Hope and Politics

It is with mixed emotions that I congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the president of the United States. It is an historic landmark for America to choose a man with brown skin to be our leader. After listening to my wife's grandfather, the grandson of a slave, tell stories of all the discrimination he received as a soldier fighting for his country, I understand why America needed this—and why my African American wife was excited to vote for Obama. Obama really is a great man, and having a president capable of articulating a vision for America will be a welcome change after 8 years of a president who seemed incapable of explaining his ideas or decisions.

As proud as I am to have a president with a similar interracial makeup to my son, I am also dismayed that this president would have wholeheartedly supported us in killing our son 6 months ago if we had decided he was inconvenient—even offering government funds to help terminate him.

My wife says that I am foolish to hope for leaders that always guide us toward what is better. America will never choose a president like Joe Schriner. Politicians (at least the ones capable of being elected) won't or can't save America from itself. Perhaps trying to stop evils committed by our nation through voting is misguided. After all politicians only enable us to do the injustices to our fellow man that we have already decided as a society that we wish to allow.

This election cycle has me discouraged about the willingness of American to vote for any real improvement in this nation. Several state ballot measures to limit abortion lost badly. It seems that the much touted “values voters” are only really energized to ban gays from getting marriage licenses, but aren't willing to stop the murder of unwanted infants (just as most “pro-life” politicians haven't done a thing to limit abortions). The unpopularity of the war in the campaign was only rivaled by Obama, who opposed the war, falling all over himself to assure us that he is very willing to strike other countries. It seems voters don't have the stomach to accept the sacrifices required either for war or sustained peace. American voters seem to expect war to be convenient, easy, and bloodless—things war will never be. Obama had to repeatedly reassure voters that he will not “spread around wealth,” because Americans would not tolerate being required to share their means with the needy. In the end this election was about the economy. The results imply that Americans vote for their money and convenience; right and wrong doesn't factor into most voters decisions at all.

After spending a great deal of time on politics here at the Gridbook Blog I wonder if I have fallen into the pitfall of imagining that real change can be effected through government. This election has been touted as a reemergence of “hope” in the political process. As much as I admire Obama personally and what he symbolizes as an interracial president, I have very low hopes for him. Just as our nation gets beyond the horrors of racism, we only more deeply ingrain our policy of infanticide. Having seen first-hand the devastation of abortion, the fragility of human life, and knowing that Obama supports this atrocity makes me skeptical of all the other good intentions he has.

But perhaps this is the problem of hope in politics—we hope for too much. I had high hopes for Bush 8 years ago too, and he has been a sore disappointment. The problem isn't politicians. It is ourselves. Humans are naturally a violent and selfish species, and no law or government will undo this tendency. It can only be changed from the inside, supernaturally.

So I have learned to vote my conscience, but without as much hopefulness that the political process can cure the ills of our society. Rather than hoping for the law to enforce social justice, non-violence, equality, and treatment of all with dignity, perhaps I must work harder to live out these values in my daily interactions. I may not change the world, but if I change the lives of a few people it will likely be worth more than every vote I ever cast.

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Presidential Endorsement: A Wasted Vote?

The Gridbook Blog proudly endorses Joe Schriner for President of the United States. Most of you are probably asking "Who?"

Out of all the people running for president this election (there are options other than the two you always hear about) Mr. Schriner is the only candidate who espouses Consistent Life positions. His political stances are consistently compassionate. His unyielding focus on human dignity and social justice is to be applauded. Although both major party candidates are honest and likable people, they both have serious defects in their positions on basic human rights. Schriner is usually right where the Obama and McCain are wrong.

The next question everyone asks is, "Why waste your vote writing in a candidate no one has even heard of?" I admit that Schriner will not win the election this year. I suppose if I choose the lesser of two evils and pick the Democrat or Republican ticket I would perhaps get to vote for the one who will become president. I would also ensure that every 4 years we would continue to get nothing but liberals and conservatives from which to select our leaders.

When I was 2 years old my parents got to vote for either Carter or Regan. Every election since with all the different names on the ballot the basic stances haven't changed. Americans are weary of both parties and their morally bankrupt conservative and liberal ideologies, but if we keep voting for Democrats and Republicans that have a chance to win no other party or ideology will ever have gain enough traction to be noticed. I don't want my infant son to grow up and have to pick the lesser of two evils from two candidates with different names but the same ideas as McCain and Obama.

Are you bold enough to waste your vote so our children don't have to waste theirs? Read up on Joe Schriner. You might find yourself excited about writing in a name Republicans and Democrats have never heard of.

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An Open Letter to Senator McCain

While John McCain certainly has a more humane approach to unborn children than Obama, his support for embryonic stem cell research shows a different disturbing flaw: McCain is comfortable doing something he knows is wrong if the benefits appear great enough. This may provide a key to his support for torturing prisoners or killing foreign civilians in times of great need.

