Choose Your Battles Wisely

Edit 10/6/08: This post was prompted by an email which itself was prompted as an emotional response to another relative. In other words, there's some family drama behind the sub-text that I don't want to get caught up in. I stand by what I said here, which is why I'm not deleting the post. But to anyone who's reading this and knows what I'm talking about - I'm not siding or triangulating with anyone. These are just my own thoughts regarding the issue at hand...certainly not my contribution to any drama. I'm more concerned with everyone getting along than pointing out who's right or wrong. With that said, here's the post in all it's uninformed antiquity:


A relative sent an email to me today - I don't know if it was meant for me specifically, but it came from her via another relative...in any case, I was intended to read this email. It was a rather lengthy dissertation on her beliefs about how John McCain was the best candidate for America's presidency and that Obama was an evil communist bent on dismantling democracy and cackling madly as he watched America burn. Not surprisingly, she's an advocate of Fox News and encouraged those reading to seek truth from its obviously biased teet. I really love this person, so if she's reading, I want her to know that I both love and respect her. I think she's very godly and intelligent, which is why some of the things she said in this email really shocked me.

"Obama hates America- he isn't a patriot, he doesn't even like us- he wants to take America and dismantle it into something we won't even recognize- he is a racist (against white people). Don't let any of your college (misinformed, misled friends) tell you he is what we need for change-Bull…. well, he'll give us change all right but OMG it will be the scariest thing that anyone could even imagine. He'll withdraw our troops, which will allow terrorism in the world flow into our country (very scary!). He (Obama) is surrounded by an invisible but a very real army of demonic power from the pit of HELL."

Whoa. Seriously? Obama is the agent of demonic forces from the pit of Hell? I'm no liberal, but I don't think I agree with that! In fact, I respectfully disagree with practically everything she said in that email. To begin, Fox News is NOT fair and balanced. Just because it's conservative doesn't mean it's correct - they're notorious for not checking their facts and blowing the topics they cover WAY out of proportion (I'll refer you to their unintentionally comical report on the "internet hate machine" and "hackers on steroids", 4chan). They're just as bad (if not worse) than the liberal news outlets. In all honesty, there isn't a news source these days that isn't politcally biased. I've come to learn that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle and it, unfortunately, requires some digging and effort on our part. We human beings love to be told what to think and believe...because that's easiest. But truth requires effort and honest searching. Don't believe everything you hear on TV or the radio. Do the research for yourself with an objective, open mind and the truth will reveal itself.

Obama is not a bad guy. He's not the devil, a radical muslim, or a communist. He's a politician with an admittedly liberal bent but I truly believe he, like John McCain, has America's best interest at heart. These are two men who see the desperate state our country is in and have different plans for how to fix it. Neither is evil. Neither is incompetent. Just because Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or a fear-based email says that Obama swears on a Koran, poops on the American flag, and eats babies doesn't make any of it true. Like I said before, do the objective research yourself without relying on someone with an obvious political agenda telling you what to think. Then you'll see that he's really a wizard (who can change into a liberal through the use of a powerful, but dangerous enchantment).

She goes on to laud John McCain as a true American who believes in the things the majority of America holds sacred; he's pro-life and anti-gay (so he must LOVE babies). The worst thing you can do as a voter is to hone in on a single, narrow issue and base your entire decision of who should be the next President on this one point. Abortion, for example. I'm pro-life. Hard core. But honestly, what has republican George Bush ever done for the pro-life agenda? Abortions are still going on just as strongly as ever in America. Voting for George Bush didn't change any of that (now we just can't use the stem cells from these aborted fetuses for research that could provide a cure for diseases which debilitate and kill thousands each year. Way to spin a negative into a positive). Do you think voting for John McCain because of this one issue will outlaw abortion? Of course not. By the same token, voting for Barack Obama won't make abortion even more legal. What about gay marriage? It just became legal out here in California and guess what? Our conservative George Bush didn't do a blessed thing about it (except maybe shake his head disapprovingly for the cameras). My point is that voting for a candidate based on a few hot-topics you have is not what's best for America. You should look at ALL the issues and base your vote on what you believe is best for the country as a whole. That's your responsibility as an empowered and informed member of society.

