Archive for August, 2010
A Boy Named Sue: Passive Christians Are Allowing Religious Freedoms to Be Taken Away
Another great article by Mike Adams!! I totally agree and I’ve mentioned this type of thing before. Where have all the men gone? Where have the warriors gone? Unfortunately, today we have more pansies in Christian circles than we used to. It used to be that men would stand up for what they believe, but now it’s the ‘in’ thing to let non-believers trample all over our religious freedom without challenging them at all. In fact, not only will we NOT challenge them, but we see it as “loving” to actually help them with their anti-Christian agenda!! I guess that’s being a ‘good, loving’ friend?? It’s unbelievable and unacceptable! It honestly sickens me and just as Mike Adams mentions below, if we lose our religious freedoms its because we willingly gave it away!! Just as the Jews were led to the concentration camps very easily, so will we be led to our demise. I have read a lot about the holocaust and one of the main themes throught out all of these stories is the fact that they were warned ahead of time, but they just didn’t believe these horrible things would happen to them. They willingly gave up their homes, got on trains, were separated from their families, and were sent to concentration camps because they kept thinking if they just reacted civilly and calmly, surely things would work out. It wasn’t until they saw friends being led to the gas chambers that they thought, “What have we allowed to happen and why did we willingly walk to our doom?” Wake up Christians, before we have to say that ourselves!!
A Boy Named Sue
Mike Adams
If Christianity dies in America it will not be for a lack of evidence of its truthfulness. It will be for a lack of dissemination of the evidence of its truthfulness. And the blame for the lack dissemination of that evidence will fall squarely on the shoulders of Christian men who are simply too weak and passive to deserve to be called “Christian” or “men.”
In the last few months, I have been in no less than one dozen arguments with “Christian men” who have attempted to persuade me to stop my advocacy of, and direct involvement in, litigation against public universities. This is despite the fact that the universities are seeking to curtail the rights of Christian students and professors.
Three common arguments I have heard, and my brief responses to them, follow:
Argument for passivity: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek to whoever slaps us on our right cheek. How do you reconcile that with your assertion that “a lawsuit a day keeps the atheists at bay”?
Response: This one is easy. A slap on the face is a personal insult. Jesus is clearly admonishing us to ignore such personal insults; He isn’t saying we can’t aggressively call out evil. Jesus Himself aggressively called out evil as recorded later in the same Gospel (Matthew 23).
This coming year I am planning a series of legal challenges to universities that have launched “Queer Resource Centers” and “LGBTQIA Centers” on campus. The goal is not to shut the centers down but, instead, to force them to present issues in a more balanced fashion.
For example, those centers using mandatory student activity fees to bolster the case for gay marriage will be pressured (legally) to invite speakers like Frank Turek who will argue the other side of the issue. We will rely on the ten-year old Southworth case in our efforts to ensure that student fees are spent in a viewpoint neutral manner.
When I launch these challenges the “liberal” blogs will say I am secretly gay. That is the way they always respond. It’s a silly personal insult revealing nothing more than the unfortunate fact that many gays secretly hate themselves. I will simply ignore such insults and proceed with the lawsuits.
I would urge everyone – especially those who trumpet the importance of “context” – to read the entire Sermon on the Mount. When they do, they will realize that Jesus also said that those who are persecuted in His name will be richly blessed. The tallest blade of grass is the one that gets cut first. Similarly, the Christian who stands tallest is the one that gets persecuted first.
Therefore, those who stand tall and do not roll over will be the first to be blessed.
Argument for passivity: In Luke 6:29, Jesus urges that one who has his coat taken from him to should also hand over his tunic. Doesn’t that suggest that we should not resist campus efforts to take away Christian rights?
Response: The coat and tunic are material things. We would do well to hand over material things to those in need. If we were more generous on the front end, people would be less inclined to steal. But religious liberty is not a material thing. It is a non-material thing that is the principal basis for this nation’s founding. It belongs to everyone and, therefore, cannot be handed over by any one individual to any other individual.
Put simply, we have a right to hand over our own tunic. But we cannot hand over someone else’s tunic as well. When we give away our rights we give away the rights of others without their consent. That is not a requirement of Christianity. It is a hallmark of cowardice.
