The Presidential choice is not just "immoral" vs "lack of integrity." There is no way I can endorse either as the leader of a nation of millions.*
So who do you vote for? Go and find out who is willing who you can in good conscience vote for. Simple as that.
"I don't have time." That is why we are in the mess we are in right now. Pray, do what you can to ask and seach, and I promise you you will find someone who you can in good conscience vote for.
"It won't make a difference." Well, apparently, the vote people made for Trump or Hillary made a difference, so why not mine? If enough of us research enough and then just, word of mouth, suggest who they are voting for I know that it will make a difference. If not in this election, in the long run.
Don't give up. Do it for yourself and for this country.
* I am fully aware there are no angels available to run this country. Every person is flawed and I respect those who are choosing to support Trump or Clinton: "I may not believe in what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I just want those out there who feel stuck and powerless in the face of these two options to know they DO have a pro-active third choice.
Okay,...I haven't always felt this way. In fact, I would rather surround myself with cheerleaders and have tended to gravitate to people who do just that:
--validate me
--sympathize with me
--support me
There is nothing wrong with this...at first.
So if [a person] is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him.
What?! Yes, this idea made me sit up and read more deeply. Here is the context of that statement:
A good statesman, like any other sensible
human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent
supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents
show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be
delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But, though it hurts,
he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him
on the path of reason and good sense.
As always happens when I run across any new or different idea, my mind sets to work to come up with proof or opposition of this idea (exhausting, right?). Is this really true? I wondered. Immediately the example of Christ's seemingly harsh words to Peter came to mind: Get thee behind me, Satan. Ouch.
So why did Christ do this? I wondered about this the other day when we watched the above video for devotional but I think I am beginning to understand. Remember what Lippman said?
A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are.
Of course, Peter didn't intend to do this. He loved the Lord and couldn't see why He would choose to talk about such a morbid death. We all have people like that and desire people like that to be around us. This is well and good. We do need people to love and support us...or do we? Or do we just desire it? Christ was left alone in his final moments. He welcomed his disciples, talked to and taught them. However, He did not let Himself be defined by them and their support or worship.
I love this!!! This very article is a case in point of why we need opposition! I read an article that challenged what I believe and it is helping to refine and clarify my beliefs.
Now I don't believe the invitation is now open to be hostile and antagonistic. I am talking about respecting the genuine "opposition" in other people's differences that we face in the media, in church and in our homes. I am not talking about those who seek out arguments, just for the sake of being, again, hostile and antagonistic. Christ admonishes us to agree quickly while we are in the way with people, to be reconciled. However, He doesn't repudiate and shun people just because he disagrees with them. He engages them in genuine discussion, respectful and thoughtful.
Can we do this? Lippman challenges us:
It is all very well to say with Voltaire, “I wholly disapprove of what you say,
but will defend to the death your right to say it,” but as a matter of fact most
men will not defend to the death the rights of other men: if they disapprove
sufficiently what other men say, they will somehow suppress those men if
they can.
Those of us who have sought a life without opposition can say we share this tendency with dictators:
On the walls of the houses of Italian peasants one may see inscribed in large
letters the legend, “Mussolini is always right.” But if that legend is taken
seriously by Italian ambassadors, by the Italian General Staff, and by the
Ministry of Finance, then all one can say is heaven help Mussolini, heaven
help Italy, and the new Emperor of Ethiopia.
For at some point, even in a totalitarian state, it is indispensable that there
should exist the freedom of opinion which causes opposing opinions to be
debated. As time goes on, that is less and less easy under a despotism;
critical discussion disappears as the internal opposition is liquidated in
favor of men who think and feel alike. That is why the early successes of
despots, of Napoleon I and of Napoleon III, have usually been followed by
an irreparable mistake. For in listening only to his "yes" men—the others being in exile or in concentration camps, or terrified—the despot shuts himself off
from the truth that no man can dispense with.
Abraham Lincoln recognized this in organizing his "Team of Rivals," a cabinet for his presidency made up of his political opponents. He listened to them, debated this them, learned from them and then decided. What strength! Lincoln recognized that it was more than his self-esteem at stake...it was the well-being of a nation. And he selflessly did all he could to make sure he was making the best decisions possible.
