Posted on 11/01/2004 9:16:28 AM PST by SeasideSparrow
Dear third-party voter,
A tragedy is about to occur.
I am not talking about the tragedy, the unthinkable calamity that will befall America should John Kerry be elected president of the United States. That a person with a history of actual treason should become commander in chief of America's armed forces during wartime is more bizarre and terrifying than any "Manchurian Candidate" scenario Hollywood could concoct.
No, I'm referring to a different tragedy. The tragedy that idealistic, patriotic, constitutionally minded Christian Americans very possibly will be the ones that actually turn over this nation to Kerry – a man who opposes, and is intent on destroying, every one of their most cherished values.
How could this be?
By most accounts, the presidential race is a dead heat. The fact is, several swing states in the 2000 election were settled by just a few thousand votes. This time around the race looks every bit as close – so every single vote counts.
My friends, the hour is late and the stakes high, so let me just say it straight:
A vote for Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, or for the Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik – regardless of whatever personal virtues they possess, or those of their party's platform – amounts to a vote for Kerry. After all the high-sounding words have been spoken in justification of voting for either one, this is the undeniable fact that remains. It's the most basic mathematics possible, so I won't insult anyone by explaining it.
Furthermore, the "lesser of two evils" argument that I've heard 1,000 times – usually stated as "voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil" – is shallow and unworthy of those good folks who hold the Constitution and Judeo-Christian heritage so dear. This view, with its emphasis on personally choosing not to support any evil whatsoever, is held largely by religious people, mostly Christians.
But every Christian also knows he or she is a sinner – in a word, evil. Not totally evil, of course, but every human being – including you, me, Bush, Kerry, Peroutka, Badnarik and everyone else – has got a problem with evil. It's only the degree that is different from person to person.
If Bush is truly "the lesser of two evils" – which, put another way, means he is the greater good – then it's indefensible to vote for anyone else than Bush, since that would unquestionably help Kerry – the greater evil.
Let me restate this: If the object of your vote is to avoid supporting evil – and yet by your vote you end of electing the worst possible choice as president when you had it easily within your power to choose a better man – then you have indeed supported evil.
One of the many people who responded to my column on "Voting your conscience" informed me that by voting for Bush instead of Peroutka, I was operating from fear and not faith. We should just vote our consciences, he said (in this case, he was suggesting a vote for the Constitution Party candidate), and leave the outcome to God.
This is a mis-applied principle. Yes, we're meant to live righteously and not be overly concerned with the result. That means we're meant to speak the truth even if it makes us unpopular. We're meant to do the right thing, even if we lose a seeming advantage, even if it hurts, even if we lose our job. This is living from faith and leaving the outcome to God.
But when we have a clear choice between a better option and a worse option, and millions of lives will be affected by our choice, God doesn't require that we do the impossible and make a third option win out. Getting Peroutka or Badnarik elected president is impossible.
What God does hold us responsible for is to do the right thing, to act with wisdom. If America can have a safer nation with a more decent president – or be more endangered with an unprincipled, ambitious sociopath as president – and if we, you and I, are the ones who choose that president tomorrow, then we have a responsibility to choose the better man.
Not to do so will be a tragedy we will remember for the rest of our lives.
This is not an ordinary election. We are at war. That's not a metaphor, as Kerry's campaign says, but rather a real war. Millions of lives are at stake. America's security is at stake. The Supreme Court, America's sovereignty as an independent nation, the lives of the unborn, the sanctity of marriage, freedom of the press – all are at stake in this election.
As we reported in our special "REVOLT ON THE RIGHT" edition of Whistleblower magazine, there have been many times in American history when a robust third-party bid for the presidency has had a powerful and meaningful effect on the course of the nation. But tomorrow is not one of those times. Tomorrow is a time for good people to come together to stop a major evil from descending on this country.
In the last few days, Patrick Buchanan, who ran against Bush four years ago on a third-party ticket, urged Americans to vote this time for Bush. Why?
