A Catholic Democrat's Reflection On His Party

From the Democrats for Life of America website:

Democratic analyst: The Party has been hijacked by secularist elites
Denver, Sep 25, 2008 / 05:33 pm (CNA).

The Democratic Party has been hijacked by elites hostile to religion, said Mark Stricherz, author of the book Why Democrats are Blue and a Democrat himself, during the Casey Lecture delivered on Tuesday at the Archdiocese of Denver.

The Casey Series of Lectures was started by the Archdiocese of Denver in 2006 to promote Catholic thinking in political life, inspired by the life and political activism of the late Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, a devout Catholic and a Democrat.

Stricherz, who has focused his investigation on the historical transition that turned the Democrats from a Catholic-friendly organization to the pro-abortion rights party it is today, explained the decisive role played in American politics by staunch Catholic Democrats like Gov. Casey, Robert Kennedy and David Lawrence.

"These politicians provided a political leadership and a push for human rights based on religious convictions and personal prayer life, thus becoming promoters of Christian Humanist values," he said.

Explaining an argument he makes in his book, Stricherz said that the Democratic Party created internal rules that favor Secular elites and limit the participation of common people. He mentioned caucuses in Iowa as an example: they are established to run from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., "preventing the participation of common people like third-shifters, military men and women or young mothers.” As a consequence, "56% of those attending the caucuses are pro- choice folks," he said.

Thus, Secularism and hostility to religion have become the dividing line between the Democratic Party of the past and today's Democratic leaders.

Asked about how to change the Democratic Party back to its original connection with average Americans, Stricherz said that is was critical to democratize the internal process, but added that, "I just don't see the constituency, the drive to bring that change... those with college degrees, who tend to be more secular are in control of the party, whereas more religious, working folks are kept out of the loop."

"There have been some small victories from the pro-life people inside the Democratic Party, they are very small, but I encourage people to take up the fight... even if I am very skeptical about the results."

Stricherz highlighted the importance of bringing the common people back to power. "I think the average folks are more commonsensical and less inclined to corruption than the elites." "I would take the first hundred people from the phone book in Boston rather than the first 100 academics from Harvard to run the country."

Finally, he said that, despite current polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a greater chance to win the election because "the Republican party has a more democratic process of candidate-selection, and therefore have chosen the strongest candidate; whereas the Democratic Party’s system promotes the desires of the political leadership and [they] have selected the weakest candidate."

Knights of Columbus: Vote for Life and Family

Nearing the close of their 126th Supreme Convention in Quebec City on Thursday, the Knights of Columbus approved resolutions calling for the legal protection of marriage and asking Catholics holding elected office to “be true” to their faith by acting “bravely and publicly in defense of life.”

In one resolution at the fraternal charitable organization’s annual convention, the Knights called for “legal and constitutional protection ... for the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.” The resolution declares that marriage is a “natural institution based on ancient human values” that over time has become a “unique and deeply rooted social, legal and religious institution.”

Marriage, the resolution said, provides the best environment in which to protect children and also “reflects the natural biological complementarity between man and woman which predates the state and which is woven into the social and religious fabric of every major culture and society.”

Another resolution passed by the Knights advocates building a “culture of life” and opposing “any governmental action or policy that promotes abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, assisted suicide and other offenses against life.”

Knights of Columbus delegates also exhorted “our fellow Catholics who are elected officials to be true to the faith they claim to profess by acting bravely and publicly in defense of life.” Such officials, the resolution advised, should affirm with Pope Benedict XVI that “there can be no room for purely private religion.”

The resolution reaffirmed the organization’s policy of not inviting to any Knights of Columbus event persons “who do not support the legal protection of unborn children.”

In his opening convention address delivered earlier this week, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson urged Catholic voters to “stop accommodating pro-abortion politicians” and to “say ‘no’” to every political candidate who supports abortion.

Other resolutions passed at the convention addressed religious freedom, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, decency on the internet and in the media, Catholic education, and the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest organization of Catholic laymen, was founded in 1882 and has more than 1.75 million members around the world.

