on politics, v. 2008: a conservative christian response, and my rebuttal

a friend of my roommate had several friends who were wondering why anyone at fuller, or any christian, would support obama. my roommate forwarded my first blog about this election to her, and she sent it back with her friends' comments. which i sent back with my comments.

though some of their comments are pretty shocking, i'm posting this not so much for entertainment but to show how my political opinions have developed and how my faith informs them. their comments set a nice backdrop, since they're pretty similar to some of the ideas i initially heard from christians about politics when i was younger.

we start with a little bit of dialogue -- my words are in blue, theirs in red. then, my original post is in black; their responses are in red (there's at least two people commenting, which you can probably tell by the difference in tone), and my rebuttal is in blue. i assure you that none of these lines were made up.

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before we start, let me introduce myself: my name is liz. i'm 25, and i'm from michigan. i love cupcakes and michigan football. i became a christian when i was 15. i think that introductions will be helpful as we have this conversation...

i'm just going to respond line by line. here we go:

I hope you don't mind reading and forward on my comments to those who wrote it.

OK, I responded to some, and would really love to have you answer, or whoever wrote it answer. I had to stop responding, because I feel so differently, based on what I have read in the Bible. I don't like war, but talking to people who absolutely hate your country and all you stand for will get you nowhere.

i don't like war either. i also don't think that hating us and all we stand for is ample justification for war, because if that's the criteria, then there's a very long list of countries that we should be at war with right now.

On abortion, quickly, just let me say that you need to reread Psalm 139, concentrating on verses 13-16. If you or a friend/family member had to go through this, I'm sorry. I don't hold that against anyone. We all make mistakes, and they are seen equally in God's eyes. It's humans that put a degree of severity on sins. As Christians, we just need to ask for forgiveness.

i haven't had an abortion, actually. there are other reasons why a christian would not be unilaterally pro-life besides feeling guilty about an abortion.

i think that abortion is horrendous and i would discourage anyone from getting one. however, when it comes to legislation about abortion, the issue becomes much more complicated. if you simply outlaw abortion, people won't stop having abortions, especially when 52% of americans are pro-choice. they'll simply go underground, where they can't be regulated for safety, or people will start using coathangers -- both of which are extremely dangerous consequences, and likely ones, because they happen regularly in countries where abortions are illegal. you cannot simply think about whether you think an action is wrong to determine legislation; you also have to consider the consequences of that legislation.

On gays, I don't hate them, I hate the sin. If they want to life in a homosexual relationship, fine. I have a problem with them trying to make me and my kids believe the same as they do. Leave us be and we'll leave you be. My Bible tells me to hate the sin, not the sinner.

no one is trying to get you and your kids to believe the same as they do. all that people are asking for is to have the same rights as everyone else -- to be able to share insurance, to be able to have visitation rights in hospitals, to not be treated as second-class citizens. if you think that homosexuality is a sin, consider this: we don't deny these rights (or any others, for that matter) to alcoholics, to gluttons, to prideful people, or to any other kind of sinner -- so why would you deny them to gay people? is that sin worse than others? like you said before, all sins are seen equally in God's eyes -- it's humans that put a degree of severity on sins.

I am saddened to hear that you think "social justice" is the way to have this country led. That's socialism/communism.

social justice is absolutely not the same as socialism or communism. if i were a socialist, i would be advocating an end to the free market and that the government take control of all businesses and land and social services. i'm not advocating that, and neither are any of the democrats. what i'm concerned about is making sure that everyone has access to food and health care and education. equating that with socialism or communism is simply poor logic.

i'm saddened to hear that you're not concerned about social justice, because that was one of Jesus's utmost concerns. after the kingdom of heaven, the topic that Jesus spoke the most about is the poor. Jesus preached providing for the needs of the hungry and sick (see matthew 25.31-46) and regularly did these things throughout his ministry; he listed loving our neighbor as one of the greatest commandments (see matthew 22.38-39, mark 12.29-31, luke 10.27); he hung out with the marginalized (see matthew 9.10-13 and all throughout the book of luke); he began his ministry by reading a passage from isaiah about preaching good news to the poor and setting the oppressed free (see luke 4.16-19). these are the things Jesus cared about, these are the things that i'm talking about when i talk about social justice, and these are the things that i want to see happening in our country.

i also want to point out, since you mentioned abortion and gay marriage, that there are more moral issues than just these two. war is a moral issue. (and if so many republicans claim to be pro-life because they value life, why are so many of them also pro-war? and pro-death penalty?) caring for the poor and sick is a moral issue. good stewardship of the earth is a moral issue. these are all moral issues that the bible has something to say about, and in recent years, the democrats have done a better job of addressing them. i'm not saying that abortion and gay marriage aren't important issues; i'm just saying that there are a lot more issues to consider besides just those two.

