Heaven help us!--by Stephen Stone, RA President

Heaven help us!--by Stephen Stone, RA President

"...For all intents and purposes in a "contested race," therefore, our only option as voters is to express our willful support — and thus our alignment with and condoning of — whichever candidate we choose; or to leave that particular race untouched, thus expressing our displeasure with our feet, so to speak, for the lack of an acceptable candidate.

At least the latter way of voting absolves us of any culpability for willfully participating in the destruction of our country at the hands of candidates who don't deserve to be on the ballot (having shown themselves to be corrupt, incompetent, unethical, immoral, deceptive, or otherwise undeserving of our vote).

There's no way to simultaneously vote our displeasure at unacceptable choices laid before us and also pick one! To attempt that is a bit like schizophrenia.

The idea that we can vote against someone we really don't like by voting for someone else we really don't like and call it getting rid of people in office we really don't like is an illogical rationalization — conjured to make us feel good when we vote irrationally. It doesn't excuse us of willfully voting for someone we can't actually support in good conscience on their own merits.

Just because we may be well-intentioned in our desire to get rid of a bad candidate, it literally makes no sense to vote for a similarly bad candidate considered not "as bad" as the object of our scorn.

If a candidate is "bad" (as a candidate, not necessarily as a person), they're "bad" — no matter how they compare with anyone else running for the same office who might also be "bad." A bad candidate is a bad candidate is a bad candidate. Bear in mind that between two unacceptable candidates, one will always be less acceptable than the other candidate in some ways, and more acceptable in other ways. ..."