I just wish we had other choices – candidates, Republicans and Democrats, who were really pro-life. I consider the Republicans of today to be really pro-death with a vengeance, while Democrats are pro-death, but not as much. Huntsman seems to be the best of the lot, and even he is back-peddling on issues.
The main problem I have with Republicans of today (and with Democrats to some extent)is their lack of environmental concern/awareness. I think the problem they and their adherents have is a wrong view of the environment – as being something on the fringes of human society, the wild places and species, the rainforest and polar bears – while in fact it is also the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the chemicals that permeate through our skin, the materials with which we build our buildings and produce our products, and the climate in which we survive and thrive.
It is God’s good creation, which we are to use for our material sustenance and well-being in lives dedicated to building up the kingdom of God and its righteousness – not in destroying the life-sustaining base of others. In this day and age in which we live in seemingly hermetically sealed human-made constructions, there is a tendency to think that we are autonomous, self-sufficient, and apart from the rest of God’s creation (Enlightenment concepts of man carrried to an extreme); we lack ecological understanding. Here’s an image that may help:
Now picture that “bullseye” model sitting within God’s hand, and you will have the complete picture.
There have been Republicans in the past who were not so limited and wrong in their thinking – Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon, to name two. And the saints of old had profound sensing and appreciation of God’s creation, and found it to inspire contemplation of God.
Nowadays when the environmental threats are extremely serious – there are at least 9 such threats to life on earth, global warming just being one of them (see
stockholmresilience.org/planetary-boundaries ) – people, especially conservatives, have all the more withdrawn into a shell of disregard for the environment, esp when it comes to acknowledging their own part in harming it and the life that depends on it, including fetuses, born humans, and other living creatures.
Conservatives of today seem to be morally bankrupt on this issue, just as liberals are morally bankrupt on other issues (and also on the environment, which they do not focus on hardly at all, but at least are not as antagonistic toward it). The conservatives in the current politics seem to be getting worse and worse and worse. I myself used to be a conservative in the 1950s and 60s – it was not so bad then. They were reasonable and moderate. I could vote for a Nixon or a Teddy Roosevelt, if someone of their stature were around today.
I think we really need to put life first, and that means putting the environment first (without which life would be impossible). All else (the economy, rejecting gay marriage, making abortions illegal) is just arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and putting some in the brig for violating ship rules. Without life (without a sustainable environment), all these issues are moot points. Or another way of looking at it is that killing off life is the surest way to end abortion, but it is not the most felicitous way. Where is King Solomon when you need him?
After first insisting on a sustainable environment that supports life, and giving serious and due focus to it, then we can make all sorts of other rules and laws to restrict bad and evil behavior. Killing everyone to solve social problems it not an option with me.
Anyway, that’s why it is very hard for me to support any candidate, especially conservatives. They are not dealing with fundamental life issues, only secondary and limited life issues. This has the appearence of a mask for their true aim of dismantling social programs – like social security, medicare, medicaid, Obamacare, and welfare that help people survive – and they are certainly against increasing these, so they can get more taxes back in their pockets for their own selfish pursuits.
Life with me is a non-negotiable. There would be no life without God’s given environment (food, water, air, etc), and there’d be no economy without life and human society. You can call me a one-issue voter, an “environmental fundamentalist,” I guess.
Let the conservative candidates, instead of vying to see who is the most anti-environmental, get into conservation, conservancy, co-service, as stewards of God’s creation, keeping the garden, as God commanded us in the Garden of Eden, certainly not destroying it or allowing society to willy nilly destroy it. Let the candidates acknowledge the legitimate science of environmental and climate scientists (which Huntsman did, but then back-peddled), rather than deny it and assassinate the character of those good and decent scientists. Then they will have moral legs to stand on, and everyone will vote for them.
If Obama wins (which I hope he does, since he is the least pro-death, and that’s not saying much), it is because the conservatives have not fielded a truly pro-life candidate.
That’s why you appeared paranoid. Whatever floats your boat…
