Shots of Truth:
Thoughts Regarding the Fitness of Barack Obama to Serve as the President of the United States
Bloginations by Truthserum
(http://www.xanga.com/truthserum)
Contents
Rising Above “Every Man for Himself”
Obama: A Man of Many Feet . . . Could He Leave One Out of His Mouth?
While Raking in Lobbyists’ Cash, Obama Denies Doing So!!
Dead Babies . . . Dead Jews . . . And You SUPPORT The Right To Choose?
Tidying Up . . . Some Recent Ruminations Provoked by Posts
Introducing . . . Barack Obama, Policy Man of Mystery
If God is a Brepho-phile, Shouldn’t We Be Too?
“Every Man for Himself”
In which we learn that “women and children first” did not always govern access to rescue lifeboats at sea, and that married Marines of the British Royal Marines understood, instinctively, how Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.
Sitting here at my desk at work, with tears in my eyes. I am thinking about my dad.
Today, for reasons that have to do with the kind of man he was, the Birkenhead drill came to mind.
Do you know the Birkenhead Drill? Do you know the line through naval history, by implication through cultural history, that it draws?
To state briefly is not to dishonor those to whom great honor is due. As briefly as I can, allow me to re-tell the story of that ship. In the story of the Birkenhead, you will see, great honor is due.
HMS Birkenhead carried British troops and their wives and children. From the British Isles, it sailed south, toward South Africa. Under orders to make great haste, the captain of the Birkenhead held a course close to the coast of Africa. During the dark of night -- as nearly all souls on board slept -- the Birkenhead struck rocks, tearing open the hull. Water flooded lower compartments. Sailors and Marines drowned in their hammocks where they lay to sleep.
Those who could made it to the deck of the Birkenhead. Flare rockets were fired, but there was not help in the area. The safety of shore was just under three miles away. But the Birkenhead foundered on a rocky outcropping within shark infested waters.
Fortunately for all on board, the ship carried three rescue vessels. While the captain of the ship called aloud, “every man for himself,” a commander of the Royal Marines on board realized that such a rule would be certain death of the women and children who would be helpless against larger, stronger, and panicked sailors, soldiers and Marines. He called out, into the night, and for the first time recorded in British naval tradition: “Women and children first.” That is the line that was drawn first in the foundering and loss of the HMS Birkenhead.
Women and children first.
I am thunderstruck at the power of that witness to Godliness. The life of those weaker, of those less able to fend for themselves, was to be regarded above that of His Majesties sailors, soldiers and Marines. How like the words of Paul those were: “Husbands, love your wives AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR IT.”
Still, an officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton of the 74th Royal Highland Fusiliers assumed command of all the military personnel on board. He ordered his officers and men to stand attention at mid-ships. This afforded those in the ship’s smaller rescue vessels to board the boats, lower them to the water and row clear of the foundering wreck. Witnesses who survived told of how the Marines stood at attention mid-ships as the ship broke apart, and were held there for the sake of the women and children, until the lifeboats rowed sufficiently far to insure that those going into the water could not reach them, and in a panic of fear, cause them to capsize or sink.
Six hundred eighty three souls had sailed on the Birkenhead. One hundred seventy three survived. Among those were the women and children, whose lives were accorded preference over those of the soldiers, sailors and Marines. The soldier’s poet, Rudyard Kipling, commemorated the honor of those who died after giving place to the women and children in a poem called “Soldier an’ Sailor Too.” The poem expresses the begrudging but deep and abiding respect paid by one soldier toward the Royal Marines who proved themselves on the Birkenhead.
Now. About the Birkenhead, what I know and what I think results from being my father’s son. The blemishes, of course, are my own. But the standard my dad set, by speaking with his own abiding and deep respect for those who stood the Birkenhead Drill, burns itself into my mind and my heart.
It occurs to me that, in the same decade that the Birkenhead and its Marine Company died, another Englishman, Charles Darwin, published his theory on the origins of life, “On the Origin of the Species.” For Darwin, the conscienceless, relentless and undaunted push of nature is for the most fit in each species to survive. Darwin’s natural selection stands on its head the preference for women and children first in a disaster such as the Birkenhead. The weaker, the more vulnerable, are protected by the rule of Birkenhead and are lost in the backwaters of natural selection.
My dad lived as a Birkenhead kind of Marine. He always put my mom’s need before his own. He always put ours above his own. He cared for widows and orphans. He cared for the unprotected unborn in America; by his gifts, he cared for the untouchables touched only by ministries like that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. And in each of my memories of his life and how he lived, I note two things: first, I find no echoes of
the strained cry, “Every man for himself;” second, I hear reverberating across my memory the many instances when he lived the rule of women and children first.
Posted at 10/20/2007 8:58 AM
In which we discover that a prominent candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency disagrees with God on the value and worth of children.
Obama is a native born American. But, as God is my witness, his mental framework for life is totally foreign to me. I have children. Eight, to be precise. Ranging from pre-adolescents to adults. Now, I have a grandchild, too. Adam Miguel Henderson. The children Terri and I have have presented -- as children will -- a variety of challenges to our skills, our patience, our comfort. But our children, and now our grandchild, have never been a punishment.
So when the unscripted Obama spoke about health care, HIV/AIDS, and the health care concerns of young American girls, he was in an act as dangerous as doing the circus highwire blindfolded, drunk and without a net. I guess he is not to be blamed if he spoke his mind and revealed “the man behind the curtain” in that moment.
Here’s what Obama said, in the
context of the discussion, courtesy
of CNN.com
[MARY] SNOW [CNN Anchor]: I’m Mary Snow in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where Senator Barack Obama is holding a town hall meeting right now, taking questions from the audience. Let’s go to straight to Senator Barack Obama. He just was asked a question about how his administration, if he’s elected, would deal with the issue of HIV and AIDS and also sexually transmitted diseases with young girls. Here’s Senator Barack Obama.
OBAMA: -- or we give them really expensive surgery and we don’t spend money on the front end keeping people healthy in the first place. So when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because,look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions.
