My Government Representatives

While walking the track at my local healthy living center recently, I suddenly came to an important awareness, and that is that my representatives in government are just that – my representatives.  They represent me.  They are me, or rather, they are my proxies, studying the issues and making voting decisions on my behalf.  They have to mirror me.  Their minds must look like my mind.  They must think like I think.  Their outlooks on life must be the same as my outlook.  Knowing these things, I must have the confidence that they will make legislative decisions that would be my decisions if I were the one in government who studies the issues and votes on legislative bills, amendments to the Constitution, resolutions, and whatever else might come up.

Now, my voice in government is obviously heard through my vote.  So how do I make voting decisions on election day?  I must vote for the candidates who I would best trust to study the issues and vote the way I would vote if I had I studied the issues myself.  So I make decisions on people rather directly on the issues.

Too many candidates for government offices today are relativists.  They make decisions based on the concept that “what is right for me is not always right for everyone.”  Their beliefs therefore do not reflect who they are, and so people get elected that do not truly represent others like them.  They do not want to “impose” their beliefs on people who are not like them.  In my view, this attitude is wrong where moral standards are concerned.  For example, I could never vote for someone who is Catholic who believes abortion, gay marriage, etc., are wrong, yet does not vote accordingly on these issues.  Such people do not represent me.  They are not me.  However, they do have constituents that think like them and they will get elected if such constituents are in the majority.  But I am against relativism.  I believe that things that are morally right for me are morally right for everyone and things that are morally wrong for me are morally wrong for everyone.  Abortion is wrong because it takes a human life.  Taking a human life is wrong for everyone.  And anything that obviously promotes immoral behavior is wrong for me and is wrong for everyone.

Problems occur for me when I don’t have a good choice of candidates.  Who do I vote for if neither candidate looks like me?  I suppose I then vote for the one most closely aligns with me.  So it can wind up to be a vote for an ideology rather than a person.  I’m registered as a Republican and so I almost always vote Republican.  Sometimes that can be a very repugnant vote, but that is what it must be.