Pastor Steve Foss, First Baptist Church Sun Lakes
With election rhetoric at an all-time high and accusations flying through the Internet like the tennis balls being rocketed around the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (as I write this article), the decision to elect our national leaders is upon most minds. Just what is the purpose of an election? Is it to establish how we want the government to run for the next four years, or is it something with a much broader scope? Allow me to suggest the latter.
At every election cycle, the prognosticators and influencers try to make it about the party platform, or the person, or the latest platitudes of contemporary social justice. The election is reflected through all those variables, but that’s not what the elections were designed to reflect—at least not by our founders.
When was the last time anyone reading this article reviewed our Constitution or the Declaration of Independence? Why do either matter? They matter because they are the foundational framework from which our liberties are formed. Go too far left or too far right of our Constitution and our society is knocked off-balance. A country losing its balance is not too long for this world.
In essence, an election is about the population deciding who will best defend and protect the tenants of the Constitution. Revisionists only compromise the original standard. The Bill of Rights was not a revision to the Constitution. It was a more thorough explanation of the founders’ intents concerning individual rights. The amendments to the Constitution are revisionist in nature, hopefully, to act as a filter for creating an even firmer document protecting the freedoms of our country’s citizenry.
I’ve heard it said, “You can’t legislate morality.” But that’s exactly what legislation is. So, just whose morality are you in favor of oversight upon such an essential construct of our freedoms? That’s what an election is about. Who do you want being the night watchman over our Constitution? Voting is a privilege. Be sure to exercise that privilege on Nov. 5.