HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR CONSCIENCE TODAY?

Voting Your Conscience - The Right Answer?

I've been pondering this concept of "voting your conscience" for a long time now. I am one who has been completely disgusted with the results of our national political process for many years now. As a nation we are allowing ourselves to be "hi-jacked" by an entire generation of political corruption masquerading as "progress" and "change". This progress and change are actually destroying our nation and the freedoms that we supposedly hold so dear.

Why is it happening?

Because very few of us are actually willing to study and learn the true principles that govern obtaining and maintaining true liberty and freedom in this world. This world and in fact our entire universe is governed by unchangeable principles or laws of nature that say, if you take this action, then this will always be the result. Those things are real. We cannot change them. The concept that there is no such thing as absolute truth, is one of the biggest falsehoods that has ever been perpetrated upon mankind. It is so misguided that it holds within itself the obvious truths of its own foolishness!

We can either learn to live in harmony with these true principles and bring great results upon ourselves or we can play with fire and loudly proclaim that they do not exist and that we can act any way that we want to and still get the results that we think will happen just because we say so. The only possible outcome of the second choice is a loss of our freedoms and our liberty.

So why this discussion on the eve of this election? Because I am still hearing so many of my friends loudly proclaiming that they are going to "vote their conscience" rather than vote for either of the two major candidates. Is that a legitimate, principle-based position to take? Many, many people think so. I happen to disagree.

Here's why.

At my age, I have had the distinct misfortune of living through two of the worst presidencies in the history of this country. Why were they so bad? Because they have managed to do more damage to the principles that this nation was founded on, which have produced an absolutely unprecedented amount of freedom at every level of society than ever before in the history of the earth. In their combined years in office they have introduced measures and violated powers that have set in motion forces that will ultimately destroy our nation and wipe true freedom from the face of the earth.

All of their misguided actions have been tolerated because they were done in the name of greater freedoms for one specific group or another or to protect us from ourselves. Both of these concepts are in direct violation of the true principles that govern real liberty.

Again, back to why I am so opposed to "voting your conscience"... Both of these presidents were handed the office because we had a major chunk of our voting population who were philosophically opposed to that candidate and would never vote for them. However they also didn't like the other major party opposing candidate either and couldn't "morally" bring themselves to vote for that one either.

Unfortunately both of these races were close enough that  when a large enough block of the potential supporters of the "lesser of two evils" candidate were distracted by the misguided notion of "voting their conscience" for a third party candidate who may have been a "morally" stronger person but who had no statistical chance of winning,...we effectively handed the most powerful office in the world to the worst possible person we could have put there.

I see that exact scenario developing again today.

Now anybody that knows me knows that morals are deeply important to me. What we must never fail to understand is that we must carefully watch ourselves to see that our "morals" are actually built upon a foundation of true principles and that they (our morals) actually bring about a correct result when we apply them. If when we follow our beliefs (morals) and they bring about a result that we really didn't want, then we must question whether we really acted upon a true principle or just upon our own personal belief system which, by its very nature, has the inherent potential to be flawed because we may not have taken the time to evaluate it properly.

If our "morals" lead us by default to place the person who is most dangerous to our freedoms into office because we pulled our vote away from the one candidate who had any chance of defeating them, then our "morals" and our "conscience" failed us!

The sad reality is that one of the two major party candidates WILL BE our next president, period...end of story. Like you, and almost everyone else I talk with, I am deeply disgusted with our choices.

In my never to be too humble opinion, one of them has a distinct agenda that will destroy this nation and the freedoms and liberties that its principles have created. The other, no matter how misguided and morally bankrupt they may be, at least believes that they are going to strengthen our nation.

That is a fundamental, philosophical difference that matters a tremendous amount to our future. 

The race is close enough that you can put the worst possible choice of the two into the most powerful office in the world by either voting directly for them or by "voting your conscience" for somebody who has no possible chance of winning and thereby drawing away your vote from the only person who could defeat them. It is as simple as that...period.

Now, I've got to address two critical arguments here.

First, the "lesser of two evils" - Many of my friends are attributing this comment to a certain person whom we all have a great deal of respect for. From everything I have been able to ascertain, this is a misquote. Besides that, I think I have made a reasonable argument to support that it is a principally flawed concept in the first place. Voting for the lesser of two evils still being a vote for evil, doesn't really hold water in the first place because many, many of our political choices boil down to that same scenario whether we know it or not.

The bigger answer lies in the real truth behind "voting your conscience".

The real place for exercising our "conscience" is in what we do in the next four years leading up to the next election. We as a nation should be working together to prepare a candidate who would be worthy of our vote because they actually understand the principles that govern true freedom and liberty. We also, if we truly have a conscience, should be doing everything that we can to educate ourselves, our friends and neighbors more on the true foundational principles of freedom and liberty.

