I had no intention of endorsing a candidate until we had one conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, but I felt compelled to back Rick Santorum after the events of the last couple of weeks unfolded.
In particular, the Obama administration demanding the Catholic Church’s many charities and hospitals provide access to abortions and contraceptives for its employees and patients was a screaming red flag that Obama needs to be a one term President.
I knew he was a liberal when I voted for him in 2008, but I never would have imagined he would have the success he’s had getting his agenda put into action. In fact, he’s managed to do almost everything I thought he couldn’t do on the domestic front and simultaneously FAILED to do what I most sincerely hoped he would do (defend Network Neutrality).
It is very important to me that we defeat Barack Obama in November. As I wrote earlier, Mitt Romney will not defeat Barack Obama for the same reason we lost in 2006 and 2008. Mitt Romney doesn’t want you to vote for him, he wants you to vote against Obama. Unfortunately, for him at least, people would sooner stay home and watch television than go to the polls to vote when they have nothing to vote for.
Of the Republicans in the race (a category Ron Paul does not belong in as a radical reactionary), only Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have messages that conservatives and some independents can actively support.
Both of these candidates have their pros; which is why I chose to stay away from officially supporting anybody up to now. However, I think Newt Gingrich’s cons will ultimately stop him from defeating Obama in November. Generally speaking, not a lot of independent women will vote for Gingrich. Winning the “soccer moms” was a huge part of the success of Bush in 2000 and 2004 and a strength of Obama in 2008. If we’re going to win in 2012, we need those votes back on our side. I don’t think Gingrich can do that.
Newt Gingrich, as much as I admire and respect the man, has as much baggage as ideas. Without the baggage (and without saying Muslims should have to take a special loyalty oath), I probably would have endorsed Newt a lot earlier. But we have to live with our mistakes and deal with the consequences. I can forgive Newt Gingrich, but there’s a huge difference between forgiving him and believing he can win the general election.
Rick Santorum, on the other hand, may not have an idea a minute; but as I said earlier, this makes him a truer conservative in some ways. I believe Santorum is also going to play better with moderate voters (including women) because of his aggressive and seemingly sound plan to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
Rick Santorum is somebody conservatives can be excited about, moderates/independents won’t reject, and center-left Democrats will find likable and trustworthy.
Readers, if you want a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, if you want to defeat Barack Obama; Rick Santorum is your candidate.
Think about this, too. Right now, Rick Santorum has won four states to Mitt Romney’s three. If his strategists had listened to me and skipped New Hampshire, Santorum may have won South Carolina, too. That’s five states. If Gingrich didn’t have the South Carolina boost, he may have dropped out of the race that night. If his supporters went to Santorum, Romney would have lost Florida. That’s six states for Santorum. If he won Florida, Santorum probably would have won Nevada, too.
This tells us two things. First, somebody should be paying me a lot of money to be a strategist for them.
Second, Rick Santorum might have been our nominee by now if not for falling into the New Hampshire trap. He still can win this nomination and stop Mitt Romney, but Newt Gingrich really needs to step aside and let us rally around one conservative candidate.
Here in the United States, we are all familiar with the phrase that “all men are created equal.” Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in our Declaration of Independence and it’s been repeated countless times and across the world. Unfortunately, it seems like few people actually think about the implications this would have for global policy making. Not surprisingly, the blind fools following Ron Paul; who evoke the Founders at every turn as though they just had lunch with them; are the most oblivious.
A while ago, a handful of good people from here in Northwest Indiana asked me, “Can a Christian be a libertarian?”
The short version of my answer was, “There are too many denominations to say anything about all Christians, but from my perspective – no.” My primary argument was rooted in the equal creation of men.
One of the most important stories in the Bible is when Kane kills his brother Abel.
Genesis 4:9
And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?
What better introduction to the Bible can there be than Genesis? It establishes that man is fallen so that everything that follows can tell us how to find salvation. And then Kane asking the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – and God doesn’t answer him directly, almost like it would be spoiling what is to come next. The answer to Kane’s question, of course, is YES! YOU ABSOLUTELY ARE YOUR BROTHER’S KEEPER!
Matthew 25:40
And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.
