Category: Government

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SDG here (not Jimmy).

In previous posts, I’ve argued that, on the basis of what Catholic moral teaching understands as fundamental moral principles, the Obama–Biden ticket is far and away the more problematic of the two major-party candidacies, and the McCain–Palin ticket is far and away the less problematic of the two.

I would like to be able to leave the point there. Unfortunately, it has become necessary to make a defense for pro-life Catholics and others who agree with the above assessment — who, whatever objections, misgivings and reservations they may have about McCain–Palin, regard McCain–Palin as less problematic than Obama–Biden, who would prefer a McCain–Palin victory to an Obama–Biden victory — supporting and voting for McCain–Palin.

I don’t mean a defense of the thesis that such voters must vote for McCain–Palin. I mean a defense of the thesis that they may do so.

On first blush, this would seem to be too intuitive and obvious to need defending. Of course you vote for the candidate you hope to see win — what else?

As is often the case with intuitive insights, the reality turns out to be more complicated when you stop and think about it, with some conceptual speed bumps along the way. At the same time, also as is often the case, the intuitive insight is basically on the money. To support and vote for the candidate you hope to see win — or, as I’ve put it in previous posts, for the candidate you regard as the least problematic viable candidate — is always morally licit.

However, as I noted in my first post, some serious and thoughtful Catholics, including my friend Mark Shea and his sometime co-belligerent Zippy Catholic, have suggested or argued that McCain’s support of embryonic stem-cell research makes it objectively wrong for any Catholic to vote for him as well as Obama — even though Obama  supports ESCR as well as abortion, euthanasia and other intrinsically evil policies. (Added: Zippy has taken exception to my original characterization of his views, arguing that "in circumstances like ours there is no proportionate reason to vote for a presidential candidate who supports and promotes a policy of murdering the innocent." Mark seems at times to have proposed a similar view regarding voting for a candidate who supports any intrinsically evil policy.) Thus, on such a view, Catholics who support and vote for either major-party ticket, whatever their sincerity or their culpability may be, are engaged in objectively wrong behavior.

Among other things, it has been argued that voting for a candidate who supports objective evil as the lesser of two evils normalizes that level of evil as "the new normal." It has also been argued that voting for a candidate who supports objective evil involves remote material cooperation in evil, which requires a proportionate reason to be justifiable. But no one vote has any effect at all on the outcome of an election, the argument goes, so there is no proportionate reason.

The only moral alternatives, on this view, would seem to be (a) voting for some third-party candidate, however quixotic or hopeless, or (b) not voting at all. Mark and Zippy have thus become outspoken advocates of voting for a quixotic third-party candidate, strongly resisting any attempt, not only to encourage or pressure other Catholics to vote for McCain, but even to justify a Catholic vote for McCain.

Many Catholics and others who feel strongly about defeating Obama and wish to vote for the one ticket that could conceivably beat him have become unsettled by such claims, and are concerned that they cannot support or vote for McCain–Palin without betraying their faith. A growing number of Catholic voters, many apparently swayed by this scrupulous line of thinking, are joining Mark and Zippy in advocating quixotic candidates such as Chuck Baldwin (who, while he advocates no intrinsically evil policies, seems to be a bit of a kook) and Joe Schriner (a journalist and activist who seems to have some good ideas).

To the extent that quixotic-vote advocates may feel that the most prudent and productive course is to register dissent from all forms of intrinsically immoral policy by voting for a third-party candidate, they are within the bounds of legitimate prudential judgment.

However, to the extent that quixotic-vote advocates have been influenced by concerns over the alleged unjustifiability of voting for any candidate who supports any intrinsically immoral policy, even when the only other viable candidate is far worse, they have been led astray. Such concern is, I submit, unnecessary, unfounded and deeply unfortunate. Catholic moral theology does not
support the scrupulous conclusion that one cannot support or vote for
the candidate one regards as the least problematic viable candidate
unless that candidate is free of all support for intrinsically evil
policies.

To the extent that some quixotic-vote advocates have led others to believe that a vote for any candidate who supports any intrinsically immoral policy is objectively wrong, even when the only other viable candidate is far worse, I’m afraid that, with the best of intentions, they have done those others, and their country, a real disservice. By taking to public fora like blogs to actively influence Catholics in significant numbers to believe that they cannot vote for McCain in good conscience, it is in principle not impossible that quixotic-candidate advocates could help peel away critical support from McCain in battleground states, thereby indirectly contributing to an Obama victory. Morally speaking, this is not the same as actually supporting or voting for Obama, but the outcome for the common good of the country is no better for that.

