A good and honorable friend of mine and I had a little discussion about voting in which I used the allegory that follows. I would be interested in the take of the good folks over here… We were speaking of the morality of not voting, voting for ABTOC (anyone but Trump or Hillary) or voting for Trump to block Hillary. So, here goes my story…
I see it this way- there is a kid riding by me on his bike and is going so fast, I know he can’t stop before he rides into 6 lanes of traffic on Clinton Avenue – it’s like riding into a meat grinder. I have three choices:
- If I just let him go with no intervention, he’s surely toast. So, do I let him go because I don’t want to be responsible for hurting him even a little – though I know he is very likely to be killed if I do nothing?
- If I knock him off the bike, he’s probably going to break something – maybe not, but he is sure to be hurt in some way. Do I knock him over and hurt him a little but stop him from reaching the street? He might turn out to be a serial killer later in life, so I might have saved a life that takes others but I can’t predict that – he is just as likely to invent a cure for cancer…I also might kill or permanently injure him by knocking him off the bike – I truly have no way of knowing but I do know that anyone riding into that street is almost guaranteed to be killed and he will be past me in a fraction of a second if I don’t do something to change his path.
- I can just yell at him, warn him about his bad choices and let him make his own choice to take his chances – then I can stand over his bleeding corpse and tell him what a dumbass he is and that I told him this was going to happen.
What should I do? Given the limited knowledge and the immediate need for a decision (or a decision not to decide) what is the most moral choice?
Some will say letting him go or yelling at him (i.e. not voting or casting an ABOTC “protest” vote) absolves me of moral responsibility – but since there will be an outcome relatively immediatley and I have a very high probability of knowing what the likely outcomes will be, does it really absolve me of making a choice?
I don’t think it does. In my opinion, the most moral choice is to knock the kid on his ass and keep him from getting into that traffic. He may break an arm but he can survive a broken arm…so can America. Playing in traffic on Clinton Avenue is sure death.
What if I save him and he turns out to be a serial killer instead of a brilliant cancer researcher? Should I be burdened with his immorality due to my choice to save him?
I won’t be burdened with his crimes but I will have to take responsibility for my choice to save him. Whether I will be blamed or not is up to others to decide. At that moment, I was saving a child – not a serial killer.
I have reasoned myself into having to vote for the lesser evil because I am uncertain of the extent of that evil – of the greater evil, I am absolutely certain. I can’t accept that just yelling to the four winds how morally pure I am because I didn’t do anything at all is the right choice. That doesn’t change the fact that I will have to own the consequences of my choice should my choice result in an evil equal to the one I sought to avoid but I can’t accept that standing fast in my righteousness changes anything since the event is going to have one of two outcomes.
The kid will either stop before he reaches Clinton Avenue or he won’t but one thing is for certain, he will go into traffic if he isn’t stopped just as we will have an election on November 8th, come rain or shine and either Hillary will be president or she won’t. Same for Trump.
The Rio Norte Line 
I’m sorry, but there’s a small problem with your analogy, boss. Trump has given clear indication that he will be a serial killer, so let me fix your analogy for you.
Your friend is riding his bike into Clinton avenue with a bloody machete strapped to his back and a shirt saying “I’m going to be a serial killer!”
OK, NOW you can make your choice. At least the analogy will be correct this time.
I would argue that until he actually commits a murder, we still don’t know. People can say anything and do nothing. Hillary, on the other hand, already has at least 4 bodies to her credit.
Trump has a history of supporting abortion (until it became politically inconvenient). Has supported gun control (again, until it became politically inconvenient). Has advocated single-payer healthcare. Has a long history of abusing imminent domain laws for personal gain (BTW: this requires corruption to pull off). He has also boasted that he buys politicians (no, he didn’t use those words: he said I give them money and expect them to do things for me in return — same thing).
So, as you say, no bodies — yet. Which is why I said he has a bloody machete and a shirt saying he wants to be a mass murderer instead of saying he was dragging bodies behind his bike.
Besides, you knew better than to accept the line of reasoning you are using now when it applied to Obama. Why accept it now? What changed — other than the letter after the candidate’s name?
So you’re saying a politician can’t evolve their political stance on important issues over time?
Nope, but when they do, they show some history of consistent movement in their new direction. So far, all I see from most people in politics these days is political expediency. Even Cruz proved he will set aside his supposed principles for political consideration. We simply have no one of sound character left in public office (and who can blame the few good people left among us for staying away from such a wretched place as politics?)
I think both you guys should grow up and get a life?
EdwardS
:- )
I think you’d be an angel amongst us…… like this guy:https://youtu.be/5qYAPYB0cKY
We’ll see if this is censored too. A similar one was on another essay here recently.
I have to admit I have lost a lot of respect for various folks who have taken on the mantle of morality and assumed the historical authority to condemn Trump and associate him with the Nazis. One sees this aped about from National Review all the way to …. lesser venues. The actual events surrounding the actual Brown Shirts are well known and documented. And the similar appearance and MO in our own country clearly indicate a continuation of Leftist Socialist violence here as there. Their drum-beat of what amounts to verbal propaganda served one side and served as additive negative input propping up the MSM narrative :
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2016/10/25/mrc-study-documenting-tvs-twelve-weeks-trump-bashing
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/10/24/glenn-beck-trump-sociopath/
Since I had my post deleted recently I will stop here to see if this will go through.
And I just had the second half of my comment censored again !!
Truth hurts I guess…Huh ?
And I was just Censored again !
Just got back home after being on the road working since last March. It’s really tough trying to blog and comment off of a smart phone that’s smarter than you are.
Here’s my two cents for what its worth.
If Hillary Clinton is elected, we are toast. There is no doubt in my mind.
People have a host of reasons why they won’t vote for Donald Trump. He’s brash, he’s a braggart and supposedly he has treated a few women badly in the past…although there’s no proof beyond a taped recording of him bragging about being rich enabled him to touch women inappropriately, if he wanted to.
But they pale in comparison to the reasons why we shouldn’t vote for Clinton. You may assuage your conscience by voting for another candidate, but a vote for any third party candidate will be a vote for Clinton.
If we elect Trump and he doesn’t at least attempt to honor the campaign promises he made, we can vote him out in the next election. The worst that can happen is gridlock, which is what we have now. By then, Hillary will be too old to run again and we will have dodged that bullet.
I await my excoriation.
You will get no guff from me. I struggle with my vote for Donnie but Hillary must never be close to the Oval Office, not even on a White House tour.