Matthew 18:3
October 26, 2012 § 7 Comments
Little Johnny: “Mr. Zippy, why aren’t you voting for President?”
Z: “Because both choices are very bad, so I refuse to personally support either one.”
LJ: “But Mr. Pontius says that Romney is better than Obama. Isn’t that true?”
Z: “Yes it is true. But giving me a choice between one candidate who supports murdering the innocent versus a different candidate who supports even more murder is not acceptable to me. I reject it as a false choice.”
LJ: “Wow. That’s pretty awful. Mr. Pontius said that Romney was pro-life. I didn’t realize that he really isn’t. But Mr. Pontius says that one of them is going to win, so we have to stop Obama from getting elected.”
Z: “Well LJ, nothing that you or I or Mr. Pontius can do is going to change the outcome of the election. If we all get stranded on a desert island during the election, the outcome is going to be the same either way. I have to be responsible for my own choice of whose team I join, and I can’t support a candidate who thinks there is a right to murder the innocent in any circumstances.”
LJ: “But Mr. Zippy, if everyone did what you do aren’t we letting the bad guys win?”
Z: “No LJ, if everyone did as I do we wouldn’t be faced with a choice between two candidates who both support murdering the innocent.”
LJ: “Wow you really make sense Mr Zippy. I was feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing, but how you put it makes so much more sense than what all the people waving signs and sticking bumper stickers everywhere say. Plus you tell the truth about the candidates rather than hiding what is awful about them.”
Zippy Catholic 
LJ: “But Mr. Zippy, if everyone did what you do aren’t we letting the bad guys win?”
Z: “No LJ, if everyone did as I do we wouldn’t be faced with a choice between two candidates who both support murdering the innocent.”
First, I very much enjoyed the dialogue. LJ’s question, though, is (unintentionally – after all, he’s just a kid) loaded. Everyone will never do what you do. Just guessing, but about 3/4 of the voting public will never refuse to vote because a candidate supports murdering the innocent in certain instances. In fact, they think that someone who opposes murdering the innocent in all situations is an extremist longing for theocracy. Thus, only some of the people, a vanishing minority, will ever do what you do. As a consequence, the bad guys will always win. You need to break this to Little Johnny, but gently.
“Plus you tell the truth about the candidates rather than hiding what is awful about them.”
“And you have a kind, trustworthy manner about you. Not to mention a firm handshake and a fine head of hair. And sharp dresser? Fuggedaboudit.”
The sense of irony grows as I get the feeling that I might have to explain the meaning of the post. Children really do tend to be more objective than adults in certain respects, so some arguments that appear wildly counterintuitive to jaded adults are immediately grasped by children. That doesn’t constitute evidence that the argument is sound or correct; but it does counter the idea that the argument is some wildly inaccessible complicated esoteric thing.
More succinctly, just because certain individuals have difficulty grasping an argument and seem incapable of paraphrasing it accurately doesn’t mean it is genuinely hard to understand.
I have never before not voted in a Presidential election (and have skipped very, very few other elections either), but this year I CAN’T vote for one and I WON’T vote for the other. My vote (or absence thereof) won’t change the outcome in my state, so I’m not voting at all, and it’s traumatic for me.
Welcome to the blog, Connie.
[…] Catholic: A chad never left hanging; Conservatism, Elections, and the Kantian Chasm; Matthew 18:3; Licensed to Gripe; Reconciled to the King; Three cheers for the lesser evil!; Saint […]
[…] Your arguments are so complicated that they can’t be right. Morality is supposed to be easy … […]