Vote your district, vote your conscience, don’t surprise me. And the most important one of those is don’t surprise me.

—Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood

Sometimes it’s interesting when life imitates art, other times not so much. Change the above quote from House of Cards by one word and you’ve got the zeitgeist of the current party in political power—vote your party, vote your conscience, don’t surprise me. And apparently voting your party also comes before voting your conscience. Democrats would never let the moral misgivings of one man stand in the way of the greater agenda; so why should you, as a Republican, forfeit your own party’s agenda? Don’t embroil yourself with your candidate’s moral fiber. We can endure one man’s sexual proclivities and predatory past. Especially when that same man will protect our gun rights, abolish the estate tax, repeal and replace the ACA, keep marriage between a man and woman, ignore climate change hoaxes, build a border wall, etc. Sure! Because the current majority has been doing so well at that, right? Well … maybe not, but they have put an impetus on satisfying ISP lobbyists and threatening net neutrality. Maybe Moore could be the nail in the coffin to a free and open Internet. Wouldn’t that be great?

Listen, a lot of people are humble enough to admit that they don’t know enough about certain issues to cast their vote one way or another. I didn’t get a degree in macroeconomics. I didn’t study crony capitalism or political science. And I know there are so many falsified sources of information out there, you don’t know who you can trust for guidance. But there are a few things which you do know. You know when it looks and smells like crap, it’s usually crap. You know right from wrong. And you know that your actions are an example to others. Maybe you have children. How would you tell them to handle a situation like this? Could you explain to a child how they should never do something wrong, but that they should let a person who has done that very wrong thing represent who they are to the world?

I’m going to say, vote your conscience first. Examine the character of the man or woman you want to send to Washington on your behalf. Does he or she set the example for future generations that you deem acceptable? After answering that, then feel free to tow the party line. And you don’t have to vote for the enemy of your political ideology either. You can write in a vote. You can abstain from voting. You can let your party know, “I have standards, and you aren’t meeting them.”

Alabama being front and center in the Bible belt—you would think—would value being a beacon of virtue, having candidates who are beyond reproach, exemplifying not just the city on a hilltop which can’t be hidden, but an entire state. Well, you aren’t falling prey to the fourth branch of the government—the unchecked media—by listening to that nagging voice in your head. Rather, you’re a victim of carnal knowledge, of knowing right from wrong. And of also knowing what a vote for Roy Moore represents. It represents another blow to the nation’s integrity; the integrity of which we claim to be one of the last bastions. It showcases what we put a premium on in the South; not on ethics but on agendas, not on pride but on party, not on individual holiness but on holy wars on the capitalism front. “My gun rights trump a young teenager’s rights,” you say when filling in that bubble. “If I can question the validity of everything everyone says to me, I’m absolved of all consequences of my action—not my fault, not my battle.”

Me, I’m going to choose another hill to die on. Better to vote for the enemy of my ego, than the enemy of my conscience. If Doug Jones wins, I’m betting he’d like to operate for more than the two year runway this special election would afford him. In 2020, if the only thing he has done is upset the Republican majority in this state, then his political career will have been short lived—a blip on the radar when a staunchly red state succumbed to a brief crisis of morality, switching blue, then quickly returning to its natural order. If you simply can’t ever conceive of voting for a “Dem,” and you must perform your civic duty of voting, a vote for the Libertarian party might help ensure we aren’t put in this situation next time. It wouldn’t hurt for Alabama to be a three party state in the future, and a third party is recognized on a ballot if one of its candidates received more than 20 percent of the vote in the previous election. Let’s say, God-forbid, another scandal plagues us in 2020, it would be great to have a third candidate from which to choose.

I hope you’ve heard my appeal to resist voting for Roy Moore. We can do better. We are better. We have better to offer. At one point we used to vote about the issues, but then a few men in power decided the common man wasn’t smart enough to handle the issues, and morality became the talking points of candidates. But it was the morality of the issues not generally of the men running. I realize we are far from the topics which should be governing our decisions in voting. It’s an unfortunate place to find ourselves; it’s embarrassing really. But it’s where we are. And to the men who move only in the elite spheres of society, who are regulating the slow extinction of the middle class, I say it’s time to step down. To the baby boomers who can’t pass the baton onto this disillusioned and lazy generation, I say watch out.

That includes you, Roy Moore. You’ve been pandering to the Republican party ever since you switched sides—oh yes, he was a Democrat—erecting monuments to your Bible thumping constituents, and broadcasting that you hold the same values. Well those values are now on the table, and you want us to gloss over them; to think about the party. Honestly, if you get elected you may be the downfall of that party altogether. I’d call that a pyrrhic victory for political reform in this nation, one I’d hope we could avoid. I want Alabama to serve as a great example to the rest of the nation of how to reject institutionalized nonsense.