Posted on 11/16/2010 2:06:21 PM PST by Anamnesis
Palin-Haters of the Theocratic Right * Those on the secular humanist left who are convinced that Sarah Palin is a "theocrat" must have never heard of John Lofton. The former Washington Times columnist has been involved in two presidential campaigns, as an advisor to Pat Buchanan's efforts in the 1990s and as Communications Director for the 2004 run by Michael Peroutka as the nominee of the Constitution Party. In Lofton's view from the extreme religious right, Gov. Palin just isn't Christian enough:
"Sarah Palin's assertion that the issue of whether moms with small children should or should not work outside the home is a 'petty, little, superficial, meaningless thing' reveals, with a vengeance, that she is a hard-core feminist, with no Christian/Biblical view whatsoever of what a wife/mom ought to be. Her referring to those who believe moms should work in the home to raise their own children as 'Neanderthals' is a slap in the face to millions of moms struggling to do this in obedience to God and His Word." From his blog The American View, Lofton rails at Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and any other female who dares to do anything other than remain barefoot, pregnant and completely subservient to the man of the house. Lofton and his ilk are textbook examples of the dangers inherent in pridefully interpreting the scriptures without understanding them. Lofton, for example, admitted to Fr. Mitchell Pacwa (during a debate over whether we can ask the saints for their intercessions in our prayers) that he doesn't know Greek. How can one interpret scripture without having a command of not only Greek, but Hebrew and Aramaic as well? Further, if God intended for women to be little more than virtual house slaves, He never would have allowed Deborah to become a judge in Israel or the daughters of Philip to be prophetesses.
The left is so far to the left on the political spectrum that its view of the right compresses all conservatives into a monolith, much as a telephoto lens makes objects appear to be much closer to one another than they really are. Leftists fail to see that there are degrees of separation between the three general types of conservatives. For those of us in the "conservative mainstream" who consider ourselves to be Reagan conservatives, we have on our left the Vichy Republicans and Conservative Lites. That is where you will find the David Frums, Peggy Noonans and Kathleen Parkers. They are progressives who fancy themselves to be conservatives and thus the ones that liberals love to quote and the left frequently invite as guests on their media shows. On our right are the John Loftons and others who have aligned themselves with the Constitution Party. They believe in the Constitution, but their belief requires that it be interpreted strictly along Biblical lines, or at least according to their interpretation of The Bible.
Standing with us in the mainstream of conservatism is Sarah Palin. While we believe that America owes a debt to the faith of our founders, we reject the notion that we need Christian "mullahs" to define that faith for us. Our Jewish brothers and sisters would no doubt draw the short straws under such an arrangement, one which would be a complete anathema to the founders. Indeed, George Washington wrote, in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island:
"May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy." Based on Lofton's argument with Fr. Pacwa, we suspect that Catholics would not be considered Christians in good standing by Lofton's definition. He is also on record as saying that he "never met a Christian who readily agreed that... Mormons are Christians." Lofton must not get out much. We never cease to be amazed by Christians who evidently believe that the good Lord just can't get his job done without their indispensable and unerring assistance.
Mainstream conservatives refer to the nation's founding upon "Judeo-Christian" values, not just Christian values. Lofton rejects this view in favor of that of Jewish scholar Arthur Cohen, who wrote that the Judeo-Christian tradition "is a myth which buries under the fine silt of rhetoric the authentic, meaningful, and irrevocable distinction which exists between Jewish belief and Christian belief."
It's not yet a cliche to say that when the far left and the far right are firing all of their guns at you, you must be right over the target. The secular humanist left should turn its eyes and its wrath away from Sarah Palin and other Reagan conservatives toward the real theocrats. To find a starting place for their examination of theocrats, they need look no further than Mullah Lofton and his like-minded fellows out there on the far-flung fringes of the right.
I doubt Lofton has any love for Romney. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction that whenever anybody says anything bad about Sarah Palin, a freeper has to suggest there is a tie to Romney.
To many freepers, Romney is an all-powerful, all-seeing force behind everything that happens. Of course, if he was, he’d be President, but whatever.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Rick Warren had a loyal, vocal following right here on FR.
I would argue that the freedom not to 'work' (not counting homemaking) is actually only a recent phenomenon that had a narrow window of popularity. In reality, is outside of most of human history. If you go back to early hunter/gatherers, women raised daughters and they worked together while the men raised the sons, each 'working' with their child in their own skill-craft. In other words, both the mother and father 'worked' and the children's rearmament were part of that job, be it in a workplace (think pre-19th century apprenticeship into various guilds and crafts) or hunting and gathering. In the 1800s, a woman may have been a seamstress and would bring her daughter to the job to learn the skill while a man may be a bricklayer and bring his son to the job. This would be very similar to Biblical times as well. The idea of a mother staying home to raise all the children (male and female) while the male is away as a sole-provider, is a Western, mid-20th century notion. As for 'paying' someone to raise your kids, the ideas of nannies goes back centuries (and actually transcends classes in Western culture) and before that, it was common for grandparents to step into this role as well.
