Only in America–maybe not, but it sure feels that way–can we politicize anything. Just days ago, Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Storm Sandy hit the northern eastern seaboard of the United States. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, et al were damaged by the wind and rain resulting from Sandy. Americans, political to the end, have already politicized the event.

We’ve turned this into a global warming problem, and are endorsing presidential candidates on who will be best for global warming. See NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement of President Obama, for example.

We’ve turned this into a test for who will be best to handle storm clean-up. Some arguing that NJ Gov. Christie has handed Obama the election with his praise for Obama’s handling of the storm.

We’ve turned this into a labor dispute, with volunteer crews from unaffected states being turned away because the volunteers aren’t union members.

This is why the Church is so important. The Church reaches out in love for neighbor to help the destitute, poor, and afflicted. The Church does so with no claims for glory or praise. The Church does so with no benefit to politics or political rhetoric. The Church, even within her own internal disputes, helps and loves without the charity being proof of one denomination’s love being greater than another’s. The Church does it because it is right.

Even when our politicians are trying to do “right,” we politicize it and make it a fight. We do so because we’ve elevated the importance of the State to unnatural levels–levels they will fight to maintain. If we repent, and turn from our dependence on the State and to the Church, we might find love that is worth receiving. And, we might find the State begins to act like a State should, because it is being viewed the way it should.

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A few questions I have had for those who claim that it is your moral obligation to vote in the upcoming presidential election are these:

Do you vote in every election that you are eligible to vote in?  Every one?  Are you even aware of all of them?  I’m not.  Alderman, city council, dogcatcher?  If not, do you feel the need to repent when you fail to vote in any election you are eligible to vote in?  Do you scold or chastise friends, relatives, and neighbors who do not?  Even if you don’t, do you believe that you or they have sinned or failed to live up to your/their moral duty?

If the answer to any of these is no, then what is the criteria upon which it is claimed that one has a particular moral duty to vote in this election, or, more generally, in the national presidential and congressional elections that come up every four years?  On what grounds is there a moral imperative to vote in these elections that does not hold for each and every election that one could potentially vote in?

And, to add a bit of fuel to the fire, let’s remember that one’s vote for president is arguably the single vote that you can cast in the United States political system that has the least consequence.  For one thing, there are simply more total votes in this election, making yours a smaller slice of the pie.  Further, the electoral system means that if you are in a solidly red or blue state your vote will simply not count in the final analysis, period.

But more than that, many of the other votes you can cast, including the ones for alderman or city council will likely have a much more direct impact on your life than your vote for president.  Your vote in those local elections, combined with watercooler discussion and maybe a sign in your yard could at least theoretically have a measurable impact on the outcome of an election for someone that will make decisions that directly impact your day to day life (zoning, fireworks, local taxes, police numbers, etc).  I’m not saying this will necessarily be the case, but it is far more conceivable than the idea that your vote for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama (or even a third party candidate) will have any noticeable effect on either your life or that of those you care about.

I’m not advocating abstention here.  In fact, I intend to vote in the presidential election (although largely because there are so many other issues on the ballot that I am more interested in voting on).  I also think there are good reasons to vote in the presidential election if you can do so in good conscience   My point is that the attempt to make such voting a moral imperative and even to shame people into voting are misguided and uncalled for at best, and in many cases appear to me to be rather hypocritical.  It seems arbitrary to pick certain elections that one feels strongly about and suggest that it is a moral duty to participate in them, while not voting in, and perhaps not even being aware of, numerous other elections that have a less high profile status.

PostScript:

Finally, and just because it is a personal pet peeve, I cannot abide the claim that so many have suffered and died so that I could vote, thus now I am obligated to.  No, some have suffered and died to give me the right to vote or not. That’s why it’s called freedom. They suffered and died for freedom, including the freedom to protest a corrupt system by refusing to give it the consent of the governed.  I’m not necessarily saying we’re there just now.  I’m saying that it is a category mistake to claim that they  suffered and died so that I must vote.  If anything they suffered and died so that I may vote.  But further, and tragically, some of them suffered and died because our corrupt system sent them into unjust, undeclared, and unconstitutional wars, where they were used as cannon fodder to support political machinations.  So they are not martyrs for my freedom, but rather martyrs to the egomaniacs that control this country at the highest levels of government and use them to advance political interests.<>siteсопровождение а цены

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This is a really thoughtful essay by my friend Derrick Oliff  on the philosophical and ethical issues involved in principled non-voting, voting third party, pragmatism in politics, and more.  I highly recommend it as a food for thought.  It is a fairly long, but rewarding read.

