Religion or politics

As I'm sure everyone is already aware, the USA has one political party with two names.

Democrats and Republicans are both notorious for wasting taxpayers money, falling short on campaign promises, lying outrightly to everyone within earshot, and basically proving time and again that the last people you should put in charge are the ones who ask to be put there. But today I came to the realization that the two sides of the coin have decided to lump into one big ugly, distorted one.

NPR ran a bit today during All Things Considered which followed the attempts of several democratic candidates to reach out to "Persons of Faith"--i.e. the Christian Coalition, to try and get some more blue asses in chairs next month. They realized in 2004 that they were losing votes to Jesus W. Bush et al and it was time to try and steal back some punch cards. The message is clear: "Two can play at this game."

Yeah, Democrats, real smooth. two can play at social intolerance, prejudice, and using bible verses to justify just about anything we put our minds to.

What will it take to convince the general populace that Religion has no place in Politics?

I still find it funny that there are millions of people out there who continue to encourage the Government, that pillar of good intentions, to regulate morality. They try time and again to entrust this laughingstock, the usual gang of idiots, with the task of deciding what is right and wrong for every single American. Moreover, they expect them to base this decision on the pages of the Bible, a book which is notorious for its tendency to be out of date, jarringly inaccurate, full of loopholes, auto-contradictory, glaringly prejudiced, and, much unlike the Geneva Convention, open to interpretation.

Yeah, W's in trouble with the UN (again) for signing the fun new law which suspends habeas corpus for suspected terrorists, allowing pretty much anybody W and his cronies dislike to be sentenced without anything resembling a fair trial, be tortured, or simply held indefinitely without being charged with anything. The Supreme Court said no to this two years ago, but what does W care? he's king of the world. The international community referred to this action as "interpreting the Geneva Convention" (i.e. picking and choosing which articles to abide by or disregard.) and, in due fashion, are scheduled to start squabbling, bitching, and accomplishing nothing on the topic shortly.

If I may, I'd like to take a moment here to mention something that has become more obvious and funny the older I've gotten. Mind you, I'm the ripe old age of 22 and i'm taking my time to explore the world and figure out where I fit in it, which I expect will take the rest of my life. I'm not in any hurry to settle down and stop learning, and I feel that I'm currently among friends in this. But I took a glance through the ol' Facebook yesterday and realized that this is not the case for everyone. A huge chunk of the kids i knew in high school have stayed in south carolina, put down roots, gotten hitched, and in four short years have nurtured their xenophobia into full flower. I'd like to mention a few of the more prominent issues which I noticed in my search.

I thought the whole idea of erecting a wall along the US/Mexico border was a joke. I didn't realize people--educated people--had actually established Facebook groups lauding this effort and encouraging it to grow.

There are several groups, established in highly defensive terms, which support the Iraq war as the best thing we could be doing with our time, money, and lives. The group's name is actually "Support the War in Iraq--if you don't support the war, you don't support our troops!" in brave defiance of all evidence to the contrary. Even as these people's representatives acknowledge that this isn't a good idea and its about time we apologised, the sincerely gung-ho keep praying their friends and relations stay in the line of fire.

There are people who will vote for any candidate who wants to make homosexuality a felony, even if its the same candidate who believes we should make it harder for African countries to get medicine for AIDS, establish sanctions against Venezuela because Chavez is outspoken in his dislike for Bush, embezzle massive amounts of money, and call everyone who isn't white a terrorist. Oh wait, those ARE the candidates who want to ban visible homosexuality!

Many people who join the campaign group "Pro-Life" also join the campaign group "Pro Death Penalty." I get it--you think the government should decide who gets to live. You know, those cool guys who've killed hundreds of innocent women and children in Iraq this MONTH.

Some of these people have also joined groups for "Pro Gun Rights" and this is where it gets really funny. You want the government to force women to have unwanted children, who'll spend their lives in poverty, in foster care, and/or hated by the people who have to raise them. You will then allow these abused, neglected people to own and use firearms at their convenience, and then you will demand that the government kill them when they use them against you! Cheeky!

There is a Facebook group called "Anti Hillary Clinton 2008." Funny seeing as she hasn't said she's going to run for it. Equally as funny, there's other groups entitled "Jon Stewart for President 2008."

Looks like I'm voting for Alfred E. Neuman again.


The best encouragement I can offer anyone in how they vote is this. Before you choose your deciding issues, ask yourself: "Am I voting for what I think is best for Everyone in this country, or am I voting for what I enforce upon myself already? Will this policy benefit or harm good people--sane, taxpaying, well-behaved citizens--who don't live the same way I do?" At no point is it appropriate to think "is this the way Jesus would vote?" or anything along those lines. There are too many religions in this country--indeed, in each state, for anyone to vote so arrogantly as to think that its appropriate to inflict their religious lifestyle upon anyone else. The fact that you live that way does not mean it is necessary for anyone else to.

So in November, vote with your brain, not with your soul. Do your research, and figure out just how many times our incumbent God-tastic government has lied to us and screwed us over. If you can vote without considering what the candidate did or did not say about Jesus, your vote will go a long way toward helping our country and preventing terrorism.