Category: Politics

No Man’s Land

kevingdrendel1 Comment

I try to stay out of the political fray. I have my views, but I also know well that reasonable people can differ on many things. Most of the political pundits are polarizing. I do not want to be polarizing. I think most people are earnest in their choices and do not take lightly the positions they take. I would rather add to the dialogue than entrench and through stones.

I am more interested in bridging gaps than creating them. Abortion is one of those things as to which people have tried to carve out a middle ground without success. I agree with freedom of choice. I agree that women should be able to control their bodies and not be intruded upon by other people or government. We have a history, a human history, of abuse toward women by men and government.

I think we have emerged out the other side of that dark reality for the most part, though men still prey on women sometimes. More accurately, people still prey on people. It is the sad human condition since the time of Cain and Abel. The powerful prey on and take advantage of the weak. Parents abuse children, men abuse women, sometimes women abuse men, the criminal among us take advantage of the weak in body or mind. Government and the people should stand up against these injustices and seek to prevent violence and crime and bring to justice those who perpetuate it.

The trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been playing out in recent weeks in Pennsylvania. Dr. Gosnell is a doctor who for many, many years performed abortions in an abortion clinic in Philadelphia that catered to the poor women in that area. He is accused of negligently performing procedures on at least one woman who died at his hands. There were other women who died at his clinic, but charges are only pending in regard to one. He is also accused of killing in astoundingly brutal and cold blooded ways babies who were born alive. These babies were “allowed” to live for twenty minutes or more, moving their hands and feet and crying, before he or someone at his direction took scissors and “snipped” their heads off. (They referred to the “procedure” as “snipping”.)

This is where the intellectual debate on abortion begins to come unglued. Roe v. Wade carved out the first trimester of pregnancy as a no man’s land between human life and something else. Since that time, the line has been advanced to the point of birth. Now, we have playing out in a court room in Pennsylvania a murder trial, and the only reason it is a murder trial is that the babies were “allowed” to live beyond birth, even if for only 20 minutes.

The dialogue is fascinating if not brutal, cold and frightful. Because the Doctor was negligent in performing the medical procedure of abortion, the fetuses were born alive; he is now being tried for the murder of babies. Four of them to be exact.

What turns an aborted fetus into a baby? The transition from fetus to child is minutes. Twenty minutes before birth, it is a surgical procedure; twenty minutes after birth it is cold blooded murder.

The Gosnell case is messy and makes a real mess of the abortion debate. It is hard to keep it at the intellectual level when babies’ heads are being snipped off as they lie on the table moving their limbs, breathing, trying to see the faces of the people who would otherwise be there to comfort and hold them. This case is hard to stomach and hard to fit into the intellectual boxes when the facts stare you in the face. The middle ground in the abortion debate is a no man’s land that is extremely uncomfortable to abide after reading the details of this case.

At least one reporter has completely changed positions on abortion as a result of covering the case. For an account, read and watch the interview of JD Mullane.

The Face of Evil

kevingdrendel5 Comments

Man in the MirrorHe was 19 years old. He went to an ethnically diverse, upscale high school near Harvard. He was a popular kid, a good athlete, very bright, well-liked. He graduated high school early and was studying to be a doctor. He killed three people, critically wounded dozens and injured many dozens more … We want him to be a monster! But “he was a good kid“.

Listening to the reflections on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from his classmates and others who knew him and looking at his graduation photo leaves me perplexed. The rage and anger that arises from my gut at the sight of the bombing victims somehow does not match the image that comes from the reflections of people who knew him. It does not fit neatly into my black and white compartments. I want to hate him, but I see a person who seemed like just “a good kid”.

Smart, popular, athletic, young … what happened!!!?

Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper all conjure up images of pure evil. Despicable, villainous, ugly, blackened souls, with no redeeming value. The depth of their depravity seems cavernous. We loathe them. We spit on their graves. We cannot imagine what possessed them.
 Continue reading “The Face of Evil” →

Sometimes We Get What We Want, But Not What We Expect

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

I am not drawn to politics. I find it more disillusioning than invigorating. Politics, however, is a mainstay, a byproduct, and, in some ways, the life blood of civilization. We can not escape it though we try.

I think we can safely say that God is neither Republican nor Democrat. I say this at the risk of stating the obvious (and of offending friends on both sides of the aisle). I do not believe, however, that God is uninterested in politics. He is intimately interested in all that we do. The Bible even says that God puts rulers in place.

The Bible also says that God’s ways are not our ways. When Jesus rode through Jerusalem on a donkey, he was celebrated for harkening the ouster of foreign rule and returning self-rule back to Israel. In reality, He came to Jerusalem not to take a throne, but to die at the hands of the ruling authority at the time.

Jesus’ triumphant ride through Jerusalem did not lead to the victory that people expected. God had a different plan, a bigger plan: victory over sin and death by which all of humankind, both the living and the dead, would be offered entrance into the Kingdom of God.

After Jesus’ death, some Jews at the time, particularly the zealots (political idealists?), were embittered by the apparent and utter collapse of all of their hopes and dreams of living free from outside control. Even those closest to Jesus, who walked, ate and slept alongside him, denied they knew him when their expectations seemed dashed.

