Very Principled Observers

Many honest and principled people are alarmed that there are politicians who are not as principled as they are. These politicians seem to cave in and compromise in an apparent effort to actually get elected. It’s easy to complain about their lack of integrity and sit on the sidelines until we can have a candidate that meets all of our high standards and principles. We will be very principled observers. We want it all or we want nothing. We want ALL abortions ended or else. We’re not interested in saving 9 out of 10, or even 1 out of 10. If we can’t save them all then we will not sacrifice any principle to save one. But there are more principles than just one. In a fallen world our choices are usually not between the ideal and the awful but rather between the less than ideal and the awful. 

I don’t agree with the rape and incest exceptions on abortion for reasons of biblical principle. Nevertheless, I do want to save all the innocent lives I can, and I certainly don’t want to sit by and watch a party or their nominee burn the whole house down without any effort to save anyone.

The DNC Platform reads:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.

The RNC party platform states:

We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage.

We have one party, and its nominee, who, among other things, proclaims and promotes the wicked idea that a person has the right to murder their own child in the name of a “right to privacy,” or a “right to choose.” We have another party, and its nominee, who take positions, in varying degrees, which defend the right to life.

We know what the first party and nominee want to do. We hold out some hope that the second party and nominee will at least slow down the killing, if not put a complete stop to it. I do wish that I could have a choice to elect someone who would go as far as I would like. But right now, I’ve been given a choice to try and save some, and I’ll do anything I can to rescue as many as I can. One candidate will fully fund Planned Parenthood and the other has pledged to remove their funding. One candidate has Robert Bork as the head of his Judicial Advisory Committee and the other has Eric Holder. No difference? Really?

We have the right to vote. We have the right not to vote. We also have the right to be relevant or irrelevant. If we don’t vote, then we will likely come to have the same influence that everyone else who doesn’t vote has. We can retreat into our Christian ghettos, feel sorry for ourselves, and convince ourselves of how right we are and how wrong they are. Or, we can get involved and work and pray to change things. Realizing that things often change slowly and incrementally. There are more ways than one to get involved and to work for change, but simply being a principled, observational critic on the sidelines is not one of them.

One of my favorite political pundits has said it well, and said it far better than I could:

I’ve got to disavow partisan loyalty to any party but Christ, and I won’t find Him, or His proxy, on the ballot in 2012. So, I’ve got to juxtapose those who are on the ballot, and I’m constrained to vote for the candidate who I believe will be least likely to use the ammo of the state against its law-abiding citizens and most likely to leave them alone to rear their children in the admonition of the Lord and to worship freely and peaceably. I will not vest in either of them any real confidence, not just because of who they are but because the root of the problem is the moral rot in the body politic, and specifically the church. But I also will not equate the one man who is, I believe, utterly hostile to the gospel and church of Christ and the other who is, while not a Christian, unwilling, I believe, to, say, sentence Christians to Guantanamo. I don’t at all doubt that El Presidente would, if he could.” ―David Alders