Machan's Musings - Misplaced Enthusiasm or Whistling in the Dark?
by Tibor R. Machan
Over the last several weeks I have managed to experience ambivalence like I haven’t for a very long time. Given how awful the two presidential candidates looked from the viewpoint of a serious concern for individual liberty, and given the deep feelings millions of people have been harboring either for or against the two men, there seemed to me to be some reason to seriously ponder whether it might not be a good idea to cast my vote for one of them. Yet, despite such feelings, I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for either. I chose, instead, to contribute to a small protest movement. Abstention can, after all, make the point that we ought to have better candidates than these!
Now in politics one can have both reasonable and unreasonable differences of opinion. This isn’t geometry or formal logic. And when both candidates in contention are a million miles from the kind of political figure one could confidently support, it is possible to end up as I ended up, unable to support either. There can be other reasons not to select either of the major candidates, of course. There can be a good third party candidate whose ultimate numbers could send a significant message. Or one may have some special or vested interest that needs support that simply overrides all other considerations—e.g., someone might want a family member or friend out of harm's way in Iraq and that could be a strong and important motivation. And there can be other reasons, too, guiding one to deal with the matter differently.
What puzzled me, however, is that a good many people who share most of my political values—who are serious, dedicated supporters of the idea of a fully free society—not only seemed to have no problem with choosing between Kerry and Bush but went on record enthusiastically supporting one of them. Yes, enthusiastically. And that really baffled me.
It is one thing to reluctantly come out in favor of Kerry or Bush, for a reason that appeals to some marginal difference between the two of them. I can appreciate that well enough. So I would have been sympathetic with calls that would have contained consternation, exasperation, or some similar kind of inner struggle as one came down in support of one or the other presidential candidate. (I myself was very tempted to vote for Kerry just so as to promote the prospect for a gridlock, which I see as a way to put a monkey wrench in the works of the state.) However, to call down some moral authority or similar righteous high ground in support of either of these men seemed to me beyond belief.
But perhaps I am just naïve. There is, after all, that famous political affliction of whistling in the dark, and perhaps that’s what was in evidence in this instance, as in many others. You know what I am talking about here. Have you never witnessed some hopeless candidate proclaiming that he or she will win this time? The polls show no hope whatsoever, yet interview after interview we are being told that victory is just around the corner. I am not talking about people whose numbers do look promising though not decisive. I am talking about people whose numbers hover around one or two percent. Yet they keep telling us that they have a good chance of winning the race.
Such examples suggest that romance isn’t the only realm of human concerns that can get people to depart very seriously from ordinary common sense. Perhaps when one commits to a political race, one simply must forget about reality and invest everything in pure hope. Perhaps this is why many of us simply cannot enter politics, even if we do now and then embark upon romance that’s just as futile.
Yet, those folks who chimed in this time were not actually running for any office, only urging us to cast a rather desperate and reluctant vote for a pretty awful candidate. I mean, Kerry is a virtual socialist who pretends to love hunting while Bush talks to God and spends like the most extreme contemporary liberal democrat.
So, I just couldn’t believe it when these ordinarily sane people got on the bandwagon of one of the candidates as if he were the most enthusiastic and effective champion of the principles of the free society. Go figure.
Discuss this Article (18 messages)
|
