This will be the first presidential election since reaching voting age that I’ve sat out.  I will not vote for either major party’s standard-bearer.

The nominee of one party has never believed in anything but self-promotion.  He is characterologically incapable of holding any principle, save that one.  He is a narcissist; he is a sociopath; and as a consequence of having so little interest in external reality, he is not of sound mind.

Long ago, the other nominee seems to have believed in principles, but they were profoundly wrong ones.  Besides, she has promoted herself as a means to her ends for so long that at last her means have displaced her ends; the principles to which she once devoted herself have at last become a mere means to herself.  Her ideology persists, but only as a sort of reflex, or mental tick.  So although she has reached it by a different path, her destination is much like the other nominee’s.

It is hardly necessary to add that neither nominee believes in the Constitution.  One of them does not even know how many Articles it contains; he has thrown out the figure twelve.  The other probably knows, but does not care.  Sic volo, sic jubeo, sic pro ratione voluntas.

Some honest people, many of them my friends, believe they must vote for the sociopath to keep the criminal from taking office.  Others think they must vote for the criminal to keep the sociopath from taking office.  Both groups think one must choose between a wild card and a known evil.  As they see it, the only question is which is worse.

I sympathize with both groups, but I think they have misconceived the nature of the choice.  The analogy with poker is misplaced, for this wild card is wilder than they think.  It does not just take different values; it is playing a different game.  And the reference to “known” evils is misplaced -- not just because evil cannot be “known” in itself – for it can certainly be known in its effects – but because this sort of evil is the sort that breeds.

Besides, there is a third alternative.  One can say “No” to both nominees.

My honest friends think saying “No” to nominees is irresponsible.  One group fears that to say “No” to the sociopath is to elect the criminal; the other, that to say “No” to the criminal is to elect the sociopath.  Understandably, they say one must follow the path that minimizes evil.  One must try to save as much as one can.

I do not disagree.  The question is what it is that one is saving as much of as possible.  By saving as much as one can, my honest friends mean saving as much of one’s policy goals as one can.  But in the first place, there is no longer any path to saving decent policy goals.  For example, although it is true that a victory by the criminal would spell the triumph of the party which is programmatically committed to death, a victory by the sociopath would spell the destruction of any pretense to the other party’s commitment to life.  In the second, this time the stakes are greater than policy.  We are not playing for this law or that; we are playing for the rule of law itself, in which neither nominee believes.

So I do propose saving as much as one can -- of something else.  Whether the republic itself can be saved is uncertain; time will tell.  But there will be no republic without conscience, and we can save every farthing of that.

Each must follow the certain judgment of his own conscience, and this is mine.  May God have mercy on us all.

Don't overlook:  Book Trailer

People have been asking whether I’ve given up the blog.  No, I haven’t, though for the last few months I’ve taken a break from it to finish a large book project and begin another.  Now that the former is done and the latter is well underway, I’ll resume occasional posts, though I won’t go back to posting daily – that was exhausting, and other work is more important.  Tell you what, faithful readers:  Just to show I mean it, you may expect a post tomorrow.  How’s that?

Don't overlook:  Book Trailer

Don't overlook:  Book Trailer

I was refreshed the other day by a conversation with a young man I know.  It was not so much his wisdom that refreshed me, but that one should meet with it in a person so young.  Had I asked him where he got it, he would credit his father, whom he considers the wisest man in the world.  Perhaps he is.

Let me tell you about him.  He is recently married and has the beauty of it upon him.  Before long he will have children and have that beauty upon him.  As they grow up there will be beauty upon beauty entrained.

My young friend saw the oncoming winter of our institutions – withering marriages and families, increasing loneliness, declining trust -- and knew quite well that the green buds of Spring might be very far off.  So many give in to discouragement.  Not he.

He was confident that eventually the natural order of things would reassert itself -- partly just because it is the natural order, in which such great restorative powers persist despite the Fall, and partly because of providence of God, who does not allow nature to be so utterly ruined that its restorative powers are wholly overwhelmed.

The people who adore the gods of Winter have no such hope.  They cannot resolve to do the right thing and trust the results to God’s providence, because they believe neither in right nor in God’s providence.  Results is all they have.  Everything is all up to them.

Though my friend knew that the green buds of Spring might not open and sprout in his own lifetime, he was content to do what he could to make the winter a little warmer, and perhaps, God willing, to help the thaw to come a little sooner.  In the background – I know him well – was the thought that if the end of all things comes first, well, so much the better, for that too is in the hand of God.

He was confident that a man who does all he can, with all his heart and intelligence, has done enough.  So to discouraged young people I say:  Think like that.

And to the discouraged of my own age I say:  We too must think like that.  Many of the young people we know think differently than my young friend.  They are swallowed and go into the belly of the whale.  At such times we too become discouraged, because all we can do is pray for them.

But if that is really all we can do, and we do it with all our strength, then we too have done enough.

This is the last of my daily posts.  I will still post occasionally, as the thought strikes me, but I will no longer try to keep up the daily grind.  If you would like to be notified of new posts, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Don't overlook:  Book Trailer

Question:

I've been following your blog for a few years now, and I wonder if you could help me.  Recently I've recently decided to homeschool my daughter, who will be twelve soon, and was excited at the prospect of having some sort of logic textbook that she and I could delve into together.  You wouldn't happen to have a title handy, would you?  I am far from being an expert, so she and I will be at almost the same level.

Reply:

More power to you.  We began home-schooling one of our own daughters at the same age.  Though I have no logic textbook to suggest for that level, I think twelve may be a little early for a logic textbook anyway.  Our approach was to have our daughter keep a logical fallacies notebook.  We emphasized the fallacies of distraction, which are challenging enough for an early middle schooler.  The formal fallacies can probably wait for a year or two.

Each day our daughter had to come up with at least one fallacy.  It might come from any written or spoken source, including literature, newspapers, and conversations, but it had to be unintentional – contrived fallacies like the examples in logic textbooks weren’t allowed.  Each time she found a fallacy, she had to record it, classify it, explain how it went wrong, and indicate where she had read or heard it.

As you might guess, she became quite adept at recognizing some kinds of fallacy.  These she would pounce upon with glee.  Other kinds were more difficult to spot, but by the end of the year, with just a few hints, she had found at least a few examples of even the hard ones.  She took it as a challenge.

Since I love to encourage home schoolers, may I throw in another suggestion?  As one English author said, “writing maketh an exact man” – so consider giving your daughter a daily brief writing assignment too!

Make each writing assignment different.  Give each one a twist.  Something like this:  Tell which you think better, asparagus or broccoli, and justify your answer.    Vividly describe what it might be like to be a fish, without using adverbs or adjectives.  Rewrite this week’s newspaper weather forecast, in the style of Edgar Allen Poe.  Compose directions from our house to the grocery store, making sure they could be followed even by someone who didn’t know the neighborhood.  Solve the following simple puzzle, then explain how you worked out the answer.  A wicked witch has turned you into a toad.  Describe how you could get our attention and explain what has happened, bearing in mind that we don’t know who you are and don’t normally let toads in the house.

Just a thought.  I hope you both have fun!

Don't overlook:  Book Trailer

“Every religion is equally valid.”  But most religions hold that not every religion is equally valid.  So if every religion is equally valid, then it is equally valid to deny that every religion is equally valid.  Let us give up the silly pretense of agreeing with everyone; courtesy and reason are enough.