Don't feel too bad, Republicans and Republican leaning Independents, I understand. I have a long history of voting for the losing candidate myself. In fact, I can only think of two Presidential candidates that I voted for who won, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Yep, while I didn't vote in this election (though I endorsed John McCain), I've persistently voted Democratic through my decades of voting history. I voted for John Kerry against President Bush's second term and I admit, I was very disappointed when he was defeated.
When I became of voting age I registered Independent, since I consider myself beholden to neither party. But as I've blogged before, I consider myself a traditional liberal, and stuck to traditional liberal leanings, even as the liberal Democrats veered off into crazed unpatriotic anti-life attitudes in front of my very eyes. Yep, I still kept pulling the Democrat lever, because I stayed focused on where I thought change was needed (energy policy, environment, a reluctance to get into foreign entangling conflicts) although their social policy was abhorrent in many ways. I finally registered Democrat when I wanted to vote in the primaries. I only recently changed to Republican, as my protest against the Democrat "abortion as sacrament" mosh pit of enthusiastic, rather than reluctant, baby killing. I could vote for Democrats back when they at least had some decency of foot dragging and reluctance to abort, even as they support "the woman's right to 'choose.'" But with Barrack Obama, I guess that right to choose means to let even a baby who survives abortion to die in the metal pan. So, actually, as the people who stalk me know (since for me, there is no privacy of vote), I have voted steadily Democrat and know what it is like to see my candidate defeated.
However, that does not mean that God only works with those of one party or the other. I trust in two things. One is that the people get the President that they deserve. Think about it. And the second is that God works to bring out the best in everyone, of all parties and faiths, of all political or tribal persuasions, around the world. As you can see, sometimes that works out, sometimes it does not. People have a very strong bias against doing the right thing. For example, I voted for Bill Clinton and supported him through all the scandals, yet I could not believe that he sat on his hands through the Rwanda massacre. A few helicopters of troops could have turned that around. Yet he helped end the bloodbath in the former Yugoslavia and I give him a lot of credit for that and had hoped that he would intervene.
I've voted for the most liberal candidates going way back to the beginning because I was concerned about social justice, including the rights of women. But all of that has been ruined, really, because social justice has turned into being anti-child, anti-family, anti-civics, anti-patriotism and anti-conservatism. I've often mentioned that I loved Hubert Humphrey. So, yep, I voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Carter, and yes, I go that far back, McGovern against Nixon. (A popular bumper stick at the time was "Don't blame me, I voted for McGovern." I didn't have that bumper sticker on my car but I approved its message, LOL.) But see, Nixon did a lot of great things. He opened up the relationship with China at a time when conflict with them would have had dire consequences for the whole world. Also, he made the first steps toward protecting the environment by a sitting President.
So I have a long history of seeing the candidate I voted for not win. I figure that people get the President that they deserve. Even though I didn't vote for either President Bush, I am far from a basher. I support all the Presidents and prayerfully hope that they do well. I do tire of each generation and each electorate learning the hard way that each winner is not going to be "the one" who fixes all the problems. I feel very old when I watch this because as you see, things seem to get worse with each administration. This is because the puppet string pullers have infiltrated all administrations, left and right, and so there is a diminishing of sound decision making and more "agenda" driven (socialist, "Evangelical-end of the world nuts", Wall Street looters, you name it, every agenda is there like pigs at the trough). Going back to the "smoke filled rooms" of party bosses would actually be an improvement over what it has become, trust me on that, since that was based on, in general, political power, and not whack job secret beliefs and agendas, coupled with wholesale looting, rather than just patronage and pork.
But this country will continue in its tailspin into the ground as long as each generation is more naive, instead of less naive, that Presidents don't fix the mess, they contribute to it. A people who have lost their moral compass and fiscal conservatism (and both parties have done that) is doomed, no matter who the President.
I think it's great that Afro-Americans feel enfranchised because of Barrack Obama, and I blogged to that effect several months ago. But see, I'm just not that sort of person myself. I don't pant with eagerness for the day when a "woman becomes President" or when a "part Turk becomes President" (the meaning behind my droll blog posting of that title). I actually don't care if a woman ever becomes President, or a Turk, or a Muslim, a Jew or a gay. All I care is that the President be the right one for the times, and so far the country's been out of sync in that regard for several decades now, and I just don't see maturity and character in the electorate regarding solving the many problems this country and the local communities are in on their own, using good will and the tools already available, including that under used moral compass I've mentioned before. "So congratulations but lots of luck."
Showing posts with label political campaigns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political campaigns. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Financial crisis (17) Obama "policy" totally wrong
Obama et al are totally wrong about energy “policy”
I’ve written about this before under general topics of energy and natural resources. Today, the day before election, I want to repeat what I have said and link it directly to the damaging and frankly stupid ideas of Obama and the Democrat party regarding energy, natural resources and the environment. This is also a tutorial in part of the Capitalism/Financial Crisis series.
How do humans 1) stay alive and 2) create prosperity? They do it through the extraction of natural resources from the earth. That is the whole point of the earth having natural resources, to use them to promote and maintain life, and to add to the well being and prosperity of all. Life would not have emerged on a planet that did not have natural resources that would continue to sustain it, I mean, duh, think about it. It’s not like humans are the “intruders” and “exploiters” of natural resources; life would not have started and continued at all on earth if the natural resources necessary for advanced life forms did not exist in the first place. Old time environmentalists, those of us who used to call ourselves conservationists, knew that all along. It is the last two generations of modern humans who have become so illogical and strange in their beliefs, stemming from, I reckon, a conscious or unconscious self loathing of humanity and a depressive anti-life outlook and ultimately mental disorder. I find it incredible that I have to explain this, but I don’t mind, especially for the young people, who have no choice in how they were raised and had malpractice in their education.
Without trees, and once humans discovered how to create fire (rather than waiting for lightning to strike somewhere), humans would have had no chance to evolve and live. Animals have fur or feathers, and also through migration and natural selection, live only in areas where they can maintain body temperature. Humans cannot do that. Babies chill and freeze very easily when the sun goes down in most of the earth’s surface, as do adults. Humans would never have existed without trees to burn for heat, and later for cooking. People learned how to make tree firewood burn hotter and last longer by creating what is called charcoal, which is not really the rock coal, but is blackened tree wood. Much of the world, including Haiti, still rely totally on charcoal for both heat and cooking, and suffer great poverty because of the shortage of energy. So I’m not talking about cavemen from millions of years ago here. People cannot live without fuel for heat and cooking. Here is another example. If you read about the American Revolutionary War, you will read that soldiers from both sides, Americans and British, froze in huge numbers during the war because of shortage of wood. Sentries froze at their posts, often every half an hour, due to the lack of firewood for heat. Energy is not an “option” and to consider natural resources to be something that should be left in the ground and not used because of some strange new age belief that humans are “unworthy” and somehow “resource exploiters” is outrageous.
Coal and oil are the result of hundreds of millions of years of vegetation, and animal life, that lived the natural course of their lives, died, and became a part of the earth. But instead of decomposing into the soil, they decomposed and were pressed by the weight of the earth into coal and into oil. If you look at coal you can often see fossils of those very plants and trees. Think of coal as super firewood and super duper charcoal, and oil as the liquid forms. Coal is a “rock” that is formed from plants, trees and organic material such as animals; while oil is the liquid form (hence the joke that oil is from dinosaurs). Oil is often found mingled in a layered rock called shale, and this is called “oil shale.” I’m really oversimplifying the science but this is a history lesson, not a science textbook. The discovery of coal by early modern humans was revolutionary, allowing even the poor to be reliably warmed and have access to cooking. Yes, coal was first mined for individual basis of heating. When I was a child playing in my back yard, I’d often find small pieces of coal scattered in the garden. My mother explained that not that long ago people had coal delivered to their homes and farms and that was what they burned for heat and for cooking, and they would dump the burned coal in their backyards, which was what I was finding.
Half of the energy generated in the United States today comes from coal, and we have the largest supply of coal reserves in the world. We are blessed in that regard, not cursed, obviously. Yet you’d never know that the way certain liberals and I don’t know how else to describe them but “moderns” have demonized coal, rather than thanking God for the richness of this land. People try to rationalize their irrational thoughts and feelings about coal and other forms of energy as being “dirty.” OK, let’s think about this. Liberals tend to be in charge of the media, such as Hollywood entertainment. We see endless films about “superheroes” who have heroic “powers,” who fly spaceships in the future, and fight for good against aliens or whatever. Yet, humans are considered by liberals as being too stupid to learn how to mine coal more safely, with less environmental damage, and more cleanly. We are supposed to develop ESP and super hero powers, flying all around the universe with our great wisdom, yet be too dumb ass stupid to figure out how to properly use the God given blessing of coal, despite the fact we have already demonstrated great improvements in the coal industry, with even better plans on the table.
The same thing is true about nuclear power where the USA has made a near fatal decision to not build nuclear power plants, or update the existing ones, for the past several decades. Humans with their “great wisdom” are supposed to find “cures for cancer and HIV/AIDS,” fly around the solar system as great astronauts “looking for life on Mars,” develop “ESP and super powers” (especially when ridding one’s self of “thetans” ha ha ha) and so forth, all while looking like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, yet humans are too damn stupid to figure out with better technology how to keep nuclear plants safe and dispose of the waste. Americans have swallowed that insult despite the fact that France supplies most of their energy through nuclear power plants (and Jerry Lewis did not design them). The very liberals who convince every child to want to be a “rapper,” a “ho,” a “superhero,” or a “mutant ninja turtle,” (to say nothing of being an “American Idol”), so that now eighty percent of kids want to grow up to be “famous,” don’t think that Americans are smart enough to figure out how to use nuclear energy safely, cleanly and cheaply. (It would have been cheap if Americans had not aborted that industry several decades ago, now the start up again costs all of us much more than it should have).
Who are the real idiots?
So Obama is “against” nuclear power plants. Obama is “against” coal and, in his own words, would tax any new coal power plants into bankruptcy and closing because *boo hoo hoo* “It emits that CARBON.”
Miners, and those of you who pay such high prices for fuel commuting to work, trying to raise your family, or make a living, any of you who vote for Obama when he has a cartoon character’s intelligence about energy and policy, you are at the very least seriously deluded, and at worse not so smart. I cannot believe that the Union endorsed Obama in May of this year. HOW DUMB IS THAT?
Let me close this posting with addressing what I mentioned up front, which is that the way to prosperity is through wise use of natural resources. This goes back to the root of the financial crisis of capitalism, where too many people tried to make too much money doing fake things in fake jobs. A country grows in prosperity when it creates real value out of the ground, rather than passing around imaginary dollars doing imaginary jobs. That is why no country remains prosperous once it loses its manufacturing base. There are two types of jobs, those that build something and those that serve something. In the 1970’s many wise people (myself included) worried that manufacturing (including agriculture) jobs were disappearing and being replaced with “service” jobs (entertainment, food, hospitality). When one is a farmer or manufacturer one is taking something with nominal value (the dirt, a mine, a piece of wood) and “finding” money in it by spending time making it usable by others. A service job, however, leaves nothing lasting, since it is doing something, not creating something. A country cannot ever be prosperous, or even survive, when all they have is service jobs. This is why China is on top now, because they gladly accepted all the agricultural and manufacturing jobs that were exiled and driven out of the United States. They will rise and be stable and prosperous because they will never allow themselves to be fooled into having only “service jobs,” as the United States did, of its own doing. I have worried and clucked over the shuttered farms and factories in this country for the past thirty years, and all people have cared about is who I loved (simple answer now, which is no one, I've loved no one at all for a long time now) and who I might have been in some mythical and demented belief in “past lives.” Well, welcome to your one and only real life. Rather than listening to me you are voting for someone who wants to speed up the decay and demise of this country since he doesn’t even understand the most basic lessons (such as above) about how economies work, and how humanity survives. I totally despair of how the demented dummies have taken charge (in both parties, since both Democrats and Republicans are infected with depressive new age delusions and total lack of understanding how to use faith and reasoning to make good life affirming decisions).
I’ve written about this before under general topics of energy and natural resources. Today, the day before election, I want to repeat what I have said and link it directly to the damaging and frankly stupid ideas of Obama and the Democrat party regarding energy, natural resources and the environment. This is also a tutorial in part of the Capitalism/Financial Crisis series.
How do humans 1) stay alive and 2) create prosperity? They do it through the extraction of natural resources from the earth. That is the whole point of the earth having natural resources, to use them to promote and maintain life, and to add to the well being and prosperity of all. Life would not have emerged on a planet that did not have natural resources that would continue to sustain it, I mean, duh, think about it. It’s not like humans are the “intruders” and “exploiters” of natural resources; life would not have started and continued at all on earth if the natural resources necessary for advanced life forms did not exist in the first place. Old time environmentalists, those of us who used to call ourselves conservationists, knew that all along. It is the last two generations of modern humans who have become so illogical and strange in their beliefs, stemming from, I reckon, a conscious or unconscious self loathing of humanity and a depressive anti-life outlook and ultimately mental disorder. I find it incredible that I have to explain this, but I don’t mind, especially for the young people, who have no choice in how they were raised and had malpractice in their education.
Without trees, and once humans discovered how to create fire (rather than waiting for lightning to strike somewhere), humans would have had no chance to evolve and live. Animals have fur or feathers, and also through migration and natural selection, live only in areas where they can maintain body temperature. Humans cannot do that. Babies chill and freeze very easily when the sun goes down in most of the earth’s surface, as do adults. Humans would never have existed without trees to burn for heat, and later for cooking. People learned how to make tree firewood burn hotter and last longer by creating what is called charcoal, which is not really the rock coal, but is blackened tree wood. Much of the world, including Haiti, still rely totally on charcoal for both heat and cooking, and suffer great poverty because of the shortage of energy. So I’m not talking about cavemen from millions of years ago here. People cannot live without fuel for heat and cooking. Here is another example. If you read about the American Revolutionary War, you will read that soldiers from both sides, Americans and British, froze in huge numbers during the war because of shortage of wood. Sentries froze at their posts, often every half an hour, due to the lack of firewood for heat. Energy is not an “option” and to consider natural resources to be something that should be left in the ground and not used because of some strange new age belief that humans are “unworthy” and somehow “resource exploiters” is outrageous.
Coal and oil are the result of hundreds of millions of years of vegetation, and animal life, that lived the natural course of their lives, died, and became a part of the earth. But instead of decomposing into the soil, they decomposed and were pressed by the weight of the earth into coal and into oil. If you look at coal you can often see fossils of those very plants and trees. Think of coal as super firewood and super duper charcoal, and oil as the liquid forms. Coal is a “rock” that is formed from plants, trees and organic material such as animals; while oil is the liquid form (hence the joke that oil is from dinosaurs). Oil is often found mingled in a layered rock called shale, and this is called “oil shale.” I’m really oversimplifying the science but this is a history lesson, not a science textbook. The discovery of coal by early modern humans was revolutionary, allowing even the poor to be reliably warmed and have access to cooking. Yes, coal was first mined for individual basis of heating. When I was a child playing in my back yard, I’d often find small pieces of coal scattered in the garden. My mother explained that not that long ago people had coal delivered to their homes and farms and that was what they burned for heat and for cooking, and they would dump the burned coal in their backyards, which was what I was finding.
Half of the energy generated in the United States today comes from coal, and we have the largest supply of coal reserves in the world. We are blessed in that regard, not cursed, obviously. Yet you’d never know that the way certain liberals and I don’t know how else to describe them but “moderns” have demonized coal, rather than thanking God for the richness of this land. People try to rationalize their irrational thoughts and feelings about coal and other forms of energy as being “dirty.” OK, let’s think about this. Liberals tend to be in charge of the media, such as Hollywood entertainment. We see endless films about “superheroes” who have heroic “powers,” who fly spaceships in the future, and fight for good against aliens or whatever. Yet, humans are considered by liberals as being too stupid to learn how to mine coal more safely, with less environmental damage, and more cleanly. We are supposed to develop ESP and super hero powers, flying all around the universe with our great wisdom, yet be too dumb ass stupid to figure out how to properly use the God given blessing of coal, despite the fact we have already demonstrated great improvements in the coal industry, with even better plans on the table.
