Do you vote? Many questions we’re asked to vote about involve questions of right or wrong. However, animists have values (such as, the world is a sacred place), and it seems that some questions we’re asked to vote affect the world in ways that may be either consistent or inconsistent with these values. Do you vote for candidates?

I voted for John F. Kennedy, who probably had the brightest image of any president in the twentieth century–and who was probably the most disastrous as well (blindly driving Cuba into the arms of the Soviet Union and provoking the Missile Crisis, then making up for this disaster by committing us to our disastrous intervention in Vietnam).

I haven’t voted for a long time, but this isn’t a matter of policy, though I have no doubt whatever that, if the world is saved, it will not be by any politician; as I’ve said again and again, if the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs (and doubtless old minds like Al Gore and Bush Jr. will have plenty of new programs) but by new minds with no programs at all. Though I’m not saying “don’t vote,” I’m convinced that the belief that some political leader is going to save us works against our hopes for the future.

(In fact, Daniel did vote in all the elections in the 2000s.–RMQ)

ID: 464
posted: 23 Apr 2000
updated: 23 Apr 2000