An Argument For Voter Apathy?

Is it just me or are there others in the United States who get tired of hearing, “never has an election been more important for our country”? It was said in 2004 when John Kerry threatened to pull us prematurely out of Iraq and to start treating terrorists as criminals instead of enemies. It was said in 2010 when the Tea Party started to clean house in the Republican Party and went onto be the force behind one of the biggest turn-arounds in the history of legislative elections. And now it's being said again in this election as the nation teeters on the edge of financial and ideological oblivion.

The problem with these statements aren't that they're being over-used, it's that they've been too often true over such a short time. Too many elections are mattering too much, and why? Because government has gotten too big and plays too important a role in our every day lives. It just shouldn't matter that much but it does.

And, because it does matter as much as it does it is tearing this country apart. People on both sides of this election are threatening to do very serious things if things don't go their way. Many progressives are threatening to riot and some are also threatening Romney's life. Many conservatives are threatening to leave the country (in order to preserve their private property rights), and some governors have hinted at creating a constitutional crisis by simply refusing to cooperate with a federal government that, in their legal opinions, has over-stepped its constitutional authority.

Even if much of this are just frustrated words, the prospects of future elections being less divisive are not looking good. More likely, if something significant doesn't change, elections are bound to become even more and more divisive until we reach a point where some future election can end in no other way but civil war.

“Whoa wait!”, you say? Someone thinks I'm leaping to and really reaching out for that conclusion? Why do I believe it? Here.

Our nation is ideologically divided between big government progressives and small government Tea Party constitutionalists. These two groups between them are the plurality of American politics. The Democrats can't be successful without the progressives and the Republicans can't be successful without the Tea Party (constitutionalists or whatever else you prefer). Sure there are “third way” liberals, big government conservatives, and those smug moderates and independents, but even if they hold a majority between them there are generally no workable compromises to be reached. The progressives will block anything that reduces the size and scope of government and the Tea Party will block anything that increases it. Thus the only way to get anything done is to satisfy one group while essentially excluding the other.

This means whichever group is excluded is going to insist some great injustice is being perpetrated, and from whichever groups' perspective that is, it will be more than just rhetoric. It will be sincerely felt. If it's the progressives they will insist that the poor, the under-privileged, the general welfare of the planet are all being criminally assaulted. If it's the Tea Party they will insist individual liberty and dignity is being trounced and the world's precious resources are being mismanaged to such a degree that needy people are being starved and/or in some other way criminally deprived. Worst of all, they can't both be wrong. One of them will be right and we must choose correctly this election and every subsequent election or millions will suffer dearly for our bad decisions.

As intelligent and well educated as we may be, we the people are not up to this task. It's no slight against us I am making. It's just way too much pressure for a general population to endure, and more importantly it's far too much for any political architect to expect a nation to endure again and again without eventually reaching a point where too many of the people are unwilling to accept defeat at the polls.

Some pundits who are inclined to conspiracy theories suggest that elements amongst the progressives are intentionally driving the nation to this point because they believe only their side will ultimately be unwilling to accept defeat and the other will acquiesce in the interest of preserving the union. I don't buy that necessarily, but even if is true those conspirators have got to be alarmed at what they presently see. The constitutionalist Tea Party movement is here to stay and has thus far proven itself to be far more willing to risk all they have for their ideals than have the OWS roused mobs the progressives hoped to counter them with.

Whether one believes in such conspiracies or not doesn't matter. The unavoidable reality we find ourselves in is one where one of these two ideologies must win in the area of public policy or we will get nothing done. Most should agree this circumstance is unacceptable, whether you be inclined toward either ideology or to thinking productive compromise is the stuff of good governance.

Solutions?

So what are our available solutions, if any? Here are the ones I see.

[a] Dissolve the union. Unacceptable as I see it because it would only be a temporary solution at best. Both ideologies would still be around and we can't just keep breaking into smaller and smaller pieces every time governance in a nation becomes impossible because of the balance between them.

[b] Marginalize one or both ideologies, effectively making them non-factors. The only ways I see to do this are either unrealistic or inhuman. These ideologies aren't going away, either of them. There are even scientific studies suggesting the people who follow them do so for genetic reasons. We have to figure out a way to live in a world with both of them.

