Tag Archive for 'election 2008'

Preparing to Vote

As our nation prepares to elect a new President on Tuesday it is important for Christians to examine their own thinking and actions in light of the Bible. It is easy to condemn ungodliness in one candidate and miss it in the other or in ourselves. It’s tradition to vote against the “bad” candidate while failing to ask ourselves who am I voting for. It is convenient to ignore our own Christian responsibilities in our nation. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 exhorts how we should relate to leaders:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Our first concern should be that we pray and give thanks for those in authority – the President, Senators, Congressmen, and the local Mayor. It is easy to worry about them which we are not commanded to do while forgetting to pray for them. God does answer our prayers and maybe the mess we are in is an indication that the people of God haven’t prayed about it.

Part of the reason for the command to pray is an acknowledgement that God is sovereign. While multiple examples and verses in Scripture could be given, my favorite on the topic is Proverbs 21:1 which says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” God can change the kings heart whenever he wants to. Nebuchadnezzar provides examples of this multiple times in Daniel.

A final passage that I will mention is Proverbs 3:5-8. For many of us this is a passage we know by heart, but sometimes we forget to apply it to all of life. Solomon says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

From previous posts I have made clear how I would apply this to the election. It is easy to get caught up in the candidates and to especially fear those that are most evil in the areas we care about. It is hard to remember that God is in control. Choose a candidate that would please the Lord and allow Him to orchestrate the outcome.

Published on November 2, 2008. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Lew Rockwell on Not Voting

Lew Rockwell has written an interesting article for the latest edition of The American Conservative on not voting.  While I’m not sure that I agree at the moment (there is still a week), he does make some interesting points:

we do have the freedom not to vote. No one has yet drafted us into the voting booth. I suggest that we exercise this right not to participate. It is one of the few rights we have left. Nonparticipation sends a message that we no longer believe in the racket they have cooked up for us, and we want no part of it.

I have to agree that it is basically a racket that we participate in. Why else is it harder in most states for 3rd parties to get on the ballot than for the two main parties. Is there a two party system in the constitution (the answer is no)? He continues with:

You might say that this is ineffective. But what effect does voting have? It gives them what they need most: a mandate. Nonparticipation helps deny that to them. It makes them, just on the margin, a bit more fearful that they are ruling us without our consent. This is all to the good. The government should fear the people. Not voting is a good beginning toward instilling that fear.

This year especially there is no lesser of two evils. There is socialism or fascism. The true American spirit should guide every voter to have no part of either.

Published on October 28, 2008. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Providence and Principle

In this election as in past elections many people of principle get into disagreements about whether it is right to vote for the “lesser of two evil” choices for an office like the President.  Many Christians will say things like “Pray as if everything depends on God, but act as if everything depends on you.”  This gets interpreted as pray that God will bring the best outcome from my point of view and act to get that same desired end.  The problem with this reasoning relates to “my point of view” and the acts that follow.

The outcome is always in God’s hands.  This is clear to anyone with even the most limited view of God’s providence.  God has also given us His Word which tells us how to act and which speaks to all of life.  We are to do the right thing always and I don’t see where this includes “doing whatever it takes to get the desired end.”  Even if the end were right (assuming that eliminating one evil at the expense of many others can ever be right), that doesn’t mean that you can throw out the rest of your principles.

Just because a candidate is pro-life doesn’t mean he is the right choice (is he moral in other areas?).  There should be other factors in consideration.  Anyone can win that God wants to win and the candidates God doesn’t want to win won’t no matter how many Christians vote for him “because he can win.”  I am going to vote for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party.  I admit that he probably won’t win which many will be too quick to point out (it won’t be my vote causing him not to win).  Too many will say that I am wasting my vote.  It may not seem unprofitable to many, but I cannot give my approval to either Barack Obama or John McCain – neither of these are good candidates.

Published on October 25, 2008. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Joe the Plumber (Outlaw)

Lew Rockwell has written a new article, Joe the Outlaw.  He points out that in the current presidential campaign:

one interesting point has emerged: the archetype chosen to represent mainstream America turns out to be a thorough-going outlaw in the best sense of that term. In this, he is a symbol of the age. We can look forward to the creation and emergence of ever more people like this in the coming years, as the state tightens its grip over every aspect of American life. We will all soon be outlaws.

Joe the Plumber according to recent news report is not a licensed plumber in a state that requires a license for anyone to be a plumber.  Lew Rockwell makes the excellent point that:

The real goal of licensing is to create a professional cartel. Fewer providers means higher wages for those with licenses. It is all about boosting income by restricting competition. This is of course a violation of human rights because it impinges on the fundamental freedom of association.

Having such guilds or unions by themselves wouldn’t be such a problem if the government didn’t get involved.  The lack of competition is created and the free market abolished when the state gets involved to enforce such restrictions.  Lew Rockwell points out that:

There was a time when entry into these fields was governed by the free market, and the system worked fine (contrary to legend). But the big players in these industries sought and obtained state privileges to officially license service providers. It was an income-boosting tactic and it worked. (emphasis added)

The article goes on to discuss the taxes that Joe the Plumber still owes and how this demonstrates an attack by the state on private property.  I highly recommend that you read the whole article.

He concludes by saying that Joe

is an outlaw in the same sense that our founders were outlaws. He lives outside the regulations of the state because these regulations attack his freedom and property. It was to end systems such as this that the American revolution came to be. And yet we find ourselves back in exactly the same system, and one incredibly worse in every way.

Published on October 18, 2008. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Bob Conley for Senate from South Carolina

Bob Conley is running against Lindsey Graham for his Senate seat. From his campaign materials and other sources that I have read, he is conservative in all the ways that Lindsey Graham is not. A couple of points of interest from his campaign website:

Economy: We must implement fiscal policies to end deficit spending. Bob Conley believes we must change our monetary policy, restore sound, honest money, and halt the fall of the dollar. We must stop predatory lending practices, end the Wall Street bailouts, and put a lid on massive expenditures abroad.

Another area that is directly related to our fiscal problems:

Military: Overseas deployments of occupation are breaking our military. Deployments in recent years have left 80% of our National Guard units without the necessary equipment for training – and the missions they should be prepared to serve here at home. Our National Guard needs to be rebuilt.

Gun Owners of America gives Conley a higer rating than Graham:

2nd Amendment Rights: Bob supports the right of the individual to own guns and is a life member of Gun Owners of America. The GOA favors Bob over Graham in supporting gun owner rights.

He also has a Pro Life position on Abortion that separates him from the majority of Democrats:

Abortion: Bob is Pro Life and will work in the U.S. Senate to stop government funding of groups that advocate and / or perform abortions, including Planned Parenthood, which received $300 million in taxpayer funding last year.

Bob Conley is definitely a better choice than Lindsey Graham in most areas it seems.  Lindsey Graham has proven in the recent bailout vote that he doesn’t understand economics and he doesn’t care what the people think.  Unfortunately the one negative for many who call themselves conservatives is that Conley is a Democrat.  This seems to be an extremely good example of getting beyond party politics and voting on principle.

If we can ever get beyond a loyalty to a party that doesn’t have any loyalty to the people (this includes both parties) then maybe the government will quit running our nation into the ground.

Published on October 11, 2008. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Ron Paul Endorses Chuck Baldwin

In case you missed it, Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party yesterday.  Dr. Paul’s excellent article, A New Alliance – By Dr. Ron Paul,  is available at the Campaign for Liberty.  It seems that Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party helped make sure that Ron Paul would endorse someone and it wouldn’t be Bob Barr.

Published on September 23, 2008. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Ron Paul Rally – Greenville, SC – 12/8/2007

Ron Paul was at the Peace Center amphitheater in downtown Greenville on Saturday night. A crowd of probably at least 500 showed up at 7:30 p.m. to hear Ron Paul speak. Watch the video to see his consistent non-interventionist, pro-life, small government, message of freedom.

Watch the video on YouTube.

Published on December 9, 2007. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Ron Paul in Greenville

Ron Paul will be in Greenville, SC on Saturday night at the Peace Center amphitheater. According to the Greenville and Greer Meetup groups there will be a rally in the area at 7 p.m. and the Dr. Paul will be speaking at 8 p.m. Everyone in the Greenville area that is a Ron Paul supporter or is possibly interested should attend.

It should be a great opportunity to hear his constitutional positions in person and possibly get a chance to meet Ron Paul before or after the speech.

Update: According to the official campaign site the rally is at 7:30 p.m.

Published on December 5, 2007. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Rudy’s Reading List – Donate Today

Today should turn out to be another big donation day for the Ron Paul campaign. Get more info at RudysReadingList.com and donate the money needed to win South Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, and the other early primaries.

