Utopian Mudslinging

In the best possible world, all political ads would be like this:


Candidate 1:  Hi. I'm Billy Keikeya and I'm the Democratic nominee for senate in North Carolina. I supported the Affordable Care Act because I'm concerned about the rising healthcare costs in this country and I wanted to make sure that every American has insurance. Once they do, it will lower the burden on our emergency rooms, lowering costs across the board.

Candidate 2:  Hi. I'm Mallory Quinn and I'm the Republican nominee for senate in North Carolina. I did not support the Affordable Care Act. While I'm also concerned about rising healthcare costs, I prefer other solutions to the problem such as tort reform and making the same insurance policy available across state lines. I believe that these and other changes will achieve the same positive effects as The Affordable Care Act without increasing bureaucracy and without forcing people to buy a product that they may not want or need.

Candiate 1:  On November 6th, it's your duty as a citizen of North Carolina to decide who you agree with on this issue and place your vote accordingly.

Candiate 2:  To find out more about our positions and voting records on this and other issues, visit KeikeyaVsQuinn2012.com.

Candiate 1:  I'm Billy Keikeya.

Candiate 2:  And I'm Mallory Quinn.

Both:  And we approve this ad.


If only.

Why I'm Voting 'No' on Amendment One

I don't know if you've noticed this, but on May 8, 2012, there's going to a vote on an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. I plan to vote against this amendment and I'd like to tell you why.

To start this out, I should put all of my cards on the table. I'm a straight, white male living in a mid-sized city in the South. I have and have had some casual gay friends and acquaintances, but I don't have any gay family members or any gay friends that I'm extremely close with. I'm also a Christian. I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and I use it as a guide for my thoughts and behavior. I'm involved in a local church and, while we don't have an official church stance on Amendment One as far as I know, our pastor has spoken in favor of the law from the pulpit. I'm not writing this post in a spirit of rebellion or with the idea that I'm somehow superior to anyone who disagrees with me. I'm not trying to stir up strife within my church or the Christian Church at large. I'd like to think that my thoughts have a firm logical and Biblical foundation and, if nothing else, they've been prayerfully considered. I welcome any comments, positive or negative, that those within or out of the Church may offer, but I ask that you read the entire post carefully before making them.

Having said that, I'll get to what seems to be be the crux of the issue. I do believe that sexual activity between people of the same sex is sinful. The Bible's stance on homosexuality is not just a part of the Old Testament Mosaic law as some believe, but is laid out clearly in the New Testament as well. Here's the thing though: The same parts of the New Testament that condemn homosexuality also condemn people who are "covetous," full of "malice," "envy," "strife," "deceit," and "maliciousness." "Gossips,", "slanderers, "haters of God." "Insolent," "haughty," "boastful." "Disobedient to parents," "foolish," "faithless," "heartless," "ruthless." (Romans 1:29-31 ESV) These characteristics are the natural state of man without God. In fact, as a believer, I've still committed most, if not all, of these sins. But somehow homosexuality is different. We like to say that we love the sinner and hate the sin, but we ostracize gays and lesbians and treat them like second-class citizens. We send our homosexual kids off to special deprogramming camps and pray that lightning will strike the local gay bar. Why aren't their deprogramming camps for gossips, boasters, and ruthless business men. Why aren't there people holding up protest signs that say, "God Hates Adulterers?"

This dovetails nicely into one of my reasons for coming out against the gay marriage amendment: whatever your "actual" reason may be for supporting the amendment, those in the gay community are only going to see it as bigotry. Supporters of the bill can talk all day about how they're just protecting family values or tradition and I do believe that many people genuinely feel this way, but the gay people in our state only hear, "I hate you. You don't deserve the same rights that I have." Do you truly believe that sending that message is the best way to show the love of Christ or does the love of Christ only apply to straight people?

This brings me to my next point: you can't legislate morality. Some people seem to be under the mistaken impression that our system of laws is a moral code. This is patently false. Our laws were put into place to protect individual citizens from each other. While one could argue that some of our drug laws don't follow this principle, the general idea is that the laws of the state are designed to keep your neighbor from doing you harm. As I've already mentioned, there's a huge numbers of immoral acts that are completely legal. There's also a lot of illegal things that are otherwise perfectly moral. Some of our laws obviously overlap with general morality and the Christian concept of sin, but they're not  one and the same. At this point you may be asking, "So why don't we make sin illegal then?" Because, simply put, it doesn't work. Sin is a matter of the heart and only God can change a heart. Making a sin illegal does nothing to stop it. America may be a "Christian nation" according to some (newsflash: It's not.), but it's most definitely not a theocracy. Until God decides to come down himself and render decisions through a cloud and a pilar of fire, any theocracy will quickly turn into a dictatorship, with religion used as a convenient excuse to shout down all opposition. That's not how America was founded and it's not what it should become.

