"In politics--and maybe elsewhere--I have assumed that one chooses when he can the person or policy
he thinks best, regardless of how others choose. Now I begin to realize that many choose with much else in mind, such as--will this build the party? Can this choice get enough others as backing to be effective?
I have also spent my vote often in order to be a certain principled minority: there are people everywhere who won't kill, or who won't vote for a person--no matter the other reasons--who advocates or has done this or that, etc. In taking such a role, part of my reason is that I want leaders to know there are such people in the public (and of course there are: could it just be that we can become beings for whom genocide just is not tolerable? Isn't that the kind of being our international laws assume? If not, why is their a limit on any national policy?). In taking these positions I am of course aware of some of the hazards. But I want to raise the question of whether in society one takes his part guided by policy. Should one ever be himself, and let policy derive from a resolution of everyone's naive directness?"
--William Stafford, 20 July 1964