Be careful, as we might eventually lose the right to read our Bibles in public.

since freedom of religion is part of the first amendment and the united states is 80% christian, based on the last census, i have no worries about losing my right to read the bible in public.

And I pray that all our eyes will be opened to God's will.

me too.

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on politics, v. 2008

presidential elections, for as long as i've been paying attention, have been a matter of choosing between the lesser of two evils. bush and gore in 2000, bush and kerry in 2004 -- in both cases, it was a matter of looking warily at both candidates, thinking about who i would have fewer regrets voting for in the end, and wincingly casting my vote.What exactly was it that you didn't like about these candidates?

in 2004, i didn't like bush because of the way that he handled the war, alienated the US from the vast majority of our allies, and put us billions of dollars in debt during his first term. i didn't like kerry because he flip-flopped on pretty much everything right up until the time of the election.

in 2000, i didn't think that bush had the needed foreign policy experience and i didn't like the idea of having bush senior's son in office. i didn't like gore because he seemed too stiff and aggressive, and he didn't seem to have any kind of real message. (i was pretty young then; my views on that election would probably be different if i were voting now.)

thankfully, this election has been different. for the first time ever, there's a candidate who i'm genuinely excited about -- and that would be barack obama.

he first caught my attention at the 2004 dnc. it wasn't just the stunning oration that got me -- it was his story. first of all, the man is brilliant -- columbia undergrad, harvard law (and he didn't have a dad who could pull those strings for him, like certain other presidents)No, but he also received scholarships to these schools based on his race. Is there really a difference?

i can't find any evidence that obama got scholarships based on his race. even if he did, though, there is still a distinction. people who get strings pulled need this help because they can't get in on merit. underrepresented minorities who get academic scholarships are qualified based on merit and are highly recruited by schools like ivy league colleges, who give them scholarships to try to get them to enroll.

president of the harvard law review -- and while he could've used his resume to make bank, as many of his classmates surely didaren't these the guys who continue to line their pockets with monies exploited from the American people?

yes. and that's why i'm commending obama for not being one of them.

he instead chose to make his living doing social advocacy work in chicago with a known domestic terrorist.

there are plenty of articles you can read to find out how overblown this is. a friend of mine summarized it well:

"Ayers hosted a meet-and-greet for his inaugural run for the state senate in 1995, contributed $200 to Barack's re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in 2001, and the two served together from 2000-2002 on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty, philanthropic foundation. That's about it. Obama's denounced the violent actions of the Weather Underground, and since he was 8 years old and living in Indonesia at the time, it's hard to see how the guilt by association ploy works at all."

regarding the two years of working together, they were serving together on the board of a philanthropic foundation that had nothing to do with extremist politics. there is no indication that obama and ayers talked about anything remotely close to that, and it's entirely possible that obama had no idea of ayers's history. i have meetings all the time with people with whom i don't share my politics or my past, and i can't see how that topic would have come up during one of their antipoverty board meetings or at the water cooler.

second, completely separate from the association with obama -- ayers has apologized for his actions in the past and now lives an entirely different, nonviolent life, and the inability of christians of all people to accept this blows my mind. isn't that what our gospel is all about? repenting and turning from sin, not having it held against us, and having a clean slate and new life? why, then, does that not apply to ayers?

i liked that he decided to try politics as a way of achieving social change, not as a means to power. Yes, but do you think his socialist views are what our free country can benefit from?

again, he is not a socialist. a socialist is someone who is against the free market and wants the government to run everything. obama does not endorse either of those things -- he hasn't even mentioned them.