Dear Senator McCain,

I have been deeply impressed by your honorable character and consistent opposition to abortion. However, as your fellow pro-lifer and a physician I must respectfully but strongly express concern about your support for embryonic stem cell research. The idea that terminating any other human being for any potential benefit to ourselves is a direct contradiction to the Pro-Life stance you claim to hold. How do you ask a woman not to kill her 7 week-old fetus which may be greatly convenient to her to do, if you are killing 7 day-olds for the potential benefits they could give to her if she develops an illness like Parkinson's or Diabetes?

The argument that age, size, or mental-functioning below a certain level open up humans to destruction if their termination is expedient is the very argument used to support killing babies near birth, the sick, the mentally-challenged, or the elderly. You enter serious moral peril by classifying any human individual as a “thing” rather than a “person.” I am certain you are a very intelligent man, but I don't believe you have the right or ability to draw a line excluding any human (even an embryo) from basic human protection. It is this same logic that allowed my ancestors to commit crimes against Blacks, Native Americans, and others they deemed “inferior” in order to make things better for themselves. History has judged them harshly, and I fear it may judge us the same.

As a physician I care deeply about my ill patients, but killing in order to help them is something I cannot do. I urge you not to kill another human in my name or the name of my patients.

Thank you,
Jonathan Davis MD


With both major parties giving consistent-life voters poor choices, The Gridbook Blog will be endorsing a 3rd Party Candidate. Stay tuned.

Us Versus Them (politics with no thinking required)

The polarization of American politics has stifled any real progress or discussion. Respectful opposition has been replaced with demonization and name-calling. The free forum of the internet was supposed to liberate us from the hegemony of the two political parties. Instead we got more obnoxious partisan bickering.

Of course, Conservatives and Liberals have real differences worth discussing, but there is little or no discussion online. Political hatreds (such as the Right's vehement disgust toward the Clintons, the Left's similar distain for the Bushes, and various ad hominem attacks and name-calling directed at each party) have replaced political discourse.

No one even tries to understand political thoughts anymore, just label them. Once an idea has been labeled “Right” or “Left” you can reject or accept it based on your affiliations without even having to strain your mind to even give it any real consideration.

A blog like this that often ventures into politics but has no real Right/Left affiliation is an anomaly on the internet. Recently I read a review of my site on Stumble Upon (a social bookmarking site that allows people to vote on any website). The only written review of the site consists of one man giving the site a thumbs down and stating “The guy voted for Bush... not once but TWICE!”

While I did vote for Bush and do not regret it, any reading of the site should reveal that my positions are drastically different from Bush's. I imagine that this man had to do some significant exploration of the site to find my voting history since it is noted in passing on a post that doesn't get much traffic or or have outside links, but thinking about what he was reading didn't seem to be part of this web surfer's approach. I imagine this poor liberal scanning through ideas and posts without giving them any thought until he final found something that made sense. “Two votes for Bush! The writer must be Republican, an enemy. Bad site! Don't consider any of the ideas in these essays! Give it a bad review so no one else reads it either.” Interestingly this is the same site that a conservative acquaintance called me a “pinko commie” after reading.

The truth is I am neither a Conservative or Liberal, but I give a lot of thought to politics—both personal, local, and national. While there certainly are thoughtful people of all political persuasions the vast majority voters have no desire to think about what anyone else says. They only want to win arguments and elections for their side. Having friends who are sincere and intelligent Liberals and Conservatives as well as reading blogs and books from all sorts of political perspectives is what freed me from feeling the need to pick a side. Both sides are right and wrong on a great many things, so I defend what I believe is right and point out the wrongs I see. If most voters aren't open minded enough to even listen to someone outside their own group I fear we will never solve this nation's problems.

Representative Government

With all of my talk about controversial politics it was about time I actually broke down and talked to a politician:

2/17
Hello Representative McKillip, My name is Jonathan Davis, and I am one of your constituents in Athens. I am writing to ask you to support HR 536 “The Human Life Amendment.” This is not a liberal or conservative issue as much as supporting basic human rights and dignity. As a physician who has taken care of preborn children as well as the elderly and infirm I can assure you that they are deserving of protection under our laws. I believe firmly in this amendment and hope that Georgia will be able to lead the country in assuring all Americans are recognized and protected. I will be watching how you vote on HR 536, and it will influence my own voting when elections come up. -Jonathan Davis

2/19

Hi Jonathan! I appreciate your thoughts and do have certain reservations about the Resolution and its rather far reaching implications. I will review it if it makes it to the House floor. Please feel fee to send any thoughts on other matters that are important to you! -Doug McKillip (House District 115, Athens)

