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 07:01 PM | Comments (2)