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June 16, 2008
Brother, you asked for it
Now that Obama and McCain are the presumptive nominees for their respective parties, Objectivists are understandably distressed by what is by most account the worst political decision in decades. One is an idealistic altruist/collectivist. The other is a cantankerous altruist/collectivist.
It is difficult to make a case for "the lesser of two evils." I myself can conceive of no justification for voting for McCain. The only question, in my mind, is whether to vote for Obama or to abstain.
But remember what Napoleon said about how he would extract himself from a seemingly impossible tactical dilemma? He said he would never have gotten himself into it in the first place. What brought us to our seemingly impossible political dilemma?
What if we had elected John Kerry in 2004? We would surely not face the current dilemma of Obama vs. McCain. Obama would still be working his way up as a junior senator. What about McCain? Suppose Bush's brand of evangelical religion and neoconservative foreign policy had been dealt a death blow in 2004. Would Mike Huckabee have drawn votes from the likes of a Giuliani or a Romney? And would John McCain have been the last one standing?
It's impossible to answer these counterfactual questions with certainty. But it's also impossible to imagine an election scenario much worse than this year's. Just about anything must be better.
So for the Objectivists who advocated voting for Bush in 2004: Did you get what you expected? Did Bush make America better, or stop it from getting as bad as a Kerry presidency would have?
Photos courtesy of derek_b and barackobamadotcom used under a Creative Commons license.
Posted by admin at June 16, 2008 07:01 PM
Comments
Hi Noumenal Self,
I'm an Objectivist who voted for Bush, and I got worse than what I expected. And what's worse about it is the fact that I didn't expect much at all! I think there were a few times when Bush did something better than Kerry would have, but overall he was a huge failure.
Do I regret my vote? No. I believed that Bush and Kerry would both be horrible presidents. The only thing that kept me from skipping the vote was my belief that the election had become a referendum on how our country should defend ourselves. Kerry wanted the global test, and Bush said we should fight.
And would we have a better choice than Obama or McCain if Kerry had won? I agree with you -- it's hard to imagine a worse choice than these two, so I'll say yes. That doesn't make me regret my vote, though. I think the only thing you can do in elections like these are to check your premises and then apply them as best as you can, and that's what I did. Sure, things are pretty bad now, but I don't see a lot of value into speculating about what could have been. I'd rather take the lessons learned and apply them to this election. So right now my plan for 2008 is to vote, but to write-in. In this election, my vote will be counted in the "Other" column.
Posted by: darren ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.noumenalself.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 18, 2008 09:41 PM
Bush accomplished the one thing I voted for him on and that was the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Kerry would likely have withdrawn giving Al Qaeda the reputation for defeating the US which would have us in an even worse position than now.
If Kerry had won any counterfactual 2008 elections would have to account for a Vietnam scale defeat and consequent blame games reshaping the political landscape into something unrecognizable.
I can't say Bush has been a disappointment otherwise since my expectations were pretty low to begin with. And I'm not sure I agree the current election is really much worse than Bush - Gore in 2000. An evangelical versus an environmentalist? Our choices have been pretty bad for a while now.
For this election I'm waiting till McCain's VP choice before I make a final decision on who I'm voting for or if I'm voting at all.
Posted by: Chris Sandvick at August 26, 2008 04:06 AM
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