It could be that until something "hits home" that someone doesn't care about voting. How many young people don't start voting until they have money on the line? I think it's a bit quick to say I have an odd view as a believer because your post struck me as jumping on him. I guess there isn't a soft way to say this in text being that emotion gets read into text often.
Where did I condemn anyone for voting? How/why did you assume I have not ever voted (if I read your reply correctly that is)? Or that I am against voting. I was simply contentious of the fact that someone that doesn't vote has no say so. A politician who may not ever vote has extreme "say so" as does a lobbyist. It it is probably more beneficial to stop a contrary candidate by running against them rather than voting against them for the "lesser of two evils".
In which case I appreciate your quoted scripture about not accepting bribes as that is certainly important.
If it is such a simple answer about what a politician is and the questions that I asked about what a politician "can" be are of no use to you, why didn't you just state your answer for the benefit of other readers? It is not so simple to me.
There are both good and bad. Supposing that everything is blatantly obvious to everyone when we are all learning and maturing appears counterproductive, accept that if you will. I had enjoyed reading some of your posts prior and I'm just a bit taken aback.
It seemed a rather large undertaking to tally exactly how many elected positions there are in this country. You have the house/senate/presidency and the other national positions (that I'd have to look up to give you a full list) I'm not sure if the Dept of Education is elected or appointed for instance. Do you know off hand every elected position on a national level? There are at least 500 perhaps as many as 3,000 (factoring in a few things). I'm not even sure how we got off to "such" a bad start that I suppose there is no discussion that can be had there. I was simply pointing out that there is more than
just the presidency and drawing attention to the fact that the news media is predisposed to focus mostly on that. Unless you believe we are moving toward a dictatorship there are 3 branches.
It is not unreasonable to be diligent about who you support with a vote and it could be that many do not vote because there is no candidate that represents them to their satisfaction. They could vote locally but not nationally. Personally, I enjoy how much voting power one has in a local election vs a national one. These are people I can talk to, debate with, and get to know.
I am pretty persuasive in person and from some perspectives I am doing a disservice to others by not putting the "right" candidate into office. Whatever that is supposed to mean. If it is of critical importance, why stop at one vote? Why not drum up votes? Why are we all not out stumping? I'm not directing that at you specifically...could be that you do attend conventions and are very involved, how am I to know that?
It is also important (in my view) to find where people are coming from and "in love" attempt to guide them another direction. Some of you here cannot understand how a believer could vote left and why others vote right. Both sometimes suggest someone that votes libertarian as a useless outlier but the libertarian (or independent) feels differently. Some haven't made up their minds and until a line is crossed may not. Can you fault them for that?
Some might feel that getting involved in the electoral college is more important, or perhaps despise that system.
I was simply trying to open up the discussion a bit beyond the normal back and forth you see and put forward more than simply the presidency of utmost importance. It is one element yes, I'm not disagreeing there.
I'm not going to speak to your military comment because I was speaking about war not someone being derogatory about the military. MANY were against the war in Iraq and MANY of those people (politicians included) had not served. How can a politician who has no military service record send people off to die? That was where I was going with that, but perhaps I didn't make that clear. I was suggesting that just because you have not served does not mean you cannot have an opinion (they do). I am in no way against military service, frankly I am aghast that you read that into my post.
Hopefully there is still some productive communication to be had in the future.
@soggykitten