2/19
While I understand the "far reaching" aspect of this bill in terms of political power (challenging a Supreme Court statue and quite a few special interests) the idea of giving the most basic legal protection to every human being in Georgia could not be more simple. It is not far reaching to protect the basic human rights of every individual, it is one of the most basic ideas that this country is about. I do hope that you will reconsider your reservations about this bill. I believe the basic respect we afford to other human beings is one of the most important issues in this country today. If you end up opposing this bill I must respectfully say that I would be required by my conscience to most vigorously oppose your reelection. Thanks again for listening to me. I really appreciate the letter back. This is the first time I have ever been significantly involved with my local representative, and it is so good to hear back from you personally (something that never happens with my representatives in Washington). Democracy in action! Thank you very much, and if you do change your mind on HR 536 please do let me know. -Jonathan Davis

2/20
Hi Jonathan! I really make an effort to return all emails - especially when we disagree - I do believe it is crucial to communicate because it is the only way to hear different ideas. Maybe we will agree on the next one. Take care. -Doug

Unfortunately the representative is not supporting the resolution, therefore I will have to oppose his reelection. It is sad that I must oppose him since it is quite refreshing to have some two-sided communication with my elected representative. A wise friend and I recently had a long discussion on the whole idea of representative government by the citizens. His analysis of the flaws of democracy was brilliant and eye-opening (an excellent argument I could not do justice here). I still believe that representative government is the best way to run a society, but sadly the results of this exchange are not encouraging. Perhaps it is just the nature of human beings that we oppress others even in the best government system?

Professors and Physicians

The ever-present temptation to be arrogant with opinions:

So last night in my creative writing class the conversation drifted to the exciting primary contest between Clinton and Obama. A professor who was taking the class punctuated his input with, "Either would be better than our current president who is both a fool and evil. Electing him twice is proof of the absolute idiocy of voters!" He said this with a very self-assured tone, as if that is the final word on the subject and any reasonable person must concur.

I bit my tongue rather than stir up an argument. While Bush's presidency has been far from ideal, I voted for him twice and I still think I made the right decision today. I voted based on my own political values, which are likely different from this professor's, but are not necessarily less valid or less well-reasoned. I felt irritated that this man in a room full of well-educated adults he barely knew could declare most Americans idiots and his ideas superior to everyone else's. As I watched this older gentlemen who I believe was a professor in the English department, I thought about him spending all day teaching young people about a subject which he knows well and they do not. It is understandable this experience could leave him with the impression that he is far wiser than the average person and everyone is in desperate need of him to teach them what is true.

Of course, this led me to consider my own experience. As a physician I am always telling people things about their bodies that they didn't know. Having unequal knowledge in a narrow field has a tendency to make us over-estimate our own intelligence and the need of others to hear our opinions. It made me think about this blog. I want the controversial opinions here to be expressed humbly and in the spirit of free dialogue, but is that the case? I wonder if I am just another blogger on a political soap box acting as if I understand the world better than anyone else.

Recently at dinner with my parents I confidently said that I couldn't understand how anyone could vote for Mitt Romney who I declared to be obviously nothing but a pretty face and a charlatan. My parents kindly informed me that they had both voted for Romney and went on to explain quite well that on the issues that were important to them he was the best candidate. While their political priorities are different from mine, they made a very intelligent choice based on their own priorities. I felt embarrassed.


As the race for president continues I promise I will really try to be more humble and open to disagreement as I express my opinions both in this blog and privately.

Gridbook Endorsement: Ron Paul

The Gridbook Blog endorses Ron Paul for President in 2008.

First I should say that it is not my intention to tell anyone how they should vote. Many people of good conscience, strong values, and excellent intelligence (such as my wife) vote differently than myself for various reasons. The intention of discussing politics on a blog, however, is to influence thought and shed light in the sometimes dismal world of political power. With all the discussion of politics (with a good bit from a personal perspective) on this site I think it is reasonable for me to also let you know for whom I am voting and why I think this person would make the best president.

With an atypical set of political stances it isn't easy to choose a major party candidate to support. It is much simpler to pick out the ones that I think would be the worst (such as Gulliani and Clinton) than the best. I initially found Ron Paul by accident when googling the term "consistent life politics." All I knew about Paul before was that he is a Libertarian with a small but passionate following, particularly on the web. I decided to do a little research on this congressman. Although Dr. Paul doesn't use the term "consistent life" to describe his politics, his positions seem to adhere better to consistent life values better than any other candidate of which I am aware.

First of all Dr. Paul is very pro-life on Abortion. Unlike a lot of Republicans that give the tragedy of abortion lip service but don't seem inclined to do anything to stop it, Paul is pro-active and has introduced legislation to amend the constitution to define human life as running from conception to natural death. Paul is also opposed to aggressive and violent intervention around the world. He is the only person running for president in either party that voted against the Iraq war from the beginning. While he is not a pacifist, he seems opposed to the use of deadly force in most cases that don't involve national defense. He is opposed to the federal death penalty, although he seems open to it on the state level.

