- Seeing throngs of people bowing down and worshiping a candidate like they are the 2nd coming of Jesus. If the person you worshiped 4 years ago didn’t bring the world into utopia, this person won’t either. Stop frothing at the mouth about them.
- How politics makes enemies of friends. Man, do people get angry about their politics. People who would normally be friends now shoot barbs back and forth to each other, calling each other all sorts of elementary school playground insults. We tell our kids not to call people idiots, morons or stupid, then we do this every time there is a political election. The candidates do it to each other. We do it to the candidates. And we do it to those who support a different candidate than us. And social media makes it soooooooooo much worse.
It’s another reminder of how politics randomly forces us to choose who to oppress. Politics is like going to the grocery store, but instead of getting to choose what you buy, there are two pre-packaged sacks of food waiting for you. You do not get a choice as to what goes into the sacks, but you are forced to purchase one of the bags and take it home with you…and eat everything in the bag. One bag has corn and chips and apples and ham in it. Sounds good. It also includes pickled pigs’ feet, cow brain, and squid guts. You want to vomit…so you check out bag #2. Cookies, cheese, eggs, and rice. Very promising. But as you dig around you also find fish eyes, a sheep head and bat paste. This is politics. It doesn’t matter if you like both ham and rice. You don’t get both. It doesn’t matter if you want to preserve life in one way and also preserve it another way. Choose who will live, and who will die. And still try to sleep at night. (It will be funny when I get emails or blog comments from people telling me that their bag doesn’t have any feet, brains, guts, heads, eyes or bat paste in it…no, they do, you have just acquired a taste for them)
- How almost everyone in politics is bought. Derek Webb has a great line in his song “A Savior on Capitol Hill.” “And as long as the lobbyists are paying their bills. We’ll never have a savior on Capitol Hill.”
You have politicians standing resolutely on an issue at one point in their career, only to see them fighting for the polar opposite side of things 10 years later. Sometimes they even jump ship altogether and switch to an entire new party, talking as if they’d always been there. The truth is, many politicians really don’t care about the issue you love them for, what they care about is getting money from lobbyists and political action committees who will fund their campaign, which will help them get your vote.
Did you know that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent approximately one billion dollars each on their 2012 presidential campaigns? (See New York Times Campaign Finance Report). If you include all of the 2012 elections, the number is somewhere around 6 billion dollars spent.
Why is that money necessary?
Where do you think that money comes from?
What do you think a politician will say or do to get that money?
Vote.
Be active. Support causes and issues on moral and spiritual grounds, not on partisan grounds.
Push to make politics less like the cable bundle you overpay for that comes with a bunch of garbage channels and more where you get an actual say on a policy-by-policy basis as a voter.
Be involved in politics with the mission of redeeming it.
But do not become a part of the machine or fall in love with the machine.
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Can you elaborate more on your grocery bag analogy? Are you saying that with any side of an issue there are unpleasant byproducts that come with it? For example No abortion is great but we also get more unwanted pregnancy and ill-equipped people parenting children OR no guns means no more gun accidents but we are now at the mercy of the government and any criminals who refuse to give up their guns. Is that the idea?
Or do you mean that both parties are wrong on some issues, therefore to pick a party is to take the good and the bad?
Hi Lee, the second one is what I’m referring to. both parties are wrong on some issues, therefore to pick a party is to take the good and the bad
I’m surprised you kept it at just 4…Maybe its just because I am older and pay more attention but politics seem to be getting worse every year.
“If you are a conservative, you must be an uneducated racist.” “If you are a liberal, you must just be lazy and entitled.” Browsing facebook or twitter you can find these comments with thousands of likes which is frustrating to anyone who is not on the extreme left or right. The divide seems to be growing every year in a time where our country needs both parties to work together to form an efficient government.
“Maybe it’s because I am older”
You are killing me.
And I definitely agree.