Everyone Has The Right!

Yesterday I talked about voting and it was interesting to me to see how the process worked at the local fire station in our community. I heard quite a bit of complaining from folks who had to be split between locations because of the expected large turnout. A large turn out is a good thing. This meant that some who regularly voted in a familiar place had to go to a new location and often it was split between the two major parties where one would be a Democratic polling location and the other would be Republican. In ours, it wasn't split, so everyone, Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Undeclared, all voted under the same roof.

I noticed when I drove up to the polling place there were the usual signs everywhere as well as a few folks holding placards. That's not unusual at all except for the fact that I saw a young man holding an Obama placard and I thought I knew him or I knew his family. I will go ahead and admit that sometimes my head goes out on me because I immediately thought what in the world would he be doing holding an Obama placard. These folks live in my neighborhood. Surely, they are not DEMOCRATS! I told you I'm not always thinking right and how sad that a thought like this would even cross my mind. We live at a time whenever we tend to lump people together and vilify them if they don't line up with our preferences and our thoughts and ideas.

That young man had the right in this country to hold up whatever person's sign he wanted to hold up, Obama, Clinton, MaCain, Huckeby, or Bozo the clown. But there I was wondering how it would be possible for this to be the case. It's not only possible, it defines our freedom in a nutshell. I think talk radio and all the other stuff that's out there banging away at issues and shaping opinions has something to do with this labeling that happens even by osmosis. However, when you think about it, people coming to their own conclusions about their own choices and them using their own thought processes is what our nation is supposed to stand for and be about.

I grew up in rural Louisiana at a time that if you didn't vote Democratic, then you didn't vote because there were typically no other alternatives. Of course back then there was something called conservative folks who happened also to be associated with the Democratic party. And, there's every reason in the world why people associate with one party or the other. I heard an elderly lady testify once that her parents, grandparents, and their fore bearers were all Democrats and she would go to her grave being one also. Guess what? That was her choice and she had the freedom in this country to make that very choice for the very reasons she stated. I may not agree with her rationale or her commitment to this legacy but I should not only support her right to choose but respect her for exercising that right in the manner she chose.

I often remind my boys when they get all stirred up that these folks we all listen to on radio talk shows are not always right and they are also doing what they do for the money they receive. They may be for God and country but how that plays out in one person's way of looking at things may be entirely different than someone else's approach. This is America. I can have strong opinions. I can disagree with you about your conclusions. I can vote my conscience and you can do the same. What I do not have the right to do is think less of you because you don't look like me, think like me, act like me, or vote the same as I do. I had to be reminded of this as I entertained those thoughts about that young man at the polling place.

Yes, God bless America by all means, but may God help us all to honor and respect our fellow citizens as they exercise the freedoms in the way they choose, just like we do. Jesus pretty well summed it up when He said we are to love God first with every fiber of our being, and then we are to love others to the extent that our love towards them would be the same as the love we already have for ourself. I'm guessing this would include the fellow holding the Obama placard! I do hope you and yours will have a great rest of the week. .........More later.