Now that I've spent some time discussing this issue from a Christian point-of-view, I'd like to cover some political thoughts on the matter. Frankly, the most ridiculous thing about the amendment is this: Gay marriage is already illegal. Amendment One could be unanimously defeated and it wouldn't change one thing as far as who can and can't be married in this state. As a Conservative, I believe in smaller government and less intrusion. How can I stand by those principles if I support this wholly unnecessary, bureaucratic waste of time? And given that gay marriage is already illegal, both nationally and on a state level, how can anyone blame the gay community for seeing this amendment as a big, fat middle finger extended in their direction? "Hey gays...we know you can't get married anyway, but we just want to make it extra clear that it ain't gonna happen." Yeah. Great. As far as the notion that we're "protecting the American family" with this endeavor, I'll believe that when there's a similar amendment on the ballot that outlaws divorce and extramarital affairs. The fact is that straight people have already done more to desecrate the institution of marriage than homosexuals ever could.

Another argument that I've heard from a lot of people is that allowing gay marriage would be horrible because it would redefine the word marriage. Actually, I made that same argument myself a few years ago when my views were slightly different. One of the people I was debating with gave me a response that really made me think: Is it worth denying people rights over a question of semantics? And he was right. People's lives and rights and infinitely more valuable than the definition of a word. So "marriage" may someday mean "a committed union between two individuals" instead of a "committed union between a man and a woman." So what? As a straight man, that would do nothing to change my life or the lifelong commitment I plan to make to my future wife. Right now, I'm sure there's someone asking why we can't just call it a civil union. Here's the thing though: homosexuals didn't grow up on Mars. They grew up in the same communities as you an I. They watched the same movies and read the same fairytales. They don't want a partnership. That's the language of business. They want marriage and all the connotations that come with it. How would you like it if you were forced to treat your wife like a business partner or to call your child a "legal dependent"? Gay marriage is a question of legal rights, but it's so much more than that.

And here's where the religious arguments come in again. How can we, the capital-C Church, say that marriage is not a union between a man and a woman when the Bible clearly states that it is. My answer is that we don't have to. As it stands, there's already two definitions of the word marriage. There's religious marriage and there's civil marriage. These things often occur together, but they don't always have to. Couples are already free to be married by a justice of the peace instead of a religious official and even marriages performed by a minister must be backed up by legal documentation before they bestow any rights. I wouldn't want my pastor to officiate a gay marriage because, as I noted, that doesn't line up with God's law. That doesn't mean, however, that I can't support civil marriage for anyone who truly wants it.

Next, I feel like I should tackle the "slippery slope" issue. This argument is a little ridiculous, but lots of people take it seriously, so I suppose I should try to as well. Some people have made the case that, if we allow gay marriage, that's only the first step in the road to nationwide Sodom and Gomorrah. Next thing you know, people will be marrying children. Within a generation or two, we'll allow men to marry their dogs or robots or their toaster. Where does it end? My answer to that is that it ends where we, as Americans, decide that it should end. You can make the slippery slope argument about any law. Has allowing the death penalty led to us executing people for speeding? Did giving women and minorities the right to vote lead to cows in the voting booth? You can't ignore a civil rights issue simply as a precaution against where you think it might lead. Besides that, there's a humungous difference between allowing two consenting adults to marry and allowing a man to marry his cat or his BMW. I don't doubt that there a lot of changes to come in this country, but I'll be very surprised if meows and car horn honks become legally binding.

To turn back to the Church's role in this once more, I'd like to remind my Christian brothers and sisters of one simple fact: Right now, we're the majority. Clearly, there's a difference between those that profess Christ and true followers and there's no doubt that this country is becoming more secular by the hour. But statistically speaking, the majority of Americans say they believe in the Judeo-Christian God and have at least some respect for the Bible. We in the Church like to act like we're some kind of persecuted minority, but the fact is that we have a lot of power in this country and around the world. We may end up with a Mormon president come January, but an atheist presidential candidate wouldn't even get out of the gate. Unfortunately, this power we have will no doubt evaporate at some point in the future. Some data suggests that the "No Religion" status (which includes deists, agnostics, atheists, and theists) is the fastest growing belief demographic. If you believe that the book of Revelation is a picture of the end times, then Christians will some day be a pretty small minority. When that day comes and secularists hold all the seats of power in this country, I'd like it to be known that the Christian community took a stand for love, acceptance, and personal freedom over bigotry, hate, and governmental intrusion.

