One of the great appeals that religion has had for people throughout history is that, through its particular doctrine a religion makes sense of existence for them. It gives purpose, it sets forth rules to live by and a corresponding moral code. And then there is the Church of England...
"Secret plan to avoid church gay split", a story from Britain's Telegraph website chronicles The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams' latest contortions in trying to hold together the Anglican Church which, largely under his leadership has so chipped away at its own core beliefs that as the saying goes, the center can no longer hold.
As one of the leading forces behind the Church's attempt to mainstream homosexuality and change the Church's longstanding doctrinal opposition to its practice even before his elevation to Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002 Rowan is now in the position of having to try hold the Church together as numerous dioceses and conservative factions threaten to leave the fold. His solution seems as ill considered as are most of his decisions. He plans to create a "parallel" church wherein these conservative factions operate under the guidance of foreign bishops, a sort of religious ghetto for those not fit to consort with decent folk. More liberal bishops are angered that Williams should consider letting these errant forces get their way in even this distorted manner and are threatening trouble of their own.
Williams' problem here and with the difficulty he has found himself in of late, dealing with the growing Muslim population in Britain is that he has placed the liberal mantra of "inclusion"and "diversity" above what should be the eternal doctrine of his church. Religious doctrine cannot by its nature be inclusionary. Christianity is not all things to all people. It makes demands of the faithful, demands cannot be made upon it. It is not fashion, changing with the whims of a given age. For it to have any real value a religion must stand outside of time and fashion. It may try to make itself understood in terms that a particular age may understand but its basic nature must be unchanging if it is to have any real meaning at all.
The Church of England is trying to be all things to all people and is instead becoming the church of nothing, shepherding a flock that is dwindling as quickly as its principles. It is at the vanguard of the forces of nihilism which now are ruling Europe into oblivion. Well, at least that is something it is doing well.
Kidnapped by Japan - How A Mother's Dying Wish Led To A Father's Unimaginable Loss
Read the story hereSaturday, February 23, 2008
The Church Of Nothing
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Skip This Post - First In A Series
The New York Times' story about John McCain's "Affair", Ron Paul, Conspiracy theories, Saving the Earth, Outraged people, Political moderates, Those who want to impeach George W. Bush, Oprah and all of her "friends", Every member of the Kennedy family living and dead, Militant Atheists.
All of those things in the foregoing eclectic list have one thing in common and if you can't figure out what that is immediately then this post, in all likelihood, will irritate you at some point. You see everything listed above is boring. By that I mean tiresome, dull, uninteresting and tedious. Yes, I know that when you read through that little inventory you probably found a couple of things that you think are just fascinating, that you spend much time admiring, talking about or otherwise find involving. That is why you may be irritated. Too bad. It is my list and you are perfectly free to make your own, portions of which I will probably disagree.
And it is not as if I'm just throwing insults around thoughtlessly. There are reasons that I find each person or persons and every thing on the list to be a drag. And (no surprise here) I'm not afraid to say why.
- The New York Times' story about John McCain's "Affair": RI Fitzhenry once said, “Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.” That is why I find this little non-scandal so tedious; there was nothing even slightly uncertain about or any mystery in the fact that the Times or The Washington Post or some other organ of the msm would run some slander against McCain as soon as he became the presumptive Republican nominee. I said as much in a previous post. I would be every bit as fascinated if someone were to tell me, with a look of surprise on their face that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Really? ZZZZZZZZZZ
- Ron Paul: I agree with much of what Ron Paul says. I can sit there and listen to him, nodding in agreement and then, all of a sudden he'll go off on some tangent that makes you wonder how he slipped out of the clutches of the men in white jackets. I have never met or read the writings of a single supporter of his who didn't sound equally mad. I'm probably going to regret writing this as the fanatical zombies who still believe he's going to be President seem to know when someone somewhere has said something untoward about him and then try to absorb them into The Collective. They and he are the very definition of tiresome.
- Conspiracy theories: Well, these are somewhat related to Ron Paul and his minions as many of them are big believers in a host of conspiracy theories, the more outré the better. The problem with conspiracy theories is that they don't take into account the fact that if more than two people are in on a secret, it is a metaphysical certainty that within a few hours one of those two is going to tell a third. People can't keep secrets. Period. Therefore the idea that there are these super-secret, world-spanning conspiracy theories that only the evil-doers behind them and the nut telling you about them are aware of is a sign of someone needing to take their meds as prescribed and not that any such theory is actually real. Stupidity and lunacy bore me. Conspiracy theories rely on both. I'm getting sleepy just writing about them.
- Saving the Earth: Anybody who tells you that you need to do your part in "saving the Earth" or uses the word Gaia in anything but a mocking manner takes their own importance far too seriously. Little old me can't "save" the Earth and neither can they. The Earth doesn't need saving in the first place. Get a sense of proportion, folks. I'd rather spend a month in a Super-Max prison than ten minutes with a self important "Save the Earth" evangelist. Booooooooooring.
- Outraged people: People who are constantly outraged suffer to a large degree from the same sort of self importance as the Save the Earthers, above. They add a bit of self congratulations into the mix, to boot. Usually they are outraged that someone has done something that they would never do. They also like the attention their outrages brings to them. Attention-grabbers: T-e-d-i-o-u-s.
- Political Moderates: These folks have self importance, enjoy a good bit of self congratulations and oh, yes aren't really sharp enough or have enough character to actually stand for anything. There is no political philosophy called "Moderate". It is a catch-all phrase for those who haven't worked out a real philosophy. "I'll take one position from column A and another from column B". Have some gumption, dammit! Pick a consistent philosophy and stick to it. Excuse me. I have to grab a strongly caffeinated cup of coffee before I can go on.
- Oprah and all of her "friends": Saint Oprah has overstayed her welcome as America's premier secular saint by a number of years. Instead of doing the polite thing of course and going away, she is stepping up her game and running around giving Barak Obama her blessing. She also has a whole radio channel on XM Radio where she and her friends peddle such twaddle as her Soul Series which she claims is "the most exciting thing" she can think of in the whole wide world. Somewhere in America her acolytes are squealing in anticipation. Here at my computer I am falling asleep.
- Those who want to impeach George W. Bush: It ain't gonna happen folks. Hate-filled, deluded sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome make me sad. They also are sleeping pills in human form.
- Every member of the Kennedy family living and dead: This speaks for itself, doesn't it? Turn out the light.
- Militant Atheists: They're smug, self satisfied, condescending and in fact they don't know there is no God any more than those who do believe in Him know that he does exist. But religious people have the humility to acknowledge that they rely on faith; militant atheists don't so they're just relying on their own brilliance. Think Bill Maher. No, don't and stay awake instead.
