Friday, October 29, 2004
Voting for Bush - The Long Answer to the Short Question of “Why are you voting for Bush?”
Over a week ago I promised to write a longer response to the question: Why I am voting for President Bush. In 2000 I voted for Nader, well actually, partly for Nader and partly against Bush?s foreign policy expressed then (i.e. Africa is not of concern to the United States) and partly because of the failure to come clean with the DWI conviction from the 1970s. I never considered voting for Al Gore because my personal opinion was that the Democrat party was and is in the hands of the rich and powerful (an accusation that used to be leveled at the GOP, but at least they never pretended to be for the little guy). So, why in 2004 am I voting for Bush?
My response comes from my position as a Christian and a theologian. I do not mean to imply that others Christians who choose one of the other candidates (and lets be clear, you are either voting for Bush or Kerry, or voting against one or both of them because they are the only two people who can win this year ? Sorry Nader). There are several reasons why I am voting for George Bush:
1) The Bush tax cuts: This has been a very controversial point. We have heard that this was a tax cut for the rich (let me be clear ? I am not rich, this website is up only because of a gift from a friend). If the Bush tax cut was for the rich, it would be morally wrong (though perhaps economically correct), and I would oppose it. But, in fact, we now know, thanks to data by the CBO (the theoretically non-partisan arm of Congress that evaluates both spending and taxes for the U.S. Government) that the rich are paying a larger share of the overall tax burden than they would have had the tax cuts in 2001 and 2004 not been passed.
More important from my point of view, is that approximately 7.8 million taxpaying units were removed from the tax roles, thanks largely to the new 10% tax bracket and the increase in the per-child tax credit (now over 40% of all Americans pay no income tax!). Any system that results in more of the lowest wage earners paying no taxes and more of the tax burden being paid by the rich is to me at least, a system that uses the rule ?to whom much is given, much is expected.?
http://www.taxfoundation.org/ff/7million.html
2) Freedom to the world?s oppressed: As I said above, one of the reasons I voted Nader in 2000 was Bush?s isolationists and non-human rights oriented foreign policy. Spreading freedom and the end of injustice and oppression is always in the interest of the ?home of the free, and land of the brave.? As Christians, which Bush claims to be (and I take people at their word), we have a passionate interest in injustice. We saw in early 2001 before the attacks that this was the case, as Bush failed to respond to the growing atrocities of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
9/11 changed Bush, and in a positive way. It wasn?t just the reality of American under attack by terror. If you have read Karen Hughes? book (some say Karl Rove is Bush?s brain, Hughes his conscience) , Ten Minutes from Normal and have heard interviews with her, you see that Bush slowly became aware of the connectedness of the world community. Some say Bush came under the sway of the neo-conservatives, which are old-line liberals turned conservatives because they care about human rights. It started not only with the liberation of Afghanistan (and no one who has seen pictures of women voting in Afghanistan can doubt the impact) but also with the budgeting of $15 Billion to fight AIDS in Africa (one of the most destabilizing factors in Africa?s future). Now, like it or not, the dictator Sadaam has been placed in jail. Regrettably his sons were killed, rather than facing trial by their ?peers.? (It should be noted that I am anti-death penalty, even for Sadaam). Elections will be held in a few months, and they may vote for fundamentalists or for socialists or who knows who for. But it will be their choice.
On this issue I stand with Christopher Hitchens, not an ally of the Gospel normally, nor of George Bush. But he gets it.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=hitchens
3) Fixing Social Security: The current Social Security system is broken. No one with any intellectual honesty can say otherwise. In 1940, there were 42 workers per retiree. Today the ratio is 3-to-1; by 2050 it will be 2-to-1. The burden on each individual worker will increase substantially and we will no longer be able to keep out promises to retirees at current payroll tax levels. This is because of two major reasons:
1) People are living far longer after they retire then they did in 1930s (In 1940, life expectancy was 61.4 for men and 65.7 for women. By 2000, life expectancy was 74.2 for men and 79.5 for women; by 2050, life expectancy will be 79.2 for men and 83.4 for women.
