Call this essay a slight retraction; call it a modification; call it a codicil or appendix or whatever you think suits best. In any event, I made a serious error in last month’s post, “Casting Your Vote as a Faithful Catholic”; the results of Super Tuesday forced me to face it. That error was in the “proportionate reasons”, or “lesser of two evils”, argument.
Wrecking the Country For a PLINO President
In “Casting Your Vote”, I wrote that “all the Church’s moral doctrines are, as such, non-negotiable. For instance, the Church’s teaching on torture is definitely ‘in play’ when discussing waterboarding and other forms of ‘enhanced interrogation’, which is why it’s such a contentious issue in Catholic circles. By the same token, the principle of subsidiarity ‘is opposed to certain forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms’ (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church 187), a stumbling block to anyone demanding further Federal intervention in social problems.”
My point here was that separating any five or six grave evils into a list of “non-negotiables” carries with it the implication that all other grave evils are “negotiable”. That is, it implies that we can and should tolerate a candidate’s advocacy of, say, an unjust war, or policies that promote the oppression of foreigners (one of the “sins that cry to Heaven [for vengeance]”; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1867), so long as we can get that candidate’s vote against abortion, fetal stem-cell research, euthanasia, and so forth.
The logical end to single-issue voting, I hinted but didn’t say, is Donald Trump: a narcissistic, authoritarian billionaire whose major life accomplishment seems to be the evasion of the consequences of multiple business failures … but who claims to be “pro-life”. Is that claim worth wrecking the country over, in order to avoid Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? Fiat iustitia ruat patria?
The only reason, then, for bringing up Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s letter to the late Cdl. Theodore E. McCarrick was to give the faithful Catholic voter an “out” from feeling forced to make a horrible choice based solely on the issue of opposition to abortion. Then-Cdl. Ratzinger predicated the worthiness of a Catholic to present himself for communion on whether the person “deliberately” voted for a candidate “precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia,” which would constitute formal cooperation in evil and therefore a mortal sin. By contrast, a person who voted for a candidate for reasons other than his/her pro-abortion stance could avoid the mistake of choosing a potential dictator who’s a PLINO, because such a vote, in light of the principle of double effect, would be remote material cooperation (and therefore not a mortal sin).
Voting For the Common Good
In this I wasn’t alone. Writes EWTN’s Colin Donovan:
Many Catholics are troubled by the idea of a lesser of two evils or material cooperation with evil. They conclude that they can only vote for a person whose position on the gravest issues, such as abortion, coincides exactly with Catholic teaching. To do otherwise is to betray their conscience and God. …
… I think it is most frequently motivated by a sincere desire to elect someone whose views they believe coincide best with Church teaching. This is certainly praiseworthy. Yet, human judgments in order to be prudent must take into account all the circumstances. Voting, like politics, involves a practical judgment about how to achieve the desired ends — in this case the end of abortion as soon as possible, the end of partial-birth abortion immediately if possible, and other pro-life political objectives. A conscience vote of this type could be justified if the voter reasonably felt that it could achieve the ends of voting. The question must be asked and answered, however, whether it will bring about the opposite of the goal of voting (the common good) through the election of the worst candidate [bold type mine.—ASL]. That, too, is part of the prudential judgment. In the end every voter must weigh all the factors and vote according to their well-informed conscience, their knowledge of the candidates and the foreseeable consequences of the election of each.
The sentence I put in bold type emphasizes a fact that gets lost quite often: The civil act of voting is properly oriented towards the common good, not merely to the achievement of limited objectives.
Says the Catechism, “It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community”. Those obligations include the duty to pay taxes, the duty to defend the country, and the duty to vote (CCC 2239-2240). Single-issue voting, then, fails this obligation when it compels a vote for a visible-from-space bad choice.
No Lesser of Two Evils?
The “proportionate reasons” argument, then, is very strong, very rooted in Catholic theology, and very pragmatic. It’s so obviously strong that, in the past, only one in six voters has required candidates to share their views on abortion (Gallup [2012]).