Generally speaking, I think most American Christians at least try to live up to this incredibly challenging standard set for them when it comes to other Americans. The question at the core of this post is whether or not this standard applies to our international brethren as well.
It’s important because the issue keeps manifesting itself in many different ways in our increasingly globalized world.
Should Christians leave water, food, and maps around our southern border for illegal immigrants to ensure their SAFE crossing or let them suffer and very possibly die a grueling death?
Should the United States aggressively promote human rights and popular uprisings against dictatorships where our help is desired, such as Libya and Syria? Are Americans the only people who have a right to choose their government or do all people deserve that freedom? (The American Revolution would have failed if it wasn’t for French assistance, so don’t give me that nonsense about doing it by themselves – especially in an era of flying gunships, smart bombs, automatic firearms, and digital warfare)
Should we aggressively fight any government attempting genocide to save millions of innocent lives?
Should we urge Israel to give millions of Christians and Muslims in the West Bank the right to vote for representation in Israel’s government or grant statehood to the Palestinians?
Should we make our petitions for the respect and independence of Tibet and her people and culture more forceful?
After all, if Americans were experiencing religious, ethnic, or cultural, or civic oppression, the government would step in and defend the rights we believed were given to us by our universal Creator.
If you believe Christianity tells you that strangers, even those from foreign lands, are your brothers; if you believe all men are created equal and not just all Americans; we have some evaluating to do of our foreign policy.
I think Newt Gingrich touched on something here that Catholics should probably be a lot more concerned about. While we’re hearing all this rhetoric about how Americans aren’t ready to accept a Mormon as President, our Church’s enormous charity groups are being attacked silently, but without mercy along with the Church itself. Newt only talked about what’s happening in New England, but this sort of thing is happening across the entire country, most recently in Illinois.
What’s really bad is that this really doesn’t hurt the Catholic Church. It hurts the millions of people who benefit from scores of Catholic service organizations. Coincidentally, those also happen to be some of the largest in the United States and the world.
These ads are running somewhat sporadically on television from what I’ve seen, but they’re pretty darn powerful when you see one. They also make you realize all the Catholic Church has done and is doing to better the world:
Now tell me, does it really make sense that the government should be trying to shut down this organization, especially when no other service organization or church, or combination thereof, is strong enough to take on the incredible service responsibilities the Catholic Church is eagerly taking on everyday?
Last night’s debate was by far the #WorstDebateEver as was mentioned during last night’s live-blog of the event. Although I still think Mitt Romney won the debate, Newt Gingrich walked away with the single most memorable and important response of the night. As Catholics, we should all be a little more aware of the attacks on our Church by progressives in government and in the courts.
Happy New Year, readers. Iowans will caucus today and before any of my Iowa readers possibly embarrass themselves by supporting Ron Paul, I want to make one final case against him and the militant idiot brigade that’s supporting him.
If you’re thinking about supporting Ron Paul, it’s probably because you’re biggest issue is the outrageous growth of government in not just size and cost, but it’s involvement in our everyday lives. Listen, I’m with you 100% on this. The passage of Obamacare and the immoral tactics which were used to get it out of the Senate woke a lot of people up.
The fact that there are those among us who will naturally lean towards the most anti-government should come as no surprise, given the trend of things. Human beings are naturally reactionary, after all. But as conservatives, we need to understand the risks of reactionary politics and there is no greater example of this than history. We like to talk about Rome falling because of its own corruption. We hear less about the fall of the Weimar Republic. Their democratic republic died when the people, divided by two extremist ends of reactionary political ideology, freely elected the Nazi Party to power. The other extreme was Communism.
Now, I’m not saying Ron Paul is a Nazi, although his hatred for Jews and blacks mixed with the cult-of-personality he has created for himself may bring us to that conclusion if we looked at it more closely. What I do mean to say is that reactionary politics rarely end where you want them to.
If you read enough on conservative literature from the last century and earlier, you’ll see time and again the same argument against reactionary politics. To be reactionary is to be progressive. “People don’t have healthcare?! The government ought to do something!” “The government did something?! The government ought to stop doing anything!”