if you want to get technical, mccain is the one who has been showing some socialist leanings. the plan he announced during the second debate to stabilize home values was for the government to buy bad mortgage loans. that is far closer to socialism than anything that obama has ever suggested and would push us even farther from capitalism than we are right now.

i liked his trajectory -- how social advocacy got him into public policy, how his faith informed his opinions on social justice. i liked his intelligence, his oration, his character. i've been a huge fan ever since; he was, and continues to be, the only politician who inspires me. It's a great feeling to be excited about someone. Does he share all your beliefs, or at least most of them?

yup. i touch on that below, but to go in more detail: i think that obama has a much better economic plan that mccain and is the only one of the two that is feasible. (to give just a few examples -- an across-the-board spending freeze simply isn't going to work when the baby boomers are all hitting retirement age and about to cash out social security, and there's absolutely no way mccain will be able to freeze federal spending -- let along balance the budget in 4 years, like he says he will -- when he wants to keep putting 10 billion dollars a month into iraq and now spend 300 billion dollars buying bad mortgage loans.) i agree with his emphasis on the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by exploring alternative energy sources, as well as his stance that health care should be accessible to everyone. i'm also a huge fan of his emphasis on education, because that is what we ultimately need to keep us competitive in a global market. i also agree with him that iraq was not where we needed to be -- we needed to be in afghanistan -- and i'm a fan of his timeline to get us out and have the iraqis running things for themselves.

when he decided to run for president, i wasn't without my hesitations -- i would have preferred to see him run in 2016 rather than 2008 Why would you want to see him wait eight more years? Do you think he isn't as experienced as one should be for President?

i wanted to see him get a little bit more foreign policy experience. however, i think he's shown in the debates that he has a firm grasp on foreign policy issues, and his choice of joe biden, a foreign policy expert, as running mate was very wise.

-- but for all of the aforementioned reasons and for his stances on most of the issues, he was above and beyond my favorite among the democratic nominees. i liked hillary's experience but hated her divisiveness -- really, the only people she was effective in bringing together were republicans, in their unilateral hatred of her -- and i hated the tactics that she and her once-untouchable husband brought to their campaign. (their campaign, because it was as much about getting him back into the white house as it was about her.) and the other candidates came and went without leaving so much as a dent on anyone's memory.We do agree on this. Hillary and Bill were in it together. Sen. Clinton did divide quite a few. But at least we knew she was lying. Sen. Obama has a record of changing his mind after the fact. I'll take it to the extreme in saying this, but you can't take back pushing a button to bomb someone else.

i'm not sure what you mean by "at least we knew she was lying" -- i'm not accusing her of lying, i'm just saying that she was divisive and that her husband was overly involved. regarding obama, i think that he's established a more moderate position now that we're at the general election, but that's common practice, and mccain has done the same, as has every other presidential candidate before them. and if you really want to get technical, mccain being the biggest proponent of deregulation in the senate and now changing his tune to vehemently endorse regulation -- and even have the government buy bad mortgages -- is a very extreme example of changing his mind after the fact. if you want to talk about taking back pushing a button to bomb someone else, that's exactly what john mccain is trying to do, with the bomb being the crash of the global economy.

truth be told, i didn't mind the republican nominee either. i didn't mind him when he ran in 2000 -- a moderate republican with lots of bipartisan experience -- and among the GOP candidates this go-around, he was the only one i didn't mind. he was certainly better than mitt romney, who attempted to remake himself from a fairly moderate governor to a conservative presidential candidate, who regularly changed his mind about pretty much everything except for his disdain for illegal immigrants. And how does this differ from Sen. Obama? He regularly changes his mind, too.

he's been way more consistent than mccain -- see previous paragraph about deregulation, as well as his back-and-forth these days about whether or not to be respectful to obama. many conservatives, even prominent ones, are agreeing that obama's been way more consistent than mccain.

he was certainly better than rudy giuliani, who i hope is still eating his words from this year's rnc (really, rudy? you governed the city with perhaps the highest number of community organizers in the us, and you dared to make such a comment?). he was certainly better than ron paul, who is just plain... crazy.

among the choices, mccain was certainly the best. and he had lots of political experience, and combat experience to boot. granted, i would never vote for him, largely because of his failure to admit that the iraq war was a mistake. (seriously, dude... WE ALL KNOW IT WAS A MISTAKE. we can just admit it and move on. it's like oj continuing to maintain his innocence in the double homicide -- dude, we all know you did it. you can stop pretending now.) so i wouldn't vote for him, but he was the best of that lot, and i wouldn't have thrown a fit if he were elected. So how can say that you wouldn't vote for Sen McCain "largely because of his failure to admit that the iraq war was a mistake." Your candidate of choice, Sen. Obama, couldn't admit that the surge was successful. Do you have double standards or just being a hypocrit?

he did admit that the surge was successful.

