My Personal Political Philosophy

After the vice presidential picks, and then the conventions, over the past two weeks, the discussion of presidential politics has been heated, and we've discussed it a bit in the comments. Some of you have asked for more of my opinions, so this is my start. I thought that it would make sense to first outline my philosophy, before I got into the particular candidates, their beliefs, and why I am one of those crucial undecided voters in a swing state.

I will start by saying this: I have changed my political beliefs over the years. I think as I've gotten older and received more education, I've become more open minded and tolerant. And to be honest, it seems like I'm the only open-minded person left!

I am not, any more, an ideological person. I believe in doing what works, and I believe in compromising. It always startles me when I hear ideological people talk; they seem to think that if a candidate doesn't agree with them on everything then the candidate is useless. How in the world can you expect a candidate to agree with you on everything? That would assume that you are right about everything, and guess what: you aren't. Neither am I, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that I am open to trying new ways of doing things.

I have basically learned over the years that there may not be a place in either party for me. I can't be a Democrat, because I am a Christian. I agree with Democrats on a lot of things:

• healthcare is a moral issue, something that should concern all Christians
• the conduct of war is a moral issue, and especially the poor prosecution of it, and when lies are told about why we go to war? unacceptable
• other social programs (welfare, social security, etc) are also issues that should concern Christians (of course, I'm opposed to Social Security, because IT DOESN'T WORK!)

Now, because I'm a Christian, there are other things that I am vehemently opposed to in the Democratic Party:

• I believe in the consistent life ethic (CLE), which is against abortion (along with the death penalty, euthanasia, and war)
• I'm against sex education in schools
• I want intelligent design mentioned in science class (even though I fully acknowledge that it isn't scientific)
• and other reasons

Then again, the Republican party doesn't fit me either, really:

• I'm not a neo-con, who believes in war first and everything else fifth
• I'm not a fiscal conservative. I understand these principles, I don't think they are necessarily wrong, but they aren't my highest priority (humans are imperfect, therefore GREEDY!)
• I'm not a libertarian; I believe the government has a place in life and needs to make laws (for example, I'm OK with wiretapping - it has a clear purpose--stopping terrorists)

I guess the group I could most closely be identified with is the religious/social conservatives, but I am for the issues I outlined above (social programs). Religious conservatives think this stuff needs to be done through the church. I couldn't agree more. If it can be done in this manner, by all means, DO IT! However, the church can't do it all. They just can't. The disappearing middle class, the high divorce rates, high rates of birth out of wedlock, single parent families, poverty...these are problems that the church just isn't addressing well enough (instead, we are building multimillion dollar facilities with air conditioning and other excesses, but this is another rant for another day). My philosophy is, why can't the church and the government both take care of social problems? The church does what it can, then the government helps fill in the holes. This is what forms the core of my belief.

I can, at later times, get more specifically into how I believe things should operate, but I will just close this first discussion by saying that ideology is an evil in the system of government that we have. People complain all the time about the two party system, saying that we need more parties. Why? So we can yell at each other more? James Madison wrote about the idea of factions in the Federalist Papers (No. 10), talking about how dangerous they could be. Guess what: he was talking about parties and interest groups! Factions of people that had beliefs and divided people.

So, to sum up, I am for two things: whatever works, and bipartisan cooperation. Maybe at some point in the future I will reveal my list of actions that attempts to disprove the myth that George W. Bush is a divisive president (it's not true; Democrats have hated him since 2000 and never gave him a chance at all). Thoughts and/or comments?

*Disclaimer: I wrote this while on the phone with Verizon techs (I'm at the office). It may be disjointed, contradictory, or nonsense. Please excuse the grammar and sentence structure and try to focus on the ideas.