Argument for passivity: Doesn’t the Bible tell us to abide by laws and submit to the authority of government?
Response: It sure does. And the First Amendment is the law of the land. When it is violated, we should protest by using the First Amendment. If our protests are ignored we should use civil litigation to uphold the laws that lawless secular humanists seek to destroy. The key word here is “civil.” Christians should not hurl stones in the streets. They should remain civil by filing civil suits.
The Apostle Paul tells Christians they should not sue one another. But he did not say we should not sue heathens. Let us never forget that a large proportion of what is written in the New Testament was written by Paul from inside prison. He was boldly asserting his rights as a Roman citizen. He was not cowering in the face of abject evil, as so many man-boy “Christians” are today.
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/2010/08/19/a_boy_named_sue
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Religious Leaders Make a Flawed Case for Mass Immigration
Why can’t ‘religious’ leaders see that mass immigration is NOT the loving, Christian thing to do?? This is a very well-written article and I totally agree!
Religious Leaders Make a Flawed Case for Mass Immigration
Ira Mehlman
In recent months, prominent leaders of the Evangelical Christian movement have joined with mainline Protestant churches, the Catholic Bishops, the Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism, and other establishment religious groups in calling for an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy that includes amnesty for current illegal aliens and significant increases in legal immigration to the United States.
Evangelical Protestantism has often been the odd-man-out in the arena of religious political activism, tending to take a more conservative line than other established religious denominations on contentious political and social issues. Thus, when leaders of the Evangelical movement start singing from the same political hymnal as their more left-leaning brethren, one might assume that the moral issues of the current immigration debate are a matter of settled religious doctrine.
Yet, in the United States, arguably the most religious of all Western societies, the majority of people continue to resist amnesty for illegal aliens, insist that immigration laws be enforced, and oppose increasing levels of immigration to the United States. It seems implausible that these millions of otherwise decent, generous, church-going folks would suddenly exhibit a moral blind spot on the issue of immigration.
The disconnect between the clergy and the people who fill the pews suggests that the moral questions surrounding immigration policy are not as clear as they might seem.
It is easy to understand the position taken by religious leaders when immigration is viewed solely from the perspective of immigrants. We all understand and empathize with the human aspirations that drive people to leave one country and come to another. It is undeniable that immigration always benefits immigrants – they wouldn’t come otherwise.
What is missing from this narrow perspective on immigration is a thoughtful assessment of how immigration affects people in the receiving society (or even how large-scale emigration might impede morally desirable social and economic reforms in the sending nations). The reason the United States, and every nation on Earth, restricts immigration, however, is precisely because we recognize that what is in the individual interest of a would-be immigrant is not necessarily in the interest of everyone else in the receiving country.
Those who support amnesty for current illegal aliens and expanding legal immigration (above its already record levels) do not necessarily claim a higher moral ground. They tend, instead, to claim a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder, or see an immediate personal, political or economic benefit in more open immigration.
The divide over immigration policy in America is not a left-right one, and certainly not between the kind-and-generous among us versus the stone-hearted ingrates. Rather, the debate tends to pit the elite – those who are well-insulated from the adverse consequences of mass immigration – against everyone else.
The economic and social elite in America generally don’t find that their jobs, wages, their kids’ schools, their access to vital services, and their communities are adversely affected by large-scale immigration. In fact, immigrants can often provide the elite with subsidized nannies, gardeners and other domestic help that makes their lives easier. Thus, they are more likely to support amnesty and broader immigration.
The same cannot be said for many other Americans. These Americans see mass immigration – especially illegal immigration – as a threat to their well-being. People who have to compete for jobs and wages with immigrants, whose kids attend schools that are strained by meeting the special needs of non-English-speaking students, and who suddenly feel like strangers in their own communities, tend to view things a little differently.
These folks – according to polls, a significant majority of Americans – are not uncaring, nor have they forgotten their own family histories. However, a 21st century immigration policy that is based on nostalgia for the 19th century is irrational and ignores the inescapable reality that everything – with the exception of the aspirations of migrants – has changed dramatically.