The same thing is true about nuclear power where the USA has made a near fatal decision to not build nuclear power plants, or update the existing ones, for the past several decades. Humans with their “great wisdom” are supposed to find “cures for cancer and HIV/AIDS,” fly around the solar system as great astronauts “looking for life on Mars,” develop “ESP and super powers” (especially when ridding one’s self of “thetans” ha ha ha) and so forth, all while looking like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, yet humans are too damn stupid to figure out with better technology how to keep nuclear plants safe and dispose of the waste. Americans have swallowed that insult despite the fact that France supplies most of their energy through nuclear power plants (and Jerry Lewis did not design them). The very liberals who convince every child to want to be a “rapper,” a “ho,” a “superhero,” or a “mutant ninja turtle,” (to say nothing of being an “American Idol”), so that now eighty percent of kids want to grow up to be “famous,” don’t think that Americans are smart enough to figure out how to use nuclear energy safely, cleanly and cheaply. (It would have been cheap if Americans had not aborted that industry several decades ago, now the start up again costs all of us much more than it should have).
Who are the real idiots?
So Obama is “against” nuclear power plants. Obama is “against” coal and, in his own words, would tax any new coal power plants into bankruptcy and closing because *boo hoo hoo* “It emits that CARBON.”
Miners, and those of you who pay such high prices for fuel commuting to work, trying to raise your family, or make a living, any of you who vote for Obama when he has a cartoon character’s intelligence about energy and policy, you are at the very least seriously deluded, and at worse not so smart. I cannot believe that the Union endorsed Obama in May of this year. HOW DUMB IS THAT?
Let me close this posting with addressing what I mentioned up front, which is that the way to prosperity is through wise use of natural resources. This goes back to the root of the financial crisis of capitalism, where too many people tried to make too much money doing fake things in fake jobs. A country grows in prosperity when it creates real value out of the ground, rather than passing around imaginary dollars doing imaginary jobs. That is why no country remains prosperous once it loses its manufacturing base. There are two types of jobs, those that build something and those that serve something. In the 1970’s many wise people (myself included) worried that manufacturing (including agriculture) jobs were disappearing and being replaced with “service” jobs (entertainment, food, hospitality). When one is a farmer or manufacturer one is taking something with nominal value (the dirt, a mine, a piece of wood) and “finding” money in it by spending time making it usable by others. A service job, however, leaves nothing lasting, since it is doing something, not creating something. A country cannot ever be prosperous, or even survive, when all they have is service jobs. This is why China is on top now, because they gladly accepted all the agricultural and manufacturing jobs that were exiled and driven out of the United States. They will rise and be stable and prosperous because they will never allow themselves to be fooled into having only “service jobs,” as the United States did, of its own doing. I have worried and clucked over the shuttered farms and factories in this country for the past thirty years, and all people have cared about is who I loved (simple answer now, which is no one, I've loved no one at all for a long time now) and who I might have been in some mythical and demented belief in “past lives.” Well, welcome to your one and only real life. Rather than listening to me you are voting for someone who wants to speed up the decay and demise of this country since he doesn’t even understand the most basic lessons (such as above) about how economies work, and how humanity survives. I totally despair of how the demented dummies have taken charge (in both parties, since both Democrats and Republicans are infected with depressive new age delusions and total lack of understanding how to use faith and reasoning to make good life affirming decisions).
Friday, October 31, 2008
Would YOU recognize a miracle???
Would YOU recognize a miracle?
Most people have been in the situation where someone in their family, or a loved one, is gravely ill. If people are honest, even those who do not believe in God per se would admit that they pray, or at least yearn for, a miracle to save their loved one. This is never more obvious than when it is a helpless baby who is in dire medical condition. The baby may have been born profoundly premature, or with a very serious medical condition that threatens its life before it can even begin. Or the baby may have been harmed in a car accident, or is the victim of violence. Hardly anyone would not pray, or yearn, for a miracle, and when one does occur, that is usually what they say, in blessed relief, that it was a miracle.
Then why do some people refuse to acknowledge a rare and precious miracle, when a baby that is being aborted, somehow survives the process and lives? How can people with any conscience not apply what they would feel if a premature “wanted” baby pulled through, miraculously, a grave condition, yet when a baby that is not “wanted” is graced with a miracle by God, it is murdered like dirty trash?
I honestly wonder how people can be as schizophrenic in their morality on such a fundamental and obvious phenomenon as this. In one room in the hospital people pray for a miracle to save their premature baby. In the other room of a hospital, “health care workers” say “Darn it! This supposed aborted baby was born alive! We blew it!” And then they dismember it, or simply put it in the trash can, or a cold metal tray, to let it feebly suffer and twitch, silently crying, as it dies.
I have never been able to understand people who do not see the evil in such an attitude. I must assure you that God certainly sees, and is filled with wrath. While one can understand how many moderns think that abortion is a “right” or a “choice,” how can even they think that not providing life giving aid to a helpless baby who miraculously survives an abortion is somehow “right” and even more loathsome, being a “health care giver” or “just doing one’s job.” I cannot understand why even the “pro choice” lobby is not in outrage when a baby who miraculously survives is not given basic care so it can live and be adopted, if still not wanted. When God moves his hand to provide a prayed for (in any other circumstance) miracle, how dare people slap his hand away, and allow the baby to suffer to death?
I have always felt this way, and I have always been baffled by the “spiritual” “pro choice” side who do not see a problem with letting a God given miracle die, and worse, think that it was a “mistake in the abortion procedure.” Anyone who would ever have asked me would have had their ears burned off in hearing this stance from me, and thus been giving fair warning at how God perceives this cold heartedness rejection.
But by now I guess you can figure out why I am patiently explaining this to all of you on the blog (wondering why that has to be spelled out, but humans are nothing if not having a strong bias toward doing the wrong and wicked thing even in obvious situations such as this). One of the Presidential candidates has no shame in thinking that it is A-OK to let a baby suffer and die, after that baby had been given a miracle and survived the death of the abortion, and that candidate is, of course, Barrack Obama. He’s not even ashamed and that amazes me (not amazed in a good way, in case I need to spell that out too).
John McCain cannot be accused of being a dishonorable man who imposes his beliefs on others. To the contrary, John McCain has set the judicial and moral good example by recognizing that no human has the right to murder a baby who miraculously survived an abortion. One does not even have to get into the entire “pro choice” versus “pro life” argument to recognize something as screamingly obvious as this problem of “partial birth” abortion and worse, the willful killing of a child who survives an abortion and struggles to live outside the womb. John McCain has demonstrated himself to be a man, a humanitarian, and a protector of those who are given a God given miracle try at life, but who need actual human beings around him or her to actually not treat the baby like trash that missed the garbage disposal. I do not understand how Barrack Obama, regardless of being “pro choice” or not, cannot see the difference. But then again, it is difficult to recognize the God, his works, his mercy and his miracles, as they have been characterized in that charade of exclusionary faith that he seemed to have embraced for so many years. I cannot look at a picture of Barrack Obama without thinking of a miraculously born baby writhing in a cold metal pan until it dies, and him thinking “That’s cool. That’s right.” It has nothing to do with the color of Barrack’s skin, but there is a darkness of the heart in him, and those like him, who cannot see the difference between “pro choice” and putting to death a miracle baby.
Isn’t that enough to make anyone with fundamental decency vote for John McCain???
Most people have been in the situation where someone in their family, or a loved one, is gravely ill. If people are honest, even those who do not believe in God per se would admit that they pray, or at least yearn for, a miracle to save their loved one. This is never more obvious than when it is a helpless baby who is in dire medical condition. The baby may have been born profoundly premature, or with a very serious medical condition that threatens its life before it can even begin. Or the baby may have been harmed in a car accident, or is the victim of violence. Hardly anyone would not pray, or yearn, for a miracle, and when one does occur, that is usually what they say, in blessed relief, that it was a miracle.
Then why do some people refuse to acknowledge a rare and precious miracle, when a baby that is being aborted, somehow survives the process and lives? How can people with any conscience not apply what they would feel if a premature “wanted” baby pulled through, miraculously, a grave condition, yet when a baby that is not “wanted” is graced with a miracle by God, it is murdered like dirty trash?
I honestly wonder how people can be as schizophrenic in their morality on such a fundamental and obvious phenomenon as this. In one room in the hospital people pray for a miracle to save their premature baby. In the other room of a hospital, “health care workers” say “Darn it! This supposed aborted baby was born alive! We blew it!” And then they dismember it, or simply put it in the trash can, or a cold metal tray, to let it feebly suffer and twitch, silently crying, as it dies.
I have never been able to understand people who do not see the evil in such an attitude. I must assure you that God certainly sees, and is filled with wrath. While one can understand how many moderns think that abortion is a “right” or a “choice,” how can even they think that not providing life giving aid to a helpless baby who miraculously survives an abortion is somehow “right” and even more loathsome, being a “health care giver” or “just doing one’s job.” I cannot understand why even the “pro choice” lobby is not in outrage when a baby who miraculously survives is not given basic care so it can live and be adopted, if still not wanted. When God moves his hand to provide a prayed for (in any other circumstance) miracle, how dare people slap his hand away, and allow the baby to suffer to death?
I have always felt this way, and I have always been baffled by the “spiritual” “pro choice” side who do not see a problem with letting a God given miracle die, and worse, think that it was a “mistake in the abortion procedure.” Anyone who would ever have asked me would have had their ears burned off in hearing this stance from me, and thus been giving fair warning at how God perceives this cold heartedness rejection.
But by now I guess you can figure out why I am patiently explaining this to all of you on the blog (wondering why that has to be spelled out, but humans are nothing if not having a strong bias toward doing the wrong and wicked thing even in obvious situations such as this). One of the Presidential candidates has no shame in thinking that it is A-OK to let a baby suffer and die, after that baby had been given a miracle and survived the death of the abortion, and that candidate is, of course, Barrack Obama. He’s not even ashamed and that amazes me (not amazed in a good way, in case I need to spell that out too).
John McCain cannot be accused of being a dishonorable man who imposes his beliefs on others. To the contrary, John McCain has set the judicial and moral good example by recognizing that no human has the right to murder a baby who miraculously survived an abortion. One does not even have to get into the entire “pro choice” versus “pro life” argument to recognize something as screamingly obvious as this problem of “partial birth” abortion and worse, the willful killing of a child who survives an abortion and struggles to live outside the womb. John McCain has demonstrated himself to be a man, a humanitarian, and a protector of those who are given a God given miracle try at life, but who need actual human beings around him or her to actually not treat the baby like trash that missed the garbage disposal. I do not understand how Barrack Obama, regardless of being “pro choice” or not, cannot see the difference. But then again, it is difficult to recognize the God, his works, his mercy and his miracles, as they have been characterized in that charade of exclusionary faith that he seemed to have embraced for so many years. I cannot look at a picture of Barrack Obama without thinking of a miraculously born baby writhing in a cold metal pan until it dies, and him thinking “That’s cool. That’s right.” It has nothing to do with the color of Barrack’s skin, but there is a darkness of the heart in him, and those like him, who cannot see the difference between “pro choice” and putting to death a miracle baby.
Isn’t that enough to make anyone with fundamental decency vote for John McCain???
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Please vote for the McCain-Palin ticket
Senator John McCain is the obvious choice for President of the United States. I would never have considered voting for anyone but him, and certainly not his opponent.
Because I am surprised at the number of people who do not see his obvious quality of character and qualifications for the Presidency, while at the same time they magnify Senator Obama's qualifications, which he lacks, I am making this statement, a public expression of support and voting recommendation, for the first time.
John McCain is a whole and vibrant man, who has not only a commendable character, but also a coherent and integrated view of his country, his faith and his policies. Many who have grown up in the chaotic past few decades do not recognize what has become so rare, which is a man (or a woman) who we would call "being made of whole cloth."
The expression "to be made of whole cloth" means a mature and reliable individual of completeness in his view of himself and his responsibilities. A man of "whole cloth" is not patched together from scraps of different fabrics. John McCain is a man of whole cloth.
Someone who is not of "whole cloth," is, by contrast, a man or woman who like a crazy quilt made up of pieces of many different scraps of cloth, has as a result a hodge podge of factors that are, to use another expression, "weak at the seams." Many people, both politicians and citizens, of the past few decades, are scattered in their education, their policy, their attitude and their own self perception, just like a crazy quilt made up of scraps of cloth stitched together "however the chips fall."
A man of whole cloth, like John McCain, has formed his own character and view of the world through building on a firm foundation of self identity, of love of faith and country, and who then, secure in his own identity, can make his own well informed decisions, even ones that may be surprising.
A man like Barrack Obama, by contrast, picks up whatever scraps of self identity float his way, and then force them together, like a crazy quilt, to look like a whole, but is filled with error and weakness. A lot is not his fault, since that is the tragedy of many who have grown up in chaotic personal and societal times. But to promote the pieces of the crazy quilt and claim that it is sufficient for the Presidency is startling and the height of irresponsibility. What astonishes me is how many people seem to be unable to see that problem with him, right from the start.
Senator Obama puts together his identity and policy like thus: he grabs a scrap of one worldview (socialism) and tries to stitch it to a scrap of capitalism (from which he has benefited); he grabs a scrap of having "great faith" in Christ, and then stitches it to a scrap that is very exclusionary and hostile to mainstream faith; he grabs a scrap that says he has compassionate concern for children, and then sews it to a scrap that will not intervene when even the most extreme abortion abuse scenario, where a living baby is born instead of being aborted; he grabs a scrap of being the great diplomat, and then sews it to making rash ("I am not a wimp") jingoistic statements about Georgia, Iran and so forth. He grabs a piece of cloth of being "inclusive," yet sics the dogs on "Joe the plumber," a man who he approached in his neighborhood, when Joe the plumber gets election wide attention.
I am terribly sympathetic to those who are so tempted by the sway of "finally" "getting an Afro American" President. But gosh, not only is that not a reason to vote for someone who is otherwise so immature and unstable in his policy and view of America, but it is actually a problem because he is not so very fair after all, as we see in the "Joe the Plumber" incident. Young people, especially young Afro-Americans, I am going to teach you two code words that you probably do know about, but may not. One is what I used above, which is "sicing the dogs." You know that is a code expression for how police dogs were set upon Civil Rights protesters during the struggle for civil rights. Yes, political campaigns are rough. But why have Obama supporters been allowed to "sic the dogs" on a layman, a civilian, an average citizen, an average potential voter, just because he expressed his opinion when asked? Should not a Civil Rights "veteran" be particularly sensitive about doing that to anyone? And so I introduce another code word to that situation to ask you about, which is being "uppity." "Uppity" is what used to be applied to Afro-Americans who spoke up and seemed "not to know their place." Well, it looks like Joe the plumber sure got "uppity," didn't he? By the way, we are now seeing the same treatment of "sicing the dogs" on the "uppity" female journalist in Florida who dared question Senator Joe Biden (gosh, if he can't handle it, how could he have ever handled Krushiev??)
My point is that you, as voters, should question someone who you view as a role model and hero for your gender, race, faith or "cause" who seems to not defend other people's rights to not be treated as unfairly as "your people" (whatever the historic situation) were themselves? So not only does Mr. Obama have a crazy quilt hodge podge of self identity, stance toward his own country and policies, but he is not in practice the great "equalizer," but lets himself appear to be a "chip on the shoulder" "turner of the tables."
Mr. Obama, like so many of this past generation, has had a personal and intellectual identity that came from pieces of biased and skewed material being fed to him by those who he admired, rather than starting on a firm foundation of self understanding and properly rooted civics, and then allowing himself to determine bold new policies, as has Senator McCain.
