Should Voters Be Required To Pass A Poll Test?

With tongue firmly in cheek, let me propose having every US voter take a simple True or False test this fall to prove their mental fitness for responsibly carrying out their "civic duty." The test would require an affirmative answer to each of the following four statements, as follows:

T  F  1. Donald Trump won the 2016 election, as did many candidates of both parties, under the watchful eye of the second Obama administration, as duly certified by professional election officials in fifty states.

T  F  2. Joe Biden won the 2020 election, as did many candidates of both parties, under the watchful eye of the first Trump administration and as duly certified by virtually the same  professional election officials in fifty states.

T  F  3. Donald Trump won the 2024 election, as did many candidates of both parties, under the watchful eye of the first Biden administration and as duly certified by virtually the same professional election officials in fifty states.

T  F  4. I affirm that under the watchful eye of the second Trump administration, and as duly certified by virtually the same professional election officials in fifty states, that I will accept the upcoming midterm election results as reflecting the will of the people.

The following link takes you to a literacy test for potential voters used in Louisiana until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Like similar tests required in other southern states these were typically arbitrarily graded, so the slightest error could disqualifying an African Americans from voting. 

https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/.../Voter%20Test%20LA.pdf

Here's a link to some of my thoughts about voting: http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2013/10/would-jesus-vote.html

Letter To The DN-R: "Not Fit For Man Or Beast"

City Dogs Boarding and Playcare, Roanoke, Virginia

Buckingham Correctional Center, Dillwyn, Virginia

A July 9 article in the Roanoke Times highlights a criminal investigation into one of the city's kennels where dogs were found suffering from heat distress. I couldn't help thinking of the hundreds of men and women in at least eight of the Commonwealth's aging concrete prisons suffering in similar or even worse ways. A friend at Buckingham Correctional Center recently wrote, "We are cooking here... Extra pod fans do nothing but blow hot air. Cells are like ovens, with the metal on our bunks and lockers warm to the touch. We wake up and our sheets are not damp but wet."

According to the Vera Institute of Justice, "Temperatures inside jails and prisons can often exceed 100 degrees. The heat index can reach as high as 150 degrees. ...Exposure to high heat alone can lead to increases in aggression, suicide, poor cognitive functioning, and overall poor mental health. What’s more, over 20 percent of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons have a mental illness, and an aging prison population means that many individuals are suffering from medical conditions..."

While I share everyone's concerns about animals being treated humanely, we should surely treat our fellow human beings with equal regard, even those charged with crimes. The VADOC is, after all, a Department of Correction, not of mere punishment. 

Let’s Remember We Are Also World Citizens

Wikipedia photo of flags at the United Nations, in alphabetical order.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine

This is my home, the country where my heart is:

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

So hear my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

Lloyd Stone  (1934 hymn, sung to the tune Finlandia)

Our nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations will certainly focus on the kind of individualism and patriotism that has made the US one of the most powerful countries in the world.

There is much to celebrate about our nation, especially its ideals of “liberty and justice for all,” and "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” There is of course much to lament about the darker parts of our history as well, especially our mistreatment of native Americans and of African slaves. 

As we reflect on our past and dream about our future, this is also a good time to reflect on what it means to be citizens of the larger world. We are, after all, fellow residents of one fragile but wonderful planet we share with our biologically-related cousins all over the globe.

Our faiths affirm that we have a common origin and form one interdependent human family, and that we share with each other the responsibility for the care and maintenance of spaceship earth. Our founders made the bold claim that all men (i.e., all human beings), “are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” We all breathe the same air, and are dependent on the same soil, water and weather.

We aren’t born with that sense of interdependence. As infants we are totally egocentric, and see everything and everyone as existing solely for our benefit. Over time humans become more ethnocentric, seeing ourselves as special members of our families, congregations, communities, and nations.

Our next challenge is to become more “cosmocentric,” seeing ourselves, and seeing our nation, as an inseparable part of a larger, interdependent world family. Many of us believe that God not only created the cosmos, but so loved the whole world (kosmos) that God’s only begotten was offered to redeem it. In Jesus’s first sermon he announced the reign of God had arrived, a heaven-governed kingdom on earth not bound by time or by artificial borders. The Christian observance of Pentecost celebrates the birth of a nation of nations, a people from all over the world who pray and work daily for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165), described how “followers of the Way” related to former aliens and former enemies: “We who formerly … valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with [people] of a different tribe, now… live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies.”

The Hebrew prophets proclaimed a reign of worldwide harmony, justice and peace as coming not in some future far-off heaven, but right here on planet earth:

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Isaiah 2:2-4

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, and a little child will lead them.. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:6, 9

The battle bow will be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nation; his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. Zechariah 9:10

Methodist theologian and author Georgia Harkness wrote a third verse to Stone’s hymn that has become my prayer for our 250th anniversary:

This is my prayer, O God of all earth’s kingdoms,

Your kingdom come; on earth your will be done.

O God, be lifted up till all shall serve you,

and hearts united learn to love as one.

So hear my prayer, O God of all the nations.

Myself I give you; let your will be done