There is no moral or religious code that permits charity with other people’s resources. It is neither kind nor ethical to satisfy one’s own sense of morality with someone else’s job, or someone else’s children’s educational opportunities.
Unfortunately, there is no easy moral path to correcting the failed immigration policies of recent decades. The most immoral option of all, however, would be to try to “solve” the problem on the backs of ordinary Americans. They didn’t ask for this. In fact their pleas for rational enforcement of immigration laws have fallen on the deaf ears of the political elite. Amnesty and legal-immigration-on-demand would only compound the adverse impact that law-abiding Americans have experienced, and punish those who are least to blame for the mess.
Instead, what we need are policies that encourage those who are here illegally to return home. Let’s be very clear: no one is rationally suggesting that we can deport our way out of the current crisis. However, enforcement of policies that make it difficult for illegal aliens to find jobs, gain access to nonessential, nonemergency government benefits and services, or guarantee citizenship to their U.S.-born children would, over time, convince many current illegal aliens to return on their own.
Even those of us who advocate this type of enforcement recognize and are conflicted by the hardships it would cause to the people who are living here illegally and innocent family members. By and large, illegal aliens are good people who have made bad decisions for understandable reasons. However, all of us know that both God and man have established rules that constrain us from doing things we might otherwise want to do, and that there must be consequences for violating those laws. These rules are not arbitrary and capricious, but exist because our actions affect not only ourselves, but others around us.
It is important that a national debate about the moral issues involved in immigration take place. The issue is a highly complex one, and what may appear on the surface to be easy moral questions to answer may not be once we begin looking beneath the surface.
Perhaps one important ground rule for having a productive debate is for all of us to distinguish between immigrants and immigration. Immigrants – regardless of legal status – are human beings who must always be treated with respect and dignity, but also as people who must be held accountable for their decisions and their actions. Immigration, like any other public policy, must be formulated and enforced in a manner that serves the best interests of the American people.
For people who are motivated by their faith to do good in this world, there is no shortage of ways in which their energies and devotion can be put to effective use. But, as global population rapidly approaches 7 billion people, mass migration is simply not a viable response to the poverty and misery that afflicts so many people around the world. In the end, well-intended calls for still higher levels of immigration would only undermine the well-being of millions of Americans while doing little to benefit the billions around the world who could be better served in other ways.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Dr. Manny: Dear Senator Reid, I’m Not Stupid!
Good article.
Dr. Manny: Dear Senator Reid, I’m Not Stupid!
by Dr. Manny Alvarez
Fox News
Today, U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) — the person who holds one of the most powerful positions in our government — a protector of the constitution, of free speech and of tolerance — called me stupid.
Perhaps he was indicating that I’m mentally challenged or maybe that I’m just uneducated — I’m not sure. But what I do know is that his comments were a profound insult to me and every other American of Hispanic descent.
During a campaign event in Nevada Tuesday, Reid made an appeal to Latino supporters whose votes he needs for re-election in November, by making this condescending remark:
“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK,” he said. “Do I need to say more?”
Yes, Sen. Reid, in fact you do need to say more.
Perhaps Sen. Reid should have came out and said what he was getting at rather than making such inflammatory comments — implying that all American Hispanic voters would be foolish not to conform to a herd mentality for their own good.
I can only assume that the point Sen. Reid was trying to make was that the majority of Latino voters in Nevada would be hurt by a Republican taking office in November because of the GOP’s stance on immigration reform.
But perhaps Sen. Reid would be interested to know that the Hispanic community in this country can make their own decisions. A CNN poll conducted in late July showed that 65 percent of all Hispanics questioned want to see tighter security and increased federal law enforcement at the southern border.
With all the recent talk of ethnic profiling since Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law came into play — I have to say, that is exactly how Sen. Reid made me feel today.
I highly resent Sen. Reid’s remarks for suggesting that I lack the brainpower to make a rational choice, and for deciding for me how my ethnicity should play out politically — because I am a Republican and I also happen to be of Hispanic descent.
And I happen to know many American Hispanics that are Republicans. They are Republicans that share the strong fundamental values this country was built on. They value family, education, freedom, respect and love for this great nation — the United States of America.
