Recovering Baptist

This post is inspired by David’s recent post.

I recently saw a video by Donald Miller, the guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz. He’s a good writer and an even better speaker, and he was talking about the damage the Enlightenment has done to the world. So-called Enlightened people like to think that everything falls into logical categories and that there is little purpose for emotion or, for that matter, the arts. And yet, pure logic simply fails to describe some very basic and important aspects of life. Consider love, for example. I could try wooing my wife by saying something like “Honey, I love you. And see, here’s a list of reasons why. You have blond hair, you’re shorter than me but not too short, and you’re intelligent. Those are the things I wanted in a wife, so I love you.” Objective, logical things fail to describe or explain why two people love each other. And pure logic sometimes fails to explain why we choose to follow or not follow.

I’ve taken several online surveys which propose to tell me who I should vote for. And in every case I am most closely aligned with Ron Paul. After that come a smattering of Republicans, usually Fred Thompson followed by Romney, Huckabee, and McCain in a virtual tie. All of the serious Democratic candidates fall to the very bottom. And yet, this time, I very well may vote for a Democrat.

I’ve never made a difference in a presidential primary. Let’s face it; I’m pretty much a Libertarian, so I’m always voting for the fringe Republicans. I would vote my principles in hopes that a few votes for someone that I felt represented my views might help shift the party ever so slightly to the right. The problem is that instead the GOP has generally moved away from my views, not towards them. And the same has happened in the general election where I voted for Ron Paul last time around because not only am I a Libertarian, but my wife reminded me that I was against the war when it first started - I said that it struck me as a convenient political ploy which could be useful in 2004 (I wish I was blogging back then so I had proof of my prophetic nature). I voted for Ron Paul last time around, and there’s a strong part of me that wants to vote for him again, but what’s the use?

I have, however, made a difference in two Congressional elections when we defeated Cynthia McKinney. In both cases there were a lot of people who voted in the Democratic primary not because we were Democrats, but because we wanted to vote against Cynthia. And we did. And she lost. And it was a lot of fun. And what was also fun was getting behind a candidate in Hank Johnson who neither represented my political nor religious views. It was good to get behind a generally good man who we could be proud to call our representative, despite the fact that we differed on many issues.

And so, I just may vote for Barack Obama. According to one survey we only agreed on two issues. But policy surveys don’t tell the whole story. At some point we have to look beyond policies and ask whether we could follow a person should he or she become the President. How would we feel if his or her face were the one that people around the world mentally saw when they thought of our country? Would we be able to stomach listening to the annual State of the Union speech when this person gives it? When I look at the so-called viable candidates, Obama fits that bill. McCain and Romney don’t for me, and I believe that Hillary is the incarnation of evil itself. So hopefully voting for Obama will be as much fun as voting for Hank Johnson was.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.