They might kill fewer Jews ....

This morning, I have listened in amazement as local talk radio station KFAQ listeners, who are self identified Republicans, lined up one after the other to testify that they would vote for John McCain even if he chose a pro-choice VP candidate.

Voting for John McCain is problem enough. John McCain is the slacker son of a powerful admiral who would probably have been RIF'd early in his military career were it not for his powerful father. He was a terrible student at Annapolis and has an un-denied reputation for partying and philandering both throughout his military career and later on the Hill. There are two or more unexplained airplane crashes in his record that would have destroyed another pilots career, including one where we has flying a naval aircraft to attend a football game! He divorced his crippled wife who stayed with him throughout his Viet Nam captivity and traded her in for new model, fifteen years his junior, who just happened to be the heir to a beer and liquor fortune. If he were anyone but one of America's political and social elite, he would be jokingly called the living example of a sailors dream, married to a sexy woman whose father owns a liquor store. But, he is instead, running for president of the United States.

To expect much in the way of moral discernment from a man like John McCain is to expect too much. But, a little grudging respect for the evangelical wing of the GOP would have been nice. But, he has refused to give even that. He has stiff armed evangelical leaders like James Dobson and done everything in his power to destroy the faith based coalition that has been the most loyal voter block for past two decades. And now, to add insult to injury, he is floating trial balloons about a VP choice who is openly and completely pro-abortion.

I listened to KFAQ listeners give excuse after excuse. The most common was that McCain and whoever he picks for VP are the lesser of evils. There is a problem with this reasoning however. The lesser of evils is still evil and that philosophy allows evil to set the agenda. Further, it requires the voter/supporter to personally participate in the evil rather than simply observe it on the other side of the political aisle.

The second most common excuse was the GOP has to do whatever it takes to retain the White House. This is another way of saying the end justifies the means. The GOP has some experience with this type of thinking. Richard Nixon was a master of it and it gave us Jimmy Carter. But, even more important than the political outcome is the moral outcome of such a philosophy. Where does that policy end? Just how much would GOP loyalists be willing to tolerate to retain power?

In the 1920's and early 1930's, the Germans and Italians were faced with a similar problem. Their economies were a disaster, a communist take over of both countries was entirely possible, the Versailles treaty had reduced Germany to military impotence. The very fabric of both nations was being destroyed.

These nations chose what they perceived to be the lesser of evils. Hitler and Mussolini made things happen. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Hitler stopped the communists in their tracks. The economy of both nations boomed. Within a few years, they were regaining territory and world power. But, the German and Italian people were paying a price. Their nations were becoming morally corrupt and their legal systems were being subordinated by pragmatic short term political concerns.

Hitler's and to a lesser extent Mussolini's treatment of Jews should have been a warning that something was terribly wrong. Officially tolerated injustice is a cancer on nation's soul that will kill it if it is not removed. But, like a miner who doesn't pay attention to the canary that quits singing, the Germans and Italians, happy with their jobs, their improved economy and their restored world position, decided that the deaths of a few socially unacceptable people was small price to pay for what they were receiving in return. And, it worked for a little less than a decade. But, by the middle of the second decade, Germany and Italy lay in smoking ruins.

Voting for John McCain ticket on the grounds that he might reduce the number of abortions with his judicial picks is political naivety of the first order. The majority justices who decided Roe v. Wade and every crazy abortion decision since were GOP nominees. If allowed to serve in the in White House, McCain will do exactly what he is doing right now ... ignoring the better moral lights of his nation and doing precisely what he has to to stay in power. It is a morally contradictory position that can do nothing but move the agenda of both parties farther and farther away from principled leadership. Voting for a moderately pro-choice or mixed pro-choice ticket today is the moral equivalent of a 1930's German voting for a moderate Nazi ticket because, if elected, they might kill fewer Jews.