February 24, 2011

Weighing in a bit on politics

7 comments
I don't usually blog about politics because I don't consider myself very knowledgable on the subject. I am principly a theologian, and my understanding of politics is more theorhetical than practical.

However, I have found some of the discussion surrounding President Barak Obama lately interesting. President Obama, in my opinion, is someone who doesn't seem to understand that people disagree with him. He seems to view any detractor as a fringe subversive, rather than as a respected opponent. This has caused him to act in rather uncooth ways in regards to how he pushes his agenda.

Two recent events I think have really clarified this. First of all, there is the entire affair regarding the Honorable Judge Vinson. Vinson declares Obama's healthcare to be unconstitutional, yet Obama continued to enforce it. Techiniquely, as I understand it, the bill is in limbo until it is heard by the Supreme Court. Thus Obama has no actual authority to enforce anything, yet he still attempted to.

A second thing is the recent attack on DOMA, which I think it his attempt to say "Look I really am for the constitution" in a way that still is consistant with his overall agenda. However, ironically, DOMA doesn't really go against the constitution at all. It merely says that the federal government isn't allowed to use the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution to get around state decisions on gay marriage. There are really only two sections to DOMA, considering the section 1 is just naming the thing: Article 2 which is making something official which was already true; that no state is under the obligation to hold up another states law if it contradicts its only public policy. Article 3, which is a bit more contraversial, is defining the terms marriage and spouse only in regards to how they are used within federal documents and agencies (a fact that seems to be routinely ignored). So I don't really see how this is supporting the Constitution.

I have always heald that I don't particularly care about gay marriage: I only care that it remains under the juridiction of the states to decide policy on the matter. I still stand by that, and it seems to me that Obama is trying to get around that. He seems to continuely undermine state authority. I don't like the consolidation of federal power, and it has increasely come to my attention that this is precisely what the current president's agenda is.