[c] Reduce the size and scope of government to such a low level that it is no longer an effective tool with which to advance the cause of an ideology. This of course would be total victory for the constitutionalists and near total defeat for the the progressives. I say 'near' total because the progressives could always go about building the government back up. It does, after all, seem to be the natural tendency of government to grow.

Solution [c] is the closest thing to a workable compromise and, I think, a workable solution to the problem that threatens to tear our nation apart.

But We Need To Do More

Further, I think that we constitutionalists should look for every opportunity we can to amend the constitution in ways that further clarify the limits on government we believe are already there, and wherever we believe government can further be limited without crippling it, we should amend toward such an end.

In other words, we constitutionalists, the champions of individual liberty and dignity, we are the solution. We must triumph in enough elections to essentially reset the government into a smaller and more limited one. That way we can afford to lose a few elections going forward and we can stop having to constantly say, “never has an election been more important for our country”. Just for once I'd like to hear pundits speak of voter apathy and have it be because what the next government will do just doesn't matter.

The Living Good Samaritan Deserves Our Votes

My amazement continues with some of my fellow Christians who think they're not only justified in voting for Obama but some how are doing what Jesus would want them to do in doing so. Here are two of their most common arguments (be sure not to mistake the stuff in italics as my beliefs as they are what I'm arguing against).

1. Mitt Romney is a Mormon and Barack Obama is an evangelical. We should vote for the man who's religious views are more Christian.
   – So we're assuming Obama is what he says he is, but in that case let's consider what Mitt Romney says he is. He believes in Jesus Christ as his lord and savior, so doesn't that make him a christian in his own words too. What's that you say? Mormons say they follow Christ but there are elements of their beliefs and practices that are definitely not Christian. As a seminary trained Methodist I will give you no argument there, but doesn't that mean if we are going to question Mitt Romney's relationship with Christ based on his other beliefs and actions we must question Barack Obama's as well? In both cases we must not just take their words for it, and once we come to that point we must then study their lives to see the evidence of the veracity of their words about following Christ.
   – Jesus Christ said in Matthew 7:16, “By their fruit you will recognize them. … ” Looking at what we know about the lives of these two men, which one has personally shown up to help those in need or who were suffering? Which one has shown up in this way again and again to such a degree that people who know him will tell you that it's just the way he is, he doesn't seem to put a thought to if he can, he just does?
   – The answer to that question is an easy one for all except those determined to believe what the other side says about the man instead of what is obvious to see, Mitt Romney is that man. If this isn't obvious then you missed the personal testimonies at the Republican National Convention. Perhaps the news source you chose to watch chose not to show them to you. They were important for any Christian to hear.
   – One might wisely ask why it is Barack Obama doesn't have similar testimonies being told about him. We can only wonder and conjecture, but he does have two auto-biographies out about himself and the evidence isn't there. That doesn't mean he doesn't do this kind of thing. He could be like Mitt Romney and not want to boast about his good deeds personally, but isn't it possible and even quite plausible that it's because Barack Obama just isn't that kind of person? How many of us are? Mitt Romney is the kind of person that puts most of the rest of us to shame for our lack of responsiveness to others in need. He's almost like a living breathing retelling of Christ's parable about the good Samaritan. Obama on the other hand is not an exceptional example of compassion for individuals. No fault there, just not evidence in support of his claims to Christian faith. The evidence here favors Mitt Romney.
   – Now what about the influence of Christ's teachings on their politics? What does it matter if a president is a Christian or not if he some how separates his politics from Christ's teachings? That brings us to another argument I hear to support the claim that voting for Barack Obama is somehow a Christian thing to do.
2. Christ teaches us that we should take care of the poor and needy and that we should stand up for those suffering injustice, therefore we must reject cold and heartless Republican public policies.
   – This argument is old and worn out, and by that I mean both sides of it. Our lord never wanted us to delegate our Christian duty of compassion to government, I keep saying, and these fellow Christian brothers and sisters of mine just keep right on as though I said nothing. The government is a wasteful and relatively heartless way to address these things, I keep saying, and they tell me that Christ's church just isn't up to the challenge. Christ's church is up to any challenge God presents us with, I keep saying, and they shake their heads and tell me I'm naive.
   – So I keep trying to find a way to get through to them. There's got to be some way they will come to see how government is only the rescuer of last resort and a necessary evil at best, so I keep writing and talking, and they keep voting for the wrong people.
   – My best argument so far is from Jesus's own words in Matthew 22:37-40, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I point out how loving your neighbor as yourself cannot possibly mean getting the government to do it for you, at least not usually, government with its inevitable mission creep that eats up the liberty of those it tries to help, amongst other things. Christ's own instructions here pretty much insist that we not get government to help people unless there is absolutely no other way to help them. This is precisely because the people He wants us to love are individuals, just as we are individuals.
   – There perhaps is a reason why Barack Obama's PR people make absolutely no effort to show us him in a situation where he was confronted by the suffering of an individual and responded to it with great compassion. It's because, like these Christian brothers and sisters of mine who support him, he has been deceived into thinking that Christ's greatest commandment is telling us to love collectives, and to love individuals as part of collectives. How impersonal! How unloving! Did not our lord when entering a community burdened by a crooked tax collector choose to save the tax collector first? Did He not, when presented with an adulteress about to be stoned, save her without regard for the collective feelings of those gathered around her? Christ came for the 'least of these', those who were outcast, the individuals, yes the individuals. This is so missed on the believers in social justice. That's why the belief in such a thing as social justice is so very very dangerous, so very very perverse, something worse than heresy. It separates our efforts, our thinking, and ultimately our caring from the individuals our lord commands us to love.

