Content provided in partnership with
None of the above: why I won't be voting for president
Christian Century, Sept 21, 2004 by Mark A. Noll
AS HAS BEEN the case for the past few presidential elections, on Election Day I will almost certainly east my vote once again for none of the above. Here is why:
Seven issues seem to me to be paramount at the national level: race, the value of life, taxes, trade, medicine, religious freedom and the international rule of law. In my mind, each of these issues has a strong moral dimension. My position on each is related to how I understand the traditional Christian faith that grounds my existence. Yet neither of the major parties is making a serious effort to consider this particular combination of concerns or even anything remotely resembling it.
- Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »
In searching for a party that is working for something close to my convictions, I am not necessarily looking for a platform supported by overtly expressed religious beliefs. It would be enough to find candidates promoting such positions by reference to broad social goals and general patterns of American democratic tradition. In fact, because each of these issues is of vital national concern for people of all faiths (and none), I am eager to find public voices willing to defend convictions similar to my own in generic social terms rather than with specifically religious arguments.
My disillusionment with the major parties and their candidates comes from the fact that I do not see them willing to consider the political coherence of this combination of convictions or willing to reason about why their positions should be accepted--much less willing to break away from narrow partisanship to act for the public good. Broad principles and particular interests have never in the history of the republic been more confusedly mixed than they are today. Sketching reasons for my political convictions will make my electoral dilemma clear.
Regarding race: From 1619, when the first African indentured servants were offloaded in the American colonies, until the 1960s, American political institutions wavered in deciding whether African Americans could be full and equal citizens of a democratic nation. A general principle of American democracy demands that members of every race and ethnic group be treated equally before the law, but a general fact of history demands that sustained, accumulated wrongs must be addressed by sustained, ongoing remediation. The most chilling words ever spoken about the fruits of American inequality were part of the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln in March 1865: "Yet if God wills that it [the Civil War] continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousands years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."'
Shortly after Lincoln made this speech, the Civil War did come to all end. Yet the "scourge," the "offense," of race-defined social inequality did not end until much later, if in fact it has actually come to an end. The U.S. pays a heavy price, and it pays it daily, for its history of injustice to African-American citizens. African Americans who wait for redress, who do not take into their own hands the challenge of shaping their own future, compound this larger difficulty. But full attention to the racially infested plight of impacted urban areas--a Marshall Plan in some shape or form--is certainly the least that could be asked of the major political parties as recompense for America's longest lasting and most debilitating political crime.
Regarding life: I am militantly prolife because I do not want the U.S. to commit the social suicide that results when nations allow personal preference to trump human life. Through the long course of the ages, a personal preference to disregard life has been mostly exercised by male authority at the top of society. Today it is exercised by different actors because of the spread of egalitarian values. But whether exercised from above or below, personal preference is mortally dangerous if it operates without reasonable restraint. Assumptions that are nearly universal in human history testify that, without compelling reasons to the contrary, life should be favored over death.
To be sure, free societies need to defend the prerogatives of citizens to decide whether to bring life into existence or not. And free societies, especially those that claim to bold life as a supreme value, should offer all possible support to the mothers who bring new life into the world and to the intact families that young lives so desperately need in order to become useful, productive citizens. In addition, since prenatal life is closely bound up with maternal life, it is necessary to legislate with nuance and sensitivity when acting to preserve life. All necessary qualifications having been made, however, it is imperative for nations that want to promote liberty and justice for 'all to stand behind the principle of life and against any effort, however well intentioned, to compromise that fundamental principle.
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Home & Garden
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »