Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Vote, VOTE, VOOOOOOOTE!!!!
tragic_pizza:
You want me to talk about how nice things would be if they were perfect, Jeans? Do you?
I thought the discussion was reality-based. My mistake.
tragic_pizza:
So, in your mind, there really isn't any difference between someone like ThePQ4 saying, "I have personal experience with this person, and none with the other person, so the one I know better gets the vote," and the voter who says, "OOOH, I LIEK HIM HE GOTS NICE HAIR."
Honestly?
tragic_pizza:
Not voting surrenders any voice at all in who runs our government. A bad choice is still a choice, and it is much, much more than many people have.
With apologies for religious content, I offer an excerpt from my sermon this past Sunday (please ignore paragraph breaks and odd punctuation as I use these for reading cues):
--- Quote ---This coming Tuesday, we Americans get to do something that is staggering: we get to vote. The amazing thing is that we get to vote for who we want to vote for based on our own moral, economic, or ideological reasons. We don’t vote based on who we are told to vote for by a political leader, pundit, union boss or employer, family member, or God forbid from the pulpit. It is no one’s business who we vote for, or even if we vote. This is an unprecedented amount of freedom, an unparalleled voice in how our world is ordered. It is the singular freedom that Hu Jia hoped for, and is jailed for.
These freedoms we enjoy aren’t limited to the ballot box, though. As American Christians, we have a unique opportunity to, in the words of the Quakers, “speak the truth to power.” Is it possible that one of the ways we show our love for God and neighbor is by doing just that?
Today’s readings from the Gospel and Psalms are all about power. Power, it seems, is a powerful sedative. No matter what reasons a person has for seeking it, once there, the titles and the “perks” take over. Perhaps that’s why Jesus is so adamant about not accepting titles, but I think it goes deeper even than that. With a title comes an attitude, not just in the person with the title, but more especially in others. The loftier the position, the more gatekeepers and bodyguards and secretaries and “handlers” one has to go through to reach the person, the more likely we are to be mastered by that position. “I can’t talk to her, she’s the (fill in the blank). Oh, he won’t care what I have to say, he’s the (fill in the blank) and I’m just a regular person.”
What Jesus is saying is that we cannot let titles and positions become a litmus test for the worth of another human being – and especially in our American context, because governmental leaders are in positions of power specifically because we the people put them there. Thus we say, “I don’t really care if you are on the council or the mayor or the governor or the President, you’re there because I say so, and you’ll leave if I say so, so listen.”
--- End quote ---
Ozymandias:
You have a two boxes. One contains a machine that will cut off your testicles. You don't know anything about what's inside the other box.
WHAT DO YOU DO.
tragic_pizza:
Ice cream doesn't have bones, though.
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