Elections seem to be all about ‘throwing
the bums out and replacing them with someone who will do what we want them to
do’. It appears to me that the threat of not being reelected to another
term just doesn’t seem to working. I’m wondering if, rather than throwing them
out of office, the existing elected officials should be pressured and forced
into doing the will of the people. It’s really not such a farfetched idea. When
we come to the Lord we more often than not fail in our role as Christians. But
the Lord doesn’t say, ‘throw the bums out
and get replacements’, instead He molds and reshapes us into His likeness. Surely
if sinners can be turned into saints, there’s hope for bums being turned into
productive public servants.
8 comments:
I like this idea. I had been thinking in terms of recalls and impeachments but this has even more merit. I am not sure how to go about it. It would be good if others would offer some ideas on this approach.
Grace and peace.
Gail;
-----If I recall correctly, the chances of these bums turning into productive servants has something to do with flying pigs. Think about basic human nature. Why does anybody do anything? Isn’t it for self-gratification? Think about it honestly and focus upon the sense of gratification meaning the satisfaction of desires. Those who come to the Lord don’t come because they desire someone else to be saved. They come because they desire their selves to be saved. And although Sister Teresa poured her life into serving others’ needs, she chose that servant character because she desired to be it. Even those who do everything only for the glory of God, laying down their selves into nothing, do that because they desire to be that to the Lord. At the foundational level of causes, all our choices ultimately have at least one string tied to the effect they will have upon the self. Now we are prepared to discuss incentives, disincentives, and flying pigs.
-----Life is complex since incentives and disincentives are also complex. The avoidance of hell is the first incentive for accepting the Lord, but glorifying God is the eventual incentive for abiding in the Lord. Incentives range from best to the worst as do people’s desires upon which they work. Politicians are people. They do what they do ultimately according to how incentives and disincentives press upon their desires. And that pressure is not always towards pleasing the majority of voters. You would think the facts that the current budget allows for paying only the interest portion of the national debt and that the only available funding of the budget comes 58% from revenues and 42% from borrowing would be a compelling incentive to hold the debt ceiling firm and reduce expenditures drastically. Anything other than this walks into financial disaster. Why is there even one thought of compromise about this situation? Because most politicians ultimately desire their dream instead of our reality. The need for gaining the majority of the voting block is little incentive to them because even if that majority is displeased its vote will split enough to make the minority the majority. Maintaining this split is their goal, the main stream media is their means, and the riches of their dreams are their incentives.
-----People know what they’ve heard, and that‘s about all too many people do know. The most of what there is to hear out there are the confusing, fallacious arguments presented by the main stream media. This media desires the same left wing socialism of too many politicians’ dreams. Their incentive is the pride of finally supplanting capitalism’s reality with a socialistic dream and their positions of power and self importance in maintaining it thereafter. So the only thing these pigs of the main stream media will do is walk the low road of pumping pipedreams and denigrating the intrinsically real human nature of incentive and individualism. They will never fly the high road of reality; the confused majority vote will always split; and we will always have too many bums for politicians.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Pumice and Steve,
My thoughts are leaning toward the fact that everyone is redeemable and can improve their skill set…even politicians. They may not always make the right decisions, however they are assigned their place in governance by God. “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” (Romans 13:1 NIV) It seems to me that every election cycle we are simply spinning our wheels because our goals are to get rid of or replace politicians. Would we be better off to focus our efforts on getting our current politicians, regardless of how good or bad we think they are, to improve their skill set?
Gail
Gail;
-----I respectfully disagree with a few specifics you have stated, although I agree with the nature of your meaning. The skill sets of politicians are not the problems. In fact, the problem arises because they are too skillful. Most of these people are very successful attorneys. They are highly skilled in thinking, persuasion, and the law. Their ability to fundamentally change this country is their skill. But recognizing your implication in “everyone is redeemable”, the problem needing improvement is their arrogance.
-----I don‘t mean that derogatorily. These people think they are the government. That is their arrogance, because they are not the government. For sure, they are a part of it, but so are we a part of it. Yet we are not the government either, as you often hear said (as I have even mistakenly said.) The government of this nation is the Constitution and all of the laws enacted within its prescribed boundaries for authority. The rest of us, including politicians, are merely agents actualizing the Constitution’s governance into the life and times of people. Those agents not acting within constitutional bounds are not acting within governmental authority, for the Constitution is a contract between the people and their representatives by which the people are willing to be governed. The representatives can break, and have almost entirely broken, that contract by their unwillingness to confine their actions to its bounds. That is arrogance. And arrogant actions truly have no authority. For it was the Constitution which God actually authorized as our government. Our obedience to it is the call of Romans 13:1.