So that’s how things look from inside the trappings of America’s newest flim-flam artist: Children are punishment.
I will have difficulty adopting this new thinking. All my life, first as the youngest of eight, and now as the father of eight, one scripture that has always been in my grasp and appreciation is this: “Lo, children are the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.”
Roll on Obama, the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of [illin]OZ.
Posted at 4/2/2008 11:32 AM
In which the writer begins a conversation with a young adult supporting Barack Obama for the Presidency of the United States, and in which basic inconsistencies in the candidate’s rhetoric are identified.
My occasional internet opposite, Isaac, took offense recently at my dismay over his support for Barrack Obama, recently discovered in viewing his Myspace page. Here, I try to clarify the reasons why I find his support for B.O. troubling:
Dear Isaac,
In part, what happened here is a “failure to communicate.” Your picture did not communicate to me. My wry response to it, incorporating my horror at your support for neophyte pro-abortion Obama, did not communicate to you.
I suppose it starts with having spent some time in Denver and not recognizing Denver in that photograph.
The photo didn’t indicate Denver as its location, although having been there a few times, I am certain that the location could within reasonable driving distance. Instead, I saw in the photograph the kind of wild nature that is distant from urban and suburban contexts. Apart. Separate. Alone.
You clarified the meaning of the photo, and as you found my remark was unintelligible, let me clarify my thoughts for you.
Your photo shows a starkly beautiful, exotic location, devoid of context it seems certainly to be the stuff of the Grand Canyon, or the Painted Desert. These are the places where hardy individualists go and live apart from society. They leave us alone (except the occasional Theodore Kaczynski) and we leave them alone (except the occasional Randy Weaver). So, in seeing your photo, along with your aspiration of living in the apparent vicinity, I took you to mean what you seemed to mean. To me, the message of your photo and aspiration was this: “Isaac is looking to live apart from society.”
Nothing horrible about that. American literature produced perhaps no more stirring an expression of these ideas than that of Henry David Thoreau:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” (Excerpted from On Walden Pond.)
So far so good.
But imagine if, prior to departing to his solitary and Spartan life, Henry David Thoreau urinated in the town reservoir. Not his problem to be sure. His drinking and bathing water would come from the springs that fed Walden Pond. But for the townsfolk, their strangely enriched reservoir is ruined by degrees.
And so the nub:
Your photo on Facebook and Your Obama-nation on Myspace. These led to my remarks. I would urge Thoreau not to pee in the reservoir of the town, and I would urge you not to foist Obama or Clinton on those of us who live in the community that you would leave behind if you were headed to the beautiful and desperate isolation imagined by your photograph.
So now I am left with my incomparable comparison between peeing in the town’s drinking water and supporting Obama (or Clinton) for the Presidency of the United States.
Of course, all three meet the constitutional minimum qualifications for the presidency: natural-born citizens of the United States, 35 years of age, and 14 years resident in the country. That minimum qualification is probably met by more than 100 million Americans (see http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0007.pdf) (Population in United States by age). So, at a certain level, OF COURSE OBAMA IS QUALIFIED TO BE ELECTED TO THE PRESIDENCY. That level of qualification, however, is no more than what your dad and I, or countless others, enjoy.
The real problem with Obama is not constitutional DISqualification. As with Clinton, the real problem with Obama is EXPERIENTIAL disqualification and moral unfitness.
Isaac, you said this:
“I support a candidate who’s entire campaign is based upon its welcoming quality to Americans at large, whatever color, whatever religion, whatever class and whatever voting age. That is the ultimate repudiation of your racist comment.”
To your claim of welcoming quality to Americans at large, I reply thus:
Obama does not welcome those whose lives are most fragile, and most in need of the former full and complete protection of the law: children before birth. In fact, when he had the opportunity to insist that children BORN ALIVE after an abortion be provided medical care, he voted against pending legislation on more than one occasion. That’s right. Not whether or not abortion should be legal. Whether or not, having escaped the typical death that results from an abortion, a child BORN ALIVE should be given appropriate medical care.
Obama does not own the market on distaste for, dislike of, or living above the effects of racism. “No Irish need apply” was the rule in Boston and elsewhere in the American northeast. “No Catholics need apply” was the rule more broadly across the Nation. Among my ancestors, through my grandmother Edna Beckley Henderson, were those who walked, wept and died on the Trail of Tears. So I won’t kowtow to Obama over racism fears. Instead, I fearlessly state that his hatred for the life of children before birth and for those just born alive following abortion make him just as bad as any petty racist, and maybe worse. If you doubt his murderous bent on this issue, just Google “Obama” and “Born Alive” and “Infants.” Beyond this grotesquely heinous and immoral policy, Obama enjoyed a 100% “pro-choice” rating for his Illinois legislative service.
Isaac, you asked me this question:
“What is your proof of him being racist? The church he goes to? Kind of weak in my opinion.”
To your challenge, this is my reply:
Actually, Isaac, you surprise me on this point. If I sit for one occasion (as politeness might dictate) while some moronic, biblically ignorant black racist preaches, I might plead the call of politeness as my justification. But if I return week after week after week after week, and if I write the check each week and drop it in the offering basket, then I think it is vapidly weak to doubt that there is evidence of agreement in my conduct. And, you see, that is precisely what Obama and his wife did. I’m glad they were in church. No one holds a gun at the head of American adults and forces them to attend this church or that. His choice to stay at that church, therefore, is unavoidable evidence of his agreement with Wright’s racism.
I might hear from him otherwise if and when he releases his train of correspondence with Pastor Wright in which he pleaded for moderation and temporizing of the rhetoric. Such is not forthcoming.
As for how good the evidence is, you aren’t really asking a legal question, you’re making a rhetorical remark. But in the law, in fact, complicity in conduct is demonstrated precisely by the sort of action/inaction evidenced by Obama.
