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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 14, 2008 / 15 Tishrei 5769

The positive act of not voting

By Rod Dreher


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | All my life, I've cast votes in presidential elections that were votes against the Democrat rather than for the Republican. Such is life. Sure, the Dole '96 campaign had all the explosive excitement of road tripping to Dubuque in a Crown Victoria, but it wasn't hard to vote for the guy, considering the alternative. Voting in American presidential politics usually requires discerning voters to resolve not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.


This year, though, I'm close to being done with that compromise. At the risk of scandalizing my high school civics teacher, this might be the first presidential and congressional election I've sat out on principle. As a character in Richard Linklater's film Slacker says, "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy."


A vote for Barack Obama is all but impossible. I am a pro-life social conservative, full stop. Mr. Obama is radically pro-choice, even voting against legislation that would have forced medical personnel to save the lives of babies born during botched abortions. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's spiritual son is disqualifyingly left-wing on social issues that matter most to me.


As for John McCain, his hot temper and bellicose foreign policy instincts are deeply troubling. America cannot afford the wars we have, much less new ones with Russia or any other nation. Worse, the executive branch has far more freedom to conduct foreign policy than it does domestic policy. And the more Gov. Sarah Palin shares her nitwit nostrums, the less confidence I have that she's capable of running the country if her elderly boss were abruptly retired by illness or death.


After eight years of GOP misrule from the White House, Republicans don't deserve to win again - especially if it's hard to see how a President McCain would differ meaningfully from the man he seeks to replace. But given the active role Democrats have played in the rolling financial catastrophe, from Clinton-era Wall Street deregulation to water carrying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they don't deserve voters' trust either.


Mr. McCain is awful on war. Mr. Obama is awful on the sanctity of life. Neither inspires confidence on the economy, nor do their parties - both of which are up to their eyeballs in culpability for the present economic catastrophe. We all want change, but Mr. McCain is not credible on that front, and Mr. Obama only offers a fresh new gloss on tired, old Democratic boilerplate.


When neither candidate is tolerable, what does the responsible voter do? Withhold his vote, as a form of civic protest.


In 2004, leading Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre announced he would sit out the presidential vote because he rejected the Democrats' hostile stance toward unborn life and the Republicans' economic policies, which in his view undermined the stability of the traditional family. Dr. MacIntyre argued that not voting in a particular election is a morally just act of resistance to a system that presents us with an unacceptable choice.


Besides, what if Mr. McCain won, given the kind of campaign he has run? What will he have been elected to do, except to not associate with 1960s domestic terrorists and crazy-pants black preachers and, to paraphrase Tina Fey, find out what a maverick would do in a given situation and then do it? A McCain presidency would only delay what the shipwrecked conservative movement desperately needs to do: rethink, rebuild and relaunch in light of new realities.


Both parties have run the country into the ground, and I have no faith - none - in the leadership class in Washington. With any luck, the 2010 midterm elections will see true mavericks arise from the grassroots of both parties to challenge the incumbents. This year, though, voting in the presidential and congressional contests only gives voters the chance to affirm Washington's rent-seeking, self-serving status quo.


Granted, anything could happen between now and Election Day that would change my mind. But absent something extraordinary, I'm going to reject both the Republican and the Democrat.


Say what you will, but that will be the first presidential vote I've cast, so to speak, that I can truly believe in.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


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Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum).

PREVIOUSLY

10/09/08: The speech John McCain should give
09/30/08: And it was written, our blame
09/22/08: The Beehive buzzes for Sarah Palin
09/08/08: Palin's a fighter — and worth fighting for
09/02/08: GOP slouches toward St. Paul
07/18/08:Wall-E’ Pixar's surprisingly political postmodern masterpiece
06/08/08: Era of cheap airfare is over
05/29/08: What if they're not smart enough?
05/11/08: From horror, a child's loving gift
05/07/08:Will a canary be our last meal?
04/03/08: Economic crisis is of our own making
02/14/08: What child-men need is some tradition
02/05/08: A Republican victory this year could do more long-term damage to the party than a loss
01/22/08: Putting faith in Obama: Do GOPers tempted by him know what they're supporting?
11/20/07: We can't fix the world with The Care Bear Stare
10/17/07: Every father should read this book to his son
10/03/07: Not even our parks are safe … And I lay at least part of the blame on the cultural revolution and our obsession with the individual
08/22/07: The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments
08/15/07: Playing the anti-science card
08/01/07: How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire
07/24/07: Conservative author: Big business can be as dangerous a threat as big government
07/09/07: All quiet but the doleful pleas of a father who knows
06/28/07: When we let conspiracy theory masquerade as news, we fall prey to much more than deception
06/20/07: Stranded on Delta: They may love to fly, but it certainly doesn't show
06/13/07: When did conservatism start to mean never having to say you're sorry?
05/08/07: PBS darling gets abused by PC police
05/02/07: Impervious to beauty and deadened to depravity
04/20/07: What I know about being a loner
10/28/05: How the conservatives crumble

© 2007, The Dallas Morning News, Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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