Voting with a Living Conscience
Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? — Roger Waters
My Greatest Generation dad was not a perfect angel, but he was close enough to one to be a role model, teacher, hero and friend to me. Though carrying the same doubts and angst of the average 20th century man, overall he was a happy guy who walked to the end of his years with an infectious optimism, peaceful spirit, and a childlike wonder at life. I’ve heard him called a yogi. He was also a pilot at heart, from the moment he was old enough to steer an airplane.
Larry was born into an intellectual, socialist, activist household in the 1920s. Among other things, his mother had worked to get Planned Parenthood up and running throughout the country, and both parents held meetings in their home for the Socialist Party — not an entirely safe practice in those days. In a telling family portrait, a friend captured my dad on a visit home from his WWII Air Force training. Mom, dad, and uniformed son are all happily perched in their unadorned Midwestern living room, noses buried in books.
When World War II broke out, Larry’s mom objected to the war in general; she was a pacifist and, as well, perceived the complex economic and corporate agenda of the world powers in involvement in a global war probably as well as Howard Zinn himself. Larry’s choice to volunteer for the U.S. Air Force wouldn’t have been a popular one in his household. But to my dad, the moral choice to fight fascism and aggressive nationalist expansion by the Axis powers was clear and compelling (like most Americans, he didn’t know the full extent of Germany’s atrocities at the time.) The ideals he was raised with had to take a back seat to the urgent responsibility to the free world that Larry, and the vast majority of young Americans, felt in the 1940s. And though he saw violence in the war, and killed some people, he didn’t regret his choice; after the war he was a pacifist and peace activist again — a proud member of Veterans for Peace, and proud as well to have done what needed to be done to stop Hitler. (He also got to fly the most awesome fighter planes on Earth — yes, there was some fun involved.)
So was his conscience clear? He took the lives of enemy soldiers — human beings. He went against his ideals. He also felt the power and aliveness of risking his own life to combat a clear evil. Does anyone who has lived a life have a clear conscience? Or does having a conscience include making the terrible choices one has to make sometimes? Is the conscience of someone who engages with a flawed and messy world in an attempt to improve some little piece of it perhaps a more robust conscience than that of the aloof objector?
All I know is my dad was a generally happy guy, and seemed to have that elusive thing we all long for called “peace of mind.” Perhaps not a perfect peace, but a living, functional peace.
Likewise, in the 1950s my dad let go of the outward expression of his ideals for a priority closer to his heart; as a young father in the times of McCarthyism and rampant anti-communist paranoia, he withdrew from his membership in the Communist Party so as not to endanger his employability or his family. He never let go of his ideals, though, and continued to work through the mainstream political parties to push for an economy and society based on sharing and caring.
Does that make him a sellout? Don’t worry, I won’t slug you if you call my dad a sellout. As far as I can tell, though, nothing changed within his beliefs, he just adapted to the world around him for the sake of his loved ones. I doubt he regretted that choice either.
I’ll tell you just one more, if it will help drive the point home…
My parents were Christian Scientists when I was born — another radical, idealistic belief system passed on to my dad from his parents. They sincerely believed in mind over matter in the realm of health care, and bought into the church’s language about God’s Will. Before I was born they let the family dog, Pepito, die horribly from distemper by refusing to vaccinate him.
When I was two and a half years old, I got pneumonia. My parents kept me home and prayed to God. I got very, very sick, and when I was at death’s door, my dad finally had his come-to-Jesus moment and took me to the hospital. I pulled through after five weeks in an oxygen tent.
After that one, Larry did abandon that particular belief system, and had nothing nice to say about religion for the rest of his life. (He did continue to believe in mind over matter to some degree.) So, yes, his beliefs did change when he saw that the life of his daughter was threatened by them. Does that mean he lacked integrity? I don’t think his heart did. Did his abandonment of his old belief system weigh on his conscience? Of course not; the opposite was true — his conscience was troubled by Pepito’s death, and my brush with it, all for the sake of his ideals.
These are the choices one makes in a life. This is the way a human spirit grows. Who would my dad have been if he had held absolutely to his ideals in any of those three moments of choice? I think he would have been a much smaller man than the one I knew.
Larry, as Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of Buddhist thought would say, was a joyful participant in the sorrows of the world. We all have tough choices in our lives. Those of us who hold deeply to our ideals are faced with similar conundrae. Of course I’m talking about the upcoming presidential election in the United States, where people on the left who have been energized by a primary candidate who spoke our ideals out loud are now faced with the choice of voting for a “mainstream” candidate who could soundly defeat a clearly unqualified and dangerously irresponsible one, or for a third-party candidate as a protest of the entire system. Some are considering abstaining altogether, and could leave us with another Congress controlled by obstructionist Republicans.
Myself, I am joyfully enlisting in the war to absolutely crush the campaign of the monstrous demagogue. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and I can honestly tell you I wasn’t some noble idealist — I was politically underinformed and cynical at the time. I didn’t feel pure and clean after that election — I actually felt dirty. (Since then I’ve put my feet on the ground, gotten to know some of the human beings involved in politics, and gotten a degree in political science. I’m not cynical and overwhelmed by politics anymore; I’m excited and engaged.) The vulnerable people of the world deserve the rational voice of this American voter.
Beyond his deeply disturbing behavior, the current Republican nominee is supported by militant neo-Nazis and white supremacists. I know some people believe that he is going to lose by a such a wide margin that we can afford some protest votes, but we seriously need to consider consequences: The more electors he wins, the more the armed extreme-right fringe of this country could perceive a mandate to act out their anger; there is an actual danger factor even when he loses. And personally, I would like to minimize the embarrassment we Americans would feel before the international community if someone like him actually received any significant percentage of our electors; in the wake of Brexit and the No vote on the Columbia peace talks, this is an opportunity for our nation to show compelling moral leadership in the world. And as an Arizonan, I can’t stand the idea of a stubborn third-party vote leaving that man’s name branded on my beautiful state for posterity. Human decency cannot afford to lose a single vote.
Yes, we need an economy of sharing and caring, peace and justice, education, literacy, arts, responsibility toward the planet, a decent quality of life and opportunity for all people… and I know Hillary Clinton has focused her gifts and talents on these goals for her entire life. In fact, watching her career and listening to her speak, I see a similar mix to the idealism and pragmatism that I admire in my dad; it’s a sort of democratic spiritual maturity — an idealism that can retain its optimism and core while working with the system as it is, and an intellect that can grow and change with experience. I don’t need to agree with (or fathom) every single policy choice of hers to know that we’re on the same team and pulling the arc of the moral universe in the same direction. To me, getting behind Hillary and a Democratic Congress is not “selling out,” or even compromising — it’s an exhilarating democratic exercise, full of heart, full of life. It’s joining the human race. And our team is made up of the decent, kind bell curve of the American people.
We have the opportunity right now to crush a campaign based in the paradigm of negativity and hate into the dust with a landslide of unity. We can work out the nuances of our dreams once the benevolent and cooperative folks are in office. Peace and justice will prevail if we keep our eyes on the prize and stay engaged.
What part do you want to play in this historic moment? And who will you be, after it has passed?