Well, that's the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other things that send me into a swoon of boredom and in future installments I'll be getting to them. Of course that idea may bore you to death as this little rant might have. If that's the case, face it, you were warned. Read the title of this post. Personally I feel kind of energized!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Bush And Africa: Where Did Everybody Go?
The Bush Administration's Africa policy, its ambitiousness, its comprehensiveness and its extraordinary success in saving lives is one of the great, neglected stories of our time and the degree and quality of the coverage of his current visit to that most troubled continent shows that this media disinterest is unlikely to end anytime soon.
Bush's attention to Africa has been complex and multilayered and its most remarkable accomplishment has been the saving of millions of African lives. In 2003 the administration introduced the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a five-year plan with a $15 billion price tag, concentrated primarily on Africa. It is the largest, costliest program ever targeted at a single disease and its beneficiaries are the millions currently afflicted with HIV as well as those who, but for the program would be its next victims. Since its inception PEPFAR has been responsible for 1.4 million Africans receiving treatment for the disease. Not satisfied with this accomplishment President Bush has proposed the doubling of the program's budget over the next five years.
But AIDS is not the only disease that the President has put in his sights. The President's Malaria Initiative, whose objective is to cut the mortality rate of that disease in half in five years, has also been a great success, benefiting an estimated 25 million people via the distribution of 6 million bed-nets treated with insecticide.
But the administration has not concentrated on disease while ignoring Africa's other large and complicated problems. Realizing merely distributing money and care-packages is not likely to address the larger issues causing misery to millions the administration created the Millennium Challenge Corporation which ties assistance to adoption of free-market principles, thereby promoting fiscally sound policies in an effort to improve standards of living.
Africa has been a breeding ground for Muslim extremism and the disaster that is Darfur is an ongoing human tragedy and the president is attempting to address that situation (which is proving even more intractable than AIDS or malaria) with an increase of sanctions against the Sudanese government responsible for Darfur and the creation of AFRICOM, a security command that the President is attempting to launch.
These and other efforts are realistic, conservative (the Heritage Foundation has written glowingly about them), humane and have proven to be largely effective. Sadly their success is inversely proportional to the attention they have drawn in America and the world outside of Africa.
No president in American history has ever lavished such concern and largesse on Africa, certainly not President Bill Clinton, who until this presidential season was often touted as being America's first "Black President'. (After his recent race-baiting tactics however Clinton seems to be turning whiter with each passing day.) One might think that the man who had been accused in the 2000 campaign of being responsible for a Black man being dragged to his death by a group of racists and accused by the Left and their friends in the media as neglecting the victims of Hurricane Katrina because of the color of their skin might get a little recognition for the success of his African humanitarian efforts. But one would be wrong. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Julian Bond are not to be found grabbing media face-time touting these great accomplishments. And the msm coverage has been perfunctory at best.
No so in Africa itself where Bush has largely been hailed as a hero. Tanzanian President Jakay Kikwete says that, "Of course, people talk with excitement of Obama....The US is going to get a new president, whoever that is. For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good a friend of Africa as President Bush has been." And "We feel proud because it's recognition of our contribution towards bringing security and stability not only to Darfur but also our region. The U.S government has been our strong partner in this," army spokeswoman Jill Rutaremara told Reuters. Traveling with Bush has been former Live Aid promoter and Boomtown Rat,
It may not be surprising that the msm hasn't paid much attention to Mr. Bush's superlative record here. What is surprising that the conservative press and blogosphere has reacted with not much more than a shrug, as well. The msm undoubtedly finds that the President's efforts in Africa don't match their template for him on one level (he's an uncaring fascist) and where it does (the President's humanitarianism is inseparable from his deep Christian faith) it turns out that the template itself works against them. Conservatism's neglect may be due to the President's poor pr on the issue or the fact that Africa has appeared to be such a basket case for so long it is hard to recognize true progress when it occurs.
This is all quite unfortunate but the lack of accolades the President has received makes his actions that much more notable. While the President's African policies may not make large headlines today when the history books are written on the Bush years it is likely they may finally get the attention they deserve.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Why I Am A Nazi - A Surprising Confession
I have dreaded this moment for a long time, knowing that someday it would certainly come. But I am worn down, tired of the denials, tired of being defensive, trying to hide. The evidence has been mounting for a long time and I must face the facts and state the truth boldly and admit it to the world: I am a Nazi!
How do I know? Well many powerful and influential sources have been saying it for a long time. I've heard it from virtually any movie that even touched on a political topic or deals with social issues in any way. The liberal blogs tell me daily. I hear it from magazines, college professors and Democrats. I hear it from TV. For a long time I'd see people like me, who believe that the government's role should be far more limited than it is today but who believe that national defense is one of the those things government should be doing and that that defense should be muscular and effective, portrayed as goose-stepping Jew, Black, Gay killers. I've seen those of us who believe that the US has a right to defend its sovereignty, make and enforce laws respecting who gets to come and go, live and work in the US shown as being swastika-tattooed, zeig-heiling murderers. I resisted what the media has been saying about me for so long now but I've grown weary and after watching an episode of CBS's series, Cold Case last night I finally broke down and have accepted the fact that yes, I am a Nazi.
The episode in question, Spiders, revolves around Tamyra Border, an abused seventeen year old girl who we see in flashback because we find out that ten years ago she was murdered and the case has gone cold. She had run away from her abusive father who burned her with cigarettes and beat her. Desperate she falls into the arms of "Spider" Leland who befriends her and takes her home to stay with him, his mother and loner, Elliot Leopold, another apparently lost and sympathetic soul. Once having settled in and starting to feel comfortable with Spider he reveals the reason for his extending Tamyra his and his mother's sympathies: Spider wants to her to join his group which believes that laws should be enforced, the government should be smaller and illegal immigration is bad...just like I do. Oh yeah, he also doesn't believe the Holocaust ever happened and all manner of bad things should happen to Blacks, Gays, Jews, etc. none of which I agree with for even a nano-second but I've learned from years of being told by the media, if you believe in the first group of things, you also believe in the second. By the time Spider took off his top shirt revealing the swastika on the T-shirt underneath I knew what CBS was telling me: I'm a Nazi!
Well as it happens Spider was lucky enough to find an Hispanic woman whose car had broken down. She was, of course a lovely, sweet (we're made to assume) illegal immigrant whose son was hiding in the car, watching as Spider got out of his car and beat her unconscious. He gave Tamyra a gun and told her to shoot the Hispanic woman but Tamyra refused so Spider did it instead. Tamyra was brought back to Spider and Spider's Mom's where she tried to escape and go to the police. As it happens Mom, who is some sort of combination of Nurse Ratchett and the Wicked Witch of the West tells Tamyra that "You're either with us or against us" in killing those danged Hispanics. Well those are the exact same words that Republican President George W. Bush has so famously used. So it is obvious that George W. Bush and the Nazi mom think exactly alike!! And I voted for him! So, I'm a Nazi, too!
