Do You Have A Moral Imperative To Vote?
On voting your conscience (assuming you still have one)
Editor’s Note: Are you a Hezbollah member who has a question about which of your personal techno-contraptions you should next throw away before Israel detonates them? Don’t ask Matt — he’s an essayist, not a munitions expert. But you might wanna deep-six those electronic butt plugs. That could get messy. For all other questions, Ask Matt at askmattlabash@gmail.com.
Matt,
I hear friends constantly complaining about the government all the time. Talk radio hosts whine about both Trump and Harris. Yet, in November, they will dutifully trudge over to the ballot box and pull the lever for the lesser of two evils.
They will call me a devil for voting third party again. Yet Trump just proved he isn't truly a conservative, by lambasting the Heritage Foundation, and Harris is pandering to the center as well.
Isn't the definition of insanity to do the exact same thing repeatedly, expecting a different (better) result? Knowing The Bell Curve shows that (unlike Lake Wobegon) half of America is below average intellectually, how is it that the smarter half isn't voting third party? Have we broken the curve?Sincerely,
Just Trying To Break Out Of Stupid
Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, JTTBOOS, if you don’t mind me using your initials for short. But please allow me to dry myself off before answering your question, as I just snarfed iced tea through my nose when you suggested the Heritage Foundation — authors of the 920-page anarchist’s Bible, Project 2025 — are keepers of the conservative flame. If they are, please burn me at the stake with that flame, now. Burning enemies at the stake being something they probably espouse around Page 600 or so. (I couldn’t say — I didn’t manage to read that far.)
But back to your question. I have always been generally against telling someone it’s a moral imperative to vote a certain way. After all, I once proposed — in print — starting The Apathy Party, even if I didn’t care enough to get it off the ground, in keeping with my fledgling party’s founding ideals. But aside from such stunts, “vote your conscience,” I usually say. Assuming you still have one, since being a political partisan requires plenty of people to suppress theirs. All I can do is tell you how I have voted in the past, and how I feel it’s my own moral duty to vote in this election, and why.