There’s just one tiny flaw in the argument: it’s predicated on the hidden assumption that we can only vote for one of two candidates. So what if neither candidate is the lesser of two evils?
I need not point out how many times third-party candidates have cost one side or the other an election. I need not point out how the two parties have dominated American politics for 156 years. But I do need to point out that the GOP has used these facts for thirty-six years to buffalo pro-lifers out of going third-party or write-in: “If you vote like that, you’re throwing your vote away. A third-party/write-in vote is a vote for the pro-abortion Democrats.”
One wit encapsulated the argument thus: “Vote Republican or the baby gets it.”
Theologian John Médaille has argued that, in return for the pro-life movement’s increasingly loyal vote, the GOP has gotten the movement very little in the way of victories. This is certainly a debatable contention; however, what is unquestionably true is that, on the national level, when in power the GOP has usually had “bigger fish to fry” than getting Roe v. Wade reversed, or doing anything positive to create a culture that supports life as a choice. As Médaille puts it, “we now have one-and-a-half pro-abortion parties and one-half an anti-abortion party.”
Here’s another consideration: Since at least 1980, and most likely since 1965, American Catholics have been split along party lines, and are suffering from what we could call “ideological capture”. The most obvious result of this is that Catholic understanding of the Church’s social doctrine has been rent into two halves, one half pro-birth and pro-traditional family, the other pro-social justice and pro-economic justice. Both halves suffer by the separation: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand” (Matthew 12:25).
Neither Barabbas One or Barabbas Two
Here’s the truth: The Republican’s moral gun to the faithful Catholics’ head is loaded with blanks. If we Catholics are to stick to our philosophical and theological guns, then we must realize that everyone who votes for the “wrong candidate”, Catholic or not, does so with some degree of free will. You are only morally responsible for your own vote. The only people culpable for the “wrong candidate” winning are the people who voted for him/her.
Someone recently defined democracy as “the system that picks Barabbas over Jesus.” You should not feel compelled to vote for Barabbas One out of fear that Barabbas Two will win.
The “proportionate reasons” argument, then, doesn’t obtain when it’s possible to write in a better candidate than those presented on the ballot. When it isn’t possible, reference to a list of “non-negotiables” may be handy, even though there is no such formal list proposed by magisterial authority. However, such a list should not compel your vote for a candidate who, if elected to office, would in your best estimation prove a grave detriment to the public good.
* * *
Last Thoughts
As of this writing, the prospects for the Republican Party look grim; it’s beyond obvious that the GOP needs major reforms if it is to survive to 2020, let alone field a viable candidate for the White House in four years. At the same time, a victory for either Hillary Clinton (most probable) or Bernie Sanders (long shot) promises not only setbacks for the pro-life cause but also probable degradation in the freedoms of speech and religion through ideological capture of the Supreme Court.
Taken all things together, it’s clear the United States is in crisis, in moderate danger of both economic and social collapse in the relatively near future. As Rod Dreher recently wrote, many Americans have “a sense that what is wrong with America is much more deep-seated than any politician’s ability to fix. The rot, the decadence.”
It’s my hope that Catholics and the pro-life movement can either take the lead in reforming the Republican Party or form the nucleus of a true pro-life, pro-family party (just as the GOP was formed around the “free soil” movement one hundred sixty years ago). Perhaps in such a context the two halves of the Church’s social doctrine would be restored to its integrity, in a more complete realization of the “seamless garment” the late Cdl. Joseph Bernardin envisaged over thirty years ago.
In view of this, I can see no reason why Catholics or the pro-life movement should continue to support a faction that for the last thirty-six years has been unable — and somewhat unwilling — to be more than “one-half an anti-abortion party”. The Reagan Revolution is dead; the Republican Party is ideologically shattered, its leadership morally bankrupt. It’s time we stopped letting ourselves be bullied by consequentialist fallacies.
