Dr. Paul J. Dean Christian Blog and Commentary

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Vote for Who?

  • Paul Dean Dr. Paul J. Dean's Weblog
  • Published Dec 29, 2015

There are some litmus-test issues for Christians. One is abortion. A believer can’t support a candidate who’s pro-baby-killing. It’s not over-the-top to call it murder, cruel, and barbaric. Moreover, you don’t really believe in liberty and justice for all if a segment of society can be legally murdered. You believe in allowing some to aggress against others without consequences. You don’t have a Christian worldview but a relativistic one: might makes right; majority rules; the strong survive.

If abortion is a litmus-test issue, it is such because of life and liberty. These are unalienable rights granted by God, not government. What right do I have to take someone else’s life? Or someone else mine? These rights also make civil society possible. Civil society can only be such if it has as its foundation the Christian principle of non-aggression. No one has the right to aggress against me, even as I have no right to aggress against others. This principle is present in biblical commands against theft, rape, or murder to name a few. It’s present in the Golden Rule.

For Christians, if abortion is a litmus-test issue because of life and liberty, then wars of aggression must be a litmus-test issue as well. The principles are the same. Just war and self-defense are very different dynamics than the kind of indiscriminate destruction the US Government is wreaking in the Middle East. To be pro-life means – just that – to be pro-life.

Here’s a quote for you:

Look at the war in Iraq. . . I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country? C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!

Donald Trump said that. But here’s the thing: he said it back in 2004. And he’s saying the same thing today.

We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems, our airports, and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would’ve been a lot better off. . .We have done a tremendous disservice, not only to Middle East, we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have (been) wiped away, and for what? It’s not like we had victory.

Now, I’m not saying vote for Trump. There are reasons many Christians won’t. But are they litmus-test reasons? Ted Cruz didn’t make the above statements. Marco Rubio certainly didn’t. Not even Gentle Ben made them. So, here’s the question: if you won’t vote for Trump because of some issue that may not be a litmus-test, and if you’re pro-life, why would you vote for Cruz, or Rubio, or Carson, or any of the other warmongers?

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