In this and following posts I hope to contribute some needed clarity to the subject. Can informed and serious Catholics legitimately vote in good conscience for McCain–Palin in an effort to defeat the most pro-abortion major-party candidate in history? In a word: Yes. We. Can!

First, a brief summary of the argument.

1. The outcome of any election has implications for the common good. In any election that offers more than one possible outcome, different outcomes will have differing implications for the common good, almost always including both positive and negative implications for any outcome. (In American presidential politics, once the primaries are over, the campaign underway and the VP choices announced, the number of possible outcomes is in a basic sense no more than two, and strictly limited to the major-party tickets. Note that we are concerned here with possible outcomes, not theoretical scenarios.) 

2. Comparing and contrasting the implications for the common good of possible outcomes may be complex and uncertain, but it will often be possible for individual voters to arrive at prudential judgments regarding how positively or negatively they believe any possible outcome is likely to impact the common good, and thus to arrive at a preferential ranking of possible outcomes — or, in other words, a preferential ranking of viable candidates. This doesn’t necessarily mean liking or approving of any of the possible outcomes in any general way, only not regarding possible outcomes as equally desirable or undesirable. (In American presidential politics, this will almost invariably mean regarding one of the two major-party candidates as preferrable to, or less problematic than, the other.)

3. In any election that offers more than one possible outcome, opinions among the electorate will differ widely, not only regarding the preferability of one candidate or another, but also the reasoning and the criteria for arriving at such judgments, even among those who agree on a particular candidate. (This is emphatically the case with our sharply divided American electorate.) There may in fact be no one policy, priority or factor that unites all who prefer a particular candidate, other than their common preference for their candidate over the major-party rival.

4. Preferring one possible outcome to any others — regarding one viable candidate as preferable to or less problematic than any other viable candidates — seems to more or less entail hoping (or regarding it as in the interest of the common good) that the preferred possible outcome occurs, that the less problematic viable candidate wins. This in turn seems to more or less entail hoping that potential voters who share our preference for one viable candidate over any other(s) in fact vote for him in greater numbers than potential voters who feel otherwise will vote for his rival (on a state-by-state basis, in enough states to give him an electoral college victory). In other words, we believe that best possible outcome of the election as regards the common good depends on voters like us, voters who share our assessment of the candidates, voting for our preferred viable candidate, by a critical margin.

5. What we wish to see other voters like ourselves do for the sake of the common good, we bear some responsibility or obligation to do ourselves. If we believe the common good is best served by voters like ourselves voting a certain way, that is how we ought to vote. How much responsibility we have in this regard may vary with circumstances (such as which state we live in), and other courses may sometimes be justifiable, including in some cases voting quixotic, which may also serve the public good in various ways. However, the benefit for the public good of voters voting in numbers for the least problematic viable candidate is never nonexistent (and always proportionate to the cooperation in evil), so the obligation to vote for the candidate we regard as the least problematic viable candidate is never nonexistent. And what we are in any degree obliged to do is always permissible to do.

That’s the short version. My next post will start to explore the argument in depth.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

SDG here (not Jimmy).

John McCain supports embryonic stem-cell research.

Although his support appears to be somewhat qualified and conflicted, and there are signs that he may be moving away from supporting ESCR, his history of consistent support for an intrinsic evil remains a grave concern in his candidacy.

No, I won’t paper it over with a euphemism. In my last post I argued that "A candidate who advocates legalized abortion, euthanasia, ESCR or human cloning gravely disqualifies himself for public service, not just for what he or she may do but for what he or she stands for." By that standard, McCain gravely disqualifies himself for public service on at least one of those four counts.

That Obama gravely disqualifies himself on all four of those four counts certainly makes McCain the less problematic and thus preferable candidate. In my next post I hope to deal with the ethics of voting for the least problematic viable candidate, which is, I contend, always permissible. For now, I want to focus a bit more on potential consequences of a McCain–Palin administration vs. an Obama–Biden administration.

As I’ve said, I’m deeply skeptical of all four candidates, and uneasy about all possible outcomes. I have no strong feelings regarding which side is better equipped to lead on the economy, health care and other crucial issues.

I do suspect that McCain is better equipped than Obama to lead on foreign policy. That’s not necessarily what they’re calling a game-changer, though, since (a) I could be wrong (I am a political knucklehead) and (b) it is not wildly unlikely that McCain’s health could impair his ability to serve.