Finally, if there are any homosexuals reading this blog post, I'd like to close with this message: I can't lie to you and say that I support all of your actions. I believe in the truth of God's word and, while I sometimes wish that I could change it, I can't argue with what's written there. I don't hate you though. I love you. Because you're no different than any of my other unsaved friends and you're no different than I was before God's free gift of grace changed my heart. I hope that you can understand this distinction even if you don't agree with it. Regardless of our theological and social differences, you're welcome in my home and in my church any time. I don't know that this blog post will change anyone else's vote, but you can count on mine if nothing else.

A Nonpartisan Political Thought (If That's Possible)

Lately I've heard a lot of Republicans complaining about of Barrack Obama's recess appointments. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, a recess appointment is a process by which a president can appoint judges and cabinet secretaries while the senate is not in session. You see, normally the senate has to confirm all of these positions. Sometimes those confirmations come easily, but often the opposing party will delay them indefinitely to make a political point or stick it to their adversaries. For that reason, presidents often take the opportunity of a recess to slip some minor position hires through and speed up the process. This has all happened before and it will all happen again. But this time, while the senate was on a 20-day recess, they had some "pro forma" sessions where one or two members would show up for five minutes and bang a gavel before dismissing themselves. So Obama went ahead and made his appointments because there was clearly no way they could vote on his nominees with literally one or two senators holding court for a matter of minutes. Predictably, as soon as the president made the appointments, Republicans began crying foul and accusing him of circumventing the system and disobeying the constitution. But again, this is normal. Presidents make recess appointments all the time. The law was put into place for this very reason. And what's just as normal? The opposition party finding a technicality and feigning outrage to score cheap political points. I know I've picked on the Republicans up until now, but it's really just a symptom of a larger problem. Every time (and I do mean every) that a politician uses one of these weird rules of law to get around the usual process, no matter how many times it's happened, and no matter how recently the politicians who are complaining have done the same exact thing, both Republicans and Democrats pitch a fit. "Well sure...we filibustered for 62 hours straight the last time we were the minority party, but this guy...he filibustered for 70 hours! It's a travesty of justice!" "I'm aware that the last democratic governor of the stage pardoned 137 people, but this republican governor pardoned 225. And it was on his second to last day in office instead of a week before he left. Book me on Meet the Press to complain immediately!"

You get my point, right? If you don't like all the weird little quirks of politics, then change them. But don't use them to your advantage and then get all up in arms when your opponents use those same rules six months later. Seriously. Stop the Chicken Little sky is falling routine. Few things annoy me as much as fake outrage.

Insert Gambling Pun Here

This is the first presidential debate of the current election season that I've been able to watch so I can't say whether they've all been this spirited, but oh boy this was a wild one. Bachman made the "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" joke right off the bat in her opening remarks, so if you had 8:14 EST in your office pool, then congratulations. To start things off, the other candidates all took turns attacking Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. They all insist that the math doesn't work and you'll end up paying more. Cain insists it does work and that Americans should do their own math by visiting his website. I'm sure that's the most unbiased place to visit. I suck at math, so I don't trust mine. Everyone I've heard that's actually done the math (including the non-partisan Tax Policy Center) says it'll raise taxes on the middle class. Maybe Cain is right and all of the experts are wrong, but it's hard for me to see how the middle class and the poor would come out ahead. The bigger issue is that, no matter what math you use, it means creating a sales tax for states that don't have a sales tax currently and greatly increasing the sales tax in the states that do. I completely get that he's getting rid of other taxes so theoretically you'd have more money to spend, but it's hard to figure out how much my paychecks would go up. It's a lot easier to imagine paying an extra nine cents on every dollar I spend and that's not something I relish. Then of course there's the criticism that the other candidates have made that once you create these new taxes, the next Democratic president and congress that came along could simply raise them to 10-10-10 or 12-12-12. I guess that's a legitimate concern. On the one hand, it's not like liberals can't raise taxes with our current tax code, but it does seem like it would make it a lot easier to enact dramatic increases quickly. It may not be the best criticism of Cain's plan, but it's something to think about.

The next really interesting moment in the debate came during the section on illegal immigration. Rick Perry claimed that Romney had hired illegal immigrants in the past and kept them on the pay-roll even after a newspaper brought it to his attention. I haven't fact-checked the story, but Romney explained that he had hired a landscaping company to mow his lawn and they had illegals working for them. He found out and asked them to dismiss the illegals. He thought they'd done so, but later found out that they hadn't and was forced to fire the landscaping company because of it. I really don't understand how that's an issue. Maybe you could twist the story and get it to play in a negative campaign ad, but with Romney there to explain the story, it just seemed like a silly, petty attack. On top of that, Romney's explanation took three times as long to get out as it should have because Perry kept interrupting and calling him a liar. It was extremely rude and reflected very poorly on Rick Perry's character. I often get heated when I debate things so I understand his impulse, but in a moderated debate where the other person has an allotted amount of time to speak, how can you not give him or her time to respond? I had an admitted pro-Romney bias coming in to the debate so maybe it didn't seem as awful to the Perry fans watching, but I thought it was bush league. Very unbecoming.