Practically speaking, Ron Paul has zero chance of winning the GOP nomination. If he becomes the anti-Romney candidate, it will only ensure his candidacy. But let’s say Romney is assassinated by a Ron Paul supporter. Paulbots are utter cowards, but let’s just say it happens and, for some stupid reason, the Republican Party decides to make him our 2012 candidate. This already isn’t going to happen, but libertarians already live in a fantasy world, so it’s not as much of a stretch for them. We would then be left with an Barack Obama vs. Ron Paul contest. How do you honestly think that will end?
Any national security Republican will see Ron Paul’s idiot plan to cut military spending and dismantle the CIA as an enormous threat to our national security and global stability and vote for Obama.
Mainstream fiscal conservatives, while perhaps acknowledging that the Federal Reserve is being mismanaged, will realize the US is far better with the Fed than without it. They’ll vote for Obama for economic security and stability.
Ron Paul’s radical stance against Israel and support for the legalization of dangerous narcotics is going to scare away a lot of religious conservatives, too.
Even if these national security, fiscal stability, and Christian-right conservatives don’t actually vote for Obama, they aren’t going to vote for Ron Paul. In other words, they’ll stay home. That leaves a minority of radical anti-conservative reactionaries and anarchists representing Republican candidates NATION-WIDE against all of the Democratic Party.
Guess who wins in landslide fashion?
Instead of supporting a limited government platform with another candidate, Ron Paul’s reactionary supporters are choosing a radical anti-government platform that the American people will undoubtedly reject on a massive scale; giving Barack Obama the greatest mandate of any President in history along with an incredibly powerful Democrat Congress.
This is the danger of reactionary politics that radicals in the minority are so often blind to.
With regards to Ron Paul, I can’t say that I’m surprised. This racist, antisemitic conspiracy clown is one of the biggest hypocrites the Washington Beltway has ever known. On one hand, he denounces pork-barrel spending, while on the other hand ensuring that millions of federal tax dollars go towards pork projects in his district. With one hand, Ron Paul and his un-showered supporters are pointing their fingers at corrupt “neo-cons” while the other hand is simultaneously giving bribes to politicians so they can get their way.
Some of their supporters like to claim that, “Things were like that before, but everything is great now! Nobody really has anything to fear!”
And they’re right, we have nothing to fear except more of the same from these libertarian ass-clowns.
And they say they are under strict orders: To look, dress, shave, sound and behave in a way that will not jeopardize Mr. Paul’s chances. Even before flying here on their own nickel, some students said they had been instructed to cover up tattoos and told that their faces should be fresh-shaved or beards neatly trimmed, wearing only nice clothes that one described as “business casual.”
“No tats,” another volunteer, Rocco Lucente, said as he ticked off the rules after arriving at the airport Tuesday night. No liquor, no drugs and, he said, no “fraternizing in the dorms, nothing like that.”
THE SECOND REASON why Ron Paul will under preform is because he just does. Ron Paul’s demographic is very vocal and very annoying, but a lot of them are too lazy to register to vote; and if they are registered, they are either too apathetic or stoned to get themselves out to do it. You remember that smelly kid who wore the same two hoodies everyday in school? He still smells and now he supports Ron Paul.
When Iowans Caucus, a few libertarian-minded conservatives considering Ron Paul despite of his wackiness will see the quality (or lack thereof) of the people making a pitch for Ron Paul and decide they don’t want anything to do with these losers. In addition to have never showered in the past year, Ron Paul’s supporters are exceptionally rude, inconsiderate, and just unagreeable “people” in general. Civilized people just don’t like them.
Look, I don’t care if they learn how to use a razor for something other than cutting cocaine. I don’t care if Ron Paul’s money bomb is to buy these idiots some clean clothes. I don’t even care if they give them some quarters to wash those clothes for a couple days. Ron Paul’s supporters are still obnoxious and they’re going to scare people away when Iowa voters caucus next week.
If you have to tell your supporters to stop doing drugs until after a contest, you should just forfeit.
I seem to be one of the few people out there willing to call Operation Iraqi Freedom a success. Therefore, for the sake of our troops that gave their lives in this conflict and their families, I feel it is important to explain why the Iraq War ended with an American victory.