For example, any Latino American who does not vote for Senator McCain must be out of his or her mind. Senator McCain went against his very own party, and many of his advisers, to try to legislate a very generous and fair step forward in the problem of immigration and work rights in this country for all, and most especially Latinos. He was beaten to a political pulp for standing up for all of you, and if Latinos do not turn out to vote for Senator McCain I will be very disappointed and view it as a lack of loyalty, character and misidentification of your own self interest. Senator McCain derived a generous and wise proposal that addressed many problems of the Latinos from his firm and consistent "whole cloth" stance regarding human rights, the golden prize of citizenship, and the reality of the need to support immigrant families in their quest for honest work and stable homes. Senator McCain is able to take his ethical personal and civic character and then extend it to others, rather than have a "chip on the shoulder" approach toward expanding prosperity, opportunity, rights and yes, "hope," as Senator Obama seems to spew, yet demonstrate otherwise, in both his own actions and the company that he keeps.
Senator McCain has the complete package, a whole cloth foundational approach to his own genuine character, his stance toward his country and civics, and the formulation of his policies, both those that are conventionally traditional, and those that are then seen to be surprising and thus called "maverick." His opponent is stitched together from many books of quotations, rather than being a fully integral whole that results from the maturation of his youthful view and upbringing. Senator McCain had great responsibility as a youth, even when he went through his wild young phases, and that is normal and we have seen a great maturity yet peppy kind of vigor that comes from someone who was by no means a wallflower. We see that a lot with military guys and gals, who had great responsibility while at the same time could be a bit crazy and zany when young. But that is how a great man, or woman, is made.
While I am not blaming Senator Obama for not having military experience, he did not have the youthful origins that were the self made man or woman American story, but are rather of a stitching together of the political radical views of those who surrounded him and his family from the beginning. One cannot develop a character such as Senator McCain has done if one borrows a page of one's being from socialism, another from an excluding church, another from hostility toward every pro life endeavor, regardless how modest, and yet another page from the jet setting celebrity seeking "protege." I can blame a man of his age for not being self aware enough to recognize that he has just stuffed ideologue quotations and tactics together in a sack and called that an ethics, a policy, a worldview.
So I urge all of you who want to see genuine change and progress to vote for Senator McCain, the exciting and intellectually honest McCain-Palin ticket.
Because I am surprised at the number of people who do not see his obvious quality of character and qualifications for the Presidency, while at the same time they magnify Senator Obama's qualifications, which he lacks, I am making this statement, a public expression of support and voting recommendation, for the first time.
John McCain is a whole and vibrant man, who has not only a commendable character, but also a coherent and integrated view of his country, his faith and his policies. Many who have grown up in the chaotic past few decades do not recognize what has become so rare, which is a man (or a woman) who we would call "being made of whole cloth."
The expression "to be made of whole cloth" means a mature and reliable individual of completeness in his view of himself and his responsibilities. A man of "whole cloth" is not patched together from scraps of different fabrics. John McCain is a man of whole cloth.
Someone who is not of "whole cloth," is, by contrast, a man or woman who like a crazy quilt made up of pieces of many different scraps of cloth, has as a result a hodge podge of factors that are, to use another expression, "weak at the seams." Many people, both politicians and citizens, of the past few decades, are scattered in their education, their policy, their attitude and their own self perception, just like a crazy quilt made up of scraps of cloth stitched together "however the chips fall."
A man of whole cloth, like John McCain, has formed his own character and view of the world through building on a firm foundation of self identity, of love of faith and country, and who then, secure in his own identity, can make his own well informed decisions, even ones that may be surprising.
A man like Barrack Obama, by contrast, picks up whatever scraps of self identity float his way, and then force them together, like a crazy quilt, to look like a whole, but is filled with error and weakness. A lot is not his fault, since that is the tragedy of many who have grown up in chaotic personal and societal times. But to promote the pieces of the crazy quilt and claim that it is sufficient for the Presidency is startling and the height of irresponsibility. What astonishes me is how many people seem to be unable to see that problem with him, right from the start.
Senator Obama puts together his identity and policy like thus: he grabs a scrap of one worldview (socialism) and tries to stitch it to a scrap of capitalism (from which he has benefited); he grabs a scrap of having "great faith" in Christ, and then stitches it to a scrap that is very exclusionary and hostile to mainstream faith; he grabs a scrap that says he has compassionate concern for children, and then sews it to a scrap that will not intervene when even the most extreme abortion abuse scenario, where a living baby is born instead of being aborted; he grabs a scrap of being the great diplomat, and then sews it to making rash ("I am not a wimp") jingoistic statements about Georgia, Iran and so forth. He grabs a piece of cloth of being "inclusive," yet sics the dogs on "Joe the plumber," a man who he approached in his neighborhood, when Joe the plumber gets election wide attention.
I am terribly sympathetic to those who are so tempted by the sway of "finally" "getting an Afro American" President. But gosh, not only is that not a reason to vote for someone who is otherwise so immature and unstable in his policy and view of America, but it is actually a problem because he is not so very fair after all, as we see in the "Joe the Plumber" incident. Young people, especially young Afro-Americans, I am going to teach you two code words that you probably do know about, but may not. One is what I used above, which is "sicing the dogs." You know that is a code expression for how police dogs were set upon Civil Rights protesters during the struggle for civil rights. Yes, political campaigns are rough. But why have Obama supporters been allowed to "sic the dogs" on a layman, a civilian, an average citizen, an average potential voter, just because he expressed his opinion when asked? Should not a Civil Rights "veteran" be particularly sensitive about doing that to anyone? And so I introduce another code word to that situation to ask you about, which is being "uppity." "Uppity" is what used to be applied to Afro-Americans who spoke up and seemed "not to know their place." Well, it looks like Joe the plumber sure got "uppity," didn't he? By the way, we are now seeing the same treatment of "sicing the dogs" on the "uppity" female journalist in Florida who dared question Senator Joe Biden (gosh, if he can't handle it, how could he have ever handled Krushiev??)
My point is that you, as voters, should question someone who you view as a role model and hero for your gender, race, faith or "cause" who seems to not defend other people's rights to not be treated as unfairly as "your people" (whatever the historic situation) were themselves? So not only does Mr. Obama have a crazy quilt hodge podge of self identity, stance toward his own country and policies, but he is not in practice the great "equalizer," but lets himself appear to be a "chip on the shoulder" "turner of the tables."
Mr. Obama, like so many of this past generation, has had a personal and intellectual identity that came from pieces of biased and skewed material being fed to him by those who he admired, rather than starting on a firm foundation of self understanding and properly rooted civics, and then allowing himself to determine bold new policies, as has Senator McCain.
For example, any Latino American who does not vote for Senator McCain must be out of his or her mind. Senator McCain went against his very own party, and many of his advisers, to try to legislate a very generous and fair step forward in the problem of immigration and work rights in this country for all, and most especially Latinos. He was beaten to a political pulp for standing up for all of you, and if Latinos do not turn out to vote for Senator McCain I will be very disappointed and view it as a lack of loyalty, character and misidentification of your own self interest. Senator McCain derived a generous and wise proposal that addressed many problems of the Latinos from his firm and consistent "whole cloth" stance regarding human rights, the golden prize of citizenship, and the reality of the need to support immigrant families in their quest for honest work and stable homes. Senator McCain is able to take his ethical personal and civic character and then extend it to others, rather than have a "chip on the shoulder" approach toward expanding prosperity, opportunity, rights and yes, "hope," as Senator Obama seems to spew, yet demonstrate otherwise, in both his own actions and the company that he keeps.
Senator McCain has the complete package, a whole cloth foundational approach to his own genuine character, his stance toward his country and civics, and the formulation of his policies, both those that are conventionally traditional, and those that are then seen to be surprising and thus called "maverick." His opponent is stitched together from many books of quotations, rather than being a fully integral whole that results from the maturation of his youthful view and upbringing. Senator McCain had great responsibility as a youth, even when he went through his wild young phases, and that is normal and we have seen a great maturity yet peppy kind of vigor that comes from someone who was by no means a wallflower. We see that a lot with military guys and gals, who had great responsibility while at the same time could be a bit crazy and zany when young. But that is how a great man, or woman, is made.
While I am not blaming Senator Obama for not having military experience, he did not have the youthful origins that were the self made man or woman American story, but are rather of a stitching together of the political radical views of those who surrounded him and his family from the beginning. One cannot develop a character such as Senator McCain has done if one borrows a page of one's being from socialism, another from an excluding church, another from hostility toward every pro life endeavor, regardless how modest, and yet another page from the jet setting celebrity seeking "protege." I can blame a man of his age for not being self aware enough to recognize that he has just stuffed ideologue quotations and tactics together in a sack and called that an ethics, a policy, a worldview.
So I urge all of you who want to see genuine change and progress to vote for Senator McCain, the exciting and intellectually honest McCain-Palin ticket.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Political tutorial: Part 2 Liberalism
Here is the tutorial about what it means to be a true liberal. I hope that you have read the Part 1 tutorial about being a conservative since I will reference the same concepts and analogies.
A genuine liberal is content with the faith structure, the government structure and the economic principles of his or her country. Thus in the United States that profile would be a liberal who believes in and loves America, validating that it is a nation of believers (though belief is not required), that it is a republic that is informed by democracy (the United States is not a democracy) and that the capitalism which fuels the economy is a valid and good model for this country. So, actually, a genuine liberal starts out with endorsing the same principles as a conservative regarding being in approval of the goodness of his or her country and its people. If the liberal does not believe in the goodness of the country and its people, then he or she is not a liberal but an alienated revolutionary. I’m not being insulting; I am helping you expand your vocabulary and understanding of people’s motivations, including your own. There is nothing wrong with being a revolutionary in the right place at the right time. For example, the United States was founded when as a colony it rebelled and had a revolution to break England’s rule of the colonies. That is why it is called the American Revolutionary War. Thus a revolution is usually called for when a genuine tyranny is in control, or when a colony has matured to the point where it seeks to break from the country in control. However, a revolutionary mindset is not called for when one seeks to extend rights within an otherwise just country. That is not only wrong but counterproductive.
Let me give the example of the American Civil War, known as the war against slavery. The southerners who believed in the continued ownership of slaves actually considered themselves justified revolutionaries. Why? They thought that the Federal government was taking away from them a “right,” which was the right to continue having slaves. So they thought they were noble, just as were the Revolutionary soldiers who created America by breaking from England, but in their case thinking that by breaking from the USA federation and forming their own states that they were retaining rights. This is why it is important to understand the difference between a revolutionary and a true liberal, and why I have to “back into” a definition of true liberalism by first showing what it is NOT. Liberals and conservatives, even though they did not call themselves that, were the ones to fight and defeat slavery in the United States. It was liberalism that identified and stimulated the intellectual and moral impulse to rid the country of slavery, and it was in alliance with conservatives that this was in fact accomplished. Somehow in the United States from the 1960’s onward the word “revolution” and the distortion of what is really means became a self destructive erroneous model of behavior that has become glorified, at the detriment of the very causes that people think they are espousing. Remember, in order to be intellectually honest you have to look at human historic record to identify revolutions, and assess whether they were beneficial or destructive. The American Revolution against the British was moral and constructive, giving birth to a great nation. However, who would argue that the South revolting against the North in order to protect slavery was a “good thing?” Do those of you who think social change only is achieved through “revolution” think that you would have cheered those revolutionaries, the slave owning Confederates? Likewise there were revolutions that resulted in Communist governments. Somehow modern “revolutionaries” are unable to see the terrible fallout of such unjust revolutions, regardless of the obvious and measurable outcomes (Stalin and his murder of millions in concentration camps, for example. Nothing the czars did was as bad as that, ultimately. Look also at Pol Pot in Cambodia and explain how that was a “good” revolution).
So the past two generations have been particularly brainwashed and “pumped up” by thinking that one must “fight for one’s rights” and “got to revolution.” They never see the difference between being a liberal advocate for rights and being a destructive and ultimately self destructive, “revolutionary.” Believe me, I saw them in my time, as they put on their berets and pose in front of the mirror thinking they look like “Che G,” yet have no idea about how to work “within the system” (a term they distained) in order to achieve what they wanted and even more.
Let’s use the analogy I presented in the Part 1 conservative blog post, where we had met our vegetarian conservative. Our vegetarian conservative valued the delicious and nutritious salad, and was cautious about the addition of new ingredients or the salad dressing, using discernment and good taste when he or she did make those decisions. What is our vegetarian liberal like? Now, here I am going to describe a genuine and true liberal, not a pseudo liberal, as most are today. A genuine liberal shares the same valuing of the salad as does the vegetarian conservative. In fact, the genuine liberal enjoys his or her salad so much that he or she wants to be sure that everyone else who wants or needs one can obtain one that is just as good. Thus, underlying all true liberalism is an active sense of “social justice.” This does not mean that the vegetarian conservative does not also want many people to also have salads. But the vegetarian conservative tends to focus on the kitchen where the salad is produced; making sure that there is enough for everyone who seeks it out. The vegetarian conservative does not tend to look around and identify who is in want or need of the salad. The vegetarian liberal is a restless soul who tends to look around to see who needs or wants the salad, but does not have it.
So how does the true vegetarian liberal feel? The vegetarian liberal loves his or her salad and thinks that it is so wonderful that all should have access to the same quality salad. The vegetarian true liberal does not turn against salad and hate it because it is not available to all. The vegetarian true liberal does not take salad away from someone else and put it in front of the one who lacked it, saying that is “fair.” And the vegetarian true liberal does not insult the producers of the salad, either those who went before us or the ones who are producing the salads now. The vegetarian true liberal is a “nudge,” to use a Yiddish term, where the liberal identifies a social justice need (such as the need for more people to receive their own equal qualities salad) and then nags the vegetarian conservative to find a way to make that done. Liberalism is frosting on the cake of conservatism; they are absolutely not in opposition.
Modern liberalism has developed a very unhealthy and unproductive rage. For some reason in modern times liberalism has lost its modesty and became “revolutionary elitist. “ Liberals used to be very humble souls, grateful for the goodness of what they have, and gently seeking to make the same goodness available to others. It was not for nothing that Hubert Humphrey was called “The Happy Warrior.” True liberals value and love what they have and seek to identify what we used to call the “disenfranchised” in order to bring them into the franchise, because it is good in there. Rather than hating the country or system that produced so much goodness, true liberals seek to bring more into the fold of enjoying the goodness. It is the techniques where the disenfranchised are brought into the fold where true conservatives and true liberals may have their legitimate disagreement, and that is where I had expected this country to evolve to at this point, rather than devolving into total meanness and stupidity of discourse and deed as it has. For example, I’ve pointed out in previous posts that the founders and original beneficiaries of the Civil Rights movement wanted the same thing that everyone else did: freedom, equality, a good home, a good job and a happy family. The elders, the ancestors, of modern Afro Americans loved their country and wanted to be enfranchised. They didn’t hate. These remarkable people didn’t hate even when they had every reason to, when they were oppressed in actual slavery. You can read many stories about slaves who escaped, who then worked at jobs to earn money that they then used to buy the freedom of their families. They did not hate the country and they did not hate the system. They fought and bought their way into being enfranchised. They did not view their children as a “burden,” but a blessing, even in those worst of times. For example, they struggled to get into the armed services, even serving in segregated units, not to have a “job,” but because they believed in their country as flawed as it was in regard to their treatment, and sought enfranchisement, not “revolution.”
Now here is where maniac conservatives have both consciously and unconsciously honed the hatred of many modern “liberals.” I alluded to maniac liberals in my previous Part 1 posting, and now I will allude to maniac conservatives. Maniac conservatives have a smugness and hardness at heart that can be described as follows. A vegetarian maniac conservative would like to wave around in front of the disenfranchised a serving of salad, saying, “Mm, mm this sure is good! If you worked hard you could have one of these too!” And then they would turn their backs and call themselves wonderful defenders of conservatism and capitalism. Such behavior is always outrageous and I well understand liberals who feel incited. Maniac conservatives like to bait the “have nots.” Maniac liberals, then, in response, want to tear down all that is good, like cutting the baby in half, to be “fair” and in retaliation. Unfortunately, rather than having reached a time where true conservatives and true liberals work together, disagreeing only on their methods, the dialogue is based on the rage generated by the self destructive energies of the maniac conservatives and maniac liberals, who are the puppet string pullers behind the scenes.
