The
outcome of the 2000 presidential race was eventually decided by a mere
537 votes in the closely contested state of Florida. It makes me wonder
what might have happened if Mennonites there would have just stayed at
home on election day? Assuming most of them voted for the party that
prevailed (as the majority of Mennos elsewhere did) would that alone
have changed the outcome?
If so, here are four additional hypothetical questions:
1.
Would there have been an Iraq war, the longest in US history next to the Afghan conflict, and one
that has resulted in the loss of over 4000 American lives, plus some
40,000 service men and women being psychologically and/or physically
maimed for life--along with Iraqi casualties numbering in the hundreds
of thousands? Perhaps some Mennonites would argue that deposing Saddam
Hussein was worth that and more, but imposing regime change by military
means has never been advocated by a peace church like ours. And
regrettably, in the instability that has followed, large numbers of
Christians who were formerly able to practice their faith in relative
peace have since had to flee Iraq for their own safety, leaving a large
vacuum as far as a Christian witness in that part of the world.
2. Would the US national debt have begun to spiral out of control as
it did after 2000 as a result of sizable tax cuts that turned a
national budget surplus into a rapidly growing deficit, and because of
the enormous cost of waging two simultaneous wars?
3. Would the US have ratified the Kyota Protocol, with potentially
significant implications for the future well being of the planet? The
actual merits of the treaty and the evidence that supports its
provisions can always be debated, of course, but the fact of it not
passing in part as an indirect result of the Florida vote is certainly a
possibility.
4. Would the makeup of the Supreme Court have been altered, thus
affecting, for example, the outcome of the recent Citizens United case
(which gives corporations the status of "people" who can make unlimited
campaign contributions), adding to the loss of civility and
accountability in current and future political campaigns?
We will never know the answers to such speculative questions, but I
welcome comments and further conversation on whether our voting as
Mennonites may not sometimes have major unintended consequences.
P. S. Here's a link to an earlier piece, An Election Reflection.
11 comments:
So, Harvey, are you recommending -- like Goshen College's John Roth -- that Mennonites would be better off not voting?
Barry Friesen (a lawyer) writes in this month's "The Mennonite" that he thinks we should boycott the election this year because both parties are not living by the rule of law. We should publicly and openly boycott as a way of depriving the politicos what they most desire: legitimacy.
Thanks, Earl, I'm primarily recommending that we take these concerns by Roth and Friesen seriously and engage in some serious discernment.
So if Al Gore had been elected instead of Bush, yes, things might have been different, although we now have Obama being more of a "war time" president than many would have predicted. This is pretty hypothetical but certainly a sobering reminder of how few votes and people it takes to make a big difference.
Harvey, Thanks for the imaginative look you've inspired. The best blog posts don't answer the conversation, they start the conversation. You've done that here.
I for one am completely confused about election 2012. Life is not getting any easier for anabaptists. One thing that's been lacking has been creativity and imagination, you've given that here. I appreciate that you don't tell us what to do, you simply drop a picture into our heads and allow us to dream.
Marty Troyer (The Peace Pastor)
Bush/Quayle, Dole/Kemp, Clinton/Gore, Gore/Lieberman, Bush/Cheney, Kerry/Edwards, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, "Mitt" Romney, Newt Gingrich...
It is hard for me to look at this list and then imagine that the course of U.S. history would have been much different over the last nearly 20 years. Individual politics vary slightly on the margins, but mostly they are all the same. Only the campaigns of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have offered any true alternatives.
Wow. After Harvey's essay listing four issues of such consequence to the wellbeing or suffering of so many!
Guess those four questions just don't affect anyone you know or care about.
Ruth Stoltzfus Jost
I was sent this via email and asked to post it (one apparently needs a Google account in order to leave a comment):
Excellent reflections, Harvey.
I don't think Christians can afford the self-indulgence of saying "Well, since we don't have a miracle president who has cleaned up the decade-long impacts of the Bush years in, say, 2-3 years, maybe I'll just stand back and see what the war-of-choice / crony corporatists do for a second round!"
I'm working for Obama. I don't want on my conscience another list of outrageous suffering, inequality, and costly environmental procrastination because I didn't help our country keep a flawed but thinking centrist president in office so we can keep digging our way out.
Ruth Stoltzfus Jost
I think a Gore/Leiberman presidency would have taken us into Iraq. Maybe Gore is able to resist the AIPAC influence better than Bush Jr., but too many powerful people were salivating over Iraq.
The spending certainly would have continued to spiral out of control. I do not think there is any question that the Kyoto Protocol would have been supported.
As far as the Citizens United case... Bush appointed Justices Roberts and Alito, who both concurred with the majority (Roberts wrote the opinion). Maybe it doesn't pass if Gore replaces O'Conner and Rehnquist with less conservative justices, but we never really know what the Court is actually going to do.
This is why I really have a hard time imaging that much would have been different.
Thanks for your comments,Luke.
I certainly understand your skepticism, but do question your assumption on the Iraq war issue. On that point, I just ran across the following by a fairly conservative columnist, not a fan of Al Gore by any stretch:
http://townhall.com/columnists/billsteigerwald/2008/04/09/if_al_gore_had_won_in_2000/page/full/
Thanks for responding, Luke, even though my tone was a little snarky. I dont think Iraq could have happened without Paul Wolfowitz fantasies or the continuous ministrations of Dick Cheney to cook the intelligence. There is no Democratic counterpart to them.
As this issue alone resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades of hatred we'll all pay for, I think we have more than a few differences at the margins.
There's little doubt the supreme court justices Alito and Roberts aggressively favor moneyed interests over individuals/employees. Not to bog us down in detail, but to deny a claim for years of discrimination where the employee didn't sue solely because she was prevented by employer from knowing she was paid less leaves all rationality behind.
That's the context for Citizens United decision which now entrenched the power of money to distort all our decisions. It no longer matters what you and I think. Money will decide the outcome more than ever, eroding habits of compromise that used to make it possible to govern.
I think it's big. I think the consequences are dire. I think it's moral. I think we're responsible to do what we can.
I could be wrong about Gore and Iraq. I agree with Steigerwald that a Gore presidency would have been grueling, but preferable to Bush in hindsight.
I am not convinced that Gore would have avoided Iraq though. Remember that he criticized Bush Sr. for not completing the job the first time. In 1998 he declared before the Pentagon that the Saddam had WMDs and was a threat. President Clinton ordered air-strikes against Bagdad that same year. Gore parted with Bush Jr. in 2002 in regards to Iraq because Gore knew that it would distract from the mission in Afghanistan, however he still maintained that Iraq posed a threat to security and that the U.S. should pursue coalitions through the UN to bring about the regime change.
Here is where I disagree with Steigerwald: The war in Iraq was more than just "crazy neocons.." The USG has maintained military and political interference in the Middle East for many many years and through many administrations, both Democrat and Republican.
Maybe I am missing the trees for the forrest, and that is why I do not see any real differences between these people, but I have to admit that I would have rather had Gore if it means even just one life, American or Iraqi, could have been saved.
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