Like Night and Day

Some years ago, for an election, I prayed that the differences would be obvious, so that when the people make a choice, it is for what is real, and not for what they have been deceived into believing.

Like a sunrise, with light beginning to glow, then brightening, as day dawns, that clarity has been coming. It is now the brilliant explosion of light that happens as a dawning sun rises above a mountain. It’s almost glaring.

So there ought to be no difficulty in seeing which side brings light and which side brings darkness. This, despite the MSM attempts to sell a false narrative. So there’s a caveat about seeing this light of truth: you have to open your eyes. As the scriptures put it, have eyes to see and ears to hear.

With this sharp contrast, I thought it might be an appropriate time to do a side-by-side comparison of how well the different sides align with the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization—and away from tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

The Spherical Model
Political, Economic, and Social spheres

As a refresher, here’s the thumbnail version of the principles.

Political Sphere—toward freedom (For more detail, read this.)

·       Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government?

·       Does the policy infringe in any way on God-given natural rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights?

·       Is the idea being debated a proper role of government: some aspect of protection (including national defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency to protect the value of wealth, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution?

·       Is the perspective appropriately local? It is important that any issue be handled at the most local level possible.

Economic Sphere—toward prosperity (For more detail, read this.)

·       Is the person who did the work the one deciding how to use the fruits of that labor?

·       Is voluntary charity/philanthropy the method of taking care of the needs for food, shelter, and medical care of those who cannot meet their own needs.

Social Sphere—toward civilization (For more detail, read this, and this.)

·       Is the society a free and open religious society?

·       Through laws, mores, tastes, institutions, and behaviors, does the society honor God, life, family, truth, and property ownership?

·       Does the society recognize, protect, and preserve the family—married mother and father raising their children—as the basic unit of civilization?

Those are the ingredients necessary for life in the northern hemisphere.

So, if you’re going to decide how to vote, there’s the standard. The standard is not, is this a nice person? Does this person have good intentions? Does this person sound smarter than I am, or smarter than the other candidate? Does this person have an innate right to rule over me because of some elite status? Is this person more popular than the other candidate? Throw all that out and use the actual standard.

So let’s take a look at the two major sides. This is, of course, my wording. I’m sure the “blue” side would “not say it that way.” But I have attempted to accurately say their views without embellishment.

 

