I’ve been party to a couple of discussion this week on the issue of voting one’s conscience, also known as the dilemma of being stuck between “choosing the lesser of two evils” at the polls, voting for third party candidates, or even withholding one’s vote altogether when one’s own party fails to put forth a candidate worth voting for. In discussions on this topic, a good object lesson is always the presidential election of ’92, where 19% of the electorate voted for Ross Perot, essentially handing the election to Bill Clinton, who won the presidency without a majority of the votes cast. It’s a valid object lesson, pointing out the “down side” to voting based on “principle” and “conscience”. Acknowledging that I understand the implications, here’s still the way I’m starting to see it.
Yes the folks who stood on principle and voted for Perot essentially handed the presidency to Clinton in ‘92. But…after that election, their momentum continued to build. And by ‘94, voters and candidates of principle and conscience were electing the best Congress—probably—in the history of the US. We had Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, the “Contract with America”, balanced federal budgets, welfare reform, and folks like J.C. Watts and Pat Toomey in the House, and Fred Thompson in the Senate. The “saviors” of our Republic were all “citizen servants”, all of whom served “heroically”, and then returned to private life after a few years of true “public service”. Unfortunately, when they left, we were left once again with the career politician “stagnant quo” who have since brought us to the lowest point in America’s “great experiment” at “self governance” where we find ourselves today.
It’s a battle between those who stand on the side of “we the government” elitist rule, and those willing to stand up for “we the people” governance, based individual liberty and constitutional limits on government. The folks on the side of “we the people” stood up with Pat Toomey to challenge Arlen Specter six years ago, and were castigated by the “stagnant quo” of the GOP establishment. Back then they said “we the people” were risking a loss in the general election, or perhaps worse, causing campaign cash to be spilled from the GOP war chest in a primary election. The message read between the lines was, “the movers and shapers are the ‘deciders’ on who GOP general election candidates will be, not the primary voting unwashed masses”. Now, in 2010, after forfeiting two US Senate seats, losing majorities in both the state and federal legislatures, losing numerous seats in local office, and leaving debt and deficits piled high at all levels of government, the “stagnant quo” has fallen quietly in line behind “we the people”. And now they’re ready, albeit in their usual Machiavellian way, to “make nice” with the miscreants they used to disparage.
There’s always “risk” in challenging the “stagnant quo”…risk that you might lose, but lose what…an election? If you don’t challenge the “stagnant quo” who systematically and pragmatically forfeit more and more of our individual liberties for the sake of their own personal gain, advantage, and security, then we’re guaranteed to lose, not just “an election”…but “blood won” liberty itself.
To each generation of our nation, responsibility for the stewardship of liberty has been passed: responsibility to trim the lamp of liberty and replenish its reservoir, to preserve, protect, and sustain that beacon and “shining light”, and to dutifully hand it on, fully intact and glowing brightly for the next generation of Americans. My generation is the closest in US History to being the generation that stood silent, watching as the lamp was finally snuffed out. Thankfully, the spirit of liberty is still alive in the hearts of Americans. Though it may be hardly yet present in the failed Republican and Democratic parties, it is certainly and more importantly present in what we’re calling the “Tea Party” movement of the early 21st Century, a movement made up of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who still remember the tenets of Liberty and of government limited by a Constitution and its Bill of Rights—May these patriots meld into a political renaissance to become the last best, and the freshest revival, of hope for American Liberty!