Well, I have to admit that I was a little confused here as no president has been more welcoming to illegal aliens than GWB has been. I mean I think that he's been far too lax in enforcing immigration laws, which I guess means I'm an even bigger Nazi than George W. Bush. Also, GWB has done more to prevent AIDS in Africa than any other president and is actually very popular in much of Africa, but still CBS said it so it must be so: he just wants to kill all those Hispanics and Blacks etc.
Nazi-mom also quoted Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, who said, "We can have no "50-50" allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all." Well, there you have it: Nazis just love Republicans and that's because Republicans are just like them. See? I'm a Nazi.
Well, ok it may be true that, as Jonah Goldberg points out in minute detail, in Liberal Fascism, Nazism is really a Left-Wing phenomenon, which was much admired by many people in FDR's administration and that anti-semitism is spreading like wildfire in all the strongholds of socialism in Europe and that it was Democrat, Jimmy Carter who, according to his own Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, was going to "sell Israel down the river" if he'd been reelected, but still: I'm a Nazi.
Oh yeah, as it turned out it was Elliot who turned out to have been Tamyra's murderer; had to kill her to shut her up. It turns out he wasn't so nice after all. In the present it seems he is one of those right-wing college economics professors. They're everywhere, you know.
So there you have it. It is irrefutable and I'm through protesting. I'm a Nazi. I must be. CBS told me so. But you want to know the only solace I have? I think you might just be a Nazi, too.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Don't Know Much About History
If you were to ask the average American where Al-Qaeda came from you'd probably be met with a blank stare; not surprising considering the current quality of American education. If you were to ask a slightly better informed American the same question there's a pretty good likelihood that you'd hear that the US helped create them in Afghanistan in the 1980's. This would be just another example of the success of liberal opinion as propaganda and failure as fact. There's another story out there, a far more inspiring and instructive story and it has the benefit of being true.
Former White House speech writer and 9/11 Commission senior aid Michael Johns has posted a terrific piece, Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War, on his blog that clears away much of the fog that has blown in of late, covering the unlikely accomplishments of a relatively small number of visionaries (Charlie Wilson, Ronald Reagan, et al.) in bringing down the Soviet Empire and also in attempting to stop the growth of Al-Qaeda. Using the recent movie, Charlie Wilson's War (based on the eponymous book) as a frame of reference, Johns sets the record straight on the singular importance of US assistance to the Afghan freedom fighters following the 1970's invasion of that country, in the endgame of the Cold War. He also highlights how despite active US concern and intervention Osama bin-Laden and other non-Afghan forces began to emerge. Contrary to the Left's reinvention of this particular historical event, bin-Laden was not a creation of the CIA or the US at all . In fact, the Reagan Administration was aware of and sensitive to the mujahideen's concern over bin-Laden and his nascent movement, often taking direct, if covert action to mitigate its influence.
History often echoes to us here in the present and the events of that time sound eerily familiar to us as we hear the struggles of our current war. Like today, the Democrats of the 80's and 90's did all in their power to block a Republican president's long-range and ambitious plan to confront an implacable enemy. There was nothing sure and certain about the positive result of the final days of the Soviet Union just as there is nothing sure and certain about the results of our current conflict. In retrospect it is easy to see that our failure then would have been a continuing catastrophe for millions of people world-wide. What awful consequences might our failure now bring upon the world? Without remembering the past as it actually happened and learning its lessons it is possible we might just find out to our deep regret.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Who Are These Guys Working For, Anyway?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
And The Winner Is...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008:
Well it's been a long, hard-fought campaign but finally we're here at the finish line; Election Day, and boy are we here at McCain Central pumped! Oh sure, we've had our ups and downs along the way and yeah the polls don't look good, but hey, who believes polls anyway? We've fought like crazy for what we believe in and I know it is going to pay off BIG TIME.
The first couple of months after Senator McCain became the presumptive front runner were a little rough, of course. Those talk radio creeps just wouldn't cut the Senator a break even after he reached out to them. I'll never forget how proud I was when Senator McCain said, "Yeah, I heard that Limbaugh on the radio today. My friends, he sure can talk, eh? Hehe". It was like he was giving El Rushbo a great big hug. That's why I was so shocked when Rush kept on attacking my guy over illegal immigration and CAFE standards and global warming and Gitmo and ANWR and the Gang of 14 and all that other stuff. It was like he really didn't believe that Senator McCain is as conservative as Ronald Reagan. Why, the Senator was a foot soldier for Ronald Reagan, for goodness sake. I mean I heard him say so himself!
That's why I was so proud of him when he went to all the Republicans in the House and Senate, even the fifteen of them who weren't retiring this year and convinced them to speed the Fairness Doctrine through before the election. I was in the room with him when he told them all, "These guys are beating my head in and unless you a..holes (I love it when he's so direct, like that. Now that's leadership!) pass the G..damn Fairness Doctrine this party, this country and my G..damn campaign are going to go right down the crapper." That and the sort of crazed, I'll-break-you-in-half look on his face got them jumping his way, that's for sure.
I understand that Rush, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and a bunch of others are getting together to form some sort of blog network but the Senator has beaten them to the punch and the Even More Fairness Doctrine is already making its way through the legislature. Blog this, you guys.
It was just about at that time that the Senator realized that his polls were never going to improve among conservatives, and he did what he always does, he reached out and made his big play for independents. I was there in the room with him again when he came up with the campaign slogan that's become a rallying cry, "About As Conservative As You'd Want". That let everybody know that he was their kind of conservative, you know, one who was kind of independent in his conservatism, sort of. I get chills hearing it even today.
One of my favorite moments was the day he made his vp choice just before the convention. Nobody in the party saw it coming when after his big build-up the Senator finally said, "Hehe, and he's got about a billions bucks, too, the rich bastard hehe. I'm proud to present my choice for running mate...Michael Bloomberg!" Oh yeah, the big shots in the party squirmed and screamed and everything just because Mayor Bloomberg wasn't a Republican anymore but Senator McCain had read all those newsmagazines about how Bloomberg was one of those new kind of politicians. All the network anchors and everybody said he was just great and besides since money wasn't exactly flooding in, if you know what I mean, Bloomie's deep pockets have really come in handy...like paying for the campaign-handy! Ha! That's what happens when you reach out. You get things done!
Of course Barak Obama's choosing former Marine, Senator James Webb wasn't a bad choice either, I suppose. It sort of killed our plan to make Obama out to be kind of a skinny pantywaist a central part of the campaign. But when the news got out (thanks ex-Senator Clinton!) that Senator Obama had been a drug "kingpin" for a year in his younger days we really made hay out of it. Of course the media said he turned it into a positive with his "The Audacity to Turn Dope into Hope" speech, but we know America didn't buy it, no matter what the polls said afterwards.