Example: three young men go to the mall, and are in J.C. Penney’s. One steals some Sean Jean clothing. All three are on video entering the store and exiting the store. In the law, whether you approve of it or not, all three can be charged with shoplifting (larceny). All three can be convicted of it. And, in Virginia, at least, this kind of prosecution is quite common. No additional evidence of agreement or participation is required than having been in the vicinity. Another example comes from the typical traffic stop in which no one claims responsibility for drugs found on the floor of the car. Everyone is arrested. Everyone is charged. Everyone can be convicted.
So Obama and Pastor Wright.
Isaac, you cannot reasonably think that these circumstances are just those of Obama having, by coincidence, to have been in the same place and time as the Pastor on one or two occasions. Obama’s was, and is, regular attendance for two decades. Nor are Wright’s rants solely those the lately sprung ravings of a recently unloosed screw. Wright is now recognized as having a history going back his thirty years in the pulpit of racist and bigoted offal in place of the explication of God’s Word.
To minimize the twisted, hateful and racist bigotry bound up in Obama’s pastor’s logic, you made these arguments, Isaac:
“I’ve heard pastors say some crazy things. ‘I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.’ - Jimmy Swaggart. ‘If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.’ - Jerry Falwell. ‘God Hates Fags!’ - Rev. Fred Phelps. ‘The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There’s never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I’ll buy some of the feminism...’ - Pat Robertson (According to the Chess Federation of the U.S. there were already two women Grand Masters at that time, both from Georgia. Since Robertson’s gaffe, three more women became Grand Masters). I am sure you side or have sided yourself with at least one of these guys, but you are not an ideological bigot when it comes to your job as a lawyer, are you?”
To that line of reasoning, I retort:
Please. I can line up Sharptons and Jacksons (both Jesse and Michael) and Farrakhans and others whose inanities and profanities match these inconsequentialities.
Stupid is around.
Stupid has been here for a long time.
Stupid shows no sign of abating any time soon.
The issue isn’t whether pastors say stupid things. The issue is whether, when a pastor says things that are truly evil and does so on a very regular basis, we must credulously accept the claim that those who sit at his feet with adoring acceptance of his message do not, in fact, agree with his message.
As for me siding with those in your examples: Swaggart, No. Falwell, yes. Phelps, No. Robertson, Yes.
Regarding the diatribes by Swaggart and Phelps: God doesn’t hate those who are afflicted with homosexual affections, He sent His own Son to die for them on the cross (just like for you and me). But He makes clear that the acting out upon that affection is peculiarly harmful to self and other.
As for non-Christians being losers, not sure what to make of the claim. There is not much of sense in it, and yet it is the most deeply abiding assurance of salvation that I know.
You see, on the one hand, the world is ruled by folks who hold the reigns of power without apparent Christianity. Ditto the world of finance. Ditto the entertainment world. Etc.
On the other hand, not that you asked or care, in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, Paul lists a heroic tableau of those who preceded the early church in faith. Each suffered privations, sorrow, pain, loneliness, rejection, torture, abuse and death. Each did so while abiding in their faith in God’s promise of redemption, and each did so without ever witnessing salvation riding in from on high in their lives (or almost never) (Shadrach and his companions are one exception, Daniel in the lions’ den another). By the world standard of success, these were spectacularly mistaken and foolish men and women who put all their fortunes on one space at the roulette table: 1. One God, one Father, One faith, One baptism, One redemption. For all.
So, looking down on the table with untrained eyes, we can assume these were the seeming losers. The buffoons. But their faith was transforming and transitional in humankind.
Still, I loved Falwell for his care for those who had not yet been awakened to God’s redemptive plan. One example suffices. He was sufficiently open minded and loving that, when a Palm Reader opened a shop down the street from his church, he gave $ 20 to one of his assistant pastors, told him to go and have his palm read, and strike up a relationship with the owner. Ultimately, the woman closed her shop, was baptized into the Christian faith, graduated from Liberty University with a Bachelor’s Degree and went into a counseling ministry. As for Pat Robertson, he was not far from being right; he was wrong, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of chess masters and grand masters are men (as are the world’s great artists, the world’s great authors, the world’s great musicians, and the world’s great chefs). And what is so wrong with the recognition that chess is more typically a game suited to men than to women?
Isaac, you also asked this question:
“Concept No. 6 reads: ‘Adherence to the Mexican Work Ethic.’ Does that still sound separatist? Or racist?”
Yes, Isaac, it is precisely racist. Exactly. Though apparently you do not think it does. It sounds and is racist. These are blatantly racist groupings.
Then, Isaac, you suggest that I play games in which I pretend color-blindness, only to hammer blacks when they take pride in their heritage:
“But, if you’re insincerely
espousing color blindness, while
holding the race card up your
sleeve, you know you can easily
trump African-American ethnic
pride every time.”
Isaac, this also surprises me. Although apples do not typically fall far from the tree, your parents must be that kind of apple tree that grows on a steep hillside. Your parents know me. You know me. How you could ever judge me to be insincere about racial color-blindness is beyond me. I am, in fact, blind to color. My daughter dates a Latino teenager. We have in our home blacks, Asians, Latinos, Whites. We have Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims in our home and life too. And not merely in our life, but cared for. When the three or four Muslim kids in our orbit are in our home at meal times we are always sensitive to their dietary needs and prepare food to meet their needs.
Reverting to the political questions of the day, Isaac, you next said:
“Given your racist remark I can see who your presidential hopeful is, but he isn’t getting nominated so that leaves McCain and Hillary.”
You have now crossed over to an unsupportable lie. This deeply saddens me. I made no racist remark.
You continued:
“I would hope you wouldn’t stoop the level of voting for Hillary so as to ensure Obama doesn’t get elected, you would lose the little respect I now have for you. But I’ll never know.”
Isaac, I have done very little to earn, or to spend, your respect. I do not live for the purpose of making deposits or withdrawals in your “respect” bank. Candidly, though, if I thought that voting for Hillary would have helped, I would certainly have done so in our Virginia primary. Instead, even though Romney had already withdrawn, I sent my message to McCain by voting for Romney.
