let me tell you how to vote

Oh, how I love October! Well, most of it, that is.

I love the cooler temps, full swing of football season, and the grateful anticipation of the holidays soon to come.

But I’m not a pumpkin spice fan, regular wearer of flannel, nor one who loves the plethora of horror movie ads that oft accompany the days leading up to Halloween.

I also, though, seriously dislike the uptick in campaigning in the weeks before election day.

It’s not just the candidates. As articulated previously, I don't believe the best people are running for office. Candidates with clear integrity, humility and lack of contradiction seem unfortunately few. It seems more an abundance of well-crafted PR campaigns. 

Behind the scenes, it’s as if the clever campaign directors manipulate the candidate… Let’s look this way, act this way, answer questions this way in order to get elected… let’s maybe, too, insulate ourselves, not taking any questions, not debating, not doing anything that allows another to pierce the image we are attempting to present. We can’t allow them to pierce our inauthenticity…

Sorry. Simply not a fan.

The ads, too, are awful. First, they are too many. Then they are dirty and full of low blows. It’s as if each campaign competes for the outlandish crud they can say about the other, with each ad getting subsequently, increasingly negative. And then one cries out how low the other’s went, failing to acknowledge their own contributions to playing the who-goes-lower-next game. Yes, ever since the 1988, notable Willie Horton ad, the parties’ ads often, eventually become awful.

Again, not a fan.

But perhaps what the Intramuralist is least a fan of is all those who join in, feeling like they can tell the rest of us how to vote.

They know best. They have been enlightened.

So let us sincerely ask the underlying question…

Is it possible for two people to come to two different, reasonable conclusions about the same thing?

If two people come to different conclusions, is only one right?

And if two people come to different conclusions, is the one who thinks differently than me automatically wrong? Maybe not wrong, but are they simply stupid?

I think what I like least about October is how obviously disrespectful some are toward others.

Let me be clear, friends. It is absolutely ok that you believe what you do. I have yet to find a singular person on this planet who thinks exactly like me. My sense is I’m not alone in that reality.

But how we handle disagreement with others is key to wisdom. It’s key to the imperative to love our neighbor well. The imperative has never been to “love the neighbor who thinks like me well”… or “love the neighbor who votes like me well…”

So to infer that the one who doesn’t think/act/vote like me is automatically wrong or stupid means not to love my neighbor well. It means not to respect them either.

That’s what I don’t like about October. I want better and more for how we consistently treat one another. 

Respectfully…

AR