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The Lesser Evil Anti-War candidate
IW: I was engaging in one of those Facebook discussions I just can’t keep myself from diving into, about who to support for President. It was one of those only-on-Facebook discussions that take place with a group of people I went to school with decades ago. One discussant was proffering the lesser evil excuse for voting for Barack Obama. As usual I challenged that as voting for your fears rather than your beliefs. Upon reflection, I wondereded who I would have voted for in 2008 under the Lesser Evil Strategy. Well, Obama said in the the third debate that he would expand the war in Afghanistan (which he did) and John McCain did not say he would expand to the war. To pacifists like myself, that makes McCain the 2008 lesser evil candidate.
Remember what Jerry Garcia said: “Constantly choosing the lesser evil, is still choosing evil.”
Filed under: activism, afghanistan, Anti-War, election, Election 2008, Election 2012, grassroots democracy, News, politics, president Tagged: | Barack Obama, John McCain, lesser evil
Another “Lesser Evil 2008 Point”: One thing I did respect about McCain, was that, since he had been a Prisoner of War, he understood the problems (including blowback) of torture. I truly believe that if McCain was President, the United States would have become more humane, and more compliant with human rights law about torture. With Obama, we stayed in the same direction as George Bush. America continues to use torture as a method – including extradition to countries that torture.
Now, President Obama has authorized and succeeded in having the American Government assassinate an American citizen, in an extra-judicial killing. I wonder where John McCain would have stood on that? But, Obama was definitely not “The Lesser Evil” in regards to extra-judicial killings.