Let’s start at the beginning. I’ve made it no secret that I believe the war was a good idea, even if there was no intelligence that Saddam Hussein was keeping weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The problems I’ve had with the war was that the WMD argument was the single, central argument made for attacking Iraq. Granted, WMDs are pretty dangerous and the threat of them should not be taken lightly. However, the fact that Saddam was a dictator actively slaughtering his own people without mercy was reason enough for us to take action. Yet, as critics will point out, this has nothing to do with the Global War on Terrorism. Tactically speaking, this criticism is correct. Strategically speaking, well, that’s a different story.
By now, you’ve probably heard the term “The Bush Doctrine.” If you haven’t heard of it, or if you’re not sure what the Bush Doctrine is, it’s pretty simple to understand. The Bush Doctrine was based on a theory that Democracy was contagious. In other words. If Country A and Country B are both dictatorships, it is a lot easier for the people to live passively under the dictatorship. However, if the people of Country A are given the right to vote, the people of Country B are going to want to start voting, too. “Why should the Aopians have better rights than we, the Bians?”
Applied to this scenario, the Bush Doctrine recognizes certain politically incorrect truths about terrorism. First, that most international terrorists are coming from dictatorships the United States supports for oil security and their past support for our Containment Policy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War (that’s a topic for another post). Beyond this, politically and economically speaking, it was impossible to invade Saudi Arabia or Egypt without turning the entire Arab world against us and destroying the global economy; which is entirely dependent on oil from this region. Luckily for us, Saddam Hussein was the pissy red-headed step child of the Arab world that nobody really liked. The United States, believing that democracy was contagious, could topple his regime fairly easily and give the people of the country the right to vote. In time, we’ve already begun to see this happen, other people across the Muslim world would want to have the same freedom.
Unfortunately for everybody (except the Democrats against the war and al-Qaida), things most certainly were botched after Saddam’s regime was toppled. Specifically, the coalition’s policy of De-Ba’athification. Simply put, it was a witch-hunt for anybody with ties to Saddam’s Ba’ath party; which meant dismantling the entire Iraqi government, police force, and military. At face value, this seems like a good idea, but only a small minority of these people were at all responsible for the atrocities under the regime. In other words, we kicked competent leaders and skilled gunmen out of their paid positions and tried to fill their places with incompetent and untrained police and soldiers. And guess what those former leaders and soldiers did? That’s right, they tore the country to hell and made it impossible for the coalition to detect the infiltration of international terrorists from al-Qaida and Iran. This war might have been a lot shorter if we approached the post-war era of Iraq the same way as post World War II Germany, in which members of the Nazi Party who were not directly responsible for atrocities were able to keep their positions in a new anti-Communist Party led by several imprisoned political voices during the Nazi regime; the Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) is still around and thriving today with Chancellor Angela Merkel as its chairwoman. What we failed to realize was that members of Saddam’s army and police forces were simply looking for work and a way to feed their families. Even those who did some pretty horrible things were simply following orders and afraid of what his superiors would do to his family if he didn’t follow those orders. A lot more soldiers were never even given overly controversial orders. The same is true with the police force and political leaders outside of Saddam’s inner-circle.
Law and order could have been maintained during the transition. Instead, we scrapped it for ideological purity; and instead of writing this post about success in 2005, I’m writing it just before the 2012 New Year.
Iraq was still ultimately successful, however. Two of Iraq’s neighbors have already experienced democratic revolutions, one in Iran and the other ongoing in Syria. Democratic revolutions have also taken place in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Bahrain. I’m not sure what to call the uprising in Yemen. Furthermore, political protests seem to keep popping up in Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Now, as some Republican critics at this point will point out, the governments being elected aren’t exactly the most western-friendly we’ve seen. But the point is that they are being elected. We shouldn’t make the mistake of expecting too much too soon from emerging democracies. The United States certainly wasn’t born as a utopian democratic society, it took us a long time to get where we are.
The measure of success in Iraq is more than just what happens outside of Iraq, but what has already happened inside of Iraq. The democratic seed we planted in 2003 has sprouted into a thriving government strong enough to tell the United States military, “We don’t need you here anymore.” Upon the government telling us that, President Obama pulled our troops out and a lot of them were home in time for Christmas 2011. Republicans are calling that “defeat.” I’m calling that “Victory” with a capital “V.” From the outside, it looks like the government is a complete mess. It might even look like that from the inside. However, democratic republics are rarely a perfectly functioning entity. They have a hard time getting anything done and they tend to make problems a lot worse. Does that sound familiar? It should, because the Iraqi government is functioning about as well as the United States government is right now.