We must insist that free oratory is only the beginning of free speech; it is not
the end, but a means to an end. The end is to find the truth. The practical
justification of civil liberty is not that self-expression is one of the rights of
man. It is that the examination of opinion is one of the necessities of man.
I am reading about the 1900's and the elections that happened at that point. It is amazing to me how much elections (like our current one) and the opposition that occurs within this process helps people determine for themselves what they believe and what they support, what they like and what they don't. Even if the man or woman they put into office doesn't represent 100% of what they believe, they learn more clearly what they do 100% believe and how their candidate or the opposition differs.
Valuable process? Immensely.
Does this right to freedom of speech happen simply because we are noble and tolerant? How do we approach this opposition? Indulgent? Patient? Enduring? I really like a point that Lippman makes is this:
We take, it seems to me, a naively self-righteous
view when we argue as if the right of our opponents to speak
were something that we protect because we are magnanimous, noble, and
unselfish. The compelling reason why... is that we must protect the
right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to
say.
I love his next examples!
We miss the whole point when we imagine that we tolerate the freedom of
our political opponents as we tolerate a howling baby door, as we put up with
the blasts from our neighbor’s radio because we are too peaceable to heave a brick through the window. If this were all there is to freedom of opinion,* that
we are too good-natured or too timid to do anything about our opponents
and our critics except to let them talk,* it would be difficult to say whether we
are tolerant because we are magnanimous or because we are lazy, because
we have strong principles or because we lack serious convictions, whether
we have the hospitality of an inquiring mind or the indifference of an empty
mind.
We are much closer to the essence of the matter when we go to the doctor and pay him to ask us the most
embarrassing questions and to prescribe the most disagreeable diet. When
we pay the doctor to exercise complete freedom of speech about the cause
and cure of our stomachache, we do not look upon ourselves as tolerant and
magnanimous, and worthy to be admired by ourselves. We have enough
common sense to know that if we threaten to put the doctor in jail because
we do not like the diagnosis and the prescription it will be unpleasant for
the doctor, to be sure, but equally unpleasant for our own stomachache.
That is why even the most ferocious dictator would rather be treated by a
doctor who was free to think and speak the truth than by his own Minister
of Propaganda. For there is a point, the point at which things really matter,
where the freedom of others is no longer a question of their right but of our
own need.
I love, love, love this! I have been one of those "patient, noble" sufferers, whether it be the opposition of others or even the adversity in my own life! All of a sudden, all those "trials," all those "problems," all those "conflicts," that come up each day take on new light and meaning! Why did Paul relish his trials? Because they refined him and helped him arrive at beautiful truth.
Oh how much we need this beautiful, indispensable opposition! Whether it is the resistance of the weights in strengthening muscles or the resistance to food or anger addictions that strengthen the soul, I all of a sudden find why I should not be a "tragic martyr" when my life seems to "not be going 'right'," whatever "right" means. All of a sudden, my adversity and trials become something that help me arrive at truth, shape my mind, shape my soul. To approach it in this clinical mindset will definitely not make the trials less real, but perhaps it will help my reaction be a little less emotional. (That would help immensely!!)
Is the objective of our life to have the biggest fan club, the biggest cheering section, the most followers on facebook? It is a very real yearning--to be loved, supported, acknowledged, validated. I have felt this way most of my life...seeking outward validation of what I do and who I am.
However, I am learning more and more (through this "indispensable opposition" I experience) that I desire truth, even if it means talking "across party lines" or in the face of bigotism and tradition--especially my own. I embrace tradition...where it is wholesome and good. I don't go out of my way to challenge viewpoints, because I don't feel that having a combative mentality is seeking for truth either. The genuine seeker of truth respects others and cherishes the truths they have found. There is nothing hostile or aggressive in this mindset. Neither does someone with this objective embrace all opinions as valid. They weigh, consider and draw conclusions from all they sees, seeking the beautiful truth in good sources, recognizing dribble and nonsense more and more during their quest for wisdom. I love the peace that I find when the Holy Ghost, the prophets and the scriptures validate truth and refine me. But hopefully, I will now be more open and receptive to the truth that comes through opposition.
