Voting for virtue...

I have a bit of a confession to make here. For many years I was part of a religious organization that believes that life begins at conception, and I believed it too. These days I have no idea what to believe, but for, let’s say fifteen years, I operated under the assumption that abortion was killing. Given that prior to that, I’d participated in clinic defenses, you can imagine that this was an uncomfortable dissonance to hold.

You might be surprised to know that the religious organization in question was not the Catholic Church, or any Christian church. No, it was Tibetan Buddhism, specifically the Gelukpa lineage. The same Buddhism taught by the Dalai Lama. I have no idea whether other branches of Buddhism hold this belief, but it was definitely part of the Gelukpa tradition as it was taught to me.

So, you might imagine that during this time, I voted against pro-choice candidates and for “pro-life” candidates, right? I can’t even type that without scare quotes, which I suppose is giving away the answer: hell no, I did not. Why not? How can I justify this?

There are five Buddhist lay precepts, and ten behaviors that are described as “non-virtue.” The first of the lay precepts is not to kill a human or a human fetus, even at the cost of one’s own life. So it’s quite serious. In the list of non-virtues, killing of any sentient being is considered non-virtue: even a fly.

So how, then, can I justify not voting for “pro-life” candidates? It’s actually incredibly simple. What it requires is an understanding of what voting generally is: two bad choices. It’s rare that a candidate is someone who would not actually engage in any non-virtue. It’s actually rare that any candidate would not engage in activities that would break the first precept—the one against killing.

Certainly no “pro-life” candidate would fail to break this precept. I’ve never heard of a “pro-life” candidate who’s against war, or against the death penalty. Who would decrease the military budget. Furthermore, these supposedly “pro-life” candidates are often in favor of all kinds of other non-virtue. Lying, stealing, these all seem to be perfectly okay for “pro-life” candidates, because they have that one little fig leaf.

This feels like a really trivial thing to point out, but I see so many religiously sincere people make what to me seems like a painful mistake: being a one-issue voter. Ignoring all the evil that their candidate does because of one supposed good that their candidate promises to do.

Even if we consider just that one supposed good, we don’t have to look to deeply to see that these candidates are really pro-death, as long as the person dying is the one who is pregnant. Wanted pregnancies that end in miscarriage often need to be treated by procedures such as the D&C, but with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, we see clearly that this is no longer an option: hospital lawyers are telling doctors not to use this treatment in states where abortion is illegal. This callous disregard for the life of the person who is pregnant is not in any sense “pro-life.”

So, if I have to choose between candidates, the basis upon which I make this choice is, essentially, which one is worse? Are they more likely to cause a war? That’s a pretty major mark against them. Are they going to support policies that result in more cruelty in government? That’s a really serious problem, and it’s actually my major issue. We can’t get rid of government—all we can really do is try our best to minimize its cruelty. So I am an anti-cruelty voter. I am an anti-war voter. I am an anti-incarceration voter. I pick the candidate that is least bad on these issues.

If you imagine that you will go to hell if you vote for a pro-choice candidate, but you won’t got to hell if you vote for a pro-death-penalty candidate or a pro-war candidate, you are whistling past the graveyard. Don’t take on the burden of the non-virtue that will be done in your name. Vote against the worst candidate. Support candidates that are anti-cruelty. Support candidates that are pro-honesty.

Of course, it’s not up to me to tell you who to vote for. But as a fellow practitioner who’s wrestled with this issue very seriously for a long time, this is my advice: vote, because if you don’t vote you’re making a choice not to protect others. And vote for the candidate that will do the least harm, not the candidate that pretends to be “pro-life” but is actually going to implement policies that result in more cruelty, more death, more violence, and who probably uses hatred and lies to get elected. Don’t vote for that one.

Okay, one additional bit of exhortation. If you think, as I do, that the choices we have for candidates suck, then please, please show up for primary elections. Good candidates often lose by a tiny number of votes. The political establishment tends to intervene on behalf of incumbents in primaries, so if you don’t show up, you’re letting them decide for you that your candidate is going to be a putz. Don’t let them make that decision for you.