It’s time we stopped settling for the lesser of two evils.
© 2016 Anthony S. Layne.
28 thoughts on “The Lesser of Two Evils: A Slight Retraction”
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we voters should ask ourselves this. which candidate will best serve the common good? we can be sure that a write-in candidate will not serve the common good because they will not be elected. i believe it disingenuous to think otherwise.
The understood argument is that the candidate would best serve the common good if elected. Nowhere does Catholic moral theology make the choice contingent upon the candidate’s probability of winning. Think of your vote as your spoken consent to be ruled by those for whom you vote. To not vote at all is to “consent by silence” to whomever everyone else chooses to (mis-)rule. However, you are not required to consent to either of the major parties’ candidates; the fact that one of those two is more likely to win is irrelevant. If probability of winning is important to you, perhaps you should vote for Hillary?
Doesn’t promoting the mortal sin of real murder of those already killed in the womb as well as others who are/will be killed by euthanasia, as well as the lesser evils of suppressing freedom of religion and free speech (needed in order to promote a respect for life) take precedence over the possible selection of a “worst candidate” and possible election of said candidate for president? Isn’t the possibility of a worst candidate being blocked by those in that person’s party who have the ability to thwart his nomination as a presidential candidate, a further argument against what you’re advocating? Doesn’t the real likelihood of electing either Democratic candidate who is on record favouring the expansion of abortion as well as euthanasia both at home and abroad also make voting for someone who might be opposed to or could be ‘encouraged’ to oppose the aforementioned anti-life issues further support my argument? History has shown that when opposition to certain practices are not vigorously promoted these later metastasize and invade a healthy organism to such a degree that its removal requires much more effort.
You are missing a MAJOR point that Fr. Longenecker brought up a while back. All issues, indeed, are not equal.
1. There are LIFE issues, where the solution is black and white: kill the problem (abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, UNJUST war) or not. In this area, the Democratic party has the highest body count of innocents.
2. There are QUALITY of life issues, where good, caring, responsible people can disagree on the best solution, but killing the problem is NOT one of them: health care, immigration reform, torture, living wage, gun control, affordable housing, poverty, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Strong arguments can be made for forms of capitalism and against government-run programs as to which one upholds the true dignity of the human person.
Yes, I am sorely disappointed that it appears Trump will be the Republican candidate. But I will only apply the word EVIL to Democrat ideology.
In my view it would be a sin to vote for a democrat – even on the local level. It is impossible to be pro-life as an elected democratic official. One must have the backing of the party to get anything done.
I’m aware of Fr. Longenecker’s article, which I read. I have plenty of respect for him. However, I don’t find his argument particularly persuasive. Granting that life issues, particularly the right to life, are at the top of the tree, it still doesn’t follow that we must vote for a truly bad candidate simply because he proclaims himself “pro-life” … especially if that claim is rendered dubious by other statements that candidate has made not only in the past but throughout the campaign. (Frankly, I can’t make up my mind whether DJT or HRC is the bigger liar.) Heck, I’m not sure that Fr. Longenecker will go so far as to vote for Trump! (He may be considering an “Amish vote”; i.e., voting locally but not nationally.) But the final point of my article is that we’re not obligated, either legally or morally, to vote for either the Republican or Democrat nominee; we can vote for someone else with a platform more in line with the Church’s social doctrine, such as Joe Schriner. That cuts the Gordian knot.
While I agree the GOP has let us down, I have to disagree with not voting or voting third party. We saw what happens in 2008 and 2012 when people decide to stay home and not vote, or vote for a third party candidate. Secularism and moral relativism are two hidden planks in the DNC Party platform and Clinton is nothing if not a party loyalist. Like it or not most elections are a choice between the lesser of two evils. Both the GOP and Donald Trump are far from perfect but they are the only things preventing a total degradation of our Judeo-Christian culture. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke.