-----If we fail to bring our representatives’ actions back within the bounds of Constitutional authority, then surely we will loose that government authorized by God. That is not to say the next government will not have God’s authorization. It will have it. It is to say we yet have God’s will to correct the course of our affairs by throwing out bums who themselves use their extraordinary skill sets to subvert God’s authority by subverting the Constitution He authorized. So our “disobedience” to these arrogant politicians is not disobedience to the government; it is obedience to the government. They all took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Those who act unconstitutionally break that oath. Our choice is to throw them out or break our personal oaths to it.
-----We are not “...simply spinning our wheels because our goals are to get rid of or replace politicians.” We are spinning our wheels because our goals are simply to get rid of or replace politicians. The only improvement needed in the politician’s skill set is turning arrogance to humility, the willingness to abide to contractual terms. If a politician is able to make that improvement, I agree with you and Pumace - hug the tar out of him and give him a giant handshake, a big smile, and get back to business. Otherwise, send him home as soon as possible where he might rethink his basic nature without ruining the greatness of this government God authorized.
Steve
Pumace;
-----Can you change the person sitting next to you in church? Can you even change your spouse or children? No. They have to change themselves. You can give them incentives to change; you can exhort them to change; and better yet, you can influence them in the course to which they need to change. But only they can change. Politicians are no different. Some will change. Others must be thrown out. We must be wise enough to know the difference because some are truly and deliberately deceitful people with serious intentions to fundamentally change America. They know your patience and perseverance towards them, and they will use it to manipulate you right into the slaughter.
-----Yet both throwing bums out and inspiring change in the rest requires a successful approach. We might be gaining that approach, but we don’t as yet have it. Our society and politics are like Jell-O, because we are multitudes loosely interrelated by our own perceptions being interwoven with public perception. Both personal perception and public perception are fluid and abstract. But public perception is less changed by personal perception than personal perception is changed by public perception. And when people who mold their personal perception by concrete ideas, like the Word of God, find themselves engulfed in public perception formed only of whims, frustration results. Concrete ideas are like nails, and you can’t just nail Jell-O to a tree. Jell-O requires a container, and that container must then be nailed to the tree.
-----In the earlier centuries of our nation, its public perception was contained within Biblical principles because its people, even though not followers of Christ in the majority, in majority believed Biblical principles were the basics of the good behavior in human nature. The press had to, and did for the most part, reflect that perception, which in turn maintained it. So the Jell-O was pretty well shaped in a solid contained nailed to the tree.
-----But we irresponsibly lost the Jell-O from that container through the most of the twentieth century as it poured into the container of humanism. Today, public perception is to deny the possibility of its containment within Biblical principles. And as long as we approach public perception with the idea of Biblical principle, we are only trying nail Jell-O to a tree. Yet Biblical principle remains the only container of reality, so we can not abandon it. But something in addition must be done.
-----The ego strength of public perception is the main stream media. It is where people look to verify what the public is thinking. They are wrong in looking there, but I am not speaking about actualities. I am speaking about perceptions. And in both the individual and the public, perception trumps reality. Let me demonstrate. Watergate. Wall to wall news coverage for months on end steeped the public mind into it. Public sentiment brought Nixon down for lying. A president lying about his citizenship to gain the Oval Office is as major as Watergate. Yet even though his dual-citizenship is absolutely true and he did post a forged birth certificate on the internet, the main stream media assails any mention of the issue. Therefore, so does the public. A majority of Americans are calling on Congress to investigate; and it refuses this, though it practically lived in Watergate. Last month, a complaint was filed with the FBI charging the president with forgery of a public document, and to date there is no FBI investigation. Two days ago a complaint was filed with the FBI regarding Rupert Mudock’s American media branch tapping 9-11 victim’s phones. Yesterday, the FBI started its investigation. The difference? Media attitude.
-----The media shapes today’s Jell-O while refusing to be shaped by the truth. If we want corrective action against rogue politicians, if we want any hope for steering this nation back towards its Constitutional basis, we must effect the main stream media. There are many possibilities for doing that.
Steve
Steve,
I’m reminded that even Saul became Paul. :)
Gail
Gail;
It would be a blessing to have Paul in Washington. I am reminded of John McCain, who - how many times said he became conservative? In a world of which Jesus said few travel the road to life and many travel the road to destruction, I don't think relying on the many who've carried us along their way to destruction to now carry us in the oposite direction is a sure thing. A few might, but remember, in this country our course is still determined by the majority (and that only because the Constitution is ignored.) The majority won't change without an incentive change. That light which shined upon Paul traveling to Damascus was his incentive change. What light might change these?
Steve
Steve,
I agree with everything you said. If there is blame to assess, it comes back to the church failing to be the salt and light and instead wanting to be the sugar and spice.
We need more discussions like this in the pulpit and on the internet.
Grace and peace
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