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Odyssey of a NeverTrumper

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don-o:
Odyssey of a NeverTrumper
I was all in for Ted Cruz. When he failed to win a single county in South Carolina,
in hindsight, red flags should have been  raised high and warning alarms sounded loudly. Super Tuesday should have increased the foreboding, as Cruz won Texas only.

   I'm not sure of the exact timing, but, as Glenn Beck became a prime surrogate, my feelings of ultimate failure increased exponentially. Wisconsin was a temporary shot in the arm and I thought, “Well, in this crazy environment, maybe there's a new paradigm still forming that Ted will figure out.” Of course, that was not to be, as his last ditch effort in Indiana was unsuccessful.

   On one level, I understood why things were proceeding as they were. There is no shortage of analysis and commentary for all that. Regardless, the defeat of my Conservative champion left me with a welter of emotion. Probably the dominant one was disgust for the buffoon who had vanquished my champion, followed by a certainty that he would lose in a landslide; so, “to hell with the whole kit and caboodle.”

   But, “Fine,” I tried to rationalize the situation.., “The primaries are always nasty affairs. Surely there will be a Trump 2.0, who will mend fences, focus his message and basically grow up.” To this day, August 3 , 2016, I see no evidence of that  happening.

   But, as more time has passed,  my thoughts then began to turn to all the fathers' sons, and even more sadly, daughters, whom the next CinC will potentially send to war. Then came the infamous display of July 5 by FBI Director James Comey, which basically put the FedGov stamp of approval on identified criminality.

   It happens that my odyssey has coincided  with my reading of Richard Weaver's “Ideas Have Consequences.” Early in the introduction he writes of “the appalling problem, when one gets to actual cases, of getting men to distinguish between better and worse”

   Eureka! There's a concept I had somehow excluded from my thinking, although in my non-political life, I distinguish all the time. Maybe eating a piece of pie is not all that good for me, but eating one slice is better than eating the whole pie. So, how to relate that to politics?

   Making a political choice based on better or worse does not sully my soul, provided that I have a proper understanding what politics actually is, and that my expectations for it are clear. I must reject the messianic pretensions that so easily attach to ideology, regardless of its substance, be it Liberal or Conservative.

From: Conservatism and Ideological Politics
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/10/conservatism-ideological-politics.html

“The problem of ideological politics is typified by certain factions of the Tea Party who, although espousing principles congenial to most conservatives, highlight the dangers inherent in excess each time their self-appointed leaders claim the exclusive right to set the “conservative agenda” and excoriate those who refuse to adopt their policies in whole. “Be my brother or I’ll kill you” was the Jacobin creed, yet the contemporary heirs of Edmund Burke dangle perilously close to adopting this as their motto each time they endeavor to attain ideological uniformity. Such an embrace would amount to a total abdication of the very principles conservatives seek to exonerate. “
   
   Therefore, if I am to participate in political life, I must first be clear and realistic on the actual choice I am making, as it has boiled down.

   Do I like my options? Not much.

   Shall I stand firmly on the belief that the lesser of two evils, being an evil, forbids me from exercising a prudential judgment based on better and worse?  I think not. I must find another way.

   I start with the understanding that this world is a fallen place and that men are fallen creatures. There  is no political system that will restore the world and men to the pre-fall state. However, there are things that I can do, both in my public and my private life, that will better or worsen myself, and by extension the sphere in which I live and act. With this as a basis, I then understand more clearly, the validity of “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

   I need to be reminded that there is a distinction between moral judgment (good and evil) and prudential judgment (applies to tenable options that are not intrinsically evil.) With that distinction established, my odyssey can continue with a different way to think than before.

HoustonSam:
I hope you will write more on this @don-o.  Haven't had time to keep up with the Weaver threads in the last couple of weeks but I hope to get back to them soon.

don-o:

--- Quote from: HoustonSam on August 03, 2016, 11:48:51 am ---I hope you will write more on this @don-o.  Haven't had time to keep up with the Weaver threads in the last couple of weeks but I hope to get back to them soon.

--- End quote ---

No worries, Sam. They will be there. Loooking forward to Chapter 5.

goodwithagun:
Great post.

Mrs Don-o:

--- Quote from: HoustonSam on August 03, 2016, 11:48:51 am ---I hope you will write more on this @don-o.  Haven't had time to keep up with the Weaver threads in the last couple of weeks but I hope to get back to them soon.

--- End quote ---
@don-o  @goodwithagun   @roamer_1 @lonestar dream

Guys and gals (there are two sexes.  Exactly, numerically two)--

I just want to chime in here, and I assure you I am not just don-o #2, although, scarily, it often seems that way!  Vulcan mind-meld, yikes----

This is what I'm running into all the time: the challenge of decisively distinguishing between moral decisions (good/evil) and prudential judgments (meh Oh-Kayyyy/ semi-OK / OK / a little more effectively OK / yeah that'll work OK, etc.)

[Aside: Just to throw a curve ball into the thing, a little while ago I read Graham Greene's sociopath/ spiritual novel "Brighton Rock," and he would divide the first category into two, make a distinction between moral  decisions (right/wrong) and spiritual realities (good/evil), the former being natural and rule-based, the latter being open to the transcendent dimensions of everything we are and do --- but that takes us further afield than I intend to go in this post. Read "Brighton Rock" and be well and truly distressed.)

Anyhow, I think the rules are very few, but very strict.  Morally, there are just a handful of things you must never choose --- intrinsic evils --- but the catch is, you must never choose them, as ends or as means, no matter what, even if it cost you your life, even if it entailed the destruction of the world: no to murder (the fully intentional killing of a known innocent human being), no to sexual violation, no to apostasy.

Whether as a means or as an end.

No, nay, never, and that's it.

These are what some "Philosophers of Action" would call "exceptionless norms".

And of course, no intentional participating in these wrongs in any way:  as sponsor, as accessory, as enabler, as inciter, as contributor, as approver or applauder, as slip-slidin' accomplice, as formal cooperator, etc.

Most of the decisions we make are not of that sort.  Most of them are prudential, i.e things which are neither morally obligatory nor morally prohibited, but simply morally neutral or allowable, scanning a range of things are up to your shades-of-gray judgment as to what looks like the best bet (or the least-bad bet) under the circumstances.

I would put political activity in general, and electoral advocacy in particular, in this category.  Nobody is either morally obliged nor morally prohibited from voting.  Nobody is morally obliged, or morally prohibited, from voting for a particular candidate.

I will add that if you vote for a deeply screwed-up candidate (which we all will, if we vote) we take on part-ownership of that person's official actions, and thus we acquire a solemn, long-term responsibility to kick our chosen politico's butt on a regular basis and seriously force him/her to do the right thing.  If you shrug off this long-term responsibility, you then become ever-more responsible for this politico's wrongdoing, inasmuch as he/she was "YOUR" candidate and you culpably failed to 
scream bloody murder to avert "YOUR" candidate's bad actions.

Class, discuss.
 

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