The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the
virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may best justify our belief in it,
that it tolerates error in order to serve the truth. When men are brought face
to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas,
they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men.
The following is just to beautiful to not share. I believe that our America today still has many of these virtues, these ideals, this character. We just need to rise up and use it.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, there was a subtle and, at times, obvious campaign to separate virtue from talent, to divide character from success. The latest in this line of attack is the emphasis on diversity—that somehow merely having different skin shades or national origins makes America special. But it was not the color of the skin of people who came here that made them special, it was the content of their character. America remains a beacon of liberty, not merely because its institutions have generally remained strong, its citizens free, and its attitudes tolerant, but because it, among most of the developed world, still cries out as a nation, “Character counts.” Personal liberties in America are genuine because of the character of honest judges and attorneys who, for the most part, still make up the judiciary, and because of the personal integrity of large numbers of local, state, and national lawmakers. No society is free from corruption. The difference is that in America, corruption is viewed as the exception, not the rule. And when light is shown on it, corruption is viciously attacked. Freedom still attracts people to the fountain of hope that is America, but freedom alone is not enough. Without responsibility and virtue, freedom becomes a soggy anarchy, an incomplete licentiousness. This is what has made Americans different: their fusion of freedom and integrity endows Americans with their sense of right, often when no other nation in the world shares their perception. Yet that is as telling about other nations as it is our own; perhaps it is that as Americans, we alone remain committed to both the individual and the greater good, to personal freedoms and to public virtue, to human achievement and respect for the Almighty. Slavery was abolished because of the dual commitment to liberty and virtue—neither capable of standing without the other. Some crusades in the name of integrity have proven disastrous, including Prohibition. The most recent serious threats to both liberty and public virtue (abuse of the latter damages both) have come in the form of the modern environmental and consumer safety movements. Attempts to sue gun makers, paint manufacturers, tobacco companies, and even Microsoft “for the public good” have made distressingly steady advances, encroaching on Americans’ freedoms to eat fast foods, smoke, or modify their automobiles, not to mention start businesses or invest in existing firms without fear of retribution. The Founders—each and every one of them—would have been horrified at such intrusions on liberty, regardless of the virtue of the cause, not because they were elite white men, but because such actions in the name of the public good were simply wrong. It all goes back to character: the best way to ensure virtuous institutions (whether government, business, schools, or churches) was to populate them with people of virtue. Europe forgot this in the nineteenth century, or by World War I at the latest. Despite rigorous and punitive face-saving traditions in the Middle East or Asia, these twin principles of liberty and virtue have never been adopted. Only in America, where one was permitted to do almost anything, but expected to do the best thing, did these principles germinate. To a great extent, that is why, on March 4, 1801, John Adams would have thought of nothing other than to turn the White House over to his hated foe, without fanfare, self-pity, or complaint, and return to his everyday life away from politics. That is why, on the few occasions where very thin electoral margins produced no clear winner in the presidential race (such as 1824, 1876, 1888, 1960, and 2000), the losers (after some legal maneuvering, recounting of votes, and occasional whining) nevertheless stepped aside and congratulated the winner of a different party. Adams may have set a precedent, but in truth he would do nothing else. After all, he was a man of character.
Cool visualization! I have learned a great deal about these different systems and trends in history and feel this is very accurate...from what I know now, at least. I would be happy to hear anyone else's view point on the matter.
Speaking of republics, one of my brilliant youth friends posted the following quote:
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that
it can bribe the public with the public's money." - Alexis de
Tocqueville
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts,
not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution."
~ Abraham Lincoln
We recently had a class for our youth in Economics. It was amazing. I highly recommend the reading:
I just read this, and agree (almost) completely! She
talks about the Proper Role of Government, and doesn't just leave it at
that: she talks about us as people, who should be DOING SOMETHING to
defend our freedom. (That reminds me of an article my mom once posted: http://www.thesocialleader.com/2013/08/americans-smacked/
