in which i anger 95% of my readers with politics

I'm more convinced than ever, due to this article -- I'm voting Democratically in the coming election, even if I do think Obama is a little bit too glib for his own good. In fact, I'm so motivated, I printed out an absentee ballot request form, filled it out, and addressed it, just five minutes ago. I did tell you, right, that I think nuclear power is about the stupidest kind of power we've got?

On a related note, yesterday I read the best essay I've ever read about warfare, nuclear in particular. It's by Wendell Berry, and it's called "Property, Patriotism, and National Defense." And I wish that I could find somewhere on the internet that it's reproduced in its entirety, but I think it's still under copyright. It's from his book Home Economics, in which nearly all the essay so far sound exactly the same, except this one. If you check the book out from the library, read "Property, Patriotism, and National Defense" first. For once, someone is thinking logically about nuclear warfare, the mere existence of them in our weapons stockpile, and it's amazing.

So yes, the conclusion is, I'm probably a hippie. (A) I've been talking for weeks about heirloom plants and buying locally and living sustainably and (B) I'm going to vote for a liberal.

But what's a liberal, anyway? The language is tricky. Conservation (in the sense of preserving the world's resources) seems to be the almost sole province of liberal candidates. And a lot of conservatives believe in free will, which is, historically speaking, a very liberal position. Conservatives are also, in my experience, much more pro-war, and how is that possibly maintaining the status quo? Spending ridiculous amounts of lives, money, and time in conflict isn't exactly "conserving" anything.

Basically, what I'm saying is that "conservative" and "liberal" positions are made up of arbitrary sets of positions that really aren't logically related to their labels at all. Oh, wait, this is politics? I shouldn't be surprised, then.

I think we need new language. And along with new language, how about a little less of a republic and a little more of a democracy? My discouragement with the political system is that no matter how I vote, I'm going to regret it. If we could vote on issues and not just people, maybe it would be a little easier to make change that's beneficial to the general populace. And lobbyists would have a heck of a much harder time doing their thing (which would give me immense satisfaction).

Although given the debt load of most individual American citizens, I doubt if we would be able to shrink our national debt (didn't you ever wonder, though, whether a decreased national debt might help keep the dollar from plummeting relative to the world market?).

P.S. Here's an exerpt I found later in the day, from an essay John Fea wrote for The Bridge magazine after the Compassion Forum happened at Messiah. It makes a good point, I think, about the difference between reform and redemption. . . but I generally doubt the possibility of serious reform, either: "Perhaps we need a healthy dose of pessimism about what politics can accomplish. Can government help us to bring meaningful reform to the problems that ail us? Of course it can. But government will always fall short when it comes to satisfying the deepest longings of the heart or sustaining the types of communities that allow human beings to flourish. We should challenge our civic leaders to act faithfully as they serve us in government. As Christians, we should not be ashamed of bringing our deepest convictions to bear on public life. Yet we must also remember that politics can never be redemptive."