Spite Voting

The other day, in a post I titled Is That Right?, I noted Leonard Peikoff’s admonition on voting. I objected to Peikoff’s assertions and stated so in my post.

Wandering through various blogs, today, I note that Nicholas Provenzo has also commented on Peikoff’s voting admonitions in a post titled Objectivists and Politics. Though Provenzo agrees with Peikoff in regards to the “nature of the right,” i.e. voting, he doesn’t necessarily agree with the manner in which Peikoff presented his argument.  Nicholas’ post also acknowledges the futility of your one vote, which is an important point to remember.

But under our “winner take all” system, our vote is only worth the chance that it can swing an election. In most cases, that isn’t much of a chance.

Diana Mertz Hsieh also has commented on Peikoff’s admonition in a post titled Why I’m Voting for the Democrats. Diana’s post is a bit lengthy, but is worth taking the time to read, also.  Diana’s post includes many links to other articles by Peikoff, and other individuals, that are also worth casting your eye on.

I stand by my original post (linked above), regarding Peikoff’s assertions, and add the following.

Much of what I read, currently, regarding voting Democratic, rather than Republican, whether from the right, left, center, Objectivist, or what have you, seems to suggest that an individual should vote Democratic simply to spite the Republicans, thus the title to this post. 

Sure, arguments are made, some quite persuasively, that Bush and the Republicans are attempting to bring into being the religious state, or, that the Republicans are no different than the Democrats when it comes to big government, which is something I’ve said for some time, but the overall gist of many of the arguments I’ve read for voting Democratic, versus Republican, quite simply exhibit a desire to perform a malicious act against the Republican controlled government.

Many pieces I have read even begin with a similar preamble to the effect that, yes, I know the Democrats are evil, that the Democrats shamelessly advocate big government, though the Republicans do also but in a veiled way, etcetera, etcetera, but I am going to vote Democratic because those damn Republicans have got to go.

It’s the spite vote, and if you’re voting Democratic, to spite the Republicans, you’re simply performing an irrational act, irrationally.

UPDATE: Billy Beck notes Peikoff’s piece here, and Richard Nikoley notes the piece here.

And, I’ll post Betsy Speicher’s comments (from discussion thread at Diana Mertz Hsieh’s post) regarding the possibility of a theocracy forming, which Billy mentions for their veracity in his post, in their entirety.

The arguments presented for voting for the Democrats are based on the premise that having and keeping the Republicans in power is leading to a theocracy. Check that premise!

First, we must define our terms clearly. A theocracy is a TOTALITARIAN government enforcing religious rules of conduct by FORCE. It is not merely a government with some religion-inspired laws. It is not just a government run by or supported by people who are seriously (or dementedly) religious. The latter are wrong and contemptible, but without the government imposing religious rules by force, they don’t have to affect the choices and actions of rational people.

But, after 12 years of Republican control in Congress, six years in the White House, and the intellectual and political forces at work since Reagan in the 1980’s, is there a TREND toward theocracy—i.e., toward imposing religious rules by force? What are the facts?

In the 1940-50’s USA I grew up in, we had to start every public school day with ten verses from the Bible. It was the law. Abortion was illegal in every single state and birth control of any kind was illegal in many states. Homosexuality was a crime. Adultery was the only grounds for getting a divorce and the process took years. It was a crime to have a store open on the “Lord’s Day.” My state-approved biology textbook hardly mentioned evolution.

This was god-awful, but it was NOT a theocracy.

Since then the trend has been AWAY from all these laws although some Conservatives have made feeble attempts to restore a few of them, in watered-down form, with almost no political success.

Would-be theocrats have serious obstacles to overcome: the Constitution, life-tenured sitting Federal judges, liberals and Democrats, the ACLU, and all the Christians and conservatives who don’t want their views imposed by force.

Because politics is an effect and not a cause, before theocrats can take over the government, they have to take over the culture. That means, as Objectivists always point out, taking over the colleges. The liberal Leftists are firmly entrenched everywhere in Academia—even in the Christian colleges—with Objectivists beginning to make small, but significant, inroads.

Therefore, there is no trend and NO POSSIBILITY of conservative Republicans imposing a Christian theocracy on the U.S. even if they wanted to—and I don’t see any evidence that mainstream Republicans, Conservatives, and Christians want to.

Posted by on 10/30 at 10:11 AM

  1. You Republicans really need to stop trying to co-opt every phrase we use, for christ’s sake.

    http://www.nypress.com/17/23/news&columns/MarkAmes.cfm

    Posted by  on  11/01  at  09:31 PM

  2. Scarshapedstar, two things.

    Number 1.  Your ascertain, “You Republicans,” is off base.  Maybe you should read more of the posts at this blog.

    Number 2.  Your link is non-functional.

    Posted by John Venlet  on  11/03  at  05:09 AM

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