Likewise, WND's founder and CEO Joseph Farah – who did not support Bush in 2000, who has said for years he would be unable to support Bush in 2004, and who has been very favorable toward third parties – recently changed his mind and endorsed Bush over Kerry. Why?
Even Dr. John Hospers, America's first Libertarian Party presidential candidate, has urged Libertarians not to vote for their own party's candidate, but rather to vote for Bush. Why?
I'll tell you why. Because they realize what is truly at stake in this election. Do you?
Sincerely,
David Kupelian
I believe GB lowered taxes and no it wasn't just for the rich. We got our taxes lowered considerably and we make around 45,000 a year. Thats a long ways from rich. Also we got a check for 600.00 as did everyone I know, that is people who actually paid taxes.
Tax cuts are good when they accompany spending cuts, but spending has soared under Bush...up 12.5% annually (non-defense).
The debt now stands at $7.5 TRILLION and is growing at $500B a year.
By not cutting spending, Bush has just given us (and our kids) a deferred tax increase.
Flypaper thread. They can't resist.
Our opinions obviously differ. I happen to care very much about my vote, that is why I cannot, with a clear conscience, vote for either one.
I consider both my opinion, and my vote to be very important, that is why I've made the decision I have.
I care about my vote too.
But I care a lot more about the unborn.
"but if your big issue is a balanced budget, or illegal immigration, or eliminating the IRS you probably should vote for Badnarik or Peroutka.
Please explain how a vote for Badnarik is a vote against illegal immigration? You have read the libertarian platform? The party official opposes any limitations on immigration.
I'm sure the families of the soldiers and Marines who've died in Iraq are comforted knowing that you belittle their sacrifice as melodrama and that you hold their convictions in such low regard.
I'm sure they believed they were fighting for a principle.
Or were they fighting for oil?
Paradoxically, it did during the CLINTON era!
Did your helping to elect Bush in 2000 move the country closer or further away?
In my opinion you should be very concerned about the effect the next four years is going to have on the Supreme Court
We were told the same thing in 2000. How many SCJ have been retired and been replaced in the last four years?
How? Will he sign a bill outlawing abortion?
Or, will be back embryonic stem cell research that will make use of aborted fetuses?
Did he lower government spending by a proportional amount to pay for the tax cut or did he put it on the federal credit card and increase government spending at the same time ?
OK, I was going to let you have the last word but you've pissed me off. You known damn well that our conversation had nothing to do with the soldiers in Iraq, and you have no right to suggest that I am belittling their efforts. The are most certainly fighting, and dying, for noble purposes.
What is absolutely unacceptable is that you would dare to compare your "struggle" as a third party supporter to the genuine and fruitful sacrifices of our soldiers.
So it's better to sacrifice those in harm's way and vote a traitor into the WH via a proxy candidate. I'd have to disagree. We can affect our senators and representatives when it comes to legislation. We cannot do anything to affect the Commander-in-Chief's command decisions, other than choosing the right man for that particular Constitutional responsibility.
Agree. It wouldn't even be close.
Must be a big time agenda if one would risk losing an election over it.
Then why did you compare those who vote on principle to people leaping from tall buildings thinking they could fly or revolutionaries fighting without guns?
After all, didn't I write the following which you belittled as 'melodrama'?
"No, voting on principles is never a waste. Sometimes, people are even willing to die for their principles. I know this is a foreign concept to a party hack like yourself, but the truth is that Americans do all kinds of things even when there's no chance of winning."
So, soldiers and Marines can die for a principle, but I'm being melodramatic when I vote on one?
Because I meant it. What you call "voting on principle" I call counterproductive to your own poltiical position. My point was that principle is not enough, if you choose a fruitless strategy to advance that principle.
That has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the soliders in Iraq. I defy you to point out how it does.
After all, didn't I write the following which you belittled as 'melodrama'? "No, voting on principles is never a waste. Sometimes, people are even willing to die for their principles. I know this is a foreign concept to a party hack like yourself, but the truth is that Americans do all kinds of things even when there's no chance of winning."
