Tag Archive | voting

I can understand voting for Donald Trump

I voted sticker

We may be less inclined than usual to wear the proud sticker this November

I can understand voting for Donald Trump… if you are xenophobic. The world can be a scary place. You might go to watch a friend’s child in a play in Knoxville, and a man with a shotgun might come in and start shooting. It happens. OR, you might be dropping off your child at daycare in the federal building where you work in Oklahoma City and a truck bomb goes off, creating a crater thirty feet wide and eight feet deep, an earthquake that registered a 3.0 on the Richter scale, and could be heard and felt fifty-five miles away. It happens. OR you might have to work for the IRS in Austin and a suicide pilot flies into your building. It happens. Maybe Mr. Trump can stop these things from happening. After all, he wants to close our borders. But wait… these incidents, and there are others, were perpetrated by white natural born citizens of the United States so that would not have helped.

 

I can understand voting for Donald Trump… if you are so angry with American politics that absolutely anything will be better than what we have now. It couldn’t possibly get any worse. You may think that at least he will do SOMETHING, even if it’s wrong.

I can understand voting for Donald Trump if ethics, integrity, thoughtfulness, and consistency are not important to you or if you disagree with the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights.

 

I expect my President to be qualified for the office, to understand the Constitution, to possess true leadership ability (a tyrant is not a leader), and not to be vulgar, offensive, or coarse. I expect my President to understand that people on both sides of an issue can have legitimate reasons for thinking as they do and be able to develop ways to bring them together.

Voting for Donald Trump

I cannot understand a parent voting for Donald Trump.

Is this a man we want our children to emulate?

A President is an example to our children whether we intend it or not. How can we teach them that it is wrong to belittle, bully, and trash others when he is doing it? What is a President Trump going to contribute to the moral fiber of our society? It hasn’t been so long ago that we were pounding President Bill Clinton for having an extra-marital affair. What has happened to us that we are now willing to put a man in office that is more concerned with the size of his hands than with the practicability of his policies. Christian women, how would you feel if your husband spoke to you or about you the way this man speaks to and about women?

 

 

I cannot understand a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ voting for Donald Trump.

picture of Donald Trump

 

Blessed [favored by God] are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

 

Does Jesus’ teaching mean nothing to us? Does it no longer hold any sway over our behavior? I’m not talking about the behavior of the general population; I’m talking about the behavior of the people who are supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our world. Where in the Bible does it say that if our opposition is pressing in, that we may ignore what Jesus says and do what it takes to get our way?

loose cannon – n – a person who cannot be controlled and who does or says things that cause problems, embarrassment, etc., for others: a dangerously uncontrollable person or thing

 

Donald Trump is a loose cannon. We don’t really know what he will do when he gets into office. When the proverbial stuff hits the fan, it will settle and certainly run downhill. If the world is lucky, the citizens of the United States will be the only ones affected, and it will be our fault. It won’t be Mr. Trump’s. He’s just being who he is. We can’t blame the dog for killing the chickens when we let him into the hen house.

We are not being who we are, God’s people, purchased at a great price to be His representatives on earth, set apart as different because of our love and compassion for the world. We are being something ugly and fearful.

It will be ALL. OUR. FAULT.

 

 

Do character, kindness, and morality still matter? This article by Randy Alcorn is long. Count the paragraphs as you scroll down and start at number 12. Imagine having a guest for dinner with your family…

 

Vote Proactively, Not Reactively.

multicolored map of the United StatesWe now have a Republican controlled Congress and I want to know if that landslide victory for the Republicans is really a mandate for the Republican platform or was it just a matter of, “The Democrats had their chance and things are not going well for me so…” Are the majority of voters really in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act? According to the Gallop poll published November 17, 2014:

Americans have never been overly positive toward the ACA, at best showing a roughly equal division between approval and disapproval early on in the law’s implementation.

According to that same poll, the current approval rating is 37%. So, why did we vote for him? He campaigned on this plan from the beginning.

OBAMA’S PLAN
National Health Insurance Exchange:
The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible…
Source: Campaign booklet, “Blueprint for Change”, p. 6-9 Feb 2, 2008

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he proceeded to do exactly what he said he was going to do. Around Election Day 2014, his approval /disapproval rating was 43% / 51%. As of January 7, 2015 it is 46% / 47%, only 1% difference between approval and disapproval, according to Gallop. Voters wanted a change in 2008. We got a change. In 2014, voters didn’t like that change and voted for a change again. Does it matter what the change is? It should.

I’m picking on the current president because he is the current president. My point is vote FOR a candidate. Know the issues. Know the state questions.

BE AN INFORMED VOTER.

Do a little research. Look into how a candidate has voted when in Congress or what their stance was as a governor. I know that it would be impossible to keep up with what all politicians do on a daily basis but there are websites that do that for you and you can take some time out every once in a while to look up your legislators at the local and national level. When primaries and national elections come around, research the contenders.

Here are a couple of sites that I have found helpful.

On The Issues This site also has the booklets that candidates write about their platforms.

Ballotpedia.

Both of these sites have a map where you can click on your state and find out about local issues.

Also, play the devil’s advocate with yourself. Try to understand the other side or try to understand issues that are not currently affecting you personally. Don’t be one of those people that thinks, I don’t have that problem so it’s not a problem.

Be a part of an informed and civil electorate.