The crux of the real immigration argument came down to whether we should build a fence or not. Bachmann wants a fence across the whole border. Because Bachmann doesn't believe in nuance and her neither does her base. Cain said the fence should be electrified maybe. Possibly. Because he's still figuring this stuff out. He and Romney and Perry all agreed that we'd be better served combining fencing with technology. Seems likely. Ron Paul said the main issue was getting all our troops stationed overseas back so they can watch the border. Because he's Ron Paul and doesn't believe we should have any troops overseas ever. We knew that already. To me, the most interesting and substantial moment actually came from good ol' Newt. He spent his time telling the American people that the GOP is only against illeal immigration, not all immigration. It definitely needed to be said because it's been way too easy in the past for those on the left to paint the right as the party of racism because they want to get tough on illegals. As Lawrence O'Donnell likes to tell us in his MSNBC bumper, immigration is the life-blood of America. The problem is that illegal immigrants are placing an undue burden on our society and often creating their own little niche communities instead of attempting to integrate. A few of the candidates rightly pointed out that there are millions of people trying to get into the country legally and we want to make it easier for them so that life-blood continues flowing.

There were several other issues brought up and lots of good points made by all the candidates. I thought the section on the Occupy Wall Street movement was interesting and I liked Ron Paul's comment that we don't want to blame the victims and Cain's comment that they should be marching at the White House instead. I don't remember all that was said during that section, however, and I don't want to do a complete blow-by-blow, so allow me to close with a few final thoughts. First of all, I realize that unemployment is a huge issue right now and it's something that the president is going to face. That being said, I'm sick of hearing about it. Endless bickering about who has created more jobs in the past and who knows best how to create jobs in the future is pointless and doesn't tell me anything. The only way to literally create jobs is to spend a bunch of money hiring people to pave roads and fix bridges, which all the candidates say they're against. Beyond that, a president can do lots of things to encourage job growth on the macro level, but I wouldn't call it creating jobs. Those things may be very important and helpful, but they're too complex to discuss in a 30 second debate answer so the candidates should just shut-up about it and let me dig into their websites if I'm really interested in the minutiae.

To finish up, I'm going to pretend my hypothetical reader cares very strongly about my opinion and give some quick summary thoughts on each candidate and their performance.

Bachmann: She really hammered home the "I'm a mom and I want to help moms" thing. That's great if you're running for president of the moms, but that's not the office we're trying to fill. I'm not marginalizing her because she's female. I'm marginalizing her because she didn't speak with any depth on anything that was brought up. Not interested.

Santorum: His big talking point was that he's the family values candidate. I do find it strange how little we've heard about social issues during this election cycle. Maybe it will come up more in the general when it's easier to make a contrast. Personally, I'm much more of a fiscal conservative than a social conservative, so his claims to family values supremacy didn't really do much for me. If this were 2000 or 2004, he might be on the right track, but the economy and the job market are too awful for anyone to buy what he's selling this year.

Paul: Even if you don't agree with the man, you have to admire him for sticking to his guns. He's a dyed in the wool Libertarian and he's willing to take his beliefs to their logical extreme even if that means admitting that sick people without insurance may have to die. I'm sure there's a lot of Americans that would agree with him that, as he stated tonight, we should end all foreign aid. I just don't think there's enough people behind him to make any of his radical goals actually happen even if he were somehow elected president. If things keep going how they're going in this country, we could be ready to blow things up and start over in a few generations and Ron Paul may be seen as a visionary. Maybe someday but not in 2012.

Gingrich: He's a dinosaur. And I'm not talking about his age because Ron Paul is older. I mean that his time in the spotlight has come and gone. He had control of the party at one time. He was the guy. But that time has long since past and it feels almost pathetic that he's out there trying to compete with the new guard. On top of that, he's got lots of personal baggage and he's a career politician at a time when politician has become a dirty word. He's a really smart guy who's forgotten more about politics than I'll ever know, but it's not going to happen and he knows it too.

