{"id":183,"date":"2004-08-16T22:27:35","date_gmt":"2004-08-16T22:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/my_obligatory_p.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:48:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:48:41","slug":"my_obligatory_p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/my_obligatory_p.shtml","title":{"rendered":"My obligatory political post."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an election year, so I figure I need to say something political.  I hope to have very few political posts here.  Why?  Because I see politics as such a messed up business.  There&#8217;s not a dime&#8217;s worth of difference between the Democrats and Rebublicans.  People think there is, and on the surface the rhetoric would lead one to believe that there is.  But in the end they both seem to think that they know better how to spend your money than you do.  I will probably end up voting Republican this year, by default, because I like their rhetoric better than the Democrats.  One year I voted Libertarian (this is where I find the most to agree with), but that seems like a waste because they have so little chance of winning.  In the end, however, I think politics divides people far, far, far more than it unites.  Anyone that does not see the world as you do is less inteligent.  I mostly choose to not go there.<br \/>\nAs an example, look at <a href=\"http:\/\/willzhead.typepad.com\/willzhead\/2004\/08\/door_number_thr.html\">this post<\/a>(my inspiration for this) advocating a Christ centered, non-partisan look at politics.  After his well written plea for a &#8216;third door&#8217;, centered on our commitment to God and where that leads us individually, the comments immediately went into why the Conservative or Liberal position was superior.  Granted, it was polite and mild, but it took a unifying message and began to divide.<br \/>\nMostly I just wish that Government would get out of my way.  Let me fund my own retirement instead of sucking in 15%+ of my wages into Social Security and then redistributing it.  Let me choose how to do my support of the poor.  Let me choose where that money goes.  Wouldn&#8217;t a novel idea be to decree that a certain percentage of your money go to charitable work (or retirement).  The government would have no hand in it except to see that you gave.  Think of the charities that would spring up to compete for your dollars and care for those in need.  Think of the additional good that would be done as your money wouldn&#8217;t be filtered through the government expanse of red tape before reaching the needy.  I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s a flaw in this reasoning, but I can&#8217;t see it now.  Think of it as a mix of the care of socialism and the efficiency of the free market.  (Quick, somebody pop my idealistic bubble here.)<br \/>\nSo as I contemplate the election to come, I sigh and wonder what would be if we really had a choice other than more government for our security or more govrnment for the less fortunate (to reduce the entire election and campaign to one phrase).<br \/>\nEnd of politics for as long as I can manage (hopefully a long time.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an election year, so I figure I need to say something political. I hope to have very few political posts here. Why? Because I see politics as such a<a href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/my_obligatory_p.shtml\" class=\"more-link\">Read More <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">My obligatory political post.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My obligatory political post. - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/my_obligatory_p.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My obligatory political post. - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s an election year, so I figure I need to say something political. 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Actually, I voted for six. Now, before my more left leaning friends get too excited (and Mom has a coronary, she does read the blog), they were 2 appeals court judges and four somewhat minor posts like auditor and secretary of state,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News &amp; Current Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News &amp; Current Events","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/news-current-events"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":190,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/more_politics_y.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":183,"position":1},"title":"More politics (Yeah, I know I said I wouldn&#8217;t)","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"August 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's an election year and the Big Day is only about two months away. Absolutely everything on radio and TV is election related. So I've succumbed to Election Fever. I've actually watched some of a convention. I managed to avoid the Democratic convention, but we were watching the Amazing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News &amp; Current Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News &amp; Current Events","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/news-current-events"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":875,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/11\/real_change.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":183,"position":2},"title":"Real Change","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan at Cerulean Sanctum as a thought provoking post on the election. Go read it for an interesting take on how the Obama victory was a victory for truth, just not the truth that most white Christians were focused on. He's dead on there. But I want to focus on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God and Church&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":208,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/10\/bush_or_kerry.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":183,"position":3},"title":"Bush or Kerry?","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"October 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've said I plan to stay away from politics, but I'd like some thoughts on our vote. I'm having an honest difficulty on my vote. To be honest, I'm leaning towards Bush, but there's one big thing that's standing in my way. More on that in a minute. Let me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News &amp; Current Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News &amp; Current Events","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/news-current-events"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":219,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/11\/i_went_to_a_bus.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":183,"position":4},"title":"I went to a Bush Rally","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"You read that right. Me, the guy who dislikes politics and tries to avoid it, went to a political rally on Friday. Actually it was kind of fun and I'm glad I went. Bush was in town and the governor of \"Caleeforneeah\" was to be with him. We got several\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News &amp; Current Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News &amp; Current Events","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/news-current-events"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":184,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/08\/god_is_not_a_re.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":183,"position":5},"title":"God is not a Republican. Or Democrat","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"August 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, this might be considered political too, so I guess my staying away from the political didn't last long. I got this link from this post at Radical Congruency. Go read this and then finish here. Do you think, as I do, that the title is bit misleading? It's not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News &amp; Current Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News &amp; Current Events","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/news-current-events"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}