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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I recently had a discussion with a friend about what patriotism would mean for someone like me, particularly after noting my disgust with Romney’s messianic claim that “this nation is the hope of the Earth.” As anyone who follows me on Facebook or knows me personally will know, I frequently pass along and comment on information very critical of the United States government, particularly with regards to foreign relations, civil liberties, and economics.

The question this friend raised was, even if I agree with you, where if anywhere then is there a place for patriotism?

My initial responses were a little scattered. It’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit, but never known quite how to come to terms with. At first I cataloged a list of America’s sins that often go unnamed and unaccounted for, as evidence that perhaps patriotism is misplaced. But then when lightly rebuffed by my friend I realize that that didn’t really answer the question.

So I talked some about how patriotism has shifted in the course of history especially with the advent of modernism from love of a culture and a people to loyalty to a system of power and coercion.

I also talked about how love of a smaller body of people that one truly felt connected to, like a city seemed to come more naturally to me, and how we don’t owe unconditional love to a nation-state as such (or if we do only inasmuch as we want to see them restored, using the examples of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

But I wasn’t really satisfied with my answer, and as I began to talk about the conversation with my wife I realized why.

I think that my frequent and vociferous criticisms of the U.S. government are in fact themselves born out of patriotism. Patriotism has everything to do with love of neighbor, and love of those who you share the camaraderie of citizenship with. To be a patriotic American is to love and have concern for your fellow Americans. That is precisely the reason that I am so vocal about the actions of the United States government.

I believe that our Constitution, as the enshrinement of the rule of law for the nation matters; not that it is perfect or sacred, but it is what we have and it is the final rule of law for this nation. And so when I see it trampled, my concern for my fellow man is piqued. When I see the United States government engaged in undeclared and illegal wars, when I see them invading countries on false pretenses, causing the deaths of half a million children in Iraq via sanctions, destroying the economy and thus starving millions of Iranians, killing innocent civilians, men, women and children in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere via drone bombs operated by men with joysticks in California or Missouri, my love of country and countrymen compels me to cry out against such injustice and brutality so that others will not willingly soak their hands in the blood of a corrupt government. I love my country enough to recoil at the thought of her engaging in such evil.

It is because I love my country and my countrymen that I speak out against their disenfranchisement and loss of civil liberties through things like the TSA, the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and the President’s kill list which allows for the assassination of American citizens without trial or due process.

It is because I do love my country and thus my neighbors, whether across the street, across the state, or across the nation that I speak out against police brutality, the so-called war on drugs, the use of para-military and SWAT teams on non-violent civilians, the disarmament of the citizenry, warrantless wiretaps, the domestic use of drones and cameras, etc.

I could go on and on, but that would be to belabor the point, which is that it is precisely my love of country, defined as the people that make up this nation, that impels me to care about the destruction of liberty, the betrayal of the rule of law, the trampling of the Constitution and the principles (however imperfect) upon which the founders of our country intended to establish this nation.

To be clear, I am not some sort of golden-age perfectionist. I am not calling for the repristination of a formerly ideal America. I understand that this country was founded with institutional sin embedded in the form of legal chattel slavery among other things.

My argument, like that of the civil rights leaders is that one can be a patriot while decrying in the starkest terms the actions of one’s government. One can be a patriot while being ashamed of the evil one’s government perpetrates. Patriotism is defined as the love of one’s country. I love the United States. In fact I love it enough to be honest, and to say that we are sinking into a moral quagmire. I love it enough to decry corruption, collusion and evil on both sides of the dominant political aisle. I love it enough to rail against injustice and evil for the sake of my fellow countrymen who consciously or unconsciously suffer from the debasement of their culture, government and civilization. I do not apologize for speaking the most harsh and direct truths about our moral failures, our injustices, our evils… but that does not mean I do not love the country. Jeremiah loved the Israel he lambasted. I love my country and my countrymen, and I hope that by being willing to speak prophetically to her I am showing the kind of tough love that is necessary amidst such moral turpitude.

Finally, above all I love Christ and his Church which knows no borders, which means that my patriotism can never sink into mere nationalism. I will always love the Church first, and subjugate my love of country to my love of Christ and His Church. So, as I said in my comments in the initial Facebook thread that prompted this post, there may be a time to not love one’s country if it comes to a choice between love of country and love of God. Similarly there may be times to take sides with other nations if one’s country is engaged in unjust actions against them. But that is another subject, and would require a great deal more unpacking.

For now I will say, that perhaps the proposed distinction between critique of government and patriotism is simply a false distinction. I critique the government of the country I love, for the sake of the people of that country.

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As an abstainer from the two party system (at least as relates to the upcoming presidential election) one of the arguments I frequently hear is that I am expecting too much from a president. I frequently hear that I’m a perfectionist, that politics just is what it is, and that you can’t expect too much from it.  A political race is always about choosing the lesser of two evils, not about changing the world, or perfecting the system of governance.

So when I was bothered by the kinds of shenanigans that went on at the RNC, and the way the rules were changed over the vote of the delegates, and the way certain delegates were unseated, or kept from voting I was told to relax. It’s politics. This is just the way it is. It may not be right, but you can’t expect much.

And when I object to just holding my nose and pulling the lever for Romney and lament the fact that there isn’t a candidate that I feel comfortable voting for I’m told that it’s not about voting for an ideal candidate, but looking at the options in front of us and putting my modicum of support toward the better of the two options.

Relax, I’m told. This isn’t about solving everything. It’s just politics. It’s a pragmatic choice for what will be slightly better. Change is incremental at best. We work with what we have. We can’t be perfectionists. We just do the best we can with what we have and trust that Jesus is in charge and that ultimately politics isn’t the end-all-be-all of the Christian hope.

So far okay, perhaps.

But then the other shoe drops.

I look at all of the above and think, ‘okay, fair enough. Maybe I’m putting too many of my marbles into political aspirations. But I’m still not comfortable giving consent to either candidate for various reasons, so I just won’t vote, or I’ll vote third party or maybe write in a candidate. After all, our hope isn’t in the political process but in Jesus’ sovereign kingship over all the earth, right. I can’t expect too much from politics, so I don’t have to fret too much over how I vote, I’ll just vote my conscience.’

But then the tables turn. Suddenly my vote is imperative, and my decision very important. Suddenly it becomes incredibly important that we get Obama out, and my non-vote or non-Romney vote is a very big deal. Suddenly I’m helping Obama advance towards another term wherein weeping and gnashing of teeth will be the order of the day. At this point I am called a perfectionist as before, but now my perfectionism is not mere naivete, but tantamount to support for cataclysmic destruction. Now I am not told to calm down and not expect so much, but to expect hellfire and brimstone if I don’t just hold my nose and vote for that lesser of two evils.

So my question is, which is it? Is it the case that my voting isn’t really that big a deal and that I should just vote for the lesser of two evils because pragmatically it may make the situation a little better, even if there are things about him that we all agree are pretty awful. Or is it that not voting for said lesser of two evils and voting (or not) according to my conscience is tacit support for the apocalypse?

I am obviously being somewhat hyperbolic here, but the point stands. If wanting to vote for someone one believes to actually be a good candidate and that one can honestly give the consent of the governed to, regardless of party affiliation or likelihood of winning, is simply expecting too much of the process and taking it a bit too seriously, then how can doing the same also be not taking the process seriously enough and not recognizing that one is tacitly empowering tremendous evil and shirking one’s responsibility to save us from going over the ubiquitous cliff?

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