Do you really think that we should have stayed out of the Iraqi people's business when there was clear evidence that women and children were being brutally killed, and that Iraq was harboring terrorists? Do you really believe that they weren't a threat to us? Are you under the impression that the avverage American person knew more about what was going on than those top offiials in our government? If so, why are you at Fuller? You should be trying to better our government by helping the cause, not to belittle those who have access to what is really going on.

there are plenty of countries where women and children are being brutally killed and terrorists are being harbored that we are not invading. there are countries that we know have nuclear weapons and are much more significant threats to us that we are not invading. (i'm not saying that iraq posed no threat, but they certainly weren't the highest on the list.) clearly, those were not the reasons we went in.

Also, do you really think that President Bush didn't pray about the decision to go into Iraq? He is a man of God. He isn't as stupid as you make him out to be. If you think you are so much better qualified, then why aren't you running for public office. Though, please correct me if you are.

i don't know him personally, but i think that president bush is a christian and he probably prayed about going into iraq. however, praying is no guarantee of making the right decision. i'm sure that ted haggard, the megachurch pastor from colorado, was praying regularly while he cheated on his wife with a male prostitute and used methamphetamines. i'm sure that you and i both pray every day and we still make bad decisions. that's what sin is, and we all sin, even in spite of our best efforts not to. thus, just because president bush prayed about it doesn't mean that it was the right decision.

also, i'd like to make it clear that i'm not saying that i'm more qualified. i'm not running for office. but i hold the people in office to a much higher standard, b/c they're the ones who are actually making these decisions.

all of that has changed, however, in the past six weeks. I assume what you are referring to is the recent financial crisis. Please, so share. What has changed for you?

that's what the rest of this blog is about.

***

first, there was his choice of vice president. i, like everyone else, was shocked -- where was she on the short list? -- but it was a brilliant campaign move on his part. it would make him appear progressive and make his supporters feel progressive for having a woman on the ticket -- and her anti-abortion stance and NRA membership would also win him points with the conservatives, who found him to be too moderate and whose support he desperately needed to win. her only experience on a large scale was 2 years governing a state that no one lives in, but die-hard republicans probably wouldn't care. they would just be excited about her.
OK, you oviously don't know much about populations in our great nation. Alaska had a higher number of individuals than the following states (numbers are from 2006 census): Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and DC. Not to mention Alaska's population was only 183,000 less than Delaware. So, please, don't say that "no one lives in" her state.

you're only giving more strength to my argument -- alaska ranks 47th out of 50 states in terms of population (since dc isn't a state). more people live in the lower fifth of manhattan than in the entire state of alaska. thus, i don't think that palin's two years of governing this state, with no other government experience besides being the mayor of a city less than half the size of the college i went to, is adequate to be the vice president of a country as large and diverse as ours.

Again, what government experience do you have that gives you the right to bash Gov. Palin?

i'm not claiming to have any government experience -- that's why i'm not running for office. but since she's a candidate to be second-in-command of our entire country, i hold her to much higher standard.

Why are you so against guns, or at least the NRA? Are you one of those peace lovers that believe the world would be a safer place if policement didn't have guns?

first of all, yes, i am a peace lover. Jesus loved peace, too; it's one of the first things he talked about when he began his ministry (see the beatitudes and the turn-your-other-cheek passage in the sermon on the mount) and one of the last things he talked about before his arrest (see john 17). not only did he talk about peace throughout his life and advocate it (remember how he rebuked the disciple who drew his sword and cut off the soldier's ear at gethsemane), but he embodied it in the way that he lived and ministered. and i don't know you, but i'm pretty sure that you're thankful that you don't live in a war-torn area. i'm completely mystified by your use of "peace lover" as a derogatory term.