The debates were really something, too. That Obama guy thinks he's so smart. I don't care what the polls said after each of them and what the papers said either. I know that Senator McCain really brought it to him. I think everyone remembers the healthcare debate where Senator Obama pledged not only to provide universal healthcare but to extend it to everyone's (including illegal aliens', I mean immigrants') pets, too. Senator McCain delivered one 
of his best comebacks when he famously said, "Yeah, I've got a pet, Barak; a dog. You know what I named him? "Bite Me". Yeah, Bite Me, Obama, Bite Me hehe!" (I always enjoy the way he laughs at his own jokes, even if no one else does.) And remember when Senator Obama said that if Venezuela didn't start selling oil to the US again he'd bomb England? Senator McCain didn't even have to respond to that one. The look on his face said it all.
There were some disappointments along the way, of course. The media, for one. All the years John McCain had been in the Senate being a maverick and everything, the press loved him but just as soon as it becomes obvious that he's got the nomination all sewn up they start jumping all over him, as if he were just some regular old Republican. And when the New York Times endorsed Senator Obama, well let me tell you that was the first and only time I've seen a tear in the Senator's eye. Bunch of turncoats...
Well very soon now we'll show them all. I can hardly wait to see tomorrow's headlines. Boy is everybody in for a shock. Let's see, the polling places have just closed. Hmm. Where is everybody? They know the party is going to be held here...Maybe they're all coming together. Yeah, I bet that's it. I can hardly wait...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Late Edition Special:
Obama Romps! First Black President Wins In Greatest Landslide In American History!
Takes EVERY State and EVERY Town!
John McCain Says, "G..damn Conservatives!"
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Long Sundown - The Archbishop And The Eschaton
Rowan Williams, the 104th and current Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion has of late gotten himself into a bit of trouble. In a recent radio interview the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Mr. Williams said that he believed that it "seemed unavoidable" that Islamic sharia law would at some point find some sort of accommodation within Great Britain. There then followed quite an amazing reaction with screams of outrage coming from many quarters, indeed: the public, leaders of other religions and even the British Prime Minister who felt the need to make rhetorically clear that "British law must be based on British values". Well!
In truth one has to wonder what all the fuss is about. One would almost think that Britain still retained something of a spine, still had some sort of pride in its national identity, wasn't in a demographic and cultural death spiral. In fact Britain today is in the midst (along with most of its European brethren) of one history's most remarkable acts of national suicide and from the reaction that the Archbishop's comments have engendered it would almost appear that the British people are somehow not aware of this fact. More likely it is just one of the last remaining vestiges of British cultural reflex; it is simply not proper to say certain things out loud...such as the reality of the ongoing British surrender to Islamic culture. How veddy veddy un-British.
Some have said that the end of the British Empire began just as soon as it was noticed that "the sun never sets on" said Empire. Well the Empire rose and the Empire fell, contracting into itself until its colonies shed themselves of their foreign patron leaving Britain, the island nation, alone with its memories of glory and its traditions and the hope of finding its way into a future it had largely set in motion.
For a nation that had throughout history shown such pride-filled vigor it is somewhat surprising that that vigor is now turned to self delusion and self-destruction. The home of world terrorist activity isn't any place in the Arab world it is London, or Londonistan, as French counter-terrorism agents dubbed it in the 1990's as it became the destination of choice for Islamic extremists who were so readily welcomed into “that sceptred isle”. Instead of becoming alarmed at the arrival of such a vast number of shady characters of dubious intentions Britain found itself caught up in the multicultural moment, wherein it was declared gauche to find fault with any culture other than one's own. Taking this sensibility to mad extremes Mother England has gone supine, as members of an alien and hostile culture move in and have started to set up housekeeping, screaming at any imposition of British tradition and now increasingly, law.
Self-loathing has become the new national past-time. Christianity is now only honored in the breach. British history and literature are now only taught in the most superficial of ways. Islamic traditions and customs, many of which are at odds with Western values - the Islamic treatment of women as chattel, the Muslim deprivation of freedom of speech – are increasingly held in higher esteem than those native Western values.
Rowan Williams’s recent comments are hardly the first time he has given voice to ideas that strike out at the heart at what had once been Western culture. At one point he found a moral equivalence between US fighter pilots and Islamic suicide bombers. On another occasion he found those who defend themselves to be no different from those who attack them. On yet another occasion he apologized for Britain bringing Christianity to the rest of the world; an odd sentiment for one who supposedly believes that the belief in Jesus Christ is the road to human salvation.
Rowan Williams is but one member of a nation that has not only seen that the sun has set on the British Empire but is ensuring that sundown is coming to Britain itself. Soon the light that is now flickering will die. The darkness will be cold.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Things Fall Apart - How McCain Can Still Lose The Republican Nomination
Super Tuesday has come and gone and the smoke has cleared leaving the landscape clear, with only one man left standing with any chance, mathematically, of gaining the Republican nomination: John McCain.Mitt Romney has bowed to reality; and with his grace and good sense in doing so spared the Party a now pointless competition. Mike Huckabee, of course, is still in but his candidacy is now more clearly seen for what it has always been, a route to the vice-presidency, not the presidency. Oh yes, Ron Paul is still in as well, acting as he has from the start, as a sort of political poultice, drawing out the poisons (conspiracy theorists and other whackos) in the Party.
McCain is now the presumptive nominee, the establishment is lining up behind him and the Democrats have already crafted a playbook on how to handle him in the general election. The Straight-Talk Express has now reached critical mass. But maybe not.
In all likelihood McCain will be the Republican nominee, but in politics, as in life in general, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. And there are some troubling signs on the road ahead for the McCain candidacy. The Republicans start this election season off with a number of distinct disadvantages; attempting to follow an unpopular Republican president completing his second term; the memory of a corrupt, profligate Republican Congress that was swept from power only two short years ago, still fresh; a newly energized Democratic Party that is almost psychotic in its lust to get back into the Oval Office and, most damaging to the now apparent nominee, a candidate whom a large part of the Republican conservative base (and this is no exaggeration) loathes.
Due to the front-loading of this year’s primaries John McCain has wrapped up the nomination earlier than any other nominee in modern times. While this affords some opportunities, such as giving him time to assemble his general election policies and team, it also presents some possibly fatal difficulties as well. As stated earlier, the Democrats have more time to assemble their strategies for taking McCain apart and while McCain has always been the mainstream media’s favorite Republican, in a general election, against a Democrat the msm is going to go after him with the same vigor they do any Republican. And where a Republican would normally have the support of the so-called “alternative media” i.e. talk radio, the conservative blog-o-sphere etc., McCain’s years of treating the base with contempt has left it dispirited and frequently antagonistic to him.