Our founding fathers clearly stated that the freedoms and liberties that they put into motion for us could never be maintained by an ignorant people. Why? Because ignorance leads to selfishness, and selfishness opens you up to being manipulated by a more powerful group of people with an agenda that could destroy everyone's freedoms by deciet and false promises.

I hope you will ponder this thoughtfully and that it has an impact on what you do at the polls.

Besides that, I hope that you have an awesome day!

COMMUNITY

The Power of Community in Your Life

I wonder if most people really understand how much the communities that we associate with can influence all of our habits, actions, choices and outcomes in our lives?

If we do realize that, do we also understand that we have the power to choose who we do associate with?

There is a principle out there called "The Power of Association". What it boils down to is that we as humans have a natural tendency to become like those who we spend the most time around. Think back to your childhood. Did your parents ever tell you that they didn't want you hanging around "Little Johnnie" who lived down the street because he was always getting into trouble? They didn't want you to be drawn in to joining him in his delinquent activities.

Never had your parents say something like that to you? Maybe you were the "Little Johnnie" in your neighborhood? Food for thought!

Here's the funny part about that whole scenario. At what age do we grow out of that tendency? Is it 18 or so when we finally get out of high school? Nope, all you have to do is look at how many college kids get sucked into all kinds of bad habits when they are off without parental supervision 24/7.

What about when we finally get out of college and become a working adult? Nope, wrong again!

The real truth is that we never grow out of that stage. It is a fundamental trait of human nature. If we never learn the concept and the power it has to shape and mold our lives, we will unwittingly begin to conform to the actions, habits and thought processes of those people who we spend the most time around.

This will continue happening to us even when we are 90 years old, if we survive that long! I do suspect that as we approach our more elderly years that many people begin to discover this more and more on their own and at least develop some tendencies to be slower to adopt new traits from the community around them. You know, the old, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" concept! However, I'm sure that it still exists as a fundamental human tendency.

There are long term studies out there that show that, if we take the average of the 5 people around us who we spend the most time around, in almost any category, that will be a pretty good description of our personal condition in that category. That can apply to areas like our jobs, our marriages, our children and family life, our finances, the general types of cars we drive, our social habits, our religious beliefs and on and on.

We become like the people we spend the most time around. Either that or we tend to find and settle in to communities where the majority of the people are much like ourselves because that is where we find ourselves the most comfortable. THEN, we begin to assimilate many other of the traits that our chosen community possesses.

Do we have the power to resist or control this process in our own lives or is it inevitable?

Yes we do...IF we are aware of the fact that this tendency exists.

It is not hard to look around us and find those within almost any group of people who choose not to conform to the norms around them in every way. Take a work situation for example. There may be a few people in any job setting who feel compelled to be in a certain work environment because they feel like they don't have any real choice in the matter. Yet, they are aware that the social norms among their fellow workers do not conform to their religious or moral standards so they make a concerted effort to consciously keep themselves from accepting and slipping into the thought and action patterns of their co-workers.

However, if we look outside of the narrow parameters of their existing belief system, we may find that many other parts of their life still conform to the group!

So why all of this seemingly negative discussion here?

Because the fact is that there is a flip side to this principle as well! That is, that if we wish to change some aspect of our lives in a more positive direction, we can do so by consciously changing the communities of people that we spend the most time with! We can change the influences that surround us on a daily basis by changing the people we choose to spend our time with!

Look for groups of people who are where you want to be in your life or seem to have habits that you want to develop. For instance, if you want to begin taking better care of your health, wouldn't it make more sense to quit hanging around your group of buddies who value coming home in the evening and popping a can of beer or soda and sitting in front of the TV all evening. Instead of that, head down to the gym and start spending your time around people who are working out and talking about taking care of their health every day!

This can apply to any area of your life.

Want a better marriage or family life? Find a group of people with great results in that area and spend time with them.

Want to make more money? It will be hard to do if you allow the thinking processes of your current group of friends to influence your decisions in that area. If they don't have the results that you want, be very cautious about taking their advice seriously.

Want to get your spiritual life in order? I can promise you that those who are influencing you in that area right now are not going to help you grow your faith all of a sudden. It is going to require that you seek out a new community to associate with where a healthy spiritual life is the norm instead of the exception.

It works in almost any area of your life! Beware of your "Little Johnnies"!

Here is a special danger zone to watch out for too. Sometimes our "Little Johnnies" are lurking in groups of people who we have been taught to just naturally trust. Those can be in groups that can seem to be pretty benign on the surface. A couple that come to mind are our families or our schools and even our churches. All of these areas, under normal circumstances should be places of refuge and safety from bad thinking processes. But they are not always so.

Keep a weather eye out for people in your community who tend to be negative, critical or caustic about the areas where you wish to make changes and improvements in your life.

Our God made this world a place of marvelous abundance and also made us with the incredible ability to chase excellence and literally change ourselves to become anything that we desire. Never let your community obscure that truth from your thinking processes! Surround yourself with those who will support your aspirations and encourage your pursuit of excellence!

Have an awesome day!