For some reason the hyperlinking isn’t working, but the essay can be found here:

http://beatenbrains.blogspot.com/2012/09/none-of-above_23.html<>siteпродвижение а за рубежом

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Here is some documentation showing why some of us are always talking about the way that our use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere is resulting in the deaths of far more innocents than is acceptable.  Unfortunately Mitt Romney has given every indication that he will continue the same (and more) so there is little hope that this violence will end any time soon.  And yes, as some are quick to point out, the destruction is far less than what we’ve seen with traditional aerial attacks on civilian populations, but we don’t do ethics by comparison.  Fire bombing Dresden and Tokyo was worse than dropping conventional bombs on civilian populations in terms of raw carnage, but it’s not as if that makes bombing civilians with traditional bombs okay.

The video at the top of this page does a pretty good job of helping to show how what we are doing is actually extremely self-destructive in that it gives people who had no feelings about the U.S. whatsoever reasons to have extremely hostile feelings about the U.S. that can then be exploited by terrorists and other who promote violence.  One has to wonder if the politicians can really be unaware of this.  Blowback is not a complicated concept.  Indeed, as even that noted leftist of a former generation, Randolph Bourne famously quipped in the title of his essay, “war is the health of the state.”

There’s also this website which has a lot of easily accessible numbers, etc., but may appear a little less academic and more sensational, although it’s certainly no more so (actually less) than sites like Drudge, the Blaze, or even Fox News.

Finally there’s this with some fairly in-depth analysis of the numbers, although  it doesn’t have a substantial amount of analysis beyond just trying to calculate the numbers, and some critique of the governments lack of transparency and cooperation.

The concerns that many of us have about the use of drones, the lack of reporting and transparency from the government, and the high ratio of civilian to combatant deaths (including many women and children) can be substantiated at levels much more rigorous and academically thorough than just the stories that we often see or even share from websites like InfoWars, Lew Rockwell and AntiWar.  In fact these websites are frequently drawing from, and putting into popularly accessible format information from sources like those cited above.  Of course it is sometimes sensationalized in the process.  But if conservatives can laud Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and appreciate Drudge, and if liberals can can cite the Huffington Post with enthusiasm, I don’t think we can act like sensationalism immediately invalidates a source.

Finally, there’s also all the problems with the drone wars that don’t require substantiation because they are plainly true on the surface of them.  We have no declarations of war in these countries; in fact, Pakistan is allegedly an ally, even though we are violating their sovereign airspace and killing their citizens on a near daily basis.  The wars are being conducted not primarily by the U.S. military, but by the CIA which means that the program does not even officially exist– that makes denying FOIA requests easy.  You can’t request information about a program that is officially not official.  Finally, there are flagrant violations of just war theory embedded into the very nature of the drone wars.  In fact, just looking at a list of the basic principles of just war one could make a case that the drone wars don’t actually meet any of these criteria.

• A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
• A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
• A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient–see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with “right” intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
• A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
• The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
• The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
• The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

Caveat: Yes George Bush was the first to use drones, and it was just as wrong when he did it, but Obama has increased the program drastically, being responsible for some 298 out of an estimated 350 strikes in just his first four years.<>методы продвижения

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I suspect that my initial arguments for why I would “root” for an Obama victory have not been received without criticism. Humor me for a moment with some additional explanation.

First, I am not rooting for an Obama victory in the sense that I want him to win over any and all other options. Notably, I am not even voting for him. I am voting, rather, for a Third Party candidate. If the Third Party candidate can win, then I want him to win. He is the person I am really rooting for.