Democrats: Let’s Abolish The Caucus System

I’m fully behind Hillary Clinton supporters calling for the abolition of the caucus system. This isn’t entirely noise being made for the sake of doing so because we’re mad Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama, but because the caucus system is very flawed—though, it is arguable that Clinton would have wiped the floor with Obama if there were only primaries.

Caucuses undermine core democratic values because it is a very undemocratic way to nominate someone. I think all states should be required to hold primaries instead. Caucuses are inherently unfair to the elderly, the disabled, shift workers, parents, overseas members of the military, and others whose circumstances prevent them from sitting for hours in a caucus vote. In a primary vote, people have the entire day to vote, but caucuses last only for a few hours, usually in the evening (past midnight in Texas this year) and that disenfranchises voters with obligations that prevent them from participating.

Many caucus rules profoundly violate the one person-one vote principle. For example, in certain states' rules if a precinct is entitled to elect four delegates to the county convention and the vote is 59 percent for candidate A and 41 percent for candidate B, the mathematical rules may require a 2-2 division (because candidate A did not win 60 percent). Therefore, 59 percent to 41 percent—a landslide—results in a 50-50 tie and an even split of delegates.

The worse case is in the state I live in (Texas) and that’s the “Texas Two Step” system. This year nearly three million voters participated in the March 4th Democratic primary. Then the caucus began at 7 p.m. when the polls closed. The people who voted in the primary—I’m not kidding you—may return and vote again. But not all votes are equal! Say, you live in Houston or Austin and the 2006 Democratic candidate for governor carried your precinct by a large margin, your vote could be twice or even three times as influential as if you lived in south Texas, which is mostly rural, strong Republican-dominated counties.

How is any of that democratic, particularly when the principle of one-person, one-vote is violated? Doesn't that embarrass a party that calls itself the "Democratic" Party?

Moreover the average turnout in the caucuses—which Obama did very well in—for all of 2008 was under 10 percent. Even in the highest profile caucus state of all, the “I-must-always-be-first-in-the-nation-to-go,” Iowa had their strongest caucus turnout ever this year. 218,000 Iowans made it to the Democratic caucuses that night, in a state with 2.982 million citizens, for a 7.3-percent showing. It doesn’t get any better in other states: New Mexico (11 percent), Nevada (9 percent), Minnesota and Maine (5 percent), North Dakota (4 percent), Colorado and Nebraska (3 percent), and Idaho, Wyoming, and Kansas (2 percent).

More than twenty years ago, the Democrats switched from winner-take-all contest to a proportional allocation of delegates to be more “fair.” Well, the current system is anything but fair with the silly mathematical formulas for allocating delegates.

In the Texas primary on March 4, Hillary defeated Obama by a margin of 100,000 votes out of nearly 3 million. Clinton was awarded 65 delegates, while Obama received 61. But in the Texas caucus over 42,538 caucus goers – 1.4 percent of primary voters – overturned the will of the other 98.6 percent. Talk about stealing democracy from the people by an exclusionary process. In the end, Obama won 38 delegates to Clinton’s 29. Put all this together and Obama came out of Texas with 99 delegates to Clinton’s 94, despite the fact that Clinton handily won the contest where votes were actually counted.

Look at Nevada and New Hampshire. Hillary won the Nevada caucus and the New Hampshire primary yet Obama received more delegates than her in both states.

Or look at Idaho and New Jersey.

In Idaho, about 21,000 Democrats gathered for the caucus. Obama won in a blowout by a margin of 13,000 votes (80 percent of the vote). For that, he won 15 delegates to only 3 for Clinton — a net gain of 12 delegates. In New Jersey, Clinton won by a margin of 110,000 votes out of more than a million votes. For that, she won 59 delegates to Obama's 48 — a net gain of 11 delegates.

Democrats…please explain, under what system does it make sense for Obama to collect more net delegates for beating Hillary by 13,000 votes in one state than she does for beating Obama by 110,000 in another?