At another point in her letter, she uses this analogy to compare democrats and republicans: "(Democrats) Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day - you'll have to keep doing that every day, (Republicans) "teach him to fish and he'll feed himself and will give him the opportunity to even think of better ways of fishing and he'll eat for a lifetime." What about the guy with no arms who can't fish? Or the people who live in a desert? Or the single mother of 8 who could fish all day long and never have enough to feed her family? Or the people like me who just plain suck at fishing? :-D I believe that those who have should give to those who do not have freely and without reservation. We should be generous and kind and helpful to our fellow man. This is what it means to be a humanitarian. This is what it means to be Christ-like. "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" (Matt. 25:34-36)

I'm not suggesting that conservatives are stingy, hostile, misanthropes. Not in the least. The most generous person I know (my dad!) is also the most conservative person I know. She's right in saying that the system is broken and in great need of fixing. There are those who take advantage of generosity and they should be given some sort of deadline to get off their butts and become a productive member of society. The thing is, she makes it sound like the republicans are the only ones who think that way. I promise you, every democrat in California (except maybe the ones actually taking advantage of the welfare system) feels the same way. I'm just saying that teaching someone to fish, to borrow her metaphor, isn't always an option. "The poor will always be among you, " Christ said. If we truly believe the message of Jesus, we'll practice generosity not only in our personal relationships with others, but in our politics as well. We'll be generous to the point that it doesn't make reasonable sense to us. We should be all for welfare (at least to the point where we're not enabling someone's laziness), against the death penalty (doesn't pro-life mean pro-life for everyone? Even people who have made horrible mistakes?), against the exploitation of child labor (the kind companies Wal-Mart and Nike get away with on our free market), and 100% behind all humanitarian causes. I think it's so strange that Christians have affiliated themselves with a political agenda that blatantly favors the wealthy when Christ spent all his time with beggars and outcasts.

"One last thing and then I'm through- the world as a whole, has the reputation of hating America except when their country is in trouble- then whom do they come begging to bail them out - America. My favorite thing John MCCain said was "Let's stop giving the money we need for America to countries that hate us anyway and will never pay us back"
You know why they hate us? Because we're meddlesome. We're nosey and self-righteous. We decide who's right and who's wrong in every world conflict and if you don't agree with us, guess what? We've got the bombs, baby. Not only that, but we are the wealthiest, most powerful, most influential nation on the planet. We drive hybrid cars, talk on blue-tooth headsets, own multiple cars, computers, and plasma televisions when 25,000 people die every day (that's over 1,000 human souls each hour) because they don't have anything to eat...and we come to these impoverished countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sudan with a care package in one hand and a loaded gun in the other. Are we there to save them or conquer them? Our foreign policy sends the most mixed message in the history of the world...at least with Rome you knew they what they were there for! And now that China has begun to rise above the squalor it once knew and become a power to rival our own, what's our reaction? Instead of making friends with someone who could be a powerful new ally, we feel threatened and bow up like the bullies we refuse to admit we are...all because competition on the free market made gas cost 50 cents more. We are a nation of excess. We are a nation of pride. And yet it is upon our shoulders that leadership of the free world falls. We need to be worthy of that responsibility...because right now, we're not. To be a leader is to be a servant; to be humble. To be generous with the gifts God has so richly blessed our nation with. Who cares if those jerks in Slobovia never pay us back? Is that what's really important? Or is giving, even when it doesn't make sense to give, the right thing to do? If our moral compass is really capable of steering the world in the right direction towards the future, then let's prove it not only to ourselves, but to everyone who's watching.

We're living in interesting times. It is from this crucible that the future will be forged. Frankly, I don't care who you vote for in 2008. What I care about is why you vote for someone in 2008. Is it because you carefully considered the enormous magnitude of what's at stake in America and, by diffusion, the rest of the free world? Or did you vote for that candidate because you let some news organization, slick ad camapaign, or hot-button issue polarize your beliefs? If America truly is a nation of, by, and for the people, then it is not who is elected to office that matters, but the hearts and minds of the people who put him there. It is by their hands that the future will be cast from its burning mold. If they are of fearful, ignorant, and weak-willed stock then the future will fail...but if they are brave enough to love, wise enough to seek truth, and confident enough to dream, they will build a revolution.

You are America. Which future, then, do you choose?