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Wednesday, October 13, 2004

The Last Debate

I gotta give this one to Bush. Kerry seemed on defense for most of it while Bush seemed animated and hopeful for the future. Perhaps that is the strongest difference between the two men tonight. Kerry seemed worried about America, fearful of the future almost while Bush appeared more positive and hopeful. I suppose voters will react according to which vision they identify more with. I thought that this bit from Senator Kerry was interesting, when he quoted from the Bible:

My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, "What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead."
I am certainly not going to impinge Kerry's faith, but it was interesting that he said this in a question on Abortion. I don't want this post turning into another abortion post, the last debate did that and I posted an abortion follow-up here. But it is an interesting question as to how much a person's religious beliefs should effect their public policy decisions or their decisions on who they vote for. This seems especially topical in light of the recent statements by Catholic arch-bishops. If you believe something is moral, how far should you go promoting that belief? This is especially true in for a subject like abortion where a person's religious beliefs might lead them to think it is a question of conflicting rights (the woman and the fetus) rather than simply a private matter. If you would like to comment on the effect of faith on decisions or the debate in general please do, if you would rather comment on general abortion policy I would prefer you do so in the other post, to keep things sorted out a little. As always, I welcom all comments. I don't have a fully formed opinion about this subject yet, but I may play devil's advocate to any comment. (Debate transcript here)

1 Comments:

Blogger Man of Issachar said...

Typically if you are a person of faith you hold those beliefs closer to your personality than even your political beliefs. In other words, weather it is right or not, voting one your beliefs (moral, religious, political) is what you do.


When it comes to social issues (or how you would like for you society to function) our belief system is what we vote on. At the state level this is very evident: lotteries, gambaling. At the country and town level it is also: Dry counties,laws regualing strip culbs, when liqour can be sold. Just because the social issue gets raised to the federal level does not mean that your morals and you belief system does not come into play.

10/13/2004 08:50:00 PM  

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