Oh and please, leave off the pious whining about politicking at the door.
Hillary and Obama’s Democratic party has been guilty of real election frauds for so long that any upset about legitimate cross party voting during a primary has the temper and tenor of Al Capone complaining about his bookkeeper skimming the profits.
Next, Isaac, you take the presumptive Republican nominee to task:
“McCain is a flip-flopper. He co-authored an immigration bill and is now completely against it.”
To which I respond: McCain is not first choice. I would still vote for Fred Thompson given the opportunity.
But there is this, too, to say. McCain has it in one place where it really counts. Unlike Obama and Hillary, McCain has 100 per cent pro-life voting record in Congress.
As for being a “flip-flopper,” he suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes. He took a patently wrong position on the immigration legislation. Then, when he was panned for it by the vast majority of Americans, he thumbed his nose at them. It was only when the proposal led to overwhelming objections from the American people, such that it was politically unviable, and when McCain realized the connection between his finger-wagging and his decline in political fortunes that he switched sides. Thank heavens he learned. (Now go ahead and make me a racist for opposing his original approach to immigration.)
Next, Isaac, you seek to dismiss concerns about Obama’s woeful lack of preparatory experience:
“It strikes me as unintelligent for your only semi viable but irrelevant tout is that Obama is inexperienced. Obama has more experience than Hillary does in the senate. The only reason she has any clout is because of her husband. McCain became a congressman in ‘82, while Obama began as a member of the Illinois Senate in ‘97, and to me if you call Obama inexperienced, would that mean McCain is inexperienced? One decade and 2 decades aren’t that far apart if your math informs you that ten years is not experience.”
And I answer you:
Please.
Obama was a STATE senator in Illinois, not a United States Senator. He had no responsibility for congressional oversight of interstate commerce, for international affairs, for federal justice programs, for federal budgeting, etc. If you think that you can equate STATE senate service with UNITED STATES Senate service, then you probably think I’m game to buy your stake in the Brooklyn Bridge.
As for the difference between one decade and two being of any significance, let’s try this: You agree to take on a management level position at WalMart with pay being calculated at $ 20.00 per hour. When payday arrives, you discover that Sam Walton really doesn’t see much difference between $ 10.00 per hour and $ 20.00 per hour. So your $ 800.00 paycheck (less the theft and robbery of taxation) is now a $ 400.00 paycheck (less the theft and robbery of taxation). Suddenly the difference between 10 and 20 becomes fairly real, doesn’t it?
I think that we probably are not far apart on a point yet to be stated between us. Hillary is inexperienced. Obama is inexperienced. McCain is inexperienced. Service in Congress provides nothing nearly equivalent to being the head of the large corporate enterprise that the federal bureaucracy is. (By itself, for example, the United States Department of Justice is the largest law firm in the world.)
That being the case, among the three of them, as to matters of federal significance, McCain has the most relevant and enduring experience; Obama has the least. We might give the wheel of the ship to the bosun’s mate . . . but if we do, we must not blame him for the instances when we land upon the shoals.
The truth is, Isaac, that in past
primary seasons, commentators
regularly noted the notoriously
poor track records of Senators
and Representatives in seeking
the Presidency. The reason for
the abysmal track record:
precisely because the connection
between managing a
congressional office and
managing a branch of the federal
government is almost entirely
nonexistent.
Thompson had, at least, managed the business of his law practice. Romney had extensive management experience on the large scale. Among the Democrats, only Richardson (of my home state, New Mexico) and Vilsack (of Iowa) had anything like the comparable kind of experience, found through the management of state bureaucracies.
You concluded, Isaac, with these thoughts:
“I guess what I am trying to say is that I found your entire comment to be completely perplexing and unintelligible.”
I conclude with these:
I had much the same reaction to your support for Obama, and for your response to my note. But I have tried to clarify my meaning and to shed some illumination, for what it’s worth.
Posted at 3/16/2008 1:51 PM
Obama: A Man of Many Feet . . .
Could He Leave One
Out of His Mouth?
In which we discover that the nominee for President of the Democratic Party suffers from woeful ignorance about the life of Americans in small towns around the Nation.
Earlier, Obama was pulling Michelle’s foot out of her mouth on the “proud of America for the first time in her life remark.” Of course, his explanation of HER remark, viewed through the lens of understanding Obama’s bizarre church affiliation, merely stuck his foot in her mouth.
Now, because he apparently likes the extended primary campaign and is wanting to send supplies and fuel over to Hillary, he has decided indiscreetly to slap around the archetype of Americana: small town life.
In case you missed his remark, here it is in full:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Now I am enlightened.
Folks cling to religion, not by an act of faith. Not by the reasoned judgment of the informed mind and the searching heart. They cling to religion because they are bitter, fearful, and down-trodden.
Obama sure has a funny way of “being in touch,” as he claims to be.
Small town folks . . . and just what are they? I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico . . . not a small town . . . I spent a fair amount of time in Falls Church, Virginia, aboard base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in the nearby town of Jacksonville, North Carolina, three years of law school in St. Louis, Missouri, two years in New Hope, Kentucky, and the last 18 years in good ol’ Springfield, Virginia. Except for New Hope, none of those is a small town. So I may have no claim to grasp the thinking of small town America. On the other hand, if Obama has “foreign policy” experience because he traveled overseas as a child, I guess I can hold out as a small town life expert for the Hoover Institute or some such.
So there is Obama. Thinking that he’s off the record. Speaking with a group that reflects his socioeconomic reality. And trying to interpret small town America for them the way I kept hoping Han Solo would translate Chewbacca’s roaring voice. Helping his close friends, don’t you know, to understand the hayseeds living down the road.
What does he say about gun ownership? About faith? About illegal immigration? About fair trade?
Nothing positive.
Of course, his approach to translation services makes perfect sense. He has nothing positive to say about small town America because he sees nothing positive about small town America. In fact, he sees nothing positive about gun ownership, about faith, about efforts to preserve America’s national borders and sovereignty, and about even playing fields for America’s businesses and laborers.
