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Voting For President In 2020

I'll probably abstain. There's no way Trump gets my vote. I shouldn't have to say this. I shouldn't have to prove why this is a rational and moral decision. Because people are so invested in defeating "The Left," they have ignored all the evil that he represents. More than this, the manifest ignorance, authoritarian tendencies, and damage to the civic space increases each day. Trump must go. He was unfit from before day 1, and that remains true.

I will not sacrifice everything to defeat the cultural Left. Because you can't, just by voting.

I understand why people have gotten to this point, where they ignore things they shouldn't ignore. The cultural tides are strong; the Democrats are beholden to inhuman and vile philosophies that countenance the murder of human beings, the destruction of the family, a disastrously false view of the human person, and the list could take hours. Even to get some relief from the attacks on religious freedom, I could see why people have done what they've done.

But the philosophy underlying the Republicans is equally faulty, and no one sees it. It's the same philosophy: liberal individualism. Capitalism. Market economics. All different versions of the same thing. The Left took the personal conduct side; (sexual conduct, mostly) the Right took the economic "freedom" side.

What if they're both wrong? If you kill people in slower motion, and not in an abortion clinic, people will fall for it. Especially if the ghost of the USSR is still around. Better yet, college professors and other eggheads, eager to try it again. Easy foils for a Rightism that isn't any more human, or correct. If you give people a boogeyman big enough, you can lead them anywhere. Propaganda.

"Socialism" and abortion. That's all you need to rile up the partisans. I'm not playing anymore. There are whole books dedicated to this truncated Rightism.

We want to belong, and we want to be good citizens, too. We dutifully vote Republican, because that's what good Christians do, right?

The Democrats have a siren song, too: They want you to ignore what a "person" is. They want to "keep religion out of politics," unless it helps them. The abortion industry's financial hold on the Democrats is secure. They focus on "sexual minorities," because they long ago gave up caring about poverty. All the other issues matter only insofar as they can beat the Republicans with them.

And yet, here I am. I'm supposed to participate; I'm supposed to try to do what's best, in accord with the common good, neither ignoring intrinsic evils, nor tolerating other evils. Do you know what that would be? I don't. It's in the end a prudential judgment, and that doesn't mean, "Ignore every issue except abortion, and gay marriage."

You'll have to pardon the cynicism here. I'll go back to being ignored, because I don't hate Obama enough.

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