Is there still sectarian violence in Iraq? Yes. Is the United States the cause of it? No. That conflict has been waiting to happen for a very long time (ever since the French and British made up the most foolish borders possible in the region); and it’s just a matter of time before Iraq’s economy becomes strong enough to give people something else to do besides killing each other, or the military becomes strong enough to stop them from doing it. And if that fails, the Arab League will step in before the sectarian violence boils over Iraq’s borders, or before the Iranians try the same thing.
It’s probably like the first time someone changes a diaper on a newborn baby. Did you get poop on yourself, your stuff, and spread it around a bit more than you wanted to on your baby? Yes, probably. Do you feel like you did the best you could have done? No, probably not. But does that mean you’re unsuccessful when your child grows up and moves away from you? Of course not! Ultimately, that baby is better because it has a new diaper. You’re better because you hopefully learned from your mistakes; and the next time you change an shit-filled diaper like Saddam Hussein, it’s a lot cleaner. And the world is a lot better because they have one less shit-filled diaper to worry about smelling.
Why am I the only one saying this? That’s the easiest part of all of this. Republicans don’t want to give credit to Barack Obama for winning the Iraq War, and Democrats don’t want to give credit to George W. Bush for starting a winnable war. Democrats were only interested in retreat and defeat since the first day of the war. Republicans wanted to pull troops out under a Republican President… in truth, however, keeping troops there against the will of the Iraqi Government would have put our soldiers in CONSIDERABLE danger of arrest, imprisonment, and death-by-hanging at the hands of the legitimate government there.
In fact, I think this is the first time a war started by a Republican president has ended under a Democrat president.
The problem is that both sides are letting domestic politics dictate their definitions of a foreign war. As a result, both parties are selling short the incredible work that has been done by our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Sailors. They won this war, even if politicians in Washington won’t recognize their victory, they won. They did everything they set out to accomplish and more with honor and distinction. When our politicians made mistake after mistake, they coped and relentlessly moved towards victory. The United States won this war and the war is better off because of the incredible sacrifices made by the men and women who accomplished incredible feats in Iraq.
I’m proud of myself. I didn’t get sucked into any of the GOP candidates’ campaigns. Granted, it can be fun helping to make a candidate, but none of the GOP field really deserved any support (let alone mine). Still, people get crazy this time of year; and the Iowa contest is right around the corner.
Well, I missed last night’s debate with the exception of a few minutes on the radio where Bachmann was doing her damnedest to make Ron Paul look smart during their argument over Iran. I also heard Newt’s comments about rebalancing power by subpoenaing judges who make controversial decisions. That’s an interesting idea, but it works both ways. What happens when a Democrat-controlled Congress subpoena a conservative judge for an anti-abortion decision? I think there are better ways to reign in the courts.
Anyway, my point is that I don’t know how the last debate will affect the turnout in Iowa. However, I’ve been asked for an early prediction, so here it goes.
1. Mitt Romney
2. Newt Gingrich
3. Ron Paul
4. Rick Perry
5. Michele Bachmann
6. Rick Santorum
7. Jon Huntsman
Here’s why.
Very recent polling has suggested Gingrich’s numbers are slipping in the Hawkeye state. That’s in large part to everyone else attacking the candidate leading the anti-Romney bandwagon with the most momentum. The result of which is that Newt Gingrich is vulnerable in Iowa. Mitt Romney knows that if Newt wins Iowa, Newts strong poll numbers in New Hampshire and South Carolina will propel him to the nomination.
For Mitt Romney to win the nomination, Gingrich has to lose Iowa. It doesn’t have to be Romney that wins Iowa, as long as its anybody but Newt. The problem is that the only candidate in position to beat him is Mitt Romney. Not only does he have the support, but Mitt Romney also has the aged infrastructure he built four years ago.
