Is November 4th Here Yet?

For those on Facebook, I opened up a can of worms in a note that I wrote asking for help from my pro-life, Obama-supporting friends. I guess I should have known that I was asking for trouble as I know my friends on Facebook and know that they like to make their opinions known :) In addition the comments on the note, I got many Facebook messages there and the discussions are ongoing.

It makes my head hurt thinking about politics, although in a good way. Most of the people who posted in that note are friends from college with whom I would stay up talking about everything and anything until all hours of the night. I loved that -- iron sharpening iron, challenging each other in a safe environment, thinking and shaping our own philosophies and learning from people who have different opinions than ours. I miss that. I enjoy going to a house church because we get some of that good discourse in a safe environment.

I also miss the chance to just think about things. I often feel like I don't have enough time/energy/will to think through tough issues. I'm an extrovert, which means I'm an external processor and poor introverted Chris serves as my CPU, who takes my raw data and turns it into something structured and understandable by other human minds. And, having kids means that I'm often thinking about diaper changes, meals and other menial things far more than I would like and don't have time to think about my political philosophy.

My questions/thoughts that I'm currently wrestling through are as follows (and I might open back up that can of worms on Facebook, but we'll try here first):

1. What kind of government does the bible support or mention? What I can recall are: theocratic monarchy, an oligarchy, a dictatorship.
   
2. When I'm standing before God's throne, is he going to judge me by who I vote for (among other things)?
3. Why am I making such a big deal of this when my vote is really insignificant in this election, living in Illinois?
4. Will Roe v. Wade ever be overturned in my lifetime? And even if it is, that just sends the decision to the states.
   
5. There have been 2 Democratic presidents since Roe v. Wade was judged, the rest have been pro-life Republicans and I haven't seen much progress.
6. I really dislike having a one party majority in the executive & legislative branches, and it looks like that's where we're headed.
7. I'm troubled by Obama wanting to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (which would remove all restrictions on abortion) as one of his first acts in office.
8. Do I really feel okay with Palin potentially being President?
   

Abortion is a big deal to me. It's not my only thing, but it is a large issue for me. The idea that you can terminate a life because you don't want it is personal to me, being an unwanted child at one point in my life. Yes, there are lots of other things that I care about -- health care, taxes, war, energy, etc. But I need to satisfy this question in my head before I feel comfortable voting for a candidate.

Those are my thoughts right now. I welcome any and all comments -- I won't be as restrictive as I was on facebook, unless it gets out of control.