Another definition of a true liberal is a person who has a firm faith and moral ethos foundation. Without that liberals tend to be rudderless and reactive. That is one of the downfalls of genuine liberalism, their abandonment of traditional faith and moral strictures. Genuine liberals are enfranchised in their faith and moral heritage; they do not “invent a faith” as they trundle through life. Thus “new age” and other occult beliefs have taken root like weeds in the ethos of many liberals, and thus have led them totally astray. This is why they tend to make up out of the air ideas of “new rights” and “new grievances” as they stumble through life, untrue to their own heritage and the wisdom of those who came before. Modern liberals “make it up as they go along.” How have equal rights and civil rights gone, therefore, from being free and being able to support a family to having under age sex, tearing and tossing the baby out of the womb like a used snot rag, and then watching booty shake in your music video? I’m being serious. True liberals do not take their vegetarian salads and show children how to rub the pieces up their orifices while filming themselves on the cell phone. But all modern liberals care about is thinking of a “new right” or a “new outrage” that always seem to share one thing in common, which is sullying and destroying the actual foundational “salad.”
A genuine vegetarian liberal wants to expand the kitchen and expand the factory and expand the access so all who need and want the good high quality salad can obtain it. A false vegetarian liberal thinks of ways to roll the pieces of the salad in the dirt, to “get back at” those who created it in the first place, and to teach those who did not have the salad that “mm, mm, this dirt covered salad that WE invented and provided to you sure is good.” A genuine vegetarian liberal expands access to the salad and promotes peace of mind. A false vegetarian liberal makes sure that the stomach remains churning in “indignation” and rage, even as the person who had been denied the salad finally receives it. When a false liberal hands out a “right” or a “gift” to the disenfranchised, they ought to to hand out the little purple pill at the same time, because rather than promoting peace of mind and prosperity, they promote angst and continuing mental discord.
For that reason I stopped thinking of myself, personally, as a liberal many years ago.
Liberals have forgotten that they are supposed to expand the base that conservatism built, not warp or destroy it so that everyone has less of worth and worthiness in the end.
I hope that you find this helpful.
A genuine liberal is content with the faith structure, the government structure and the economic principles of his or her country. Thus in the United States that profile would be a liberal who believes in and loves America, validating that it is a nation of believers (though belief is not required), that it is a republic that is informed by democracy (the United States is not a democracy) and that the capitalism which fuels the economy is a valid and good model for this country. So, actually, a genuine liberal starts out with endorsing the same principles as a conservative regarding being in approval of the goodness of his or her country and its people. If the liberal does not believe in the goodness of the country and its people, then he or she is not a liberal but an alienated revolutionary. I’m not being insulting; I am helping you expand your vocabulary and understanding of people’s motivations, including your own. There is nothing wrong with being a revolutionary in the right place at the right time. For example, the United States was founded when as a colony it rebelled and had a revolution to break England’s rule of the colonies. That is why it is called the American Revolutionary War. Thus a revolution is usually called for when a genuine tyranny is in control, or when a colony has matured to the point where it seeks to break from the country in control. However, a revolutionary mindset is not called for when one seeks to extend rights within an otherwise just country. That is not only wrong but counterproductive.
Let me give the example of the American Civil War, known as the war against slavery. The southerners who believed in the continued ownership of slaves actually considered themselves justified revolutionaries. Why? They thought that the Federal government was taking away from them a “right,” which was the right to continue having slaves. So they thought they were noble, just as were the Revolutionary soldiers who created America by breaking from England, but in their case thinking that by breaking from the USA federation and forming their own states that they were retaining rights. This is why it is important to understand the difference between a revolutionary and a true liberal, and why I have to “back into” a definition of true liberalism by first showing what it is NOT. Liberals and conservatives, even though they did not call themselves that, were the ones to fight and defeat slavery in the United States. It was liberalism that identified and stimulated the intellectual and moral impulse to rid the country of slavery, and it was in alliance with conservatives that this was in fact accomplished. Somehow in the United States from the 1960’s onward the word “revolution” and the distortion of what is really means became a self destructive erroneous model of behavior that has become glorified, at the detriment of the very causes that people think they are espousing. Remember, in order to be intellectually honest you have to look at human historic record to identify revolutions, and assess whether they were beneficial or destructive. The American Revolution against the British was moral and constructive, giving birth to a great nation. However, who would argue that the South revolting against the North in order to protect slavery was a “good thing?” Do those of you who think social change only is achieved through “revolution” think that you would have cheered those revolutionaries, the slave owning Confederates? Likewise there were revolutions that resulted in Communist governments. Somehow modern “revolutionaries” are unable to see the terrible fallout of such unjust revolutions, regardless of the obvious and measurable outcomes (Stalin and his murder of millions in concentration camps, for example. Nothing the czars did was as bad as that, ultimately. Look also at Pol Pot in Cambodia and explain how that was a “good” revolution).
So the past two generations have been particularly brainwashed and “pumped up” by thinking that one must “fight for one’s rights” and “got to revolution.” They never see the difference between being a liberal advocate for rights and being a destructive and ultimately self destructive, “revolutionary.” Believe me, I saw them in my time, as they put on their berets and pose in front of the mirror thinking they look like “Che G,” yet have no idea about how to work “within the system” (a term they distained) in order to achieve what they wanted and even more.
Let’s use the analogy I presented in the Part 1 conservative blog post, where we had met our vegetarian conservative. Our vegetarian conservative valued the delicious and nutritious salad, and was cautious about the addition of new ingredients or the salad dressing, using discernment and good taste when he or she did make those decisions. What is our vegetarian liberal like? Now, here I am going to describe a genuine and true liberal, not a pseudo liberal, as most are today. A genuine liberal shares the same valuing of the salad as does the vegetarian conservative. In fact, the genuine liberal enjoys his or her salad so much that he or she wants to be sure that everyone else who wants or needs one can obtain one that is just as good. Thus, underlying all true liberalism is an active sense of “social justice.” This does not mean that the vegetarian conservative does not also want many people to also have salads. But the vegetarian conservative tends to focus on the kitchen where the salad is produced; making sure that there is enough for everyone who seeks it out. The vegetarian conservative does not tend to look around and identify who is in want or need of the salad. The vegetarian liberal is a restless soul who tends to look around to see who needs or wants the salad, but does not have it.
So how does the true vegetarian liberal feel? The vegetarian liberal loves his or her salad and thinks that it is so wonderful that all should have access to the same quality salad. The vegetarian true liberal does not turn against salad and hate it because it is not available to all. The vegetarian true liberal does not take salad away from someone else and put it in front of the one who lacked it, saying that is “fair.” And the vegetarian true liberal does not insult the producers of the salad, either those who went before us or the ones who are producing the salads now. The vegetarian true liberal is a “nudge,” to use a Yiddish term, where the liberal identifies a social justice need (such as the need for more people to receive their own equal qualities salad) and then nags the vegetarian conservative to find a way to make that done. Liberalism is frosting on the cake of conservatism; they are absolutely not in opposition.
Modern liberalism has developed a very unhealthy and unproductive rage. For some reason in modern times liberalism has lost its modesty and became “revolutionary elitist. “ Liberals used to be very humble souls, grateful for the goodness of what they have, and gently seeking to make the same goodness available to others. It was not for nothing that Hubert Humphrey was called “The Happy Warrior.” True liberals value and love what they have and seek to identify what we used to call the “disenfranchised” in order to bring them into the franchise, because it is good in there. Rather than hating the country or system that produced so much goodness, true liberals seek to bring more into the fold of enjoying the goodness. It is the techniques where the disenfranchised are brought into the fold where true conservatives and true liberals may have their legitimate disagreement, and that is where I had expected this country to evolve to at this point, rather than devolving into total meanness and stupidity of discourse and deed as it has. For example, I’ve pointed out in previous posts that the founders and original beneficiaries of the Civil Rights movement wanted the same thing that everyone else did: freedom, equality, a good home, a good job and a happy family. The elders, the ancestors, of modern Afro Americans loved their country and wanted to be enfranchised. They didn’t hate. These remarkable people didn’t hate even when they had every reason to, when they were oppressed in actual slavery. You can read many stories about slaves who escaped, who then worked at jobs to earn money that they then used to buy the freedom of their families. They did not hate the country and they did not hate the system. They fought and bought their way into being enfranchised. They did not view their children as a “burden,” but a blessing, even in those worst of times. For example, they struggled to get into the armed services, even serving in segregated units, not to have a “job,” but because they believed in their country as flawed as it was in regard to their treatment, and sought enfranchisement, not “revolution.”
Now here is where maniac conservatives have both consciously and unconsciously honed the hatred of many modern “liberals.” I alluded to maniac liberals in my previous Part 1 posting, and now I will allude to maniac conservatives. Maniac conservatives have a smugness and hardness at heart that can be described as follows. A vegetarian maniac conservative would like to wave around in front of the disenfranchised a serving of salad, saying, “Mm, mm this sure is good! If you worked hard you could have one of these too!” And then they would turn their backs and call themselves wonderful defenders of conservatism and capitalism. Such behavior is always outrageous and I well understand liberals who feel incited. Maniac conservatives like to bait the “have nots.” Maniac liberals, then, in response, want to tear down all that is good, like cutting the baby in half, to be “fair” and in retaliation. Unfortunately, rather than having reached a time where true conservatives and true liberals work together, disagreeing only on their methods, the dialogue is based on the rage generated by the self destructive energies of the maniac conservatives and maniac liberals, who are the puppet string pullers behind the scenes.
Another definition of a true liberal is a person who has a firm faith and moral ethos foundation. Without that liberals tend to be rudderless and reactive. That is one of the downfalls of genuine liberalism, their abandonment of traditional faith and moral strictures. Genuine liberals are enfranchised in their faith and moral heritage; they do not “invent a faith” as they trundle through life. Thus “new age” and other occult beliefs have taken root like weeds in the ethos of many liberals, and thus have led them totally astray. This is why they tend to make up out of the air ideas of “new rights” and “new grievances” as they stumble through life, untrue to their own heritage and the wisdom of those who came before. Modern liberals “make it up as they go along.” How have equal rights and civil rights gone, therefore, from being free and being able to support a family to having under age sex, tearing and tossing the baby out of the womb like a used snot rag, and then watching booty shake in your music video? I’m being serious. True liberals do not take their vegetarian salads and show children how to rub the pieces up their orifices while filming themselves on the cell phone. But all modern liberals care about is thinking of a “new right” or a “new outrage” that always seem to share one thing in common, which is sullying and destroying the actual foundational “salad.”
A genuine vegetarian liberal wants to expand the kitchen and expand the factory and expand the access so all who need and want the good high quality salad can obtain it. A false vegetarian liberal thinks of ways to roll the pieces of the salad in the dirt, to “get back at” those who created it in the first place, and to teach those who did not have the salad that “mm, mm, this dirt covered salad that WE invented and provided to you sure is good.” A genuine vegetarian liberal expands access to the salad and promotes peace of mind. A false vegetarian liberal makes sure that the stomach remains churning in “indignation” and rage, even as the person who had been denied the salad finally receives it. When a false liberal hands out a “right” or a “gift” to the disenfranchised, they ought to to hand out the little purple pill at the same time, because rather than promoting peace of mind and prosperity, they promote angst and continuing mental discord.
For that reason I stopped thinking of myself, personally, as a liberal many years ago.
Liberals have forgotten that they are supposed to expand the base that conservatism built, not warp or destroy it so that everyone has less of worth and worthiness in the end.
I hope that you find this helpful.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Politics Tutorial: Part I, the Conservative
Politics Tutorial Part I: Conservative
I am going to explain here what true conservatism means. So this will be a tutorial to provide an accurate definition of a “conservative.” I will turn my attention to liberalism and being a “liberal” in part two. I always have young people on my mind, hoping this will be of benefit to them in particular, as they have been raised and educated in very ambiguous and erroneous times, thus they have been taught simply wrong definitions and historical perspectives of both concepts, of both conservatism and liberalism. But I also have to address the very followers and “believers” of each “side” too, because I have observed that you don’t even know what it actually means to claim to be a conservative, or to claim to be a liberal. Both sides have totally lost their integrity of cause as a result, since you claim to be what you no longer remember it is in truth. A kind analogy is like this. Everyone has probably seen a little boy, let’s say a three or four year old, who one day, in imitation of his father, tells someone “I’m a man too!” We all smile, and even maybe call him “Little Man” as a nickname, but while he is a male, and he is a little boy, he is not yet a man, nor does he even know all the fullness of definition of what it is to be a “man.” Likewise I see even the party leaders calling themselves “liberal” or “conservative,” and they don’t have a clue as to what that designation and position really means, no matter how much they think they are emulating their historical predecessors. So I hope to bring a strong light of clarity to this problem. Let’s start with conservatives.
The word “conservative” comes from the verb “to conserve.” For example, the early environmentalist aka “green” movement was called “conservation.” By the way, the “politically correct” movement in speech from using the term “conservationist” to “environmentalist” was an early sign of losing comprehension of one’s own terminology and implied actions, and has been at the root of much of the problems of radicalizing the “environmentalist” movement. Ironically by changing from “conservationists” to “environmentalists,” the result boomeranged to the opposite of what they wanted. But that is a subject for another tutorial. Back in the early days of the “conservationist” movement (of which I was a part and an observer), the philosophical “sorting out” that we did was to decide whether we were “conservationists” or “preservationists.” Everyone agreed that the difference is that conservationists do “conserve,” as in “protect” or “accumulate” or “judiciously utilize” while preservationists “preserve” in the sense that they will not use what they have, but maintain it in its “original state.” Thus those who decided to work in the new area of designating historic buildings and areas and restoring them chose, correctly, the term “historic preservationists.” Historic preservationists identify and restore buildings or even neighborhoods to how they appeared at a particular meaningful time, and then they defend that restoration against change or degradation. Conservationists correctly realized that they could only rarely be “preservationists,” since the earth is, by definition, the place where humans and animals live, where progress takes place, and change happens, including the hopefully judicious and prudent use of natural resources. So here is the important point. Many people think that to be a “conservative” means to be “frozen in time.” That is not true. A conservative is a realistic who embraces change, but only while “conserving” the base on which the change would be implemented. In politics this means that a conservative is a person who protects the basis of the, in our case, American way of life and the American nation and mandate as a whole. In lifestyle a conservative is a person who protects his family and livelihood. He does not do this by sealing the family up in a bomb shelter; that would be a preservationist LOL. A conservative man or woman has as their primary purpose the protection and thriving growth of their core family, their core beliefs and their core method of making a living.
So a conservative is constantly concerned with and is constantly checking all proposed “changes” against a mental evaluation of whether that change is consistent and protective of the good foundation upon which the change is proposed. A vegetarian conservative, for example, would think carefully about what salad dressing he or she is adding to their carefully constructed salad. A vegetarian conservative understands that the nutrition and the goodness of their meal is the salad, constructed to their taste using wholesome ingredients. The “change” is the salad dressing, and a vegetarian conservative considers carefully what dressing they add to their salad, seeking only to improve upon the salad and not to harm or ruin it. So a really conservative vegetarian might cautiously add oil and vinegar, enough for flavor and moisture, but not to add calories, fat, artificial ingredients, or worst of all, a repellent taste. A kind of borderline conservative vegetarian might dump huge globs of high fat ranch dressing, making it delicious if he or she only wants to taste the dressing and not the salad ingredients LOL. They are still a conservative, even then, because they still eat the nutritious salad, valuing it, even though they just taste and calorie bombed it LOL.