McCain’s temperament is a legitimate subject of concern. His penchant for fast and risky decisions can make him look decisive and knowledgeable and bold, as when he responded to the conflict in Chechnya; but it can also lead to mistakes.

Obama is clearly smart. Any questions I had on that front were settled on Friday night. He’s also articulate and charismatic, a combination we haven’t seen in a presidential race since Clinton, and before that since Reagan. (In terms of articulateness and charisma, I mean; I’m not putting Reagan in Clinton’s or Obama’s league intellectually.)

Obama is also inexperienced. I suspect that’s not as big a deal as some might think. It may be embarrassing for a candidate to suggest that Iraq is not a serious threat, or that Chavez came to power during the Bush administration rather than the Clinton administration, or that unconditional presidential-level meetings with rogue dictators is a good idea; but hey, your advisors clue you in and you move on. I’m sure Palin would be making some of these gaffes if she were on the grid as much as Obama. The "It’s all about judgment" line is neither the whole truth nor completely wrong.

Here is something that is a game-changer for me.

Among serious concerns in our society today are power grabs by different elements within government. Several concerns in this regard have been raised in recent years regarding the executive branch, most recently in connection with the bailout effort.

Arguably the most sustained, influential and successful power grabs in recent U.S. history, as far as I can tell, is that of the judiciary.

The judicial system seems to me to concentrate a great deal of power, particularly at the top, in the hands of a small number of people who are unelected and unaccountable, who can hold their positions essentially for life and whose decisions have far more lasting impact than that of many public officials. Subsequent justices are expected, on principle, to respect previous verdicts in a way that other officials are not. There is no stare decisis for presidential executive orders, for instance.

As far as I know, recourse for abuses of power at this level, or for addressing flaws in the system in any way, are dauntingly remote. Practically speaking, about the only readily available course of action I know of is to promote judicial self-restraint over judicial activism by nominating candidates who espouse judicial restraint, i.e., originalism or strict constructionism. This is a very limited and problematic approach, but I don’t see that there is any other immediately available option.

So much is this the case that a president’s Supreme Court nominations may well be his most far-reaching act in office. What did Gerald Ford do in office that had rivaled the long-term impact of nominating John Paul Stevens?

The issue is especially crucial because the judiciary has been instrumental in subverting both the judicial and the democratic process in imposing the fiction of an anti-life "right to choose." Other grave evils highly damaging to society, such as same-sex "marriage," are highly likely to be imposed by judicial fiat given a judiciary with sufficient political will and lack of self-restraint.

In general, left-leaning Democratic presidents reliably nominate candidates for the Supreme Court who are reliably evil–activist. The record of right-leaning Republican presidents and the nominees thereof is, unfortunately, more mixed. We do seem to have gone three for three now, and the one before that was a seemingly unavoidable wild card. There almost seems to be a kind of corrupting influence inside the Beltway that sucks justices to the dark side. We can only do what we can do.

McCain has taken a lot of flak from conservatives for his leading role in the "Gang of 14." This is a complex issue and I’m not sure what I think about it. I’m not sure nuking the filibuster would have been the best outcome. And it does seem that some of Bush’s lower-court nominees can reasonably be accused of conservative activism no less blatant than that of many liberal activist judges.

I oppose judicial activism in principle, not just based on of how it is used. I don’t want activist conservative judges any more than activist liberal ones. I want judges who know their job description, who stick to interpreting the law and leave emanations and penumbras to the psychic readers. Give me nine liberal Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and so on, but who also know how to read the words on the page, and who believe that these rights should be advanced by the legislative and democratic process rather than by judicial fiat, and I’ll be happy.

Certainly McCain says just exactly the right things about what kind of justices he likes and what kind of nominees he would put forward. Better still, I think McCain probably gets the principle of judicial restraint vs. activism better than Bush, who I think was more likely to go on personal trust rather than qualifications (Harriet Myers anyone?).

So I find this comparatively reassuring, though it’s impossible to be entirely reassured. Knowing how much McCain loves to reach across the aisle, etc., who knows what the heck he’ll actually do in office? And that’s prescinding from the potential disparity between how candidates may say they’ll judge and what they actually do on the bench.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no doubts what kind of candidates Obama will put forward, and get, and what kind of verdicts we will get from them.

This is the single most important issue that I think can be most confidently held in advance to represent a clear difference in outcomes based on who wins the election. It is a decisive issue for me, if not the decisive issue. I don’t quite want to reduce it to "It’s The Supreme Court, Stupid," but that wouldn’t be wholly wrong either. At any rate, along with the substantial differences between the candidates on the life issues, it is a decisive reason for rejecting Obama and for regarding McCain as preferable candidate.

