Voting One's Conscience

[Igel]

75. That is "if you're not for us, you're against us" redux.

Try that with other things.

If you're not in favor of US victory in Vietnam, you're in favor of the N. Vietnamese re-education camps and totalitariasm.

If you're not in favor of US policy against ISIL, you're in favor of Yazidi genocide.

If you're against US intervention in Iraq in 2003, you're in favor of Saddam Hussein's repressive regime.

Moreover, it's not just a practical thing. It becomes a matter of conscience, with the claim that either you're an active fan and advocate of reeducation camps/genocide/repression or an avid advocate of US policy. The universe of choices and beliefs and values is reduced to two small, starkly opposed sets.

Many here have a problem with some of the Ukrainian nationalists. They see there are two options, the same two as in 1942. They can side with Stalin and the Red Army or they can side with Hitler and fascism. That was reality, those were the practical choices. Many made their choice. Now, those who sided against Stalin are condemned for their choice--forgotten is that when the Wehrmacht was in control of the Ukraine many of them fought the Germans, and that those "fascists" also took a pledge not to fight any Allied troops. Some fascists--racist, anti-Soviet, but "fascist" is a tough judgment to make. At the same time, the majority, those "good men" who took no side, stood by while "evil triumphed."

The problem is "reality" and "conscience" are different things, post-hoc judgment is different from judgments reached at the time, and, really, what we're arguing about is support now for something that a person does disagree with versus what might happen in the future. We always have the out that we didn't believe X.

After all, Obama promised a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but within seconds of being inaugurated decided that a permanent deficit was a good thing. He promised to close Gitmo in his first term, and found that he made a promise he was in no position to keep--and we'll assume he was ignorant and didn't know he couldn't keep it, not that he knew he couldn't keep it and pandered. (There is, in reality, no third choice.)


I like freedom of conscience. However, I believe in freedom of speech and the freedom not to speak in non-free contexts. I'm not free to speak my mind at work; I work in public schools. I'm not free to speak my mind here, at DU, because we have an end-user agreement of sorts. Moreover, in the interest of peace, and in keeping with longstanding Igel-family tradition, nobody ever says who they vote for. Or against.