Dr. Paul mostly discusses these positions based on his constitutionalist, limited-government values, however, his underlying beliefs seem consistently compassionate and anti-violence. His experiences as an OB/GYN and a serviceman during Vietnam seem to have left him with a strong aversion for violence. He is quoted pointing out how odd it is that his fellow pro-life, Christ-loving politicians so often seem the most eager for war and bombing. I couldn't agree more.

I certainly am not a Libertarian. I do not have the same confidence that just because free markets create wealth they can also fix all other ills if sufficiently unrestrained. (I have even been known to border on Socialism) But with the recent poor performance of liberals and conservatives in the executive branch, I am certainly willing to give a Libertarian a try. Having listened to quite a few of his speeches and interviews I cannot help but be struck by his intelligence, straightforwardness, humanism, and apparent integrity. Like his policies or not you have to be impressed with Paul's character. I know that looks can be deceiving in politics, but he certainly seems a breath of fresh air compared to most candidates who seem unable to speak in anything other than prefabed sound bites.

There are certain positions on which I would differ from Dr. Paul like immigration and certain approaches to civil rights, environmental policy, and medical care, but looking at the overall candidate I cannot help but pick Ron Paul from the rest of the major party candidates as most worthy of my vote.

I strongly encourage everyone to learn more about Ron Paul before you go to the polls this primary.

Values and Personality: Part II

An examination of the effects emotions and personality on political beliefs, continued from Part I:

Part II: Non-Violence

The transformation from a hawkish conservative to a pacifist opposed to the death penalty didn't begin with careful reasoning, but with subtle experience. First, I fell in love. I married the most amazing woman. Perhaps it is an accident of natural selection that young males are eager to kill or die for their nation or a cause, but having a wife and now a child on the way have tempered any inclination toward killing. The list of things I would be willing to kill or die for rapidly began to empty. The only thing I would be willing kill for is to save her from danger. The thought that I had once been willing to go to war and kill another woman's husband filled me with remorse. I find now as a husband and father that violence and cruelty depicted in films which had never bothered me before often make me sick to my stomach.

Another thing that happened was that I became a doctor. Suddenly people dying and suffering, which had before been an abstraction, became something I saw frequently and intimately. Before I had rather harshly realistic opinion that everyone dies. Perhaps I have a “thin skin,” but after caring for so many as they die I can no longer have such a cavalier attitude toward the death of a human being. No matter how painful or peaceful, the end of a human life strike me as an immense tragedy. We all still die and suffer, but I can never speak of the death of another human lightly. Even more so willfully killing a person, even a vile person or someone who is a threat, became horrible to my mind.

Medicine also altered my concept of “deserving.” Much of the illness I care for in my patients is self-inflicted through unhealthy decisions made in the past. The conservative idea that bad acts should get what they deserve, doesn't work in medicine. My oath as a physician binds me to care for the suffering and ill regardless of patients “bringing it on themselves” or not. It is my job to prevent (as much as possible) people from getting “what they deserve” from years of unhealthy habits. I should advocate for health, but realizing unhealthiness exists it is my job to forgive and restore. Perhaps it is a stretch, but my job in human restoration after bad deeds made me wonder about humans metering out the justice of God by putting evil people to death. My own experience in my family of evil and redemption again figured in my perspective. Also in medicine I have cared for many prisoners, including several who I know killed others ruthlessly. Did I have the right to tell them they didn't deserve lifesaving care because they were bad? No. They were in chains and no longer a threat to anyone. Why should I want them killed?

The ancient rule of medicine is “First, do no harm.” This beneficent rule has restrained physicians for centuries. We are not any better than any human beings, but something as simple as this has given us perhaps the greatest respect among professions. I liked this principle. It made sense and even misanthropic doctors act well when they are reminded of this oath. I sought such a simple principle for my political beliefs. The Consistent-Life Movement is above all things simple: Kill no human. It fit with my pro-life upbringing. It fit with my Christian beliefs. While the holy scriptures don't expressly prohibit capital punishment or war, the commandment to love others with the sacrificial love of Christ certainly makes consistent non-violence seem consistent with my belief.

During this internal transformation of my values, the external world seemed to be moving to confirm my new views. The war I had initially supported had become long, bitter, and pointless. Now our brave soldiers are dying and killing to prevent a cataclysm that our invasion set in motion. Certainly this preemptive war was started with the best of intentions: a fight for security and freedom. This war and my initial support of it leaves a sad stain on my consciousness. How easily I supported sending our defenders to kill and be killed! I now deeply believe that war should always be a last resort and only in self-defense.

My conservative friends and family think me a bit of an embarrassment for becoming a vocal pacifist, and liberal pacifists find my antiabortion convictions to be offensive, but I must admit being consistently pro-life is a relief. I am by no means a perfect person or a perfect Christian, but to my mind this is the most true and honest way to let the mind of Christ effect my politics. “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” -Romans 12:18 And so my mind is at peace with this. With a personality that impulsively spills my thoughts out to everyone (as evidenced by this blog) it is this piece of my mind that I speak.

