Lions and Eagles

Last time I did one of these voting guides, I had some friends say, "Thanks, but we need one page we can just print off and take to the ballot box!" Well, here you go! Here's the quick list (along with links to get back to my reasoning, just in case you want to check my work).

Part three of this November's voting guide, now we tackle the ballot questions! Two Constitutional Amendments, one Tax! Unless I decide to wade into the Presidential race at some point later on, this will be the last of it. Please read on....

Now for the next race on my November ballot: Fayette County Board of Education:

Hey, we're almost down to a month before Election Day! The voting guide I did for the primary was such a huge help, especially for the local races, I'm going to do it again! I'm going to skip over the Presidential election for now. We can come back to that later, if we have time. I want to focus for a bit on those easily-missed races, the state and local offices and the ballot questions. Those offices are much closer to home than the Presidency, and all too often we just don't give them the attention they deserve. Let's start with the Georgia Public Service Commission. We have two seats up on the ballot for this race. For the primary, I voted for one incumbent, and against another. I'm going to do so again this time around. Here's why:

I voted today! Have you voted yet? Here's just a quick one-page cheat-sheet version of my voting guide, I printed this out and brought it to the ballot box this morning: Public Service Commissioner 1: Chuck Eaton Public Service Commissioner 2: Pam Davidson House of Representatives: Kent Kingsley Sheriff: Barry Babb Tax Commissioner: George Wingo County Commissioner 1: Charles W. Oddo County Commissioner 2: David Barlow County Commissioner 3: Randy C. Ognio Board of Education 1: Barry Marchman Board of Education 2: Mary Kay Bacallo State Court: Carla McMillian Magistrate Court: Jason B. Thompson Gambling: No Ending unlimited gifts: Yes Gun licenses for young military: Yes Closing primaries: No Personhood: No T-SPLOST: No Package sales: Yes

Quick update to my voting guide, I'm changing my vote for U.S. Representative. Details below.

Last part of my voting guide. In this one, I tackle the issues questions. As a bonus, I've looked at both the Republican and Democratic party ballots. Then there are a couple of really important Special Election Referendum items that are going to be on both ballots.

The county and local races can get very contentious. Just a standard disclaimer here, I don't know any of the candidates personally, and I don't have any connection to any campaigns. All that I have to say is based on wading through news accounts, campaign web sites, and other easily available information. I'm judging the candidates based on what they have to say about themselves, and what others have to say about them.

Consider this my little "civic duty" of the week. In the interest of trying to feel like I'm a "semi-informed voter", I've been doing some research into the various races for the upcoming July 31st ballot. I'm focusing on the Republican ballot, because that's the one I'll be using. I'll italicize my personal choices in the list below. For the first round, here are the Republican nominees for Public Service Commissioner and the House of Representatives.

In reply to my last post , I've been asked: So where do these inalienable rights you mention come from? And at what point die they emerge? And do animals have them? Are there any circumstances when these rights could be denied? We are getting into deep philosophical waters here. You asked, and I'll answer. I don't necessarily expect you to agree with me, but we can disagree respectfully. As I said, the idea of a "right" is as I understand it is tied up with the idea of what it means to be human, to be capable of ethical and moral judgement, with a sense of right and wrong. It has to do with living in right relationships with each other as human beings. Who can have the authority to impose such hefty definitions on humanity? That is, I think, a truly God-like power. I happen to believe in the existence of a Creator who exists ouside of time and the universe. As the Declaration of Independence says, I believe that all humans are "endowed by their Creator...

A Facebook poster made this comment on a discussion about "health care as a human right": Rights are something that emerge over time, but only after a fight of one kind or another. Consider the right to vote, for example. We have expanded that right over time, at least in modern industrialized countries. With regard to healthcare, the argument is whether we as a society are ready to acknowledge (or grant if you prefer) that right for every person. We can certainly afford it. It is only a matter of priorities. I was inspired to give this reply: Judith: You and I have different concepts of what rights are and where they come from. I'm not saying this to pass judgement, just to point out that we are going to come to different conclusions from our different starting points. I underst and that you believe rights are something created or granted by society, or government. From my perspective, rights are something transcendent, something intrinsic to what it me...

This post is in response to a Facebook discussion . A poster asked me a question, and the answer got to be... well, a little long. So I decided to blog my reply. First, the question posed: I will ask one question: did you pick who you would be attracted to or is the gender choice of your partner part of who you are? Your answer responds to your assertion that who you love is different from who you are. And I do not understand how a god who preaches love and acceptance of all can conclude that people who love one another are damned to be eternally different. Chris: I don't remember asserting that specifically, but I will try to answer your question. Your question is phrased in a way which makes me think that what you think I believe is not quite what I believe. In order to be clear in my answer, I am going to have to share something of what God has done in my life. This does not mean I want to impose my religion on you. I am simply telling my story from my perspective. Take fro...

Something caught my attention last night while watching Cold Case . In one of the flashbacks, a young teacher/would-be minister was counselling a club of teens. He told one girl, "God doesn't judge you." What? Where is this in the bible? I understand, there are a lot of bad representations of Christianity out there. Not all of them are the fault of "the media". Sometimes we as Christians take what we hope and believe personally, and hold it out for the world to see as "what Christians believe", when said beliefs may have no real theological basis. In this story, the character turned out to be not the kind of person you'd want as either a teacher or a minister to begin with. My name means "God is my judge". What kind of universe would we live in if He didn't? Many "atheists" and anti-Christians accuse God of being unjust, unfair, cruel, and heartless. But, if God is not just, then where did we humans get this idea of just...

From an article at The Blaze : Polling places often include schools, churches and some other public buildings. A growing body of research states that the location of where you cast you vote could be influencing those decisions to an extent, a factor called “priming.” A new study from Baylor University found that of those in England and the Netherlands who stopped to take a survey near a Christian church were likely to report themselves as more politically conservative and had a more negative attitude toward non-Christians, compared to those answering survey questions near a government building. I see just a few flaws in the assumptions here: Correlation, causation. They have demonstrated that a set of people who answer a survey in one location tend to be "conservative", and a different set of people answering the same survey tend to be more "liberal", using their own definitions of conservative and liberal.  "Church-going" does not always mean "...