Taking all of the above into consideration, the following scenario now becomes possible: With eight months to go before the Republican convention McCain, lacking an energized base and under constant assault in the press performs abysmally in national head-to-head polls with either of the two likely Democratic candidates and come September it is obvious that McCain is such a damaged and flawed candidate that it will be impossible for him to win the general election. The Party, in a desperate attempt to save themselves from a disaster of historic dimensions, does what it did when the writing was on the wall for Richard Nixon: they send a group of respected Republican emissaries to inform him that he must go. McCain, the bottom having dropped out of his campaign steps aside “for the good of my party and my country” and releases his delegates, thereby throwing the convention wide open.
Now this scenario is far more likely to occur if it becomes clear fairly soon that Barak Obama will be the Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton is so flawed as a candidate herself that polling is likely to show a fairly close race between her and McCain. But if Obama becomes the presumptive nominee within the next month or two, the enthusiasm of the Democratic base coupled with a press-in-love with him promises to reveal poll after poll of a Republican Armageddon.
Should this scenario play out, who would inherit the Republican nod? Mitt, perhaps? Fred Thompson? Someone who hasn’t been in the field yet at all perhaps. That would certainly make for an exciting convention and perhaps even set up the possibility of a Republican win.
Is any of the above likely? Not terribly but in this unusual political season which has been filled with the unexpected, I wouldn’t rule anything out just yet.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
What To Make Of Mitt
At its root, it may just have been a problem of geography. After going to Harvard, Mitt Romney decided to stay in Massachusetts, raise his family, and make his fortune. And so when he decided to enter politics, doing so anyplace other than Massachusetts probably would have seemed obvious and false. Maybe he really felt it was home. Whatever his reasons it was in this very liberal New England state that he took his first stab at politics, taking on a giant's task of trying to topple the liberal icon, Ted Kennedy. And he came closer than any other opponent in Kennedy's career.
And that race, which brought him to national political attention also planted the seeds that led to his failure in this year's presidential race. Because Massachusetts is so liberal Mitt ran as a moderate. He said he was one. He really made no bones about it. Maybe he was. Or maybe he was really more conservative and made "accommodations" in the interest of being in the running at all. Whatever the truth that run coupled with his later slow shifting to the right through the years left voter's believing that Mitt had an authenticity problem. He was hard to trust then as he announced for the Presidency in 2007 as a true-blue Reaganite. The lack of total conservative commitment through most of the race which was only recently (too late) to rally to his side doomed him.
But whatever questions conservatives had about him, Mitt Romney ran his presidential campaign like the true-blue Reaganite he now said he was and when you look at that effort, just ended today you'd have to say he ran it with style and maybe even with a good deal of sincerity. Having stepped aside at what must have been a hard time for him but the right time, Romney leaves with great good will and should he comport himself over the next four years with the kind of class he showed in this race he will probably have positioned himself to be not just a candidate with far greater conservative acceptance in 2012 (should McCain lose this year, as is highly likely) maybe he will enter that race as the candidate of choice for conservatives.
He is a man of great intelligence and many talents. He will bear watching.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Winter Of Our Discontent
While the results of Super Tuesday were not conclusive in that they did not secure the Republican nomination with certainty for any one candidate the trend lines were drawn more strongly and what had before been a likelihood now inches closer to a certainty. Barring some major shift (and this primary season has been filled with them, so anything remains possible) in the first week of September the Republican party will nominate Senator John McCain as its candidate for president. It is hard to imagine a way he can win the general election.
McCain has spent a career antagonizing the Republican base and despite his walking away from Super Tuesday in the catbird's seat the numbers show the trouble to come. Only three in ten conservative votes on Super Tuesday went to McCain. Talk radio, reflecting the dissatisfaction that small percentage represents, spends much of its time lately in full-blown attack mode against the Senator. The number of total Republican voters is dwarfed by the total number of Democrats:
Total votes cast in 21 GOP contests yesterday among McCain, Romney and Huckabee:
McCain: 43.1% (3,611,459)Romney: 35.4% (2,961,834)Huckabee: 21.5% (1,796,729)
For grand totals, vastly more Democrats than Republicans voted yesterday;
Democratic votes for Clinton and Obama: 14,622,822 (63.6%)Republican votes for McCain, Romney and Huckabee: 8,370,022 (36.4%)
Put another way, the Clinton/Obama race drew 76% more voters than the McCain/Romney/Huckabee race.
None of the Republican candidates is exciting Republican voters, certainly not the way Barak Obama and even Hillary Clinton is exciting the Democrats. That fact coupled with McCain's poor showing among conservatives says much about what November will bring for the Party of Lincoln and Reagan.
What to do, then? After the Republican Congress broke faith with the American people, handing over the House and Senate to the Democrats, with the sad spectacle of this nominating process and the coming debacle conservatives are left with one reasonable course of action: We need an extensive period of self-examination and a revival of the kind of energy and devotion to ideas that made the Reagan Administration so dynamic. We need to elect men and women of principle, the kind of men and women who are disgusted with what the Republican Congress had become and to whom the thought of the Gerald Ford/Bob Michel version of republicanism is anathema.
We will spend our time wandering in the desert but if we stick to our principles the future may still be even brighter than the past. Just remember the Republican nominee who followed Gerald Ford was Ronald Reagan.
2012 isn't really that far off. Let's use the time contructively.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Brief Thoughts On A Long Night
So McCain and Huckabee teamed up to take a win away from Romney in West Virginia? Apparently this sleazeball move is their idea of change. I'm sure voters everywhere will be lining up to vote for more. Is it 2012, yet?- Am I the only one who has noticed that Huckabee invariably says "conservative-ism" and not conservatism? Do you know any conservatives who say "conservative-ism"? If you're going to make believe that you are a conservative shouldn't you at least learn how conservatives actually refer to the philosophy they espouse? Maybe it is just me.
- Tonight's guilty pleaure: Watching Obama whack Billary around, scaring the bejeebers out of them. The truth is, I think Obama would be tougher to beat in a general election than the Senator from NY and her hubby but still, watching their discomfort is nothing short of pure pleasure.
UPDATE: 9PM
- Apparently Romney is giving McCain a run for his money in McCain's home state of Arizona. I'm smiling. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it?
- Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner is saying that he thinks McCain needs to make a major speech mollifying conservatives in order to get Rush, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin etc. on his side. I'm a big fan of Jonah's but if he thinks McCain giving a speech will make most conservatives roll over and play stupid, I think Jonah is just plain wrong.