If we kept the mathematical formula of Idaho where Obama picked up 15 of 18 delegates for winning a state with just over 21,000 Democratic votes, then, in a consistent democratic system, using the Idaho math of a net of 12 delegates per 13,000 vote advantage, Hillary’s 215,000 vote win in Pennsylvania should have yielded her a net gain of 198 delegates. Instead, she’s gained a net of only 12 delegates from the Keystone State.

In this case, an Idaho Democrat’s vote counted for 16 times more than a Pennsylvania Democrat’s vote. The system rewards blowout wins in small states and minimizes wins even of 10 or 12 percentage points in big states.

Why should a few thousand people Idaho have an absurdly large say, ultimately quelling a few million in Pennsylvania? One person, one vote? Not in the Democrats’ delegate-allocation system.

Suggestions for the Democratic Party:

One. Abolish the caucus system. Don’t try to bandage it, fix it up, or anything. Just kill it.

Two. Require all states to have primaries; do away with proportional delegate allocation and require a winner-take all system that aligns the nominating system with the Electoral College system for electing presidents—unlike many Democrats, I don’t support abolishing the Electoral College.

Three. Eliminate the super delegates. Nancy Pelosi said she opposed the idea of having super delegates from the beginning yet she was the most biased and the worst behaved. If the political big wigs want to give endorsements and try to sway voters, let them, but their advocacy should not earn any presidential candidate any sort of delegation. By all means, 800 super delegates is beyond excessive and it easily allows party insiders to back a single candidate to the chagrin of the voters. We’re Democrats—let the people decide. Step in if no one reaches the total number of delegates needed by the end of the primary season; it is a race to be elected by the people, not your colleagues.

Four. Why not have five regional primaries starting in mid-January, on a set date, maybe even on a weekend when people are off from work and have one region vote each month through May, with the order of regions rotated every four years so everyone gets a chance to go first (cf. Florida and Michigan controversy; the divine right of Iowa and New Hampshire to always go first to the anger of other states in the union.)

I think this is a sensible and fair request. While those terms are oxymoronic when associated with the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating system, I can always pray and hope.

A Message to GOP Catholics

Michael Novak’s article, Catholics for Obama?, is a well-written and insightful look at Catholic political engagement and abortion. Though, I don’t disagree with what he says, there are a few criticisms I think Novak and other Catholics should at least consider—not that I think my “two cents” really count for much.

Novak is right-on when he says that many Catholics try to avoid calling abortion what it is—murder—and they will tirelessly say or do anything to justify their insatiable partisan desire to vote for Democrats. He is also right that many Catholics on the Left have an incorrect understanding of the “consistent life ethic,” and often equate other issues to abortion.

Nevertheless, Novak displays a flaw that I can’t help but notice. There is a lack of criticism of the Republican Party in Catholic circles. Yet, there is ready (and certainly warranted) criticism of Democrats particularly on the sanctity of life issues and dissenting Catholics on the left side of the political spectrum who hide behind pro-choice rhetoric. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be criticism of Democrats; I’m saying that there is a double standard.

Catholics of all political persuasions often cite the U.S. Bishops’ document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” The document provides a rich understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, but as a voting guide, it proves to be a disaster. Catholics are given a crash course of natural law morality applied to politics, told to consider a litany of issues, adhere to Christian principles, and make a judgment based on their conscience. Given all these priorities, what good Catholics ought to do is often lost in a sea of heated opinions. The Bishops, for example, clearly say that Catholics cannot vote for a candidate who advocates an intrinsic evil, e.g. abortion, if one is motivated by a desire to advance that evil. By that logic, taken in the context of considering a broad set of issues, a Catholic can come to the conclusion based on their reading that they have “room” to vote for a pro-choice candidate, if abortion is not their reason for supporting that candidate. Or at the very least, there are “proportionate” and morally grave reasons, given certain circumstances that Catholics may vote for a pro-choice candidate. The problem is that the Bishops don’t say what those reasons may be nor do they take the counter extreme of saying, in no uncertain terms, that Catholics cannot, absolutely, whatsoever vote for pro-choice candidates. Therefore, it becomes a matter of (often heated) debate.

