David French is correct
When Metaxas votes for Trump, and when I write in my choice, we’ll both be voting for losing candidates. The difference is that my choice will be fit for the presidency and possess the character and temperament to lead the greatest nation in the world. His choice will not. I’ll be calling on Christians to support a candidate who possesses real integrity. He will not. He’s throwing away his vote on a corrupt, opportunistic demagogue. I am not.
Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle
Yesterday I stopped by South Congress Books in Austin and picked up this gorgeous 1957 Heritage Press edition of Darwin’s Voyage. Photos don’t capture what a masterful work of book-making it is.
One cold spring night, the promise of summer held back as if in spite, I emerged from a subway station on the edge of Williamsburg, on my way to meet a friend for dinner. I noticed an Orthodox Jew in characteristic all-black attire and shtreimel walking swiftly toward me. I assumed that he found me suspicious — a not-rare-enough reaction to the mundane fact of my having black skin — and so was advancing threateningly to ward off the threat I was presumed to be. I began to move away from him, but not too quickly, lest I appear all the more guilty. He altered course to intercept me, like a bullet that wouldn’t be denied its target. I zigged, hoping that a quick veer would get me away from him, but somehow he managed to close the distance between us. He didn’t walk so much as glide. Perhaps the man was a ninja and I had scanned him wrong. I stopped and flinched, thinking, Not the face, please, but he leaned in and, with gentle insistence, asked, “Would you like to do a good deed?” There was an undertone of challenge to the question, and also an irresistible strain of pleading. I answered yes, and he made a sharp turn and said, “Follow me.”
a vote for X is a vote for X
I keep hearing from Trump supporters that if I vote for a third-party or write-in candidate — for convenience’ sake let’s say Evan McMullin, though I may not choose him — in this election I’m “really” or “effectively” voting for Hillary Clinton. When I ask how that works exactly, I am told that it’s because Hillary is leading and therefore my McMullin vote isn’t allowing Trump to catch up. But in Texas, where I live, Trump is leading, so by the logic held out to me a vote for McMullin is a vote for Trump. So the Trumpistas ought to be pleased if I vote McMullin. They can scarcely argue that it’s the national vote count that matters, since the United States does not elect its Presidents by national popular vote.
So, then, the argument must be that if you vote for McMullin in a state where Hillary is ahead, you’re voting for Hillary, but if you do it in a state where Trump is leading you’re voting for Trump, whereas if you do it in a swing state I guess you won’t know until after the election who you voted for.
It ought to be palpably obvious at this point that the “effectively voting for X” argument is what Father Neuhaus, of late and cherished memory, used to call “nonsense on stilts.” A vote for Hillary is a vote for Hillary. A vote for Trump is a vote for Trump. And a vote for Evan McMullin is a vote for Evan McMullin. It’s simple as that. So, as my Senator Ted Cruz used to say back when we thought he had a conscience, you should vote your conscience.
When a reviewer starts explaining how the preparation of a quiche Lorraine at the restaurant he has visited differs from the way one prepared a true quiche Lorraine, I always want to interrupt. “But did you like it?” I want to shout. “Did it make you happy? Did you clean your plate?” Any chance that I might someday acquire a serious interest in how closely what I ate resembled the true article disappeared one day at a block party near our house while I was eating some homemade gazpacho and talking about how it differed from the authentic gazpacho one got in Seville. The more I talked about the difference, the faster I wolfed down the gazpacho – until I realized that one way what I was eating differed from authentic gazpacho was that it tasted better.
[gallery] wesleyhill:
David Robinson, Speak (1980).This piece is displayed at Regent College in Vancouver, where it is described this way: “Speak was created by local Vancouver artist David Robinson as a homage to the preacher. The preacher hangs inside the pulpit—a thin, vulnerable human, whose life is given to preaching God’s word. This piece is a call to humility for all of us, as we go about serving God in our varied vocations.”
[gallery] Library of Congress, via John Overholt on Twitter