By the time he is done with
them, STAs, Small Town Americans, are as foreign as hunter-aliens in Predator. And as dangerous. And as suspicious. And as plainly not to be invited to dinner.
Obama claims to be in touch.
I don’t doubt that he is in touch . . . in touch with the effete elites.
Posted at 4/14/2008 10:59 PM
While Raking in Lobbyists’ Cash,
Obama Denies Doing So!!
In which the inconsistency of taking cash from the officers of lobbying organizations while criticizing others for taking cash from the organizations themselves is shown to be yet another personal defect of the 2008 Democratic nominee for President.
One of the big lies told by Obama is that he does not take money from “lobbyists” for his campaign, and that when such funds are discovered, they are returned. In order for that to be a technically true statement, Obama and his ilk have had to construct a carefully drawn “reality” in which “lobbyist’s money” is limited to such cash and checks as are sent in directly from such firms. But as evident on viewing the evidence, http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/obamas_ lobbyist_line.php, the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review demonstrates, Obama is rolling in cash from lobbyists, his campaign has received amounts comparable to those received by Hillary Clinton, and the amounts he has taken from politically significant economic sectors
(health care, lawyers, pharmaceuticals), far outstrips those taken by John McCain.
It’s not just that Obama cannot give an articulate speech that has not been written for him . . . it’s that he wouldn’t know truth if he were served it on a silver platter.
Posted at 5/16/2008 1:10 AM
Dead Babies . . . Dead Jews . . .
And You SUPPORT
The Right To Choose?
In which we learn that “freedom of choice” can gussy up any evil, from petty crimes to genocide, and in which we discover that the 2008 Democratic nominee for the Presidency has a more than keen devotion to abortion, and to insuring that babies accidently alive after abortions really are dead, just like their moms and their doctors intended.
My internet anode, Isaac, posted some criticisms of John McCain, the presumptive republican nominee for the Presidency. You can read his uncredited borrowing from an article on the MoveOn.org website entry here.
One particular “criticism” of McCain goes like this:
“McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”“
Horrors! McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. And this is a criticism? It reveals a “defect” in his politics, personality or character?
Does opposing the right to choose make you a bad person, prove that you are unfit for public office, or suggest that parents should not trust you around their children?
Well, Hitler was a big fan of the right to choose. He especially loved choosing death:
~~ For Jews.
~~ For Gypsies.
~~ For mixed race descendents of American Negroes who remained behind in Europe and intermarried with European women following World War II.
~~ For the handicapped.
~~ For the mentally retarded.
~~ For bedwetters.
~~ For effeminate homosexuals.
Yes, Adolph Hitler truly loved and embraced the right to choose. Of course, it would be unfair to suggest that only Adolph Hitler supported the right to choose. Mao Tse Tung supported the Chinese Communist regime’s right to kill some 60 million Chinese. And Josef Stalin supported the Supreme Soviet’s right to kill nearly an equal number, especially in Ukraine and Belarus.
Not to be dishonest about America’s long standing support for choice:
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others amongst our founding fathers supported the right to choose to steal the life work and labor of other human beings from them, while keeping their slaves in harsh and bitter bondage. General Phil Sheridan supported the right to choose to kill native Americans.
And then, of course, there is that paragon of intellectual prowess and virtue: the Supreme Court. They supported the right of good ole’ White Americans to choose to enslave Africans and to choose to impoverish and displace native Americans.
Yes, God bless the right to choose. How declasse for McCain to oppose that right.
Well, excuse me, but maybe for a minute we should give some thought to whether “the right to choose” really is something to celebrate and defend. In the particular case of abortion. That is, in the case of insisting that a woman must have the right to “terminate a pregnancy” in a way that not only guarantees that she is not pregnant, but also that she is not the mother of a LIVING child.
You see, to be candid about it, the right to choose supported by Barack Obama is just that: the right of a woman to end her pregnancy AND her child’s life. Some might think that abortions always have this double effect: that every abortion INEVITABLY produces a termination of the pregnancy and the death of her offspring.
Such is not, however, the case. The Spectator, a British weekly newsmagazine, reports on the tenacious grip that some babies have on their lives, even when targeted for death by mothers and doctors:
“Apparently, at 20 weeks, tablets can be given to kill the foetus prior to expulsion. But at 24 weeks it is sufficiently strong to survive the treatment and many are born with signs of life. “It is all too easy for people to picture a clump of cells or mush. People don’t want to picture perfectly-formed miniature babies and I don’t blame them, I was once the same,” says Kay. “But having cut the umbilical cord on one who survived, then had to watch him gasp for breath for ten minutes on the side of a sink before he died, that sight will haunt me for ever.” The reason given for that particular termination was that the mother’s current boyfriend had a toddler son who might get jealous of a new baby. It took them 21 weeks to come to that conclusion.”
That article went on to report that nurse’s further observation that such late term abortions, with their concurrent live births, were disturbingly frequent in number.
So how do we tie Barack Obama to this disgusting choice: the choice not only to end a pregnancy, but to leave a living human child, born alive, gasping for air and discarded in a sink for the 10, 15, or 20 minutes it will take for the little inconvenience to decently depart and leave her parents’ lives unencumbered by the duties that nature imposes on mothers and fathers?
Here’s how:
On three separate occasions, Barack Obama opposed legislation during his service in the Illinois Senate that would have made it a crime to cause the death of a child born alive following abortion. Imagine that. Even if we accept that a woman must have the right to terminate a pregnancy because to deny it to her is to deny her autonomy over her own body, what possible relation to the heart and hearth of humanity can there be in construing the rule of choice as justifying killing children after they have been born alive. One example of the proposed legislation that Obama opposed stated: “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.”
* * * *
You see, whether the choosing is done by Obama, or his momma, or by Hitler, Mao, Stalin or Sheridan, in each circumstance the choice to kill innocent humans is a wrong against life, against humanity, and ultimately against the Creator. Obama’s love for “choice” is the thin skin of his love for death. And in showing himself one who loves death, he reveals himself to be one who hates God: “All those who hate me love death.” Proverbs 8: 36.
