A Pilgrim's Journal

To add some background, I should probably explain my own views. I believe that abortion is murder. As such, it does not bother me that the Conservatives do not want to include abortion funding in their recent foreign aid program. I do not fully understand their reasoning or purpose behind the way they are handling this, but at least doing something good for the wrong reasons is better than doing something bad. Perhaps some lives may be saved.

To continue with the background, you may know that I am not a supporter of the Conservative party. I think that, while there are some drawbacks to having nationally funded programs such as health care, on the whole it is a huge major whopping success, and a great good for the citizens of Canada. To share each other's medical costs through the tax system is a fair and generous way of meeting everyone's needs. And there are many similar programs where the many pay a little to help the large needs of a few.

The fiscal philosophy that stems from the idea of "less government" that the Conservatives support ends up harming such programs. It may not harm the programs right away, but when you move in the direction of cutting taxes for the banks by $2-billion, that's going to end up touching government programs eventually. People get very happy at the idea of paying less tax -- until they suddenly stop receiving the services they have grown used to over the past decades. Service fees anyone?

Then there is the tendency of Conservative governments to "get tough on crime." The eagerness to lock up the guilty and throw away the key in the name of protecting the victim has a certain blindness to it. The mercy we show comes back to us, just as the condemnation we show will also come back to us. The victim needs help and protection, most surely, but the offender also needs help. Only love can help restore the victim and help the offender turn from his ways so he does not offend again.

The history of the United States under the recent years of G.W. Bush was almost terrifying to me. Here was an administration, carried to power with a solid support from the Christian right, who ended up taking the country into a large war on two fronts. And in the end, did the Christian right get the ban on abortion that they wanted? Not in the slightest.

This is the voting dilemma that I speak of. Where is a person to turn if he supports Christian morality, and yet also supports kindness shown through the government through taxes? If we vote for the Conservatives in the hope of ending the murder of abortion, we get war, crippled finances, and jails. If we vote for the Liberals or NDP in the hope of boosting health care, human rights, and justice with mercy, we get abortion.

There is no main party that solves this dilemma. If there were, I think the current parties would be left in the dust.

In the end, I have to look at the fruit of each party, and decide which to support, or whether to support any party at all. Fortunately, the Liberal/NDP side do have a solid track record of at least trying to support the kinder style of government. And just as obvious, the Conservatives are skilled at removing it. As for abortion, the Liberal/NDP side has a solid track record of supporting it. This is terrible. How can I support murder? But the Conservatives can barely even state where they stand. You can tell they are uneasy with it, but it seems they don't dare to stand against it, for fear of losing power.

So in terms of what I believe, when looking at the practical results, at least the Liberal/NDP side get something done in a major area that I support, while the Conservatives fail in both. But when I hear the current hue and cry over lack of abortion support to foreign countries, even the Liberals and NDP sound utterly distasteful.

It's almost enough to make a person stop voting altogether. But perhaps that is a topic for another blog post.