I literally want to talk to you about the election— talk since I’m dictating my comments.  Many readers agree with me politically but there may be some who do not.  It’s you that I want to speak to heart to heart. 

Honoring our troops

First, I want to mention our troops. Is Obama against our troops?  I don’t think so.  As General Colin Powell said, the war in Iraq began on the wrong assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  This proved to be false.  The war in Iraq has worn our brave forces nearly to the limit, has depleted our weapons and munitions to dangerously low levels, and costs us $10 billion a month, although the Iraqis are sitting on a surplus of oil revenues.

Obama wants to honor and conserve our forces and to focus on the war in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is.  He is not willing to shed one drop of American blood wrongfully. But, as a senior Pentagon official said at the outset, the Iraq campaign squandered our military resources in a cavalier fashion.

Divide and conquer with theological weapons

For several decades politicians in denominations and in the country have successfully used theological issues as weapons to divide and conquer the people of God. 

What’s important to understand is how good people have been manipulated.  Political operatives used your strong convictions virtually to coerce your decisions about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Republican Party, and the United States Congress and the Presidency.

The 2008 presidential election is not chiefly about unrelated theological or social issues that people feel strongly about.

Economic meltdown

The main issue is economic. 

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, the primary economic theory was to cut taxes, mainly for the very rich, who then would spend lavishly, money trickling down to everyone further down the pay scale.  While accusing Democrats of being “tax and spend liberals,” extreme right Republicans became “borrow and spend” puppets of big business.  In seven years the national debt doubled, from $5 trillion to $10 trillion! Before long, the United States could be another Enron, with costs like the war being off the books just as Enron’s major deficits were.

Another tenet of this philosophy is deregulation.  Self interest and the free market would supposedly assure fair play and honest dealing.  The economic meltdown last month proved this philosophy to be wrong; executives acted in self interest, giving themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while their companies collapsed. Reagan practiced “trust but verify” with regard to the Russians; he should have done so with his business tycoon buddies as well.

Obama’s plan means lower taxes for people making less than $250,000 a year.

We don’t live in a Jeffersonian world any more

In the age of Thomas Jefferson, governments were the biggest fish in the pond. Today, however, many governments are small by comparison with multinational corporations.  The Jeffersonian ideal of smaller and smaller government doesn’t work when larger sharks patrol the pool.  Without a strong government to exercise reasonable regulatory powers, huge business interests run rampant over the rest of society.

Powell: the constricting of the Repiblican Party

General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama was based partly on the Republican Party’s being hijacked by extreme right wing conservatives who use the cloak of religion to gain and keep power.  He said the party has become so narrow, he felt uncomfortable in it.

John McCain: honorable, impulsive and unsteady

John McCain has served with honor.  Throughout his service, however, he has been impulsive.  By choosing Sarah Palin, rather than Tom Ridge, for example, McCain illustrates the problem with his leadership.  By first canceling his campaign, flying to Washington, DC, failing to solve the economic meltdown, then resuming his campaign, he demonstrated an unsteadiness unsuited for the White House. At age 72 his future health is a concern.

A transformational figure: Barack Obama

Barack Obama can unite our country. In a once-in-a-century crisis (Greenspan), Obama remained calm, well-informed, and disciplined. He is, in the words of General Powell, “a transformational figure.”  I believe his service is rooted in a profound Christian faith.

Join me in voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  Pass this post along to a few friends as well.

Let’s talk

I’d welcome the chance to discuss your views, even if they’re different. If you can change my opinion, fair enough.

(BTW, I only have a few readers as a matter of fact.  I appreciate you a lot.)

Legislating wisely will defy the wisdom of Solomon.

Democrats will be tempted to enact all the laws the Republicans have kept them from enacting.  But what they need to do is to seek for a bipartisan coalition, the goal of which is the welfare of the country.  Statesmanship and bipartisan cooperation have been extinct on Capitol Hill in recent years.

Just because Al Qaeda has not been successful bombing another target in the United States doesn’t mean that we are no longer in its cross hairs.  Rather, we need to think of ourselves as facing an enemy, which can take any number of forms: financial, military, diplomatic, religious.

A Democratic sweep of the 2008 elections will be meaningless, if those swept into office, undergo the same kind of sea change that affected the young idealistic Republicans of 1994.  They brought little change in the long run.

I confess: I am a liberal Democrat; even worse, a liberal liberal Democrat.  The word comes from Latin, meaning free.  I’m not an advocate of the old post-millennial doctrine of progress.  I agree with CS Lewis who said, “We’ve seen it all in an egg— it’s called going bad in Narnia.”

I also believe that prayer is more important than most other things we’ll try to fix the fix we’re in.  I think of myself as a kind of anchorite.  Since God has limited my mobility, I have chosen to make this armchair a place of prayer.  I hope through reading to recover ancient and medieval perspectives on prayer that have been lost.

We need a President who is “a transformational figure” (General Colin Powell).  Barack Obama is such a man.  I pray we will let him lead us to a new kind of America, an America whose chief export is not dollars (as now), but the ideals of equality among all people, equality of opportunity, and freedom for all.

But, what will change the world is not one leader, no matter how dynamic.  What will change the world is “7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal,” 7000 who pray to the Lord God Almighty (known perhaps by other names), 7000 who pray without ceasing.