2) We are not having children anymore. In 1940, the fertility rate was 2.23. Today, the rate is 2.07 and by 2050 it is expected to trend downward to 1.95.
When I see surveys that say more people under the age of 40 believe in UFOs than that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. Social Security has always been the third rail of American politics, but Bush has actually been willing to take on this ?Pink Elephant? in the room.
The move to take some portion of the account and put in accounts that people will own, be able to pass along to their children, and that will be honest with people is good thing. How is this Christian position? Social Security, given the fact that we had broken the compact between kids and their parents during the modernist period, is the number one way of protecting the elderly. We have a strong call to protect the elderly, the widows, and orphans throughout the Bible. Social Security is not a perfect system, but it is a good one that we must protect.
4) Judges: Normally people get very reactionary about this issue. I take a little different take on this. I don?t think that this is about gay marriage, legalized marijuana, or other issues. Personally, if America decides to go this direction, and we vote for it, then, great, that is what we desire, and we shall bear the repercussions of it (good or bad). But when justices impose things from the bench, often without good constitutional ground (and in so doing remove the issue from public debate), they impose new values on the people without their approval.
I believe that a nation will be judged on the decisions its people make. I want our nation judged on our collective good or bad decisions, not on the decisions of a few people on the bench. (In case you are wondering, no my vision of God is not an old man up in heaven with his finger on the Smite button, but rather one who does intervene but also allows the economy of sowing and reaping to occur). We need to have judges who, regardless of weather a law is passed by liberals or conservatives, will seek to saw whether it is constitutional based on the constitution, not what they desire. If a judge wants to help sponsor a state or nation amendment on any issue, I think they should be free to do so, but it is incorrect to become an unelected legislator of 1 or 4 or 9.
If you have any doubt about the importance of this we need only look to the abortion issue. After more than 30 years since Rowe vs. Wade, we have not seen the issue really settled. Had Americans passed individual state or even a national law on abortion, then the people who have acted, and we would be much further down the road of accepting (in either direction) the will of the people. Instead, because it did not then nor does it now, represent the views of most Americans, who have instead uncomfortably accepted its reality, despite knowing it almost always wrong. http://www.lifenews.com/nat908.html
I believe that Kerry, based on those he turns to for judiciary advice, and based on those judges he has voted for and against will not put these kind of judges on the bench. We already know that the judges Bush has nominated are these kind of judges. If we go forward to success as a nation or doom, it should be the will of the people that takes us either direction.
5) Gay Marriage: I hate to touch on this issue, but I feel I must. It is not that I want to define marriage based on religious values. I believe that gay partners should have the right to inheritance (though that is a non-issue if you just create a will) and they should have the right to visit their partners in jail or the hospital. While I do have strong views on this by my faith, I think the bigger issue is what is best for society. We should reward behavior because it is better for society and penalize it if it is worse for society (like Tobacco taxes, which I say as a newly minted pipe smoke). Marriage, based on more statistical data than I can reel off, is the best arrangement for the raising of kids, therefore we should encourage it for the sake of raising children. However, we know, based admittedly on the scarce evidence, that gay parents bring some negative sociological factors on their children. It is simply not the best arrangements for the raising of children. This is not to say that individual gay parents are not great parents. But society needs to reward benefits based on what is best for society in general.
I could say much much more on other issues, but this is I feel my best explanation for my vote for Bush, and I hope you will do the same. I am a vegetarian, a pro-union person, an organic food buyer because of the impact of farm workers, and in general a ?granola? to use our local term. I don?t shop Wal-Mart, I shop local, and I am not an ?America or die? kind of person. I don?t own a gun and never will. I have a passion for justice (which is why our son is named Justus). On the whole though, I think George Bush is an honest and decent man who has grown in the past four years and should be given another four years. I do not feel like Mr. Kerry is either up for the job (he has a view of human beings that is simply too optimistic ? see the Oil-for-Food scandal at the U.N. for example). Regardless though, I will be praying for whoever is our president on November 3, that he would hear God?s voice and rely on his power.