But what about the claim that we can’t or shouldn’t support a candidate who supports any intrinsic evil, even if the other candidate is worse on every fundamental issue? That will be the subject of my next post.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

SDG here (not Jimmy).

In my previous post I said "There are good reasons not to be thrilled with either of the two major candidates." I want to reiterate that. I don’t see the election this year as a holy crusade of Good Guys Against Bad Guys.

Specifically, I don’t see any Good Guys in this race, or even among the also-rans of the primaries. I’m skeptical of all the candidates — and of the judgment of anyone who isn’t. At this point, I believe any sensible person ought to be profoundly uneasy about all possible outcomes. I don’t begin to understand the much-mocked quasi-messianic euphoria on the one side, and on the other side, despite some energizing of the base after the VP pick, there is still plenty of room for misgivings.

The story of the hour, of course, is the historic financial crisis and the federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie. Fingers are pointing in all directions. Proposed narratives that lay all the blame on a single doorstep — the Administration or the GOP generally, the Congress or the Dems generally, Wall Street — strike me as dubious. Narratives that blame the abuse of money and power by all of the above, not necessarily in equal degree, seem much more plausible. I won’t muddy the waters with whatever ignorant notions I might have about how much guilt to assign where.

More to the point, it seems likely to me that there is no persuasive sense that either ticket necessarily represents the obviously right team to deal with the crisis. Any effort to cast the financial crisis as an obviously compelling reason to vote one way or the other would seem to suggest either extraordinary insight or else conjectural special pleading. Until I have reason to believe otherwise, my money (whatever that turns out to be worth next week) will be on the latter.

There are undoubtedly serious issues to be explored (and obfuscated) here. How much power does the executive branch actually need here? How much will they get? How may it be used or misused? How badly and unnecessarily may taxpayers be shafted, and what if anything can or will be done to minimize this? How egregiously have the rich and powerful abused their influence to their own advantage over the years, and what if anything can or will be done about that?

These are complex questions, and Catholic teaching, rooted in divine revelation, emphasizes that the enormity of the perennial abuse of the poor by the rich. There is also a long, sad track record suggesting that the practical answers are unlikely to approximate justice to any great extent. Rail against this by all means. Just don’t suppose that either ticket represents the white hats here to save us.

Other important problems loom. Ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq pose serious issues. Was it right to go to Iraq in the first place? How much unnecessary harm has been caused by bad or wrong decisions, including treatment of prisoners? What is the best course of action now? What approach to health care is best? How can we best care for the environment? What about other conflicts and crises around the globe? What about energy? And so on, and on.

With all these legitimate and pressing concerns, it may be understandable that some may look with fatigue at seemingly long-unchanging battle lines between well-entrenched sides in an issue like abortion, where too often candidates and politicians have offered lip service rather than leadership, and conclude that, in the absence of real hope for change on this subject, the political contest ought to be about other things.

After all — the style of thinking goes — has any pro-life candidate of either party at any level of government ever made enough of a difference on abortion to warrant hope that the outcome of this election might matter too? In this presidential election, how much will it really matter with regard to the unborn which party takes the White House? What about the argument of Catholics like Douglas Kmiec and Morning’s Minion who suggest that Obama’s overall agenda is either unlikely to affect abortion numbers, or might even help reduce abortion rates more than any pro-life action from McCain?

This style of thinking is understandable. It is also, I submit, fundamentally flawed and contrary to authentic Catholic principles.

Let’s review some basic considerations.

Continue reading “Elections, Part 2: Against Obama advocacy”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

SDG here (not Jimmy).

In this election season, questions about voting and morality are naturally under discussion in the Catholic blogosphere and the larger Catholic world. At times the range of possible answers being proposed and discussed has included some dubious opinions and claims.

There are good reasons not to be thrilled with either of the two major candidates, and it's not surprising that some thoughtful and serious Catholics and others may choose not to vote at all, or to vote for some quixotic third-party candidate as a form of protest against the major candidates.

More surprisingly, some serious Catholics have seemed at times to incline toward the view that, although one of the two major candidates is far less problematic than the other, even the less problematic candidate is still problematic enough to make supporting or voting for either of the two major candidates not only not obligatory, but actually objectively wrong. Rarefied theories regarding the purpose and moral significance of voting have been floated that seem hard to reconcile with Catholic teaching.