UPDATE: 9:45PM
- Obama's loss of MA is somewhat disappointing, proving that an alcoholic, vehicularly-challenged, socialist Senator who has been in Washington for forty-plus years may not be the most credible person around to endorse a candidate based on the need for "change". Maybe if he had resigned first? (Sorry - just wishful thinking).
- Of course Huckabee has no chance to get the Repbulican Presidential nomination (as he well knows) but his Vice-Presidential run seems to be going swimmingly tonight. How many out there are jumping up and down just thinking of the chance to vote for a McCain/Huckabee ticket? Yeah, me neither.
- As the eveing wears on that satisfaction I felt earlier about Obama giving Clinton a really rotten evening seems to have been a bit premature. Oy.
UPDATE: 10:45PM
- Another frustrating night: Unpleasant trends move forward, yet nothing is settled.
- Good night. Tomorrow it begins again.
Monday, February 4, 2008
John McCain: The Perfect Storm
Tonight, while watching the evening news I saw something distlinctly surreal: There on the screen was Senator John McCain speaking to the press. He was explaining how he was going to unite conservatives behind him. Nodding in agreement and literally behind him was Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democratic John Kerry's running mate four years ago. Ironically Senator McCain had seriously considered being Kerry's running mate before political and other calculations made him reconsider, leaving the door open for Lieberman. This little scenario is emblematic of one of the reasons John McCain won't be President and why the Movement Conservatives are in almost full revolt at the very idea. Any Republican who could for even a moment entertain being the running mate for the ultra-liberal Kerry can't be a conservative.
But McCain's being widely known as liberals' favorite Republican and his long history of sticking his finger in the eyes of conservatives whenever it suits him (an action in which he always seems to take a smirking glee) are only two of three factors which with a third, his notoriusly thin skin and short fuse form a perfect storm of behaviour and character traits that cause him to be utterly undeserving of conservative support and likely to be a disaster as President should he somehow manage to win that most important of offices.
McCain has said more things that are and should be concerning to conservatives than almost any other Republican with the possible exceptions of former Republican Senators Lincoln Chaffee and Jim Jeffords. Just a sampling: According to the Boston Globe in April, 2004 and then confirmed by McCain himself two days later to Chris Mathews on Hardball, McCain declared, "I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problem with it, their views and their philosphy."
In a January 2000 debate Senator McCain, sounding to all the world like he was lifting his lines from the Democratic talking points said, "“I have never engaged in class warfare. I am very much in favor of tax cuts for middle-income and lower-income Americans. I’m deeply concerned about a kind of class warfare that’s going on right now. It’s unfortunate. There’s a growing gap between the haves and have-nots in America, and that gap is growing, and it’s unfortunately divided up along ethnic lines. I feel very strongly that we ought to have middle-income and lower-income tax cuts, and we’ll be getting into it, I’m sure, later on in this program. Mine are basically comparable to Gov. Bush’s, in some cases far better. But I’m not sure we need to give two-thirds of that tax cut, of that money, to the wealthiest 10% of America.” Although he now says that he was one of only two Republicans to vote against the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 because he was interested in having them accompanied by spending cuts, the above quote is representative of what he was actually saying at the time.
Although now denying he supports amnesty for illegal immigrants Senator McCrain the co-author of the Kennedy/McCain Immigration bill in a May 29, 2003 interview said, "Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens."
The mainstream media and Democrats have, of course loved this kind of talk and have helped to make Senator McCain a star. In their recent endorsement of him the New York Times said, "Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe." And why wouldn't they be thrilled with Senator McCain? He is their kind of Republican. And according to John Kerry, McCain almost became his kind of Democrat as can be seen in this interview with the liberal blog MyDD:
Jonathan Singer (of MyDD): There’s a story in The Hill, I think on Tuesday, by Bob Cusack on the front page of the paper talking about how John McCain’s people — John Weaver — had approached Tom Daschle and a New York Congressman, I don’t remember his name, about switching parties. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what your discussions were with him in 2004, how far it went, who approached whom… if there was any “there” there.
John Kerry: I don’t know all the details of it. I know that Tom, from a conversation with him, was in conversation with a number of Republicans back then. It doesn’t surprise me completely because his people similarly approached me to engage in a discussion about his potentially being on the ticket as Vice President. So his people were active — let’s put it that way."
As if these disturbing points aren't enough, there is also the problem of McCain's temperment. According to Newmax.com, in a July 5, 2006 interview former Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee said, "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues . . . He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that." But such stories are legion with Senator McCain. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ... said in a recent interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn't speak to him "for a couple of years." McCain got in his face and shouted an obscenity at him. Senator Thad Cochran R - Miss. gave the following as the reason he was supporting Mitt Romney over McCain in the current race, "The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."Some have suggested that McCain's often irrational temper is an after-effect of his five long years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war but such seems not to be the case as his military records indicate his temper was a problem before his captivity. Perhaps that very temper is one of the reasons he was able to survive captivity. In that situation, maybe unbridled rage was the difference between life and death. The Washington political environment may often be compared to war but it seems to me that rage is not one of the best weapons a President needs in his arsenal.
Tomorrow is Super Tuesday after which, all Senator McCain's media friends (and Senator McCain) are telling us, he will become the presumptive nominee. They may be right. If so, the Republican Party may soon come to regret their decision. Oh, and as for all Mr. McCain's "friends" in the media and the Democratic Party, I think he will soon see that after they've helped secure his nomination they'll turn around and treat him will all the disdain they always treat Republicans. He may be their favorite Repbulican but any Republican, even one as eager to please as Senator McCain will be thrown overboard in a heartbeat when the choice is between him and a real Democrat.
For a conservative, John McCain, Republican standard bearer is the bitterest of pills. The only question that may remain after November of this year is, "How do we pick up the pieces?"
Thursday, January 31, 2008
A Small Price To Pay
A recent headline in the British press proclaimed, Archbishop of Canterbury calls for new law to punish 'thoughtless or cruel' words, and related how the aforementioned Archbishop is calling for new laws that will punish “thoughtless and cruel” speech, in an effort to protect religious sensibilities. His “thinking” here is that certain kinds of speech offend religious sensibilities, can intimidate and then silence arguments. In other words he is seeking to limit free speech in order to promote free speech. (?)
In Canada, the Canadian Islamic Conference, the self-proclaimed “voice of Canada’s Muslims” has lodged two complaints with Canada’s Human Rights Commission against Mark Steyn, popular columnist and author of the bestselling America Alone, and Canadian magazine, McLean’s which excerpted a section of that book which details how immigrant Muslims in Europe are literally out breeding native Europeans and within a generation will outnumber them, burying Western civilization in the process as the immigrant wave rejects assimilation, instead bringing their native culture and transplanting it in the West. Heavily researched, cogently and wittily argued Steyn’s work could land him in jail. Apparently in Canada writing anything that could be considered critical of Islam is potentially a “hate crime”.
