This morning I found a great follow up to my recent series of posts. I'd encourage you to read the entire post by Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic.com on "Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama." It's insightful and actually lays out some of the exact reasons I expounded on in my essays.
For those who don't have time, here are a few choice quotes:
"Sometimes a policy is so reckless or immoral that supporting its backer as "the lesser of two evils" is unacceptable. If enough people start refusing to support any candidate who needlessly terrorizes innocents, perpetrates radical assaults on civil liberties, goes to war without Congress, or persecutes whistleblowers, among other misdeeds, post-9/11 excesses will be reined in."
"I can respect the position that the tactical calculus I've laid out is somehow mistaken, though I tire of it being dismissed as if so obviously wrong that no argument need be marshaled against it."
"But if you're a Democrat who has affirmed that you'd never vote for an opponent of gay equality, or a torturer, or someone caught using racial slurs, how can you vote for the guy who orders drone strikes that kill hundreds of innocents and terrorizes thousands more -- and who constantly hides the ugliest realities of his policy (while bragging about the terrorists it kills) so that Americans won't even have all the information sufficient to debate the matter for themselves?
How can you vilify Romney as a heartless plutocrat unfit for the presidency, and then enthusiastically recommend a guy who held Bradley Manning in solitary and killed a 16-year-old American kid? If you're a utilitarian who plans to vote for Obama, better to mournfully acknowledge that you regard him as the lesser of two evils, with all that phrase denotes."
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