This is why a political conservative is constantly checking any proposed political change, no matter how worthy that change is, against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and also ways of handling unintentional consequences and fallout of even good changes. Suppose that the vegetarian conservative decides to add beets to the salad. Would he or she just drop the glass jar of beets into the middle of the salad? Would he or she buy a whole fresh beet, and then throw it unwashed and unpeeled right into the middle of the salad? Um, no, unless the conservative is engaging in some sort of performance art (and conservatives tend not to make statements using absurdist style performance art). No, the vegetarian conservative washes, peels and slices the right amount of beets to enhance the salad, not to “make a point” of “change for change’s sake.” Further, the vegetarian conservative makes sure that he or she has prepared sufficient beets for their whole family or all their friends and more so, has provided alternatives for those who just cannot abide the taste of beets. This is why TRUE political conservatives constantly, consistently and carefully assess any proposed change, no matter how judicious and beneficial, against the backdrop of what they are conserving, which is the United States, its freedom, its protections, its stability and its impact on families and culture, including genuine freedom of worship.
Thus a real vegetarian conservative might drive moderate conservatives or liberals crazy while they do this assessment. A real vegetarian conservative, when presented with a newly discovered “vegetable” to “try out” is likely to do a lot of thinking and research before serving it up to his or her family. A vegetarian conservative, if given a newly found vegetable, the “zork” let’s say, by a world traveling neighbor, and being told that it cures cancer, prevents pimples and removes that excess belly fat would be very, very, VERY cautious. A vegetarian conservative would carefully consider the implications of BOTH scenarios, if the zork was indeed a new miracle food, what would be the impact of that success (might kids get addicted? would it destroy the corn industry?) or the alternative that it is not true and possibly even dangerous (thus the vegetarian conservative is glad they took the time to research and think about it before biting into it and serving it to their family or friends). Meanwhile the less understanding moderate conservative or liberal might be yelling insults at the vegetarian conservative while the vegetarian conservative is pondering, since they do not understand the sober responsibility of the vegetarian conservative. They just view it as “resistance to change” and the vegetarian conservative being “frozen in the past.” While the vegetarian conservative is evaluating the zork, the moderate conservative or liberal runs out and buys ads on the TV and Internet accusing the vegetarian conservative as being “against change” and having “issues” because they won’t immediately embrace the zork.
No matter what their party or political designation, I argue that every United States President before the last century was a conservative. Even if they had kooky ideas and took risks, each President since George Washington, up until the most recent of times, had first and foremost the “conservation” of the Republic of the United States of America as the cradle of goodness and freedom. In fact, I would argue that until recently, every American was a conservative, whether they realized it or not, especially once they reached a mature age. In fact, that was a common pithy saying when I was growing up. People always joked, and also explained, that liberalism is a youthful experiment and point of view, until they grow up and have “something to protect.” A wise middle aged conservative woman once explained that to my extremely liberal ex-husband, saying “If you had something to protect, you’d be a conservative.” Somewhere along the line, I’d say in the 1960’s, having something to protect became a dirty word. The pop psychology and depressive sex and drug culture argued that protecting is “bad” and having nothing to protect is “good.” Conservatives were demonized as being “against change.” Does that sound familiar? Conservatives are not against change. Conservatives tend to be the drivers of prudent GENUINE change that also preserves all that is good and free about the base.
You need look no further than the great President Abraham Lincoln. As every student knows Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War on the side of “preserving the Union.” Lincoln did not invade the South in order to overthrow slavery. Lincoln opposed slavery using sound conservative principles. Lincoln refused to allow the Southern states to claim “States’ rights” in order to maintain their slavery and further Lincoln refused to allow the states to secede from the Union (in other words, break away from the United States and form a separate country) in order to maintain their slavery. See, if maniac liberals went back in time and tried to advise Lincoln in the beginning of the crisis, they would leap onto the Constitution and insult it, saying that it “should never have had slavery in the first place,” and that “the United States is a bad country” and would have agitated for actions that weaken or even destroy the base of the country, rather than using the conservative solution, which IS forceful and it IS change, but it seeks to protect the Union, not destroy it, while doing a great good. Maniac liberals would have attacked the fact that the USA was formed when slavery was a dreadful but prevalent practice, they would have attacked “states rights” as a whole, just because the seceding states sought to misuse that right, rather than use sober and deep understanding of the accurate and good basis for the country, its foundation, and reinforce the return to the Union without losing rights in the course of gaining rights. Thus Lincoln succeeded in one of the greatest changes in the history of the country, the abolition of slavery, exactly by being a conservative, who said, basically “Yes, states rights, but not those rights, and yes states rights, but not at the cost of the Union, not by fracturing our country.” Maniac liberals would have wanted the entire Constitution and States rights thrown out, and thus would neither have defeated slavery nor preserved the goodness of the nature of the United States. By the way, don’t worry, when I write about liberals I will criticize maniac conservatives too!
A genuine conservative does not need to be “schooled at Yale” or attend the correct mind expanding socials to be “smart enough.” For example, our vegetarian conservative did not have to learn how to make a healthy salad by watching a cable network, or going to a Culinary Institute. Genuine conservatives are informed by both their natural intelligence and their instincts, founded on love. Liberals love too, but I will explain the difference in the second tutorial. Genuine conservatives have an ardent love of their country and the traditional family as its basis, even if neither has been particularly kind to them in their personal life. Plenty of conservatives grew up in the school of hard knocks. The difference is that they do not feel that entitles them to be victims with a chip on their shoulder. This is because they recognize that stuff happens in life, but it is not an indictment of life, or their great country, or the importance of the family. For example, our vegetarian conservative might have a bad salad at a restaurant one day, but he or she does not now condemn all salads, or all restaurants. A genuine conservative recognizes that if he or she had freedom curtailed unfairly, or they grew up in a sad family situation, that is all the more reason to “protect” and “conserve” the right of everyone else to have a different experience, a positive and fruitful experience. Now, the “how” this is accomplished is where authentic conservatism has come unraveled and warped in modern times, resulting in jingoistic knee jerk reactions by many modern so called conservatives toward genuine suffering. I deplore modern conservatives who do not seem to understand compassion. That is not how it used to be, even in times when social services were absent. True conservatives had genuine social compassion, and they used to be wise and prudent about how to achieve it. I cannot say that they have that knowledge now. This does not make liberals “correct.” It means that there is a huge gaping hole in America that both sides are worsening, not bettering. Not too long ago even self proclaimed liberals were conservatives. I sometimes think that Hubert Humphrey was the last true liberal, who was a conservative who promoted change and social justice. Ah, yes, that is my hint about the definition of a true liberal.
I hope that you find this useful.
I am going to explain here what true conservatism means. So this will be a tutorial to provide an accurate definition of a “conservative.” I will turn my attention to liberalism and being a “liberal” in part two. I always have young people on my mind, hoping this will be of benefit to them in particular, as they have been raised and educated in very ambiguous and erroneous times, thus they have been taught simply wrong definitions and historical perspectives of both concepts, of both conservatism and liberalism. But I also have to address the very followers and “believers” of each “side” too, because I have observed that you don’t even know what it actually means to claim to be a conservative, or to claim to be a liberal. Both sides have totally lost their integrity of cause as a result, since you claim to be what you no longer remember it is in truth. A kind analogy is like this. Everyone has probably seen a little boy, let’s say a three or four year old, who one day, in imitation of his father, tells someone “I’m a man too!” We all smile, and even maybe call him “Little Man” as a nickname, but while he is a male, and he is a little boy, he is not yet a man, nor does he even know all the fullness of definition of what it is to be a “man.” Likewise I see even the party leaders calling themselves “liberal” or “conservative,” and they don’t have a clue as to what that designation and position really means, no matter how much they think they are emulating their historical predecessors. So I hope to bring a strong light of clarity to this problem. Let’s start with conservatives.
The word “conservative” comes from the verb “to conserve.” For example, the early environmentalist aka “green” movement was called “conservation.” By the way, the “politically correct” movement in speech from using the term “conservationist” to “environmentalist” was an early sign of losing comprehension of one’s own terminology and implied actions, and has been at the root of much of the problems of radicalizing the “environmentalist” movement. Ironically by changing from “conservationists” to “environmentalists,” the result boomeranged to the opposite of what they wanted. But that is a subject for another tutorial. Back in the early days of the “conservationist” movement (of which I was a part and an observer), the philosophical “sorting out” that we did was to decide whether we were “conservationists” or “preservationists.” Everyone agreed that the difference is that conservationists do “conserve,” as in “protect” or “accumulate” or “judiciously utilize” while preservationists “preserve” in the sense that they will not use what they have, but maintain it in its “original state.” Thus those who decided to work in the new area of designating historic buildings and areas and restoring them chose, correctly, the term “historic preservationists.” Historic preservationists identify and restore buildings or even neighborhoods to how they appeared at a particular meaningful time, and then they defend that restoration against change or degradation. Conservationists correctly realized that they could only rarely be “preservationists,” since the earth is, by definition, the place where humans and animals live, where progress takes place, and change happens, including the hopefully judicious and prudent use of natural resources. So here is the important point. Many people think that to be a “conservative” means to be “frozen in time.” That is not true. A conservative is a realistic who embraces change, but only while “conserving” the base on which the change would be implemented. In politics this means that a conservative is a person who protects the basis of the, in our case, American way of life and the American nation and mandate as a whole. In lifestyle a conservative is a person who protects his family and livelihood. He does not do this by sealing the family up in a bomb shelter; that would be a preservationist LOL. A conservative man or woman has as their primary purpose the protection and thriving growth of their core family, their core beliefs and their core method of making a living.
So a conservative is constantly concerned with and is constantly checking all proposed “changes” against a mental evaluation of whether that change is consistent and protective of the good foundation upon which the change is proposed. A vegetarian conservative, for example, would think carefully about what salad dressing he or she is adding to their carefully constructed salad. A vegetarian conservative understands that the nutrition and the goodness of their meal is the salad, constructed to their taste using wholesome ingredients. The “change” is the salad dressing, and a vegetarian conservative considers carefully what dressing they add to their salad, seeking only to improve upon the salad and not to harm or ruin it. So a really conservative vegetarian might cautiously add oil and vinegar, enough for flavor and moisture, but not to add calories, fat, artificial ingredients, or worst of all, a repellent taste. A kind of borderline conservative vegetarian might dump huge globs of high fat ranch dressing, making it delicious if he or she only wants to taste the dressing and not the salad ingredients LOL. They are still a conservative, even then, because they still eat the nutritious salad, valuing it, even though they just taste and calorie bombed it LOL.
This is why a political conservative is constantly checking any proposed political change, no matter how worthy that change is, against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and also ways of handling unintentional consequences and fallout of even good changes. Suppose that the vegetarian conservative decides to add beets to the salad. Would he or she just drop the glass jar of beets into the middle of the salad? Would he or she buy a whole fresh beet, and then throw it unwashed and unpeeled right into the middle of the salad? Um, no, unless the conservative is engaging in some sort of performance art (and conservatives tend not to make statements using absurdist style performance art). No, the vegetarian conservative washes, peels and slices the right amount of beets to enhance the salad, not to “make a point” of “change for change’s sake.” Further, the vegetarian conservative makes sure that he or she has prepared sufficient beets for their whole family or all their friends and more so, has provided alternatives for those who just cannot abide the taste of beets. This is why TRUE political conservatives constantly, consistently and carefully assess any proposed change, no matter how judicious and beneficial, against the backdrop of what they are conserving, which is the United States, its freedom, its protections, its stability and its impact on families and culture, including genuine freedom of worship.
Thus a real vegetarian conservative might drive moderate conservatives or liberals crazy while they do this assessment. A real vegetarian conservative, when presented with a newly discovered “vegetable” to “try out” is likely to do a lot of thinking and research before serving it up to his or her family. A vegetarian conservative, if given a newly found vegetable, the “zork” let’s say, by a world traveling neighbor, and being told that it cures cancer, prevents pimples and removes that excess belly fat would be very, very, VERY cautious. A vegetarian conservative would carefully consider the implications of BOTH scenarios, if the zork was indeed a new miracle food, what would be the impact of that success (might kids get addicted? would it destroy the corn industry?) or the alternative that it is not true and possibly even dangerous (thus the vegetarian conservative is glad they took the time to research and think about it before biting into it and serving it to their family or friends). Meanwhile the less understanding moderate conservative or liberal might be yelling insults at the vegetarian conservative while the vegetarian conservative is pondering, since they do not understand the sober responsibility of the vegetarian conservative. They just view it as “resistance to change” and the vegetarian conservative being “frozen in the past.” While the vegetarian conservative is evaluating the zork, the moderate conservative or liberal runs out and buys ads on the TV and Internet accusing the vegetarian conservative as being “against change” and having “issues” because they won’t immediately embrace the zork.
No matter what their party or political designation, I argue that every United States President before the last century was a conservative. Even if they had kooky ideas and took risks, each President since George Washington, up until the most recent of times, had first and foremost the “conservation” of the Republic of the United States of America as the cradle of goodness and freedom. In fact, I would argue that until recently, every American was a conservative, whether they realized it or not, especially once they reached a mature age. In fact, that was a common pithy saying when I was growing up. People always joked, and also explained, that liberalism is a youthful experiment and point of view, until they grow up and have “something to protect.” A wise middle aged conservative woman once explained that to my extremely liberal ex-husband, saying “If you had something to protect, you’d be a conservative.” Somewhere along the line, I’d say in the 1960’s, having something to protect became a dirty word. The pop psychology and depressive sex and drug culture argued that protecting is “bad” and having nothing to protect is “good.” Conservatives were demonized as being “against change.” Does that sound familiar? Conservatives are not against change. Conservatives tend to be the drivers of prudent GENUINE change that also preserves all that is good and free about the base.
You need look no further than the great President Abraham Lincoln. As every student knows Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War on the side of “preserving the Union.” Lincoln did not invade the South in order to overthrow slavery. Lincoln opposed slavery using sound conservative principles. Lincoln refused to allow the Southern states to claim “States’ rights” in order to maintain their slavery and further Lincoln refused to allow the states to secede from the Union (in other words, break away from the United States and form a separate country) in order to maintain their slavery. See, if maniac liberals went back in time and tried to advise Lincoln in the beginning of the crisis, they would leap onto the Constitution and insult it, saying that it “should never have had slavery in the first place,” and that “the United States is a bad country” and would have agitated for actions that weaken or even destroy the base of the country, rather than using the conservative solution, which IS forceful and it IS change, but it seeks to protect the Union, not destroy it, while doing a great good. Maniac liberals would have attacked the fact that the USA was formed when slavery was a dreadful but prevalent practice, they would have attacked “states rights” as a whole, just because the seceding states sought to misuse that right, rather than use sober and deep understanding of the accurate and good basis for the country, its foundation, and reinforce the return to the Union without losing rights in the course of gaining rights. Thus Lincoln succeeded in one of the greatest changes in the history of the country, the abolition of slavery, exactly by being a conservative, who said, basically “Yes, states rights, but not those rights, and yes states rights, but not at the cost of the Union, not by fracturing our country.” Maniac liberals would have wanted the entire Constitution and States rights thrown out, and thus would neither have defeated slavery nor preserved the goodness of the nature of the United States. By the way, don’t worry, when I write about liberals I will criticize maniac conservatives too!
A genuine conservative does not need to be “schooled at Yale” or attend the correct mind expanding socials to be “smart enough.” For example, our vegetarian conservative did not have to learn how to make a healthy salad by watching a cable network, or going to a Culinary Institute. Genuine conservatives are informed by both their natural intelligence and their instincts, founded on love. Liberals love too, but I will explain the difference in the second tutorial. Genuine conservatives have an ardent love of their country and the traditional family as its basis, even if neither has been particularly kind to them in their personal life. Plenty of conservatives grew up in the school of hard knocks. The difference is that they do not feel that entitles them to be victims with a chip on their shoulder. This is because they recognize that stuff happens in life, but it is not an indictment of life, or their great country, or the importance of the family. For example, our vegetarian conservative might have a bad salad at a restaurant one day, but he or she does not now condemn all salads, or all restaurants. A genuine conservative recognizes that if he or she had freedom curtailed unfairly, or they grew up in a sad family situation, that is all the more reason to “protect” and “conserve” the right of everyone else to have a different experience, a positive and fruitful experience. Now, the “how” this is accomplished is where authentic conservatism has come unraveled and warped in modern times, resulting in jingoistic knee jerk reactions by many modern so called conservatives toward genuine suffering. I deplore modern conservatives who do not seem to understand compassion. That is not how it used to be, even in times when social services were absent. True conservatives had genuine social compassion, and they used to be wise and prudent about how to achieve it. I cannot say that they have that knowledge now. This does not make liberals “correct.” It means that there is a huge gaping hole in America that both sides are worsening, not bettering. Not too long ago even self proclaimed liberals were conservatives. I sometimes think that Hubert Humphrey was the last true liberal, who was a conservative who promoted change and social justice. Ah, yes, that is my hint about the definition of a true liberal.
