It started, as most things of evil do, on IRC. Niel had grown immune to the particular gratuitous insult themes I had plotted out for the day, and I was at loss. My work rule is: "If I can't provoke Niel, then I have to work on my dissertation". For two solid years, I had successfully dodged working on that sucker, but it looked as if the jig was up. Either Niel had gone blind, or his skin had gotten a lot thicker. But I was desperate: I couldn't even remember what my dissertation was about! Then came that flash of malevolent inspiration that confirms my belief that there is a God and he hates us (where 'us' tends to mean 'Niel').

<bijan> Yo niel!
<niel> I'm ignoring you.
<bijan> No more insults, really! I just have a little...puzzle...for you. A test. A game of wits as it t'were.
<niel> Oooooooookay.
<bijan> The rules are simple: 1) I provide two candidates in an imaginary political race. 2) You must vote for one of them; there is *no* opting out. 3) You must justify your choice.
<niel> That doesn't sound too bad...
<bijan> Ok, first up, George W. Bush or Pat Buchanan.
<niel> AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!

We later determined that Niel's head had exploded. While he was recuperating, I tried the game out on the other MFisters. Not surprisingly, they enjoyed it, and Kendall saw a chance to get productive work out of us. The results lie before you (well, except for Niel's exploded head; he decided to hold on to that.).

So what is this Evil of Two Lessers nonsense really about? No one who's sane goes to all this work because of some IRC stunt. Well, since many of us aren't sane but are tired of elections where we hate both of the choices, we decided to play the Evil of Two Lessers game publicly and invite Monkeyfist readers to play along with us. The polite Republicrat recommendation for people like us -- no, not public hangings -- is that we must choose the "lesser of two evils." But what happens when this strategy gets used to stultify democracy? What happens is smartass leftists like us go to work, reductio-style, to show how absurd the "lesser of two evils" electoral strategy is.

We also commend the newest member of the Monkeyfist Collective, Collin Williams, for his excellent illustrations. If you need graphic design, or want to spend fabulous sums on original art work, send Collin piles of money, and he'll do something brillant.

The Evil of Two Lessers

Part One

Part Two