….Kwame Anthony Appiah, the New York Times ethics advice columnist, gives a rambling, barely-responsive and contradictory answer that only reaches the obvious conclusion after downing the issue in verbiage. The question:

I’m a dual Swedish and American citizen and have lived in Sweden for the past five years, with no plans on moving back to the United States. I have a Swedish husband, pay Swedish taxes and vote in Swedish elections.

I still maintain my American citizenship and file taxes in the United States every year. But I’ve made a choice not to vote in U.S. elections. Because I no longer live (or plan to live) in the States, I don’t think I should have a say in selecting its government.

I have expat friends who strongly disagree. They all vote and think that I should. What’s your take?

Easy, easy call. It is unethical to vote. Not living in the nation for five years, the inquirer cannot possibly be sufficiently aware of U.S. conditions, culture or public needs. Not intending to return to the U.S., the inquirer has no serious stake in the outcome of the election either. For the writer to vote in the U.S. would be like me being allowed to vote in Massachusetts elections when I haven’t lived there for years. The “expat” friends are wrong, and frankly, warped. I’ve had experience with Americans who are in the foreign service and seldom even visit the U.S. I found them to be culturally estranged from the nation I know, arrogant, detached, and biased. In fact, it is a serious problem that many of the people who represent the U.S. abroad no longer understand the nation they represent.

But I digress. Launching into long-winded equivocal academic mode, “The Ethicist” waxes on about whether one should have to pay taxes to have a vote, the wisdom of allowing people who aren’t citizens or have been convicted of a crime to vote, and “Does having made a contribution to your country over a period mean that you should be allowed to vote even after you’ve retired to another country?”, he finally proclaims, “A reasonable conclusion is that people granted the legal right to vote are morally free to exercise it.” Oh, shut up, man! The question wasn’t whether the inquirer had a right to vote or should have a right to vote. The question is whether it is ethical to vote under the conditions listed in the question!

“Given that the reason you have the vote isn’t wildly unjust, I say you can go for it,” Appiah writes. Oh, so the standard for ethical behavior now is whether it is wildly unjust? Who said anything about justice anyway? The ethics question is whether it is fair and responsible to vote when you have no stake in what is being voted on, and the ethics answer is NO.

Bur he isn’t finished yet. Next we get a discourse on the wisdom of making voting mandatory, which also is irrelevant to the question.

Finally, The Ethicist gets around to the answer he should have begun with (but then his column would have been too short):

OK, so you don’t have to vote. But would it be a good thing for us if you did? Would it do you any good? Not that I can see. Voting, so it seems to me, is an expressive act. It’s a way of committing yourself to your country. If you vote, you’re part of the winning bloc or the losing one. It’s a way of being invested in an outcome. You’re now invested, politically, in Sweden and not in the United States. Whatever your legal status, that’s a choice you’re morally free to make.

Except that he just said the inquirer should “Go for it.”