I hope that you find this useful.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Brave and honorable former POWs
I remember debating with high school friends how difficult it is to withstand years of torture. Do read about this remarkable friend of John McCain and his testimony.
http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_10629060
Five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison isn't what would make Sen. John McCain a great president - it's what he did during those years that shows a former fellow prisoner what kind of president he will be.
Col. Thomas N. Moe stopped in Gettysburg Thursday afternoon for a brief meet-and-greet on behalf of the man he said will be the next president of the United States.
Moe, a retired fighter pilot, spent five-and-a-half years in the cell next to McCain while the two were prisoners of war in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_10629060
Five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison isn't what would make Sen. John McCain a great president - it's what he did during those years that shows a former fellow prisoner what kind of president he will be.
Col. Thomas N. Moe stopped in Gettysburg Thursday afternoon for a brief meet-and-greet on behalf of the man he said will be the next president of the United States.
Moe, a retired fighter pilot, spent five-and-a-half years in the cell next to McCain while the two were prisoners of war in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Great opinion piece about fading Obama "aura"
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10444672?nclick_check=1
snip
Charles Krauthammer: Pallin steals Obama's fading spotlight
WASHINGTON — The Democrats are in a panic. In a presidential race that is impossible to lose, they are behind. Obama devotees are frantically giving advice. Tom Friedman tells him to "start slamming down some phones." Camille Paglia suggests, "be boring!"
Meanwhile, a posse of Democratic lawyers, mainstream reporters, lefty bloggers and various other Obamaphiles are scouring the vast tundra of Alaska for something, anything, to bring down Sarah Palin: her daughter's pregnancy, her ex-brother-in-law problem, her $60 per diem, and now her religion. (CNN reports — news flash! — that she apparently has never spoken in tongues.) Not since Henry II asked if no one would rid him of his turbulent priest, have so many so urgently volunteered for duty.
Paris Hilton ads
But Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain's Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama's meteoric rise was based not on issues — there was not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues — but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.
The unease at the Denver convention, the feeling of buyer's remorse, was the Democrats' realization that the arc of Obama's celebrity had peaked.
snip
Charles Krauthammer: Pallin steals Obama's fading spotlight
WASHINGTON — The Democrats are in a panic. In a presidential race that is impossible to lose, they are behind. Obama devotees are frantically giving advice. Tom Friedman tells him to "start slamming down some phones." Camille Paglia suggests, "be boring!"
Meanwhile, a posse of Democratic lawyers, mainstream reporters, lefty bloggers and various other Obamaphiles are scouring the vast tundra of Alaska for something, anything, to bring down Sarah Palin: her daughter's pregnancy, her ex-brother-in-law problem, her $60 per diem, and now her religion. (CNN reports — news flash! — that she apparently has never spoken in tongues.) Not since Henry II asked if no one would rid him of his turbulent priest, have so many so urgently volunteered for duty.
Paris Hilton ads
But Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain's Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama's meteoric rise was based not on issues — there was not a dime's worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues — but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.
The unease at the Denver convention, the feeling of buyer's remorse, was the Democrats' realization that the arc of Obama's celebrity had peaked.
Friday, August 29, 2008
I support McCain's choice of Sarah Palin
You know you can count on me to tell it like it is, and also put things in a proper context so that you can make your own decisions. So here are some points to remember, and not have an automatic liberally biased knee jerk reaction.
1) If someone is intelligent, flexible and of high moral fiber, there is no job they cannot do, including the Presidency. When one has a foundation that is firm, one can make decisions off of that. In evidence I offer the Founding Fathers. Absolutely all they had was the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, since when the country was new, obviously no one had "presidential experience." Yet from the Founding Fathers who had only a firm vision of a republic based in democracy, a piece of paper, and state militias sprang one President after the other in the first days of the United States. The only thing they had in common as "experience" was being a landowner. For most of human history being a landowner was the basis of all political office and "experience."
2) During the "women's liberation" movement, there were few women of "experience," in either politics or academia, or in industry, or high technology positions. Yet no one made women "wait to get their promotions until they have the same experience as men" once the glass ceilings were broken. To "wait" for the "same" or "comparable experience" promotes a kind of mindset that ensures that the pace of the disenfranchised group always remains behind. Women, blacks, Native Americans, etc cannot "wait" until they have exactly comparable years and type of experience as men who have held an office. This is especially outrageous when an "inexperienced" but moral and intelligent candidate is denigrated compared to a "experienced" leader who has made repeated and often immoral mistakes. Do you keep voting a corrupt politician back into office because he or she "has more experience" than the challenging candidate? Think about it.
3) Women's groups back in the 1960's-1980's promised that one of the "benefits" of more women candidates would be a higher morality and more compassion. The most hardened shrew bra burning hippies would even say this. Now they have drawn away from that position because they have discovered that morality implies self control and boundaries on behavior. Thus they have totally reneged on their promise of promoting "more compassionate and moral" women leaders, and instead push those that support tax and spend, hedonism, anti-religion, and self absorption rather than constancy and patriotism. So the very radical "women's libbers" promised more compassion and morality from women candidates and have for the past twenty five years totally run from (and worked against) this model of candidate. Witness their reaction to Sarah Palin.
Let's be honest. Many on the radical left, which controls the Democratic Party and the media, mix up compassion with hedonism. They do not recognize compassion when they see it. A woman like Sarah Palin has five children, including one with a disability that was known of pre-birth, and they act like she's hard hearted. Yet you know that many women these radicals push as "compassionate" would have happily had five abortions. How ironic that five abortions would be viewed as "more compassionate" than five living and loved children in a traditional family setting. If that does not tell you more about what this country has come to, I don't know what will open your eyes.
4) I'm already tired of the "how will she stand up against Putin" and "she won't have respect in the Middle East." Wrong. Here's why. We've had Secretary Rice "Russian expert" for four years or whatever, and what has she given us in foreign policy and respect? Wow, she sure put those Russians and Middle East sheiks in their place. *Yawn.* And how about the Middle East? Many in positions of power are Emirs, Princes, Sheiks, who received their office through tribal and familial position and status. They will respect a moral woman who has many children in a traditional marriage far more than you realize. And this includes the terrorists, by the way, who are often reactionaries against what they view as depraved Western moral values (gee, I wonder why they think that?)
I think many men (and women) have been brainwashed by a false ideal of what "foreign policy experience" really is in truth. Being a wonk and having "traveled the world" does not provide good foreign policy or respect among leaders from different cultures. Yet that idea is pushed over and over even though any dummy can see the repeated failed results in both parties who provide "experienced" UN Ambassadors and Secretaries of States. Most of them have been TERRIBLE and you'd have to be dumb to not see how respect and results have not come from "experience."
5) Many are repelled by her pro life position (and that tells you how much abortion has become the number one hobby and sacrament among liberals, rather than cultivating and nurturing the having of children in stable loving settings). And those people will not vote for anyone pro-life, even if they have no ability to wave a magic wand and turn back time. Yet the other side is expected to be mature and vote for anti life candidates, because we are expected to look at the overall candidate's offerings. So the anti life people get to be "single issue" while accusing the pro life people of being "single issue." For example, I have voted for anti life candidates because I have assessed that they were the person I wanted to vote for at that time in that office, and knowing realistically that they will not "make abortion worse" than it already is due to the public's addition to abortion and lack of familial responsibility and context. So I act like a grown up adult and not vote single issue, yet any pro-life candidate (especially a woman) is instantly rejected with disgust by many of these fanatics rather than admiration! It boggles my mind.
6) I supported Geraldine Ferraro when she was the first nominated Vice President female candidate in 1984 and I voted for her ticket. (I even have her autograph on an engraving from an environmental fund raising benefit). And what was she attacked for during her candidacy? "Lack of foreign policy experience." She was mightily dismissed and patronized to and I hear already THE SAME WORDS, but this time from WOMEN TOO, in the first reactions to Governor Palin from the Democrats. They are saying about Governor Palin the exact same thing I heard throughout the campaign against Rep Ferraro. I tell you, they have no shame.
7) I supported Jimmy Carter when he ran for President, in large part because he had something I liked seeing, which is military experience (submarine service in his case). His terrible management of all military endeavors have put me off of looking for "military experience" in the resumes of Presidential candidates (although I am glad for Senator McCain's honorable service and the high price he paid).
Again, Jimmy Carter is an example of having "experience" in an area is often a boomerang, where they end up being terrible because they think they understand something and they do not. Young people do not remember that Carter tried to "rescue" the embassy hostages in Iran by sending helicopters into a nighttime desert storm with no preparation or understanding of combat and evacuation in a desert setting (something we now have lots of experience in now).
8) I am so annoyed with the obsessing about Senator McCain "dying in office." What if all of you had totally wasted the eight years that Ronald Reagan served as President by obsessing that he would "die in office" and thus only paid attention to the Vice President? And President Clinton had his serious heart ailment just a few years ago; what if that had happened when he was traveling, in office, perhaps had been worse? Would anyone have predicted that based on his age? (Maybe from his affinity for fast food, which was a topic of humor that became tiresome too). All I am saying that this strange culture of death has made people obsessed with "being ready" for someone dying rather than looking at what is actually happening and having some faith that people set into roles that they are suddenly called upon to serve. It's not like they are all alone on a tennis court in a match. Through generations of humanity people have stepped into huge roles when suddenly called to do so, by their country, by their faith, or by their family's needs. It's amazing how much people come through in a pinch, and it's a sign of the depressive negativity of western culture today that no one seems to understand that. (Yet Americans expect people in other countries to throw incumbents out of office that they don't like, and just assume the successor will be "acceptable," "experience" or not).
In a way, Catholics have a better understanding of this because they relate to the sudden thrusting of the office of the Pope onto a cardinal during an enclave, and who truly knows who is "ready" from "experience" to be the Vicar of Christ? Only God, and God sees them through when each candidate in turn receives that office. I wish people would be less arrogant about "qualifications" and more trusting of human character and the ability to step up to a calling or a challenge.
9) Being a fiscal conservative by definition gives a man or a woman a strong leg up in having good judgment. Thus, Governor Palin's strong fiscal conservatism and her stance about ethics in spending will, by definition, be the framework for great decision making that others who lack fiscal conservatism and ethics but have "more experience" lack. Why is this? Think about the family budget. If you have to make hard choices about spending you tend to be more thoughtful about cost and benefit, and the consequences of a bad investment. Tax and spend liberals think they can buy their way out of every problem, and spend little time thinking about consequences of their fiscal decisions. I would take a no experience fiscal conservative over a twenty year tax and spend liberal any day of the week. And Governor Palin has experience, so there you go, figure it out.
10) She has a realistic balance between understanding consuming of natural resources and conservation of natural resources and you better believe that this balance in understanding is alarmingly rare nowadays. This is where hobbies, pastimes and lifestyle are assets even if they are not "experience." The first generations of effective conservationists were farmers, hunters, and other consumers of natural resources who also understood how to preserve and enhance our planet and its ecosystems. Many who claim to be "green" today are so wrapped in plastic and lack genuine understanding of how humans are part of the ecosystem, yes, but also are at the top of the pyramid. Many "greens" today would shudder at actually getting their hands dirty, and thus lack an understanding of some of the realities of life. I grew up with the generation of environmentalists who actually viewed themselves as being alive and part of the ecosystems as both stewards and consumers. I've seen that generation replaced with a very freaky intellectual view of being "green" that is anti-human and also totally ineffective in doing the dirty work to protect the environment (like building sewage treatment plants; they'd rather worry about carbon in the air than actually take care of real problems that are not so glamorous and certainly do not offer money mining opportunities through scams like "carbon credits.") The oceans are dying because people won't build toilets for a billion people and to control wastewater and run off but boy oh boy, they want to jet around lecturing about a theoretical problem with carbon while cashing in on it. Governor Palin's lifestyle shows that she has the balance and understanding just right and that is a very rare commodity that cannot be measured as "experience," but is in truth even better than what passes for modern day plasticized "experience."
I hope that you find this helpful.
1) If someone is intelligent, flexible and of high moral fiber, there is no job they cannot do, including the Presidency. When one has a foundation that is firm, one can make decisions off of that. In evidence I offer the Founding Fathers. Absolutely all they had was the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, since when the country was new, obviously no one had "presidential experience." Yet from the Founding Fathers who had only a firm vision of a republic based in democracy, a piece of paper, and state militias sprang one President after the other in the first days of the United States. The only thing they had in common as "experience" was being a landowner. For most of human history being a landowner was the basis of all political office and "experience."
2) During the "women's liberation" movement, there were few women of "experience," in either politics or academia, or in industry, or high technology positions. Yet no one made women "wait to get their promotions until they have the same experience as men" once the glass ceilings were broken. To "wait" for the "same" or "comparable experience" promotes a kind of mindset that ensures that the pace of the disenfranchised group always remains behind. Women, blacks, Native Americans, etc cannot "wait" until they have exactly comparable years and type of experience as men who have held an office. This is especially outrageous when an "inexperienced" but moral and intelligent candidate is denigrated compared to a "experienced" leader who has made repeated and often immoral mistakes. Do you keep voting a corrupt politician back into office because he or she "has more experience" than the challenging candidate? Think about it.
3) Women's groups back in the 1960's-1980's promised that one of the "benefits" of more women candidates would be a higher morality and more compassion. The most hardened shrew bra burning hippies would even say this. Now they have drawn away from that position because they have discovered that morality implies self control and boundaries on behavior. Thus they have totally reneged on their promise of promoting "more compassionate and moral" women leaders, and instead push those that support tax and spend, hedonism, anti-religion, and self absorption rather than constancy and patriotism. So the very radical "women's libbers" promised more compassion and morality from women candidates and have for the past twenty five years totally run from (and worked against) this model of candidate. Witness their reaction to Sarah Palin.
Let's be honest. Many on the radical left, which controls the Democratic Party and the media, mix up compassion with hedonism. They do not recognize compassion when they see it. A woman like Sarah Palin has five children, including one with a disability that was known of pre-birth, and they act like she's hard hearted. Yet you know that many women these radicals push as "compassionate" would have happily had five abortions. How ironic that five abortions would be viewed as "more compassionate" than five living and loved children in a traditional family setting. If that does not tell you more about what this country has come to, I don't know what will open your eyes.
4) I'm already tired of the "how will she stand up against Putin" and "she won't have respect in the Middle East." Wrong. Here's why. We've had Secretary Rice "Russian expert" for four years or whatever, and what has she given us in foreign policy and respect? Wow, she sure put those Russians and Middle East sheiks in their place. *Yawn.* And how about the Middle East? Many in positions of power are Emirs, Princes, Sheiks, who received their office through tribal and familial position and status. They will respect a moral woman who has many children in a traditional marriage far more than you realize. And this includes the terrorists, by the way, who are often reactionaries against what they view as depraved Western moral values (gee, I wonder why they think that?)
I think many men (and women) have been brainwashed by a false ideal of what "foreign policy experience" really is in truth. Being a wonk and having "traveled the world" does not provide good foreign policy or respect among leaders from different cultures. Yet that idea is pushed over and over even though any dummy can see the repeated failed results in both parties who provide "experienced" UN Ambassadors and Secretaries of States. Most of them have been TERRIBLE and you'd have to be dumb to not see how respect and results have not come from "experience."
