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Some Problems with NuVo: the so-called Null-Vote Initiative.
November 10, 2006
Subscribers Newsletter

A "reason," other than apathy, that kept otherwise decent people away from the polls? Excuse me?
I'm a relatively new follower of SANE, having discovered it on the Intellectual Conservative site. I was deeply moved by their mission statement and content on other pages involving new insights into our current cultural dilemmas, and found myself mostly cheering, inside, for the freshness and clarity of the expressed views. But, I hadn't yet discovered the NuVo Initiative.

Now, in the aftermath of our election disaster, I found the last in a series of ten articles on it, at NuVo Initiative.

"Experts" seem to agree, however they get their information, that significant numbers of religious conservatives stayed home on Election Day and did not vote. Some of that may be attributable to anger or disgust at our border situation; some of it may be due to our huge spending programs; much of it may be due to the way our media has been negatively hammering every aspect of the Iraq war since it began. I submit for your consideration that many more people watch and read the MSM Leftist-spun news sources, collectively, than watch Fox, listen to Talk Radio, and follow any Blogs, all together. They've been doing it since they were children, and they trust the MSM. Therefore, they have almost universally been steeped in negative-spun views on our side of the war in general, and on Bush in particular. Not the real facts, but the MSM News.

Now, these factors may cause an otherwise conservative person to vote against the sitting government in anger, or, less likely, they may cause him to stay home and not participate.

What does that leave us with, as participants in the voting process? Committed Leftists. Green nutburgers. Gay Libbers. Abortion activists. ACLU supporters. In other words, Anti-Believers. And, as Hannity keeps showing, again and again, Democratic silly twits who can't name the sitting Vice President, or Secretary of State, and probably don't know up from down.

SANE's NuVo Initiative is a "Null Vote" movement, in which high philosophical and intellectual reasons are given for one to not vote, and to be very vocal about why one is not voting. Don't vote, and tell all your friends, neighbors and family why you're not voting.

Reasons. Well now, let me see.

  1. Our Republic, as founded and intended by the Founders, is moving toward a pure Democracy, an unworkable system even before movements seeking to include even non-citizens in the voting process. Senators are no longer elected by State Legislatures, but by popular vote, and there is a movement to eliminate the Electoral College. Other factors combine with these to move power away from local jurisdictions, weakening and eventually eliminating the Rule of Subsidiarity and all local authority, and making "the people" responsible, eventually, for everything.
  2. The Court, under Leftist control of its membership and its direction, no longer adheres to the pre-existing, written words in the Constitution, but creates completely new, unlegislated and unrepresentative law, by merely "interpreting" presented ideas into legal decisions and thereby establishing legal precedent that the other two once co-equal but ever increasingly more subservient branches of government meekly follow, just like stupid little sheep.
  3. Issues are now being decided by popular vote that never should even have been called into question in the first place. Popular vote is now, or in the future, to decide such things as the nature of marriage; when a human being is a human being; when a human being can be destroyed for a "higher" purpose; when a human being can be aborted; when someone's child can be secretly smuggled somewhere for an abortion; when a boy-scout troop needs a homosexual scoutmaster imposed over it; whether we should physically confront an enemy who has sworn to kill us all, or subjugate us all, or convert us all. And more.
  4. The lines of citizenship - potential voters - are increasingly blurred as time goes on. Many within our borders refuse to assimilate, and keep to some sub-culture or counter-culture to which they identify more strongly than they do to the larger American ideal. In fact, many among them detest the American Ideal and say so. Some are here legally, some illegally, but the important factor is the separateness, the unwillingness to assimilate, and the hostility to Americanism. It is therefore argued that we, collectively, are less of a people than we were in the founding era, and can no longer call ourselves a good people, or a decent people, or an American people, because we are becoming a conglomerate of traditions and values and norms.
And there is much validity to those arguments. Just as there is rampant the sin of indifference today in American Catholicism, there is rampant toleration for the intollerable in public culture. And, of course, Pure Democracy cannot work; the more pure one becomes, the more unworkable, because every single little thing in life cannot be decided by a popular vote. And, even in a Republic, with extreme limitations on the reach of government, certain moral issues should not ever even appear on a ballot, or even come up for legislation, because of the obvious morality involved. In the Founder's days, no one would even have considered any legal modification of the nature of marriage, for instance. Because we were a Judeo-Christian People, and we took such things for granted.

I submit that none of this removes from any of us our responsibility and our duty as citizens to participate in the process. Every single demographic gathered still shows that we remain a Judeo-Christian people, whether we show it in the public square or not, and whether it is obvious or not. Over 86% professed Christians, over 90% professed believers, however well or poorly we practice our faith, that is what we call ourselves. NuVo will accomplish nothing other than to take some of the best believing Americans out of the process, yielding the field to the enemy. No matter how high-sounding the philosophical rhetoric, the bottom line is NuVo encourages good, moral people to not vote, leaving all the voting to the most immoral and / or unthinking people.

All voting does not necessarily lead to the predicted Global Village nearly as much as piss-poor voting and / or not voting at all does. So what if an issue shouldn't be on the ballot in the first place; vote your morality anyway. If you don't like the increasing reach of government, do something proactive to put an end to it. Not voting is not proactive, all pretty arguments aside. This is not a matter for high philosophy; this is your basic, fundamental real world situation that demands action, not lofty thoughts and high discourse. At what point might the larger public notice this Nuvo Initiative, and suddenly say, Gosharooties, those NuVo people appear to be right; let's all suddenly just re-establish the American Republic in the theoretically perfect image that they all imagine.

Poof.

Sorry, but it just ain't gonna happen. America is what we - you and me - make it, not what we wish it to be, and not what we talk it up to be. We were not put here to be spectators, or mere commentators and critics. Citizenship here is not free. Freedom has a cost. The less we exercise our legal right to actively participate in the government process, the weaker that right will become, and the closer we (or our children or grandchildren) come to one day, potentially, getting our new work assignment in front of an oven door in some camp, or something similar.

If any man truly believes in God then he is called to action in favor of His rule, and to either pull, push, or at least get the Hell out of the way. In the American political process, as on the field of battle, some of us are called to attack, some are called to defend, and some are called to support. For the most part, if you are not a cleric or consecrated monk or nun, then you really are not called solely to pray, but also to actively participate. Is there no sense of duty in the NuVo Initiative? Is this not just a high-sounding form of Let Someone Else Do It?

Attack! Lead the attack. Who better to lead than the ones with the most effective logical ammunition and weapons? No one was given rhetorical and logical and philosophical talent to just publicly blather about it, while encouraging the best in America to a disgusting neutrality on the most important issues confronting man today. We are all in the world for a purpose, and temporarily, by the blessing of God. This is not a pleasure cruise; either fish, cut bait, or get off the boat and quit your public bitching. If this initiative has contributed significantly to the outcome of the election, and I think it has, then NuVo should be ashamed of it.

While all of the philosophical points are not only correct, but soul stirring, the ultimate goal remains wrong; voting, in and of itself, does not necessarily lead to any inevitable One World government. It can be used to restrict it, with the right leadership. Inaction in today's situation is tantamount to abject surrender.

I am reminded of the quote from Rev 3:15-16:

I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

I still like the mission of SANE, but I think it needs a better strategy. An effective one.

Pray for America.


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