This is the first post with real content here at EnfranchisedMind, so I thought I would start off trying to figure out what this is all about. The concept of an enfranchised mind is a powerful one, and it’s one that’s been slowly composing itself in my head for a long time. This concept plays off of many of the major issues that I have, and effectively expresses many beliefs all at the same time. Given that, it seemed only appropriate to use that label for my blog.
Let’s start by taking a look at this concept of “enfranchisement”.
In the 2004 election, I fell into a disenfranchised group in the electorate — the group of people who want privacy, who don’t like identity politics, and who consider the government (particularly the federal government) to need a major overhaul of efficiency. Low taxes are good, but tax cuts are earned through reducing the size and waste of the government or through improving the economy. We tend to call outselves “traditional conservatives” or “fiscal conservatives”, and it’s an unpopular viewpoint these days. Now, Kerry was campaigning on some of that, but also brought with him the big-government idealists and racial politics. Bush was a complete disaster for fiscal conservatives, as he both plied in identity politics — it was religious identity instead of racial identity, but it’s the same thing in the end. Sure, there were third party candidates, but in our plurality-takes-all system, voting for a third party is actually counterproductive to getting to your goals implemented in the system. So I didn’t really have a good option going into the booth, and I felt like my vote didn’t matter, because even if my vote is the one, single vote that won the election for someone, I was still voting for someone I didn’t really support. I — and those with opinions similar to me — were disenfranchised, even in this democracy.
As I was mulling this over, still feeling the sting from the entire 2004 election results, I began to move through the degrees of Freemasonry. There are many ideas in Freemasonry, and I certainly haven’t even picked them all out yet, but one that repeatedly surfaced is that a person is responsible for their actions. Interestingly, the Freemasons actually step up and go one step further: it’s through a person’s belief in the divine — that is, for some kind of spiritual judiciary — actually *enables* a person to be responsible for themselves. If there is no higher power than a person, then what does an oath mean? The only ramifications are worldly ramifications, and worldly ramifications can always be outweighed by worldly enticements or avoided through practical means.
This idea resonated with me, as well, because it plays off my religious beliefs. I believe that there are right ways and wrong ways for societies to work: you can tell, because societies that don’t work collapse under their own vices. Similarly, there are right ways and wrong ways for people to behave: you can tell, because people that don’t behave collapse under their own vices. I believe that those rules of behavior and rules of society are put into place by our Creator, and so I have no problem labelling self-destructive behavior as sin. Violating promises, particularly those promises made with the deepest and most solemn sincerity, is certainly self-destructive and therefore is most definitely sinful.
Which brings me to another kind of enfranchisement. Human beings are granted with the ability for self-reflection, and the most unique ability to reason and derive. We are great pattern finders, exceedingly creative, and have a built-in drive to avoid self-destruction (it’s called our “conscience”). It is in this aspect where I see humanity modelling their Creator; this intelligence is how we are made in our Creator’s image. This is another form of enfranchisement: our free will, our ability to make decisisions and be responsible for them, are granted from our Creator onto us by our makeup.
So, I am politically, socially, and spiritually enfranchised. Those bestowed freedoms bring with them a lot of responsibility, and so I endeavor to live my life with respect for those responsibilities. To that end, I need to learn, understand, and hash through many of these problems, and that’s what this blog is about: politics, society, spirituality, and how the individual relates to them.
This is also, of course, a personal blog, and so there will be various announcements made regarding my own life, including the various organizations that I am a part of. Those that have followed me from LiveJournal shouldn’t expect much different from what I used to post, with a possible exception of the frequencies.
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