Perry: I just don't find him likable at all. I'm a firm believer that issues are more important than appearances, but I'd like to respect the man I vote for. From what I've read about the previous debates, he sleep-walked through them and seemed unprepared. Tonight, he seemed more on his game, but he came across as petty and childish. The way he kept interrupting Romney and getting irrationally angry made me worry about how he'd act in office. If he can't even get along with fellow Republicans during a two-hour debate, how would he deal with democrats in congress as president and ever hope to get things accomplished? The folksy drawl and  down-home diction play well with a lot of Republicans, but they don't do a thing for me. He also recently became the first candidate to run negative ads about his competitors. His people put together a well-made but ridiculous attack ad where Romney's face turns into Obama's in the mirror. As the immigration attack tonight showed, he's not afraid to play in the mud and he'll use every trick in the book to win. He's a player. A pro. The personification of everything I hate about politicians.

Cain: I want to like Cain. I really do. But the 9-9-9 thing is a killer for me. I appreciate that he's willing to take a stand for a radical solution, but you have to make sure the math adds up before you put something like that out there. He kept going back to this "apples and oranges" metaphor tonight when he was getting attacked and he was clearly sinking before the debate moved to another topic. That being said, I think he's a principled man with a lot going for him. He just isn't quite ready to face the intense glare of being a front-runner as evidenced by all of his recent flubs. I think he could make a really strong VP candidate for someone but I can't imagine him beating Obama next year and becoming president.

Romney: If you've read this far, you're well aware that I like Romney. I came in already rating him as my favorite candidate and he didn't disappoint tonight. He seemed cool and under control and he easily repelled all of the attacks that came his way. He hit back when hit, but mostly tried to stay above the fray and attack Obama rather than the other candidates as a true front-runner should. I understand that he has a lot of detractors, however. If you came into tonight liking Romney, he seemed smart and calm. If you came into tonight, disliking him, he may have seemed smug and cocky. I'll agree that his past stances on some things are a bit worrisome. I'd like to believe that he's truly changed his opinions on some things over time and isn't just floating along the prevailing winds. In fact, I'm willing to give Rick Perry (Texas chairman of Al Gore's 1988 campaign for president) the benefit of the doubt as well. People grow and change and I want a president who's willing to change for the better and admit past mistakes. As for the Mormon thing, it's clear that that shouldn't be an issue. All of the other candidates took the high road in that regard tonight and made me proud.  Gingrich said it well that a president should have faith and that faith will, no doubt, be a part of his decision-making process, but we should look at what that faith teaches about morality rather than worrying about an individual's path to eternal salvation.

Despite recent surges by Perry and Cain, this still looks like Romney's race to lose. The question is whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing. I refuse to join the crowd that says this is a lackluster field. There were a lot of great things said tonight and I think that there's something we can take from each candidate's approach even if only one of them can be the nominee. If conservatives really want to represent America then the Republican party has to be a big tent party that makes room for Bachmann and her Tea Party, Paul and his young libertarians, Perry's establishment Republicans, Santorum's Christian Conservative base, Gingrich's think-tanks, entrepreneurs like Cain, and moderates like Romney. There are some things we'll never get all of those groups to agree on, but each should have a voice. The left isn't the enemy either. They genuinely want what's best for this country too. But there's a fundamental difference in opinion over the role that government should play that actually is important. If the Right has any hope of convincing the undecideds out there to value less government over more, then they have to start by presenting a united front and end the schoolyard squabble over who's a "real" Republican.

New Blog

The title of this post has two meanings. First of all, this is a new blog. Sort of. It's actually the old blog, but I wanted to shift it from my secondary Google account to my primary so I moved all the posts over here. The second reason fot this post is that I've started a new collaborative blog called Crowd Source. Each post will center on a different topic and feature writing by me and friend who either has intimate knowledge or strong opinions on the subject. The first post went up today. Check it out and let me know if you have input or would like to contribute.

Quick thoughts...

For every successful preacher out there, there are scores of "Christians" attacking him and calling him a heretic. If someone is truly a false teacher, then that will come to light in God's time. Ripping each other apart over doctrinal disagreements hurts the entire body. I'm all for open discussion of doctrinal issues, be they major or minor, amongst the body, but terms like "heresy" and "false teaching," while they may be technically correct, imply that a preacher is deliberately and maliciously distorting scripture. Often, the false statement is simply based an incorrect interpretation of a few key verses. The preacher who made the statements should be gently corrected in private rather than publicly lambasted. Or conversely, we can share our thoughts on specific teachings without openly mocking or deriding those who spread them.

bumperstickers

Christians love slogans. "I have a relationship, not a religion," and "hate the sinner, not the sin" are great and all, but if you really want to talk to someone about your faith, be real. Don't just spout cliches and platitudes. No one wants to talk to the sign outside of your church.