Certainly, there are non-negotiable issues that Catholics cannot disagree on and all other issues of “prudential analysis” (like the best way to deal with immigration) permits legitimate disagreement among the faithful. It is obvious that a Catholic who adopts an unacceptable position, e.g. a pro-choice position on abortion, and advocates those policies would be in a state of mortal sin. Interestingly enough, I find, particularly among Catholic conservatives, that the issues that aren’t non-negotiable, that call for “prudential analysis” leads to a sort of relativism. The fact is “prudential analysis” only implies that such issues are not grave enough to bar a Catholic from receiving communion. It does not mean that any position on other matters is morally equal, i.e. whatever the GOP position is because they are the pro-life party nor should are these issues irrelevant. More often than not, one position is arguably more consonant with the Gospel and in fact, true social justice. I personally happen to think the Democrats are more often than not closer on a lot of those issues.

Despite the fact that I am a Democrat, I am voting against Barack Obama in November because I’m pro-life, but abortion is not the only issue in the scope of my concerns. Yet in my discourses with other Catholics, it concerns me that they don’t really care about—or are totally ignorant of—other issues besides life issues and gay marriage. The global food crisis that arose from making ethanol from the once-cheapest food on the market, corn, has disproportionately affected third world countries with rising costs of food. Is this not a pro-life concern to at least think about? Another issue is the genocide in Darfur, in which, the Bush Administration has yet to fulfill its two year old promise of intense diplomatic efforts in the region and to rally the U.N. to join them despite the nearly half a million death toll.

Another issue that is very important to me, not only as a Catholic but as an African American because it affects so many people in my family who borderline or sink below the poverty line, is the healthcare system—or medical caste system—that is direly in need of repair. Public health is dominated by consumerism and there are little safeguards ensuring public interests and respect for human dignity. The healthcare lobby, by and large, is a conservative constituency. I think it is fair to say that the GOP had an opportune time (1994-2006) to attempt to fix the broken healthcare system and provide a just system where more Americans had access to basic, quality healthcare. But rather millions of tax-payer dollars went to funding the Clinton scandal witch hunt and instead of ensuring the common good, Republicans made politics into a circus.

Now there are in fact Republicans who support a reform in healthcare (cf. Republicans for Single Payer), even a single-payer universal healthcare system and they demonstrate how it would not handicap the free-market economy. I believe, ultimately, this is a pro-life issue in its own respect, particularly when the current “pro-life” Republican President is vetoing bills to expand healthcare coverage to socio-economically disadvantaged children and the fact that this crisis is overlooked or dismissed by other Catholics is very problematic in my view. To have concern for these social justice issues doesn’t require you to be a Democrat or that you vote for one. It means that you are Catholic. By all means, show the GOP that its pro-life base has social justice concerns.

Moreover, the GOP does not give abortion the primacy it deserves though their rhetoric would surely have everyone think the opposite. And I’m not saying that the Democrats are the solution to that problem. Seven of the nine on the Supreme Court were nominated by Republican presidents after Roe v. Wade, yet only four are pro-life—obviously their commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade could not be as pressing as even the most die-hard pro-life Americans would like to believe. Even in the Republican-controlled Congress from 2000-2006, The Right to Life Act, The Human Life Amendment, and other pro-life bills never once made it to a vote on the floor. Not once. I honestly doubt the GOP's credibility and only the action of the party in the coming years will change or solidify my skepticism. But it remains that the credibility of the GOP at large does not change the debate over whether or not Catholics can vote for a Democrat in this election or at all.

Recently, I criticized “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08” for the inherent flaws of their pro-Obama arguments, but even more so because they are not even critical of their candidate nor the Democratic Party. I hold the same disapproval for Catholics who turn a critical eye to the Democrats, but not to the Republicans and their failures. I contended (and still do) that those Catholics advocating Obama could gain credibility by acknowledging his terrible position on abortion and demanding change through a large-scale campaign for more pro-life policies, rather than ignoring the matter—after all, uncritical support of pro-abortion candidates will not reap any change on the Left. Other Catholics, including me, will disagree with them, but they wouldn’t seem as dubious. Nevertheless, Catholics who consistently cast their ballots for Republicans ought to expect that the GOP will take advantage of them and ignore their most pressing concerns if they expect they can do it and receive a mindless stamp of approval on all their other policies as long as they promise to be pro-life on abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research.