second, i never claimed to be against guns or the NRA -- i simply said that palin is part of the NRA. since you brought it up, though, i do think that there should be stricter restrictions on handguns because of the 1,100 people who are killed in fatal firearms accidents every year in the US. i think that policemen, however, should carry guns since they're trained and they're in law enforcement.

and i'm sure he thought he'd win some points with the slighted hillary supporters.

my mom was one of those supporters, and if that was the response he was going for, he was sorely mistaken. my mother was livid. "if he thinks that he can just win all the hillary supporters by choosing a female vp candidate with NO EXPERIENCE,"
I'm sorry, I missed that news. Can you show me onne time where Sen. McCain said this??? I would like to hear it for myself.

of course he wouldn't say it -- that would be blatant pandering, and it would backfire. but it doesn't take much to see that considering her very short list of qualifications, there's little other reason to choose her.

she said, "he is insulting the intelligence of american women. yes, hillary is a woman, but hillary has experience.
Yes, experience lying to the American people. But, oh, that's not the experience you were referring to?

no, i was referring to her two terms in the united states senate and her eight years in the white house as first lady.

i'm not going to vote for just any woman. Neither will I!!!!if i was going to vote for mccain, i would no longer vote for him." if it had been condoleeza rice, if it had been elizabeth dole, things might have been different -- but sarah palin? who?
Exactly! Are you intimidated by her?

not in the least.

Does she have the guts to speak on issues you only wish you could stand up for?

no. she and i don't agree on most things. and as for the things we do agree on, like the need to decrease carbon emissions, i'm glad she's talking about them.

and clearly, you can see that i'm not shy about speaking up for what i believe in.

Why does a candidate have to be well know in Washington to qualify for a VP position?

theoretically, they don't. but the reality is that in order to have experience with politics on a national and international level, you probably need to have worked in washington, or at least have been an ambassador or a prominent governor somewhere (which would thus make you well-known in washington). and you should probably have some experience with politics on that level in order to be vice president.

What do know about Sen. Obama's past?

as much as anyone else does. the american public actually has a lot of exposure to both his and mccain's pasts, considering all the digging that the media and their opponents do on them.

At least Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain are open and honest about their pasts. Are they perfect? Nope. But at least they are open to their sharing their mistakes and don't hide them.

that's questionable, considering palin's attempts to block the probe into her dismissal of state trooper walter monagan.

my mom went on to decry the impulsiveness of his decision -- lieberman had been the veep pick merely days before the announcement when mccain made the sudden shift, and he had only met palin once before, for all of 15 minutes. "if he's going to make decisions so impulsively," she said, "i don't want him to be president." not to mention that if anyone needed a solid plan b, it was him. brother is 72 years old and has had cancer 4 times -- and you pick a vp candidate with no experience? are you serious? "he put winning the election above national security," my mother said. she was enraged. As I shake my head, I'm baffled at your comments. Once again double standard or hypocrit? Look at your candidate! He changes his mind all the time. Can't admit when he's wrong, either.

i disagree. as i said before, both he and mccain have moderated their political stances for the general election, which is common practice to woo moderate voters and something that all political candidates do. however, mccain's drastic changes about his choice of running mate and all of the deregulation issues listed earlier, as well as his hasty announcement of the mortgage plan during the second debate before it had been finalized, are all evidence of his hasty decision-making.

McCain's mother IS 96 years old, and is more active than perhaps some of you. He's not a smoker, as Sen. Obama is. In addition, Obama's parents both died at early ages, granted his father was killed in an auto accident.

i'm glad that mrs. mccain is 96 years old and doing well. however, her age is no indicator of how long her son will live, especially given that he has had cancer 4 times, has a history of physical torture, has type A personality, and is looking to undertake what is arguably the most stressful job in the world. and i'm not sure that he has as much time to be active as his mother.

similarly, the age at which obama's parents died is little indicator of how long he'll live, especially since, as you said, his father was killed in a car accident.