Even more surprisingly, some serious Catholics have actually gone so far as to argue that the preferable candidate is one whose agenda is about as radically opposed as it is possible to be to Catholic teaching on fundamental moral issues (including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, therapeutic cloning and same-sex marriage) rather than his opponent whose views are much more convergent with Catholic teaching on most, if not all, of those issues. (More on this later.)

This last view has become most widely associated with Douglas Kmiec, Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law and former Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Catholic University's law school. After working with fellow Catholic scholar Mary Ann Glendon on Mitt Romney's presidential bid, Kmiec stunned American Catholics by endorsing Barack Obama for president.

While acknowledging that McCain's opposition to abortion is consonant with Catholic teaching while Obama's abortion advocacy is contrary to it, Kmiec seems to feel that the social and economic benefits of Obama's overall agenda could actually help reduce the incidence of abortion more effectively than any anti-abortion actions McCain is likely to undertake. Similar views have been taken by, among others, the anonymous Catholic blogger Morning's Minion at the Vox Nova group blog and Eastern Orthodox convert Frank Shaeffer.

Kmiec also challenges McCain's pro-life credentials by citing McCain's failure to oppose the death penalty. (Perhaps oddly, I have not seen Kmiec mention the more crucial issue of McCain's failure to oppose embryonic stem-cell research. Surely Kmiec knows that Catholic teaching permits a diversity of opinion on the death penalty, but not on embryo-destructive programs.)

Kmiec's arguments for Catholic Obama advocacy have been roundly rejected by prominent Catholic commentators. At times, unfortunately, resistance to Kmiec's views has been taken to extremes: On one occasion a priest wrongly refused Kmiec communion because of his Obama advocacy, a canonically unjustifiable move.

The Church has penalties for procuring an abortion (automatic excommunication), and there seems to be a growing consensus among the bishops that Catholic politicians who actually support legalized abortion should not receive communion. (Strong arguments have been mounted that, following Canon 915, politicians who obstinately persist in manifestly supporting legalized abortion should be denied communion, though consensus on this point among the bishops has been slow in coming.)

However, when it comes to citizens supporting or voting for politicians who support intrinsically evil policies like abortion, Church teaching acknowledges that this can be morally justifiable if two conditions are met. First, one must support the politician in spite of his evil policies and not because of them. Second, there must be proportionately grave reasons outweighing the evil policies (again, more on this later). The question whether such morally proportionate reasons exist in any particular case, like the question whether a particular war is just, is not a matter of binding teaching, but of a permissible diversity of opinion.

This doesn't mean, of course, that all opinions are equally good, or all arguments equally plausible. I agree with those who find Kmiec's reasoning and his Obama advocacy indefensible. But people may hold indefensible views, and engage in indefensible acts, in good faith. Church teaching provides clear lines that cannot be crossed without cutting oneself off from communion. Mere advocacy for particular politicians, even with very problematic views, is not such a line. Although Obama advocacy is (in my judgment) objectively wrong, it is wrong extrinsically, not intrinsically. (For example, Obama advocacy would obviously be morally defensible if, say, Obama were running against Hitler.) But good Catholics can disagree in good faith — though again, not always with equal plausibility — about what is or is not extrinsically wrong.

Among those rightly dismissing Kmiec's arguments is my long-time friend, Catholic writer and blogger Mark P. Shea. Mark is strongly critical of both major candidates, but he clearly sees — as most informed and non-dissenting Catholics see and as even most reasonably fair-minded observers can see — that anyone giving priority to fundamental Catholic moral concerns must regard Obama as far and away the more problematic candidate.

At the same time, Mark is, entirely legitimately, no fan of McCain. I've always had significant reservations about McCain myself, and in a recent blog post I discussed why I might not vote for him, particularly if he chose a pro-choice running mate. (He didn't, of course, and his choice potentially addresses some concerns while arguably raising others; I'll be posting more on this soon.) I am thus sympathetic to Mark's choice not to vote for either of the two major candidates, but to register a protest vote for a quixotic impossible candidate instead.

Where I think Mark goes wrong is in leaning toward the view that not voting for either of the two major candidates is not only a morally legitimate option, or even a morally preferable option, but the only morally viable option. Although he argues, far more credibly than Kmiec, that McCain is the less problematic candidate, Mark seems at times to feel that McCain is still problematic enough that McCain advocacy is also objectively wrong. This view has been maintained and defended even more assiduously (and problematically IMO) by Mark's co-belligerent, anonymous blogger Zippy Catholic.

