I'm baaaack

Many circumstances in the last year or more have kept me from writing.  Not to mention I am the worlds worst (best?) procrastinator.

Today I feel like getting away from the original intent of this blog. I hope those who followed me in the past don't mind.  I have some thoughts on politics and religion I feel like getting off my chest.

I have watched with anxiety and aticipation the major parties' conventions the last two weeks.  As I watched the president's speech at the end of the Democrats' convention it dawned on me that both parties are saying almost the same things (with the exception of abortion and gay issues).  Both sides are concerned with the economy and promise to create jobs. Both spoke of hope and belief in the American people. Both talked about the importance of improving education.  It seems in most cases we all have the same goals. The only difference is how each party plans to reach them.  And that is where the disagreements are.  Niether side believes the other side will get there with their plans.  Both also think the other side doesn't seem to have a real plan,  although both have told us basically what they want to do.

I am reminded of a time in my youth when I had a friend who's father was an "evangelist" for a certain church. We often discussed our different faiths. My friend once told me, as we talked of why there were so many churches, "We all seem to have the same goal ( reaching heaven),  We just have different roads to get there".  This is the case in religion and politics. We all basically want the same things. We just pick different ways to get them.  The path we choose to reach our goals is the source of so many discussions and always evokes emotional responses.  This is why it is so difficult to discuss religiion or politics, even with those we love and care about.

The interesting thing to me in politics is that the main argument has been the same since the forefathers started our country. Actually this same argument goes back much farther than our country. Experiments in different types of government seem to transend time.  Many civilizations seemed content to have a king or other all powerful ruler. It made a lot of decision making easy and relieved them of any personal responsibility. Intrinsically I believe we all want certain individual rights.  Our country was based on the premise that we all have "certain unalienable rights" and that these were given to us by a creator.  The gap of over twenty years between the start of our revolution and finally getting a constitution was because of these differences.  of course some of that time was taken up fighting a war, but it was still some time before the founders agreed on the constitution.  There were factions who wanted to return to the same kind of government they fought to be free of.
Thankfully, the man they wanted to be king, George Washington, refused.  Many others knew the dangers of a strong federal government, so the fight that has dominated American politics is between individual rights and strong central Government.  Early on, the reason for the parties that were formed was broken down as "States rights" vs. Strong central Government.  If we analyse the two parties today it comes down to the same thing.  There are advantages and drawbacks to both.  Perhaps we can discuss the pros and cons in another post.