Good, responsible Americans are struggling with one of the hardest decisions they have ever had to make.
What they want is simple. They want to raise their children in peace. They want to keep their vanishing jobs and what money they have left so they can help their families and neighbors. They want to protect the helpless from being silently murdered for their parents', spouse's or children's convenience. They want a government that will do its job, not spend them into the poorhouse, mind its own business, recall once in a while that its powers are limited, and obey the rule of law.
They especially want it to obey the Main Law: the Constitution and Bill of Rights as recorded in what was supposed to be a legally binding document, so everyone would follow these Most Important Rules and not consider them "subject to interpretation." Americans detest "creative interpretation" of rules by powerful people and just want their country to play honestly by the simple rules it has always followed.
Are we asking too much?
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For years, powerful people have been changing our country, rewriting its rules, removing its freedoms and farming its people for profit. We all know how they buy off our representatives, turn us against each other, hide the truth by "selective reporting," lie to our children and take away their values, twist the words of the Constitution to mean the opposite of what they say, and just plain ignore the rules when it suits them. Every election they use vast sums of money and media to drown out honest candidates and label them irrelevant. Every year they use their power to make themselves richer so the good people of America cannot afford to counter them. They have already succeeded in corrupting and demoralizing America. Now they are ready to dissolve it.
Americans are bitterly aware of this.
Our most cherished act of self-government is our vote. Yet even that privilege is thwarted and mocked by the limited choices we are presented – choices presented by the very same powerful people with vast amounts of money to back their candidates. So we face a terrible dilemma. Do we choose an undesirable candidate to avoid one that is worse? Or do we lose the chance to avoid the worst outcome?
We must remember that our goal is not just to place a person in the Oval Office. It is all about what that person will do when he gets there. We have no chance of a conservative justice with Mr. Obama, but there is no reason to believe we will have a better chance with Mr. McCain merely because he says he will nominate them. If there is any chance, it would be if he deeply wants conservative justices, is willing to fight tooth and nail to get them, and has a host of voters at his back that have proven they will remember and un-elect senators that oppose them.
Thus the tired idea that we must vote for Mr. McCain to avoid Mr. Obama falls miserably short. It is a poor reason to vote for anyone, and it is political suicide to publish. If we elect someone we distrust to prevent a greater evil, then no senators need be afraid of us – they can regain our vote just by producing a worse alternative. In fact, Mr. McCain might easily say to us, "I would have loved to nominate a pro-life conservative, but the only alternatives the Senate will approve are more liberal, so we'll have to go with this moderate pro-choicer as the lesser of evils" – and there will be nothing we can say. If we will not act on principle, we cannot expect our elected leaders to do so.
The only way to obtain a leader that stands on principle is to vote on principle. We must vote because he is a great leader, or at least because he is a good leader, sharing our principles with a record of fighting for them. President Reagan was a great leader. He believed in justice, truth, freedom and kindness and tried his best to act on them. I am proud to recall that he was my president and that my family voted for him. Because they were choices for what was right, those votes and memories improve my moral strength and give confidence for more good choices.
This is not about choosing the best man. We all know Mr. Obama is scary beyond reason. The real question is whether or not Mr. McCain is a good and trustworthy leader, what we will do about it and what our choice will do to us.
We conservatives stand in great peril of losing our souls – choosing something we believe to be evil as a calculated effort to avoid a worse fate, and in the process excusing that evil, shaming ourselves, damaging our moral strength and destroying our credibility and moral authority, our confidence and right to speak out against other evils to come. We must not do this! We must cast a vote of which we are proud, a vote for someone we believe will fight for our principles. Is that person Mr. McCain? We owe it to each other to examine his record and listen carefully to his heart to find out. If you believe he is a trustworthy leader that you are eager to call your president, then say so quickly, run to the polls, and vote for him with a glad heart. If you do not, then vote with a clear conscience for someone else who is, and do not allow anyone to shame you for refusing to choose one evil over another.
One day you will tell your grandchildren how you voted in 2008. Make it a choice you will be proud to talk about.
Greg Sallee