Some caveats here are necessary. In leaning toward such views, Mark naturally means to express an opinion, not a definitive fact. It is an opinion about objective right and wrong, but still an opinion, and Mark would certainly acknowledge that it is an area of permissible dispute, and in principle he could be wrong. Second, I take it for granted that Mark makes no judgment about the culpability of McCain advocates, any more than either he or I judges Kmiec's culpability for his Obama advocacy. Third, Mark clearly doesn't put McCain advocacy on a par with Obama advocacy, either regarding plausibility or degree of evil. Still, it does seem that Mark feels or has felt that there are two unequal but objectively wrong choices — voting for either of the two major candidates — and only one morally legitimate course, not voting for either one.

I find this position untenable. In any contest between two or more viable candidates, I submit that it is always morally legitimate to support and vote for the candidate one regards as the preferable — or least problematic — viable candidate. (By "viable candidate" I mean of course "candidate with a realistic chance of winning.")

In fact, not only is it always morally legitimate, by default supporting and voting for the preferable or least problematic viable candidate should be the usual, preferred course of action. Other courses of action should be comparatively extraordinary, though in particular circumstances it may reasonably be judged preferable or more prudent to take another course.

For example, there may be legitimate reasons in a particular contest for considering it preferable (though not morally necessary) not to vote at all, or to vote for an admittedly nonviable, quixotic candidate as a form of protest. However, one can never rightly claim that it is morally necessary not to vote for any viable candidate, or that those who do support or vote for the least problematic viable candidate are (however sincerely) objectively wrong to do so.

Again, in a three-way contest, one may regard all three candidates as somewhat viable, but may still credibly choose not to vote for the least problematic viable candidate, if one feels that the second–least problematic candidate is more viable and thus has a better chance of defeating the most problematic candidate. Others may feel, also credibly, that the least problematic viable candidate is still worth supporting, even if he is a long shot.

Such decisions can be very difficult, because if opposition to the candidate viewed as most problematic is split among two challengers, the candidate viewed as most problematic by most people may eke out a victory. Whether this works out for the best or the worst, or to the advantage of one party or another, may vary with circumstances. From a democratic point of view, it is probably an unfortunate outcome, but for better or worse it is the nature of our current one-person, one-vote system. Whether another system would be better is a question for another time.

Another good question for another time concerns the nature of the system that yields the particular viable candidates we get. However that may be, once it becomes clear that one or another of a very small pool of people will in fact win the election, my thesis is that it is always morally legitimate to support and vote for the candidate one regards as the preferable or least problematic viable candidate.

In upcoming posts, I'll try to make the case for this thesis and answer objections to it. I will also discuss the particulars of fundamental moral principles and Catholic teaching in connection with the two candidates, and why I think McCain is the least problematic viable candidate.

For some, if I can make this case persuasively, this may be good news. Many, like Mark, may feel conflicted, opposing Obama but feeling unable to vote for the only viable alternative. Mark has said to me that he's not voting for McCain because he feels he can't; if he felt he could vote for McCain, he would do so. I want to make the case that, in fact, he can if he wants to — and so can others.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

SDG here (not Jimmy).

This weekend John McCain and Barack Obama were each interviewed by that Purpose Driven Life guy.

I watched about ninety seconds of Obama before I had to read to my kids, and later I watched, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes of McCain before getting involved in something else.

At any rate, I saw enough of McCain to cheer his straight response on when life should be protected ("At the moment of conception") and his citation of his 25-year pro-life record — and again when he responded equally bluntly about Supreme Court nominees, an issue McCain himself explicitly connected to the abortion issue.

On that last point, asked which Supreme Court justices he wouldn’t have nominated, McCain named ("with all due respect") all four bad guys, and went on to emphasize the President’s responsibility to nominate justices committed to sticking to the Constitution rather than "legislating from the bench," a phrase he used twice in describing "some of the worst damage" done by justices.

He couldn’t have given a much better answer than that. And with Supreme Court nominations in the very top echelon of my concerns in this election — and my complete confidence in Obama’s ability and commitment to put forward nominees every bit as activist/evil as the likely retirees, if not more so — that’s something I really needed to hear from him.

So why — how — is McCain teetering on losing my vote?

Because he’s been sending signals that he may pick a pro-choice running mate.

If he does that, I absolutely will not vote for him. Period. I can understand others feeling differently, but that’s how I see it.

Why?

(First, a BIG RED DISCLAIMER: This post represents my thoughts, not Jimmy’s. I don’t know how Jimmy will be voting or how this issue will affect his vote.)

