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Is It Immoral to Vote for Obama?

ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election Oct 15, 2011 - 10:51 AM GMT

By: Mike_Whitney

I don’t like mixing politics with morality, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. What I mean is this: how can anyone cast a ballot for a man who they know will continue to kill people in other countries merely to advance US policy objectives? That’s the question people need to ask themselves.

Under normal circumstances, I can understand the “lesser of two evils” theory of voting, just as I can understand why people would think that Obama would be better president than his GOP opponent. But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they? After all, we’re not just talking about which candidate might be more inclined to protect Social Security or Medicare. We’re talking life and death. The question is whether one is willing to throw their support behind a policy that kills people in exchange for the presumed protection of Social Security?That’s a pretty cynical calculation.

Knowing what we know now, we can say with 100% certainty that Obama will continue killing people wherever he deploys the US military, the US intelligence services and US drones. How can anyone in good conscience sign on to that type of thing?

Now I know people will say,”If you don’t vote for Obama, you’re handing the White House and our children’s future over to crackpots and extremists”.

This is a very persuasive argument, but it’s also misleading. The real issue is whether one is willing to support the administration’s policies, policies that we all know will continue to kill defenseless women and children wherever the US is involved.

At present, there’s only one antiwar candidate on the ballot, Ron Paul. And while I bitterly disagree with him on economic and social matters, these issues pale in comparison to America’s homicidal foreign policy. If the balloting were held today, I would vote for Paul in a heartbeat and I would try to convince others to do the same.

As for those who choose to vote for Obama; that’s fine, only, please, don’t pretend you don’t know what the consequences will be.

Email: fergiewhitney@msn.com

Mike is a well respected freelance writer living in Washington state, interested in politics and economics from a libertarian perspective.

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Comments

turkey 15 Oct 11, 15:57	totally in agreement with the post, but in these elections what does a vote have to do with who gets elected? if the voters were sensible and had a true choice other than the left and right wing of the elites maybe something different would come about. we are totally under control of the military/financial powers.
Texas Patriot 16 Oct 11, 19:00	You are a libertarian? I don't understand how you can "bitterly disagree with Ron Paul on economic and social matters" and claim to be a Libertarian. Please explain.
Ernie Messerschmidt 17 Oct 11, 11:20	dirt poor doesn't matter I agree with your analysis that the wars and killing are overriding issues. It does not matter if we are dirt poor. It does matter that we are mass murderers, as we are in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. In line with that, Paul's naive gold-standard and free-market commitments are insignificant in contrast to his correct, decent, and righteous opposition to the wars.
Walt 22 Oct 11, 10:12	Read the other election article on the site... If you look at the other article under "Election Oracle" you'll find that Gary Johnson is also running for president, also a Republican, and also ready to end our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he doesn't have the Ron Paul crazy racist right-wing nuttiness.
Ludwig Van Beethoven 24 Nov 11, 10:41	He's a "Liberaltarian" It always Kills me how some people call themselves "Libertarians" when their views are vastly different from the Libertarian philosophy. I'm a conservative Republican, and even though I don't care for Ron Paul's views on a lot of issues I have to admit that those views are consistent with what I would consider a Libertarian (and if he was the Republican candidate I would vote for him over Obama). I think the writer of this article is confused as to what he is, he sounds more like a Liberal to me, so I think we can define him as a "Liberaltarian"