My brother joins the other side :-)
The following is a post my brother wrote over on his Xanga site located here. I love my brother man! He's always been there for me, has a great family, and is a very smart intelligent guy. Anyhow...here's his post...I absolutely loved it...
Coming Out For Obama '08
i'm carl kincaid, and i'm a republican. the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem they say. . . so, there, i did it. i gotta say i was ecstatic when obama won in iowa. it would have been better for me had I come out for him before the caucus; but, i had to tell the musical jokes i found in the previous post. you know, priorities and all.
anyway, do i like huckabee, but i really like obama. i believe huckabee is a believer. i believe obama is a believer. i believe bush is a believer. bush, however has alienated the majority of the public because he has focused on legislating his morality and not appreciated the fact that this is impossible. YOU CAN'T EXPECT A SECULAR WORLD TO ACT LIKE A GODLY WORLD. TRYING TO FORCE IT BY LAW, RATHER THAN ENLIGHTENING IT WITH LOVE, HE AND HIS ILK HAVE, IMO, DONE MORE HARM THAN GOOD. there, i said it. and i feel much better. . . while i don't appreciate some of the social agendas of obama's campaign - and i'd tell him and his supporters so - i do think he respects my freedom as much as anyone elses. he appears to be the type of person that can bring people together. lead from a fresh perspective that will hopefully purge washington of the hate and partisanship that has gotten us where we are. whereas i fear huckabee would be more of the same we currently have (though i don't think a republican has a chance in you-know-where of getting in after all the crap bush's administration has pulled). again, not to bash bush, but his administration has been a failure. at home and abroad.
and the classic "religious right" doesn't seemed to have brought forth any real solutions for a lost world through the political process. ". . . it seems they're all out in their evangelical ghettos, and they stick their heads out just long enough to yell at the rest of us and tell us what a mess we're making of everything"* it's time for change.
i believe clinton would be more of the same, from the other side of the political aisle. the pendulum swing would be pretty drastic, i think there would be repression of evangelicals as pay-back for some of recent history. it would get ugly quick. so obama is the man for me. stand for change www.barackobama.com
posted by Keith at 1:20 PM
5 Comments:
Now that was a cool political post and one I understood completely cause your brother put forth what my thoughts have been, though they've been somewhat jumbled in my mind and I couldn't quite express them. But reading what your brother said, solidified for me what I've been thinking but not able to say. Good job!
Funny! Me too! He does have a gift for writing that I wish I had. dave over at Rather than Working also has that gift.
For that matter...you do too ya know? I always enjoy reading your posts and stories.
Anyhow...at this time for me, Obama has my vote. Although I am looking at Ron Paul real close too. we'll see what happens.
i also added recently:
and it seems to have focused on all the wrong issues (to placate the religious right) to the detriment of other issues that affect the whole country like tax reform, corruption in big business, international diplomacy (are we the most hated "civilized" country on the planet right now? - and that hurts because our country has done so much GOOD over the years, but it seems to me that we are the bad guys to a lot of our allies at this point. it's one thing to make the tough decisions, but it's quite another to not listen to anyone else's input and arrogantly force our agenda through.)
and please note the quote in my original post is from the book Deadline by Randy Alcorn
Here are some good comments from a friend of mine who has not asked to be identified, but are very wise words. My mind hasn't been changed, but this person is very wise and this was good:
I think you are dead on with your comments regarding our expectations of a lost world. I’ve always said I will never be shocked by a lost world acting lost. I also think Christianity fails miserably when it attempts to enforce compliance to Christian norms without the requisite heart change that makes it possible.
I also agree that Bush, though I think a genuinely good guy, has been a genuinely monumental failure. As a side note, it makes me sad that the two most likely candidates to be genuine believers in the Oval Office in my lifetime (Carter and W) have been the two worst occupants of that office from a governing perspective. In the last fifty years, Christians have to state that we are 0-2.
And while I agree with you that the religious right doesn’t seem to have any solutions through the political process, I don’t believe I’ve seen any group who does. The only time the process marginally works is when someone has enough statesmanship (Reagan, Clinton) to massage the process. Washington has been hopelessly broken since Vietnam and it will never be fixed again. As an elder member of the post-boom generation (born two years too late to fully appreciate balsamic vinegar) my cynicism cannot be hidden. Whatever, nevermind.
In spite of this large foundation of agreement, I disagree with your solution. I do not believe that Obama’s social agenda can be ignored. Anyone elected in American today is, to quote one of my favorite lines from “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” is a “slaaave to the inneress’.” And the body that would be in Obama’s back pocket is going to be the pro-choice, gay rights wonks. I can’t let go of that.
Huckabee intrigues me because he is the first semi-electable American politician who sings my song socially. In addition to being an advocate for life and marriage, he is an advocate of justice for the poor (Old Testament value) and the immigrant (Old Testament value) and believes those with means should use those means to aid those less fortunate. There hasn’t been a Christian politician like him in my lifetime.
A watershed moment for me was an article called “The New Social Gospel” in a Nov. 2006 edition of Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/44511 ). This came as close to stating my priorities in politics as anything has. I’m guessing it speaks pretty well for you. This is having your cake and eating it too.
With Obama, you don’t get that. You have to take social justice with pro-choice and gay marriage. With Huckabee, as I understand him today, you don’t. That’s why I’m intrigued by him…though not ready to commit.
Both guys scare me. I think both are unproven leaders. Liberal Idealism of Obama’s type tends to not play well in Washington (remember Clinton’s most 94 move to the middle). Nor does a folksy approach (shucks, Mr. iL, why’d you have to go and blow up Seoul?”). Honestly, I think the safe bet for governing is someone like McCain or (God forgive me) Clinton. However, I cannot ignore someone who has a chance to be president who seems to get that there is more to morality than protecting the unborn and keeping Chuck and Larry from marital bliss.
If there is no clear choice given me…and if Huckabee doesn’t win the nomination, there won’t be…I will consider Obama. But right now, I simply can’t because there are better alternatives. I would just encourage you to not yet paint Huckabee with a “Bush brush.” I think he is smoother and smarter and he definitely has a different agenda for governing.
Now to quote Forrest…that’s all I got to say about that.
For me it's been looking like Huckabee will have my vote for a long time. Obama is my favorite out of the Dems. He does seem to offer some good ideas for our nation, but I don't agree with about 60%-70% of his ideals. However I like him a heck of a lot more than Gulianni.
Obama is suprisingly transparent for a dem, and is low on plastic fakeness.
Huckabee supports my morals, the morals of the Bible. If it's not Huckabee or McCain I'll be for Obama.
Anyway, now that I'm done with my rant, I'd like to add that I don't nessesarily believe that politics are very important at all in the long run...
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