Tim Elston wrote:What is truly disturbing to me is the selectivity and partiality of the so-called conservative church in its partisan judgment. It does not see the evils of the Republican Party equally well. Its eyes are relatively blind to structures of oppression, exploitation, social manipulation, and abusive power when they are ensconced within the Republican Party, and it is itself an indifferent accomplice to the party's acts of injustice, murder, and poverty, both domestically and globally. The conservative church is largely as much of a failure in to what it is blind as is the Republican Party to which it has attached itself. The uncritical, non-prophetic partisanship with which the church prostitutes itself to a corrupt political broker that is wholly mired in every evil work is the saddest of commentaries on a religious ideal gone two millenia sour.
Tim, not every Christian you see supporting a Republican candidate is blind to the evils in that party, or in conservatism in general. But the question that faces those who do see the problems in both is, which set of problems is worse? Awareness of how loused up both parties are is not an excuse to check out of the process, go live in a monastery, and separate yourself from all contact with corruption. I think we agree on that. So, a choice is inescapable, and then it's about criteria..
Tim, are you familiar with the medical practice of triage? I was introduced to it when I was in medical training with the Air Force. In a disaster scenario, with multiple injuries to be treated and many lives on the line, medical personnel on the scene decide who's going to live and who isn't. They separate the ones who won't, sedate them with morphine if they have it, and go on to the next, leaving 'em to die. It's what you have to do if you want to maximize the number of lives you save.
And, notice above that I said "medical personnel", not doctors, or even nurses. I was a 19 year old medic with three and a half weeks of medical training when they told
ME that I had that responsibility if I were in such a scenario. It was legally incumbent upon me to decide who could be saved and who couldn't. And not only that, but I would have to decide who would receive treatment in what order, and arrange them in various categories for treatment when transport or more medical personnel arrived. Lives depended on me making hard choices immediately so the doctors could most quickly get to the ones who could be helped and not waste time on those who couldn't, OR whose injuries could wait, however painful or severe. Sounds pretty logical, right?
To put it graphically, as it was to me, you apply a tourniquet to the lady's severed limb and set her up for medical attention/transport first, tell the guy with his face half torn off to wait over there and keep his hands off his wounds, and take the guy with his guts hanging out of his belly off to the side, knock him out with morphine if you have enough, or just leave him if you don't. Not making those choices will kill both the eviscerated man and the lady amputee. Even if the people I choose to live end up dying anyway, making those choices has the potential to save more lives than not making them, so making them is right and moral thing to do.
If you've ever had to make choices like that, when it's over and the lives have been saved or lost, you pray God to take the memories out of your head, and you thank him you were able to do more to save lives than if you'd stood over the wounded and dying, holding their hands, crying, and screaming "WHY, GOD?!?!?" at the sky.
If you have to participate, and want to save as many lives as possible, you sometimes have to decide beween the lesser of the two evils.
I based my choice thusly;
Which political philosophy supports the murder of innocent children in the womb, the suppression of religious freedom if it imposes strictures on human behavior, and the normalization of self-destructive practices of all sorts?
Are the Conservative/Republican's besetting sins of avarice, favoring the rich over the poor, and making lives less important than profits any less offensive to God? Obviously not. But there is historical and biblical precedent to believe the other choice involves behaviors that are key;
1. Infants being sacrificed to Moloch and Chemosh got Israel exiled in chains to Babylon.
2. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for less governmentally approved godlessness than what goes on daily in even small American towns,
And
3. anyone who denies the existence of God is called a fool by scripture.
I believe these sins will destroy our country more rapidly and cause longer lasting damage than the other choice, because human life is made cheaper and more unimportant by them, and God is made irrelevant.
If nothing else makes voting against liberal/progressive candidates the only possible choice for a person of conscience, then take it back to triage; which choice is going to save more lives the soonest?
Abortions are performed by the millions every year. WWII, Vietnam, and the Civil War combined didn't take as many American lives as abortion has.
The original argument said abortion wasn't murder because fetuses were not legally people. That argument was later modified to say they weren't people if the weren't able to live outside the womb.
Medical science has destroyed both arguments in the time since Roe v Wade was decided. Law has recently said that, in cases involving the murder or injury of pregnant women, causing the death of an infant in the womb is murder and people have been prosecuted for murder in such cases i. So, there is no moral or sciedntific bassis to believen fetuses aren't human, and scant legal basis now.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the quintessence of a pro-abortion judge is there ever was one, stated in her inaugural speech that new legal grounds for abortion rights needed to be found and found soon if a womans"right to choose" was to be preserved. The only reason Roe v Wade continues as law is because the balance of power is weighted against overturning it.
Which party claims to be opposed to abortion, and has everyone who is for abortion voting for liberal/progressive candidates of the other party?
Voting which way has the potential to save the most lives in the shortest amount of time?
You can call that "reducing it all to abortion" and/or "the Church prostituting itself to a corrupt political broker that is wholly mired in every evil work", Tim, but I call it working on the problems that will save the most human lives in short term, and allow the pursuit of satisfactory resolutions in the long term for the problems that don't cost as many lives as soon.
How many lives do you figure the Obama administration will cost? And, how many do you figure they will save? That question is paramount. It has to be, if human life matters.
