by Thaxton Lewis

Created on: October 11, 2008

When a person is a citizen of a vast empire, or of a great, heterogenous society, one must accept a multitude of faiths and ideals that may not necessarily fit in with one's world view.

So, the obvious answer, truly, the only answer, to the question of whether or not a citizen's vote should be influenced by their faith, or the candidate's faith, is no.

America is constantly battling against becoming a theocracy, and that is why the seperation of church and state exists.

In a theocracy, judgements cannot be challenged or questioned, and often in countries transforming into theorcracies, the tactic of labeling any who oppose the authorities as infidels, heretics, or those whoare not loyalists, causes massive conflict.

A nation that votes based on faith, is a nation that will be permanently divided, and the foundation for a civil war will be prepared.

After all, this childish logic has been applied to the war in Iraq. If a person is against the war, Bush and his people said, then they are against the troops.

With this false catch-22, the person who did not agree with the conclusions that lead us to war all of a sudden was not a patriot because they questioned the decision to go into a questionable war.

This is absurd, and this is the childish, fascistic thinking of our current ruling class.

We should vote on the issues, and how they will affect everyone, not just ourselves.

If I am a billionaire, and will get taxed more, I really would not care. After all, I have billions of dollars at my disposal. I am not making 35 thousand a year and seeing 10 or mroe thousand taken out in taxes.

When you are making only 35 thousand dollars a year, ten or more thousand is a lot in taxes. BUt if you have 50 billion dollars, and you are taxed 3 billion, relative to what you have, it is nothing. You still have 47 billion dollars, more than enough to take care of yourself and your family forever and ever.

But some families, that 35 thousand dollars, and after ten thousand in taxes taken away, you are left with 25 thousand, that hurts way more.

If you do not understand this as an idea, then what can I tell you. you obviously just like having the budget of an entire wealthy nation at your feet, and soup and bread will not be good enough for you.

People do not vote for the interests of the nation, they vote in a social hive way, where they think, what are my people interested in, I should vote for my people, who will always vote for my interests.

And this is simply not true. People are interested in what most benefits them. I think a truly greedy person would want everyone to be prosperous, so that they can prosper even more. But Greed makes the greedy stupid, and they devalue their own dollars and lay people off to get some money back, all the while losing the consumer dollar they need spent for their corporate goods, because they did not want to pay someone an extra seventy five cents.

One's faith should never influence their vote, one should vote on the issues, period.

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