We live in sad times. Politics all too often divides families and friends. Why? We profoundly disagree over the purpose of government. Consider this dialog. tsalmon and Liz had been furiously debating their preferences between Trump and Biden. Then, Liz references this comment, https://citizentom.com/2020/10/29/to-overcome-election-fraud-we-must-vote-in-huge-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-97331.
liz Afterwards, while walking our puppy on the beach, a bald eagle flew right over us and out into the Gulf to hunt fish – seems like a good omen. Agreed! 😉
What kind of puppy?
We’re thinking of getting a beagle. We have two rescues and I usually prefer rescues, but I like the beagle personality.
tsalmon We are cocker spaniel fans. We sadly and suddenly lost our red English Cocker Spaniel, Oliver, to cancer about three weeks ago, but had already gotten the puppy, Abby, before we knew he was sick. Ollie’s Mom was Abby’s grandmom so she is a red too. They both came from show quality pedigree, but we just got her, as was Ollie, as a cherished member of our family and because we love the breeder. Right now at a little over two months old she looks like a little rufous colored muppet puppy.
Aw, I love cocker spaniels!
My mom in law has one. They are the cutest puppies.
I’m sorry you lost your other pup to cancer. 😦
Ours are mutts and quite old (over 12 now).
Not sure what they’d think of a rambunctious puppy, but it might be good for them. Might be good for the whole family.
“I’m sorry you lost your other pup to cancer. 😦”
Thanks, you know how it is. We miss him. He was a great dog. It came suddenly but we had a very tough last week with him. He had had his spleen removed along with a 2 1/2 pound cancer that had spread, but we didn’t know that yet. I was sleeping downstairs with him cause he couldn’t do the climb and needed to go out a lot. He had a cone on and he didn’t like it. At one point in the middle of the night he looked me like, “Don’t you know who I am: Mom will hear of this”. I took the cone off.
We spoiled him, but he spoiled us back.
I’ll send Tom a pic and maybe he’ll post it.
Good omen? Well, I am not superstitious, but I like eagles and cocker spaniels. So, I am not surprised tsalmon and liz like eagles and cocker spaniels too. Why can’t they find common ground with respect to politics?
What is politics? Well, here is an old quote.
Politics is the Art of the Possible, the Attainable – the Art of the Next Best — Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (from here (sigmainvestments.com))
That quote is sometimes translated this way, “Politics is the art of compromise.” Why? Consider the nature of compromise. What does compromise involve?
to come to agreement by mutual concession
(from here (merriam-webster.com))
Why is politics an art? We don’t like compromising. We don’t like conceding anything, and the more prideful we are the more difficult it is for us to compromise. Our inability to compromise limits what is possible or attainable.
When does compromise become difficult or impossible? When do we go to war? That happens when we demand concessions from our fellow citizens we have no right to demand? What sort of political “compromises” do we most often demand from our fellow citizens?
- The redistribution of their income to other people.
- The acceptance of beliefs they abhor.
- The indoctrination of their children.
- Being drafted to serve into the military or “charitable” programs.
- The use of their funds to propagate beliefs they abhor.
- The use of their funds to pay for abortion and euthanasia.
- The use of their funds to conduct warfare.
- The use of their funds to arrest, imprison, and execute people.
- And so forth.
Are some of these demands ethical? Are some unethical? Base upon what principles? What ideological beliefs?
Consider a passage from scripture.
Matthew 22:15-22 New American Standard Bible 1995
Tribute to Caesar
15 Then the Pharisees went and [a]plotted together how they might trap Him [b]in what He said. 16 And they *sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and [c]defer to no one; for You are not partial to any. 17 Tell us then, what do You think? Is it [d]lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus perceived their [e]malice, and said, “Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? 19 Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax.” And they brought Him a [f]denarius. 20 And He *said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They *said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He *said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” 22 And hearing this, they were amazed, and leaving Him, they went away.
Our currency has the image of men printed upon it, but God printed His image upon us. Thus, we owe our first loyalty to God. When the commands of men conflict with those of God, we must resist the commands of men and obey God. Is that easy? No.
Consider Romans 13:1-7. Keep in mind that the man who wrote Romans 13:1-7 had his head separated from his body at the command of a Roman emperor. Because, we need a government to maintain order, God has commanded us to respect the authority of our rulers. That is, to ensure each other’s welfare, God has commanded us to respect human authorities. Yet, as Matthew 22:15-22 makes clear, our obedience God is more important than our obedience to human authorities.
What does that mean when we vote? As voters we have an obligation to vote for those candidates who humbly respect the supremacy of our Lord, candidates who will not make demands upon our fellow citizens that conflict with the commands of our Lord.
