Election Season in Colorado

Given the current state of world politics, it is no surprise that this election season is one of the nastiest ever. Here in Colorado the governor's race and the House races have been especially dirty. The locally produced television ads are bad enough, but the tactics employed by the 527 groups are so over the top and deceitful they almost make me laugh.

One 527 ad portrays the Democratic candidate for governor, Bill Ritter, as having plea bargained an astonishing 97% of his cases as a state prosecutor, many involving illegal aliens. This is just 2% higher than the national average of 95%, and plea bargains by prosecutors are for guilty pleas, so what's the fuss? If he is successfully putting guilty parties behind bars, including illegal aliens, isn't that what he was hired to do? The ad makes it seem like these criminals are getting off easy and that the illegal aliens are being deported. Not so!

This ad is nothing compared to the ads directed by Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican incumbent from the 4th Congressional district, against her Democratic challenger, Angie Paccione. Each of Musgrave's ads begins with a clip of her saying, "I'm Marilyn Musgrave and I approved this ad," followed by a horrific personal attack. In one Paccione is accused of voting to approve college tuition breaks for illegal aliens ("Angie Paccione is on the wrong side of the border!"). In another, she is accused of being a deadbeat who has had financial difficulty as recently as two years ago ("Is this the kind of person we want representing Colorado?").

I find it unbearably grating when the first ads I see for a political candidate are negative. Instead of saying what they will do for us if elected or explaining their stands on crucial issues, they attack their competitors, trying to convince us that they are the lesser of two evils. If that's the best they have to offer, what's the point? It makes me want to vote for the other guy, just out of spite!

Nothing is more satisfying than to see these tactics backfire. Recent polls show the Musgrave-Paccione race to be a virtual tie, surprising when you consider that Musgrave's district north of Denver is predominantly right-wing conservative. But when you publicly make such unbelievably wrong-headed statements as, "Gay marriage is the most important issue that we face today," you deserve to go down in defeat.

Reflections on Humanism

These days it is difficult to escape the constant barrage from the Christian right. From the fish symbols and "Real Men Love Jesus" bumper stickers to Bush advocating the teaching of "intelligent design" in our public schools, there is a radical retrenching of progressive thought going on in this country. Instead of living in the moment, taking our cues for what is right and what is wrong from how we are received by our fellow human beings, an increasing number have opted to put their faith in the Bible and its ancient teachings, which profess an otherworldly origin for life and mankind's place in it. Instead of looking outward for the answers to questions like, "What is our purpose?", I look inward. I look at who I am and what I have to offer others to make this world a better place, because I believe that what we see, you and I, is all there is. We don't answer to a higher God, we answer to each other. There is no heaven and there is no hell. There is only this life and what we make of it. And we are all in this life together, so the greatest good is to do the best we can for each other--Christ's message but without Christ in it--because the reward is not in heaven, it is here in this life.

To this end, the greatest virtue becomes personal freedom. This country declared its independence for the purposes of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." One of the most disturbing trends in government today is the legislation of morality, which runs counter to everything the founding fathers had in mind. If what I do does not affect you, then why should you be able to tell me whether or not I may do it? Whatever happened to "live and let live"? If issues such as drug use, abortion and gay marriage make people uncomfortable enough that they press their legislators to pass laws against them, then the problem is with these people, not with the behavior. They need to understand that the world is made up of different people with different values, and that it is not up to them to make everyone the same. What advantage does it serve? Does it ease the conscience to know our prisons are full of drug law offenders? It would be more advantageous to society if we understood that most people are doing the best they can and that if that requires behavior other people do not agree with, then so be it.

More than anything, this resurgence of Christian fundamentalism amounts to the dumbing down of modern society. It has become acceptable to display bumper stickers with slogans like "Let go! Let God do it!" and "God is my co-pilot!" To me, this is the same thing as saying, "The universe is a complicated place and I don't understand it, so I'm going to throw up my hands in frustration and give my destiny over to God and his mystical ways, even though I don't understand them, because I have faith." Wouldn't it be more productive to think that our concept of God is a stepping stone to free thought? In simpler times, before we understood that we're all riding a small rock around a small star at the edge of a galaxy full of mostly bigger stars--some of which probably have life similar to our own circling them--in a universe that has no bounds, we needed God to explain the unexplainable. And the God concepts of heaven and hell helped to keep the masses under control, in a state of servitude toward a reward in the afterlife. We are way past that now. We know our place in the universe, at least geographically, and we know more about the workings of this planet and its inhabitants than would have been thought possible just a hundred years ago. We have invented technology and medicine that have made our lives longer, healthier and more comfortable than they even need to be. But instead of looking ahead to what new discoveries we might make, many in society have chosen to look backward, almost in nostalgia, to the simpler times. If we believe the Bible, Christ lived and died as an example to us of how we should live. It is time for us to take his example and apply it to our modern situation: Don't live in fear of spiritual retribution for perceived sins. Rather live for each other, in trust and empathy, that we all may prosper in this life. Think for yourself!