'Things you have to believe to vote Republican': A response

One of the more popular anti-Republican documents making the rounds on the Internet is titled "Things You Have to Believe to Vote Republican Today." Its popularity is exceeded only by its shallowness, which renders the document much more reflective of the liberals who admire it than of the Republicans it attacks. But given its popularity, I offer brief responses to its claims (space limitations and triviality prevented me from responding to three of them).

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Response: Saddam was always a bad guy. We supported him when he fought Iran because at that time he was fighting a greater menace, Iran. Unlike most liberals, Republicans understand that sometimes you support a bad guy when fighting a worse evil -- just as America did when we supported the horrific Stalin against the more horrific Hitler.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

Response: We trade with China because if we do not, other countries will have access to the world's largest market and largest labor base. If we did not trade with China, Americans would be greatly hurt. On the other hand, we do not trade with Cuba because we have a chance to weaken a communist dictator. One weakens evil where one can. Unlike the liberal who wrote this indictment, others understand that just because you cannot fight every evil does not mean you should fight no evils. (For the record, as we have done with Vietnam, I have supported ending the Cuban embargo since the Cold War ended.)

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Though the statement is a non sequitur, I will respond. Every country regulates companies doing business in their country. That proposition is therefore erroneous; and so is the other. Only those on the Left can believe that the human fetus carried by a woman is "her body." A woman's teeth, breasts, legs, hair -- all these are her body. But the human fetus is another's body. The narcissism of the wording -- rendering a human fetus an appendage of the mother and of no more worth than a decayed tooth -- is shameful.

Response: No Christian I have ever talked to ever said that either Jesus or they hate homosexuals. Only demagogues confuse opposition to same-sex marriage with hatred of homosexuals. And the notion that anyone believes Jesus hates Hillary Clinton is libelous.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

Response: The proposition is a lie. And soldiers know it. That is why they prefer the Republican nominee by a margin of four to one. What undermines troop morale is to be told over and over that you are fighting "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

Response: No one has ever said this. No one. It is only a facile liberal mind that can confuse "less likely to have sex" if condoms are not distributed with "won't have sex" if condoms are not distributed.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

Response: When Iraq is on its feet, it is our hope that it will decrease government involvement in its citizens' lives. Just as it is our hope to do so here. Moreover, all Americans have access to health care. Not having health insurance does not mean not having health care.

Response: Few big businesses have the best interests of the public at heart. No conservative has ever argued otherwise. But liberals believe that big government and big unions do.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

Response: Global warming may well be taking place. But it may be too soon to know for sure -- not long ago we were warned about global cooling. The question that is open to scientific debate is what is causing the global warming that may be happening.

Most conservatives do not want creationism taught in schools and have no trouble with teaching evolution. But if evolution is taught as meaning all life, including human, just happened by itself, that is beyond science -- that is the teaching of atheism. And many of us, including vast numbers of scientists, think that children and society do better learning that there is a moral and purposeful God that created the world (and perhaps evolution as well).

A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Response: Honorable people can differ as to whether a president lying under oath while president has committed an impeachable offense. On the other hand, it is entirely dishonorable to charge President Bush with lying about WMDs in Iraq. Everyone, including Democrats and the intelligence services of Russia, Britain and France, believed Saddam Hussein had them. It is the great lie of our time that President Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. To act upon the knowledge one has at the time is not a lie. It is the behavior of a responsible leader.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriage and censoring the Internet.

Response: Society has every right, indeed the duty, to define marriage. A constitutional amendment defining marriage has become necessary only because liberal judges, by taking that role upon themselves, have rendered it impossible for American society to do so. Liberals are delighted to have five justices define the Constitution to allow abortion for no reason other than the convenience of a pregnant woman, but find adding an amendment to define marriage passed by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states offensive.

And liberals should tread carefully before accusing conservatives of favoring censorship. It is overwhelmingly liberals and the Left that censor speech in America -- through speech codes at most universities, through laws defining what a man can say in the presence of a woman in the workplace, and through "campaign finance reform" that ensures only multi-millionaires can run for office.

- Saddam was considered a "bad guy" by Bill Clinton when he issued a bombing run in response to an assassination plot against George W. Bush's "daddy".

- Since when have Democrats EVER been upset with Communists? Just because they bought the myth of Che does not mean that Castro's Cuba is paradise. People risk their lives to flee.

- Does a woman's decisions about "her own body" include fickle decisions regarding whether or not to have kids? As in, have sex without birth control and then kill said child? Can that mother also kill her child if she breaks up with the man in the first year of the child's life? Is it okay to partially deliver the baby and then spike his/her brain?

- Liberals dislike Jesus. Some can accept Him as a man if they cast Him as a pacifist and a vegan. Of course the miracle of the loaves and FISH are lost on them. They have never understood the concept of hate the sin but love the sinner. Celebrating perversity does no one any good. The laws in Leviticus are quickly denounced by the left yet the omit the origin of the word Sodomy from the discussion. What's that word used when a man eats shellfish again???

- The left loathes the military. John Kerry considers it wrong for a man to die serving America; our troops should be dispatched by the United Nations if that man is to die with honor.

- The sex positive agenda (of which the homosexual agenda is the battering ram) is not about prohibiting disease or pregnancy. Offering condoms in schools has already surrendered the biggest hurdle in this issue ("well kids are just GONNA have sex anyway"). The sex positive agenda (as espoused at sites like http://www.allaboutsex.org/ and those they link) is about getting EVERYONE sexually active at EVERY age. If you are celibate or engaging in abstinence then you are denying sexual desires and therefore UNHEALTHY. These are the freaks who create the coursework for sex education. There are no "morally" wrong acts to them (although rape is frowned upon they are quite okay with rape fantasies).

- Iraq was a socialist dictatorship. Continuing some socialist programs in an impoverished nation is not establishing a double standard in US policy.

- Asinine argument that conservatives have never claimed..

- Global warming is coming quick considering in the 1970s we were told of a looming Ice Age. Tobacco and cancer may be linked but are "secondhand smoke" and cancer? George Burns lived to 100 and smoked regularly; didn't a hip injury play a part in his death? More conservatives would like to hear references to the Christian heritage of early settlers in America in schools than any talk of creationism. Meanwhile, should we still discuss the Piltdown Man in discussions of the origin of man? "He" was presented as fact in the Scopes Monkey Trial and exposed as a fraud in 1953.

- Bill Clinton lied in court to prohibit a citizen from having a fair hearing of the evidence in her case alleging sexual harassment, something that "feminists" fought for 30 years. There is evidence to suggest that the man is a serial rapist. The left looked the other way and said "the first grope is free".

- Our constitution sets up a government comprised of 3 branches, legislative, executive, and judicial. The judicial branch has the LEAST power and is NOT the branch which creates law. Amendments to the Constitution MAKE them constitutional; this would be done by the LEGISLATIVE branch. If it is not done, activist judges threaten to establish legal precedence and dictate by judicial tyranny.

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