{"id":747,"date":"2004-11-02T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-02T18:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=747"},"modified":"2004-11-02T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-02T18:19:00","slug":"747","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=747","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did my civic duty, got my little sticker.  Tried to avoid the early morning and lunch rushes by going around 10:30, and it paid off&#8211;only an hour or so to wait.<\/p>\n<p>Watched the Bush interview by O&#8217;Reilly last night.  He seemed a lot more articulate and intelligent out of the context of a debate setting.  Of course, having an interviewer who agrees with the majority of your positions helps.  But still&#8211;good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><!--more thought-provoking blurb by John Piper--><br \/>\nThought-provoking blurb by John Piper:<\/p>\n<p>Pondering One-Issue Politics and Cruelty To Animals<\/p>\n<p>Investigating dog life in Minnesota has solidified my decision to vote against those who endorse the right to abortion. So then what is my response to the charge of being a one-issue voter?<\/p>\n<p>No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office-on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor-that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the same with marriage. No one quality makes a good wife or husband, but some qualities would make a person unacceptable. For example, back when I was thinking about getting married, not liking cats would not have disqualified a woman as my wife, but not liking people would. Drinking coffee would not, but drinking whiskey would. Kissing dogs wouldn&#8217;t, but kissing the mailman would. And so on. Being a single-issue fianc\u00e9 does not mean that only one issue matters. It means that some issues may matter enough to break off the relationship.<\/p>\n<p>So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It&#8217;s simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him-except that child-killing is more serious than those.<\/p>\n<p>When we bought our dog at the Humane Society, I picked up a brochure on the laws of Minnesota concerning animals. Statute 343.2, subdivision 1says, &#8220;No person shall . . . unjustifiably injure, maim, mutilate or kill any animal.&#8221; Subdivision 7 says, &#8220;No person shall willfully instigate or in any way further any act of cruelty to any animal.&#8221; The penalty: &#8220;A person who fails to comply with any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now this set me to pondering the rights of the unborn. An eight-week-old human fetus has a beating heart, an EKG, brain waves, thumb-sucking, pain sensitivity, finger-grasping, and genetic humanity, but under our present laws is not a human person with rights under the 14th Amendment, which says that &#8220;no state shall deprive any person of life . . . without due process of law.&#8221; Well, I wondered, if the unborn do not qualify as persons, it seems that they could at least qualify as animals, say a dog, or at least a cat. Could we not at least charge abortion clinics with cruelty to animals under Statute 343.2, subdivision 7? Why is it legal to &#8220;maim, mutilate and kill&#8221; a pain-sensitive unborn human being but not an animal?<\/p>\n<p>These reflections have confirmed my conviction never to vote for a person who endorses such an evil-even if he could balance the budget tomorrow and end all taxation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did my civic duty, got my little sticker. Tried to avoid the early morning and lunch rushes by going around 10:30, and it paid off&#8211;only an hour or so to wait. Watched the Bush interview by O&#8217;Reilly last night. He seemed a lot more articulate and intelligent out of the context of a debate setting. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}