![\"I](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/03\/I-voted-1008x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Really.<\/p>\n
Enough with the nonsense of \u201cnot voting for Trump is as bad as voting for Clinton\u201d or \u201cnot voting for Clinton is as bad as voting for Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either of these two candidates. \u00a0Maybe I\u2019ll vote for Johnson. \u00a0Most likely, I\u2019ll just vote in the down-ballot races.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an analogy which is, admittedly, incomplete: \u00a0consider the pacifist.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always been hard for me to accept the idea of pacifism. \u00a0Sure, a pacifist refuses to fight in the military. \u00a0Some have even done so at great personal cost, and have accepted roles as medics and the like which endanger their lives without the ability to fight back. But what if the United States itself were attacked? \u00a0Is it right to remain steadfast in one\u2019s refusal to fight back, even if that meant subjugation under a foreign power, even if that foreign power wished not simply to help themselves to some of our natural resources but literally enslave us, or even annihilate us? \u00a0Is it right to remain nonviolent, even if one is under personal attack? \u00a0So far as I understand pacifism, they believe it\u2019s so, that the morally right thing to do is in fact not to kill another person, even under self-defense \u2014 and not with an expectation that someone else will do this for them, but with an acceptance that the consequences may be grave, but so be it. \u00a0And, in the end, they are not \u201cmorally at fault\u201d for the outcome \u2014 the attackers are.<\/p>\n
If I refuse to vote for Clinton to save us from Trump, or Trump to save us from Clinton, am I to blame for whatever ruinous policy decisions the future president makes? \u00a0No. \u00a0The people who vote for and implement those decisions, and their supporters, and those who voted for<\/em> them, are.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image: \u00a0own photograph<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Really. Enough with the nonsense of \u201cnot voting for Trump is as bad as voting for Clinton\u201d or \u201cnot voting for Clinton is as bad as voting for Trump.\u201d I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either of these two candidates. \u00a0Maybe I\u2019ll vote for Johnson. \u00a0Most likely, I\u2019ll just vote in the down-ballot races. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":4110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[442],"class_list":["post-5101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-election-2016"],"yoast_head":"\n