Aged or not, however, it doesn’t matter. Newt, not having spent enough time campaigning, lacks the infrastructure all together. That’s a tactical advantage for Romney, who hasn’t spent much time in Iowa this time around, either.
That will change. Knowing he can’t let Newt win this first contest, Mitt will probably spend much of the next three weeks in Iowa. Unless there are any enormous events; such as a Huckabee, Palin, or Cain endorsement; I predict Mitt will win Iowa.
However, low turnout and a close third or not, Ron Paul will come in a distant third (maybe even fourth). There are two major reasons for this. The first is that Iowa is a caucus state. If you don’t know how it works, I’ll make it easy to understand. A room of Iowans gather from the same precinct (1,874 of them). They listen to pitches from the campaigns, make pitches themselves, and then vote. Each room elects a delegate from their county to the state convention, which determines who to send to the GOP National Convention. In other words, unless you win a room, you’re not going to win a delegate. This has a way of separating top tier candidates from bottom tier candidates. Ron Paul’s idiot brigade in Iowa isn’t going to have the majority in many of the precincts, which will deflate his numbers.
THE SECOND REASON why Ron Paul will under preform is because he just does. Ron Paul’s demographic is very vocal and very annoying, but a lot of them are too lazy to register to vote; and if they are registered, they are either too apathetic or stoned to get themselves out to do it. You remember that smelly kid who wore the same two hoodies everyday in school? He still smells and now he supports Ron Paul.
When Iowans Caucus, a few libertarian-minded conservatives considering Ron Paul despite of his wackiness will see the quality (or lack thereof) of the people making a pitch for Ron Paul and decide they don’t want anything to do with these losers. In addition to have never showered in the past year, Ron Paul’s supporters are exceptionally rude, inconsiderate, and just unagreeable “people” in general. Civilized people just don’t like them.
Rick Perry will probably come in fourth, but his traditional conservative message and recent faith-based messages may play well enough to put him over Ron Paul.
Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann are going to be in a battle for 5th place. Rick Santorum probably has the highest “favorable” rating of any candidate, which may make him a lot of people’s second choice if they are convinced not to vote for Romney, Gingrich, or Perry. Bachmann is just riding the Sarah Palin wave. She’s a woman with a big mouth but inferior brain. I still like Elizabeth Dole, so I don’t have a problem with women. It just do happens that these two (Palin and Bachmann) are obnoxious. Luckily for them, obnoxious seems to be the new black (or red?) in the Republican Party. I think Bachmann will win only because her support early in the campaign have her a networking connection Rick Santorum never managed to build for himself.
Jon Huntsman will probably come in last since he’s focused his efforts in New Hampshire.
During President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, the President spoke about his freedom doctrine; which many conservatives correctly tied to the developments in North Africa and the Middle East over the past year. In this address, President Bush (or at least his speech writers) shared some very relevant information with those who were paying attention and cared to remember six years later.
“This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.”
It’s like he could see into the future. Maybe Karl Rove has a time machine!
As much fun as it would be, conspiracy theories about Karl Rove aren’t the reason why I’m writing this post on a train with my iPhone. I’m writing to address conservative and libertarian criticisms of the governments forming in Egypt and Libya (especially Libya); which have adopted elements of Sharia Law in forming their new nations.
It is as though the people of Libya, finally free of Gadhafi, are now expected to instantly form an entirely free and secular society… Or at least a Christian society if they absolutely MUST have a faith built into their national identity.
Well, that’s not who they are. I mentioned in an earlier post that Libya is dominated by varying and often conflicting tribes. The trick is for the National Transitional Council to find a common set of laws that everyone can agree with. Call me crazy, but in a country with such an enormous percentage of Muslims, finding those common laws and a sense of national identity in God through the Qur’an seems like a pretty darn good idea!
Plus, with all this patriotic and self-righteous testosterone running through conservative opinion in the United States, it seems necessary to remind people of America’s history in such matters.
For the first half of our national history, roughly 1/4th to 1/3rd of our total population consisted of slaves. Liberty, indeed.
Until the 20th century, half of our population couldn’t vote because they were women. Democracy in action. It wasn’t even until the latter half of the 20th century that all citizens were guaranteed equal rights.