My feeling is that I’d rather see the GOP go down in flames, even if that means President Obama for four or even eight years, and let the GOP try to get it right next time. I’d rather throw away my vote on some hopeless third pro-life candidate, so that when the GOP leadership and party advisers wake up the morning after the election and sees the margin they lost by, and then look at the votes sucked away by that third-party spoiler, they’ll be more likely next time to do what’s necessary to get that margin back. (It’s still important to vote, even for a guy who can’t win, so that the party can see the votes they didn’t get, and understand why.)

If McCain is elected President, his vice president will be well positioned to succeed him as the party’s next presidential candidate (which could easily happen only four years from now). This time around we fended off a White House bid from pro-choice Rudy Giuliani, but Giuliani made tactical mistakes, and for awhile he looked like a credible contender. Anyway, Giuliani was only America’s Mayor. Vice-President Ridge could be a much tougher nut to crack.

If McCain picks a pro-choice running mate, his 25-year pro-life doesn’t mean squat: He’s not committed to the pro-life cause. If he’s going to position a pro-choice Republican for a White House run, he’s setting up the GOP to degrade its pro-life stance from merely nominal to strictly optional. Every president, especially every successful president, leaves his stamp on the party for years after he leaves office. The Democratic Party is still very substantially what Clinton made it, and the Bush 41/43 influence will continue to be felt in the GOP for years to come.

There are a lot of things I’m not happy about in the GOP. There are a few key issues — this is one, though not the only one — that have kept me voting GOP most of the time for most of my life. I can’t cast a vote that may eventually result in a pro-choice presidential GOP ticket.

Now, maybe McCain is just making noises about being undecided because he’s trying to win "undecided" voters by appearing moderate and creating the impression that he doesn’t have a pro-life litmus test. Maybe he’s going to pick a pro-life running mate after all, but wants it to seem that, whoever it ultimately is, he sort of happens to be pro-life, rather than making it clear that he’s excluding pro-choice possibilities from the outset.

If so, it’s a bad strategy. McCain isn’t going to beat Obama by rushing to the middle. He needs to shore up his base. If McCain or the GOP thinks that the base is so frightened of Obama that they’ll vote for him no matter what, he’s sadly mistaken.

A California  state appellate court judge has said "Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.".

We don’t need it, you idiot. We have a natural right to home school our children. We hold this truth to be self-evident. the Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights is not anything like an exhaustive list of the rights of individuals, but is meant as a modest hedge against oppressive government encroachment like the nonsense you are trying to pull. You can’t expect the founding fathers to list everything that people have a right to do.

I want to join Mark Shea in encouraging active resistance to this ruling… street protests, walk-outs by public school families who support the home schoolers, bake sales… what have you.

Here is Governor Schwarzenegger’s web page, through which you may e-mail him. Below is traditional contact information. Tell him what you think, but be more respectful than I am in this post. Heh.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
                        State Capitol Building
                        Sacramento, CA 95814
                          Phone: 916-445-2841
                        Fax: 916-558-3160 ( new number )

In Italy, where they are still trying to elect a president, votes have been cast for a rock singer, the daughter of Italy’s last king, and for St. Pio of Pietrelcina who is better known as Padre Pio.

"With no hope of immediately electing a president, lawmakers have been throwing away votes for the past two days while party leaders negotiate a consensus candidate. A secret ballot has allowed them to get creative.

"For one elector, the political deadlock offered a rare chance to vote for Padre Pio, a 20th century mystic monk who had the stigmata — bleeding wounds in the hands and feet similar to those of Christ — and was made a saint in 2002.

"The speaker of Italy’s lower house of parliament immediately annulled the ballot paper. Padre Pio died in 1968."

GET THE STORY.

Italy’s current scramble for a president kind of reminds me of California’s 2003 recall election, in which candidates included everyone from former child star Gary Coleman ("Diff’rent Strokes") to porn pusher Larry Flynt (Hustler) to the eventual winner, muscleman turned movie star turned Kennedy kin Arnold Schwarzenegger. The only difference is that the votes in the California election were not a joke but all too real.

BIG RED DISCLAIMER: What’s mine is mine. The blog belongs to Jimmy, of course, but the opinions in my posts on JimmyAkin.org belong to me, Michelle Arnold. Not to Jimmy Akin, not to Catholic Answers, but to me. (Even though JA.org has been a group blog for some time now, there is still some confusion on this point, so it bears repeating, especially in a post like this one.)

Today is Election Day in California, which means that I am willing to use the occasion to answer a reader’s question, one I would ordinarily have ignored as it was phrased in a rather snarky manner and was placed in the combox of a a post that had nothing to do with the subject. Here was the dialogue:

Reader: "You’re not a red stater, Michelle. You’re a wannabe at best."