To another point: there is an unspoken understanding among many that no good Catholic can vote for a Democrat and we must vote for Republicans. I disagree with that assessment and I’m not endorsing the idea of campaigning for and fully supporting pro-choice candidates without so much as a blink. The current strategy, it seems, is to elect only Republicans both at the federal and state level, so they will elect anti-Roe judges so that we can position ourselves to overturn Roe v. Wade. I’m all for overturning Roe v. Wade. Yet, I’m not at all sure if that’s the best strategy. I have a negative view of one-party controlled government and particularly with President Bush’s abuse of his presidential powers and the GOP going along with it. For example, I firmly oppose the absurd notion that the United States has some right to detain people for years at a time, on the basis of “suspicion,” without any substantial and credible enough evidence to even give a reason as to why they are being detained. This is a clear violation of human rights. You don’t arrest someone and hold them for years when you have no proof that they did something, don’t tell them what they did, and won’t give them a fair trial with some means of protecting American intelligence. And it was the four “conservative” judges of the Supreme Court who disagreed with everything I just said. I’ll flip the script here and say that I’m sure they’ll hide behind the banner of “prudential analysis,” but judgment on a not-so-grave matter does not immediately equal a morally-right or even morally-neutral position. Moreover, just because other issues do not carry the same moral weight as abortion and other attacks on human life does not mean that we can call ourselves morally coherent when we put those all other concerns—all important in their own right—on the back burner or passively allow legislation that is not just, all in the name of prudential judgment.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus paints an image of his return in glory and he separates the goats from the sheep. The sheep are those who served “the least” of His brothers: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, strangers, those sick and in prison. The goats repeat the sin of Cain by not acknowledging we are our brother’s keeper. Catholic Democrats often cite the “consistent life ethic” as the reason why they are voting for the Democratic candidates and they often receive a lot of criticism. Those in the GOP while criticizing them (and it’s often warranted) never own up to their party's failures on the “consistent life ethic” and over-emphasize the hierarchy of issues so much that we neglect many of Jesus’ brothers and sisters despite what the Lord told us.

Catholics can and must be fully pro-life and support initiatives that produce a social and economic environment that is ultimately pro-life—a culture of life—founded upon the family. I have never understood why Catholics divided between the right and the left insist on having it one way (change the law) or the other (change the culture). This means that Catholics who consider themselves to be Republicans—and this applies not only to them—should be breathing a firestorm on the Right because if we are pro-life and pro-family, and are going to include “the least” of our Lord’s brothers in our social vision, all of them, we must oppose continual cuts in funding to education, weak maternity-leave laws that enable pregnant women—who sometimes by their socio-economic status are statistically inclined toward abortion—to lose their job and healthcare, neglecting our obligation to find innovative ways to reduce the poverty rate that doesn’t always include social programs, not finding a real solution to the healthcare problem, and the list goes on.

I believe if Catholics demanded results on abortion, more would be done by Republicans. Surely, other aspects of their agenda have been carried out with fervor—weakening the social-safety net, privatizing, deregulating, lowering the influence of labor unions, belligerent foreign policy, anti-immigration legislation—that I think the GOP, if serious about abortion, could repeatedly introduce the same bills over and over again, meet with pro-Roe Justices and talk to them about abortion, bring scientists into the debate, etc. Anything would do. Show more effort.

Ultimately, I think that the lack of Catholic criticism to the right is the source of some of the problems that we are facing today. If we demanded results on the life issues and demonstrated that other policies need to be moderated or more inclusive to the concern for the weak and vulnerable in society without handicapping the free-market economy I think it would do a number of things: (a) it would be incredible witness to dissident Catholics who put partisan politics before their moral obligations (b) the Democrats could not argue that their policy positions are more reflective of the social justice teachings of the Church and more Catholics would join the GOP without fear of other critical issues being ignored, (c) it may inspire change on the Left after a heavy loss of an already shrinking constituency.