Why must we choose between individuals and groups when groups are made up of individuals? If you start with groups in your heart and mind and then deal with individuals you will be too late. How many children raised up in churches go astray and never return? It's not because God's word was wrong where it says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it”. It's because the child was never reached as an individual. Deal with individuals first and then, one individual at a time, reach groups. Then you will never be too late. It seems the obvious meaning of Matthew 22:37-40. It's what our lord commanded us to do.

Now back to my brothers and sisters in Christ, who while being mislead by their belief in social justice, believe it right for them to vote for Barack Obama. I wont give up, even after this election is over and many of them vote for the opposite of what they claim to be dedicated to, for the reason many of them will vote against rather than for what is right will still be there, no matter who wins this election. This social justice that perverts the Gospel and neuters the Church in a world full of suffering and need must be confronted and sent into history's trash heap along with all the other great heresies. It will likely be the worst of them.

In the mean time I will not give up on brothers and sisters in Christ who are so mislead.  I will keep prodding them with the truth and come election day I will be voting for the closest thing I know of to a present day Good Samaritan, Mitt Romney.

The Everything Of Everything

A logical proof of what many claim cannot be proven

What's sillier than dogmatically believing something exists that you've never seen, heard, or touched? One thing is for sure, insisting the neighbor's dog, who he named 'Red', isn't named 'Red'. It gets even sillier when one labels their neighbor silly for disagreeing.

What is this I'm talking about? Well the question of the existence of God of course, and no, I'm not with the “blind leap of faith” crowd on this. The existence of any god is a self answering question. It takes little to no effort to prove it. In contrast it takes a bit of semantics analogous to some scenes from a particularly cruel game of Simon Says to make the proof challenging.

What is a god? It is something or someone to which we ultimately defer and/or honor above most, if not all other things or people. This is the practical definition of a god. Therefore if anyone ultimately defers to and/or honors something or someone above most, if not all other things or people, that something or someone is a god. Q.E.D. The god's existence is proven by definition. The only thing left to argue is if the god in question merits the status, not if he, she, or it exists.

I could leave it at that and tell myself how smart and clever I've been, but I haven't really addressed the question of God's existence, you know, the big 'G' god. That one is not all that much more difficult really though. Let me set up the proof and show you.

All proofs start with definitions and what we call givens, assumptions we ask others to accept that we then use as the foundation and other building blocks to our proof. There is nothing that has been proven in the world that doesn't start with granted assumptions. Our own existence, the existence of others, and the reliability of human perception are some assumptions fundamental to all science for example. Ideally the nature of one's assumptions should be such that if someone doesn't accept them they present themselves with a heavy burden to prove why not accepting the assumption is reasonable.

