U.S. Elections: Moral Issues?
As we all know, unless you have been living in a cave in the antarctic somewhere for the last year or so, the U.S. elections are quickly approaching. Its been a while since I posted anything about politics, so I figured it was about time. That and I am sick of hearing how it is somehow moral for a Christian to vote republican.
Why is this? Supposedly it is becuase Bush and his group have moral stances on Abortion and Stem cell research. Sounds good.... until you think about it. Has anyone actually looked at abortion statistics? Depending on where you look, it has either been on a steady decline for over 14 years, or else it actually rose slightly during the last two republican presidencies. And what of Stem cell research? Its all very well and good for the bush party to hold the stance it does, when they know very well all the difference it makes. Science is hardly a national endeavour, and though I am sure that the united states being against it slows things down, it won't stop it, and it can't go on forever. So it becomes a convenient, safe, way to get votes out of the conservative Christian population, much like the abortion issue seems to be. Combine that with a sprinkling of nearly unrecognizable Christian references in your speeches, talk about God and prayer, make sure you have relationships with lots of big evangelical preachers, and Voila! you just grabbed a nice voting population. Maybe Bush is sincere and maybe he is not, but he is a politician so if anyone doubts that many of his actions, stances, speeches, and so on, are designed to get more votes, they are being naive.
Meanwhile, what about all the other, and seemingly more important moral issues? Such as honesty (bush's record isn't to good there). Or the theory of a Just War? Personally, I have never been for the Iraq war. Kerry did vote for it at the beginning but since then has objected to how it was carried out and so on. I am sure there are lots of politics there to; you vote for it at the start, if it goes well you can say you supported it all along, if it doens't you can voice your disagreements. Still, Bush's foreign policy seems to mere severely lacking. And when you are dealing with the last superpower, surely foreign policy becomes as important as abortion?
And what about stances on environmental protection? Again, neither party is great, but Kerry is recognizably better. This to must be considered an important issue, as they all are.
I think that we, as Christians, like to pick the issues that we see as black and white, easy to resolve, and ignore the rest becuase they are difficult. Economic, environmental, foreign, and all the other policies are difficult to make decisions about. They are no straightforward or black and white. But as convenient as it is to ignore them, it is not Godly, it is not moral, it is not good, and it is not right.
As we all know, unless you have been living in a cave in the antarctic somewhere for the last year or so, the U.S. elections are quickly approaching. Its been a while since I posted anything about politics, so I figured it was about time. That and I am sick of hearing how it is somehow moral for a Christian to vote republican.
Why is this? Supposedly it is becuase Bush and his group have moral stances on Abortion and Stem cell research. Sounds good.... until you think about it. Has anyone actually looked at abortion statistics? Depending on where you look, it has either been on a steady decline for over 14 years, or else it actually rose slightly during the last two republican presidencies. And what of Stem cell research? Its all very well and good for the bush party to hold the stance it does, when they know very well all the difference it makes. Science is hardly a national endeavour, and though I am sure that the united states being against it slows things down, it won't stop it, and it can't go on forever. So it becomes a convenient, safe, way to get votes out of the conservative Christian population, much like the abortion issue seems to be. Combine that with a sprinkling of nearly unrecognizable Christian references in your speeches, talk about God and prayer, make sure you have relationships with lots of big evangelical preachers, and Voila! you just grabbed a nice voting population. Maybe Bush is sincere and maybe he is not, but he is a politician so if anyone doubts that many of his actions, stances, speeches, and so on, are designed to get more votes, they are being naive.
Meanwhile, what about all the other, and seemingly more important moral issues? Such as honesty (bush's record isn't to good there). Or the theory of a Just War? Personally, I have never been for the Iraq war. Kerry did vote for it at the beginning but since then has objected to how it was carried out and so on. I am sure there are lots of politics there to; you vote for it at the start, if it goes well you can say you supported it all along, if it doens't you can voice your disagreements. Still, Bush's foreign policy seems to mere severely lacking. And when you are dealing with the last superpower, surely foreign policy becomes as important as abortion?
And what about stances on environmental protection? Again, neither party is great, but Kerry is recognizably better. This to must be considered an important issue, as they all are.
I think that we, as Christians, like to pick the issues that we see as black and white, easy to resolve, and ignore the rest becuase they are difficult. Economic, environmental, foreign, and all the other policies are difficult to make decisions about. They are no straightforward or black and white. But as convenient as it is to ignore them, it is not Godly, it is not moral, it is not good, and it is not right.
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