So, I think, there is something of truth in the obverse of that rule: all those who love God hate death. And in God’s Word the true worthiness of McCain’s opposition to abortion is shown. His hatred of death allows us to see that at least in some ways he loves God. So, Isaac, so Moveon.org, I don’t care about the other nine things you think I should know about McCain, because you
have told me the TWO most
important ones: unlike Obama, McCain hates death; and unlike Obama, McCain loves God.
Posted at 5/22/2008 12:51 AM
Ruminations Provoked by Posts
In which a miscellany of responses and thoughts follow recent discussions of the merits of the 2008 Democratic Party nominee for the Presidency.
On Attribution.
If you are going to republish, in its entirety, or by quotation, the work of another, it is theft of the worst sort to fail to give credit to the author.
Of course, if the source of your materials is Moveon.org, as with the recent blog from Isaac about Ten Things You Should Know About McCain, it is understandable that you would not credit the author. Reasonable discourse is not a hallmark of moveon.org’s materials. Truth has never been important to moveon.org, certainly never as important as success. So by hiding the fact that Moveon.org authored that piece, Isaac may have been laundering the filth off of an otherwise patently unreliable bit of political screed.
On Free Will and Foreknowledge.
If you put “cookies,” “free will,” & “foreknowledge” in a google search, you will find the page from which this easy and helpful explanation was taken:
A mother puts some cookies on the table. She tells her five year old, the cookies are for tonite after dinner, do not touch them. She steps outside the kitchen and looks over at the table. Sure enough, the five year old pulls out a chair, climbs onto the table, takes some cookies and eats them.
Did the mother “force” the child to eat the cookies? Was the child a free moral agent able to choose to eat or not to eat the cookies? If the mother “knew” that the child would eat the cookies, was the child a victim of determinism?
Obviously, this example is at a significantly superficial level of consideration. The topic raised in Isaac’s posts about this issue, in which he and those he quotes mock Christians for their view of God and free will, is worthy of full consideration and study. I simply thought it important, by the device of another’s clear and crisp example, to show that sometimes what passes as sophos, is merely, after all, sophistry.
On Deaths in War.
I have gone to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. I have run my fingers along the names of fathers, brothers and cousins of friends and family. I have shared tears with the mother of a Marine officer, who, as a child, was my brother Dave’s good friend, and who died when a truck bomb destroyed a Marine compound in Lebanon. I have worried for my own nephews, Marvin, Joe, and Adam, as they served in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I will not suggest that my sense of pain is more than anothers. But I think that if we measure the merits of war-making by the pain we feel, and not by the provocations leading to war, or the goals to obtained through it, we will become the world’s largest Switzerland.
There is wisdom in avoiding entangling alliances, as President Washington warned us. The wisdom of that advice appeared in the story of the Israelites’ league with the Gibeonites.
But if our wars must stop when one of us is personally touched by pain, then our wars must not begin. And if we cannot employ the force of arms, then we should withdraw from the world stage at all levels of participation and live as isolationists.
In the end, whether you are Isaac, or another, you cannot sensibly claim that this war is illegal or unjust on the ground
that it has resulted in the deaths of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines. On that ground, all our wars have been unjust. And that argument admits too much.
***************************
If you’ll pardon me, I’ll leave off here. It is Memorial Day, and I am headed over to Arlington National Cemetery, to say hello to my father, whose remains rest there while his soul rests comfortably in the Hands of the Almighty.
Posted at 5/26/2008 4:13 PM
Introducing . . . Barack Obama,
Policy Man of Mystery
In which we cannot learn much at all, because if the goal is to get to the specifics of Obama’s policy plans, “there is no there there.”
Mike Myers’ runaway success sending up Ian Flemings’ James Bond tales broke on the celluloid scene with “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.” Not particularly a fan of the Austin Powers franchise, nor much the fan of the Bond movies, except during the Brosnan Bond era, I still get the huge humor of Myers’ portrayal.
For those who’ve missed Austin Powers after his two successful entries in the world of celluloid hillarity, this 2008 political season has witnessed the break out political thriller of the year: “Barack Obama: Presidential Man of Mystery.” Of course, Powers brand of hillarity is entertaining . . . Obama’s brand of dangerous incompetence and inexperience threatens the security of a free people.
So what is it that makes Obama the Policy Man of Mystery?
The mystery could, of course, be Obama’s qualifications to hold the office of Presidency. For those who know Obama’s resume, it is a mystery how anyone could consider him to be qualified to serve as the Chief Executive of the United States government, as its Commander in Chief, as the voice of reason, dignity, and authority.
Just as important as the answer to the question of his mysterious qualifications for office, are the answers to the questions of his mysterious policies while holding office:
Just what policies will President Obama make priorities for his administration?
-- Will he press Congress to free up domestic reserves for petroleum exploration and extraction?
-- Will he strengthen the social safety net by privatizing portions of the Social Security program?
-- Will he secure our borders against illegal immigration?
-- Will he insure that judges APPLY the laws made by Congress by choosing judges of appropriate qualification, disposition and temperament, or will he insure an ongoing supply of judges that MAKE the law usurping the power of Congress?
Of course, having campaigned for the Democratic Party nomination for some eighteen months, Obama has given us a peek into his policy portfolio. From that peek, I have realized the following
-- “Bringing people together” seems to be his policy keystone.
-- “Bringing people together” seems to be his policy cornerstone.
-- “Bringing people together” seems to be the only stone in his policy quarry.
Beyond “bringing people together” Obama has been mighty thin on specifics.
Fair being fair, we could assume that he will pursue the same courses in the White House that he pursued in Congress. And it would not be unfair to Obama to assume as much. One difficulty with that approach is that Obama has taken contradictory positions to, well, his positions. As a single best example, Obama has voted for supplemental funding for the war in Iraq, Obama has voted against supplemental funding for the war in Iraq, and Obama has taken the cowardly “not voting” position on Iraq war funding. When a man stands on both sides of the street, he has to have long legs, and he cannot fairly claim offense when people express grave uncertainty about his judgment and reliability.
