside. They will also prevent notification of parents whose children are about to be burned alive.
For years now Catholics have been deceived into following the Democratic party or the Republican party because of such (faulty) logic. The fact is, there are other alternatives. In fact there are a panoply of other initiatives and possibilities for political action beyond the three alternatives “conservatives” frighten us with. Most importantly, one might conceivably vote for the sole “pro-life” candidate, hoping that perhaps the least evil has been avoided, nonetheless treating those few minutes in the voting booth pulling the lever like those few minutes spent scanning the electrical bill and writing a cheque. The interesting thing is, both Republicans and Democrats believe the only solution to save the children from the burning building is the State. Note how no candidate is saying, “actually I can do none of the most important things for solving [insert hotly debated political topic]. That work has to begin in your life, in your local community.” No, they all say: only I (read: Leviathan) can solve these problems. (The economy, immigration, education, crime, etc.)
The notion that the most important fight that pro-lifers are in is the election of Republicans (that is, most important) has done more damage to the actual dissipation of the abortion culture than we seem to realize.
Inaction in most contexts is not the same as action. Totally agreed. I still will probably vote for McCain on pro-life grounds, but I’d be very comfortable not doing so. I intended to sit out a Giuliani election though I was pretty sure he’d be better for pro-lifers legally than D’s.
I think you’re fighting a strawman, though. Very few people are arguing that the election of a Republican, any Republican is the *most important* thing pro-lifers can do. The only people I’ve seen who made that argument were pro-choice Giuliani supporters. Conversely, the only people I’ve seen who made your kind of argument were people who supported a pro-choice candidate and who wanted to persuade pro-lifers to support him (or her). Or who were tired of the fight. But the political dimension of the abortion question cannot be ignored–public support for abortion increased massively after Roe v. Wade (and the number of abortions also massively increased) and pro-life counterattacks like the partial birth abortion ban have helped to shift public opinion back. And a society that refuses to protect the right to life of the unborn is a society that demeans their personhood, even if the denial of protection doesn’t actually result in a great many murders.
Excellent analogy!
God Bless,
Matt
ps. I’m referring notto the position of the poster, but the analogy of the fire. It’s precisely correct, but I agree with Adam’s comments as well.
We should never assume that politicans are the best vehicle to achieve pro-life or any other change, which is why I am a big believer in it being OK to completely opt out of the political process.
Sin is the ultimate root of our problems, and they manifest themselves most in culture. Change should be cultural – change of personal corruption, selfishness, greed, “gangsta” garbage, illegitimacy, ect. What can the government do compared to what communities and people and families can do?
It seems to me that politics and the nation state are seldom the best way to do anything. But if one is going to vote, and if abortion is indeed a current issue, then it seems to me that one should (unless there is some _truly_ massive reason to the contrary) vote pro-life. It’s hardly the most pro-life thing one can do, but within the context of voting, voting pro-life is certainly more pro-life than voting pro-choice.
The question, though, is what voting “pro-life” means. For me, it does not mean paying lip service to eliminating abortion (though in an awkward and embarrassed way), and they promoting all kinds economic, social, and military policies that go against the culture of life. If that’s the game….no thanks.
Ultimatums? Ultimata(e), maybe.
Gee, how HAVE I managed to overlook Folger’s column all of these years? Bad me.
Anita Bryant was RIGHT? IS right(wing), maybe, but RIGHT as in telling the truth?
Yeah, right.
Abortion is clear cut: it is a synonym for homocide. And not only this, it has occured in America by the millions – partly due to a deginerate culture (one certainly not helped by a greater availablity and acceptance of contraceptives) and in no small part due to the law – especially Roe V. Wade, where the SC took over the legislative process via illegitimate fiat.
It is the most important issue, by far. There is much room for disagreement over economic, social, and military policy, and rightfully so. Our Church is a deep spiritual sea, not a political organization. It transcends politics in its radical humanist outlook, where everything has value because everything has been redeemed by Christ, God With Us who embraced all of humanity despite all of its grave sins.
But on homocide, there can be no disagreement whatsoever. God save us from the violence we do to the unborn.
Our Church is a deep spiritual sea, not a political organization. It transcends politics in its radical humanist outlook, where everything has value because everything has been redeemed by Christ, God With Us who embraced all of humanity despite all of its grave sins.
Like the Incarnate Son of God, whose body She is, the Church is both transcendent AND immanent in terms of politics, for politics is but one level of the total human activity that she totally redeems. Let us not minimize her political involvement and action.
If this metaphor were to be made more accurate, it could not say that John would rescue anyone.
Rather, John has promised to submit names, subject to the approval of others not in his control, to sit on a court that would decide whether 50 state jurisdictions have the freedom to use their political processes, under the control of popular opinion, to decide whether to rescue anyone, as it were.
The President has a role. It’s just *much* more attenuated from the desired result.
Remember the high hopes many had for South Dakota.
It is not a near total ban on the practice, as South Dakota presented, or the status quo (which is much more “pro-abortion” than would be absent Roe). The political process matters quite a bit for abortion beyond new Justices – continuation of the Hyde amendment, the availability of abortificants, various aspects of foreign aid federal funding, late-term, and so on.
Policraticus :
One need not minimize the Church’s role in politics (there are without question times where religion and politics overlap) to recognize that a politicized vision of what the Church “is” or “should be” must not for a believer overcome Her function: to draw us closer to Christ and His greatest commandment, which is to love one another. The Golden Role, in other words, is not a political act.
The Golden Role, in other words, is not a political act.
Not a political act; but an act with political implications. Hence, the Gospel is transcendent of politics, yet immanent within politics. The paradox of nature and grace.
World Net Daily??? Are you serious?
If you really need a foil, you can find a much more respectable one than that.
Voting is one of the least materially effectual individual acts in all of politics. On the other hand, how one chooses to vote has a much more significant effect on one’s own self. Therefore the decision of how to vote or if to vote at all should hinge primarily on how that act of voting affects the voter himself, to the exclusion of considerations of its negligible political impact.