5) Many are repelled by her pro life position (and that tells you how much abortion has become the number one hobby and sacrament among liberals, rather than cultivating and nurturing the having of children in stable loving settings). And those people will not vote for anyone pro-life, even if they have no ability to wave a magic wand and turn back time. Yet the other side is expected to be mature and vote for anti life candidates, because we are expected to look at the overall candidate's offerings. So the anti life people get to be "single issue" while accusing the pro life people of being "single issue." For example, I have voted for anti life candidates because I have assessed that they were the person I wanted to vote for at that time in that office, and knowing realistically that they will not "make abortion worse" than it already is due to the public's addition to abortion and lack of familial responsibility and context. So I act like a grown up adult and not vote single issue, yet any pro-life candidate (especially a woman) is instantly rejected with disgust by many of these fanatics rather than admiration! It boggles my mind.
6) I supported Geraldine Ferraro when she was the first nominated Vice President female candidate in 1984 and I voted for her ticket. (I even have her autograph on an engraving from an environmental fund raising benefit). And what was she attacked for during her candidacy? "Lack of foreign policy experience." She was mightily dismissed and patronized to and I hear already THE SAME WORDS, but this time from WOMEN TOO, in the first reactions to Governor Palin from the Democrats. They are saying about Governor Palin the exact same thing I heard throughout the campaign against Rep Ferraro. I tell you, they have no shame.
7) I supported Jimmy Carter when he ran for President, in large part because he had something I liked seeing, which is military experience (submarine service in his case). His terrible management of all military endeavors have put me off of looking for "military experience" in the resumes of Presidential candidates (although I am glad for Senator McCain's honorable service and the high price he paid).
Again, Jimmy Carter is an example of having "experience" in an area is often a boomerang, where they end up being terrible because they think they understand something and they do not. Young people do not remember that Carter tried to "rescue" the embassy hostages in Iran by sending helicopters into a nighttime desert storm with no preparation or understanding of combat and evacuation in a desert setting (something we now have lots of experience in now).
8) I am so annoyed with the obsessing about Senator McCain "dying in office." What if all of you had totally wasted the eight years that Ronald Reagan served as President by obsessing that he would "die in office" and thus only paid attention to the Vice President? And President Clinton had his serious heart ailment just a few years ago; what if that had happened when he was traveling, in office, perhaps had been worse? Would anyone have predicted that based on his age? (Maybe from his affinity for fast food, which was a topic of humor that became tiresome too). All I am saying that this strange culture of death has made people obsessed with "being ready" for someone dying rather than looking at what is actually happening and having some faith that people set into roles that they are suddenly called upon to serve. It's not like they are all alone on a tennis court in a match. Through generations of humanity people have stepped into huge roles when suddenly called to do so, by their country, by their faith, or by their family's needs. It's amazing how much people come through in a pinch, and it's a sign of the depressive negativity of western culture today that no one seems to understand that. (Yet Americans expect people in other countries to throw incumbents out of office that they don't like, and just assume the successor will be "acceptable," "experience" or not).
In a way, Catholics have a better understanding of this because they relate to the sudden thrusting of the office of the Pope onto a cardinal during an enclave, and who truly knows who is "ready" from "experience" to be the Vicar of Christ? Only God, and God sees them through when each candidate in turn receives that office. I wish people would be less arrogant about "qualifications" and more trusting of human character and the ability to step up to a calling or a challenge.
9) Being a fiscal conservative by definition gives a man or a woman a strong leg up in having good judgment. Thus, Governor Palin's strong fiscal conservatism and her stance about ethics in spending will, by definition, be the framework for great decision making that others who lack fiscal conservatism and ethics but have "more experience" lack. Why is this? Think about the family budget. If you have to make hard choices about spending you tend to be more thoughtful about cost and benefit, and the consequences of a bad investment. Tax and spend liberals think they can buy their way out of every problem, and spend little time thinking about consequences of their fiscal decisions. I would take a no experience fiscal conservative over a twenty year tax and spend liberal any day of the week. And Governor Palin has experience, so there you go, figure it out.
10) She has a realistic balance between understanding consuming of natural resources and conservation of natural resources and you better believe that this balance in understanding is alarmingly rare nowadays. This is where hobbies, pastimes and lifestyle are assets even if they are not "experience." The first generations of effective conservationists were farmers, hunters, and other consumers of natural resources who also understood how to preserve and enhance our planet and its ecosystems. Many who claim to be "green" today are so wrapped in plastic and lack genuine understanding of how humans are part of the ecosystem, yes, but also are at the top of the pyramid. Many "greens" today would shudder at actually getting their hands dirty, and thus lack an understanding of some of the realities of life. I grew up with the generation of environmentalists who actually viewed themselves as being alive and part of the ecosystems as both stewards and consumers. I've seen that generation replaced with a very freaky intellectual view of being "green" that is anti-human and also totally ineffective in doing the dirty work to protect the environment (like building sewage treatment plants; they'd rather worry about carbon in the air than actually take care of real problems that are not so glamorous and certainly do not offer money mining opportunities through scams like "carbon credits.") The oceans are dying because people won't build toilets for a billion people and to control wastewater and run off but boy oh boy, they want to jet around lecturing about a theoretical problem with carbon while cashing in on it. Governor Palin's lifestyle shows that she has the balance and understanding just right and that is a very rare commodity that cannot be measured as "experience," but is in truth even better than what passes for modern day plasticized "experience."
I hope that you find this helpful.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Evolution of my outward human political "stances"
I spend some time each day trying to figure out the misconceptions that people (especially cultists and special interest groups) have, and then formulate an educational response. I have to figure it out on my own because, as I’ve blogged about this before, people have refused to speak honestly to me face to face during my entire life and ask me point blank the questions that would enlighten them. It has not been easy to figure out the demented beliefs that people secretly hold to be true. Once I knew the basics of their nutty and dangerous beliefs, however, it becomes easier and easier to calculate what skewed thinking and behavior those beliefs inculcated in individuals and in society as a whole. It also has become clearer how those who have stalked and eavesdropped on my personal life (as I never indicated I was in public ministry, and I had the most dire and serious reasons for not proclaiming my authority to teach either in public or private) could and would willfully misunderstand my every move, speech and “thought” (since some think they can read my mind). I don’t use mental neurons, which is what “mind readers” read, to communicate with God, by the way, but that’s another subject. So to give an obvious example, if I bought something in a store and its selection was recorded by the stalkers, they would assume nefarious reasons for my selection of the object, usually associated with their mean and demented assumptions that everyone is “reincarnated” and the objects they “chose” are “cries for help in the remembering of their ‘past life lessons’”. Yes, I am vomiting a bit in my mouth even as I type this; it literally is that wicked and sickening. Anyway, once I realized this was going on it makes it easier for me to think back over my every movement and words and identify likely areas where the insane drivel filled drunk and ego maniacal cultist child abusing porn pot head creeps who think they are “enlightened” have misunderstood even my simplest actions. So, this is a long prologue to another example I have thought of that I can share with my loyal readership (said with appropriate irony) and rectify (that’s rectify, not rectum, I know you all tend to confuse the two) another segment of reality.
I want to talk about how I, as a human, maneuvered the political and religious landscape of America during my youth. First of all, I’m aware but not “political.” By that I mean that at the earliest age I knew about the political parties and watched debates on the issues, both among politicians and within my modest lower class family. For example, I remember watching some of the Nixon – Kennedy debate on television. It was fun because my mother was in one party and my brother was in the other (they also cheered different rival football teams). To this day my mother teases me that I’d just stick my head into the living room, where the television was, and when I asked “Who is winning?” (Whether a football game, as I asked about even when I was only a toddler, or later the political debates), upon hearing the answer I would say, “Good, that is who I am for” and go back to my room. This did not mean that I was a fickle three year old, or too stupid to remember “my political past” and thus “blow in the wind” of whoever is “ahead.” It was a key indication that as a toddler I applauded excellence without partisanship. Whether it was a football team or a political debater, I became “for” each side as they advanced each of their achievements, both physically and intellectually. To this day I watch baseball teams and applaud each individual play for both teams equally. That’s just the way I am. Anyone could have asked me this at any point in my life and I could have explained it to them. I am “for” the person who is “ahead” because that person is doing well at their skill. This is not an endorsement of the strong over the weak. Trust me, it was the weakest who had the most skill in presenting their needs to Jesus, for example.
While I was in high school eighteen year olds won the right to vote. I was keen on that and enthusiastic to vote to “try it out” (I think in a school board election), but was not really invested in any local candidates or positions at all.
Now, I’ve blogged about this before, but will repeat it. I am a lifelong Catholic. In my day politics were not discussed at the pulpit. We celebrate holy masses of sacrifice, not have praise and worship services salted with political agenda. To me the Church is there to sacrifice to God and worship him in the most solemn setting. We in the Catholic Church in my small town talked about God and the annual German Picnic, that’s it. My town was pretty much half and half Protestant and Catholics. My context of upbringing was to observe that Protestants tended to be political and attracted to “power broker” types of activities. I don’t like that very much. The Catholics from which I proudly spring tended to be non-political people who either worshipped God or went about their hard working blue collar business, and did not mix the two. Nothing, in my opinion, should dilute the sanctity of the sacrifice of the mass and the worship of God in God’s place and during God’s time. (Though I did drop the occasional spit ball from the choir loft when I was a kid, until chastised by the angry bald man whose head I targeted, ha ha. Just showing I was human with a sense of humor at one time ha ha). But my observation was that as dear as Protestant friends were to my family, they had a certain haughtiness toward Catholics that, in my opinion, is totally without reason. If anything, children of the Reformation have much to not be proud of regarding the robbing of the sanctity of sacrifice to God in his name and in his places, and the mocking of those who continue to be pious in the fullness of Jesus Christ’s teaching, the Catholics. But I never experienced hostility to my face as a child up through high school since like I said; we were half of the small village’s population.
This all changed when I arrived on campus at Cornell University. Oh, first I have to mention that when I was sixteen my widowed mother remarried. She had not been going to Church at all, but once she married a very pious Orthodox man, she started attending his Church in the city. At that point I pretty much stopped going to Catholic Mass because we developed a new routine. I cooked Sunday dinner while they were at the Orthodox mass. Homemaking is a very important part of my life and personality, and this was the high point of my week. I loved cooking special dinners that would then be waiting for them when they returned from church, and I loved seeing my mother with this incredibly pious man finally going to church again, something she had refused to do since I was a small child. So when I arrived in college I was already not in a pattern of going to Mass for my own perfectly valid reasons (remember, I have authority of what components of my life should be emphasized since in all of them I am in service to the Lord and in what he expects of me).
I hooked up with other Catholics since “coincidentally” they were my roommates and dorm mates. Not such a coincidence (the early stalking) but I take everything at face value because that is the only sane way to live. You can’t talk to people and relate to them via hidden agenda without joining them in their insanity and their degradation of honor and reality. We went to the campus Mass and I was horrified. It was early 1970’s insane liberal paganism run amok, for example, sitting on the floor in MASS and passing around hunks of bread to gnaw off a groovy piece. (I shudder still remembering it). But since I was not in public ministry and I certainly didn’t know that I was being spied on in that fruity cult way, I didn’t condemn or chastise; I simply stopped going to Mass. I tend to not endorse things I disapprove of in a quiet and charitable way. I continue to be happy that at least kids are still going to visit God, even if it’s a shambles of an unholy mess. It’s still better than not going, I reckon, for the goodness of people on a whole. So while I could not endorse it with my presence, I didn’t go.
I heard the first snide remarks about Catholics in college, said to my face by strangers, which made me wonder how they knew I was Catholic since I’d not said or advertised it. Obviously we all know why now. And I got the usual invitations to go to “liberal” churches, such as “Unitarian.” Now, another thing you need to know. Absolutely everyone I knew except for myself and four other people were smoking dope and were the typical potheads of the time. During the drug and sexual revolution, college students shopped for places that seemed to be spiritual but were actually “enabling” their behavior. I went from neutrality to private disgust.
Another total turn off to me was Protestant movements such as the “Campus Crusade for Christ.” I totally loathed them. Not because I don’t think that there should be religious youth movements, or because I scorn those who sincerely love Jesus with their heart and soul. But it is because of what I explained earlier, the haughtiness of the children of the Reformation who are not only smugly certain of their salvation (but not of Catholics), but who also were combining God’s worship with politics. That is an anathema to me, I must emphasize. One’s faith should be pure, untainted with politics, and be strictly between you and God (I don’t mean secretly, but I mean without bringing in earthly forces into the dialogue). Don’t poke a hornet’s nest and expect not to get stung. The children of the Reformation are very proud without a cause and that is highly unattractive. I had much more liking of the “Jews for Jesus,” since theirs was (and as far as I know still remains) a very humble and joyous endeavor, rather than the arch glaring down the nose as I saw from the children of the Reformation.
And so the children of the Reformation were haughty, anti-Catholic and combined politics with their worship of God. And who did they become: Fundamentalists, evangelicals and … conservatives and Republicans. Do you now understand why so many Catholic people, like me, became Democrats? A true Catholic is pure in his or her faith and dialogue with God, and then, separately, allows his or her faith to inform their secular and political movements and decisions. True traditional Catholics do not combine the two, and should not. Remember, this is over thirty years ago that I am describing to you. The politicizing from the pulpit was truly invented during this time by the children of the Reformation; it was not as ubiquitous as it is today. Abortion became the battleground where they honed their self righteous and haughty skills at both diluting their worship of God while self proclaiming their own self superiority. Rather than deal with the problem of abortion with huge amounts of charity and creative solutions based on Christian values, they brought tons of screaming ugliness, self righteousness, and condemnation of those who supported abortion rights. I watched all of this in horror. To this day I have a difficult time having any relationship with a child of the Reformation, and it is their fault, not mine. They brought their exclusive club politicizing self righteousness that is hostile to Catholics along with all the other “unsaved” that has messed up so much of our culture, including the things we actually agree on regarding policy. The children of the Reformation could have been loving and charitable during the early years of the pro abortion movement and hence have nipped many of the abortions in the bud, and saved millions of lives. But instead they brought ugly and angry faces, screams of self righteousness but no money in their wallets for saving preborn babies. I’ve written about this at length before. I often stated during those times, “If they wish to save babies from abortion they should pay for them rather than scream abuse,” so my feelings were not secret. I supported the use of the Ricco (spelling?) anti racketeering act to control the violent protests outside of abortion clinics. How can Christians behave with such hatred toward women and girls who were filled with trauma and confused by deteriorating values (and lots of drug and alcohol use)?
Many girls I knew got abortions so as to continue their college educations and not “ruin their lives.” Where were the holy Christians who would set up a foundation so that girls could take a year off, have a child, give the child up for adoption (or learn how to keep the child), and who would advocate for them with parents and with schools? I never saw a single example of this. American history could have been “fundamentally” changed if the haughty children of the Reformation had stepped forward and taken the higher road of Christian kindness toward abortion seeking girls and women. And you wonder why I supported the legalization of the medical procedure of abortion and became a Democrat.
Abortion is a medical procedure; that is a fact. It is a grave moral wrong, but that does not change the fact that it is a medical procedure that can be done either in a back alley or a hospital. What Christians should have done is legalize the procedure but provide so many loving and real alternatives that having an abortion would become rare and repugnant, used only in the most dire situations, and not as “birth control.” This will go down in both secular and faith history as the greatest mean and idiotic missed opportunity of all time. The shrill meanness and politicization of worship by the children of the Reformation ruined one of the pivotal moments when people could have brought light to the dark. When I read anti-Catholic comments by these “right wing” “evangelicals” or “fundamentalists,” I can only say that it is a good thing that they do not say that to my face, because I would condemn them before God for being the mean craven hypocrites that they really are. I saw it from the beginning.
