Point #1: Politicians must play politics.  Those who say that politicians should not play the political game are, in my opinion, not being practical (I would say "naïve," but that's a loaded word).  Sure, I'd love to say that there's no such thing as being too idealistic, but there is.  Idealism dictates that a politician must not take into account the way people perceive him, everything that he says must only speak to policy and principle, and above all he must not "play politics."  Practically, those politicians who don't play politics are not politicians at all; they are legislators, and they will only be elected to local and state offices.  Every upper level office (be it in business, politics, the church, etc.) requires that the office holder not only be able to do his job well, but interact with/sway people, and many people don’t reason well.  One can't merely say, "Hey, I'm the best legislator, so vote for me," because people don't only take that into account when making their vote.  Because a person like Barack Obama comes along and says, "I'm younger, I'm hipper, and I'll give you money, so vote for me."

Point #2: Not voting is stupid.  There are a few reasons for not voting, and none of them is defensible.  (1) "I don't want to," or "I forgot."  This puts you in the category of apathetic Americans, who I wouldn't say they don't care about their lives, but they are saying that they are OK with other people defining the way they should live their lives. (2) "I'm protesting this election by not voting."  This is not a compelling argument unless you have a sufficient platform on which to air your protest.  If you're a person who can command a substantial following or can identify yourself with such a person/group, then you could use this excuse.  If you don't have such a platform, then your protest falls on no ears, changes nothing, and is useless.  Also falling under this category is the "I am bucking the system" argument.  (3) "I am my own person, and I don't have to follow any social or community norms to affirm myself as a person."  Also falling in this category is, "Don't tell me what to do!"  The person who would give this argument is fundamentally narcissistic, and deserves the government that is thrust upon them by the others who follow the norms that they so diligently distain.

Point #3: The case for voting for the "lesser of two evils."  Edward Burke once wrote that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  If good men (and here I’m including you, because I think you fall in that category) stand by and watch evil stampede over our country, when we could have slowed its progress, then we are not as good as we thought we were.  Benjamin Franklin said that “when people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”  This is, in essence, what Obama wants to do—allow people to vote themselves money.  At least John McCain isn’t blatant about it, and could be reasoned with (I think).

By not voting for the lesser of two evils, you are, in effect, voting for the person who wins the election (i.e. you have to live with your decision either way; if you vote, you have to live with the person that you voted for getting elected; if you don’t vote, you have to live with the person that you didn’t vote for getting elected… either way, you have to live with your decision).  If all people who believe in smaller government (as I do, and it appears that you do) stay home because they say that John McCain won't reduce the size of government, we deserve the much larger government that is given us when Barack Obama is elected.  I would say that, conservatively, the taxes that are necessary to administer a national health care system and fix Social Security (without raising the retirement age or reducing benefits, as Obama wants to do) will add 10% to our annual tax bill, if not more (Obama is being disingenuous if he says he won't raise taxes on the middle class for this).

So I would rather vote for someone for President who won't screw me out of half (OK, 40%) of my annual earnings, and have an average President with whom I agree 50% of the time.  I'd rather vote for a President who will appoint moderate judges rather than one who appoints liberal judges.  I'd rather vote for a President who grows the national government at a 5% rate (much too high for me) than one who grows the national government at a 7-10% rate.  That's how you stand athwart history and yell Stop at a time when no one is inclined to do so (thank you Wm F Buckley).  You don't do it by doing and saying nothing on election day.

If people had voted for the lesser of two evils, perhaps the world would never have seen Adolf Hitler, and perhaps the people of Zimbabwe would not have to live with Robert Mugabe for the next for years.

______

Original Post:

Several people have asked me my thoughts on McCain's VP choice. I will start by reposting an email I wrote to my mom when she asked:

"I think it was bad choice. She seems fairly conservative, which is a nice gesture to the majority of the people who will be voting for McCain, I guess. And I'm sure he picked a young woman to combat his elderliness and the democrat's idea that it's a "boys club" in the Republican Party. But in the end, he did what obama did. Obama said he was "new politics" and then he went and got someone as old as McCain who is about as close to the "white establishment" as you can get in Biden. And now McCain, after telling everyone that Barack is too inexperienced to lead a nation, just went and picked a woman who has two years of political experience to potentially be the president of the United States if something happens to him. In the end, this presidential race has become the biggest joke of all time. Neither of them is making decisions based on principle or the good of the nation, they're just playing typical politics and acting like spoiled celebrities. Which is all they are anyway."

Anyhow, I'm not making an argument. I'm just stating my opinion. I guess there is a modicum of genius in McCain's choice. Obama picking Biden (and all the hypocrisy that entailed) really freed McCain to make a whacked-out VP choice without consequence. Because what is Obama going to say? "You went against what you said"? That would just open him up to further criticism about his own VP pick.