The reason that this is melodrama is that you are comparing YOUR "struggle" in a marginalized third party with the sacrifice of real soldiers in combat. YOU, sir, are therefore guilty of belittling their effort, not me.
I'm not the one comparing anything to anything. You are. And you couldn't be more wrong.
Please point out where I wrote that I was struggling. I didn't. These are your words, not mine.
And for the record, I never would have written that I'm struggling in a marginalized third party' because I belong to no political party, third party or otherwise.
I only said that I vote for the best man for the job.
The reason that this is melodrama is that you are comparing YOUR "struggle" in a marginalized third party with the sacrifice of real soldiers in combat. YOU, sir, are therefore guilty of belittling their effort, not me.
Again, my supposed 'struggle' is in your vivid imagination because I never wrote I was struggling with anything.
What did you think I meant when I wrote, "Sometimes, people are even willing to die for their principles."
Did you think I was talking about people who have heart attacks while pulling the lever in the voting booth?
Ol' Dan Tucker said: "How? Will he sign a bill outlawing abortion? Or, will he back embryonic stem cell research that will make use of aborted fetuses?"
Thanks for asking.
There could possibly be FOUR new Supreme Court Justices appointed during the next four years. Several are quite elderly and could either retire or die. You can be certain Kerry would NOT appoint ANY prolife justices. Bush is very likely to appoint prolife justices which could dramatically change the future course regarding Roe v. Wade. There could be several Supreme Court vacancies over the next four years and either Bush is going to appoint prolife justices or Kerry will appoint prodeath ones. This could have great effect on potentially overturning Roe v. Wade.
Bush has demonstrated a long list of prolife accomplishments in the past: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1140835/posts
He signed into law a ban on partial birth abortion which his liberal predecessor twice vetoed. The NRLC (National Right to Life Committee) states that "The bill represents the first direct national restriction on any method of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in 1973." http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/PBAall110403.html
As far as creating embryos for research....If Kerry wins, he promises to lift Bush's restriction on the practice. Dozens of newer stem cell lines, undamaged by long periods of cell replication, would become available for federal financing.
Bush made it clear during the debates that he favors ADULT stem cell research which harms no one. He made several prolife statements during those debates.
So since Peroutka has absolutely NO chance of winning this election, we have two choices before us.
The unborn need a voice.
Do we throw our hands up in despair that we don't have Christ Himself to vote for? Or do we use our American freedom of voting to make a voice for the unborn of the future?
Man, you're dense.
OK, fine. You are not a member of a third party, it's not a "struggle" you're participating in, you're just choosing to vote for a third-party candidate. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt that this was some sort of genuine crusade or struggle for you, because only then would it be even remotely worthy of the kind of glorification your're giving it.
And again, I am not belittling the effort of REAL soldiers who die in REAL battles, because you do not deserve to be compared to them. That is why I invented two DIFFERENT examples to compare you to: IMAGINED soldiers who had no weapons to fight with, and IMAGINED lunatics who jump off buildings. Neither is remotely like the soldiers in Iraq, are they?
And why did I choose them? Because like those unarmed soldiers or delusional aviators, your plan of action---even though it is supposedly based on principle---is negligently ineffective at accomplishing your its goal.
This is QUITE UNLIKE our soldiers in Iraq, who are accomplishing a great feat. So again, my words had nothing to do with the soldiers in Iraq, and in fact were meant to put considerable distance between your so-called "voting on principle" and their noble work.
I swear, some of these third-party supporters are in just as much of a 9-10 world as the Left is.
Bush is a good, decent, God-fearing man and is leading the country and the free world in the WOT. Screw the third party nutcases. I'm backing a winner. The last time they got anywhere in the polls, it cost George Bush's father the election and we wound up with eight years of Bill Clinton. I'll be damned if I'm going to let that happen again.
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