On the Virtue of Voting

Our leaders are wicked, and so are we.

I drove by a sign the other day that read “Having trouble voting?” My first thought was, “then please don’t.” If voting is too difficult for you to navigate, you have no business determining the course of the country. Elections have consequences. All ideas are not created equal, and politics is an industry fueled by self-aggrandizement. The idea that supporting any of the National candidates confers some kind moral superiority on the voter is truly absurd, and is a bipartisan flaw.

We find ourselves in an era of obvious political theater, but have forgotten an ancient (once universally acknowledged) truth which we conveniently ignore as we parade our political positions and share voting selfies. That truth is: we are cursed with original sin. That inconvenient, pervasive reality that suggests humans are inherently flawed, and maybe our capacity to be completely wrong holds more historical weight than our posted Palestinian flag or Trump’s “Fight” photograph.

So, vote if you must, but before you advertise your ballot as benevolence, remember: you were born in the mire of sin—that your willingness to spend someone else’s money to pamper asylum-seekers is not generosity. It’s probably you pretending that their suffering, in some small way, is your own—hoping taxation yields absolution. Only, you get the social advantage of claiming victimhood on behalf of their misery: like a manicured hand holding a shovel at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Rest assured, feigning victim allegiance is 100% bipartisan.

Dr. Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men makes this painfully clear by detailing how regular people get swept up in atrocities, just by going with the flow. Browning’s account of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Nazi-occupied Poland reveals a chilling truth: these men weren’t raving lunatics or radical ideologues. Nope, they were just regular folks, many of whom didn’t even harbor strong anti-Semitic feelings. Yet, they directly participated in the killing of approximately 38,000 Jews and were involved in the deportation of an additional 45,000 Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. These were mostly middle-aged, non-fanatical men from Hamburg. But, that was then, right? Nowadays, we’d all be heroes standing up against evil.

This is where the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:29-33 should shake us. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”

‭‭He lambasts the Pharisees for building tombs for the prophets and claiming that if they had been alive back then, they wouldn’t have participated in the murders of those righteous men. Never mind the fact that they are on the eve of crucifying their own High Priest and Messiah. It’s easy to look back at history and imagine ourselves on the right side of it, but Jesus warns that this kind of thinking is self-deception. The Pharisees were convinced they were morally superior to their ancestors, yet they failed to see their own complicity in the injustices of their day. Like Browning’s Ordinary Men, who thought of themselves as just “following orders,” the Pharisees were blind to how their actions perpetuated the same evil they attempted to ceremoniously wash from their hands.

Which brings us back to today’s moral crusaders, quick to call out the dead and gone for their sins while seemingly blind to their own shortcomings—ironically, demonstrating their own virtue with myopic political slogans (or battle shouts). Sure, they may think they’re starring in the hero’s role—tearing down statues and denouncing history to suit their ideals—but in doing so, they run the risk of falling into the same moral traps as the Reserve Police Battalion 101. They assume they’re immune to the pressures of conformity, that they’d never bend to the spirit of the times. But history, and Jesus’ words, suggest otherwise. The Pharisees, just like modern moralists, believed they would never make the same mistakes as those before them, but Jesus bluntly pointed out that this belief only fed their hypocrisy. The religious leaders, just like the heathens they despised, we’re just going with the flow, being conformed to the pattern of their world. Side note: there is only one way that I am aware of to know you are part of the counterculture—to be an unapologetic proponent of free speech. If you are looking for the counterculture, find the free speech absolutists and court jesters (See: Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais).

By coming to grips with the concept of original sin, we start to see that moral failings aren’t just part of the past—they’re part of us. The same instincts that led ordinary men to commit atrocities still exist. Our modern moral outrage, no matter how well-intentioned, can sometimes serve as a smokescreen, keeping us from doing the harder work of looking inward and owning up to our failings. Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees was rooted in this very point: self-righteousness blinds us to our own flaws. We think we’ve risen above the sins of our ancestors, but in reality, we’re just as vulnerable to moral blindness. That is why we would be wise not to take ourselves too seriously, and to resist encouraging conformity of thought. When I was younger, I could identify the other aspiring non-conformists by their tattoos, dyed hair, punk rock, and devil-may-care attitude. Now, I listen for Chopin and look for calluses.

Anyway, before we rush to dismantle the past, let’s take a look in the mirror. Acknowledging our flaws doesn’t mean we valorize history’s evil, but it does offer us a deeper understanding of humanity’s ongoing struggle with the wickedness of our own hearts. In a world overflowing with digital soapboxes and performative outrage, the real revolution might just be admitting that we, too, are prone to evil—and that real growth, the kind that doesn’t just tear down, but puts in work, is a lot harder than we pretend it is. As Jesus pointed out, it's not enough to condemn the past or honor the prophets—we have to confront our own hearts.

My question for you, dear reader, is: what are the ideas we hold or the efforts we undertake today that we will look back on in 80 years with disgust? Or, put another way, “Lord, what would you like to change in me, and what would You like me to change?”

As a postscript to commemorate the season, I’d like to add this voting ≠ virtue. The idea that simply voting confers moral superiority misses the point: an uninformed vote can contribute to the very problems these people claim to oppose. We should all ask ourselves if our actions reflect real understanding and a commitment to meaningful governance—or if we’re just parroting the loudest slogans of the moment. True virtue takes more than ticking a box on a ballot; it takes real reflection, critical thought, and a willingness to confront our own role in the culture we’re so quick to criticize. Therefore, I implore you: don’t post a picture of you voting or of your voting sticker. And, if you want to cast your ballot to support for some politicians, please vote for the ones who claim to mitigate the scope of their own incompetence.

Ordinary men.