The "Lesser of Evil"

Then Presidential candidate, Dr. Alan Keyes, was in Pompano Beach Florida back in the Fall of 2008 to speak at the memorial service for Baby Shanice Osbourne, the child, who surviving an abortion in Dade County, was subsequently murdered by the abortion clinic owner. I had the privilege to bring a brief message just before Dr. Keyes spoke.

That occasion and the internment of Baby Shanice that followed, afforded me the the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Keyes. I was so impressed with his personal faith, integrity and passion for righteousness. He is a man of principle, an uncompromising advocate of applying Biblical truth to our participation in the the political process.

In our time together he tutored me on the fallacies of “voting for the lesser of two evils,” the premise widely advocated by many evangelicals in the presidential race between the two leading contenders, John McCain and Barack Obama. A vote for Dr. Keyes, it was argued, was a wasted vote.

Dr. Keyes pointed out that if all Christians would vote for a candidate who represented Christian values, like himself, the votes were there to elect such a candidate to the White House instead settling for “the lesser of two evils.”

Four years later, we are hearing the same argument now that the two primary candidates in the 2012 presidential election will be President Obama vs. the presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

In his speech at the Rally for Common Sense in Missouri on May 19, 2012,Dr. Keyes exposed the fallacy of the “lesser evil” premise. Here are some excerpts from his speech. You can watch the 32 minute address on YouTube below. He says,

“The problem with voting for the lesser evil is that when the smoke clears, you are still being ruled by evil...The lesser of evils is evil still.

“The problem with voting for the lesser evils is that you then hand the standard for your vote to the evil side. And if they want you to get really evil they will simply find and put up the most obvious and apparent and deep died wickedness they can contrive. And when you vote for the lesser of evil you’ll be voting for the just about the most deep died wickedness you can find but it will be the lesser evil.

“...the one thing you can be certain of if you have no choice but evil, is that you have left the Kingdom of God...When your only choice for rulership is Satan and Beelzebub, you better wake up and smell the sulphur, cause your know where you are.

“Now you tell me, how many more times are you going to accept it. How many times are you going to take the next step and the next step and the next step, deeper into that kingdom where evil rules and you are no longer represented. The problem with voting for choices that don’t represent you is that it doesn’t
take long before you get a government that doesn’t represent you and that’s what you have now.”

“We have finally come to the crisis no leader will rescue us, no party will rescue us. The only thing that can save this nation now is the people themselves encouraged by their faith in God and unwilling to give up the courage that that faith brings.”

As the intro to the video says, Dr. Keyes, also “...spoke about the need to be honest with ourselves about the problems now confronting America and how the Republican and Democrat parties collude to further the interests of the elite establishment.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DttIgQpyUsA