Values and Personality: Part I

With all the soapbox speeches on this blog, perhaps I would do well to examine the personal conflicts and influences that produced these convictions. While many essays here are commentary, this site is personal and the essays are personal thoughts.

Political and ethical beliefs are not arrived at in a vacuum with only logical extrapolations from fundamental principles. They arise organically within a mind after mixing with the milieu of experience, emotions, and personality. As Chris often points out the logical arguments for my stances often leave much to be desired. While I must work on more thoughtful reasoning, “one cannot help but believe, that which seems true.” Thus I will try to provide an examination of how these values came to seem true in my mind:

Part I: Pro-Life

I was raised in the Pro-life (anti-abortion) Movement. My mother was a passionate pro-life activist. She had two abortions, before having us, and she had initially scheduled me to be terminated as well. Seeing the wrongness of what had been done, she poured her energy into preventing further killing of innocent fetuses. As long as I can remember there were bumper stickers on the car and we carried signs at rallies. We were taught that if enough people got involved America would come to it's senses and stop the killing. To a child there was an overwhelming sense of optimism and hopefulness in the face of terrible wrong.

The impact of abortion within my family deepened the belief in the rightness of being pro-life, but it also prevented any sense of enmity in my conviction. How could I despise those who have abortions, when my own mother, who raised me to be pro-life and saved me from being aborted, had once done this? I believe this perspective nourished my sense of empathy, and led me to a much more nuanced view of evil. Conservatives often think in terms of good guys and bad guys. Even as a young person I couldn't fully accept such as simplistic explanation.

Being Pro-life and Christian my parents raised me Republican and Conservative. I believe due to this political affiliation I was initially in favor of the death penalty and hawkish about war. I even considered applying for a military academy. While I certainly had a young male bravado, I was never eager for violence, but I was taught it was a necessity for responding to evil in the world. While I couldn't quite accept the conservative concept of bad guys versus the rest of us, I did accept that violence kept order and prevented worse evils. Killing our fellow humans (guilty humans -since I was pro-life) was a necessary evil in this world. I even supported Bush's invasion of Iraq as recently as 2003, but by that time my confidence in the acceptability of violence was already waning.

(for more on becoming a pacifist see Part II)

Is Violence Effective?

This post originally started as a response to this post on Turn the Clock Forward.

A book a few years back called “Freakonomics” claimed that legalized abortion in America is responsible for decreasing the crime rate. (We aborted future criminals.) Since then much pro-life debate has focused on discrediting this argument. Similarly and more recently in the news the administration has been claiming it needs the ability to torture and hold people indefinitely without charges if it might save American lives. Pacifists and civil libertarians seem only able to counter with the claim that this behavior might be harmful in the long run because it hurts our image in the world. People of conscience seem bound to a debate that judges right and wrong based on utility.

I think we should be careful not to focus our pleas to stop violence on outcomes. Do I believe the argument that abortion lowers crime? While I don't want it to be true, it could be! Could torture prevent a terrorist attack? Quite possibly? Even if certain types of killing and violence does make the US people safer we still must stand against it. We should be committed to non-violence because it is right, even if it isn't always safe.

Even if preemptive wars and bombing civilians saved lives, even if capital punishment prevents crime, even if euthanizing the severely disabled does ease burdens on society, even if racial profiling gets drugs off the streets, even if embryonic stem cells do cure diseases, even if torture prevents terrorist bombings, even if aborting poor babies prevents crimes --these things are inherently wrong; wrong even if done for all the right reasons. Violence is an excellent way of enforcing peace and stability. Violence works even when it is wrong.

Our job (a difficult one) is to show people a better way. Forgiveness and love are better than violence, but people have to seek peace because it is right not because it is effective. (We Americans have a bad habit of mistaking efficiency for rightness.) Some hopeful idealist point out that if everyone practiced non-violence the world would be perfectly and effectively safe. While this is true in theory, there has never been a fully non-violent society this side of heaven, and in this world non-violent people often end up nailed to crosses.

Peaceableness wins the hearts and minds of people not by proving better outcomes, but by living out a truth that people will want to follow despite any danger.

Changing Minds on Climate Change

The problem of Global Warming has been discussed often by those who are much more informed than I, but with Georgia currently in the worst drought in 50 years I thought I might add my two cents:

I find it disturbing that we aren't doing a lot more to stop the damage of Global Warming. I am no climatologist, and thus I am not really able to judge the merits of various climate models. I would imagine that most people (even the intelligent or well-informed) similarly cannot judge climate science. Public opinion, however, is the arena in which this movement will succeed or fail. A large group of climatologists recently issued a statement saying global warming is happening, people are causing it, and it is happening faster than previously thought.

Some people are still skeptical. While I cannot judge the validity of the science, something I have noticed both in most media and private conversation on the issue are some tendencies that seem to accompany skepticism about climate change:

1) A sense of entitlement about consumption. It is the God-given right of every free person to live with bright lights, big cars, and nice things. The threat of climate change must be false because the cuts in consumption required to stop it would kill the “American Dream.”

