My friend Charles Strohmer respond to a recent Chuck Colson editorial by suggesting that some Christians may see it as their sacred duty “not” to vote.
Pilgrim Notes
Reflections along the way.
Tag: voting
Here are a few more thoughts about voting as conversation.
Some thinkers like Jacques Ellul posited that voting may actually be harmful because it is a political illusion that helps reinforce the existing power structures. While I appreciate many of the thoughts of Christian anarchists, I still believe voting plays an important role in the culture.
But may not in the way we think it does.
When I listen to individuals speak, it seems like every election they think that if only the right person gets in office that everything will be corrected. Yet on a gut level they must know that this is simply not true. Some people will complain about entrenched power structures in Washington, and start another round of “throw the bums out.”
But like Eric Hoffer anticipates, soon you have another group of bums.
One problem is that while voting is a force for change, it is not the magical power of instant change. Voting is part of the conversation of change, and it is one way that we participate in the conversation. But laws alone (even if they all were passed by an administration) do not change a culture overnight.
Change is slow.
150 years ago, the Federal government amended to Constitution to secure voting rights for all nationalities including the freed slaves. And 88 years ago the Federal government amended the Constitution yet again to secure voting rights for women. And finally, after this next election we will have either a black man or a white woman in the White House.
Change takes time.
Voting and writing and politicking and even arguing are part of the process that changes culture. But change is not instant. And just because I disagree with someone doesn’t make me smarter than them. Smart and passionate people can disagree about how to change our culture. Every disagreement is not the beginning of a war.
While I am interested in politics, I rarely talk about it our culture because I find so few people who are willing to actually try and see a different position their own. They are so certain they are right, that anyone is disagrees seems virtually damnable.
My brother suggests that political argument are like two kids arguing about whose dad is bigger. I would add that it also seem like football fans ready to right over the outcome of a game that has little to do with their real lives. This is misplaced passion.
Change is about negotiation. The beauty of democracy is our freedom to self-govern. The ugliness of democracy is our freedom to self-govern. This means we can’t execute everyone who is wrong (that is everyone from part X or everyone who supports position x).
I believe this undisciplined passion is a sign of the loss of true, cultivated rhetoric. Would that we all would learn to articulate our ideas instead of repeating the latest spin from our “side.”
An articulate word can potentially do more to effect change than a war, thus fulfilling the dictum, “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
There’s a time to argue, there’s a time to comprise and there’s a time to fight.
But if every election and every issue is a time to fight (verbally if not physically), we may lose our ability to know when it really is time to fight. If I compare every political foe to Hitler, then what happens when the real Hitler shows up. At that point, my words will seem like empty chaff.
So as I think about politics and voting, I encourage people to speak about and vote your passion. But also be willing and ready to listen. It’s okay to be undecided sometimes. We all know a lot less than we think we do.
Be wiling to put down your fists, and quiet your disrespectful comments to those who disagree. Be willing to wait for change.
Then we might actually be a force for change. Then we might actually learn to live our ideas. Then we might actually discover valuable compromises that address the real issues even more effectively.
Then we might actually be able to recognize those “once in a lifetime” moments when it is time to fight, when it is time to say the imperative “No!” The Quakers taught me that consensus works because people learn that “NO” is so powerful, you learn to use it wisely and rarely.
Then we might be ready to lay down our lives for a better future and follow in the path of so many who were willing to die to create the future.
The way of politics as conversation is slower, more challenging, requires more discipline and may even make us feel and look like failures. But it also is way to move beyond the temporary need of ego to always castigate, and work for true and lasting change that can potentially create a better future.
In his 4th quarter Public Justice Report, James Skillen suggests that regardless of who wins what seats in the upcoming election little will probably change in Washington. First, he suggest voter apathy is high because “most voters seem to be aware that lobbyists have more power than they do, and that their vote won’t matter much. Many have also concluded that major problems won’t be solved by Washington, regardless of who wins election.”
Our current system is ill-equipped to solve the continuing stagnation in Washington politics, and Skillen believes that even the emergence of independents and third parties can do little to change the current atmosphere.
The problem? He suggests that our country desperately needs a system that represents the national interests because we are a nationwide community of citizens whose collective actions can have dramatic impact upon our culture and our world. Unfortunately, the system we have (and even independent and 3rd party groups) will not represent national interests but special interests groups. He proposes a focusing on building national parties:
What we need is something much more significant than election-campaign finance reform, or lobbying reform, or the growth of independent voters and representatives. We need a fundamental change in the electoral system that will help to produce national parties that are truly competitive and whose elected representatives will be answerable to party members and voters rather than to lobbyists. We need a system change that will lead to the representation of the real diversity of American voters in Congress and that will, thereby, draw voters out of their apathy into participation in elections and politics. We need 75 percent or more of voters to vote instead of 50 percent or less.
He continues with a proposal to change the way we elect representatives from focusing on districts to electing parties:
If each state eliminated all congressional districts and allowed any number of political parties (not only two) each to field a number of statewide candidates corresponding to the number of House seats to which the state is entitled, voters could then caste their votes for the party they really believed in. No votes would be lost as happens in a simple majority system. When the votes were tallied, each party would gain as many House seats as its percentage of the statewide vote entitled it, no more, no less. If the Republicans got 40 percent of the vote, they would win 40 percent of the seats. If the Democrats got 40 percent of the votes, they would win 40 percent of the seats. If the Libertarian Party, or Green Party, or Conservative Party won five percent of the vote, it would win five percent of the seats. If a Public Justice Party won 10 percent of the votes, it would win 10 percent of the seats.
Not only would such a system allow the diversity of American voters some real choices for a change, it would also compel parties in different states that share common principles and platforms to work together to build a national party. If all Republicans, or all Greens, or all Libertarians across the country did not bind themselves in a tight agreement about what they would aim to achieve when their elected representatives arrived in Washington, they would have no coalition of forces in Congress. This process would begin to force the emergence of truly national parties with national agendas. These parties would also have to decide ahead of time (and make public) which interest groups were supporting them and on what terms they would take those interest groups into account in their legislating. Voters would then be able to decide which party to support and would be able to help shape an overarching agenda for the party whose elected representatives would remain more accountable to its members and voters than to the interest groups.
Skillen believes this solution would do away with gerrymandering and hold officials to a greater level of accountability to national interests.
I still have to process Skillen’s proposal, but I am interested in the way he tackles the problems in Washington by suggesting it is a systems problem not simply a personnel problem. If anything, this could open a conversation about different ways to think about our current system; although I think most people would fear any tampering or changes to our current system.
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