Allen Hunt's Blog

Oh boy. Voting as a diving gift, you say? What evidence of that do you have to offer? Or is it the the classic Christian reasoning so-called. You know, something like this:

I like the right to vote.
All things I like must come from God. (corollary: all things I dislike are either due to Satan or to the Fall)
Therefore, voting is a divine gift.

Does not compute.

In reality, the process of voting is just something us humans have come up with to help govern ourselves.
If voting was really a divine gift we would not have had Electile Dysfunction in Florida in 2000. Or the current Democratic primary SNAFU.
Therefore, voting cannot possibly be a divine gift. QED.

By the way, I did my own version of Operation Chaos before it was cool. Seeing how Obama was safe I voted for Huckabee to harm Romney, since those two went after similar demographics and Romney would have been a tough general election candidate. What can I say, it worked! Huckabee won Georgia, Romney dropped out, and Republicans have a grumpy old man for a nominee. His pastor-endorser even makes Rev. Wright look like John Paul II.

It would have been even better if Huckabee had won the nomination - after all, why shouldn't Republicans have their own version of McGovern or Mondale - but I am sure McCain will do just fine.

Allen,

I have to admit I am not a frequent listener of your show the times I have had the opportunity to listen I have agreed with most everything I have heard and found that I enjoy the show-- that is until this weekend when I heard your segment / rant on Rush Limbaugh and Operation Chaos.

It isn't so much that you don't agree with Operation Chaos or you have a different opinion than I; rather it is the complete lack of understanding of the voting process, the reason Rush is doing this, the mistruths you were sending out and your twisting of callers (into Rush's show) words. I literally had to pull my car over because what you said was so maddening that I had to stop just to yell back at the radio. I am sure I looked like a total idiot to the people sitting in the grocery store parking lot.

You stated that voting was a precious gift.. which I agree with. I agree having the ability to vote is a great thing and something that we should protect at all costs. However the ability for the common person to vote for the President was never intended by the framers of the constitution -- this is why the electoral college was created. The highest office that most common people voted for in our nations early history was that of congressman. In fact the first national election I believe was in 1832. Even now in the democratic primaries we have found that the popular vote doesn't really count as it really comes down to what the Super-delegates want and even in the general election what one needs to become President is the majority of the vote from the electoral college.

You claim what Rush is going as it bastardizes a divine gift. Voting isn't a divine gift.. A divine gift is becoming a parent, a divine gift is salvation, a divine gift is a miracle. Voting is a man-made system which like everything man creates has flaws. I agree I would much rather have the ability to vote than not vote but saying that it is divine is assuming that voting at its core is pure and without flaw. The framers of the constitution knew there would be problems with the system. John Adams even once said something along the lines of the electoral college should vote for the best person for the position rather than the most popular... With that statement it is easy to see the system isn't perfect... therefor not divine.

You said on your blog "The government has no authority on its own. It receives its authority from us. How? When we vote." In part you are correct but in larger part you are wrong. Originally this was the intended philosophy of our nation but through the years we have created a Dues ex machina. That is we have through voting created a government that is self-reliant -- we have given so much power through our "vote" that the government creates authority and if we don't follow its authority we pay a penalty. There are unfortunately not enough people out there who are willing to go against the grain and fight the system and each year which passes more and more of the population gives into the system and become more and more reliant on the system.

Please keep in mind that Rush is only suggesting people do this if they want to... Rush has no more ability to make people go out and vote than the candidates themselves do. You played a call from a caller and the caller said something along the lines of "I had to go shower two times after I voted." If you would have played what came before that little snippet and then continued that clip you will hear that the caller was saying he felt dirty that he voted for Hillary not just because he voted as an operative of Operation Chaos. In fact the best part of that callers statement was when the caller said I showered two times and went to buy a beer but the beer store was closed.

Let's also keep in mind that this is just the freaking primary. This is not the general election. This election doesn't decide anything as in 170 or so days we have to turn around and make our real choice. Rush has consistently said.. if you local and state election has a large implication then he understands that you may not want to be an operative. For us conservatives / republicans our nomination was locked early on. I myself am not a McCain supporter.. my guy got out early and I can understand his doing so. I would have crossed over and voted for Clinton (and not felt bad about it or that I was bastardizing the system) but there were a few things on our local and state ballot which I felt strongly about and needed to vote on.

You were really off on this one Allen. If you are against the Operation that is fine and I believe you have the right to have a different opinion than I do. You have made some good points but they aren't really worth much as they are more feeling / belief based arguments rather than arguments based on fact.

Let me know what you think.

I appreciate your time.

I gotta say, I agree with Cory about voting not being a divine right - especially when compared to his examples: becoming a parent, salvation, and miracles.
I do think it is a right, a priviledge and a responsibility and should not be done flippantly.
I also think that no matter which side of the fence you happen to be standing on, there are three giant cow pies that cannot be avoided.
Furthermore, there are two people running who the American people basically know about. There will be relatively few surprises if one of them wins. The third candidate is shrouded in a veil of the unknown and there are too many scary possibilites (aka race war) if he should be elected.
I have no idea if "Operation Chaos" really makes a big difference or not, because when a voter steps into that booth, I'd be willing to bet that 9 times out of 10, they vote their own conscience anyway. Sure, there is strength in numbers, but in the voting booth, it's just you and the lever.

I hate to break it to y'all, but "becoming a parent" is all too natural a process, salvation is meaningless (a god is sacrificing himself to appease himself to save you from himself, gimme a break) and miracles don't happen.

I know it's a rotten deal but that's what religion does: it overpromises and underdelivers.

Gosh, don'tcha get a little tired of everything having to do with "God?" Funny that this comes up because everybody seems to have forgotten the Founding Fathers were Deists, not "Christians" in the sense we interpret the word today.

Some people could read the back of a Spaghetti O's can and think they're recieving a message from God, for crying out loud.