Political musings...

This morning I read a letter written by a woman named Lori Kalner.  She is a woman who lived in Germany during the uprise and downfall of Hitler, way back in the 1930's.  This letter that she wrote equates some of the stuff that Obama says to thing that Hitler said when he was trying to gain the political platform in Germany.  

I don't care about that.  She can make whatever equations between the two that she wants.  That does not concern me, seeing as I find that neither candidate is exactly a great candidate for the presidency (by the way, my opinion doesn't matter because I'm not well-informed about anything political, and that's by my own choice).  There is one thing that Kalner said that does get me thinking.  It has to do with the economy.  She basically said that if we vote for a leader based on who we think will be able to turn around the economy best, then we could end up voting for someone who could hurt the country/people in other aspects.  The argument that one writer gave was that we shouldn't be putting the economy above the lives of unborn babies (the abortion issue).  Now, I won't say a whole lot on this issue.  I grew up in a very conservative home, and I went to a very conservative church while I grew up.  Only recently have I decided to remain mostly silent on this topic, listening rather than adding to the chaos of voices out there (I think that America would get further if more people decided to try to develop the skill of listening... Presidential candidates included!).  The part that got me really thinking was a response from an Obama supporter, who retorted that thinking of the unborn babies and voting in McCain would basically damn the poor by allowing the economy to further be depleted.  

Here's the interesting part.  In the last year or two, I've been learning a lot about the ideals of Christ.  As I mentioned, I grew up in church.  Church talks about faith, truth, love, peace and all of these things that are supposed to go along with Christianity (whether they actually do or not in today's society is another story).   What I've been learning is that Christ was quite the political and religious anomaly.  He didn't spend his days saying that the people should destroy the Roman government and get their own leader back in place.  He may have openly rebuked the Pharisees, but he always followed it up with a personal alternative to those around him.  And always, always, always he talked about helping those around you.  He talked about helping in the small things, in community living.  He talked about how sharing your fish and bread with somebody nearby could help in ways greater than we could really realize.  He talked about how we're not supposed to be violently vengeful,  but rather gave ideas on how to point out injustice in creative and peaceful ways (see Matt. 5 and read it in cultural context).  

Maybe our economic problem has nothing to do with the political leader.  Maybe it has everything to do with the citizens.  How are we spending our money?  Are we spending money that we have or money that we wished we have?  If we weren't so in debt, would there be such a huge crisis?  Obviously, we can answer that because it's all hypothetical.  However, perhaps we can try changing our country from the bottom-up rather than from the top-down.  The top-down method has never worked before.