I don’t recommend not voting or the so-called “Amish vote” (voting only local), because that’s consent by silence. But your argument depends on the stay-at-home/third-party voters presumptively voting in overwhelming numbers for McCain in ’08 and Romney in ’12, an assumption which is questionable to say the least. If there’s any fault to be handed out there, it lies with the Republicans, who chose candidates they couldn’t sell very well to the “swing votes”, and couldn’t get the marginals interested enough to participate. Heck, party members themselves weren’t happy with either choice; how could they expect the mushy middle to get excited about them?
As for the “like it or not”, the two parties continue to nominate such candidates because we don’t do enough to dissuade them from selecting such candidates. By continuing to vote for the “lesser of two evils” rather than throwing our votes to non-evil candidates, we actively consent to the brokenness of the system, and so perpetuate it. At the end of the day, this election is so fraught with perils and ironies that I can’t fault anyone for their vote. But I do not agree that voting third party/write-in is equivalent to “doing nothing”. (By the way, the ascription of the quote to Burke is apocryphal. :^)=) )
The turnout for McCain was less than the turnout for Bush, and the turnout for Romney was even lower than the turnout for McCain, even while the turnout for Obama’s was also much lower in 2012. Had the ‘conservatives’ who didn’t bother voting shown up both times we might not have had 8 years of Obama. Also, I don’t know if you remember, but Ross Perrot running as an 3rd party Independent is how Slick Willy got elected.
‘Like it or not’ we do have a two party system but voters do get to decide the party nominees during the primaries. The GOP has had 12 – 15 potential candidates the last three times around but far too many citizens don’t bother doing their due diligence in picking who to vote for during the primaries. So we end up with a McCain then a Romney and now Trump. Throwing our votes to a third party candidate is worse than doing nothing, because it enables the secular progressive moral relativists to retain control.
Oddly enough, I do remember that Ross Perot ran as a third-party candidate. I also remember that the Democrat Party split three ways in 1860, and that Theodore Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1912 under the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party banner, and that Ralph Nader ran under the Green banner in 2004. (Another way to say this: No, we don’t have a two-party system; we have a multi-party system which we’ve allowed two parties to dominate!) I also remember that Clinton won a second term with no convenient third-party scapegoat to blame for Bob Dole’s defeat, and that Harry Truman won a term in his own right despite the Dixiecrats’ splitting the Democrat party to run Strom Thurmond as an alternate candidate.
The Truman campaign is particulary instructive because he didn’t rest on the presumption that people had to vote for him as the “anti-Dewey”. He worked for every vote he got, pitching his case right to the American people, going to places on his “whistle stop” tour where people didn’t think he’d draw an audience. As a result, he thumped both Dewey and Thurmond combined, not only in the electoral college but in the popular count. And I repeat: He won despite the fact that his own party had been split.
If the progressives retain control of the White House (and gain control of Congress), it won’t be because of third-party/write-in votes. It’ll be because conservatives have done little to nothing effective to prevent or minimize the leftward shift of the voter base over the last fifty years. The pro-life movement is beginning to gain some traction; in other respects, however, conservativism is primarily seen as the ideology of rich old white patriarchs, which doesn’t appeal to Gen-Xers and the millennials. Only one in six voters considers stance on abortion as a primary consideration for voting for a candidate — and half of that one-in-six is made up of pro-abortion voters.
The fact remains that those who vote Democrat do so as moral agents, possessing free will, and that it’s incumbent on the Republicans to provide an alternative that will attract votes away from the Democrats. Did “far too many citizens” fail to do their due diligence before voting in the primaries? I’m sure the same could be said of those who cried, “Give us Barabbas!” It still doesn’t follow that we have to choose Barabbas One out of fear that Barabbas Two will win. If the GOP loses — as it most likely will even if no one votes third-party/write-in — it will be because conservativism, as a coherent and cohesive ideology, is on the wane and in desperate need of reform.