Second, I am not rooting for an Obama victory in the sense that I think he alone is better than Mitt Romney alone. This needs to be put into perspective–a perspective I had hoped to have made clear originally, but maybe not.

It is political ignorance to think that the election comes down to Obama versus Romney, alone on their own merits. The United States of America are not ruled by a king with absolute power; they are ruled by a three-branched government that is self-limiting. As a result, Obama is elected WITH the Congress, just as Romney is.

Therefore, I am either rooting for an Obama victory WITH a Republican Congress, or I am rooting for a Romney victory WITH a Republican Congress. The fact of the matter is that in American history, especially its recent history, the three-branched federal government is more conservative when it has a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. It is more conservative in that arrangement than it is in ANY other arrangement: Republican president with Democratic Congress, or Republican president with Republican Congress. Now that could change with any future administration, but historical precedence is on my side here.

So I am not saying that a second-term President Obama is the lesser of two evils in comparison with a first-term President Romney. I am saying that a second-term President Obama WITH a Republican Congress is historically preferable to a first-term President Romney WITH a Republican (or Democratic) Congress. Assuming historical precedence stands, I’d take my chances with the former scenario rather than with the latter.

One more point of note, the choice isn’t between four years of Obama (with a Republican Congress) and four years of Romney (with a Republican Congress). It is between four years of Obama (with an increasingly Republican Congress) and four years of Romney (with a Republican Congress that will likely become Democratic in 2014–following historical precedence) followed by four more years of the same or his replacement by another Democratic president. Thus, I have to follow my conscience and vote for the Third Party candidate (all the while hoping he’ll win), but expecting that if a major party candidate is going to win, the better scenario is for a President Obama with a Republican Congress (that will likely grow more Republican in the 2014 elections) than any other political arrangement in Washington.

I am neither saying that Obama is not evil, nor that he is the lesser of two evils. I am saying that tied to his Congress, that arrangement is the preferable arrangement.

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A week to go–that is how long we have until the 2012 Presidential Election. As I see it, we have four choices: Obama, Romney, Third Party, or Abstain. Allow me to present the reasons for each, and which I’ve settled on.

Obama: We’ve heard one argument: it is more likely to bring on a truly conservative candidate sooner. We’ve heard the response, “We are told that it is perverse to deduce from God’s providence, ‘Let us do evil that good may come.'” Another argument presented is that an Obama presidency will be the most conservative option we have–more on that later.

Romney: Romney–while far from guaranteeing it–gives us the best chance for conservative replacements to the U.S. Supreme Court. Others will argue that he also gives us the best chance for overturning Roe v. Wade (that’s a pipe dream) and for repealing Obamacare (another pipe dream).

Third Party: Voting for either the Constitution Party candidate (Virgil Goode) or the Libertarian Party candidate (Gary Johnson) would send a clear message to the GOP that we want change, REAL change–not the stuff Obama promised, but real change. It would tell them they can’t count on us to vote for them no matter how bad the Democrat challenger/incumbent is, unless they are willing to be principled.

Abstain: The best reason to abstain is the old slogan, “Don’t vote, it only encourages the bastards.” If you don’t like the system, if the system itself is evil, then don’t participate in it. Coincidentally, whole Latin American nations refuse to participate in their political systems. Dictators come and dictators go; dictators pass their laws and decrees; the people go right on living their lives and doing what is right in their own eyes and the dictator does nothing to stop them because stopping them would mean ending his own career. 

In the end, I am of two minds. I will vote Third Party because I want to send a message to the GOP. I don’t want to help get Obama reelected in order to do that because I’m afraid they’ll just interpret that as a failure on their part to get their message out. But if Romney loses conservative votes to the Third Party candidates, they can’t but help to recognize the problem is with them–even if they’ll refuse to admit that publicly.

My other mind will be expecting a major party candidate to win, and I will hope–should that be true–that Obama will win. *GASP* Catch your breath and give me a moment to explain.

