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Confessions of a Homeschool Dad
Nov. 6, 2006
My Last Post on Voting
Okay - maybe it's my last post in voting for this election...
Anyway, since I'm the Confessor, I have a confession to make. When I posted about Why Women Shouldn't Vote, I was intentionally provoking you (a little).
If you care, let me explain the reason why I did it and, again assuming you care, let me tell you what I found.
And, true to me, this is apparently going to be a long post. You can just skip to the end for the conclusions BUT don't you dare post a comment about what a meanie I am without reading the supporting facts that make up the rest of the post.
THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!
So, lately, I've been concerned about the post-modern (or, more accurately, the post-post-modern) direction that U.S. society / culture is taking. Even more disturbing is that much of the Church is following that downward slide.
If you've ever heard some Church try to explain away the Bible (Female leadership in the U.S. Anglican Church? Gay Bishops? Deciding that there really is no "sin" except not being true to yourself?), you've heard this in progress.
But how far has this come? How deeply has our culture penetrated the Church?
As you may or may not know, I consider you to be the best hope for our future. A group of people so fed up with the poor academic education and the excellent anti-Christian eduction that they are willing to go against the flow to fix the problem.
In other words, you are people willing to take a stand for Truth, regardless of what your surrounding society says. In my opinion, this is the nest from which the most promising cultural change agents will take flight.
So, I thought to myself, how different is the education these little birdies are getting from the rest of the culture? Hence, a post was born.
FIRST CATEGORY OF RESPONSE: OFFENDED!
Before I get into what I found, let me say that I know there were a lot of people who read my post and didn't comment. I can only base my findings on the response that I received.
The responses fit into two main categories. The first category of response was (predictably) one of offense. There is nothing wrong with that, incidentally, but let's look at why people were offended:
- I am a Sexist / Racist and the Women Cited are Morons - Keep in mind that, while provoking, I did so from a base of facts. An organization not kindly to conservatives determined why women didn't vote.
Well, the reasoning that came out of the survey was apparently more than some people could take. I was a very bad man for even citing it. And the women in that survey were just stupid.
- The Title is Offensive - And it would run women off and they wouldn't get to experience my gloriously offensive arguement.
Really? The title? Of all things to get excited about, you pick the title?
- My Tone Is Mean - Assuming that I'm just trying to get women to vote, I went on and beat up on you too much. I am, in other words, a big meanie.
- Yeah, well, Men are Just As Stupid! - I would be the last one to suggest that this isn't true, but what does this have to do with why women shouldn't vote? If anything, it should mean women should vote more.
Has anyone noticed a disappointing trend? Yes! You're exactly right! Every single arguement made is Post-Modern!
Whether it is attacking me or men or just saying I'm a big meanie for posting / citing / wording the way I did, nobody actually decided to take on the arguement made.
Nobody cited any contrary facts, nobody cited why my facts might be wrong, and nobody attempted to explain why it is that women don't vote much.
THE SECOND CATEGORY OF RESPONSE AND MY FOLLOWUP POST
Others who were not so offended that they couldn't think straight posted about their own voting experience. These posts were mostly in the vein of, "I do vote, but some of the issues are confusing / beyond me / uninteresting enough for me to understand, so I lean on my man to understand these issues."
Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, it inspired my second post, What is a Husband's Responsibility When Voting?
Keep in mind that this post was in direct response to the answers I was getting on the other post, if also slightly provocational. And, to this post, there was basically the same split of comments:
- Offense - For instance, how could I insult a woman's intelligence, the title was still mean, etc.
- In My House... - An interesting and educational look at how many people team up on an understanding of the issues to go vote.
Again, those offended were primarily emotional about what a bad, bad man I was and not what I had suggested.
THE SURPRISING AREAS OF SILENCE
Throughout all of this, I was waiting for someone to be offended about the actual facts. Namely:
- Women vote significantly less than men - That Scientology lady must be rolling over in her grave. All the fighting for the right of women to "be their own person" and vote, only to find that it's too much trouble.
- Women not voting for frivolous reasons - The reasons cited (not created) by me were pretty solid nationally. Women are too busy, they aren't interested enough, and they don't know when an election might happen.
- Maybe I'm a crackpot - In my research of this issue, I found enough contravening evidence that anyone could have cited. Perhaps the Women's League of Voters used a tiny sample to make big conclusions. Of course, if that were true, it might have hurt the "women should still vote" arguement.
- We've wasted an amendment - All of the work, lobbying, voting, and re-voting in order to get the 19th Amendment passed is lost a little more on every new generation of girls. If it ain't about lip gloss, they don't want to know about it.
Any of these areas could be patently offensive. I'm pretty offended at all of them. And yet, nobody attacked these wide-open areas. Instead, I was just a bad, bad man.
POSTMODERNISM AND THE CHURCH
For those who don't study such boring topics, Post-Modernism is the replacement of "the facts" with, more or less, "what feels good / right". Thus if a title of a miniscule, insigificant blog posting by an obvious blowhard offends you, you should skip actually reading it and post about how offended you are.
And if you feel like a law was meant for a different situation than yours, you don't need to obey that law. Heck - it's those other people that it was created for - go get them. They're probably doing something wrong right now, anyway.
And if you feel like something in Scripture is just there as a lark and meant for a different people and/or a different culture and/or a different time, you don't really need to consider that "Scripture". Just do your own thing.
And, frankly, I haven't seen God down here cooking, cleaning, educating kids, and trying to make a husband happy, have you? So, really it is more important to you have some "you time" and recharge than worrying about God. Heck - He (or She) knows how hard you work and wouldn't want you to get too stressed out.
Welcome to the theology of the 2000s.
THE IMPACT ON YOUR FAMILIES
So, why am I going to so very, very long?
Because this has a direct impact on your kids.
If your kids are unable to take a fallacious arguement based more on emotion than fact and rip it to shreds, they will have major problems not falling into the habits of a post-modern society.
The devil is a very smart guy. He approached Jesus with Scripture (which is Truth) and slightly mis-applied it. But, to those who don't know Scripture, his arguements might sound good. And he will approach your kids the same way.
The most successful con artists are the ones that follow the example of the devil. Take some verifiable facts, mix in some base emotion (greed is most common, but others like revenge, feeling good about yourself, and recognition work, too), and take whatever you want from people.
Not coincidentally, this is what politicians on all sides do every election season. They tell half-stories based on truth to get you to either vote for them or at least drive enough doubt and/or confusion into your head so that you don't vote for his opponent.
So, are you going to vote tomorrow? Or is it too much trouble?
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Nov. 6, 2006 - Untitled Comment