Wow. It’s one week before Election Day, the re-election of Obama is unthinkable, and the election is extremely close – every vote counts.
Against this backdrop, I am still seeing lots of articles and blog postings from self-described conservatives, Christians, constitutionalists, independents and patriots fervently proclaiming they will not vote for either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, because they refuse to choose “the lesser of two evils.”
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“The lesser of two evils is still evil,” they intone, as though those magical words encapsulate some transcendent logic.
Ironically, most of these people revere America’s Founding Fathers, quote them and refer to them often – indeed they see themselves as following in the founders’ footsteps, or at least adhering to their principles.
But in this they are profoundly deluded. For in reality, the Founding Fathers, by drafting, ratifying and implementing the Constitution of the United States, engaged in the most monumental example in American history of deliberately choosing the lesser of two evils.
By 1787, under the flawed Articles of Confederation, the recently liberated union was already unraveling. States were growing increasingly hostile toward one another, engaging in tariff wars that paralyzed interstate commerce. The national government was too weak to have a usable currency or to raise a decent army or navy, leaving the nation vulnerable – in fact, the British were occupying forts in parts of the U.S.! In short, escalating national and international problems threatened to destroy everything for which so many patriots had sacrificed their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
