Pascal’s Democracy

There is a philosophical concept called Pascal’s Wager. It’s the idea that we cannot prove God’s existence with math or science, but living like you believe in him is a good idea just in case he does. If he doesn’t, you only miss out on a few carnal pleasures and likely dodge a lot of drama. If he does, you go to heaven.

This is an oversimplification but for the purposes of this write up, it’ll do.

I first came across Pascal’s Wager in high school when one of my friends got caught in the middle of his church splitting up over the decision to fire a youth pastor. They wound up firing the preacher too. It was a contributing factor to him leaving his faith all together. Pascal’s Wager was brought up several times as we talked about what was going on and what he was thinking.

This was around the same time as the Bush-Gore election in 2000 which was when I learned about the electoral college. The term “dimpled vs. hanging chad” still brings back memories of high school.

Classmates had heated debates over the results and the implications of the Supreme Court decision as they walked down the hall. We would debate the issues like we were lawyers and members of congress. The disgusted huffs and laughing snorts from teachers who overheard us were audible over the noise of students changing classes.  

I also remember all the terrible Halloween costumes it spawned the next year.

I was happy with Bush winning the election. As a 15-year-old I knew I didn’t like Gore due to his association with Bill Clinton. So, the controversy of the electoral college didn’t bother me as much as it probably should have.

My political views were rather simple. Big government bad, democrats like big government, ergo democrats bad. An artist friend drew a picture of me as a cave man holding a club with a Bush Cheney sign tacked to it.  

Fast forward through the passing of the creepy Patriot Act, the pork packed ACA, two decades of the GWOT, the Coast Guards Integrated Deepwater System Program boondoggle, 22 veteran suicides a day, and a lot of questionable behavior by elected officials across the board…

My political views have grown a bit more complex and a lot more grim. A lot of really bad shit has happened in the last twenty-four years.

I remember voting for the first time in 2004. I was 19 and so damn proud to be doing it. Despite seeing the casualty ratios of the early stages of Afghanistan and Iraqi campaigns, despite my misgivings about the overreach in the Patriot Act, I voted for Bush. I voted and knew it mattered. It was the first and last time I voted for a candidate. Since then I feel like I’ve been voting against the greater of two evils.

I voted again today.

I was standing in line at the polling station. It was about 0705 and warm for a November Texas morning. It was an old high school gymnasium left over from the 60s. Cinderblock walls and bleachers, suspect spray on ceiling insulation, and a furnace in one corner that looked old enough to run on coal. Despite all this, the lights were bright and the old school hard wood floor was shiny with new wax. Coffee in hand I shuffled along with the rest of the early birds as we waited our turn. I was dead tired and must have looked it because the retiree aged polling volunteers commented on it.

A front rolled through the night before and brought enough rain I had to stand watch in the city’s Emergency Operations Center. I alternated between reading candidate policy stances, and comparing projected weather radar plots against rain gauge data. The North Carolina floods are still at the forefront of my supervisors’ minds. Thankfully only one low water crossing flooded out and it was minor.

I didn’t crawl in bed until 0200.

So, slurping black coffee the consistency of bunker fuel, I studied my cheat sheet as I listened to the quiet chatter in line. Behind me a schoolteacher was complaining to her lawyer friend about state mandates. A young woman with a child was explaining the process to her son. The nice ladies working the desk would clap and cheer “First time voter! Woohoo!” every time a teenager got to them.

I was reminded of the times my parents took me to vote with them on refrigerator sized mechanical voting machines with levers and curtains. I thought back to my first vote as a college sophomore in rural Georgia on a touch screen tablet.

As I showed my driver’s license, confirmed my address, and picked up my long strip of blank paper, I thought about the half dozen government classes I had in high school and college. Recount controversies, electoral college arguments, pundits, voter fraud news, and talking heads from twenty-four years of evening news rolled through my head like floodwaters though a riverside town. I put away my cheat sheet and wondered if they’d let me use a dart board with pictures to vote. I’m bad at darts. 

The bulky touch screen voting machine took my blank slip of paper like a crips dollar bill in a vending machine. A mental image of a lobbyist sliding money into the mail slot of congressional office door came to mind. I made my selections, wished I was drunk for the occasion, then double checked the results when the device spit the paper back out.

“Not that it matters” I muttered to myself. Pascal’s Wager came back to me in a wry burst of humor.

“Another vote in Pascal’s Democracy” I said as I slid my vote into the polling machine by the exit door. The gray-haired man monitoring it was wearing a pearl snap shirt tucking into faded blue jeans, thick glasses, and a Navy veteran trucker hat. He gave me an odd look. I just laughed and told him to “Have a good one.” 

Driving home I reviewed my voting history. 

I genuinely hoped Obama would unite the country. Coming from the deep south, a place where the scars of segregation are still very visible, I thought that maybe we’d crossed some tangible line in history with our first black president. We only grew divided. I thought maybe Trump would unite us since he’d been a New York democrat for most of his life. The country became more polarized. Judging by the news and various forms of media Biden has not been an improvement. I vote and watch things get worse, wondering if my voice makes a difference one way or the other.

Yet, when creeks rise, somewhere in the deluge there is the last drop of rain that pushes the water out of its banks and over the dams.

Despite my dread over modern politics. Despite wanting to start day drinking in May of every election year. Despite all the bullshit, I vote.

I vote because, even if I can never prove it, I might end up being the one drop of rain that makes the difference between the status quo and a major change.

___________________________________

K.C. Aud has made a career of being lucky and has managed to find something positive in nearly every poor decision he’s ever made, even if it was only a new perspective on how not to do something.

Enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard in 2010 he became an Operations Specialist (radio and navigation) and did his first tour in Georgia guarding submarines from drunk fishermen. In 2014, tired of the heat and the bugs he transferred to a 210-foot medium endurance cutter in Washington state. The cutter then regularly deployed to the hot and buggy west coast of Central America to hunt down drug runners. Aboard USCGC Active he traveled 94,194 miles and personally handled enough cocaine to keep a small country high for a decade. Somewhere in there, he learned to write, if not spell.  

Three years later, daunted by the prospect of spending the rest of his career in a windowless command center, he separated from active duty. After 13 different jobs ranging from beer brewer to dairy farmhand, to machinist, to Navy civilian contractor, he reenlisted in 2020 as a Coast Guard reservist, changing rates to Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist. When not helping the Navy assets in the Puget Sound troubleshoot radios, he’s on drill in Seattle doing water cop stuff and or flailing away at his keyboard. Though married and now a father, he misses the mission. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.