I find more to agree with than disagree with in the article you linked.
I’m sure Lofton thinks Romney is a Satanist being a Mormon. Lofton has no love for Catholics or various strains of protestants that don’t follow his personal traditions or beliefs.
Thank you.
If Sarah Palin were one of those “career” women who dump their kids off to be raised by strangers, you might have a point...but she’s not, and you sound foolish trying to paint her as such.
Perhaps you didn’t read her book or don’t know the facts, but she spends more time with her children than most “stay at home mothers” I know do. They have the luxury of a very helpful extended family to help out, and Todd takes on a lot of responsibility when he needs to, but Sarah also has brought her children with her on most of what she has done.
She is probably the strongest pro-family advocate to have ever run for the Presidency in my lifetime.
Since you are so into literal interpretations of the Bible, I’m guessing you feel Ronald Reagen was one of our worst Presidents ever! (He was divorced after all...the bible addresses this explicitly - SIN!!)
You people are doing the equivalent of hiding under your pews. How is your religious zealotry different than the Taliban, other than you have a different, less violent book to follow? You don’t want a President, you want a preacher.
So tell me, is Huckahillbilly pious enough for you? Does his family structure meet your religious test?...With his dog torturing son and his furloughing of murders (out of his CHRISTIAN COMPASSION) what a pant load...
In Charles’ defense, I understand where he is coming from, it is a 1950s ideology. I can also vouch he is no troll or anything strange.
The point of my other comment is that the way Palin’s family is, is far more historically traditional. It is the exact opposite of ‘it takes a village’ from the left or the separateness that Charles talks about.
I call it, ‘it takes a family’. It is a whole family, whole life way of raising your children, where all parents are involved and the careers are intertwined with rearing children. There is no absent father, nor is there a dividing line between work and home, all of the family’s life is unified. I think this is far more traditional and Judo-Christian than the 50s mentality of the absent career father and stay at home mom.
Man, I love Jim Robinson! I've never met him, but I love him. What a guy -- "janitor" -- LOL! For the last few years, I've included Jim Robinson in my daily prayers as a matter of habit, not just thanking the Almighty for giving us Jim, as he is certainly a blessing to be thankful for, but to ask God that He will bless Jim Robinson, John Robinson, and their families with good health, safety, and financial prosperity through their work and their investments. :^) I figure that covers it!
You know, if you are going to talk about him, you should give him a courtesy ping. I’m sure Jim Thompson would get a kick out of that post.
I think work was a lot more pervasive in the past, but kids were working as well; I think we are talking about infants, not kids who could be working the fields.
Nowadays, we send the kids off to school, and then it doesn’t matter much if the mothers are working or home (my wife did a part-time job so she was home when the kids were home, until they were old enough to be home on their own and not care).
I said nothing about Sarah Palin's life. In fact, I'm only tangentially addressing Sarah at all; it's just that the quote here about neanderthals was apparently hers.
About all I said about Sarah was that I was not her judge. I think that's kind of the opposite of painting her in any particular light.
However, while in some ways she is very pro-family, she is not the poster child for everybody's families; and to the degree that she is being correctly characterised as faulting people who believe women would be better off at home with the kids (and I have no independent knowledge of what she said, and therefore will not characterize it myself), she is not the "strongest pro-family" advocate, at least for those who disagree with her on this issue.
Also, a nit, but she isn't yet running for President.
I believe I also addressed that for me, so long as a parent is there, it's cool. Todd watching the kids is fine with me.
I agree mnehring, and CharlesWayneCT , I apologize for going off.
I live in Iowa, and deal with these evangelicals (some in my own family) who feel Sarah isn’t pro-life enough, or Christian enough for them to vote for.
They LOVE the phony Huckahillbilly. When I point out how his policies and some of his stances aren’t really conservative, they tell me “Well, I’m not conservative, I’m CHRISTIAN!” Great...
These are the same people who gave us Jimmy Carter. My only point is, this rigid religious test is not necessarily the best way to gauge who would make a good President. They are not voting for a president, they see their presidential vote as a personal test of their piousness.
It is frustrating.
Does Governor Palin pay other people to raise her children?
I’ve never heard she does.
You sure appeared to be saying that Palin was working to pay someone to raise her kids.
Yes, I can see how that could be misleading; but the reference to Sarah Palin regards what she SAID, not what she does. I did want to make it clear that what she does is her own business; but I didn’t discuss what she actually did, only about what people said she had said.
I hope that clears things up, a little bit at least.
Amen to that!
Did you ever watch the original video?
I didn’t know there was an “original video”, I was responding to this particular comment about this particular article.
That’s why I’ve tried to be clear that I don’t have any independent knowledge of what Palin actually said, and therefore am commenting based on the hypothesis that palin supporters are accurately repeating what she said — while also noting that this could be wrong, as you may know I find that some palin supporters do her a great disservice.
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