Oh, and our freedom of religion? Catholics were only allowed to vote in two states when our nation, the champion of freedom, was born.
And I know I needn’t go into all the abuses our government and national founders waged against the native American-Indian population.
It took us 235 years to get where we are as a country today, and we’re still a work in progress. Expecting Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other newly free country to magically turn into a mini-America overnight is ridiculous, arrogant, and condescending.
What we too often fail to realize in our short-sighted political goals and is that liberalism (lower-case “l”) is an experiment. Freedom means many things to many different people and western liberal political ideology isn’t necessarily the path for all the diverse people’s of this world to realize their personal dreams of freedom.
One thing I’m certain of, however, is that overnight libertarianism is far more dangerous to the people of Libya and the world than a moderate and modern approach to Sharia Law.
The 2012 Republican candidates during the Politico debate.
It’s October and the Iowa Caucuses are going to be coming right around the corner pretty soon. State by state, the Republican Party will hold primaries, caucuses, and conventions to determine the next Republican Presidential Nominee. There’s just one problem: All of our candidates suck.
Ask her any question and her answer is that she’s adopted nearly two dozen at risk children and she’s going to repeal Obamacare. When asked for specifics, she reminds you that she’s adopted nearly two dozen at risk children and she’s going to repeal Obamacare. The woman makes Sarah Palin look half-way intelligent. Her response to Cain’s 999 plan last night was to turn it upside down and find out that it’s a 666 plan. Brilliant (sarcasm).
Let’s put aside the fact that he believes all Muslims should have to take a special loyalty oath before working in government. Herman Cain simply lacks the understanding of Washington. For some, that’s a plus. Practically speaking, however, it means he lacks a fundamental understanding of the underlying problems in Washington. His prize 999 plan is a perfect example of this. If implemented, would it work to bolster the economy? Almost certainly. If implemented, though, it would likely face the fate Rick Santorum described for it in the Washington Post | Bloomberg online debate: the three taxes wouldn’t stay at 9% for very long. Cain argues that he would veto any tax hikes, but as one of the candidates pointed out, he won’t be President forever. If Cain had even a basic knowledge about the workings of Washington, he would know his plan is a bad idea.
To his credit, he’s outperformed the other lower tier candidates during the debates by being forceful at just the right times, making sure he gets his point across. The Cain train-wreck during the debate last night would have been a lot worse had he been as docile as the other bottom tier candidates.
Let’s put aside the fact that he foolishly backed Cain’s idea to require Muslims to take special loyalty oaths. Newt is easily the most intelligent and capable candidate in the Republican field. Every time he speaks during a debate, he runs circles around the other candidates. Some people say his lack of success is due to his being perceived as a Washington insider. Perhaps that’s true to some extent, but he’s been fighting the good fight before a lot of the candidates even considered themselves Republicans. The perception of being a Washington insider is really easy to overcome. The reason why he hasn’t overcome it is because he’s not trying. Seriously, he shows up for these debates and he’s virtually invisible until the next one comes around. Newt has next to no ground organization and, just as bad in this day and age, he has no online organization. (He doesn’t even have a .com web address)
A few friends and I all tried to reach out to Newt Gingrich’s campaign to offer our support when he first got in the race. We received no response. Since then, in addition to the attempts of other bloggers, I’ve tried reaching out to the Gingrich campaign on at least five different occasions, the last of which being a month ago. Still, no responses.
Newt is not taking this race seriously, so why should anybody interested in supporting him?
I’ve seen video of Huntsman inside and outside of the debate setting. To be perfectly honest, it just seems like he has a passive personality. Granted, that perception is probably wrong because you don’t get to be the Ambassador to China and the Governor of Utah by being a passive person. Still, perceptions are important; and when the economy is this bad, I have to believe the people want a President who is going to be a forceful leader. That’s not the impression one gets from Huntsman (or Santorum, for that matter). Obviously, Huntsman’s candidacy also raises the same concerns in me as Mitt Romney, relating to the dangers electing a henotheist as President while we are at war with radical Islam. I’ll detail that concern more in depth with Mitt Romney since most of you don’t care enough about Jon Huntsman to actually read this paragraph.