Granted the purpose of Novak’s article was to question the legitimacy of Catholic support for Barack Obama, I still find that it unfailingly added confirmation to my conviction that there is a lack of GOP criticism by Catholics. One might get the impression that if we just vote Republican, everything will be alright. On the contrary, there is much work to be done and Catholics need to know that voting for GOP candidates still requires much more. Sure, not everyone is as skeptical as I am; I firmly believe that the GOP in large part puts on a pro-life façade every 4 years and forgets about efforts to end abortion after the elections. The fact that the pro-life voice is not on both sides of the political spectrum easily allows Republicans to make promises to the pro-life movement that it has no intentions of keeping because for many of us, this cause is so insurmountable that we will not vote for the other side under any circumstances, even if they put up a candidate like John McCain. Where else are we to go? We either sit at home or suck it up and vote to stop the pro-choice candidate from winning. Isn't that the situation Catholics are facing this election?

And because they have uncritical support of pro-lifers and coin themselves as anti-abortion, they can run the economy into the ground, implement bad foreign policy, support torture, support economic policies that are clearly an unjust distribution of resources, cut services to the poor, tell third world countries to be economically responsible for themselves while permitting America's greedy consumption of 70 to 90 percent of the world’s resources, run up our national debt from $5.63 trillion to a mind-numbing $9.5 trillion in only seven years, carry out unilateral pre-emptive wars before exhausting diplomatic efforts, ignore the health care crisis, and despite such injustices, they face absolutely no reprehension at all from their pro-life base (unless, and only if, they don’t put up a pro-life candidate), whatsoever just because they are against abortion. We just have to vote for them, throw our vote away on a third party, or don’t vote at all. This disturbs me greatly. The power they have is astonishing. They can ignore critical issues and still be protected from being held responsible for their faults.

The Democrats champion a great number of progressive positions that seem more "pro-life" to me and these positions are unpopular in the Republican Party and I think they're profoundly wrong about them. I could be wrong about them. I certainly don’t think everyone has to agree with me nor do I think all these "progressive" positions should just be legislated based only on my views. I think a key to progression is dialogue and debate over the issues. While other Catholics may disagree with me on social and economic policies, I pray that at least that we agree on principle that we must be critical of both political parties and more concerned about being Catholic than our commitment to any secular school of thought. And if this is so, it means that Catholics will have to call Republicans out on their failures with just as much concern for justice as when they criticize Democrats.

Catholic conservatives have no more hold on Catholic orthodoxy than Catholic liberals do—defending life, supporting the family, and pursuing the common good is what animates real Catholics of all political persuasions. I've often been told you can't be Catholic and a Democrat. I disagree. I’m a pro-life Catholic fighting in the trenches for the soul of the Democratic Party that has lost its natural law thinking and gone to war with its own principles of defending the most vulnerable among us. I believe that it’s a noble cause.

That’s my "two cents" for GOP Catholics. Take it as you will.

Election 2008 and Uninformed Voters

Politics carries with it a negative connotation. Politics, if not boring to most people, is pointless, hostile, and belligerent. This all may be true, but, Americans need to remember how much politics affect their daily lives, from tax rates, corporate regulations, foreign policies, civil liberties, etc.

Despite this reality, in recent decades, a good election has less than half of registered voters. This may very well change this election season. We are witnessing a turning point in American history. The 2008 primary season has been unlike any in American history with record-breaking voter turnouts particularly in the Democratic primary.

The most evident question to this reality is simple: will there be effective change with simply voter turn-out? Sadly, the answer is not necessarily a 'yes.' The problem that Americans face is more elementary, but it is mind-bogglingly complex in this country.

The American political experiment is that of a a constitutional republican government. The government consists of three branches with a system of checks-and-balances and elected officials serve as representatives to those who elect them. The government is literally for the people. This isn't news to anyone.