In universities across the United States speech codes spell out what can and cannot be said, so as to insure that no person or group is offended. Penalties for violating these codes can, under some circumstances, include expulsion. Over the last forty years “diversity trainings” have popped up in colleges, corporations and government, wherein speech is examined for any hint of possible offensive content. If any is found, and not successfully addressed, punishments of varying degrees of severity are meted out. The objective behind these “trainings”, if not the setting is similar to the reeducation camps that sprang up in Vietnam after the War there; those being “reeducated” were subjected to intensive indoctrination into the “correct” way to think and behave. No trials were necessary for those subject to such “reeducation”, just as no specific offense is required for diversity trainings: they’re mandatory.
Which raises the question: What about freedom of speech? This relatively new emphasis on “offense” being a major criterion of what is and is not permissible is, in fact, a major assault on the longstanding Western tradition of freedom of expression established and promulgated since the time of Socrates up through the signing of the Magna Carta and the passing of the First Amendment. Logically, there would not even be a need for the protection of a First Amendment if not for the possibility of “offensive speech.” Freedom of speech only exists to allow each of us to say whatever we want even if someone else is offended by what we say.
There have always been reasonable limits on free speech, of course. You can’t shout “fire” in a crowed movie theater; you can’t libel another person, etc. But this current emphasis on “offensive speech” is different in that now the burden of proof seems to have shifted. It no longer matters if your intent was meant to offend or even that your “offensive” speech had some demonstrable negative impact. Now it seems to be actionable if someone merely feels offended no matter if the offense taken is reasonable or not. Even the truth doesn’t seem to be a sufficient defense. Previously the remedy to being offended by someone’s speech was limited to the private sphere. If you said something that was interpreted as being offensive you either apologized or didn’t and faced the ramifications on a personal, social level.
Much of this sensitivity seems to have appeared contemporaneously with the rise of multiculturalism, which ostensibly is about promoting diversity, a good goal until we see how it is being pursued. Multiculturalism as it is often actually practiced holds that all cultures are equally good…with the sole exception being the larger American/Western culture which is assumed to be oppressive by definition. Therefore anything that can be interpreted in any way as insulting to any other group, culture, sex, lifestyle etc is immediately understood to be an assault by the repressive dominant culture.
You then get such bizarre situations as a Turkish lawyer filing a lawsuit against an Italian soccer club for having a large red cross on its jerseys, apparently offensive to Muslims as it is reminiscent of the cross worn by Christians in the Crusades one thousand years ago. California has banned the terms "mom", "dad", "husband", and "wife" from public schools as it is potentially offensive to gays.
The road on which these kinds of surreal developments seem normal is one which leads to a world in which people can no longer speak their minds, in which ideas can longer be thrown against each other in competition so that the best one might win out. A world in which no one is offended is a sterile world, a world without dynamism. The price we pay for freedom, the ability to do and say what we want is that sometimes we may wind up offended. That really doesn’t seem like such a bad deal, when you think about it. Does it?
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Stunning!
After having failed to win a single caucus or primary, Democratic presidential candidate former Senator John Edwards is scheduled to announce that he will be exiting the race for the presidency sometime today.
It is expected that his hair will be especially lustrous during today's announcement.
That is all.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Greatest Man Who Can Never Get My Vote
By now the story is well known: John Sidney McCain III, son and grandson of Admirals, while serving as a naval pilot during the Vietnam War was shot down over that country in 1967 and captured by the Viet Cong. Injured on impact he remained a prisoner for five years, two of them in solitary confinement. He was frequently tortured. In response to this torment he gave only his name, rank and serial number. The North Vietnamese, in an overt propaganda ploy offered to release POW McCain after his father was named Commander of the Pacific Command, the communists hoping to show that America cared only for the sons of privilege. John McCain refused, stating he would stay unless every man captured before him was released first. The North Vietnamese refused. Lieutenant McCain did not return home for another four years.
John McCain is the very definition of an American hero. I have voted in every presidential election for the past twenty two years and each time I have voted for the Republican candidate. John McCain, hero, is now running to be the next Republican nominee for President and if he achieves his goal it will be without my vote. I will not vote for John McCain for president. If John McCain becomes the Republican nominee, for the first time in twenty two years I will not cast a vote for president.
You see, unfortunately while Senator McCain has great personal courage and is a truly great man he also has terrible political judgment and is an absolutely awful Republican. Awful. John McCain claims to be a conservative but on issue after issue he has proven that he is not. Senator McCain's departures from conservative principles are almost as well known as Lieutenant Commander McCain's courage.
- On campaign finance reform he was the author of and chief cheerleader for the McCain/Feingold Act, the main effect of which is to limit the public's free speech during elections.
- When President George W. Bush passed his landmark tax cuts in 2001 McCain was one of only two Republican Senators to vote against it. As he campaigns for president today he says that he voted against these tax cuts because they weren't accompanied by spending cuts, but the record of the time shows this is not the case. He said at the time he was voting against the tax cuts because they favored the rich. This is rhetoric right out of the Democratic lexicon. And even if the claim were true it shows an astonishing lack of understanding about the proven track record of tax cuts: they raise revenue due to the increase in economic activity they stimulate. Tax cuts do not require spending cuts "to pay for them." They "pay" for themselves.
- He was the leader of the notorious "Gang of 14" Senators whose compromise on the filibustering of judicial nominees left open the door for more of the same in the future.
- Most notoriously Senator McCain worked hand in hand with Mr. Liberal himself, Senator Ted Kennedy to try to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which was in effect the largest amnesty program in American history and whose effect would have been a massive increase in illegal immigration into the nation. It was only stopped by a tidal wave of protest from average Americans.
The list goes on and on, on issue after issue. And with each and every one of these very damaging and very un-conservative policies Senator McCain became more beloved by the blatantly liberal mainstream media, frequently being referred to in conservative circles as the New York Times' favorite Republican. At times it seems that McCain is ashamed to be a conservative and his attempt to cast himself as one is nothing more than a mask he feels he needs to wear so that he can capture the office he so desires.
Stubbornness can be a good quality in a president but when taken to an extreme it can also be a fatal flaw. John McCain does not like it when he doesn't get his way and his reputation for nastiness and condescension behind closed doors in the Senate is common Beltway talk. I will always remember when he lost the South Carolina primary to then Governor George W. Bush in 2000. He said that he believed some "dirty tricks" had been perpetrated against him by Bush. This belief was specious at best. His concession speech on that night was one of the most ungracious and most troubling political performances I have ever seen, filled as it was with rage and rancor. He looked like a man on the verge of losing control. On that night I knew that John McCain did not have the temperament to be president.