America has a long history of being principled for short periods of time and being–well–nuts the rest of the time. When we are the most principled is when there is a Democratic president and Republican Congress. Republicans will ONLY stick to their principles in opposition to a Democratic president. They forget they have principles when the president is a Republican (see George W. Bush’s term for an example). The current Congress is already conservative, and if Obama is re-elected it will become even more so in 2014 (historical precedence is on our side, folks!) All of the damage that we fear Obama will incur upon us in a second term won’t be possible with a conservative and growing more conservative (and principled) Congress. Historically, the GOP was most conservative and principled when it was opposing Clinton. We can only hope for the same kind of principles with a second-term Obama.

Thus, I send the GOP a message with a Third Party vote (hoping they’ll hear the message and give us a real, principled candidate in 2016) and I hope for Obama to win (if it has to be a major party candidate). For, as historical precedence makes clear, an Obama presidency with a Republican Congress will give us a more principled and conservative America than a Romney presidency with a Republican Congress ever will.

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Halloween is not pagan. There, I said it.

Halloween, linguistically, is a contraction of All Hallows Eve, or Hallows Evening, or Hallowe’en. We should recognize the word Hallows from the Lord’s Prayer: “hallowed be thy name.” It is a celebration on the evening before All Hallows Day, also known as All Saints Day, November 1st.

It is not pagan; it is Christian.

Jesus Christ came into this world; he was incarnate. We celebrate his incarnation on Christmas. Jesus Christ, living in this world, defeated death, sin, hell, and Satan. We celebrate his victory on Easter. The Church, united to Jesus Christ, continues what James B. Jordan calls the “mop-up operations” of Jesus Christ’s victory. We celebrate our victory on All Saints Day (and Hallowe’en) by remembering the saints who gave up their lives for that victory.

Hallowe’en, then, is the evening in which the Church lives out Christ’s victory and celebrates that victory in her own right.

The Church celebrates that victory by giving liberally. At one point in history, Christians would take food door-to-door to distribute it to the poor. As the Church grew in numbers, people began coming to the homes of Christians to receive distribution of food and treats.

The Church celebrates that victory by loving life. We give not just food to the poor, but treats to children and join in the fun and joy they receive by receiving treats liberally from us.

The Church celebrates that victory by mocking Satan in mocking disguises. Some have pointed out that this is the advent of the red, horned Satan with a silly tail and cartoonish pitchfork. Satan’s sin is his pride, and we laugh with Christ in his victory over Satan by mocking him with cartoonish disguises. Christians join in the fun and joy that comes with Christ’s victory by mocking Satan and his minions in this way, as well as by celebrating saints and biblical heroes as we wear costumes representative of them. There is no harm in wearing costumes representative of other figures as well: princesses, fairies, and others.

Hallowe’en is under the dominion of the Church because it is under the dominion of Christ. Christ rules Hallowe’en just as he rules Christmas, Easter, Sunday, and every other day. The Church participates in and exercises this dominion when she celebrates Hallowe’en, and especially when she celebrates it with more joy, gusto, and vigor than a secular world that completely misses the true meaning of this day–missing it by either assigning no meaning to it, or by assigning false meaning to it.

Learn to love this day. Love it by joyfully giving liberally to the wonder of little children. Love it by joining the saints in all times as we mock the pride of Satan and his defeat at the hands of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. Love it by loving the life and creation that God has graciously and bountifully bestowed upon us.

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I don’t have much to say about this except that if you voted for Obama how can you do so again.  The man made openness, the end of strong arm techniques, the closing of GITMO, transparency, and the protection of whistleblowers hallmarks of his campaign.  Yet he has cracked down on secrecy, created a kill list of individuals (including U.S. citizens) that can and have been assassinated apart from judge or jury, kept GITMO open, refused CSPAN access to major decision making events (including health care which was explicity promised to be open to the public), and most relevant to this article cracked down on whistleblowers who tried to expose torture and illegal behavior.  This man is convicted of a crime because Barack Obama and his administration have chosen to prosecute whistleblowers rather than act on their information incriminating those who participated in torture and other illegal activities.<>mailbrutix.comseo цены

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This seemed like something that should be here on the Kuyperian Commentary.  I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but I’m sure it’ll be more interesting than the last debate I watched.

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