But I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised by the generalizations and stereotyping coming out of Democratic Party and its leadership. It’s quite a familiar theme these days, because it seems that I as a doctor also lack the intelligence to make the right choices for my patients.
If this is the formula for success in fixing a broken health care system, it would stand to reason that Sen. Reid may also believe that I can’t be a doctor and be against Obama’s health care reform — especially me — since I’m not only a doctor, but a Hispanic doctor at that. By Sen. Reid’s calculations, I may as well cut my losses and become a Democrat who practices medicine in federally-funded clinic. OK, OK — so I have a flare for the dramatic, but I think I’ve made my point. But all sarcasm aside, what hurt me the most about Sen. Reid’s ignorant remarks is that he has insulted the memory of my father.
My father was a hardworking man that fled communism in Cuba and arrived in this country in pursuit of the American dream. And part of that dream, were the freedoms and opportunities afforded by an economy built on capitalist ideals. Those ideals allowed a man like my father to build his business on his own terms — never asking for help — but always thankful to this great nation. My father was a Republican through-and-through until his dying day. And yes, Mr. Reid, he was also of Hispanic decent.
Hispanic Americans are proud people. They are proud of their heritage, but they are also proud to be citizens of this democracy we call the United States of America. We do not want to be boxed in. We simply want the same respect given to any citizen of this country — to be viewed through colorblind eyes, and to have diversity of choice free from ethnic bias.
LINK: http://health.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/11/dr-manny-dear-senator-reid-i%E2%80%99m-not-stupid/
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )ThoughtCrime: DC Reporter Suspended for Accurate Report on BP’s Donations to Obama
Unbelievable!!! They called his reporting the facts ‘partisan’ because it wasn’t kissing up to Obama. Think of all the horrible, negative things that were said about Bush (whether they were the truth or not) and no one seemed to care if the reporting was biased against Bush. This drives me crazy!! I’ve never seen a president get more of a pass than this one! The MSM is disgusting!
Thoughtcrime: D.C. Reporter Suspended for Accurate Report on BP’s Donations to Obama
Posted by Robert Bluey
WJLA-TV, a Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate, suspended reporter Doug McKelway following his alleged “partisan” comments at a liberal rally on Capitol Hill marking the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Video of the broadcast tells a different story.
Apparently facts are now “partisan.”
McKelway stuck to the truth about BP’s political contributions and pending cap-and-trade legislation, newsworthy subjects given that the event’s organizers were lobbying to “pass legislation to end America’s addiction to oil and urged lawmakers to donate campaign money raised from the oil industry to the clean-up efforts in the Gulf.”
According to the Washington Post, it was McKelway’s supposedly controversial comments on July 20 that led to his suspension. Anonymous sources at the station are now accusing him of “insubordination” in an apparent attempt to fire him.
McKelway’s live report began with a factually correct statement about BP’s donations to President Obama. McKelway accurately noted that Obama received $77,051 from the BP employees, information verified by the Center for Responsive Politics.
When McKelway asked one of the event’s participants to comment on it, Ted Glick of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network acknowledged it was a problem for Obama. The rally was organized by left-wing groups Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Public Citizen.
At the end of the live segment, McKelway talked about the prospect of cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate, a topic related to the rally, which urged lawmakers to “take immediate action to pass climate and energy legislation.”
Nevertheless, the Washington Post, quoting anonymous sources, indicated McKelway’s report crossed the line. The newspaper reported:
According to several of McKelway’s colleagues, the newsman’s reporting may have lapsed into partisan territory when he commented live on the air about the oil industry’s influence in Washington, particularly its contributions to Democratic politicians and legislators.
This is absolutely absurd. The Post’s decision to use anonymous sources to smear McKelway was bad enough, but reporter Paul Farhi also wrote a subjective description of the broadcast instead of simply stating the facts. The newspaper’s own reporters engage in flagrant partisan behavior on a daily basis.
WJLA’s station manager and news director declined to comment on the personnel matter. McKelway isn’t talking either.
Based on what we know — and discounting the questionable and anonymous sources in Farhi’s story — it appears this is a classic case of the mainstream media silencing those who report inconvenient truths about this administration. McKelway is a veteran newsman who has consistently strived for balance in reporting. Unfortunately, in a news environment like Washington, D.C, liberals don’t always like the facts. In this case, McKelway appears to have suffered the consequences.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Manufacturing Liberals: Why are Liberals liberal?