Michelle: [Flippantly] "Very true…. I’m a native Californian who wants her blue state to be red."

Reader: "Okay, so exactly which issues are you ‘red’ on? By the way, Mark Shea is right about everything political, and he says he hasn’t found a political home.

[Less than 24 hours later, previous paragraph repeated and this comment appended] "Michelle is afraid to respond."

I cannot speak for Mark Shea, although I imagine that he would appreciate the vote of confidence for his political views.

As for my political views, that is something that I can speak about.

On social issues I am solidly red state (e.g., abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, homosexual marriage). Because of the preeminent importance of these issues, I place them over and above other issues such as the economy, the environment, the war, etc. My first concern is the life issues and I will do my best to vote for the candidate or proposition that best furthers the cause of life. Failing that, I will do my best to vote for the candidate or proposition that does the least damage to the cause of life.

On the secondary issues, I am more blue state. For example, I plan to vote today to thwart Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s "reform initiatives," apparently so-called because they mask what I believe to be a power grab. At the same time, I will be voting an emphatic "Yes!" on Proposition 73, a California state initiative that seeks to require parental notification of the planned abortion for a minor.

I don’t know whether or not Mark Shea has found a "political home" — I haven’t read what he may or may not have said on the issue — but I do know that I don’t have such a "political home," if by such is meant a political party affiliation. Since I turned 18 some fifteen years ago, I have not been a Republican, a Democrat, or a member of a non-influential Third Party. I am a non-affiliated registered voter, and plan for the foreseeable future to remain that way.

BIG RED DISCLAIMER: What’s mine is mine. The blog belongs to Jimmy, of course, but the opinions in my posts on JimmyAkin.org belong to me, Michelle Arnold. Not to Jimmy Akin, not to Catholic Answers, but to me. (Even though JA.org has been a group blog for some time now, there is still some confusion on this point, so it bears repeating, especially in a post like this one.)

It’s 1860 all over again … if Cory Burnell and his group Christian Exodus have anything to say about it. You’ve heard Revelation 18:4 ("Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins") used in reference to the Catholic Church, right? Mr. Burnell’s group has identified a different woman who should be abandoned.

The United States.

"Cory Burnell wants to set up a Christian nation within the United States where abortion is illegal, gay marriage is banned, schools cannot teach evolution, children can pray to Jesus in public schools and the Ten Commandments are posted publicly.

"To that end, Burnell, 29, left the Republican Party, moved from California and founded Christian Exodus two years ago with the goal of redirecting the United States by ‘redeeming’ one state at a time.

"First up for redemption is South Carolina.

"Burnell hopes to move 2,500 Christians into the northern part of the state by next year and to persuade tens of thousands to relocate by 2016. His goal is to fill the state legislature with ‘Christian constitutionalists.’

[…]

"Burnell picked South Carolina partly for its Christian majority and conservative politics.

"’Historically, Southerners do have a states’ rights mentality,’ he said. ‘Christians in the North are experiencing the most liberalism, or you could say persecution.’"

GET THE STORY.

Uh huh.

One of these days I’m going to write that essay I’ve been thinking about on the evangelistic value of silence. One of the major points of that essay will be to discuss how credibility can be destroyed when someone makes public an "outside-the-box" pet brainstorm that, as they say on "Saturday Night Live," is not yet ready for primetime.

 

(Click to enlarge.)

My state-of-residence (California) got a C-, tied for worst in the nation!

YEE-HAW!!!

More a-that good ol’ Californazi governmental inefficiency!

It gets even better when you break it down by the categories that are averaged to get the overall figure:

• California’s ability to manage it’s money? A BIG, FAT D! (Shoulda been a F!)
• California’s ability to manage its state employees? C-.
• California’s infrastructure? C. (Yeah, okay. CalTrans does keep the roads in good order compared to other states. Hear me, Pennsylvania? Yeah, New Jersey, I see you hanging your head in shame.)
• California’s use of information? C. (They have poor strategic planning, but what info there is can be easily downloaded by a citizen from the Internet.)

It all adds up to a C-, and that’s being generous to my mind.

Take that, California!

These grades, incidentally, are produced by some folks who call themselves the Government Performance Project. I don’t know much about them, but as long as they’re pointing out the problems with California’s state government, they gotta be on the side of the angels.

FIND OUT YOUR STATE’S RANKINGS.

(Cowboy hat tip: Southern Appeal.)