Nothing you are saying refutes my argument. We do have a two party system. As you have admitted, we have allowed it to become so. I mentioned Perrot as one example of how a third party can swing an election to one candidate by taking votes from another. (Since you mention Nader in 2004, you may also remember that some argue that Nader and the Greens cost Gore the election in 2000.) But the point is that while candidates from the Libertarian Party and the Green Party (and others) appear on ballots and sometimes even manage to win in local elections the only role they can play in a Presidential election is that of spoiler, and as you noted by bringing up Truman and the Dixiecrats (and Nader and Teddy Roosevelt), third party candidates do not stand a chance of winning so voting for them is the same as wasting your vote, which I argue is the same as doing nothing.
You also say, “it’s incumbent on the Republicans to provide an alternative that will attract votes away from the Democrats.” But as I’ve said, the GOP has provided 12 -15 alternatives candidates the last three cycles. You then suddenly switch gears and say, “conservativism, as a coherent and cohesive ideology, is on the wane and in desperate need of reform.” I’m not sure why you’ve even brought this up because it has nothing to do with the discussion we are having about voting for the lessor of two evils.
“We do have a two party system. As you have admitted, we have allowed it to become so.” Actually, I “admitted” nothing of the sort. I said we’ve allowed two parties to dominate, which is a different thing both factually and semantically. We’re not compelled by law to vote for either party; other parties exist; nothing in the past prevents us from having three or more dominant parties in the future. Ergo, not a two-party system, merely a two-party social custom.
“You also say, ‘it’s incumbent on the Republicans to provide an alternative that will attract votes away from the Democrats.’ But as I’ve said, the GOP has provided 12 -15 alternatives candidates the last three cycles.” Exactly … and out of those 12 – 15 candidates every four years the GOP failed to pick one that could attract votes away from the Democrats. The party and its members own that suck. Arguably, talking about the need of conservativism for reform was a switch of gears, but it was to explain why the GOP is losing traction in a voter base that’s been shifting leftward for fifty years. That was the point of going into detail about Harry Truman: Nobody owes the GOP their vote; the GOP has to earn it.
Your argument that a third-party/write-in vote is wasted is implicitly premissed on the contention that it’s more important that somebody win — or rather, that somebody be prevented from winning — than is any consideration of what the person for whom you do vote will do if s/he wins. But if it matters what Clinton would do if she wins — which is the whole point of the “Anybody But Hillary” mindset — it matters just as much what Trump would do if HE wins. Contrapositively, if the consequences of a Trump presidency don’t matter, then the consequences of a (second) Clinton Administration shouldn’t matter, either. You can’t have it both ways. The consequences of a candidate’s victory is precisely why whether your candidate is likely to win or lose is of less moment than is what your candidate stands for.
Ultimately, you’ll vote for Trump because you don’t consent to Hillary becoming President. That’s precisely why I won’t vote for either Trump or Clinton — I don’t consent to either of them becoming President. I voted (reluctantly) for McCain in ’08 and (even more reluctantly) Romney in ’12; my votes didn’t prevent Obama from serving two terms. By what logic, then, does my vote for someone other than Trump become “worse” than a straight-up vote for Clinton? Because it wouldn’t diminish Trump’s margin of defeat by one freakin’ vote? Seriously? Are you so riddled with hatred for Clinton that you can’t possibly see how Trump might be as bad for the nation and the world as her, if not worse? If that’s the case, then you’ll never see the logical inconsistency I outlined above.
Ok, last response . . . as you say, “we’ve allowed two parties to dominate.” If two parties dominate then for all intents and purposes we have a two party system. Your statement that we have a multi-party system, while theoretically accurate, is ignoring reality. Other parties do come and go but a presidential candidate from any other party does not stand a chance of getting elected POTUS, so realistically speaking, a vote for any third party candidate is a wasted vote. I agree with you that nothing prevents the rise of a third party. If that should happen, which is very unlikely, we will then have, for all intents and purposes, a three party system.