Interesting article.
Manufacturing Liberals
By Larrey Anderson
American Thinker
Liberals are not insane, as many conservatives believe. Most liberals (I am not speaking here of the political or intellectual class) are ordinary human beings pursuing everyday human lives — just like the rest of us. Here is a brief summary of why most liberals are liberal and what we can do to help at least some of them understand conservative thought:
1) Indoctrination, not education
Polls consistently find that over 70% of college professors identify themselves as liberal. The percentage of liberal faculty members is even higher if one removes responses from those teaching the “hard” sciences. In our prestigious universities, the figure approaches 90%. Both of these reported percentages are probably lower than the real figures [i].
The fact is that America’s universities and colleges are no longer institutions that offer their students various political, social, and economic perspectives. There is no exploration of competing concepts, no real debate. Students are not taught how to think, but what to think. Our universities are indoctrination camps (and our public primary and secondary education systems are not much better) — not campuses for learning and critical discussion.
Almost all of the students who emerge from these indoctrination camps have attended, for years, classes based upon moral, scientific, and epistemological relativism [ii]. Many of those students have never seriously considered, or even been exposed to, alternatives to the propaganda they receive during school. A person cannot change from position L to position C if that person doesn’t know that position C is an alternative — or if the student has been brainwashed into thinking that “C” stands for greed, racism, homophobia, etc.
Yet the hard truth is that conservatives far outnumber liberals in America. It is our fault that we have allowed our educational systems to become indoctrination camps run by the left.
2) Imagination, not intelligence (or possibility, not probability)
One of the most egregious errors that our educational systems dish out, and that the students ingest, is that the imagination is more important than the intellect (or, from a slightly different angle, that possibility is more important than probability). In The Passions of the Soul, Descartes contended that the passion of imagination should be used to employ newly discovered mathematical principles (essentially what is now the calculus) and the scientific method to rule the intellect [iii].
Today’s intellectual elites agree with Descartes that the imagination (and, thus, the possible) is more important than reason (and the probable). For instance, a favorite philosopher of intellectual left, Friedrich Nietzsche, claimed, “Art is worth more than truth” [iv].
Here is an extreme (but typical) example of how far out of hand this thinking has gotten in our culture: Many programs that deal with absurd legends on the Discovery, History, and various “science” channels will close the episode by playing spooky music while the narrator says something like this:
Even though we still lack hard evidence, the search for Bigfoot goes on. [Narrator’s sonorous voice becomes deadly serious.] Too many questions remain unanswered. And no one can deny that the existence of Sasquatch is … [momentary pause during musical crescendo] … possible. [End scary music. Roll credits.]
This approach is banal, but it keeps the viewers coming back to see the next production on Bigfoot that, once again, proves nothing. These programs demonstrate that in our popular culture, imagination is more important than rational thought and possibility is held higher than probability.
Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth is the prime example of (bad) art masquerading as the truth. The movie is filled with factual errors and outright lies. But these distortions count for little in a society where “art is worth more than truth.” (Commence creepy music. Roll credits. Stay tuned [v]!)
In making real-life decisions, probability is much more important than possibility. It is possible that I might win the lottery if I buy a ticket. It is more than 99.999% probable that I will not. Life tutors us in this truth — this is one of the reasons why people tend to become more conservative as they grow older.
Because of our educational system, most liberals are never taught this basic fact of life. It is part of our job to help our liberal friends understand the simple and crucial truth: Just because something is possible does not make it probable.
3) Sympathy, not empathy
Liberals tend to be sympathetic. But sympathy is not empathy. Sympathy is a product of the imagination. Empathy is a result of knowledge acquired through personal experience. Because liberals tend to be sympathetic rather than empathetic, they see other people from two distorted (and imaginary) points of view:
First, liberals tend to see those for whom they have sympathy as victims. This is a natural (though irrational) way of perceiving those who are less fortunate — or have an unconventional lifestyle. If I have not had the experience of being poor, then I cannot understand the causes of any particular poor person’s poverty. I can imagine some causes, pity those who are destitute, desire to act to end my imaginary causes, and quell my sympathetic feelings of guilt. Since sympathy comes from what I imagine to be true (not from what I know to be true), I could be wrong. My “cure” for poverty could be worse than the disease.
