So that’s what happened. I wondered why I received a picture of the President (wearing a gigantic belt buckle, I might add), and two other solicitations from the GOP in the past couple months. I knew it couldn’t have been my subscription to Utne or Mother Jones, or maybe my donation to the ACLU or Amnesty International. I figured maybe because I voted in the 2000 Republican primary, but quickly dismissed it because I would have been getting mail, especially during the 2002 mid-terms.
I suspected that someone at church had given my name (and maybe others) to the GOP. You know, if they did, I’m pretty upset about it. Every year, there’s a letter from the First Presidency read that says that the Church doesn’t endorse political candidates or parties, that all members of the Church should be active in their communities and vote their conscience. Also, Church membership information is never to be given to political organizations (or anyone else for that matter), and we’re not supposed to hold political functions in church buildings. It’s one of my favorite things about the Church – the separation of Church and State is understood as being fundamentally important to a religious and free nation.
I’m not sure I’m going to pursue finding out if someone gave my name to the Republicans. I kind of like the idea of Ed Gillespie wasting postage sending me mail. I may even write him back, and send it back in the pre-paid envelope. I haven’t yet, because my conscience is gnawing at me. Why? Because I would feel guilty for sending them a letter in their envelope in bad faith. I’m not answering them in the “intended” use of the envelope, and therefore I’m an active participant in wasting their money. In my mind, it’s fine if they want to waste their time and money sending me mail, but not if I waste their time and money sending it back to them.
Maybe I should e-mail him and tell him how much their fundraising letter reminded me of the shrill tone of the blogosphere, and made me even less likely to vote for GW in November (OK, it would be really hard to make me more likely to vote for GW anytime, ever). Maybe I should write him an e-mail about the disgusting ad on the Bush campaign website that used that MoveOn submission with Hitler in it, and in attacking the Democrats, actually became the first campaign to use the Hitler comparison. For background, the infamous Hitler ad that everyone got so excited about was a submission to a contest, never endorsed by any campaign, and quickly pulled by MoveOn. But, the GOP thought it important enough to put in a commercial, and the first campaign to endorse using images of Adolf Hitler in an ad. That’s “elevating the debate”, “bringing honor and decency back to the White House” and all that other BS.
And I know, to offer “equal time” even though I don’t have to (because it’s my blog, after all), the Democrats say some pretty unkind things. But, Hitler? That’s really ratcheting it up a notch, don’t you think?
By this point, you’ve realized that I’ve gotten completely off track. So far, in fact, that I’m stopping here and I’m not even going to try to link everything back up into a nice little package.