The Cranky Socialist Meet the new boss, much better than the old boss

Author: Adam Clayton

Last week, someone wrote a Letter to the Editor about my last column. I neglect to mention his name only because it was unpronounceable, abnormally long and would have taken too much space in the intro. He argued that I ought to have endorsed Socialist Party USA's candidate for president. As a member of the SPUSA, I do indeed support him, as a compassionate human being I decided to vote for Obama. I am philosophically a naturally idealistic person, but I did not vote for myself - I voted for those this election is going to truly effect. Whatever happened in this election, circumstance and Middlebury have gifted me so, and I imagine I will probably be alright. Obama is no Socialist, but I believe a vote that could stop a single rape, or a childhood lost to warfare, is more valuable than a vote for my political beliefs. To vote for a minor candidate I agree with, but sacrifice the opportunity to alleviate immediate suffering, was not a decision I could make.

If Obama has indeed won, the person to whom it matters the most will not be me, nor will it be Obama. It will be a mother in Darfur who may otherwise be raped and given AIDS. She might conceive a baby whose father killed her entire previous family. A quick look at www.Darfurscores.com, which rates elected officials on how champion the Darfur cause through legislation, will tell you that Obama has got a cumulative A+ in the Senate, as did Biden, while McCain has a C. To make it analogous to student life, if they had gone to a college whose courses were about championing Darfur, McCain graduated with a 2.0 for stopping mass murder, Obama and Biden with above a 4.0. Palin does not have any relevant legislative experience, and would have transferred from the college after a year anyway.

Even if it had been true that the McCain campaign could have saved me money on taxes, it would not have mattered. The only two things I truly care about in life are a personal happiness and a responsibility to make sure others can have the same opportunity. That is why this is the only article where I have not written in jest, where my views are for once serious. And it makes me sad to see us debate incessantly about whether it is economically beneficial to tax the wealthy, when we rarely discuss the moral imperative to stop the killing in Darfur. The news networks are even worse, talking about mavericks and Muslims so much that I doubt they ever told us which candidate does more to stop mass murder.

Many of us are fortunate to have everything we materially need to be happy in our own lives, and no politician can help us clear the obstacles we may have. Unfortunately, others who had no determination in this election depend on it in a way I cannot even imagine. America may not be perfect, but our lives are much better than most others on this planet, and at least we are given free speech and a democracy that, while far from ideal, is still a distant dream for many in this world. And it is with that in mind that I cast my vote, knowing that the next president of the United States will matter less to me than it will to those who may not even have been aware of its occurrence. So, Ryan Tauriainen, you may be heartened to know that it was the same compassion that informs my political beliefs which led me to cast my vote for Obama, and for that reason alone I am very much not the "uninformed socialist" you accuse me of being.