Second, liberals tend to view people as groups or causes — not as individuals. Because sympathy is based in the imagination instead of on experience, the poor are not seen as distinctive human beings — rather the poor are viewed as a class. The same is true of other categories like homosexuals, women, illegal immigrants, etc. Imaginative sympathy distracts us from seeing the other (any other) person as a unique human being.
Empathy develops as a person matures. It is a visceral and legitimate emotion. We empathize with the individual (not with a make-believe category of people). Empathy drives us to specifically address a problem in the life of someone who needs our help. And we address the problem knowing something about it.
Many liberals are empathetic. But most of them do not or, because of their education and ideology, cannot differentiate between sympathy and empathy. A man who was born in poverty and later becomes successful has some idea of when a particular needy individual requires practical advice or a loan — rather than a gift of money. The successful man is able to use his accumulated knowledge and/or wealth to specifically address a poor person’s problems. The empathetic person knows the difference between a handout and a hand up.
If liberals were consistent in their ideology, they would voluntarily give their extra income to the government. Liberals, who really believe government can eliminate poverty, manage health care, save peoples’ houses, etc., should be putting their money where their sympathy is.
But overwhelmingly they don’t. Deep down, some liberals get it. The extra ten bucks in a liberal’s wallet is better-spent on a friend who needs gasoline to get to work than donated to the DOE’s green energy programs. Another of our tasks as conservatives is to explain to our liberal acquaintances what some of them already understand: Sympathy is not empathy.
4) Control, not freedom
As I have discussed at length in a couple of other articles, liberals generally prefer an outside power (the government) to fix those difficulties in life that they cannot personally control. I have used the desire of liberals to establish universal health care — but not universal lawn care — as an example.
When we put these four principles together, we begin to see a familiar pattern. The mindset of ordinary liberals begins with indoctrination. The world is primarily viewed through the imagination. Liberals favor sympathy over empathy and embrace possibility rather than probability. Liberals long for a utopia, or perfect world, and believe that some greater power (the government) can solve problems outside of their personal control.
Notice how similar the liberal mindset is to the belief systems of the pious — with a crucial difference: Members of the various religions accept the fact that many of their theological principles are based upon belief. Knowledgeable practitioners of most religious sects willingly admit that the acceptance of a particular dogma is, in the final analysis, a matter of faith. This is why the catechism and the various professions of many denominations feature the words “We [or “I”] believe …”
Liberal thought parallels religious belief — except liberals do not understand (or are loath to admit) that their thought processes are, in effect, grounded in faith.
Let’s reconsider an example given above. Instead of offering a friend ten dollars for gasoline, the liberal gives his “friend” a lecture on the evils of carbon dioxide, tells his associate to walk or ride a bike the thirty miles to work, and (being consistent in approach) donates the ten dollars to the Department of Energy. The danger for liberals, and for the rest of us, should be obvious: by avoiding close scrutiny of their Weltanschauung, liberals are is getting perilously close to sliding past liberalism’s religious orientation and into the nightmare of…the cult.
LINK: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/manufacturing_liberals.html
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The Stunning Decline of Barack Obama: 10 Key Reasons Why the Obama Presidency is in Meltdown
Great article!!! Unfortunately, only the media in other countries will tell the truth about this administration. When will someone in the American MSM finally get the guts and integrity to expose this president??
The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown
By Nile Gardiner
Telegraph
The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party. While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.
Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically all summer, with the latest Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far for Barack Obama since taking office. While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove. According to Rasmussen, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving.
There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of President Obama, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit. Americans are increasingly rejecting President Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.
Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.
On the national security and foreign policy front, President Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.
Can it get any worse for President Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms.
1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people
In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.
2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.
3. Obama fails to inspire
In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2006 Convention speech in Chicago which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.
4. The United States is drowning in debt
The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.
5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.
6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake
In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, President Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of its passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”
7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.
8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.
9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.
10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologising for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.
There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.
