Last week, I wrote an article in which I argued that unless the Republican Party begins to take stock of the ever growing discontent among its conservative base, it will, deservedly, be a loser in perpetuity.<\/p>\n
Among the overwhelmingly positive responses, I also received some criticisms.<\/p>\n
(1)There\u2019s no such thing as <\/i>\u201cthe perfect\u201d candidate.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
And?<\/p>\n
Disenchanted conservatives are the last people who need to be reminded of the fact that perfect politicians, like perfect specimens of anything, simply aren\u2019t to be found in this world.\u00a0 But so what?<\/p>\n
The disenchanted don\u2019t seek perfection. What they seek are candidates who are conservative.\u00a0 Imperfection they expect; gross imperfection they reject.<\/p>\n
(2)We must choose \u201cthe lesser\u201d of two \u201cevils.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
While I\u2019m unaware of them, perhaps there are some ethical traditions in the world that command their adherents to consciously select evil\u2014even if the evil in question isn\u2019t as <\/i>evil as the alternative(s).\u00a0 But the ethical tradition to which most conservatives subscribe is Christianity.\u00a0 According to the latter, it is never, ever permissible to deliberately commit an act\u2014any act\u2014of evil.<\/p>\n
Again, it isn\u2019t \u201cimperfection\u201d per se that repels disenchanted conservatives, but intolerable <\/i>imperfections that give rise to their repulsion.\u00a0 The \u201clesser of two evils,\u201d being still an evil, is, obviously, intolerably imperfect. As such, it should <\/i>repel decent people everywhere.<\/p>\n
(3)By not voting for Republicans, conservatives, in effect, vote for Democrats.<\/i><\/p>\n
To this criticism, two replies are in the coming.<\/p>\n
First of all, when the Republicans raising this criticism are those politicians and pundits who persist in their support of just those policies, like his foreign policy, say, that resulted in our last (Republican) president leaving the office with a 30% approval rating while his nemeses assumed command of both houses of Congress and the White House, it sounds more than a bit hypocritical, for it is they <\/i>who have provided their opponents with more than enough support.<\/p>\n
Yet no one is blinder in this respect than those Republicans who endorse amnesty, a policy that is sure <\/i>to establish Democrat supremacy from this point onward.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the conservative\u2019s decision to refrain from voting may very well result in Democrats winning elections, but he is no more blameworthy for this than is a terminal patient blameworthy for suicide <\/i>who refrains from availing himself of extra-ordinary measures that will buy him just a few more weeks of life\u2014and suffering.\u00a0 The patient knows that his decision to \u201cdo nothing\u201d will hasten his death, but his intention <\/i>is not to kill himself. In fact, his intention isn\u2019t even to shorten his suffering but, rather, simply not to add to it.<\/p>\n
The conservative who decides not to vote is in a similar situation. His country is sick. As much as some media personalities want for him to believe that there is all of the difference in the world between America\u2019s two national parties, he knows that the only difference that has existed for far too long is that between a poison that will kill\u2014\u201cfundamentally transform\u201d\u2014his country quickly and one that will kill it not so quickly.<\/p>\n
This is no hyperbole. Traditionally, America has been a country devoted to liberty, <\/i>or \u201climited government,\u201d as Republicans put it.\u00a0 But Big Government is the antithesis<\/i> of liberty.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, it is the antithesis of America<\/i>.\u00a0 The Republican Party, however, is as much committed to Big Government as is its counterpart\u2014even if the other guys (and gals) may want even (slightly) Bigger Government.<\/p>\n
The disenchanted conservative, then, refuses to comply with the killing of his country.<\/p>\n
Unlike the terminally ill patient in this example, though, the conservative who sits out elections need not have given up. In fact, he remains hopeful that his decision on this front will provoke his party to reverse course. That is, he aims to restore <\/i>his country to good health. Moreover, the conservative knows well that countries don\u2019t live by politics alone, that there are many ways in which he can fight the good fight for the well being of his homeland.<\/p>\n
Republicans\u2019 rhetoric is of little consequence. If Republicans don\u2019t start governing as conservatives, as the apostles of constitutional liberty that they claim to be, then they will deservedly lose more of their base.<\/p>\n
But then it will be these Republicans who would have basically voted for their rivals.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week, I wrote an article in which I argued that unless the Republican Party begins to take stock of the ever growing discontent among its conservative base, it will, deservedly, be a loser in perpetuity. Among the overwhelmingly positive responses, I also received some criticisms. (1)There\u2019s no such thing as \u201cthe perfect\u201d candidate.\u00a0 And?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n