For my proof of God's existence I start with the following definitions and givens.

1. Definition, a god: something or someone to which we ultimately defer and/or honor above most, if not all other things or people.
2. Definition, God: the god above all other gods.
3. Given, human reasoning and perception is flawed.
4. Given, there is a such a thing as right and wrong.

If anyone wishes to argue against 3 and 4 I'm done, but I wouldn’t mind being so, since if any of those are wrong then we all must be terribly confused about our state of beings. So, baring any hyper-humanist extremism I will proceed with my proof.

• Since human reasoning is flawed and yet there is such a thing as right and wrong, it is possible for human perception of what is right and what is wrong to be wrong.
• Therefore what is right and what is wrong is determined by something independent of flawed human perception.

e.g. If everyone in the world suddenly decided it was okay and even right to kill everyone with red hair just because they have red hair, it would still be wrong.

• Whatever that is that is independent of flawed human perception that determines what is right and what is wrong is ultimately deferred to and honored, thus making it fit the definition of a god.
• If a conflict between the god that ultimately determines right and wrong and another god occurs, moral humans will always defer to the god of right and wrong. This makes this god the god above all others.

i.e. Civilized human beings are deferential to morality and ethics and since the source of these things transcends humanity, that is a god, and since we will defer to our best understanding of right more often than not, given any conflict, that god is the god of all gods, hence God.

Now perhaps you see what I meant about the dog named 'Red'. For someone to suggest the belief in God is silly because of a lack of tangibility, is itself the most silly. My theological studies lead me to conclude that God exists precisely because He exists, but even if He didn't exist for that reason, God exists at the very least because we need Him to. We need Him to save us from our faultiness that makes it possible for us to destroy ourselves.

“Missteps” Of A “Fact Checker”

For years I've been growing more and more skeptical of people who appoint themselves the task of “fact checking”. Any practitioner of critical thinking worth his salt should be quick to ask, who checks the fact checker? So when I saw an October 4^th AP article by Calvin Woodward “fact checking” the first Romney Obama debate, I decided I'd do just that, check the fact checker.

You can find his October 4th fact checking efforts here. 

Woodward chose to go back and forth between the two candidates in such a way that an uninformed neutral observer might conclude that he's found an equal number of what he calls “missteps” from each, but appearances can be misleading. The first problem I came across was when Woodward discussed the following line from Romney.

Obama's health care plan "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don't like that idea."

Woodward wrote, “Romney seems to be resurrecting the assertion that Obama's law would lead to rationing, made famous by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's widely debunked allegation that it would create "death panels."”

“Widely debunked”? Really? The word “debunked” is a very strong word. It means something has been shown to be factually incorrect to the point it should no longer be taken seriously, and yet the Cato Institute takes Sarah Palin's allegation very seriously as is explained in the linked article, Death Panels- Sarah Palin Was Right.   I wont dispute that the Cato Institute has a clear bias, but its support for Palin's analysis with its own belies the use of a strong word like “debunked”. A difference in analysis between those that see “death panels” rising out of Obamacare and those that don't is not a dispute of facts but of interpretation of facts and perhaps semantics.  Now unfortunately for Calvin Woodward or anyone else who uses “debunked” to describe Sarah Palin's assertion, he is the one being factually incorrect.

A lesser problem with Woodward's so called “fact checking” was where Romney said there were 23 million Americans out of work, and Woodward said Romney was getting to 23 million by adding under-employed and those classified as having given up looking to just 12.5 million officially classified as unemployed. I don't know if Woodward knows what it's like to be under-employed or unemployed so long that the system starts to lose track of you, but in my book the distinction between that and unemployed is a very fine one, not enough of one to call Romney on it. As a matter of fact, I very much suspect that most of those suffering were glad to hear Romney acknowledge their unfortunate plight. When Romney says 23 million unemployed instead of the official technical 12.5 million, he says that unlike Obama, he sees our plight. That's the number of us with expenses greater than our income, no matter how some bureaucrats may choose to break us up beyond that very fundamental reality. No fact checking needed here.  Romney was right on the mark.

