Tim Kaine's Moral Obligation and Why He Is No Mahatma Ghandi

When a person with certain moral convictions attains a position of power in which he has the ability to change laws that he believes are unjust, he has a moral obligation to do everything legally in his power to see that they are changed.

Tim Kaine's stance on the death penalty and abortion directly refute this. I'd hate to see a man elected to office who would never even do what is perfectly legal to make right the wrongs of our government. We're not asking the man to bomb abortion clinics or even participate in legitimate nonviolent resistance, a direct contravention of stated law, but morally justified when a law contravenes a greater wrong. Even if he believes something I do not, I respect a man who is willing to go to lengths to pursue justice as he sees it. Tim Kaine simply isn't that man.

For Tim Kaine to take the position that it would be wrong for him to do just that is evidence of the fact that he is willing to say anything and do anything because his lust for a position of power is greater than his willingness to act upon his beliefs. I find that pathetic. I would respect the man far more if he simply said he would work to end the death penalty because he finds it morally reprehensible. I pity Tim Kaine. He has to look himself in the mirror everyday and convince himself somehow that being true to himself is less valuable than being governor.

What Tim Kaine is essentially saying is that he believes because of the convictions given to him by his Maker that it is immoral for a state to sentence to death men and women convicted of murder, but that he believes it is somehow wrong or weird to act upon those heartfelt convictions in the position of power he aspires to and seek to change a law that he believes is simply wrong.

From whence has this idea sprung? Great political heroes and reformers throughout time have thought that the best way to change the laws was to attempt to get elected to office and advocate the elimination of those unjust laws. I find it utterly disinenguous and absurd that people should get elected but not allow their convictions to influence their decisions. What then should determine their decisions for them? Is he saying that he will always do what 50% +1 of the constitutency wants on an issue? Is he saying that the public arena is no place for conviction?

Heaven forbid that people actually act upon their beliefs. In Tim Kaine's world, everyone does only what is politically popular. No one should fight to change the law. All laws should be sustained unless somehow they express a religious position and then they should be immediately written out of the lawbooks. He acts almost as if it's impossible to change the laws through legal means. What would the point of his governship be anyway? Maintaining the status quo? How inspiring.

It's this type of cowardice that turns people off from politics. People are sick of the intellectual gyrations and lengths that politicians go to in order to say nothing and stand for nothing so that they can feel good about themselves.