Trump/Republican	↑ or ↓	Biden/Democrat	↑ or ↓
The Constitution is the basic rule of law for our Republic. We believe it is inspired, and the best system of government ever devised on earth.	↑	The majority opinion is the ruling factor in our laws. A constitution is just a paper and was written for its own time, not ours.	↓
We believe that, in order to have the rule of law, judges must adhere to the actual written language of the law.	↑	We believe that the law is what the judge decides it is in order to get the outcome we believe is the right outcome.	↓
We believe the federal government is limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution; all other rights are reserved by the states and by the people.	↑	We believe the federal government has the right to do what it deems is in the best interests of the government. If a large enough interest asks for something, the federal government is empowered to provide it.	↓
We believe in encouraging the free exercise of religion, unhindered by government. We encourage people to be religious in order to be self-governing.	↑	Religion is tolerable in private, but it shouldn’t extend to where it can make someone uncomfortable—with the exception of Islam, which we go out of our way to accommodate to show we are not Islamophobic.	↓
We encourage freedom of speech, especially on issues of disagreement.	↑	We should protect people from speech they find offensive, because speech is violence. We claim the right to shut down speech we don’t like in any forum or platform we choose.	↓
We encourage the freedom to peaceably assemble, for worship, learning, socializing, and even protesting.	↑	Government should decide whether people have the right to assemble, but we can curtail it, for example, in times of a widespread disease. Also, we retain the right to declare a protest we approve of as safe from disease, and we’ll call a riot peaceful if we approve of the message.	↓
We have an inherent right to self-defense, which must include the right to own and bear arms.	↑	Government should decide when/if a person should be allowed a weapon or even permission to defend themselves; nor should a person assume they have the right to have the police protect them or their property—that is an artifact of their white privilege.	↓
America is an exceptional nation, based on ideals of equal opportunity. It is inherently good, and remains so as much as we adhere to the ideals of our founding.	↑	America is inherently racist and evil. Overthrow is better than small improvements. Since blacks were enslaved, they should now be given power.	↓
All human beings are created equal before the law. We measure the content of a person’s character, rather than the color of their skin.	↑	Since America is inherently racist, the solution is to be racist against anyone of a race that wasn’t previously oppressed.	↓
We will maintain our freedoms and sovereignty by standing strong against our enemies, foreign and domestic, and standing with our allies.	↑	We have been oppressing the world by being a superpower, so we should allow ourselves to be weakened, and hope that mollifying our enemies will convince them to treat us more mercifully than we deserve.	↓
We work to protect the innocent and the victims of crime, using lawful justice, including at times capital punishment for heinous crimes such as aggravated capital murder.	↑	We work to protect the perpetrators of crime, who are the victims of an inherently unjust society. We oppose capital punishment, since that is taking a life.	↓
We believe in protecting innocent life, which begins in the womb, where it is a separate human being from the mother, and as a human being is entitled to human dignity and care.	↑	We believe in a woman’s right to choose whether her fetus should be allowed to live; it isn’t a life unless she wants it to be a life—up until birth. And we should be open to a conversation about post-birth abortion. Also, taxpayers should pay for abortions and birth control, since those are a woman’s rights.	↓
We believe in end-of-life care that honors life; we oppose euthanasia or assisted suicide. And we oppose hospital panels determining, against the will of the patient and family, to terminate life-sustaining care.	↑	We believe in the dignity of a worthwhile life, but when life is no longer productive, or is a drain on societal resources, ending a life should be an acceptable choice for whoever is making the decision.	↓
We believe in the free and fair exchange that happens in a free market; government should protect the free market from monopolies and illegal dealings, but should otherwise get out of the way.	↑	We believe in more government control of the economy, to determine what businesses can open, what they must pay, what benefits they must offer, and we will use regulatory agencies to make the laws governing commerce, and to adjudicate and employ penalties for those laws.	↓
We believe the person who does the work, takes the risks, and earns the money should decide how to spend it.	↑	We believe that government should decide when a person has more than they need so that their surplus can be taken and given to someone it decides is more worthy to use that money.	↓
We honor those who risk their lives to keep us safe: the military, the police, firefighters, and other first responders.	↑	We see systemic racism in our police forces and call for defunding them. We purposely cut spending for our military. But we’re willing to support those that unions tell us to support.	↓
We believe education is an essential part of preparing our next generation to sustain this nation’s greatness, but the federal role is support and information; states take on the role of public education; parents above all own the responsibility for what, how, and where their children will be taught.	↑	We believe education is an excellent tool for molding the type of citizen we want. We therefore use schools for indoctrination and inculcation of our chosen doctrines. We unite with teachers’ unions and experts in academia to determine what, where, and how children should be taught. Parents should get out of the way and let the experts handle it. We oppose school choice in any form.	↓
We believe, and we’re in agreement with thousands of years of history and all the social science, that a married mother and father are the best ones to raise their children. We therefore honor and protect family as the basic unit of civilization.	↑	We believe that sex is a natural and normal human requirement, in any and all its forms, and therefore any sexual relationship should be given equal honor with that antiquated idea of traditional marriage. After all, it is government that determines what is best for children, and we will update the definition of marriage and civilization as we see fit.	↓
We believe in remembering and honoring our heritage. We behold with reverence our monuments and memorials, and remember those who contributed to our great history. We love our flag, our pledge, and the many reverent places that remind us where we’ve been and what it takes to go forward. “Americans build their future. We don’t tear down our past.”[i]	↑	We believe that progress is evolutionary and inevitable, so we don’t need to learn from history. Instead, we’ll eschew the past and all its symbols. We look to modern sources for the ideas of our time: Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, the Green New Deal, the United Nations, international NGOs,	↓

 

This list is clearly not exhaustive. But it’s enough to show a clear pattern, useful for this upcoming election. During President Trump’s acceptance speech, which I listened to before I finished writing, he mentioned this too. It’s like the difference between light and darkness.

It’s clear that one side is about freedom, prosperity, and civilization. The other side, regardless of their rhetoric, is about tyranny—ruling over the people who give them any power. And about poverty—which has been the result every time their controlled economy theories have been tried. And about savagery—which we see on the riot-ruined streets of our country right now.

My words are probably not the last word. Here’s someone’s compilation, on Facebook, answering the question, “What Has Trump ActuallyDone?” And here is the Trump/Pence campaign page on what they plan to do in a second term. 

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[i] From President Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, August 27, 2020.