But in the end, all this says about McCain and Obama are typical political horse whisperers. They know most Republicans will vote for McCain regardless, and Democrats will vote for Obama regardless. Biden is a choice to get blue-collar people on the fence to vote for Obama, the type of people who care less if their president has integrity and can follow their commitment to run a "new kind of campaign" and more about what kind of freebie promises they can get from political whores. Palin is a choice to make minorities think McCain actually cares about them, an attempt to appeal mostly to women who like Barack, and an attempt to get on-the-fencers to think he's progressive and wants to eventually put a woman in the White House.

No matter how ingenious each of these plans sounds in terms of trying to scrounge up a few extra votes and win an election, all I really see here is more evidence of the same in a broken political system. I can't vote for Barack, because while I'm okay with many liberal social policies, I don't support universal healthcare,* I don't support abortion (especially live birth abortion),** and I don't support the general Democratic ideal of taxation. On the other hand, I can't vote for McCain, because I think he's too old, still wants to pander too much to the devastatingly un-Christian "Christian Right", and hasn't proven to me he will be a REAL Republican and minimize the size of government's influence in our lives.

So then I am confronted with one of two options: vote for the lesser of two evils and then have to live with myself when either person comes into power and ruins things even more, or not vote at all and feel like I'm some way not patriotic. I guess I'd take the latter over the former. Has the media influenced me SO much that I believe I have to vote for one or the other or else I'm not doing my civic duty? Shouldn't the fact that the "Rock the Vote" campaigns are always targeted to the idiot retard crowd of college kids who think they know more than everyone else tell you that maybe voting at all costs ISN'T always the right thing to do? Are we really okay with putting our stamp of approval on these train wrecks? The democratic process is the freedom for all of us to have our say in political expression, and I don't feel any less democratic by not voting, if that's what I chose to do.

I know some people who are going to vote for Barack even though they don't support many of his platforms just as a protest to the way the country is now. Really? You feel okay with that? Two wrongs make a right? Does "the other direction" always mean the "right direction"?

And for those of you voting for McCain, WHY? Just because he belongs to the Republican Party? You bought into that for two Bush elections and look how THAT turned out. And now we have a guy who, by and large, supports most of the Bush policies that took the Republicans away from everything they were supposed to stand for. We have MORE programs now, MORE spending, MORE governmental intrusion on our lives than ever before. We want more of that, do we?

I don't want either one. So who knows what happens from here...

Michael

*And don't tell me I'm a typical WASP who's out of touch. I'm not anti-welfare or even really anti-affirmative action. I see a place for those things and think the small examples of how it's misused denigrate the large amount of people who use it well. Both Leah and I are uninsurable right now as a result of her pregnancy, so I know exactly what people are going through. I'm also completely fine knowing it's our decisions that put us where we are and it's not the government's job to be my mother and force me to do something.

**It's one thing to say abortion is the law of the land. In an abstract way, I can get behind that, and while I hope it changes someday, the law is what it is. We aren't a Christian nation and we can't expect all our laws to coincide with Christian beliefs. So if Barack were to say "I support the laws of our nation however they are" then I could support that. But he goes beyond supporting the law as it stands and admits that his own personal philosophy is that abortion is right, that determining when life begins is "above his pay grade," and even opposed bans on induced live abortion which, even if you're an abortion supporter, and I can't imagine how you manage to philosophically swing that a BORN child is not a person (it has a birth and death certificate) and that it's cool to stand there and watch him or her die. That's my distinction.

Obama on NAFTA

Tax reform?

So, I'm thinking about this.  Why change the tax system, as most presidential candidates say we should?  In all reality, the government is not going to collect fewer taxes from anyone.  If we move from an income-tax system to a sales-tax system, the net effect will not be less taxation.  In fact, I would think that the government, in the transition, would find some way to screw the American taxpayer out of more of their money.  And, since I forked over a TON of money to the government through income tax and payroll tax (yet, oddly enough, they expect me to jump for joy when they **graciously** give me back some of that money in the form of a tax "return"), I think that they shouldn't be allowed to screw me out of any more of my money.  And, besides, if they make taxation any more "fair," that means that I won't be getting a mortgage deduction, a child deduction, etc.

Also, if we changed the tax system, we'd be putting all of those cool IRS people out of work, and all those tax preparers, and all those CPAs whose job it is to explain the system to the rest of us.  We don't want that to happen.

Two problems with Obama

Contrary to all my hopes for him, it turns out that Senator Obama is just like any other politician... pandering and crooked.