2) Confidence that the world is impervious. The earth is immense. It was here before we were born and will be here long after we are gone. One can accept that humans can do small damage like pollute a river, but the idea that the ancient earth can be irreversibly damaged by mortal men seems absurd.

While these ideas appear to be a major factor in public objection to action on climate change, I'm not sure they are even addressed the public discussion, or that those that hold them are even quite conscious that such ideas are the reason that they feel that man-made global warming “just can't be real.”

I think I am accepting of climate change because I do not hold to these presuppositions. I find the general level of Western consumption (including my own) to be downright indecent, and having seen plenty of desecration of the environment at local levels I don't see why global damage wouldn't take place.

Climatologists will continue to put out statements based on research that most of us will never understand. While most scientists seem to be in agreement, skeptics will still always have climatologist dissenters to affirm their suspicions. Rather than playing “my scientist vs. your scientist” comparing studies we don't comprehend, perhaps we should look into our basic ideas about the world.

Advocating ideas of stewardship and conservation as wise alternatives to consumption and recklessness with creation, may convince more people than any studies or expert panels. (Even more than Al Gore with his Oscar, Nobel Prize, and monstrous energy consumption with mansions and private jets.)

Select a Candidate (or reject them all)

So I found an interesting tool on the internet that allows you to fill out a political questionnaire and then compares your views to the candidates. In some ways this strikes me as informative since it takes out the factor of popularity and personality and just looks at issues (although only particular issues chosen by those creating the survey).

Click here to take the questionnaire

The problem is that this told me what I already knew: not a single candidate in either party can even come close to representing my politics. I had only 25% agreement with any candidate at all, and my top two candidates with which I even slightly agreed were Sam Brownback and Dennis Kucinich two people on exact opposite sides of the spectrum, both without a snowball's chance in hell of winning. The major candidates of either party faired dismally against my positions.

Am I such an odd person? Or are the national political parties so inbreed with group-think that sets of values that don't fit nicely into Right/Left politics end up ignored all together? Perhaps my own vanity would make me more likely to say the second, but I think I'm not alone in being annoyed with my Republican and Democrat choices. I really don't want any of these people to be president.

It is such miserable list of choices that forced me to vote for Bush twice. (The sad thing is that despite his rather pitiful presidency, he was actually the best choice I could make given the options both years.)

I am seriously thinking about voting for third parties this round. I don't think it would be a wasted vote. It may not win anything this election, but I think that breaking the stranglehold of Republicans and Democrats on this country is in the long run the best way to improve the quagmire of American politics.

Defending Domestic Rights

A "modest proposal" for defending domestic freedoms...

AMERICANS FOR DOMESTIC RIGHTS

Domestic choices are deeply personal and often agonizing. Imagine how much more traumatic these choices must be when the government threatens to invade every home’s privacy and condemn responsible household-heads as a criminals for personal choices made within private households!

As Americans our domestic rights are profoundly important to us. Our homes become expressions of who we are. For many years American adults have enjoyed domestic freedoms. The autonomy of our domestic space is personal and sacred. We have assumed our homes to be as safe from desecration by outsiders as our own bodies. Many American adults even allow minor dependents to develop within the inner-sanctum of their domestic space. Each adult chooses how to manage his or her own home environment, and all such choices are deeply private. Americans appreciate the diversity of domestic expressions individuals choose for their lives.

In recent years, however, domestic rights foes who aim to usurp individuals’ private domestic choices and replace them with state-mandated moral codes have been gaining a foothold in government. Every American’s domestic freedoms now stand in jeopardy! Right now there are opponents of domestic rights in Congress who seek to label men and women’s personal choices as “morally intolerable” and “child abuse” and use that excuse to give the government the right to invade your private domestic space. Their anti-privacy agenda even goes so far as requesting that neighbors and health care workers become informants, reporting individuals’ personal home choices to governmental agencies that would have the authority to invade your home if your domestic choices on the management of your pre-adults doesn’t conform to official state-legislated morals.

Moralist zealots and political special interests seek to thwart the private choices of responsible adults and subvert your domestic freedoms to the alleged rights of dependent domestic minors, although the law does not recognize them as developed enough to be adults, and study after study has established that most minors (particularly the younger pre-adults) are incapable of self-sustainment independent of a domestic environment.

As the government ominously threatens to legislate puritanical morality and restrict even more domestic freedoms, many Americans do not speak up because they themselves would not choose to roughly handle or terminate their own domestic minors. What well-meaning Americans must realize is that criminalization of any adult's choices in the inner-sanctum of his or her own home is a violation of the privacy and domestic rights of every one of us! If we stand by silently the Constitutional right to privacy, the right to own property, the freedom to choose, and the protection against unlawful searches and seizures will be completely eroded in order to legislate the scruples of religious fanatics, social extremists, and special interest groups.