Still, Obama remains a POLICY MAN OF MYSTERY.
He lacks a federal legislative voting record of sufficient depth and extension over time to show his sense of purpose and policy on dozens of questions. Unlike the voting records of either Clinton, who has completed a single term in the Senate, or of John McCain, who has completed three full terms in the Senate as well as additional prior service in the United States House of Representatives, Obama’s voting record -- the only federal governmental track record he has, has more holes than a good swiss cheese.
Obama ought to speak up and tell all of us where he stands on key issues confronting the American people, both those issues we face here at home, and those that we confront abroad.
In fact, Obama could do this by taking twenty minutes to complete Project Vote Smart’s “Political Courage Test.” Recently, I sat down with a copy of Project Vote Smart’s Presidential Candidate Political Courage Test. I timed myself and completed the test, setting out my positions on the broad variety of questions presented. It took me twenty minutes. I realize I am not as “important” as Obama, and this may explain why I had the twenty minutes it took to complete this task.
Obama, however, wants a position of such significance, of such importance, that, given his inexperience, and his nearly nonexistent track record of federal legislative governance, it seems unconscionable that he would not give the task the twenty minutes it would take to do the job. Yet Obama “repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff.”
Of course, if he wanted to he could save the twenty minutes and have his handlers complete
the test for him . . . when he proceeds extemporaneously, his demonstrated inclination is to make a gaffe.
Posted at 5/31/2008 7:22 PM
In which we consider whether the principle of uncertainty justifies conduct that causes harm, or whether it indicts such conduct.
Last year, I read a story, a nightmare really, of a father who, arriving home at the end of a long day at work, drove his truck through piles of leaves in his yard. To his horror, one of the piles caused his truck to bump. He stopped his truck, and got out.
When he did, he discovered that his young daughter had been playing in the leaves, and that he had run over her with his truck. If I correctly recall, the last words he ever heard her speak were, “Daddy, I don’t feel good.” She died.
The father in me dies a little each time when I think of that man, of his daughter, and of the end of the choices made.
Years ago, my dad asked his sons a question: “suppose you’re driving and you see a brown sack in the street. Do you run over it?”
We’re boys after all. We stomp in water puddles. We fill our lunch sacks with air and then we pop them just to hear the sound. We go romping through the woods in our four wheelers. Obviously, when we see a brown sack in the road, we run it over.
Wrong.
My dad explained: “suppose someone put some kittens, or puppies, or God forbid, a baby in the bag? When you assume that it’s okay to run over a sack with unknown contents, you risk doing great harm, just based on ignorance.”
With simple clarity, he made the case for the sensibility of taking care, of acting as a steward, of preferring even the potential for life.
Later these lessons would be reinforced by the writing of a sitting President who understood that legalized abortion was often justified based on an uncertainty principle: we don’t know when human life begins. In Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, President Reagan powerfully stated the same case for the child before birth that my father had put to his sons years before in urging a basic assumption of care and respect. For those of you who count yourself as Christ followers, and who doubt that Reagan could have embodied any principle of social justice, I challenge you to take the time to consider his words.
Today, we are less than two months from the Presidential Election.
Our choice of Presidents nominees presents us the profound opportunity to choose -- when it comes to the key question of respect for life -- between two diametrical opposites: Barack Obama and John McCain. Does the choice make a difference?
In Obama, we have a candidate for President who has said that deciding when life begins was a question above his pay grade. In McCain, we have a candidate who has concluded that human life begins at conception. Notice that Obama doesn’t claim to be right, he claims to be incapable of deciding the question. True, McCain’s certainty might reflect some kind of prideful conclusion. He could be wrong. But he doesn’t not weasel out of the question.
Now, based on the life and death lesson found in a father’s sorrowful pile of leaves, which of those two choices inspires you to cast your vote?
Remember, with Obama we are told that he doesn’t know when life begins, AND we know that
Obama supports abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. In fact, we know that Obama would deny the protection of law to children who survived abortions. Obama’s Presidency would drive the American truck through too many more piles of humanity.
For me, the choice is easy. We are stewards of God’s creation, we are servants who follow Christ. We are not at liberty to ignore the dignity of the human person found even in the smallest among us. So Obama is just not a permissible option.
Posted at 9/15/2008 12:48 AM
Shouldn’t We Be Too?
In which we consider whether America’s War on Children in the Womb puts us in something God views at “the Enemies Camp”?
NB. In its original language, the verse that describes John the Baptist “leaping in his mother’s womb” uses the word “Brephos” to describe the unborn baby, John. Also, when Mary lays Jesus in the manger, that verse also uses the word “Brephos” to describe the new born baby, Jesus.
Suppose that you were convinced that you were on the side of the angels, in the right, fighting for truth, justice and, well, the American way.
Suppose that you and your fellow “soldiers” battled your way to the top of some hillock and from there could look down on your enemy. Suppose that when you looked down on your enemy’s camp, you saw:
“someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was like the sun in all its brilliance.”
~~Revelations 1:13-16
Well, can you exercise your imagination enough to imagine this circumstance?
You know, when Jesus’ close friend, John, saw this image of Jesus, he frankly admits it overwhelmed him:
“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead.”
~~Revelations 1:17
So, suppose you found yourself, with your comrades in arms, looking down into the camp of your enemy, only to discover that Jesus was in the camp of your enemy, with your enemy, standing guard with, watching over, and defending your enemy? What would you do? What would you do?
Couldn’t happen, right? You love God, right? You’ve given yourself to him, mind, heart and soul, right? Jesus couldn’t possibly allow you to end up in a position where you were in an opposing camp to Him, right?
