as i alluded the other day, my most recent hiatus from blogging was the product of several factors, among which must be included the presidential election, and its run-up and aftermath. i’m not gonna lie, i’ve been a wreck.
i should probably back up.
you may recall that, over the summer, i had pledged my vote to Mel Gibson. obviously, it’s not that i thought he had a chance of winning, but simply that i liked his style and his beliefs. well, i liked them more than those of the other “viable” candidates anyway.
“Voting for me is, surprisingly, a highly rational decision, in light of the alternatives.”
although there was a brief flirtation with Mitt Romney, based largely on his Mormon brand of sedevacantism, i just couldn’t bring myself to vote for him. but then, i saw that Mark Shea wasn’t going to vote for Romney either, so i knew i needed to change my mind again, since it felt too weird to me to agree with Shea in anything.
i was really torn. on the one hand, i didn’t want to just spill my vote upon the ground and, um, wash my hands of electoral responsibility, since surely any vote that wasn’t for Romney was a vote for Obama (who i can’t stand). but on the other hand, i thought that maybe Obama wouldn’t be so bad after all. i mean, in light of his attitude of antagonism toward the novus ordo shamchurch, and his explicit support of sharia law, i thought a second term might just be enough to spark a full-scale muslim takeover, which would of course both unmask all the fake “catholics” and ensure that women everywhere would never wear anything immodest again. win-win.
the perfect gift for all the soon-to-be-persecuted catholics on your christmas gift list, yes?
i still didn’t know who exactly to vote for, though. it wasn’t going to be Romney or Obama. or Gibson or anyone else i had previously considered. i thought about writing in Murphy’s name, but the fact is that i don’t particularly agree with his foreign policy.
i was stumped. stymied. at an utter loss.
and then, an epiphany! a came across a fantastic blog post by a fellow by the name of “Zippy Catholic,” whose main point seemed to be that any vote for any candidate is an act of idolatry. voting isn’t a mere show of support, it’s an act of latria–a “pinch of incense” he called it!!
it all made so much sense, and i felt so free.
why couldn’t i find a candidate to vote for, when everyone else around was getting excited, or least finding the willingness to hold their noses for, this guy or that? i hadn’t realized it before, but it was because i have kept the true faith while everyone else had fallen away!!! my sense of self-righteousness had perhaps never been so strong. i was on top of the world, looking down my nose at all the reprobate around me.
it was not to last, however.
the morning after the election, after i had smugly refused to vote, i happened to see a picture of good ol’ Mitt, looking sad and broken-hearted, and i suddenly realized what i had done. Iowa, my home state, had gone blue, and i couldn’t help but think that if i had just been willing to do a little more, perhaps things would have turned out differently, and maybe, just maybe, we could’ve turned this country around.
“You didn’t think robots could cry, did you? Well, I had a firmware update, and now I can.”
i racked my brain for the next two weeks or so, trying to think of what i could have done to alter this outcome. i mean, i know i’m only one man, but surely i could’ve made an impact and changed some minds. maybe if i had picked more fights on the facebook, or been more political in my blog postings, or put bumper stickers on my car.
now that i’m a bit more removed from things, i figure it probably wasn’t that big of a deal that i didn’t vote. nor would it have been that big a deal if i had voted, regardless of what Skippy Catholic says.
i do wish that i had picked more fights on the facebook. one never regrets those.
Not a Goblin, But a Troll 