Rejecting the False Choice

Oct 30, 2024

As we rapidly approach the 2024 Presidential election, I feel compelled to explain my decision not to vote for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. I find writing out my thoughts helps me to strengthen and organize my thoughts. It helps me to fortify my logical argument and identify gaps in my knowledge. Primarily, this exercise is internal. If it also persuades others, that’s great. But, that’s not the primary goal. With that said, I wanted to make it available to others for a few reasons:

(1) To give others an opportunity to review their own thoughts and provide them with a similar opportunity to sharpen their own beliefs.

(2) To reach out and see if there are others who feel similarly lost in the modern political climate and let them know they are not alone.

(3) To stand firmly behind my conviction.

If you looked at my senior yearbook from high school, you would see I chose for my senior quote a line from Aaron Tippin’s song You’ve Got to Stand for Something. That song starts with this:

Now daddy didn't like trouble, but if it came along
Everyone that knew him knew which side that he'd be on
He never was a hero, or this county's shinin' light
But you could always find him standing up
For what he thought was right

So, with that in mind, here is what I believe. As I started writing, I realized that there was way too much to put in one post, so I have divided it up into a series. I am centralizing all of that here so you can access all of the posts in one place.