It is odd that a man who has so many of the qualities of greatness should have in equal measure, qualities that would make his ascension to the most powerful leadership role in the world a likely calamity.
I respect John McCain. I know that John McCain is a better man than I will ever be. And I will not vote for him for President. Senator John McCain is the greatest man who could never, will never get my vote.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Flipping The Pages
No one had to ask "where's the beef?" with Fred. But the American people weren't just looking for the beef but also for the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and the sesame seed bun. Fred refused to deliver. Fred was all beef. You've got to respect that. There are worse reasons to lose a race than for being too substantive.
Monday, January 21, 2008
A Day For Hope
Today we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, a man whose life was an exemplar to the nation not because he saw that a cancer still existed in the heart of the American dream (only the morally obtuse or morally corrupt could not have seen it) but because he had the courage to fight it, boldly, publicly, unceasingly until his last breath. His courage and sacrifice was his gift to the American experiment as it helped wipe away the vestiges of the lie that America told itself; that it could be the beacon of freedom in the world while separating people on the basis of the color of their skin.
Dr. King was not a perfect man, having human faults and a vision that contained too much of the collectivist impulse but no men are perfect and all great men stumble in many ways. But any faults fade into inconsequentiality in comparison to the great service he performed for his country.
Sadly, all these many years after his passing, many of those who claim to have taken up his mantle have shown themselves to be pale and venal imposters and the movement he started has devolved from a cry for freedom to a sad squabbling for group perks and preferences. It is demoralizing when a movement that once recognized a man like Dr. King as a leader now is broken into fragments and allows figures like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to claim to be his heirs, with far too little dissent.
But the current prevalence of the charlatans shouldn't cause us to despair. Dr. King's legacy isn't to be found with them. It is found in the hearts and realistic hopes of Black men and women who now live lives open with opportunities they would not have had but for him. If the condition of Blacks today has not yet fulfilled the hopes and dreams of Dr. King he knew that the road is long and hard to travel but he also knew that someday it would lead to the Promised Land. It still does.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Would/Would Not
Back during the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan's presidency the question of what was or was not a conservative position was fairly easy to determine. Reagan, unlike the caricature constructed of him by an elitist, near monolithic press and a long-regnant Democratic party, was far from a shallow simpleton; in fact, in a very real sense he may have been the most prepared president in US history. Reagan had spent most of his life reading, writing, talking and thinking about how society is ordered, where it had failed and what principles were needed to be to be in place for a free and dynamic society to remain free and dynamic. The nascent conservative movement nurtured and grown by the likes of William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Barry Goldwater, William Rusher and all the others squabbled and debated their way to a generally consistent philosophy whose standard bearer Reagan became. It could be argued whether a certain position or policy was conservative or not but the answer could be found in the First Principles to which the (now established) Movement had pledged its fealty.
Well things have changed. After years of electoral success which saw opportunity shrivel into opportunism and a Republican Congress that, under the corrosive spell of Washington's many temptations seemed to morph more and more into that regnant Democratic party it had come to power to replace, what is and is not a conservative position has lost the clarity it once had.So now we see a current Republican field of presidential candidates whose conservatism has left the public suspicious and dissatisfied. We have candidates who just a few short years ago held positions even they admit weren't conservative. We have candidates who seem very much commited to conservative principles on some issues but not at all on others, revealing a kind of ideological confusion we have all seen before to our dismay. And we have candidates whose sound-bites echo the worst impulses of Democratic demagogues. And we seem to have a Republican electorate that is as confused about the verities as politicians would like them to be.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Call Me Irresponsible
A number of years ago, during another Presidential election cycle I was talking to a co-worker about the impending vote. She was explaining to me that she always votes and that she is very serious about it, taking all the candidate’s positions into account before making up her mind. The one issue that trumped all others for her however, was a candidate’s position on abortion. No matter what else a candidate stood for, if he or she was not in favor of abortion, did not support Roe vs. Wade, they would not get her vote. On this, what was obviously to her the great moral issue of our time, she would stand her ground come what may. On a hunch I decided to examine her thinking on this just a bit and asked her what she actually thought would happen should the “worst case scenario” happen and Roe vs. Wade were to be overturned? She looked at me a bit suspiciously before regaining her poise and moral haughtiness and responded, “Abortion would become illegal.” I had thought that’s what she would say. Just to make sure I’d gotten her right I asked, “You mean all abortions in America would immediately be banned?" Without hesitation she confidently replied, “Yes”.
Her composure began to slip as I told her, “That’s not what would happen at all. If Roe is overturned, nothing would happen immediately. The issue would go back to the states where each one would decide it. The ultimate result would probably be that it would remain legal in some states, illegal in others and legal with some degree of restrictions in yet others.
You have based every vote you’ve cast on an issue you don’t understand at all, which means every vote you’ve cast has been uninformed.”
At this point her composure had disappeared altogether to be replaced by a prickly defensiveness and the assertion that I was wrong. I told her to research it and she’d see that I was right. I knew she wouldn’t bother and dropped it.
*SIGH*
My little encounter with my morally righteous but factually impaired co-worker wouldn’t be particularly compelling if it were just an aberration, one woman’s lack of civic preparedness. But it is not. In America today, with (thanks to the internet) mountains of information literally a finger-tap away there are still millions of people stepping into the voting booth without a clue.
In 2006 only twenty-eight percent of Americans could name two of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Other recent polls reveal similar findings: Only twenty-four percent knew the names of two of the nine Supreme Court justices. One third of us can’t name a single branch of the Federal Government. And disturbingly, almost fifty percent of Americans under thirty have late night comedy shows as their major source of news.
Try an experiment: ask some relatives, co-workers, friends to name the US Attorney General; if pollution is getting better or worse in the US (correct answer: better), the difference between Congressmen and Senators, what does the Federal Reserve do? The likelihood of getting a large number of correct answers is small, very small.
The public is forever complaining about government, about how it is inefficient, expensive, wasteful, etc but the gross ignorance of the electorate calls into question who deserves more of the blame for the deficiencies of the government; the people’s elected representatives or the people themselves?
The founding fathers were aware of the importance of a well informed electorate. James Madison wrote, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." "The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents," Thomas Jefferson said. "There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information."
Voting is a right but all too frequently when people exercise that right they do so without the recognition that nothing comes free, including their constitutional rights. Attendant to our rights is our responsibility to exercise them responsibly. My pro-abortion co-worker was very eager to vote, but she did so like an overweight person who orders the most caloric selection on the menu, showing no responsibility and obliviously complaining about the unpleasant results of her actions.
So when next you hear someone complaining about the “mess in Washington” you might want to ask them a few simple civics questions. When they come up dry, you could remind them that as Shakespeare said, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves…”. But if you do be ready, because you may have to explain who Shakespeare is, too.
