By: Matthew F. Pfefer, Spokane, Washington
[This article is a response to a friend's Facebook post describing his reasons for voting for the Governor against the President in the upcoming election, and another friend's argument against his reasoning, who asked me to back her up.]
[Ed Note: Emphases ours]
I see three issues here: A moral issue as to oath-keeping, a moral issue as to blood-letting, and a practical issue.
Oath-Keeping
The President inaugurated in 2013 has sworn or will swear an oath to follow the Constitution. Both major party nominees support laws and 
government organizations and programs that find no support in the Constitution. Neither major party nominee will obey his oath to the Constitution. As I swore an oath to support the Constitution, I cannot in good conscience vote for someone I know will break his own oath to support the Constitution. If you have never sworn an oath to support the Constitution and the oath-breaking of the person you vote for does not bother you, then this issue would not prevent you from voting for one of the major party nominees.
Blood Letting
Both major party nominees have atrocious positions as to blood-letting.
The President was awarded a Nobel peace prize for doing nothingand has since blundered into military adventures across much of North Africa and deep into the Middle East. Does anyone actually believe that the CIA inspired and funded the so-called “Arab Spring” without the President’s approval? Our arming of the jihadists in Syria, Egypt, and Libya enabled the
jihadists to overthrow leaders who were friendly to us, like Mubarak, and who we had
Innocent burn victim of US bomb
successfully cowed into submission, like Gadhaffi. For this reason, the jihadist threat in North Africa and the Middle East is now worse than it was when the President was inaugurated. The Governor’s speech at Virginia Military Institute shows that he intends to continue the same tragic foreign adventures of the last twelve years: so we lose more American soldiers, cause more collateral damage, and expose ourselves to more blowback. Both also support continued use of predator drones as arms of the American empire. Sure, what happened in Benghazi seven weeks ago was bad, but don’t worry, things will only get worse under either major party nominee. (In the Governor’s defense, if jihadists attack one of our imperial installations across the world and our people call for help, the Governor would give them the help they need.)
Similarly, the President has taken a leading role in the tragedy that is the abortion industry’s war on women. Not only do abortionists violate their patients (who–of course–are all women) when they invade the sanctity of the womb to do their vile work, but [fully] half of those who enter an abortuary don’t leave. And many of those who don’t leave are women. When the media spend time on this subject, they tend to focus on the rhetoric. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the rhetoric matters, as an abortionist could give a rhetorically wonderful pro-life speech while going about his business.
The records of both major party nominees are atrocious. We don’t need to dwell on the President’s support of allowing the abortionist to “terminate” a “non-viable” child who survives an abortion. But the Governor’s [actions were] pro-choice for most (if not all!) of the time he was in office. Although the Governor says that he has changed his views on this subject, we don’t have a crystal ball and can’t tell what he will actually do if he is elected. Given his record, how far can we really trust his instincts? (In the Governor’s defense, we like his rhetoric on this subject much more than that of the President.)
If you vote for either major party nominee knowing that he will engage in a foreign policy that endangers American lives here and abroad as well as foreign non-combatants, you are morally responsible for their blood.
Similarly, if you vote for either major party nominee knowing his record, not only against foreign lives, [but the lives of our own women and children] you are morally responsible for their blood. I could not live with myself if I looked into the mirror and saw with my mind’s eye the blood of the innocents dripping from my fingers. If this doesn’t bother you, then this issue would not prevent you from voting for one of the major party nominees.
Let’s be Practical
Practically, my vote would not make a difference. According to conventional wisdom, the State of Washington is solidly for the President. I have heard third-hand that insiders with the Governor think he may win this state. If the Governor wins this state, he would only do that with a massive electoral victory throughout the nation. For this reason, my vote for the Governor or otherwise won’t matter. Similarly, the Governor will almost certainly win Idaho. If the President wins Idaho, your vote for the Governor or otherwise won’t matter either. The only way this would actually matter is if the voter lived in a ‘swing’ state. For this reason, the practical effects of my voting do not prevent me from voting for the one candidate who I am sure will keep all of the candidate’s political promises and never change any of the candidate’s political positions: I am voting for no one for president.
“And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
Therefore, vote your conscience.
This is the fourth of four parts, voting for conscience or voting by triangulation…
The whole series:
And, luckily for you “no one” is a vote you cast every year in every election.
Also, from Matthew 27:15
“When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
“Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”
One is hard pressed to recall any single instance when Congressman Ron Paul voted based upon speculative considerations of the outcome, upon any supposed reason to gamble the outcome, or out of fear for the outcome.