Please stand up for your courageous fellow Americans who even today face public humiliation, confiscation of their private homes and minors, and even imprisonment for exercising their right to make difficult domestic decisions! Educate yourself and those around you about your constitutional domestic rights and the ongoing crusade by politicians and special interests to restrict those rights. Let people know that you trust American adults to make domestic choices without government violating their homes. Write your congressman or congresswoman to let them know that you support domestic rights and urge them to oppose any legislation that would allow the government to dictate the personal choices of men and women in the privacy of their own homes. Join Americans for Domestic Rights today and let you voice be heard!

My home.
My choices.

My Politics

Almost a year ago I mentioned the Consistent Life Movement as a idea that intrigued me. I've thought about it a good bit and I am fairly certain now I have converted to Consistent Life Politics:

My ideas about politics and policy have been changing. While this shift in my thinking began long before I discovered the Consistent Life website, it has been comforting to realize that others are arriving at the same place. At this point the main focus of my voting and civic involvement is changing ours to a society that does not kill.

Unfortunately most social/political dialog in our nation appears to be mostly on economics (Capitalism vs. Socialism) or citizen rights and responsibilities (Conservativism vs. Liberalism). While economics and rights are important, I believe we lose sight of more central values. All these popular ideologies seem to assume that intentionally destroying other human beings (in one form or another) is necessary for achieving social good. Looking at a history of civilization there are a few bloodthirsty madmen, but many more have been killed by people with good motives believing a better world would be created by removing certain others.

“We would be safer if we kill those who might attack us in the future... Our lives would be better if we have the right to kill a fetus... We would be upholding justice by killing a murderer... We can be kind to a suffering or disabled patient by killing them... Think of all the cures we might get from killing unwanted embryos... The world would be a good place if we could just get rid of the Jews, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Capitalists, Communists, Homosexuals, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, etc.”

Before you know it creating a better world ends up making the world much worse. More than any Right vs. Left political allegiance, I have begun wish we could change into a society that agreed to kill no other human being no matter how insignificant or bad that person might be.

In the post about Hussein's execution Chris McCartney asked “But was it Just?” Yes, as a Christian I have to acknowledge the justice of “the wages of sin is death.” My entire hope for redemption is based on an execution/sacrifice. (Although, the fact that Scripture teaches that all who ever sin deserve death makes me wonder how such just killing could every be accomplished by any society) Morality is different from policy, although they should be related. Recognition that greed, gluttony, smoking, or adultery are wrong does not necessitate that it is good for our society to make them crimes. Similarly believing that a despicable person or group of people deserves do die is quite different from claiming we should kill them. Similarly, it may be true that it would be “better” for many people if we killed an inconvenient minority. Any benefit (real or imagined) or removal of threat no matter how great does not justify the crimes we commit against those few. If we could cure poverty by eliminating the poor, could we really imagine we had done any real good for our society?

At this point the only justification I could imagine for killing another human would be self-defense (in the face immediately attack: not preemptively or retroactively) and even then, as Chris pointed out, we should be "saddened by death even if it is justified," rather than celebrating such violence.

As a convert to Consistent Life politics, I am no Utopian who imagines that somehow making these changes in our policy would suddenly create a society of perfect harmony and happiness. The human condition will always be deeply flawed, and humans will still suffer and someday die. I also recognize that spiritual redemption is far more valuable physical life. These policy changes, however, could be attainable if the political will existed. If it is the duty of a citizen to improve his government, then spreading and supporting Consistent Life is what I will do for my country.

I don't know if I yet have a great argument that would convince others that it is good policy for our government and society to abstain from all killing. (I realize that a majority of my argument above is “slippery slope”) I still ask myself how much of my shift towards supporting total non-violence is based on personal emotion. Over the recent years I have seen a lot of people die, which has no doubt affected me. I also wonder how my feelings on lethal force might be now if the war in Iraq had gone as smoothly and Iraq were now stable? I wonder if my own fear of losing the person I love the most (my wife) and the prospect of having children of my own have lessened my ability to accept the sacrifice of any life? Emotion does play a role in my change of mind, but in whose mind is emotion not a part of understanding truth?

While I still have a lot of contemplation on this subject to do, I feel certain enough to declare that these are my politics. As far as I know I am in a very small minority, and I must give up on finding any home in Democratic or Republican Parties. But several hundred years ago those who opposed slavery were a similarly small minority, and now the almost the whole world has accepted their policies.

Blood on My Hands (South Dakota)

Most of the fuss over the recent election is likely a lot of noise over nothing, exchanging bad for bad. The real tragedy of this election was the ballot that struck down the South Dakota Abortion Ban. I fear this injustice among us will not end in our lifetime, because in the end we want the ability to terminate those who inconvience us. What finally brought down the ban was that it would protect offspring of rapists from being killed. It reminds me of how even good people want to excuse the deaths of Muslim civilians and children, because they might be relatives of terrorists.

