"Election Day 2016 - TIME TO VOTE" - By: Chuck Colson| Breakpoint.org: November 8, 2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/30083
Chuck Colson was a man of great passion. And long-time BreakPoint listeners heard him and read him at his most passionate when he talked about the importance of voting.Yes, Chuck was a political animal. You don’t become the President’s special counsel if you’re not. But Chuck was also a man who believed in Christian responsibility. And for him, voting was a duty for Christians as citizens.
Back in 2010, Chuck recorded what was to be his last commentary on the need for Christians to vote. If you’re seriously considering not voting—please, hear what Chuck has to say....
Today is Election Day. What will the outcome be? Well, thankfully, because we live in a free society, it all depends on you and me. So, have you voted yet? If so, well done. If not, as soon as [you read this]—or as soon as you’re off work—I want you to go and fulfill your Christian duty to be a good citizen and go vote.
And while you’re at it, call a few of your Christian friends. Find out if they’ve voted yet. If not, tell them you’re going, and you’ll be glad to stop by and pick them up.
Now is not the time to buy into the lie that your vote doesn’t really matter. As a result of my Watergate felony conviction, I lost the right to vote for 28 years. When my right was restored, I was able to vote in the 2000 presidential election. That year, the national election—the presidency—was determined by just 500 votes in Florida. Mine was one of those votes. So your vote does matter.
And let me say this. The next time you hear someone tell you that Christians ought to take a vacation from politics, tell them to go fly a kite. Listen, it’s our duty as citizens of the kingdom of God to be the best citizens of the society we live in.
If your pastor no longer has the energy or courage to motivate his flock to speak out on public issues, maybe you can lovingly “buck him up.” Remind him—or her—that God’s people are to love their neighbors, to desire the best for them, to pursue the common good. And we can’t do that on the political sidelines.
When a rabid secularist tells you to stop forcing your religion down his throat—simply correct him. You might say, “Excuse me, but who is suing the government to remove crosses from cemeteries? Who has filed lawsuits to remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance? Who’s trying to tell doctors and nurses and pharmacists that they have to participate in medical procedures that violate their religious conscience? Who’s banning Bibles from schools?
In other words, who is forcing their point of view on whom?
We Christians are simply trying to PRESERVE and PROTECT the rights and liberties that we Americans have enjoyed from the founding of our Republic. We are the ones who take seriously our nation’s founding creed: that “all men are created equal and endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” meaning virtue.
Our Founders recognized that true rights come not from government, but from God Himself. Government must not take those rights away. And to protect those rights, we must vote.
Yes, the elections are upon us. Don’t be intimidated. Do not retreat to the sidelines. Go out and vote for the candidate of your choice. Vote as your conscience informs you. And yes, allow your faith to inform your conscience. But today of all days, thank God we still live in a free nation. So speak out. Exercise your right. Fulfill your duty. Go and vote.
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
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"On Election Day, 'We the People' Tell the Government What To Do" - David S. Addington / November 07, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/07/on-election-day-we-the-people-tell-the-government-what-to-do/?
In urging the delegates to a New York convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788, Alexander Hamilton emphasized the principal strength of the new Constitution: “Here, sir, the people govern.” The federal government gets its mandate from the American people. You are in charge. Express your will: vote.
You help govern your country through the exercise of your right to vote. As the U.S. Supreme Court has said: “No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live.”
When he first became president in 1885, Grover Cleveland stressed in his inaugural address the public trust held by every voter: "He who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen—on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of trade, and everywhere—should share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is yours; the government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the suffrage which executes the will of freemen is yours; the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the state capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust."
In his farewell address to the American people in 1989, President Ronald Reagan echoed the words of Cleveland a century earlier, emphasizing that the American people remain in charge of their government: "Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ‘We the People.’ ‘We the People’ tell the government what to do; it doesn’t tell us".
On behalf of your fellow citizens, we ask you to choose carefully in deciding upon the representatives, senators, president, and state and local officials who will make our laws. Your choice, along with the choices of your fellow citizens, will determine what America is to become. You, your fellow citizens, and future generations will live in the America you choose.
Conservatives will do [today] and the next day exactly what we did yesterday and the day before: We will continue to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. We know our principles and we adhere to them. That is our public trust. The American people can count on us, just as we count on the American people.
God bless the United States of America and its people. Now, go vote.[This commentary was originally published on Election Day in 2012, but it’s message is timeless.]
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
David S. Addington is senior vice president, general counsel, and chief legal officer at the National Federation of Independent Business. He previously served as group vice president for research at The Heritage Foundation and was Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel and chief of staff.
"Tomorrow, A Chance To Change Our World" - Mark Davis |Posted: Nov 07, 2016; http://townhall.com/columnists/markdavis/2016/11/07/tomorrow-a-chance-to-change-our-world-n2242240
"Stop Hillary" - Kurt Schlichter: Nov 07, 2016;
http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2016/11/07/stop-hillary-n2242151
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