| I feel like this right now. This is taken from here: http://weblog.revelife.com/revelife/680466805/should-i-elect-not-to-elect.html?cuttag=true Mark Noll, Wheaton College professor and renowned author of the book Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, proposed back in the 2004 election that a Christian (and I am sure this argument extends to all citizens) can be justified in electing NOT to vote. Not in the sense of "I'm too lazy and don't want to bother, but simply believing it would be unethical to vote for either candidate. Noll's argument (archived here) was more specific to the 2004 election, when both candidates waged a particularly dirty smear campaign that completely avoided the important issues facing the nation.
This campaign - rightly labeled historic in many ways - is different in the sense that a lot of the issues Noll considered paramount (race, the value of life, taxes, trade, medicine, religious freedom and the international rule of law) are actually hotly contested and featured prominently in this election.
For example, as someone who works to provide medical care to underprivileged and immigrant populations, I am strongly opposed to McCain's privatized health care plan. However, as someone opposed to abortion, I find it difficult to vote for someone who so aggressively favors repealing the Hyde Amendment (which prevents federal funding of abortions). In many ways, these two issues are like apples and oranges in that I can't compare them directly, saying that one holds more sway over my vote than the other. And yet the vote does polarize itself down to two candidates; I can't split my vote like my fruit.
I want to exercise responsible citizenship, especially in such a monumental election as this, but I can't bear the thought of betraying either of these two significant principles in my life; to vote in favor of either one (or against, depending on how you look at it) is to lend support to a position that I would consider unethical. It is not as if I haven't given thorough consideration to the issues; I've thought long and hard about both of them for nearly a year. And yet it would seem that staying silent on both via boycott commits the same error.
What should I do? Must I make a decision, or am I justified in not voting?
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