This beautiful exchange

The recent primary elections have brought politics to the forefront of most of our minds and conversations. This morning, I was encouraged to express my thoughts after reading Derek’s blog ( click here ). Apparently, we have been thinking along the same lines. I am totally ripping this first part off of my brother’s blog. My own thoughts follow.

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“If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, us bear at best only a symbolical elation to what will truly satisfy.

“… almost all our modern philosophies [or campaigns] have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth [this america]. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such [campaigns] of Progress or Creative Evolution [change] themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth [america] is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that [america] can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in [america] as it is [or whichever given administration]. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a god way off in the future [beginning next january], thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man [in america], yet still each generation [or administration] would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever. Hence all the nonsense that Mr. Shaw puts into the final speech of Lilith, and Bergson’s remark that the elan vital is capable of surmounting all obstacles [yes, we can], perhaps even death [yes we can]– as if we could believe that an social or biological development on this planet [or this country] will delay the senility of the sun or reverse the second law of thermodynamics.” -from The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis (brackets mine)

with this in mind, go see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
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Over the past few years I have grown more and more confident of the fact that politics, especially American politics, will not save the world or truly make it a better place overall. Now, that does not mean that we should not try to do good or help out those around us who are in need. I definitely believe that we are called to be a light in this world, but that lights comes from Jesus Christ, not any certain politician or feel-good rhetoric. I think that it is a very dangerous thing to vote for a candidate based on how they make you “feel” or the grandiose promises that they make regarding a worldwide change. No foreign politician is going to be able to stop the violence in Africa or the Mideast. No American President is going to be able to overcome differing perspectives to bring about widespread unity. No policy, Democratic or Republican, will be able to erase human greed.

So, when we vote, we should vote based on issues that we believe will create the most benefit, not based on emotions built up by promises that cannot possibly be kept. It is a foolish candidate who bases his or her campaign on feel-good ideals that they cannot realize. And, it is a foolish constituent who bases his or her vote on false hope of saving the world through a man-made institution.