Why I’m voting for Obama

Contributed
Published: October 9, 2008

To the editor,
In my relatively short time in this world, I have lived through several important elections. But none is as vital to the conscience of America as this one.
The last eight years have brought horror from both without and within. Natural disasters, if not to be expected, are to be prepared for. With leadership, alertness and careful foresight, their damages can be minimized. We have seen what cronyism and inept leadership can do in recent situations in Louisiana.
Natural disasters happen. Manmade ones are created, and unacceptable.
Manmade disasters like: the lust for blood vengeance in the wake of September 11 causing us to take our eyes off of the culprits hiding in Afghanistan/Pakistan; the acceptance of torture and the abandonment of law and humanity as a means to exact information; forsaking foresightedness in eliminating our “addiction” to oil; partisan politics tainting the halls of justice; revealing the identity of a covert agent for spite; illegal surveillance in the affairs of innocent people; greed speeding the collapse of our financial system… All of these could have been avoided with clear-headedness and purpose in recognizing the effects on all of us, not just the partisan and privileged few.
We are not an empire. Empires fail--all of them, throughout time.
Having grown up in the Baptist church, the abandonment of the principles of Jesus and true Christian charity is the most appalling. Acceptance and forgiveness have been forsaken for pettiness, selfishness, politics and revenge. That’s not the Christianity I know.
We have, in Virginia, the privilege of living in a seat of our nation’s history. Recently, I had the opportunity to revisit neighboring Montpelier, the home of James Madison.
In the restored study where the Bill of Rights was drafted, I looked from where he may have written this pillar of our national conscience, through the windows, towards the mountains.
From his view, I wondered what he might have thought about what his country has become. And, I also recalled Louisa County’s Patrick Henry, and his impassioned speech to the House of Burgesses, “give me liberty, or give me death”. Where have those convictions gone?
Though I will vote for Barack Obama, it is not my place to tell others in whom they should place their trust. But, only in an atmosphere where we include all of our citizens and forsake the money-changers and the select and solemnly consider our position in the world will our country stand.
Scott S. Shisler
Orange