This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )N.H. Democrat Under Fire for Reportedly saying Sarah Palin Should have Crashed with Ted Stevens
Yep, those Democrats sure are the loving party, aren’t they??? If we just disagree with them they call us mean, but they can get by with saying hateful stuff like this?? Sickening!
N.H. Democrat under fire for reportedly saying Sarah Palin should have crashed with Ted Stevens
BY MEENA HARTENSTEIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A New Hampshire Democrat is under fire after reportedly posting a public death wish for Sarah Palin.
Keith Halloran, a Democratic candidate for state representative in New Hampshire, took a swipe at Palin on Facebook after former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens died in a plane crash on Monday.
“Just wish Sarah and Levy were on board,” Halloran wrote, apparently taking aim at the former Alaska Gov. and her daughter’s ex-fiancée, Levi Johnston.
The New Hampshire Republican party quickly fired back with a statement “denouncing” the posting.
“Mr. Halloran’s outrageous comments are a new low, even by the standards of the New Hampshire Democrat Party,” a spokesman for the party said in the statement.
“His publicly stated death wish for Governor Palin and her family is abhorrent, and has no place in our public discourse.”
The New Hampshire GOP is rallying supporters to call New Hampshire Governor John Lynch and Congressional Candidate Ann McLane McLuter and ask them to “immediately denounce Mr. Halloran’s hateful remarks and demand that he personally apologize to the Palin family.”
Halloran, meanwhile, has refused to confirm he wrote the message.
“It’s just a tempest in their Tea Pot,” he told The Associated Press.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )A Rather Angry America
We’re sick of Obama!! It’s time for a revolution!!!!!
A Rather Angry America
August 7, 2010 – by Victor Davis Hanson Share
Unemployment is still high, growth low, deficits huge. States are cutting out everything from streetlights to paving. Public pensions are exploding everywhere.
A class war looms between retirees who want their sweet-heart obligations honored, and strapped, poorer taxpayers who feel about those bloated payouts as they do their underwater mortgages.
What Did You Expect?
In a progressive culture, where ads blare hourly about skipping out on credit card debt, shorting the IRS, and walking away from mortgages, did the public employee unions really think they were exempt from a Chrysler-like renegotiation?
In the age of Obama, there is no real contractual obligation: everything from paying back bondholders to fixing a BP penalty is, well, “negotiable.” When the money runs out, the law will too. Law? There is no law other than a mandated equality of result.
The Talkative Crowd
On the Internet recently appeared the pictures of the JournoList bunch, who at least between themselves gave up their usual pretense that the media was unbiased. With all due respect (confession: I was briefly mentioned by the list as someone that the racist card might work on in connection with the illegal immigration debate), they appear to the eye as a sort of nerdish group.
They remind me of what we used to call the “wimp table” at a pretty tough Selma High around 1970. It was there that the high school’s handful of geeks, toadies, and picked-upon used to eat, under the protective eye of yard-duty teachers. The assumption was that with a few steps further onto the grounds, the entire sorry bunch was fair game for every bully on campus. And that sad outfit filters, disseminates, and arbitrates our news? Most from their writing and appearance seemed either neurotic overachievers or twenty-something bloggers who confuse calling someone something with erudition.
Up Is Down
No wonder aristocratic golf became needed presidential relaxation, the old first lady hysteria over things like Nancy’s china cooled when Michelle hit the Costa del Sol, and Guantanamo became A-OK. The news now for these guys is sort of like writing boilerplate race/class/gender oppression papers for a Yale undergrad gut class.
Populism Is Now Bad?
In contrast, the proverbial people seem angry. A book will have to be written explaining how in 19 months Obama blew a 70% approval rating and is headed for under 40% — something that took Bush six years. A handful of judges nullified what millions voted for in Arizona and California, apparently on the premise that wanting federal immigration law enforced, and seeing marriage as a traditional bond between a man and woman as it has been for 2,500 years in the West, was bigoted, analogous to the racism of the Jim Crow South, and thus in need of judicial intervention.
A guy in Bakersfield might think it prejudicial that a gay judge struck down an amendment to the Constitution passed by a majority of voters and opposed by the gay lobby; a guy in DC would think the guy in Bakersfield prejudicial for coming up with that preposterous conclusion.
