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Slow Fade
On this eve of election day, I can't help but reflect on my political views. The short answer is: I'm a republican...but in reality it is much more complicated than that. More specifically, I am both socially and economically conservative, and I disagree with some of what both candidates are bringing to the table. Economically speaking, our country always has, and will continue to go through cyclical periods of relative prosperity versus downturn. To some degree, this is unavoidable regardless of any particular Commander in Chief...life will go on regardless of the tax rate.
Our country's collective value system, however, is not cyclical. I say collective because I truly believe that the majority of Americans still hold traditional values (life, marriage, pride in country, hard work, and self reliance/responsibility) true to heart. The problem is somewhere along the line we've become scared and ashamed to hold our neighbors to the same set of standards. How often do you hear, "Well I wouldn't do that, but it's not my place to tell them they can't." Really? Why not? Or how about, "I don't mix my religion and politics." What? How can this be? I propose that if you truly have religion, or better yet faith in Christ, you can't not mix the two. If you believe it's not right for you, why would it be right for someone else? Why do we as Americans allow the vocal minority to intimidate us into compromising our beliefs? I realize that some people really do think that abortion is ok, or that gay marriage is perfectly acceptable, or that it's ok for hard workers to support the lazy - but most Americans simply do not agree. I don't have facts and figures to back this up, and maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think so.
Unfortunately I have more questions than answers, but it boggles my mind as to why we are so afraid to embrace our own convictions. This doesn't stop at politics, but the weakness bleeds into our everyday life, conversations, and situations. The "right" thing is becoming increasingly less popular to do. I'm sure you can come up with a variety of applicable situations -I know I can.
All that said, I will be voting for McCain. Not because he's on the Republican ticket, and certainly not because I agree with his all of his policies, but I do believe he best represents the values I referenced above...and without these, the other stuff really doesn't matter.
As an ironic twist of fate, my oldest son's football team was featured in the recent Obama infomercial. I cringed at hyperlinking that, so I'll offset it with this one.
1 comment:
Sarge, I think you raise a good point regarding our faith convictions and the logical travesty of the position where people say “I don’t mix my religion and politics.” This position, no matter how earnestly held or seemingly necessary in a pluralistic society like our own, is both an irrational fantasy and a societal danger. It sounds wonderful, and it’s been used as a salve to sooth the consciences of people whose faith and morals are incongruous with parts of a particular political party’s platform, but in the end it’s still hooey.
Too often, and unfortunately, people of a certain worldview believe it is somehow “intolerant” to advocate for a certain set of morality stemming from religious conviction – especially if it happens to be orthodox Christianity. How often do we hear that it is a violation of “Separation of Church and State” - which by the way is no where mentioned in the Constitution - or imposing ones beliefs on another? What they fail to realize is that in a free society we are all welcome to advocate our views no matter what faith, or lack-there-of, and hash it out in the public square. Our government legislates morality all the time! It's inescapable. But what's going on currently is people have had it drilled into their head that if they adhere to a moral system based on faith (especially if it's Christianity) that they would be imposing their morality on those who don't necessarily believe in what we believe. The question is, so then whose morality are we going to adhere to? Something will fill the void, and most of the time it's totalitarianism.
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