Exhibit 1: Shady dealings
The trial of one of the senator's friends and fundraisers, Tony Rezko, began this week, and this is the first time that the story has gained national attention.  What troubles me about this story is not merely that Obama was dealing with a crooked man; that may be forgivable.  What worries me more than his lack of discretion is that he knew who he was dealing with at the time.  ABC News did a story about Obama and Rezko, which gives some history to how Senator Obama has been handling this story.  First, he said, "I don't recall if we had any conversations."  Then he said, "OK, I told him about the deal, but it was a boneheaded mistake."  Then he says, "I didn't know that Rezko was crooked when I was dealing with him."  The problem, though, is that there were at least 10 stories about Rezko's corrupt dealings with Gov. Blagojevich before Senator Obama's dealings with him.  So much for not knowing that you're dealing with the devil.  Now he's just avoiding answering questions about Rezko.

Exhibit 2: Pandering
In the run-up to the primaries in Ohio and Texas, Senator Obama said in a debate that he would do away with, or severely "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  I don't know about everyone else, but one of the things that impressed me about Senator Obama was that he promised to strengthen America's image abroad.  By pandering to Ohio voters and saying that he'll nix NAFTA, though, he's hurting America's image abroad with two of our closest allies--Canada and Mexico.  After saying that he'll renegotiate NAFTA, he sends an aide to Canada to tell Canada that we really won't be renegotiating NAFTA, and that his comments were just "politics."  When Canadian television reported that meeting, Obama denied that he was playing politics.  "But I'm the candidate of change.  I'll change the way politics are done.  Really, I will!"

On unthinking people

A response to papua2001mk:

OK, on second thought... I just read your last sentence: "I so dislike so many things about American evangelicalism."  That's where I'd disagree with you.  What I think you're saying is that you dislike what you perceive as American Christian culture, not American evangelicalism.  At its foundation, American evangelicalism is a collection of theological thought.  My guess is, having studied the theology of "evangelicalism" as you have, you probably agree with most of it.  It's the practice of evangelicalism (and, really, only the practice of people not steeped in its theology who call themselves evangelicals) that worries you.

What you dislike is that people hold ideas and beliefs without thinking.  They practice their religion and justify everything by saying, "Well, that's just what the Bible says," without really knowing what the Bible says.  Am I right?  There are so many long-held practices of "evangelical" Christianity (many of which you cite with your mother, oddly enough) that aren't really backed up by Scripture.  People use these examples to say other practical beliefs of evangelical Christianity are not biblically-based.

Here are some things that are in the category of "things I dislike."  For example, I go onto someplace like Huffingtonpost.com (a bastion of the non-thinking left), and I see a comment like, "These intolerant, right wing nuts are ignorant of what Christianity is.  Example: Some profess to literally believe EVERY WORD in the Bible."  I see a comment like, "As a Christian, I've considered renouncing Christianity because todays Christians suck.  If they are not busy judging people they are writing off entire bodies of scientific knowledge based on something they've misinterpreted in the Bible, or they can't see any connection between God's love of wisdom and scientific theory.  Any atheist can get to heaven by following the Golden Rule.  I still believe that there is an important message being ruined by Fundies and Evangelists.  One day we might begin to see straighter, but until then heaven must be crowded with atheists."  Or when Charles Barkley goes on CNN and calls conservatives "fake Christians," because they're pro-life and anti-gay-marriage.  For some reason, and I don't quite follow his logic (maybe someone can enlighten me), he says that conservatives aren't being compassionate when they're against abortion.

In other words, these people are saying, "If you think that any of the following statements are true, you are stupid and ignorant and must live in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains:
(a) The Bible is the inspired Word of God.
(b) Christians don't suck.
(c) There are some scientific theories that don't add up.
(d) You have to believe in God to get to heaven.
(e) Having an abortion is wrong.

Now, I can see how people hold different views from my own.  I can see how someone can be a thinker and still say, "I'm pro-choice," and I can see how someone can be a thinking person and say, "I'm for gay marriage," even though I don't hold either position.  But what I hear these people saying is that people can't POSSIBLY hold a position other than theirs.  And, if I may be so brash,  they do it in such a non-thinking way.  There is a well-reasoned response to each of these people and their comments.  However, I think that a well-reasoned response would not be well-received or well-answered.

So, Kacie, I guess what I'm saying is this: you may be in an "I SO dislike evangelical Christianity" place right now (I will not say "phase" as if it's something you'll grow out of, because that would prove me to be that which I've just finished saying I dislike), but whatever belief system you end up holding, whether to the dismay of your evangelical mother and delight of atheism worldwide or not, that belief system will be jointly held by non-thinking people.  You will reason through your own worldview and come to reasoned conclusions.  But there will ALWAYS be people who discredit your belief system with their own ignorance.  I know that, as a conservative, there are conservatives who are intolerant thugs, and I cringe whenever I hear them open their mouths.  However, if I were a liberal, I know that there are also mouthy, un-thinking liberals.  I know that, as an evangelical Christian, there are un-thinking evangelical Christians.  If I were, say, a Scientologist, on the other hand, there's always Tom Cruise.