Meanwhile, in our postracial age, race is everywhere: Charles Rangel, who won’t follow the tax laws he writes, whines about an “old-English, Anglo-Saxon procedure.” Maxine Waters (under the cloud of insider bank influence peddling) and the Black Caucus (recipient of federalized GM donations) cite racism as the source of their ethical dilemmas (at least Larry Craig did not cite gay-bashing and Duke Cunningham reverse discrimination and Chris Dodd ageism and the late John Murtha girthism).
A mass murderer at a beer distribution center (so much for Van Jones’s assurances that such mayhem was a white thing) is portrayed on the airwaves as an aggrieved victim of racism lashing out. Not a word about the shattered lives of those gunned down and their families. Welcome to the post-racial Obama age — with much more to follow. (Nemesis gives no quarter: once Barack Obama years ago went down the patronize-and-use-Rev.-Wright path, the payback was only a matter of when, not if.)
History Is Negotiable
We sent our first delegation to the services marking the bombing of Hiroshima. Fine, but will we do the same with the Philippines, Manchuria, South Korea, and all the other places where the Imperial Japanese Army by early 1945 was killing on average well over 5,000 a day in its occupied co-prosperity sphere? To understand why Hiroshima, understand 50,000 American casualties, 100,000 Japanese dead, and 100,000 Okinawan dead at the conclusion of Okinawa ten weeks earlier, and then multiply it by a factor of 10 for the upcoming Japanese homeland invasion.
The Rising
At home, a huge mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan will rise up before the new World Trade Center (maybe Bruce Springsteen can do a sequel to “The Rising”?). To suggest this is bad taste is bigoted. To suggest that we don’t know the where, how, and why about the funding, or why a self-proclaimed ecumenical group of Muslims wants to build ties by picking this provocative spot, or who exactly is behind the idea (or where exactly the promoter now is) is the worst sort of Neanderthal right prejudice.
No problem. We can assure the 3,000 dead that their passing was marked by the enlightened harmony of a mosque preempting a new tower. What we do know is that in about a year, all over the Middle East, al-Qaeda videos will have photo-shopped “strong horse” posters and CDs of the ruins of 9/11 in the shadow of a towering mosque, with the accustomed boilerplate about how Atta et al. knocked down the looming towers in order to have Islam’s shrine rise up in their place. It all sort of reminds one of the nasty reception the president’s envoy on Islamic outreach just got from a Muslim audience in India. He was “shocked” at his reception — or translated into Valley Girl parlance: “Like, I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
I don’t think the polls quite capture the present public anger, which is not abating. Everything seems to channel into a general furor: Michelle’s movable feast from Costa del Sol to Martha’s Vineyard; the president suing Arizona and counting on a judge to nullify the public will, as part of a larger effort either by judicial nod or administrative fiat to get amnesty for 15 million future voters who will reciprocate at the polls; politicians bragging about handing out another $100 billion of someone else’s money here, another $200 billion there; the constant assumption that popular expression is retarded, and those who go to a tea party rally, vote to enforce immigration law, want to see marriage as it has been for millennia, want to cut federal spending, or are tired of identity politics are Palinesque clingers.
The Best and the Brightest
The common denominator? If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.
The present symptoms that characterize both our popular culture and current governance — shrill self-righteousness; abstract communalism juxtaposed with concrete pursuit of the aristocratic good life; race/class/gender cosmic sermonizing with private school and Ivy league for the kids; crass and tasteless public expression; a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions; the bipartisan mega-deficits; the inability to cut pensions and social security for the baby boomers — from the trivial to the fundamental, all derive from a bankrupt cohort that came of age in the sixties and seventies.
We see the arrested adolescence and hypocrisy that come from that sermonizing generation, whether in Al Franken’s puerile face-making, the ideologically driven suicide at Newsweek, the steady destruction of the New York Times, John Kerry’s tax-avoiding yacht, the Great Gatsby Clinton wedding, Michelle on the Costa del Sol, Nancy Pelosi’s jet, Tim Geithner’s tax skipping, or the constant race-card playing of a Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.
LINK: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/a-rather-angry-america/?singlepage=true
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