Those were the two big ones. The rest seemed pretty fair though a tad nitpicky, so I then read the responses to the article. The pro-Obama people seemed to be the most upset with Woodward. Many comments argued Woodward was equating out right lies from Romney with questionable analysis by Obama, and that it was Woodward trying too hard to seem fair. Of course I didn't share their views. There were no lies from Romney to bring out, and Woodward seemed to agree with me at least to that extent.

This led me to do a little research on the kinds of reactions Calvin Woodward has gotten beyond this one article, and I was surprised. Both the right and the left have qualms with his “fact checking”.

Jim Naureckas of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) seems to think Woodward is biased towards Romney and against Obama. You can read some of what he has to say about it here. Some of his points about Woodward mistaking a difference in analysis and sources with "missteps" I agree with. But, from the examples Naureckas gives I don't see clear evidence that Woodward is particularly biased for or against either candidate. By all appearances Woodward isn't holding either man to any different standard. It is the reasoning within that standard that may be the problem, not any direction it may tilt.

Coming from the other direction, Tom Blumer of Newsbusters.org seems to see Woodward as biased against Republicans. You can read some of his points here. Like Naureckas and myself, he catches Woodward picking and choosing the analysis and sources he'll consider valid and declaring assertions based other sources as misleading. Where I don't necessarily agree with Blumer is that Woodward slants his analysis towards Obama or necessarily against Republicans. I may change my mind on this, given yet even more facts, but for now I think Woodward's bias is primarily in his reasoning and methods.

The two points from his October 4^th “fact checking” make good enough examples to illustrate my conclusion. In the Sarah Palin “Death Panels” example Woodward was caught trusting certain circles of sources too much. Just because all the people you talk to who you think are smart and educated tell you something has been debunked, doesn't mean it has been. That goes for just about anything else you may be tempted to run off and treat as fact. Consensus shouldn't offer a sense of comfort to an earnest fact checker, rather it should make them all the more suspicious. Woodward seems to have missed this thus far in his noble pursuit.

In the 23 million people without jobs example, Woodward must have seen ample cover in just being technically nitpicky, and trying not to allow any affective thinking to muddle his objectivity (Yes, I meant “affective” not “effective”). The problem with this approach seems to me to be twofold. How far do you technically nitpick? At what point do you stop? There's almost not a conversation or communication to be found that can't be picked to beyond comprehension if one chooses to be hyper-technical. You have to stop at some point just to be reasonable. The other part of the problem is that you simply cannot avoid making some kind of subjective decision in your analysis, either by not getting hyper-technical in the first place or in deciding at what point you will stop.

My suggested answer to the technical nitpicking conundrum is to allow a little affective analysis to inform the rest, just be sure to acknowledge it.

e.g. “Romney's reference to 23 million out of work seems to refer to the total number of people who are either unemployed, under-employed, or have become too discouraged to look, since the official number of unemployed is ...”

I could probably put my advice more succinctly by simply saying, “have a heart”. To the fact-checkers out there I say, be ever so careful not to abuse the trust people place in you. And to everyone else I'd say, don't take the fact-checkers' words for anything. Benefit from their research and thought but please do your own thinking and where you deem necessary, your own research.

The Christian Choice In This Election

How could any Christian vote for Obama and feel good about it? One might seem to put it simply that they believe him when he says he cares about the less fortunate, but that alone wouldn't justify their decision. They have to believe something else besides just his words.

They have to believe that government is a viable answer to the problems of critical social inequalities and that volunteerism and other expressions of philanthropy and compassion are inadequate to the task.

To believe that they must also believe either that government can be trusted with more and more power, or that democracy is sufficient to keep an immensely powerful government from abusing its power.

To believe that democracy is a good way to keep a powerful government in check, they must believe democratic majorities are disinclined to oppress minorities, and that they wouldn't disrespect life or property.

Or they believe that the constitution is sufficient to check the immoral potentials of democracy. To believe that they must either be unaware of just how far federal judges stray from the constitution's original intent, or they believe these judges to have god-like character that makes it so we can trust their interpretations of what they see as an evolving or living document. The idea that any significant number would either be so ignorant of history or have such foolish faith in mere mortals is too incredible for me to accept as likely. Thus I am back to the set of beliefs before the 'or'.