Rather, his long standing career marked by an unmatched bearing of statesmanship and adherence to principle, his resolve against the most daunting of odds, and his precise and practical application of all that is moral in his arguments even in discourse upon the soundness of money, taken all together, resulted in a voting record of singular ‘Nay’ votes, and in the face of an otherwise unanimous congress, which will no doubt be unsurpassed in history!
It seems there can be no doubt however that considerations of blood letting in at least the examples you have listed formed no small part of his reasons for standing staunchly on the side of Constitutional righteousness. He opposed the holocaust of both the empire building abroad as well as it’s pharmaceutical sister in the abortuaries at home!
‘Writing-in’ the person who ‘should’ be president fulfills at least two purposes:
First it rejects those who should not be president;
Second, and more importantly, it is the precise response to a most humbling and awesome recognition… which is, that the last recourse of responsibility in the body politic is also those whom the Great Jehovah will find most to blame for the fall of the Republic as it was delivered by the founders to us! For it is we the people who are the chief of sinners. Presidents do wrong but can be removed by Congress; Supreme Court Justices do wrong but can be removed by congress or have their wings of jurisdiction severely clipped; Senators do wrong and are held accountable every six years; members of the House do wrong and are held accountable every two years. But, the chief blame is reserved for the people themselves as most culpable! The grassroots, who have the ultimate power to right the wrongs and term-limit the bums, fail to do so! We will be held chiefly responsible in that great day of reckoning which befalls all nations!
For that reason, voting is a duty not to be taken lightly. That singular ‘NAY’ still remains your last reprieve from such a burden, though in spite of all ‘practical speculations’, like Congressman Paul, you vote alone!
There is no collective “we” who sin. There is you and there is me. You or I may sin, but there is no “we” to be held accountable. You are accountable for your choices and actions. I am accountable for my choices and actions.
When it’s “we” who are accountable, that rapidly transititions to “no one is accountable.”
If, by “sin” you reference the Biblical concept, you should be aware that, in that particular work of literature, God holds nations collectively accountable, as nations, for sin and pronounces judgement thereon.
How illustrative of the precise disease with which the now midstream GOP is plagued. It is in it’s last throes of existence as a Truth, Conservative, Liberty party. It is the disorder which allows former church folks and professing Christians to salve their consciences and vote for the ‘blood-shredders’ once again! With impunity they vote pro-choice, as they even wash their hands after a night of vigil at the abortion clinic.
It is the very disease which at once speaks the ‘rhetoric of greatness’ while at the same time returning, all across this land from nearly every congressional district, the same corrupt swine to their same mire… the mud hole of tyranny into which they have managed to convert the once liberty upholding halls of congress!
The once sovereign citizens of Israel sinned in giving up their freedom for slavery! Not a few times did they repent themselves of this great sin.. collectively. Each in doing wrong was a part of the group that was responsible. Such individual wrong referred to in the collective sense continues in this day of Grace. America as a nation of sovereign citizens will as a nation, as was Rome, be responsible for it’s own failures and demise, notwithstanding each of us who fulfills as individuals his or her righteous responsibility in voting right, though alone.
Rom 3:9 – What then? are we better? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Daniel 9:5-8 – We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
Lam 5:16 – The crown is fallen [from] our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
Daniel 9: 5 – We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
1 John 1:10 – If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Deuteronomy 1:41 Then ye answered and said unto me, We have sinned …
Lamentations 5:7 – Our fathers have sinned … They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own …
Deuteronomy 1:41 Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against Yahweh, we will go up and fight …
Need I go further?
Romans 3:19 have all sinned, and have come short of the glory of God,
James 3:2 Who can tell how oft he offends?
Psalm 19:12 If thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
Psalm 130:3-4 God, be merciful to us sinners!
Luke 18:13 We have wasted our Lord’s goods;
Luke 16:1 we have buried the talents we were entrusted with.
Matthew 25:18 Nor have we rendered again according to the benefit done unto us;
2 Chronicles 32:25 and thus, we came to be in debt. The Scripture has concluded us all under sin;
Galatians 3:22 we have done such things as are worthy of death,
Romans 1:32 things for which the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience.
Ephesians 5:6 Our debt is more than ten thousand talents; it is a great debt, and we have nothing to pay. So far are we from being able to say, Have patience with us, and we will pay thee all.
Matthew 18:24-26 Justly therefore might our adversary deliver us to the judge, and the judge to the officer, to be cast into prison, the prison of hell, till we should pay the last farthing.
and so on…