I once played a game in high school. The teacher split the class into four teams. She would ask each class "yes or no". If every team said "yes", each team would get a point. If one team said "no" and 3 teams said yes, the "no" team would receive 2 points and the other teams would get none. If two teams said "no" they would each get a point, and "yes" teams would receive nothing. If three teams said "no", no teams received a point. If all teams said "no", all teams lost a points. The winning team or teams after 10 rounds would receive treats from the teacher.I found this a delightful mind game. The safe way to play would, of course, be for everyone to say "yes" every time. If you said no, you risked saying "no" simultaneously with two or three others, and losing, or not gaining, points.
But, once one team one time says no, it throws off the balance. Even if every team worked together, and said "yes" every time after that, 3 teams would still lose, because the original no-saying had that two-point advantage. So the other three teams are almost forced to say no each time in a desperation for points, and end up actually losing points.
I don't remember the point that the teacher was trying to make with this game. I wish to make a point that is undoubtedly different from the one she wanted to make.
It is that it is not very smart to trust each team to say "yes".
If you could somehow count on everyone to say "yes" every time, then this game would work out for everyone.
So what does this have to do with the upcoming election? Voting for Johnson is saying "yes". It is not voting for Hillary (a corruption liar and a crook) and it is not voting for Trump (a narcissist and supposed bigot) either.
Johnson has been known to say "if everyone who thinks that voting for me would be a wasted vote actually voted for me, I would win!"
And if everyone could be counted on to do so, that would be great! But as we see with the game I described, we can't count on everybody to say "yes". If just one "team" says "no" everyone is screwed!
We could make an arrangement where everyone says they will vote Johnson, but what happens if people back out on us? Then Hillary wins. That's the fact of the matter.
Why haven't you heard as much dirt on Johnson as on Hillary and Trump? Believe me, it isn't because there isn't any (I have found quite a bit, personally). It's because he isn't a threat. The parties aren't gonna spend time and money and energy digging up dirt on him.
But what about principle?!
Good question.
First off, a little brainteaser for you. There has been talk that if Johnson, (or Stein, or McMullin) wins just one state, then there is possibility of neither Trump nor Hillary getting the 270 electorates necessary to win the election. In that case, the House of Representatives would choose the next president.
But think on this:
Is it immoral to want our democratic model of majority rule to be overturned on a failsafe, and the presidency given to a man that only 2% of the nation supported enough to vote for? Is that tyranny of the minority? Would it be destructive to our democracy to set a precedent that will allow the House to pick the president?
Is that right? Moral? Or is it exactly what our system was created to prevent?
I'm not going to answer the question for you. In fact, I haven't quite decided myself. But it's worth thinking on. But I can see this precedent possibly becoming problematic, seeing as some Americans are already upset at the Supreme Court for usurping congressional power.
Now let's switch gears and learn from the philosophies of Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli gets a lot of flack as a philosopher. Admittedly, his thoughts are disorganized at times, and he occasionally contradicts himself; but there is one of his philosophies that I idolize.
"Writing about the ancients, Machiavelli says that their mistake is that they focus on imagined powers and principalities, which have never in truth been known to exist. In other words, what Machiavelli's saying is we focus on the world as it ought to be. And this is also a political debate: things ought to be this way, they ought to be that way. But Machiavelli's point is, let's look at the world as it actually is. Let's look at the world in the face straight on" (Frontpage Mag).
Sometimes people not only want to have their cake and eat it too, but they want chocolate cake when only carrot cake is an option. In an imperfect world, the choices available aren't always ideal; not always black-and-white. In life, real choices, on occasion, aren't between the best and the worst, and good and evil, they are between bad and worse. And because of this, the United States has a history of uneasy alliances.
During the Constitutional Convention, there were only two choices on the table: a Union with slavery, or no Union at all. Ideally, a Union without slavery would have been awesome. But it wasn't one of the options on the table. Even no Union with no slavery might have been acceptable, but that wasn't on the table either. So the Founders went with the best of the options available to them at the time.
Lincoln was both principled and pragmatic. When the Republican party was formed from a bunch of smaller parties, there was a debate as to whether or not to allow the anti-immigration, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish and anti-German, Nationalist, or "Know-Nothing" Party, to be part of the larger Republican Party. The Nationalists had a large following, and their votes might mean the difference between defeating the Democrats, or complete loss.
Lincoln supported allowing the Nationalists to join the party. The Nationalist may have been xenophobic ethnocentrists, but in Lincoln's view slavery was worse than nationalism. So Lincoln took from the choices that were on the table, and joined forces with the nationalist. This won him the election, allowing him to end slavery.
During World War II, the United States allied with Stalin: a bad guy. But at that time, we believed Hitler was worse than Stalin, so this reluctant alliance was necessary.
In recent decades, the US created an alliance with Muammar Gaddafi, the "brotherly leader" of Libya. Gaddafi wasn't a saint, but he was willing to support us in battling radical Islam. Radical Islam was worse than Gaddafi, so this uneasy alliance was formed.
As conservatives, we must be pragmatic and form similar uneasy alliances. I am in awe that so many conservatives don't see this. We need to do what is pragmatic: stop Hillary by voting for Trump.
I feel that voting for Trump doesn't compromise my principles. Voting for someone who wholly represents your principles is impossible anyways. If that was my logic, the only person I would feel comfortable voting for is Jesus.
It is compromising your principles to agree with certain aspects of Trumps character and policy. It is compromising to defend some of the wrong things he has said, such as the obscene sexual remarks that recently came to light. But it is not compromising to vote for him. It is just another uneasy compromise; one that is necessary to make in an imperfect world.
Also See:
Historical Fact: Lincoln was NOT third party.
What that means for the "wasted vote" argument.
http://kutv.com/news/local/want-to-write-in-romney-or-bernie-you-may-want-to-reconsider?mnhu
Sources:
James M. McPherson, Battlecry of Freedom, (New York, 1988), 65-67, 117-125.
Dinesh D'Souza, "Principle and Pragmatism", Hillary's America, (Regnery Publishing, 2016), Loc 4463-4550.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262822/dinesh-dsouza-confronting-lefts-cultural-monopoly-frontpagemagcom
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