The Viability Of Government As The Best Answer To Human Suffering

Any Christian who could vote for Obama and feel good about doing so must either have more faith in government than their fellow human beings, or be foolish. I would want to ask any such Christian where they think Jesus invests most of His confidence.

He no doubt understands the imperfection of individuals but He also understands that governments are worse. Do we forget that God gave a government a chance at redemption once, Israel, and that didn't work out, and it wont, the scriptures indicate, not as long as it's a government of human beings. The means for the redemption of the individual is available now, but the means for the redemption of government is nothing short of replacement of human practitioners with God Himself, and that wont happen until the second coming.

Government is not the answer in our present age, we are.

The Effectiveness Of Democracy As A Check Against The Abuse Of Governmental Power

I know many Christians who think democracy equals respect for individual dignity. Even George Bush has suggested that a world full of democracies would be one where human rights are more respected. While I agree democracies do seem to be less likely to go to war with their neighbors, history does not support the assertion that democratic societies have greater respect for individual dignity. Actually, quite the contrary. Does the name Socrates ring any bells? He was sentenced to death by a democratic government for mere ideas. And what about the Jim Crow laws. They were products of democracy as well. Democracy empowers majorities, but there is absolutely nothing about being a majority that adds virtue to them. A majority in a democracy is just another source of power. How it gets used is no more morally predisposed than how any other source of power may be used.

And more than that, I would suggest, democracy is a source of power that easily deludes its beneficiaries into ignoring both individuals and reality. Unlike say military force or financial power, which both are far more dependent on reality.

Of course I'm not saying democracy is bad. What I'm saying is what the founders said in essence. Democracy is like any other source of power, one that needs to be checked by other forces. It doesn't guarantee rational or moral policy, not even close, and to believe we can allow governmental power to grow, simply because that government answers to a democratic process, is foolish.

We as Christians should be more interested in limiting government power, especially when it's being driven by democratic forces, than in what we think we may achieve with it.

Now What About Romney?

What must a Christian believe to feel good about voting for Romney? First they must believe what has been said about Mitt Romney by his friends and associates, that he is an amazingly decent man. That almost alone could swing it, but they must also believe his ideas about how to govern are moral.

To do that they must believe that maximizing the freedom and opportunity of individuals to make decisions for themselves will allow more good to be done for those less fortunate than would empowering a government subject to the whims of all who seek power over others.

For me it's as simple as Jesus's words (Matthew 22:37-40, emphasis added by me), “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” You can't love your neighbor as yourself if you seek to solve her problems using a fickle and intrusive government, for is that how you want you're own problems solved? Many of us know people who are so controlling and so likely to be busybodies that we hate to ever be at their mercy, and that is exactly what governmental social solutions become in one way or another. They also inevitably decay into wastefulness and other inefficiencies as a result of becoming too large and too dependent on rules and regulations. One would certainly not refuse a rescue from death just because the rescuer was a wasteful-controlling-busybody, but nor would one willfully expose anyone to such a person in good conscience. That is especially true if one seeks to “love your neighbor as yourself”.

What Could They Possibly Be Thinking?

I'm not sure I see how some of my fellow Christians can miss this point. I honestly suspect they've allowed something to corrupt their theology. They almost seem to think the United States is the Kingdom of God and that for some reason God's decided to retry the whole nation of Israel thing with a bunch of gentiles in North America, many of which don't even share our beliefs.

I've read and heard some of them suggest that we are called to rule today, that the Kingdom is here and now, and thus, some how, that means we should treat governments as though they are there to do our bidding as Christians. Perhaps they get from there to the idea that if the government isn't doing all it can do to look after the poor and needy that reflects on us and our own attitudes on the subject.

The above is nothing short of a perverse argument if that's even close to what it is. If when confronted with human suffering, we hire a wasteful and potentially oppressive third party to deal with it for us, can we seriously think we are doing good? Perhaps if we had no other choice, but we do. In this election that choice will be represented by the place on the ballot with Mitt Romney's name by it. And when we vote for Mitt Romney we wont be voting to delegate our responsibilities toward our fellow human beings in need to him or government.  We will be fully embracing the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself”. We will be saying to ourselves, 'let's get to work' and to the needy, 'here we come'.