And you think Sen. Biden is ready to take charge? God forbid anything happens to him, we have Nancy Pelosi leading our nation. Do you think she would do our country any good? Look at what she has done lately being in charge of Congress. If you some facts I'd be more than happy to supply them for you.

regardless of who gets elected, pelosi would be running the country if the president and vice president died. she's the speaker of the house. she's third in line regardless of who's in the white house.

and given his 25 years in the senate and extensive experience with foreign policy, i think that biden would be ready to take charge if needed, God forbid.

now, six weeks later, we all recognize her as a joke. we've seen the interviews and watched the debate. we saw how she evaded all of the questions that she didn't know how to answer ("i'm going to go back to energy...") and repeated the word "maverick" about 37 times. snl doesn't even have to write anything to make their brilliant sketches -- they can use direct quotes, and it's comic gold. prominent conservative writers are denouncing her, as well as mccain for choosing her. george will not-so-subtly questioned his choice (before not-so-subtly suggesting that mccain's poor temperament is far more problematic than obama's lack of experience). kathleen parker, in the national review, even called for palin to step down as vp candidate -- a move that would be unprecedented, but smart for them now.

i knew it was bad when i asked my brother, who bleeds elephants and old white men, if he was embarrassed by her. "yes," he replied without hesitation. "i'm voting for the top of the ticket, not the bottom." this, from a guy who defended palin even after the charles gibson interviews.

***

so mccain's veep choice was strike one. then came the deplorable campaign ads. they're blatantly distorted and misleading -- you take legislation about protecting children from sexual predators and spin it as sex education for kindergarteners? are you serious?

the disgusting thing is that these tactics work. the republicans are shameless, but they're smart; they know that once they put that information out there, it'll be hard to fix. people will remember it, and most won't bother to check the facts; even if they're corrected later, the information they hear first tends to stick, as anyone whose taken an intro psych class can tell you. it kills me -- they're so low in their tactics and they don't even care. And what about the liberals? Are you guys perfect?

absolutely not. neither side is perfect, and i don't identify completely with conservative or liberal ideologies.

Is that what you are learning at Fuller??

no. fuller doesn't teach a political stance.

I will admit that the campaign ads on BOTH sides are awful. We need to do away with the smearing of the candidates?

i'll agree with that. however, i think that something that happened in tonight's debate summed up the situation well: when asked about negative campaigning, mccain, ironically, took the opportunity to further smear obama. you don't have to look very hard to see who's doing more character slandering than the other.

***

and then, finally, there was the first presidential debate. goodness gracious. i was appalled at how rude mccain was throughout the entire thing -- the refusal to look at obama or address him by name, the snide comments that bookended all of his responses -- i could hardly even listen to him. (meanwhile, i felt like obama was exceptionally gracious to him -- not only looking at him and speaking directly to him but also acknowledging when he had made good points.) and if that's him with his gloves on, as he claims -- well then, i don't want to see you with your gloves off, let alone be my president in such a state. it was so bad that my dad, who was planning on not voting at all because of his reservations with both candidates, decided that night to vote for obama. you say that you're not mr. congeniality in the senate because you're a maverick -- but maybe it's because you're kind of a jerk.
Have you ever heard of respect for soemone else? I was taught many years ago that you address people by their earned title. What is so wrong with this?

it would have been great and respectful if had mccain directly addressed him as "mr. obama" or "senator obama", but he didn't. he mostly referred to obama as "my opponent" throughout the first debate and refused to look at him, and in the second debate, he called him "that one". i find all of these behaviors to be extremely disrespectful.

and that's not even touching the things he said about the issues. you, mccain, perhaps the most vocal proponent of deregulation in the senate -- now all of a sudden you change your tune? you say you can't be bought by special interests, but then why is your campaign staff full of lobbyists? you try so desperately to distance yourself from bush with this whole "maverick" schtick, but you sure seem to like voting with him, especially on not-so-trivial issues like the war and the economy. you said nothing that held together. the only effective thing you did was to tell stories, and that'll rope a certain amount of the population, but really, you have left me utterly unconvinced of your desire to do anything that this country needs.

***

so because of all of these things, i'm no longer okay with the possibility of obama losing. i don't want a man with mccain's impulsivity, temper, character in the white house.

so that's where i am. i would love to hear what you have to think. but if you are without opinion, or still on the fence, i just want to encourage you: vote. obama.

i would love to continue this conversation with you, but if that is to happen, i ask you to be a little bit more respectful of my political beliefs and of me as a person. thanks.

-- liz