To get more perspective on the reasons for the non-interventionist foreign policy of Ron Paul read the books that he recommended to Rudy Giuliani in an early debate. The books are Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, and The 9/11 Commission Report.

Published on November 30, 2007. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

What is the right foreign policy?

When the 2008 presidential race started earlier this year I was convinced that there probably wasn’t going to be anyone worth voting for in the Republican party (having a bad Republican beat Hillary is a compromise of fear and isn’t worth it). With the prospect of a pro-choice candidate like Rudy Giuliani getting the nomination of the Republican party the choice of voting third party in the general election seemed clear (probably Constitution Party).

In 2004 and before, I supported George Bush and the war. Because I supported the war and because Bush spoke conservatively on most issues I didn’t see any reason to vote third party. Three years later it is clear that Bush has not governed to the right. While he isn’t a Democrat, there isn’t a lot of difference (his pro-life stance and court appointments are exceptions). He also did a good thing in cutting taxes but he didn’t follow through by cutting spending.

While voting for Giuliani (pro-choice) is clearly a problem, the other options aren’t much better. Romney, McCain, Thompson, etc. are all variations on a theme that is very similar to Bush. They may talk conservative (they don’t even do that in half their positions) but are they going to stand up and do anything to change the current trend of big government compassionate conservatism?

A friend pointed out Ron Paul to me. I had heard the name and some good things but didn’t know much about him. I did a little research and figured he was probably someone I could vote for (pro-life, pro-gun, pro-freedom, etc.) but I still didn’t like his position on the Iraq war. It seemed that he wasn’t cut and run in the same way as the Democrats (most Democrats give that opinion out of the seeming political expediency of being against the Republicans). It did seem that he was going to immediately leave Iraq and maybe ignore the problems. I didn’t like the thought and the it still makes me a little nervous (doesn’t initially seem compassionate to the Iraqi people).

I then purchased Ron Paul’s book A Foreign Policy of Freedom so that I could better understand his position. Ron Paul’s desire to get out of Iraq didn’t seem much worse than everyone else’s idea of perpetual involvement in yet another nation. I wanted to understand Paul’s position to see if there was something more to it.

Lew Rockwell’s forward to the book made me understand the point of Ron Paul’s non-interventionism. I am continuing to read the book and see that Ron Paul while serving in congress has consistently practiced the beliefs that Lew Rockwell quickly made clear to me. Rockwell starts the forward with the following: “Ron Paul has always believed that foreign and domestic policy should be conducted according to the same principles.” I wasn’t sure what he meant and didn’t immediately understand how foreign and domestic policy could be the “same.” He goes on to point out that “Government should be restrained from intervening at home or abroad because its actions fail to achieve their stated aims, create more harm than good, shrink the liberty of the people, and violate rights.” The key to all this is that the government should be kept in check both at home (that is what the Constitution and Bill of Rights is all about) and abroad. As a conservative who believes we need a small government I would agree with Rockwell that “Under conditions of liberty, the result is prosperity and orderly civilization. Under government control, the result is relative poverty and unpredictable chaos.” The question becomes obvious. Why do we want to restrain the government at home but not abroad. Why do we get freedom, but not the rest of the world?

It is obvious that people like Saddam Hussein have major problems and that he did terrible things in his country. The problem is why do we believe that our government can “fix” the problem and “save” those people? Our government cannot solve the problems of poverty, health care, crime, etc. in our own nation. The government will make it all worse with taxes, minimum wage, price controls, regulation, inflation, and everything else that will eventually ruin our economy and our country. Why does anyone on the conservative side think the government can fix Iraq, the UN, China, Iran, North Korea, or anything else?

I am convinced that to support Ron Paul is to be a consistent conservative in every area including foreign policy. I am currently convinced that to vote for the rest of the Republicans is to vote for a variation of all the same old problems. To vote for any top tier Republican candidate just to beat Hillary (and oppose Giuliani for those who are pro-life) is a vote of fear that will do nothing but prepare us for the next Hillary (whoever they are).

It is time to vote for a consistently conservative Republican who will strengthen our nation in all the ways the founders intended. Ron Paul can win this election. A quick look at the funds he has raised and the news coverage he is getting proves it. He will lose if those who like his conservative ideals do not vote for him.

Published on November 23, 2007. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .