2008 election is of utmost importance

Scott S. Shisler Orange County
Published: October 5, 2008

In my relatively short time in this world, I have lived through several important elections. But none is as vital to the conscience of America as this one.

The last eight years have brought horror from both without and within. Natural disasters, if not to be expected, are to be prepared for. With leadership, alertness and careful foresight, their damages can be minimized. We have seen what cronyism and inept leadership can do in recent situations in Louisiana.

Natural disasters happen. Man-made ones are created, and unacceptable.
Man-made disasters such as: the lust for blood vengeance in the wake of Sept. 11, causing us to take our eyes off of the culprits hiding in Afghanistan/Pakistan; the acceptance of torture and the abandonment of law and humanity as a means to exact information; forsaking foresightedness in eliminating our “addiction” to oil; partisan politics tainting the halls of the Justice Department; revealing the identity of a covert agent for spite; illegal surveillance in the affairs of innocent people; greed speeding the collapse of our financial system — all of these could have been avoided with clear-headedness and purpose in recognizing the effects on all of us, not just the partisan and privileged few.

We are not an empire. Empires fail. All of them, throughout time.
Having grown up in the Baptist church, I find the abandonment of the principles of Jesus and true Christian charity to be the most appalling. Acceptance and forgiveness have been forsaken for pettiness, selfishness, politics and revenge. That’s not the Christianity I know.
We have, in Virginia, the privilege of living in a seat of our nation’s history. Montpelier, the home of James Madison. In the restored study of Montpelier, where James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights, I looked through the windows, toward the mountains. I wondered what he might have thought about what his country has become. And, I also recalled Louisa County’s Patrick Henry, and his impassioned speech to the House of Burgesses, “Give me Liberty, or give me Death.” Where have those convictions gone?

Though I will vote for Barack Obama, it is not my place to tell others in whom they should place their trust. But, only in an atmosphere where we include all of our citizens and forsake the money-changers, and solemnly consider our position in the world, will our country stand.