Posted by
Beckie, Reformed Lib on Friday, October 05, 2007 8:07:38 AM
I think that voting based on religious values is going to kill this country regardless of the flavor of religion one follows. The Constitution of this great nation was written by Christians who believed in the rights granted by God to every human being. The right to be successful or make mistakes based on individual choices. The right not to have the government tell you how to do ANYTHING that affects your life. It was known by the Christian minds of the 18th century that the entire premise of faith in God is based on the Word of God, the Bible. And the Word of God makes it very clear that, spiritually, people have been given a choice. To strive to be as close to perfect as humanly possible, or to turn from God and revel in the darkness. Whichever way a person chooses to lead their lives, for the "Christians" of the Republican party to declare that they will leave the entire country to the like of Hillary Clinton and her minions by basing their votes solely on their spiritual beliefs is selfish. The fact that the evangelical right would even speak such a thing out loud shows that their earnestness to be "Good Christians" lies in their unspoken desire to force the entire country to follow a religious dogma.
The real issues of government are not even being addressed. The real issue of an infrastructure that is rapidly moving to foreign countries. Infrastructure such as manufacturing and steel mills. The ability to make our own goods can make or break us when (not if) we are invaded by an enemy seeking to quash this "Great Experiment".
The real issue of men and women volunteering to be our protectors, to go wherever we send them in the "National Interest", and then paying them less than an illegal immigrant can earn, deploying them for long stretches at a time, expecting them to eat MREs and sleep in dust and dirt and share a bathroom with 4 or more of his/her fellow soldiers, all the while talking about "supporting" them by not helping them do their jobs. The fact that there is more of an outcry over $90 thousand in a politicians freezer than in the rejecting of our Marines in a major US city says more to me about the evangelical christian base than any belief in the "rights of un-born children".
The real issue is that people who choose to make lousy decisions in their lives have the government at their disposal to force the rest of us to pay for their mistakes. The generous heart of America has become the gullible stupidity of the Hippie Generation that came of age in the Sixties. For every dime the working American earns, we are forced to give 4 cents to someone who wants to watch Maury all day, brown paper bag in hand.
The real issue is that our children become less and less educated as we become more and more obsessed with pouring taxpayer money into worthless schools run by people who are more worried about their petty local political power than they are about the children who (may) graduate able to read at a 6th grade level and who have absolutely no critical thinking skills to speak of. A Representative Republic cannot function with illiterates in the voting booth.
The real issue is that the ability of the American citizen to find work is being threatened by our southern neighbor who has made it plain that we are being re-patriated into Mexico. We have people pouring into this country from our southern border costing us billions of taxpayer dollars (that's your money and my money) by providing housing, food, health care and what passes for an education to almost every one of them. And let us not forget the prison space we're paying for.
The real issue is that we are sending people to Washington who vote on appropriations of OUR hard earned dollars based on how many buildings, roads, or bridges will be named after them and not voting to keep all the above issues taken care of.
As a person with a deep faith in God and His ability to know and see everything, I am far less worried about the state of a person's Christian alignment than I am about their willingness and ability to understand that the President, and more importantly the Congress, is charged with making sure the citizens of this great nation are free to live their lives, consequences and all, without interference from anyone as long as the individual does not seek to harm others.
The fact that so many posting here would be insistent that it is religious dogma and not practical necessity that drives their vote shows me that we have people in this country that are just as fascist in their desire to force their beliefs down my throat as the Islamo-whack jobs of the Middle east are. Someone please explain to me how doing something so heinous is actually more respectable when you're a "Christian" than when you're a Muslim. Or a Buddhist.Or a Wiccan. Or a strong believer of any religious system. Only when the people on both sides of the aisle remember that the individual was respected over the mob during the founding or this country will we see true change. Only when all of us, as citizens of the United States, realize that you can't legislate charity, understanding, kindness, and concern for fellow man, only then will we once again get the government we deserve.
I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for. I have 13 months to figure it out. But you can bet I'll be doing my homework. And in the end I will vote for the people I will believe to have the interest of true freedom at heart. And then I'll sleep soundly that night knowing I have exercised the greatest freedom in the world; the freedom to make my own choice.