This blog post by Isaac Botkin (author of Outside Hollywood) is interesting:
“The Global Election”
One Obama supporter from India described his position: “I find it disquieting to think of someone in a position of power whose decisions might be influenced by religion.”
This is an idea that I’ve heard over and over again, usually from whiny Westerners who owe almost everything they have to the Christian character of their ancestors. It is a much more understandable sentiment from someone whose country is teetering between the lunacy of Hinduism and the brutality of Islam, but it is still impossible.
All leaders, voters, and internet commenters will be influenced by religion. All ideological belief systems are equally religious and equally influential, whether they point to a god, a man, a system of government, or even just a collection of widely-adopted cultural principles.
The belief that government must not be run like a business is a moral and religious idea. The convictions that gun ownership is wrong, that self defense is right, that the State can deem what is fair, or that man should be free – these are all equally religious ideas. They are moral frameworks will direct the thinking of anyone who holds them. Everyone on earth has a cultural bias, an ideological system, a religion.
This is why moral relativism doesn’t work, and why a transcendent standard is needed. Without standards, labels like “liberal” and “conservative” can move so far that they stop meaning anything. By moving away from standards, countries and cultures will keep moving and not even realize it.
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