Your statement, “out of those 12 – 15 candidates every four years the GOP failed to pick one that could attract votes away from the Democrats. The party and its members own that suck.” I disagree. The American people own it, and they own it for the same reason that they have “allowed two parties to dominate.” The country has become ignorant, complacent, and apathetic. Some 20 states already have open primaries and there is nothing that really prevents voters from crossing party lines in the primaries in other states. Only29% of voters identify as Republicans, and 31% of Americans identify as Democrats. The largest group today is the 38% that identify as independents. These are the swing voters that elect the President, but the vast majority of all three groups do not even bother voting in the primaries. So the American people bear the blame for the candidates that head up the tickets of both two parties.
You also said, “Your argument that a third-party/write-in vote is wasted is
implicitly premised on the contention that it’s more important that somebody win — or rather, that somebody be prevented from winning — than is any consideration of what the person for whom you do vote will do if s/he wins.” No it is not. As I’ve stated, it is based on reality. A third party candidate, as things stand today, has zero chance of winning a presidential election, and this is why a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote.
And finally, you ask, “Are you so riddled with hatred for Clinton that you can’t possibly see how Trump might be as bad for the nation and the world as her, if not worse?” You claim to be arguing logically but then you employ an ad hominin attack? I do not hate Hilary Clinton. I do, however, have big problems with the DNC Party Platform, and the fact that Hilary has no problem whatsoever with the
murder of 59 million babies, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, or concepts of welfare and redistribution of wealth that are contrary to solidarity and subsidiarity. If she is elected she will attempt to continue to take the country down a road that leads to the country becoming a secular socialist democracy. So assuming Trump does get the GOP nomination (still somewhat ‘iffy’) I will vote for him as the lesser of two evils. And BTW, for what it’s worth, my preference in this election was Santorum. Cruz is my second choice.
Your “disagreement” is why you get your one vote.
As for 2008 … we were in a lose-lose situation there. Obama is the worst president in American history, but if the election had gone the other way, everything about McCain screams that he would have been the worst, and shockingly, even worse than Obama. McCain is not and never has been a social conservative; he would not have “wasted” his political capital on issues that do not interest him. On the other hand, since that election he has wanted us to war over Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, the Ukraine, and probably a few other places I have forgotten about. That’s not the kind of man who should have his finger on the nuclear trigger. If he had been elected and started WW3, it would be worse for the unborn than is the status quo.
Donald Trump is somewhat parallel. This lover of Planned Parenthood has never done anything to convince me he is now pro-life. He’s probably less likely to get us into war over the Ukraine, but having egoists unconnected to reality on both sides of the US/North Korea situation is a scary thought.
McCain was a moderate, leaning left on some things and right on others. We can argue till the cows come home on whether or not he would have been better or worse than Obama, or even if the GOP would have gotten control of Congress in 2010 had he been elected
instead of BHO. However, we would certainly not have gotten Obamacare, or the Iran deal, or the rise of the “JV” iSIS that is now out causing killing Christians willy-nilly had we elected McCain.
John McCain is not a moderate, he is a nut. We would not have gotten the Iran deal, we probably would have gotten a war with Iran — are we supposed to argue until the cows come home whether war would be better? Of course the deal might not work, but I suppose it is not to be considered that a war might also be unsuccessful? Above all, when I say that McCain might well have started WW3, do you really mean that that has to be weighed in balance against Obamacare?
By the time of the general election — and even for the last few states to conduct primaries — the American people had already lost the election, and all that was left was to, in the line from Ghostbusters, “choose the form of the destructor”.
You are arguing that McCain is/was a nut and that he would have started WW3, but that is pure opinion/speculation/conjecture. It can neither be proved nor disproved so there is no sense discussing it. That is what I meant about arguing about it till the cows come home.