How did you vote yesterday? Did you vote for a candidate who understands the art of compromise or a candidate so full of pride he makes uncompromising demands. Which candidate is full of himself? Trump? Biden? Or both? Is the problem our candidates or us?
Citizen Tom 
Love the pic, very cute! A nice reminder too that we are all humans just trying to make the best of a situation that we have different perspectives on and that there are more important things in life than arguing about politics.
@Tricia
Politics should not be important, but some people make it too important. Give people a hammer and they see everyone and everything as a nail.
Thanks for posting the puppies brother. Even if, as it looks, Biden wins, the Senate may remain under minority rule, perhaps as it was designed. Assuming that’s the case, as you say, some compromise would be nice for a change.
@tsalmon
You are welcome.
Will Biden win? Good idea to count the chickens after the eggs hatch.
Did I say we could use some compromises? Not really. As this post suggests, when it is not ethical, we should refrain from forcing our beliefs upon each other.
Think about the thing we most hate about the Constitution. In order to get the slave holding states to join the Union, the framers of the Constitution implicitly recognized the “right” of the slave states to define the ownership of blacks as a property right. That was a compromise, but it was not a good one.
Tom,
No chicken counting here. I’m just watching Trump’s paths to victory decrease as Biden’s increase. It’s just math brother.
You may be confusing self righteous belligerence with being principled. Actually if you study negotiations as I have, most compromises are on principles in one way or another, or else it’s not much of a compromise. Making everything a binary choice when it’s not that simple.is not really being principled – it means we suffer from the cognitive distortion of black and white thinking. This distortion also often presents when one’s supposedly uncompromising principles conveniently blow with his own and his party’s changing fortunes. (Insert here Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham sucking up to someone they called conman)..
The slaveholding states also probably were the reason in the Constitution why mere territory often gets more votes than actual citizens in the electoral college and in the Senate. Unprincipled compromise or not? I can see the arguments both ways . . . but maybe that’s the lawyer in me. I’m just not much of a black and white thinker.
@tsalmon
Not a black and white thinker? No, I suppose not. You just support a party so consumed with identity politics that if a black doesn’t vote Democrat he isn’t black.
Racism is still alive and well in the Democratic Party, but don’t worry. We already know the only thing you want to discuss is what is wrong with Trump and Trumpians. No black and white there either, just evil and ignore.
And I thought we were talking about how compromise works?
@tsalmon
Yep!
That photo is so, so precious. Thank you!! ❤
I'll read the rest of the post now. 😆
Thanks Liz. Abby is growing fast and seems twice that size already, and she is still growing like a weed.
During the hurricane that blew through here recently, at about 10pm that night, the winds screamed outside at 90 mph in gusts. Trees are down all over and we lost power for a few days.
I always wonder what happens to the our birds in such a wind. On my beach runs I’ve seen the usual Brown Pelicans crashing into the water after fish and perched on dilapidated peer posts, but our usually ubiquitous sea eagles, the Ospreys, seem to have disappeared. This worries me and presents one reason why seeing the Bald Eagle bodes well.
Enough of that. I just found out that my naked balloting can be cured – this has gotten me in a lot of trouble in the past. 😉
Interesting the Ospreys have disappeared. I wonder why. Might have something to do with the food supply? My spouse is a serious fisherman. Back when he used to fish in the Keys the place had become so overfished the pickings were slim. When the lockdown went in place and they didn’t let anyone in who didn’t live there. In a few weeks time the fishing had never been better (sugar cane industry out there has wrecked the fishing and coral reefs too).
The one on the left is mostly chiweenie (he too experienced the cone of shame after abdominal surgery for bladder stones last year), the right one is mostly deaf now.
If you’ve never watched the movie Up it’s great. A dog lover’s movie, and so much more.
Ha, ha, ha! Hadn’t seen that.
There is something blessed about good old dogs, I don’t know why but especially when they are sleeping.
I spear fished the Keys many times while scuba diving down there in the 1970’s. Always got enough fish to pay for our dive boat and still have a fish fry back at the campground. Only the underwater park was off limits. We took our camper down to Blue Water Key just outside of Key West for a month last December, but I didn’t do any diving this time – just running and biking the bike path. I have always loved the Conch Republic, but like so many places, it is not so enchanting as it was when I went there in my 20s when I was young and improvin. But back then there was a woman and the twenty mile bridge and a wilder time before I was married. 😊
You should watch Up.
I’ll bet your spouse would really like it too.
I know it’s an animation, but it’s great for adults too.
Now….back to our regularly scheduled heated discourse. 😆