Guest Post

I actually have a guest post today which is great.  Anyone who has ever done a blog knows how hard it can be to come up with something to write that people might want to read.

My oldest son, Daniel, who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his lovely wife, Marie, and the world's greatest granddaughter, Juliet (no bias on my part).  

Daniel is a good Christian man, a great husband and a great father.  He's also a good writer (again no bias on my part).   He said that 'he just wanted to get something off his chest.'  So, here it is...

Politics as Usual

I don’t consider myself a political person. My party affiliation has become almost exclusively an economic and size-of-government consideration. But I have a pet peeve with the political language used in commercials and by pundits that I’d like to get off my chest. 

My beef is with the terms “uninformed” and “failure to understand” (I have even seen “under-informed” used). They are frequently touted to make a candidate seem dangerously uneducated on a position or issue concerning the voting public. The underlying problem I see, however, is what I’ll call the “I’m right, you’re wrong” approach to politics. Saying that someone is uninformed is really saying, “if you knew all the facts, you would have no choice but to see things the way I do.” 

That’s fine rhetoric if you are talking about a bridge that is washed out down the road—there is such a thing as absolute truth—but it has no value in issues like the war in Iraq, the economy, or the energy situation. I imagine the candidates are ten times more “informed” than the average citizen will ever be. But each will look at those issues and see a different problem, a different solution. 

I’m sensitive to this because it is an all-too-common tactic in personal interactions, not just politics. And it used to be part of my own arsenal in my younger days. I’m right, you’re wrong. End of discussion. In this particular season, party lines form. We’re right. You’re all wrong. End of discussion. 

It’s the last sentence there that scares me the most.

 

“As I look at the world, nothing has really changed. The evidence is the same. But I have changed.” –an atheist scientist who becomes a Christian in Creature Tech by Doug TenNapel