There is no more important issue to me than the lives of the innocent — but it’s a stretch for me to think I could trust The Donald’s claims, or risk having someone that odious and ignorant be the highest public face of “our” position for years. It is, in fact, too important to hand off to someone like that.
just noticed misspelling of “giverment” – but that’s not so bad and not so incorrect re: parties and candidates who would take one person’s hard earned wages and give them to someone for a vote
God bless you Felix-you are a good Catholic with a well-formed conscience. Of course no Catholic can vote for Hillary and now, it appears, no good Catholic can vote for Trump; but what is happening throughout the church democatholic apparat is that the vocal and widespread condemnation of Trump is implicitly pushing [word carefully chosen] Hillary and other Democrats. I do believe there is some magisterial authority to the US Bishops documents that by name list “intrinsic evils” that are nonnegotiables, and a fair reading of the Democrat platform and Democrat speeches and position papers makes it clear, crystal, that the Democrats are opposed to Church teaching on every intrinsic evil. “War” as such, is not an intrinsic evil and good catholics can differ re: whether this or that war is just or unjust (same re immigration); but abortion, racism, RETA, euthanasia, destructive embryonic research, and givernment destruction of marriage are intrinsic evils – and they are aims, goals, and ideals of the Democrat Party Of Death and of (some) democatholics and democatholic clergy. Anthony, you are doing a fine service, especially in this critical election year. Guy McClung, San Antonio, Texas ps “RETA” = racial eugenic targeted abortion
The word that describes the most serious sins is not “intrinsic” but “grave”. It is not intrinsically sinful to worship; it is gravely sinful to worship Satan. It is not intrinsically sinful to amputate a limb; if this is done as an act of revenge, rather than as a medical necessity, it is however gravely sinful. It is not intrinsically sinful to execute a man; it is gravely sinful to execute a man without a conviction from a fair trial for a very serious crime. To sum up, just because you can imagine different circumstances in which a superficially similar act would have been acceptable does not in any way make an abominably sinful act somehow not so bad.
By the way, once you start using adolescent arguments like, “Yeah, but look at what they are doing! It’s worse than what we are doing!”, the game’s up. It’s as clear an indication as can be asked for that your group is doing wrong, you know it, and you’re just trying to weasel out of it. Except in this case, you not only want to avoid punishment, you want to pretend that everyone has a moral obligation to reward your group by putting it into power.
Nope. If the race is between Beelzebub and Asmodius, neither one gets my vote.
Elsewhere I have said you cannot vote for Hitler over Stalin because you know Hitler will kill only 10,000,000 and your know Stalin will kill 20,000,000. Your same point Howard re Beelzebub and Asmodius-and I assume you spell the first demon’s name as Hillary and the second’s as Donald.
Fair enough. I still stand by the assertion that grave sins are always grave.
Amen. This is the first election cycle in my lifetime where I have seriously considered staying home on election day. If my choices are Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, I know I cannot in good conscience pull the lever for either one. Not only because I am a faithful Catholic, but because I love my country, and I feel strongly that either of those candidates is certain to lead America further down the present road to perdition she is on. But you are right. I won’t stay home. If Cruz wins the GOP nomination, I’ll vote for him. If Trump gets it I’ll write in Santorum, and feel confident saying for the next four years, “I did my duty for God and country.”
I did the same in Illinois when voting for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in the general election 2 years ago. I refused, quite rightly, to vote for either “Tweedledum” (Bruce Rauner) or “Tweedledee” (Pat Quinn); instead, I wrote in Bill Brady/Kirk Dillard for Governor/Lieutenant Governor. And my conscience was clean…..
Demons are real.I have seen them three times.
Donald Trump moral character is the same as a demon. Trump is right in there with the killing of children, destroying countries, and starving those in need. Trump would probably set California on fire just to prove his point. The Chief in Liar is filling the shoes of the demons of he past and he has his own followers on earth. They is no question Trump is a demon, but there are more to follow.
Hi Tony. I’m not a person that reads articles just looking to argue about one point or another. You said, “Taken all things together, it’s clear the United States is in crisis, in “MODERATE DANGER” of both economic and social collapse in the relatively near future”. I would make one more “slight retraction”. God Bless You, John
Like substitute “profound” for “moderate”? Consider it done.