First Responder

My wife's brother was the first to respond to the letter we sent out. His response is the comment in the "Important Election Reminder" entry. This is my response:

Excellent response, Jesse! Thank you for contributing! I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to discuss. Know that in my response, I have no animosity towards you or anything against you. This is merely an open discussion where we will allow our views to be known and done with utmost respect for each other. I mean, how often do we talk about more in-depth issues anyway? I love good discussions and I hope you do too. I find them challenging and exciting and will either solidify or change our perspectives.

First, I'd like to say that I too believe that no political candidate is the solution to the ills of society, nor are they supposed to be depended on to provide the means to create a better world. Yes, God is the one who places whoever He wants on the political stage. No matter how much we vote, it's God who has the final say. And, like you said, "as Christians we should be involved in everyday life through conversations that challenge our thinking, through helping those that need help, and through talking to our elected leaders about issues we feel are important." But as Christians, we have a duty to be part of the society we live in, to be salt and light in the world, even in matters of political duty. We're going to have to disagree on this election's level of importance. Yes, the world will go on and things are cyclical, but the decisions that will be made by Obama will have consequences that are unacceptable to me. (Warning: this one's a little long.)

Let's talk specifics: Between 1999 to 2003, Obama voted "present" or "no" for the bans on partial-birth abortions, born-alive protection and related issues, which is nothing more than political strategy. A "no" vote wouldn't be politically expedient, so most of the time he voted "present." The bills banning PBA provided for the life of the mother and for the health of the mother, contrary to Obama's beliefs. PBA actually increases the likelihood for a woman's health to deteriorate. To ban the procedure altogether would be better for the woman and the child. Medically speaking, there is no need for PBA. Women who have had it did not have health- or life-threatening causes, but they elected to have the procedure. Those with non-elective reasons cited depression as their "health-related" cause. The only threat was emotional! They simply didn't want to take on the responsibilities that go with the baby. He may say that PBA is wrong, but it has not and will not ever come out in his policy decisions. The reason why he didn't support the ban was because he believes in a woman's right for reproductive choice. He didn't look into the medical issues involved and so made the decision in ignorance. If he truly knew about the medical issues with the convictions that he had and still decided against banning PBA, then he did it out of political maneuvering and is simply disingenuous. I do give him credit for at least allowing the possibility that abortion laws may change, but he also promised to pass a Freedom of Choice Act, which will only continue to increase the abortion rate in this country. So he's either lying or just saying things for the sake of political expedience.

And of course, abortion is only the symptom, but it is not rooted in poverty or even lack of education - it is rooted in cultural acceptance through effective marketing. Planned Parenthood has been very active with this since the 1940s and others have followed suit under the banner of "women's rights." Margaret Sanger even wrote "We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Yeah, you can find that in publicly accessible archives. (Birth-control advocates try to minimize the meaning of what she wrote in that letter, but in context, Sanger was still talking about limiting the population of the poor.) Christians are already caring for those who have to deal with the abortion question. And there are Christians who go through legal means as well, who want to curb or even overturn Roe vs. Wade. A whole lot more is going on than what the media has presented.

"We've had a pro-life president for the last 8 years and the number of abortions has not decreased one bit."

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement. Roe vs.Wade was such a powerful decision that no president can decrease the consequences of that ruling. At least G Dubya did his best to restrict abortion, starting with the 2003 Partial-birth abortion ban. He gladly signed it into law, among other things he tried to do concerning abortion. In fact, I'm in the middle of writing a response to the Burnside article you sent. I'm not sure where you get your information, but I'm relieved to know you took that piece with a grain of salt because Mr. Miller sounded like he didn't do too much research as reflected in his answers. My article will be posted soon.

Concerning the poor, Jesus said we'll have the poor with us always. In context he spoke of his upcoming crucifixion, but I'm sure he was also talking about one plain truth: there will always be poor people, both spiritually and economically, no matter what time period or culture. And the government is not responsible for them, we are. Jesus exemplified this by helping the poor as an individual without the need for government intervention. And he didn't approach local government to force the rich young ruler to give. Paul even instructed wealthy individuals to give directly to the poor. He didn't say to give to government so they in turn can give to the poor. We already have some government programs to provide for the poor. But no matter how many programs are made to alleviate poverty, they will not get rid of the problem. Individuals and private industry have historically been the most successful at alleviating poverty, not government. It's good that Obama is going to follow through with Bush's faith-based initiative of rewarding those who fight poverty. Government should work with the private sector to deal with poverty and motivate them to do so. But it is not good if Obama thinks his Robin Hood economic policies will improve the situation. The faith-based initiative to fight poverty is already a given for McCain.

Quickly, on taxes: 70% of income tax money already come from those making $150,000 or more, which is only about 10% of the population. And always be wary when politicians promise more of your own money. The government programs he proposes may help the poor, but guess where all that money is coming from? Government programs only increase taxes and it doesn't help everyone in the long run. It's a temporary salve, if it's even needed, and must be replaced by private sector activities or else it increases the power of government.

On war: War is horrible. But, that's the government's job, not ours. They wield the sword and God gave them the power to do so. (There's the issue of the US being a radically different country than any other country in history, but that's another issue.) We can protest the war and I know for darn sure Christians were split in many ways because of it. There wasn't a monolithic stance from the evangelicals, I can assure you of that. I support it because it's a just war and there have been significant developments since its inception. The media made it out to be another Vietnam when it clearly isn't. (That's also another issue.) Annually, nearly 1 million babies in the US are killed in abortion since 1973 compared with about nearly 700,000 killed total from both sides in the Afghanistan/Iraq wars since 2001. Both are horrible, but the rate of the former is absolutely unacceptable. At least in Afghanistan and Iraq, the death toll decreased dramatically in the past two years. I can't say the same about abortion.

"Citizenlink does not have a corner on truth."

I agree, Citizenlink doesn't have a corner on truth, but they do have a lot of facts which reflect truth. And we only provided those resources to make it easier on the email recipient. I use lots of resources from both Christian and secular, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican. After doing the research, my vote, even though I'm reluctant, goes to McCain because Obama's history and promises do not reflect my values. McCain isn't much of a choice either because he only recently grew a spine when it was clear he was going to be the Republican Presidential candidate. Before, he wanted to please everyone with the facade of "unity" and "reaching across the aisle" which is synonymous with another phrase - "selling out." Between the two, though, I believe McCain will make the decisions with the consequences that I can handle.

Obviously you're voting for Obama, but I'm just asking you to continue to look a little deeper into the issues than what you've read so far, even after Nov. 4.