The primary reason that there is a political crisis is not because the government is ‘too big.’ But rather, I think, it is because of political apathy. If the theory is, the American governing powers will serve the people and the people, in turn, neglect their duty in supervising elected representatives, it naturally follows that the theory will be turned on its head and the government will face corruption.

Political apathy has a detrimental effect upon American life. Politicians and special interest groups rely on political indifference for self-serving purposes. They use marketing slogans to create subjects that appeal to us and conceal real issues from consideration. Sen. Barack Obama is marketing the slogan ‘change’ knowing that every individual citizen will interpret that word differently—what sort of change is he talking about? It would actually be an inconvenience for him to be too specific. He also used the phrase ‘audacity of hope’ without mentioning the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, in which, he voted against and held off of the Illinois Senate floor. Surely, one might argue he should have an audacity of hope, if he has only been a senator for two years and has the audacity to run for president.

When popularity is pitted against responsibility, popularity more than likely will attract the most votes while responsibility will win informed-votes. The idea of finding ‘common ground’ on divisive moral issues sounds nice; however, if we don’t watch the supposed ‘common ground’ legislation, it may in fact be one-sided. We shouldn’t sell our votes or our conscience on words.

In the same way, we pour money into worthwhile causes. Later, we will consider more causes and additional funding for already established worthwhile causes short on money. This can be a problem. We support federal funding for education that is distributed to the states and districts complying with federal standards. We never considered a similar (and perhaps more effective) system where the state decides its educational standards under the umbrella of specific universal national standards, where education is funded on the tax dollars of the individual state with the possibility of states with more rural settings and smaller economies to appeal for federal funding for further assistance, e.g. Missouri appealing for more funds while Texas funds itself.

By accepting everything that sounds good (in the present) instead of what is good and will likely continue to work (that which is responsible), we actually perpetuate problems as bureaucracy erodes more of the pie for itself at the greater cost to the taxpayer. Children are adorable, children are the future, and children are worth the sacrifice. But if we truly cared, we would establish a system that works. That’s the point.

Other terrible practices are allowed. We buy into illusionary security at the sacrifice of liberty. Intellectually, we accept that we must one day die, but that reality is difficult to come to terms with emotionally. We sacrifice liberty with the fear that not doing so is to risk our own lives and the lives of our loved ones. But further intellectual reflection doesn’t necessarily lead us to the same conclusion. We enacted a law (long-term effect) for the sake of instant-gratification, a right-now sense of security and comfort. Was that the most prudent of decisions?

Ultimately, political apathy is destroying this country. The same people who are quick to complain about taxes, traffic, bureaucratic waste, war, are the same people that will sit at home watching Don’t Forget the Lyrics! instead of voting. This same line of thinking has become a cancer in the pro-life community. Pro-life citizens wait for a candidate to say those magical words, “I’m pro-life” and they go and vote for the candidate. Hasn’t it occurred to you that someone has figured out by now that by using those words they can have a monopoly on an entire block of voters consistently every election season? Look at their voting record, look at their rhetoric. We had a Republican-majority Congress (Congress can end abortion) and not one right-to-life bill was put on the floor despite several fetus-personhood bills were written. Are they using you or do they want to end abortion? Write your legislators. Reprehend politicians. This won’t end unless we do something.

The American people in addition to being unengaged, most are also uninformed or misinformed about the issues to. We need to take the time to vote, watch debates, research, look up voting records—look into history and see what these people are about—we are called to engage in the democratic process. We have to look beyond the tendencies of the media to focus on personalities rather than issues. The news cultivates uninformed voters, it does not give much attention to the candidates’ voting recording or their stances on the issues, but rather makes a hype out of ‘controversial statements’ often quoted out of context.

What is the result? Election coverage becomes a melodramatic horse race for office. This is why we have, perhaps, the worst selection of candidates in American history. Apathy for casting votes has changed the outcome of elections, including Presidential elections. However, apathy for understanding issues and candidates by casting votes based on irrelevant factors like marketing slogans, name familiarity, and party also negatively affects democracy, and likely to a greater degree. Dumb politicians are elected by dumb people. Get involved. Research. Engage in the political process. Vote!