Politics is Ugly

Politics is Ugly February 2, 2025 I don't remember exactly when I begin to know politics was ugly. My dad was a judge. He served three consecutive two-year terms as probate and juvenile judge of Shawnee County, Kansas. He was a local celebrity, written up in the paper frequently, with respect to specific cases. His picture is still posted in the courtroom where he presided; I inherited his scrapbooks. He was a star. Many said he should have been governor. But that never happened. He lost in his bid for lieutenant governor of Kansas in 1958, and then he got out, went back to private practice. He was respected in the community and he was remembered by some as the last of the gentleman lawyers in Topeka. I remember two things about the ugliness of politics. The schmoozing. As a child, I could smell phoniness. I don't know if that was just being a child or because my dad was in politics, but I knew people at these gatherings were just trying to gain favor with everybody. I didn't like those gatherings. The other thing was the way the Democrats tried to slander him when he was running for lieutenant governor. It had to do with fees he collected in a case relative to a mental patient or something. I don't remember exactly, but it boiled down to the Democrats accusing him of wrongly collecting fees, based on a law that only became a law after the fee in question was collected. I still remember the sting of that. They lied, and falsely accused my dad who was well-known as a straight shooter, a good person, an ethical person, and very popular. He treated everybody like they were the most important person in the world, and, of course, women loved him, and he loved them, apparently. My parents divorced that same year. The reason the memory of that is so clear is because my father made tapes of the radio broadcasts, and he spoke about it on the radio, just one statement about the last minute, under-handed attempt to smear him before the election. Anyway, people should know that much of the back-and-forth that goes on during political races is hyperbole and empty rhetoric and flat-out lies. Our representatives and senators at every level work together day in and day out. They have to relate to each other other than by constant sniping and name-calling. It just makes for interesting press, and people eat it up. I don't think everybody understands that. So then they accuse each other of lying and they know they are lying too. Each side accuses the other side of things they know the people fear, such as taking away Social Security and Medicare and "destroying our democracy." Both sides manipulate the people with fear. I don't know if everybody understands that or not. I understand it, have understood it from a child, and things haven't changed that much, except the world has become more evil and politics more corrupt. All of this is both interesting and disgusting. It's like we crave it even though we know it's toxic. It's like my interest in true crime. Why? Because it's happening to someone else, most likely. We all know that we could commit those crimes. We have the same sinful nature as everybody else. Maybe we haven't committed murder, but we've thought about it, or, like Jesus said, we have been "angry without a cause," which he said was as bad as murder. Looking at someone with lust is as bad as committing adultery, he said. It's all about what's in our heart. People should know and understand that the sin nature is operating at some level in all of us and we have to be its master. Jesus came to take away our sin, and if we belong to him and have repented of our sin, come to him for salvation, we are saved from the eternal punishment of our sin, but we will still struggle to some extent or another with it all our days on Earth. So, I just want to say we need to take some of these terrible things that are happening in politics right now with a little salt. Maybe we need to turn off our favorite talk show or TV news program, give the talking heads the brush-off for a while. I don't mean stick our head in the sand and never know what is happening. If we want to continue to have self government, we need to be informed citizens. I tell this to kids all the time who have no motivation to learn how to read or write or discuss things intelligently. So I'm not saying stop watching the news. What I am saying is give it a rest sometimes. It's exhausting trying to solve all the world's problems all the time. Yes, politics is ugly, but it doesn't have to rule our lives. We are actually supposed to be praying for our people in government, anyway, not just arguing about them and hating them, etc. It is very tempting, of course, because we are as bad as they are in our own way. That's probably the reason we love to talk about them all the time; it keeps us from looking at ourselves. Well, that's all I wanted to talk about tonight. It is ugly, but it is not the only thing we need to concern ourselves with. It will make us sick and crazy, so let me just end with one of my favorite verses: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things" (Philippians 4:8). And, now, goodnight, have a good week. -