Whether celebrating the fulfillment of expectations or despairing of dashed expectations, God is in control. He has a plan. If our hope is not in God, Himself, we may find ourselves missing the mark in what we expect and being crushed when our (unwarranted) expectations are not met.

After the last election, many people were celebrating and many were embittered. As I write this in December of 2012, we are purportedly nearing the edge of a “fiscal cliff”. Our hopes and fears are on the line, regardless of which reaction we had to the election.

In Illinois, the Democrats have taken back sizeable majorities in the House and Senate. The public has spoken by giving the Democratic Party a veto proof majority with a Democratic governor.

On the national level, we have a Democratic president without the constraint of future political campaigns, locking horns with entrenched Republicans trying to forestall the fulfillment of his plans. In both cases, we have gotten what we wanted. The people’s’ will has prevailed. It remains to be seen whether we will get what we expect.

Political Decompression

kevingdrendel1 Comment

The election was yesterday. After a day to decompress, I feel compelled to summarize a few of my thoughts in no particular order or theme regarding the political season just ending (and none too soon). Fingernails on a chalkboard are the bulk of the political ads that I saw. I voted against one person I might normally vote for just because I thought the ads were in bad taste. A negative ad smearing the other candidate is a good way to get your message across, said no one ever. There is an old adage about slinging mud that comes to mind: it cannot be done without getting dirty. Dirty is not very attractive.

We now have a two term black president. Some people embraced and resonated with his message. Some people believe in his politics and worldview. Some people embraced him because he is black. That is not just true of blacks; it is true of other minorities. It is also true of many people in the majority. I think people want to get over the racial divide. It should not be the color of the skin that determines the outcome of a political race. I say that not without irony, in that I believe Barack Obama was able to attain the victory in 2008 and again in 2012 with the help of people in the majority who chose to embrace a black president just because he is black.

I say that not as a good or a bad thing. I think it was fairly inevitable in a country where we value, as a whole, fairness, freedom and opportunity. Embracing a black candidate because he is black is a way to get past the sins of the past and move on. To be sure, I doubt that most people who voted for Barack Obama voted for him just because he is black, but I suspect that those who did made the difference.

There will always be a segment of society who is racist and discriminatory, just as there will always be people who lie, cheat and steal. Laws cannot change the human heart. The way our society is evolving, however, minorities will likely become the majority in my lifetime. Will we lose those labels along the way? Will we no longer vote for people in the future for the color of their skin? The cynical side of me says, “No, we will not.” My idealistic self longs for the day. My 27 year old once said at the age of 2 when he noticed the difference between “black” people and “white” people for the first time: “Those are my favorite colors!”

Aside from that, I do not believe that most of us are better off than we were four years ago. Whether one believes it is due to lasting effects of the Bush administration or the failures of the Obama administration, I do not think it is deniable. The insurance that I offer my employees and that I and they pay for has gone up 80%-90% in four years. CNN reported that the price of gas had fallen for the 70th consecutive day on November 26, 2008, to $1.87 a gallon. The US Department of Energy now reports gas prices between $3.45 and $4.25 a gallon. I have made approximately 12% less (give or take) in each of the last four years then I did previously, and I have four, almost five, college age kids. I have more debt. My house is worth 25% less than it was. There are more people on unemployment, more people out of work, more people receiving other forms of governmental aid then four years ago. I am not optimistic about where we are heading.

I do not have all the answers, but the problems need to be faced squarely. I strongly dislike the two party system. Neither party speaks to me completely, but we only have two viable choices. Politics is big business, and the two party system perpetuates that big business. Until we find a way to curb special interest group spending (and campaign spending in general) and impose term limits, I do not see anything changing. I recognize the challenges to that (not the least of which is the very freedom that allows spending as people desire). Labels polarize, platforms limit, negative campaigns erode confidence and produce a strong cynical undercurrent. Show me the candidate who has a positive message and will not stoop to castigate the opposing candidates; show me the candidate who has strong principals but recognizes the need to build strong relationships and to compromise sometimes to get things done that must be done; show me the candidate who is not a career politician, who is more focused on the business of doing what is right for the country and not the business of politics; show me a candidate who works to bring people together and not to minimalize and divide; and I will vote for that candidate and feel good about it.

The way our system works, there is no incentive to tackle the hard issues. Taking on the hard issues goes directly against the self-interest of staying in office. Term limits are the only way I see that changing, but it will take a constitutional amendment to impose them. What politicians are going to champion a cause that is sure to shorten their terms in office and, therefore, their business? Make no mistake, politics is not just business, it is big business! Sometimes big business needs regulation, and that is no less true of politics in my opinion.

In the end, I have no faith in politics, and less as time goes on, but I do believe in the sovereignty of God. I take comfort in the knowledge that His ways are not my ways, that the authority of government is established by God and that I should “give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” and give to God that which is God’s. I think there is danger in aligning one’s faith too closely with a political party or political ideal. Politics is man’s platform. I will seek God’s kingdom and let the rest fall into place. My allegiance will not be dictated by a party but by my understanding of God and His kingdom. May it come, and none too soon.