And so I supported legalization of the medical procedure of abortion (while loathing each and every use of it), while praying for and yelling to anyone who would listen that the pro-life lobby must mobilize to prevent this from becoming a frequent necessary and, God forbid, used as “birth control.” And so I became a Democrat, who remembered liberals who were moral, fiscally conservative, loved their fellow human, and who were patriotic. But like the termites who eat away at the wood, the Democrats became slaves to self indulgence and moral turpitude, becoming as much of a problem as the haughty and self righteous tight wallet Republicans. Voting has become a “choice” of voting for either the moral termites who are as incompetent as children driving a car while drunk or the fat self righteous hypocrite oligarchs who think God is lucky to be allowed to run on their ticket for election. Through the years I voted mostly Democrat because I continued to hope that all things go in cycles and that morality would return and restore a responsible liberalism that is also patriotic to the Democrat party. I voted for Kerry with that hope, and I don’t regret it despite how I’ve been disappointed by him. St. Paul said we all live in hope, and he was right. Without hope and charity you end up with “swift boat” advertisements rather than mutual conversation and conversion of both sides of hurtful and divisive issues. Don’t forget that I was there; the Vietnam draft was still on when I attended freshman year in college. It’s easy to have a self righteous and smart mouth about it now; it was not easy to live for anyone at the time.
I remember years ago slouching in my blue lazy boy chair watching the Presidential debates. This young “heir”, George W. Bush, was asked who the person was he most admired. When I heard his response, “Jesus Christ,” I sat up suddenly and took notice. I marveled and wondered if this was the start of something much better, more honest and more innocent. Bush proclaimed Jesus in a secular setting, and we just don’t hear that anymore, and it was a brave and honest thing to do. And his words were the first (and since then the only time) that I had heard a child of the Reformation, an “evangelical,” proclaim Jesus without using it as his special haughty calling card in the political arena. I was impressed and have continued to send my good will toward him, although I came to see that he is also a pawn of the behind the scenes spiritual gypsies who combine love of money and power with “salvation” and arrogant self righteous “prophesying” about the “end of times.” I hope he does become a Catholic and get away from at least part of that thinking. (Though Catholics of course have their own subversive secret agents working within them to bring down the faith too, reducing it to the “hunt for the anti-Christ 216 reality show, with porn.”)
Well, so now is it so easy to have interpreted what I have said and done?
Try honesty, humility and dialogue sometime. It could have saved many millions of lives.
I want to talk about how I, as a human, maneuvered the political and religious landscape of America during my youth. First of all, I’m aware but not “political.” By that I mean that at the earliest age I knew about the political parties and watched debates on the issues, both among politicians and within my modest lower class family. For example, I remember watching some of the Nixon – Kennedy debate on television. It was fun because my mother was in one party and my brother was in the other (they also cheered different rival football teams). To this day my mother teases me that I’d just stick my head into the living room, where the television was, and when I asked “Who is winning?” (Whether a football game, as I asked about even when I was only a toddler, or later the political debates), upon hearing the answer I would say, “Good, that is who I am for” and go back to my room. This did not mean that I was a fickle three year old, or too stupid to remember “my political past” and thus “blow in the wind” of whoever is “ahead.” It was a key indication that as a toddler I applauded excellence without partisanship. Whether it was a football team or a political debater, I became “for” each side as they advanced each of their achievements, both physically and intellectually. To this day I watch baseball teams and applaud each individual play for both teams equally. That’s just the way I am. Anyone could have asked me this at any point in my life and I could have explained it to them. I am “for” the person who is “ahead” because that person is doing well at their skill. This is not an endorsement of the strong over the weak. Trust me, it was the weakest who had the most skill in presenting their needs to Jesus, for example.
While I was in high school eighteen year olds won the right to vote. I was keen on that and enthusiastic to vote to “try it out” (I think in a school board election), but was not really invested in any local candidates or positions at all.
Now, I’ve blogged about this before, but will repeat it. I am a lifelong Catholic. In my day politics were not discussed at the pulpit. We celebrate holy masses of sacrifice, not have praise and worship services salted with political agenda. To me the Church is there to sacrifice to God and worship him in the most solemn setting. We in the Catholic Church in my small town talked about God and the annual German Picnic, that’s it. My town was pretty much half and half Protestant and Catholics. My context of upbringing was to observe that Protestants tended to be political and attracted to “power broker” types of activities. I don’t like that very much. The Catholics from which I proudly spring tended to be non-political people who either worshipped God or went about their hard working blue collar business, and did not mix the two. Nothing, in my opinion, should dilute the sanctity of the sacrifice of the mass and the worship of God in God’s place and during God’s time. (Though I did drop the occasional spit ball from the choir loft when I was a kid, until chastised by the angry bald man whose head I targeted, ha ha. Just showing I was human with a sense of humor at one time ha ha). But my observation was that as dear as Protestant friends were to my family, they had a certain haughtiness toward Catholics that, in my opinion, is totally without reason. If anything, children of the Reformation have much to not be proud of regarding the robbing of the sanctity of sacrifice to God in his name and in his places, and the mocking of those who continue to be pious in the fullness of Jesus Christ’s teaching, the Catholics. But I never experienced hostility to my face as a child up through high school since like I said; we were half of the small village’s population.
This all changed when I arrived on campus at Cornell University. Oh, first I have to mention that when I was sixteen my widowed mother remarried. She had not been going to Church at all, but once she married a very pious Orthodox man, she started attending his Church in the city. At that point I pretty much stopped going to Catholic Mass because we developed a new routine. I cooked Sunday dinner while they were at the Orthodox mass. Homemaking is a very important part of my life and personality, and this was the high point of my week. I loved cooking special dinners that would then be waiting for them when they returned from church, and I loved seeing my mother with this incredibly pious man finally going to church again, something she had refused to do since I was a small child. So when I arrived in college I was already not in a pattern of going to Mass for my own perfectly valid reasons (remember, I have authority of what components of my life should be emphasized since in all of them I am in service to the Lord and in what he expects of me).
I hooked up with other Catholics since “coincidentally” they were my roommates and dorm mates. Not such a coincidence (the early stalking) but I take everything at face value because that is the only sane way to live. You can’t talk to people and relate to them via hidden agenda without joining them in their insanity and their degradation of honor and reality. We went to the campus Mass and I was horrified. It was early 1970’s insane liberal paganism run amok, for example, sitting on the floor in MASS and passing around hunks of bread to gnaw off a groovy piece. (I shudder still remembering it). But since I was not in public ministry and I certainly didn’t know that I was being spied on in that fruity cult way, I didn’t condemn or chastise; I simply stopped going to Mass. I tend to not endorse things I disapprove of in a quiet and charitable way. I continue to be happy that at least kids are still going to visit God, even if it’s a shambles of an unholy mess. It’s still better than not going, I reckon, for the goodness of people on a whole. So while I could not endorse it with my presence, I didn’t go.
I heard the first snide remarks about Catholics in college, said to my face by strangers, which made me wonder how they knew I was Catholic since I’d not said or advertised it. Obviously we all know why now. And I got the usual invitations to go to “liberal” churches, such as “Unitarian.” Now, another thing you need to know. Absolutely everyone I knew except for myself and four other people were smoking dope and were the typical potheads of the time. During the drug and sexual revolution, college students shopped for places that seemed to be spiritual but were actually “enabling” their behavior. I went from neutrality to private disgust.
Another total turn off to me was Protestant movements such as the “Campus Crusade for Christ.” I totally loathed them. Not because I don’t think that there should be religious youth movements, or because I scorn those who sincerely love Jesus with their heart and soul. But it is because of what I explained earlier, the haughtiness of the children of the Reformation who are not only smugly certain of their salvation (but not of Catholics), but who also were combining God’s worship with politics. That is an anathema to me, I must emphasize. One’s faith should be pure, untainted with politics, and be strictly between you and God (I don’t mean secretly, but I mean without bringing in earthly forces into the dialogue). Don’t poke a hornet’s nest and expect not to get stung. The children of the Reformation are very proud without a cause and that is highly unattractive. I had much more liking of the “Jews for Jesus,” since theirs was (and as far as I know still remains) a very humble and joyous endeavor, rather than the arch glaring down the nose as I saw from the children of the Reformation.
And so the children of the Reformation were haughty, anti-Catholic and combined politics with their worship of God. And who did they become: Fundamentalists, evangelicals and … conservatives and Republicans. Do you now understand why so many Catholic people, like me, became Democrats? A true Catholic is pure in his or her faith and dialogue with God, and then, separately, allows his or her faith to inform their secular and political movements and decisions. True traditional Catholics do not combine the two, and should not. Remember, this is over thirty years ago that I am describing to you. The politicizing from the pulpit was truly invented during this time by the children of the Reformation; it was not as ubiquitous as it is today. Abortion became the battleground where they honed their self righteous and haughty skills at both diluting their worship of God while self proclaiming their own self superiority. Rather than deal with the problem of abortion with huge amounts of charity and creative solutions based on Christian values, they brought tons of screaming ugliness, self righteousness, and condemnation of those who supported abortion rights. I watched all of this in horror. To this day I have a difficult time having any relationship with a child of the Reformation, and it is their fault, not mine. They brought their exclusive club politicizing self righteousness that is hostile to Catholics along with all the other “unsaved” that has messed up so much of our culture, including the things we actually agree on regarding policy. The children of the Reformation could have been loving and charitable during the early years of the pro abortion movement and hence have nipped many of the abortions in the bud, and saved millions of lives. But instead they brought ugly and angry faces, screams of self righteousness but no money in their wallets for saving preborn babies. I’ve written about this at length before. I often stated during those times, “If they wish to save babies from abortion they should pay for them rather than scream abuse,” so my feelings were not secret. I supported the use of the Ricco (spelling?) anti racketeering act to control the violent protests outside of abortion clinics. How can Christians behave with such hatred toward women and girls who were filled with trauma and confused by deteriorating values (and lots of drug and alcohol use)?
Many girls I knew got abortions so as to continue their college educations and not “ruin their lives.” Where were the holy Christians who would set up a foundation so that girls could take a year off, have a child, give the child up for adoption (or learn how to keep the child), and who would advocate for them with parents and with schools? I never saw a single example of this. American history could have been “fundamentally” changed if the haughty children of the Reformation had stepped forward and taken the higher road of Christian kindness toward abortion seeking girls and women. And you wonder why I supported the legalization of the medical procedure of abortion and became a Democrat.
Abortion is a medical procedure; that is a fact. It is a grave moral wrong, but that does not change the fact that it is a medical procedure that can be done either in a back alley or a hospital. What Christians should have done is legalize the procedure but provide so many loving and real alternatives that having an abortion would become rare and repugnant, used only in the most dire situations, and not as “birth control.” This will go down in both secular and faith history as the greatest mean and idiotic missed opportunity of all time. The shrill meanness and politicization of worship by the children of the Reformation ruined one of the pivotal moments when people could have brought light to the dark. When I read anti-Catholic comments by these “right wing” “evangelicals” or “fundamentalists,” I can only say that it is a good thing that they do not say that to my face, because I would condemn them before God for being the mean craven hypocrites that they really are. I saw it from the beginning.
And so I supported legalization of the medical procedure of abortion (while loathing each and every use of it), while praying for and yelling to anyone who would listen that the pro-life lobby must mobilize to prevent this from becoming a frequent necessary and, God forbid, used as “birth control.” And so I became a Democrat, who remembered liberals who were moral, fiscally conservative, loved their fellow human, and who were patriotic. But like the termites who eat away at the wood, the Democrats became slaves to self indulgence and moral turpitude, becoming as much of a problem as the haughty and self righteous tight wallet Republicans. Voting has become a “choice” of voting for either the moral termites who are as incompetent as children driving a car while drunk or the fat self righteous hypocrite oligarchs who think God is lucky to be allowed to run on their ticket for election. Through the years I voted mostly Democrat because I continued to hope that all things go in cycles and that morality would return and restore a responsible liberalism that is also patriotic to the Democrat party. I voted for Kerry with that hope, and I don’t regret it despite how I’ve been disappointed by him. St. Paul said we all live in hope, and he was right. Without hope and charity you end up with “swift boat” advertisements rather than mutual conversation and conversion of both sides of hurtful and divisive issues. Don’t forget that I was there; the Vietnam draft was still on when I attended freshman year in college. It’s easy to have a self righteous and smart mouth about it now; it was not easy to live for anyone at the time.
I remember years ago slouching in my blue lazy boy chair watching the Presidential debates. This young “heir”, George W. Bush, was asked who the person was he most admired. When I heard his response, “Jesus Christ,” I sat up suddenly and took notice. I marveled and wondered if this was the start of something much better, more honest and more innocent. Bush proclaimed Jesus in a secular setting, and we just don’t hear that anymore, and it was a brave and honest thing to do. And his words were the first (and since then the only time) that I had heard a child of the Reformation, an “evangelical,” proclaim Jesus without using it as his special haughty calling card in the political arena. I was impressed and have continued to send my good will toward him, although I came to see that he is also a pawn of the behind the scenes spiritual gypsies who combine love of money and power with “salvation” and arrogant self righteous “prophesying” about the “end of times.” I hope he does become a Catholic and get away from at least part of that thinking. (Though Catholics of course have their own subversive secret agents working within them to bring down the faith too, reducing it to the “hunt for the anti-Christ 216 reality show, with porn.”)
Well, so now is it so easy to have interpreted what I have said and done?
Try honesty, humility and dialogue sometime. It could have saved many millions of lives.
Monday, May 19, 2008
I can, and do, work with anyone
I'm not in the partisan politics business. In fact, the more desperate the need and estranged the person or government (such as Communism, for example) the more I advocate for the Holy Spirit to create communication and movement. A single candidate or political party cannot destroy the fabric of society or make irredeemable decisions without the collusion of the people. For example, who cares if abortion is legal if not a single person ever wanted one? A president, the congress, a court or an agency can create a loathsome law, but who enables them to create that law? If the people continue to live individually moral and self informed lives it almost does not matter what an individual or group does. Too many people think that pulling the lever in the election booth hands over to the candidate all responsibility for where the country goes from here. The dangerous people are those who seek to remove God from the public square or worse, those who think they are divine. Once a person removes from his or her self the boundaries on their ego that is in place when one recognizes God, the higher power, then there is indeed no constraint upon even their most "well intentioned" actions, since they have put blinders upon themselves even more than a horse, who at least still recognizes he is still a horse.
Why I'm for Ron Paul
Ron Paul represents a back to basics clarity of thought and priorities that the United States desperately needs. He can tell when the Emperor (in this case the government) has no clothes. When someone like Ron Paul comes along people need to listen. This is because he challenges people to come back to life again and stop being automatons and robots in the midst of a rotting edifice of government and bureaucracy. It is no coincidence that as a practicing obstetrician who has delivered many babies that he retains a clarity of vision that sees through the stale clutter and special interests that have just about smothered the life out of this nation and the individual people within. I honk and wave for Ron Paul.
Why I'm for John McCain
John McCain and I share a large part of the same place in the political spectrum. But the primary reason that I'm for John McCain is that he is wise. He is wise in the way that comes from a balanced, and not extreme, perspective, that comes from age and experience, of course, but also from suffering and service. John McCain understands not only the ways of this great country and its people, but also the ways of the world and of reality. He can be very hard toward people he perceives as hostile toward this country, but he will likewise stand firm against torture being called into service against "hostiles" and will implacably take the heat from those who should applaud his virtue and morality and instead attack him. His temperament and sometimes unpredictability ensure he is one of the few people who does not seem to have a speck of fake or plastic within him. A President needs feeling and thinking and sometimes being smooth is a sign of being overly processed, and we do not need to worry that John McCain is an overly processed "product" rather than being a real man.
Why I'm for Hilary Clinton
I'm for Hilary Clinton because she has the seemingly endless call to public service, commitment, intense energy and focus, and thorough knowledge of "the process." The country would "get its money's worth" from Hilary Clinton. She understands commitment to the process of public service like few I've seen. Politics and public service do not wear her down or bore her; to the contrary she is like the Energizer Bunny and will give her all for her country and its constituents. To her the public means the public, and while she may address special interest needs I do not believe there is a discriminating bone in her body. She truly has a democratic view of the republic of the United States.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
