November 6, 2012 is Election Day in the United States of America. In every election year, there is a lot of
talk. Ideas and ideals, objectives and
objections, values and venom all seem to saturate the atmosphere as people from
all sides of the political aisle weigh in with their opinion regarding how our
government should be run.
This election is different than most. There is more talk about style and less talk
about substance. We live in a day when
people make decisions based on how they “feel” verses what they know. I listen to interviews and talk to people on
the streets. As I do, I become more convinced that the majority of people I talk
to either do not know what our leaders believe, or they simply do not care.
People of all faith and people of no faith believe in the
principle of the Good Samaritan, wherein if someone is in trouble and you have within
your power the ability to help that person, help is in order. They believe that if you choose to kill
someone, it is wrong. Ask anyone and they will usually align with you when you
declare, “if you do not work, you do not eat.” This is not a “dig” against someone
who is unemployed – particularly in this economic environment when that problem
has grown to staggering proportions. This
is a principle offered to those who simply choose to rely on others rather than
find a way – any way, in some measure – to provide for their own well being.
By example, I offer what happened to a friend
of mine a couple of years ago. He is a
business owner and while interviewing for a position, one man came to the
scheduled appointment an announced he might as well confess that he was a “crackhead”.
Oh, and he probably should not have had that beer before the interview. With the interview over, he wanted to make certain
that he interview was logged so that he could let the unemployment office he
had been on a job interview that day.”
You get the picture.
My point is, there are many shared values. There are other values in which we are greatly
divided. Oddly enough, most of those values
greatly conflict with the values we have in common. For instance, we all believe
in equal rights. We all believe that
murder is wrong. We have conflicting
views about a woman’s right to choose and abortion. Even though science has
proven that life begins at conception and pre-term babies have been born to live
normal lives, the woman’s right to make choices for her life makes it possible to
kill the child basically as long as it is still attached by an umbilical cord.
We have other conflicts. We want the freedom to say what we
want and do what we want, but we wrestle with the cost that has to be paid to
secure that freedom – forgetting that if we are not willing to ay that price, history
has proven that those freedoms will eventually disappear. Our nation’s 200+
year history tends to ignore the history that precedes her. She moves along,
making the same choices which led to the demise of many other civilizations.
The political world calls these “wedge issues”. They define
these as issues that people bring up to stir trouble and divide us as a
people. They are used as leverage to
sway an election. I say if there is a
wedge, it is found first and foremost in our hearts. In the last decade, our nation has proven to
be polarized. We are basically split
down the middle 50/50. Any first year science student knows that if you place
an acid and an alkali together, they neutralize one another and render each
other ineffective and powerless. In many
ways, that is what has happened to our great country. And, it did not start
form the top down. It started in the heart of individuals fighting not for common
good but rather for what was expedient for their individual lives.
The Bible tells us that a double minded man is unstable in
all of his ways. A man who is a great worker and provider for his family and a
caring husband and father can be plagued with an addiction to substance or even
pornography. Although he is clear on
every other area of his life, the area of conflict with his own values system
ill sooner or later eat at the fabric of every area of his life, neutralizing
all of the good that he has done.
It is how it is with our nation. Men with a common interest
of right and wrong, who even with varying backgrounds of faith held to tenants
of faith with great conviction. They
designed a government with the clear understanding of basic right and wrong. They
even allowed for a process of adjustment in that government, clear in the
knowledge that they as men were fallible and that there would always be room
for improvement. Yet the improvements were never designed to work in opposition of basic truth. Man has chosen to violate that, just as man
chose to leave that, find a new land and start fresh, free from corruption. In shot,
government has not made us. We made government.
In today’s society, what we believe is irrelevant.
Christians will declare murder is wrong yet vote to put someone in office who,
with great passion and intent, will fight for the right to condone murder. They argue and say “That is not the issue. I do
not need the government to tell me right from wrong.” Yet they will rely on the
same government to get into their business and make other choices for them on how
they are allowed to spend their money. What they can say in their churches and
what their kids are allowed to believe in school.
As a nation, we are developing blindness.
By ignoring what we know to be true, we can
fight for how we feel. We make decisions
based on what we feel like we want. That
is the kind of thinking that allows someone to enter an affair against their
spouse. “They made me feel better.” “I
felt like that is what I needed to do.” Who cares what is right or what I
believe beyond the emotion I am feeling right now?
Back to November 6 – You have no right to be frustrated at
the demise of our nation if you allow your decisions and your vote to ignore
truth. Neither do you have the right to
be frustrated at the demise of our nation if your political decision is to
forgo your right and responsibility to vote.
You cannot make it about style. You
cannot make it about what is cool. You cannot make it about the rhetoric that
spins from both sides of the political aisle.
You must choose based on what is right and true. The nation will not be blessed as long as her
policies and values violate the will of God.
Vote well. Vote with a conscious. Vote.