I found something I wrote in the gridbooks during medical school that reflects how I feel today:

On being a pro-life medical student:

Lord Jesus, how eagerly my brothers and sisters rush to shed innocent blood! And I am guilty with them. I cannot deny my hand in this. I have raised my fist and joined in the battle cry of individualism, which deals death the weak, the silent and the inconvenient. How lost we are! How desperately lonely!

And what do I say to them? I understand too well. I have blood on my hands as well. Would I lay down my rights, my life, even my comforts for another person I have never met? I say "yes" but it is only an abstraction. So I am forced to sit and listen as they sing the praises of destruction. I speak, but they respond, "What right do you have?"

I have no right. I am no less a sinner. So I am here among them, alone and shuddering. What have we done? How did we get so lost? Why don't we care about what we have done? How did our compassions become so misguided that even our caring breeds more violence?

How long can this last? How long can we go on neglecting our neighbors and living well at the expense of the weak, poor, and small? The problem is that we can go on this way indefinitely. Our human capacity to misuse each other is almost limitless.

The Pragmatic Use of Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic stem cell research was in the news today. (New York Times Article) I doubt the veto will last. Polls say 75% of Americans want embryonic stem cell research so there is little doubt they will eventually get it. I don't think I am being too incendiary to make the comparison to the crimes of my ancestors against the slaves they bought and sold:

Stem Cells and Slavery:

America has always been a pragmatic, business-minded culture. Most of our genocides have been done in name of sober well-doing. We have a history of inventing entities that we call humans but not persons (human things rather than human beings). Then we kill, maim, enslave, banish these “things” in the name of charity or good business.

We tend to invent these “human things” when our fellow humans can be conveniently used to further our goals, and then with clear consciences we go about our violent business. History will always judge us as murderers. We are, but we are not viscous murderers—just practical well-meaning murderers.

We Need a Third Party

Some recent thoughts about why it is best to be neither Liberal nor Conservative:

The Republican and Democratic parties have a permanent stranglehold on our government. They decide who runs in elections. They draw all congressional districts. They (with minimal input from the citizens of New Hampshire and Iowa) decide the two people from whom we get to choose a president.

The two-party division of political thought is both annoying and destructive to public discourse. America and the world seem to have permanently divided into Left and Right, and no longer even acknowledge the possibility of other approaches to the organization of society. Generally those who don't ally themselves with one side or another are either uninterested in, or disillusioned with politics.

Although "third parties" have existed, they tend to either be either more Left than the Democrats, more Right than the Republicans, or ideologically nebulous groups based around some leader's personality. Since the two ruling parties already have enough Liberalism, Conservativism, and personality cults to keep us bothered, it is no surprise these 3rd parties never take off.

This Right vs. Left division of civil discourse first struck me as absurd when I was voting in my first presidential election after college. I was tired of studying for my Anatomy finals and decided I would sit down and write out my political opinions and beliefs. I was surprised to find that I could neither be a Conservative or a Liberal. Neither party would want me. I'm no opinionless or compromising "centrist." I have strong beliefs, but they just don't fit into Left or Right molds. On my views on environment or poverty are so "left" people think I'm a socialist, but my views on abortion or constitutional interpretation are so "right" as to make me sound like Regan.

It was so liberating to find myself unaffiliated and step off of the Right/Left spectrum. It has opened my eyes to the absurdity of status quo American politics. Without an "us" to identify with, the us vs. them debates in congress and news shows begins to look more and more like the squabbling of self-important gangs of children. It often seems the Democrats and Republicans have little ideology at all but to thwart the agenda of the other party.

It is a bit lonely being partyless but still caring passionately that our society is run well. Everyone seems more interested in figuring out what side you are on than in listening to ideas. Generally Conservatives and Liberals need to recognize an idea as coming from the Left or Right before they are able to agree with or argue against it. Everyone wants to label you even if your political ideas don't fit the label. I find interesting that most of my conservative friends think me very liberal, and my liberal friends think me very conservative.

Conservativism and Liberalism are at least somewhat useful as they have developed two opposite theories on how society should be run, but it strikes me that neither approach is correct, and that there are plenty of better approaches to democracy we could create if we weren’t so obsesses with upholding these two outdated Enlightenment models.

So in a political world without options, I end up stuck choosing between the lesser of two evils. Voting on individual issues for Republicans or Democrats that I don't like or respect. Hopefully, someday we will have a better system free from the hegemony imposed on us by the two-party system. Until then I get to rant on my blog and hope that enough people will read this that someday we might have more choices.

-JD

This site is an excellent example of a movement that couldn't be classified as Liberal or Conservative: Seamless Garment I would gladly vote for a political party like this over any Democrat or Republican. It is a novel and consistent approach based on an ethic that most people could accept. I fear such movements could never get off the ground because we refuse to leave our worn-out political parties.