Election Leftovers

[HKHaugan]

The Election Leftovers

There is one thing that has left me unsettled since the end of the election process: the way the media is scrambling to explain the election results. Their focus has been classifying voters by race, ethnicity, education and gender. There's the African American voter, Latino voter, female black voter, white male voter, urban housewife voter, inner city voter, the non-college voter and so on. What's next, the left handed and right handed voters or the fat and skinny voters? To me this is the problem at the bottom of all the divisiveness around. It is this surface definition of human beings that gets us to look at one another as categories not persons. As soon as you see another person and dehumanize them into a category their humanity disappears.

To the media people are no longer individuals with minds, hearts and souls. They are just things to be categorized and shelved for manipulation in another election. It is the very destructive nature of this kind of voter classification that infects the voting process, spreads after an election, starts riots and hinders the goal of unity. Rioters are not rioting about the value of a person but the visual category they've been told are good or bad. If there is blame to be placed it has to start with the media who make their profit from publicizing conflict. The more conflict reportage, the more profit. If you watch TV talking heads they present themselves as the superior 'in-the-know' people when in reality they are just disunity promoters. After they have gotten us all upset over their latest provocation they close with some soapy heart touching story to make themselves appear as people with a heart. Give me a break. They thrive on riots, intrigue, suggested conspiracies, leaning on so-called hidden insider sources, exalting differences for exploitation to make news then reporting what they have ignited. Frankly I'm sick of it.

To spend so much time profiling people by external categories is to work for disunity in direct contrast to the very documents that define us. Our Constitution tells us we are all created equally with unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is nothing in any of our founding documents that classify human beings in categories. Our legal system is not framed by categories but by our equality as persons. That doesn't sell by media standards.

Suppose we were to stick to issues that people believe in. The whole process would find itself in discussing who to vote for in entirely different terms. It would demand voters really be informed and those seeking office dealing with real issues instead of exploiting people's differences, the shallow externals they are presently using to define us.

Think of what that would mean in terms of our economic concerns, our concerns about immigration, abortion, military preparedness, law enforcement, veterans affairs, health plans, poverty, international issues and so on. Take immigration for instance. When it comes to dealing with people who want to enter our country, our kind of outlook on life, that is when we have to make sure that those coming in are willing to agree to our documents that guarantee our safety to exercise that freedom of personal identity. No immigrant is a category but equal as persons. However what they are coming from is not the same and they have to know what they are getting into. It's not fair to an immigrant to just say come on in without telling them what kind of system operates here and why.

It struck me as I was listening to the analysis among the different networks in the liberal and conservative spectrum talking about how the white male swung the vote. Sorry all you analysts, what I saw was a clash of personal value systems with restless hearts wanting to move forward. They were and are value systems appealing to the individual heart, the invisible yet real hearts struggling to secure individual dignity within a nation. There are no black hearts or white hearts or Latino hearts or rich hearts or poor hearts or liberal hearts or conservative hearts. There are human hearts struggling to understand and present what they believe will better their personal existence in a free nation. Now get this, a free nation defined by the documents that formed it. This in turn betters the nation. Our unity as a nation can only begin when we see each other, work with each other and plan our future with each other, as individual human hearts securing the future of this nation and its people.

Ultimately it is the heart issues that need to be placed in the open for discussion and understanding. It is not about political personalities but what people believe in and what heartstyle they are representing. It's about the heart issues that make a communal atmosphere work. It is the job of any political process to ensure that the common goal of protecting the individual as he or she develops into a mature productive person that shapes a nation. That core value is what America was founded on.

From my perspective as a Jesus follower we are all images of God with minds, hearts and spirits given equal opportunity to pursue a shared relational future that fulfills the intentions of this country's founders. Until the media and political scientists stop this anti-person exploitation of human beings and rely on superficial classification that cause separation, we are only in for more of the same divisive name calling, the childish emotionalism of rioters and their refusal and inability to live in a Constitutionally defined system. The only way to get your way is to give up your way to the One who is the Way.

[HKHaugan]

A little p.s. on this.  I just viewed Mr. Trump's interview on CBS.  If you saw it did you notice the interviewer's attempt at creating conflict with every question and that even extended to the questions given to his children?  See what I mean?  He handled it beautifully as did his children.   

[HKHaugan]

Thanks Joan,  I feel very strongly about this.  It's something we need to challenge the media about.  I doubt they'll change but let's start praying about it. ><>W

[Joan]

Once many years ago you preached about guarding our eyes and minds and being careful what we watch. That spoke straight into my spirit and I ceased looking at the news on TV. I do read enough to know what is going on.

If we stopped giving "them" an audience maybe they would change, probably not.

Recently, at your bible study, you spoke of all of us being created in the image of God. Again that hit the mark for me. If and as we begin to perceive every one as created by God, in the image OF God, to do the GOOD works He has prepared for us to walk in, then we will perceive the world and all that are in it from a very different perspective.

I am so sick of popular slogans like, "black lives matter". I want to scream ALL LIVES MATTER. I wish so bad that we would stop separating ourselves and do as you said, "we are all images of God with minds, hearts and spirits given equal opportunity to pursue a shared relational future that fulfills the intentions of this country's founders."

Everything you said is true. I have been thinking all along.