Hmmmm, I wonder. Ever read the following passage? This is taken from Matthew’s Gospel:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say . . . to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
~~Matthew 25:31-46
Notice the surprise among these “goats?” Fairly confident of a different outcome, yet totally overwhelmed by their own failure to see Jesus in the weak, the sorrowful, the hurting, the hungry, the stranger, the naked. These “goats” knew they were heaven-bound, until they found themselves on the fast train to Hell.
So, it seems fairly clear that there are times when a person is convinced God is on their side, but they haven’t bothered to see if they are on God’s side.
What brings this to my mind today?
In church this morning, we
sang a song with the lyric that
God was the “defender of the
weak.” And it occurred to me, if
God is “the defender of the
weak,” who are the oppressors
of the weak? If there are
oppressors of the weak, do I
want to be one? If God is
defending the weak, shouldn’t I
figure out who the weak are and
form alliances with them, so that
I have inclined myself and my
life toward God’s heart and
God’s desires?
And then, ultimately, I thought about the weakest of our society: the ones who are denied legal protection, the ones who are orphaned by Supreme Court rule, the ones whose mothers have had their hearts turned against them by the perversions of the American ethic of selfishness. In other words, children targeted for death by medical abortion.
What if God is the defender of weak, as that song our church sang this morning? What if unborn children are the weak? What if we say, do, write and think things that align ourselves with those seeking to take the lives of these defenseless weak? How will Jesus see us in that great and terrible day of judgment? Will God see us sheep when we have lived like goats? Remember that Jesus said He was the great shepherd, that his sheep knew his voice and followed Him? If we have not followed Him into the camp of these weak, these unborn targeted for death, how are we not those goats?
This I say now only to my Christian friends:
Yes, I am concerned for each of us in face of this coming election. What if, because we want “change,” we align ourselves with one who has made themselves God’s enemy by hating the weak and defenseless? What if, because we want “hope,” we abandon to hopeless despair in the drains of medical abortion facilities, those weak and defenseless ones? If our votes allow the electoral triumph of a goat who smirks at the death of God’s defenseless children, then will we have the decency not to beg God to ignore our deliberate offense?
Posted at 9/28/2008 11:25 PM
Who Does God Think He is Anyway!!
Tell Him You’re Voting for Obama Even
Though He Loves Those Who
Kill Children and Those Who Defy His Design for Marriage!!
In which we discover that being free does mean getting to choose, but that being free also means owning our choices and being honest about it.
That’s right! What’s the point of being created a free moral agent if you don’t have the liberty to hear, learn and understand God’s heart, will, purpose and design, and then the additional liberty to spit on God, to defy Him, and to work against His purposes. After all, we’ve got liberty, right?
There is a kind of truth to that view. Look at what Paul wrote to Christians in the Church at Galatia:
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out-in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
Paul’s Letter to the Galatian Christians 5:13-15 (The Message).
“Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do . . . .”
You see, we have the choice to ruin ourselves. Not having the choice would steal the divine spark from our nature. But it would, as alike, steal the divine spark of our nature to call evil good and good evil, to condemn as evil that which is good, and to celebrate as good that which is evil.
Who would do such a thing?
The Church.
In the case of the Christians in Galatia, the problem was that having started out in faith, relying on God’s grace, they had been convinced by others that it was required of them that the follow the forms and manners of the rabbinical laws. Paul calls them “bewitched,” though we get the sense this isn’t the funny kind of bewitching that captured America’s attention and made Samantha Stevens a household word forty years ago. Instead, this “bewitching” gives us the image of one being fooled into taking back on oneself a burden from which they have been freed.
Imagine Cherokees asking for the right to live on the poverty stricken reservations created as part of our national slow motion genocide of the Native Peoples of this land. Imagine your African American friends catching buses and trains south and going door to door asking for someone to enslave them again. Clearly it would take bewitching for Cherokees and African Americans to do so. And it took bewitching for the Christians in Galatia to take on the burden of circumcision and all the rabbinic laws in order to enjoy the justification that was theirs by the grace of God.
There is another kind of problem with liberty too. One about which Paul wrote. It is not the liberty to return and resume the bindings and weights of the law. It is, instead, to claim that the liberty we enjoy in Christ writes, in effect, a blank check of grace to cover any disobedience of God or any disregard for His will and purpose.
Of course, the primary problem with using our liberty in this way is that we turn our backs on so great a love, so deep a compassion, so long a patience, so loving a Father. But that problem exhibits itself in the things that we do while claiming the LICENSE OF LIBERTY. Here’s what Paul said those problems exhibited themselves as:
“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.”
Paul’s Letter to the Galatian Christians 5:19-21 (The Message).
Inside the church today there are many who would recoil if they had applied in description of them the title of this blog. They don’t think of themselves as defiant of God . . . they don’t think of themselves as hating His will, His purposes, or His designs.
Yet, in the face of the teaching of God’s Word, they insist on the liberty to ignore God in the manner of deciding how to cast their vote in the upcoming election. I’m not speaking of those who have simply not thought about these matters.
I am not speaking of those who never knew that Barack Obama promised America’s largest abortion business that his FIRST ACT AS PRESIDENT would be to sign the federal “Freedom of Choice Act,” a law designed to strip even the few and slightest protections that States currently may give to children before birth.
Nor am I speaking about those who were unaware that for the last four years Obama has pledged that as PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES he would introduce legislation to overturn the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, the present law that guarantees to each State the right to protect itself from court-ordered changes in the definition of marriage. Those who did not know that voting for Obama meant stabbing unborn children through the heart and spitting on God’s design for the family unit, of them we should believe, in charity, that with understanding they will change their plans and vote for some other candidate.
But for those who know that Obama is the FIRST FRIEND of CHILD KILLERS and that Obama disregards God’s stated view that sexual union between two men or two women profoundly destroys the integrity of our being, for them I ask them to candidly state that it is of no matter to them whether their use of the right to vote defies God’s design, God’s handiwork in the creation of new lives, or God’s plan for the generations through families built on a committed relationship between one man and one woman.
Posted 10/2/2008 3:39 PM