Most of you probably didn’t know that Jimmy “RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH!” McMillan was running for President on the Republican ticket. That’s probably because he hasn’t been allowed at any of the debates. I’m assuming that’s also because he failed to make it on any of the ballots. In other words, it is statistically impossible for him to win. But that doesn’t change the fact that the RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH!
Ron Paul isn’t a Republican. He’s a French Anarchist who twisted his rhetoric to represent what he wants you to believe was the intention of the founding fathers. Of course, this representation is horrifically false and the vast majority of intelligent Americans recognize that. Ron Paul is a crack pot and a fraud.
I had really hoped Rick Perry was going to be the saving grace of the Republican Party this year. Instead, Rick Perry has turned out to be the Fred Thompson of this election cycle. No, Perry didn’t star on a hit crime drama on NBC. However, the job figures coming from Texas made him just as popular prior to entering the race. Like Thompson four years ago, we have seen how Perry can be a great speaker. Yet, we have also seen how horrible he is at thinking on his feet during debates… like Fred “um” Thompson.
Okay, maybe Perry isn’t THAT bad. Still, I doubt he could win a debate against President Obama and a lot of voters base their votes on the candidates performances during those debates.
Strangely, Rick Perry doesn’t own RickPerry.com – like Newt, he lacks a .com web address.
In the midst of this utterly incompetent field, Mitt Romney looks pretty damn good. Granted, that has as much to do with his excessive use of hair products as it does his silver tongue. Many of us involved in the 2008 campaign remember all too well how big of an ass Romney is. The liberal kind of ass. Sure, he’s been talking like a conservative since deciding to run for President about five years ago; but his record isn’t a conservative record. Also, there are foreign policy considerations that arise from his faith, as well. In my opinion, Mormons are no different from protestants. That point of view, however, isn’t shared by most in the Islamic world. That’s because Mormonism is a henotheistic faith tradition; which is a pretty big deal from the Islamic point of view. Despite the rhetoric you read from those bigots see on Facebook, Muslims are directed to protect Christians by the Holy Qur’an. Henotheism (the belief in the existence of more than one god), however, does not sit well within the Qur’an. The fear I have is that electing a henotheistic President could potentially serve as an unnecessary tool of propaganda to enlist Muslims, who were otherwise inclined to live in peace, into various terrorist organizations.
As I wrote above, I have as much respect for Mormonism as I do any other protestant denomination. And I really have no problem being represented by a henotheist or polytheist; whether that person is a Mormon, Hindu, or a worshiper of the Greek god Ares (Greek god worship might actually make politics more entertaining). However, given the fact that we’re trying to secure a lasting peace between ourselves and the Muslim world, I don’t think it would be prudent to elect a henotheist at this time in our history.
Plus, I really don’t like Mitt Romney, his record, or his excessive use of hair product.
I really think Rick Santorum should have run in 2008. With the pain of the 2006 elections still fresh in the minds of conservatives, the image of a man willing to fight and die by his conservative values would have been really attractive in the face of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney. Four years later, however, the people have all but forgotten how badly the Democrats slaughtered the Republicans in 2006. Now, Rick Santorum is operating on the false assumption that we remember how conservative he really was and how much he really did for the conservative cause while in the US Senate. Rick Santorum’s strength is in a narrative the majority of conservative voters have long since forgotten… a narrative he doesn’t have time to recreate because he’s too busy running for President. Rick Santorum is what a lot of Republicans are looking for, but they just don’t know it. Unfortunately for Santorum, he’s been unable to find a way to tell them.
Santorum is also a little bit too homophobic for my personal taste, but he’s done a pretty good job of keeping that rhetoric to a minimum throughout the course of this campaign.
I had no intention of endorsing a candidate until we had one conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, but I felt compelled to back Rick Santorum after the events of the last couple of weeks unfolded.
Here in the United States, we are all familiar with the phrase that “all men are created equal.” Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in our Declaration of Independence and it’s been repeated countless times and across the world. Unfortunately, it seems like few people actually think about the implications this would have for global policy making. Not surprisingly, the blind fools following Ron Paul; who evoke the Founders at every turn as though they just had lunch with them; are the most oblivious.
Okay, time for Ron Paul supporters to start bashing the New York Times. They have an article explaining that 
