Posted on 11/06/2004 6:43:14 AM PST by TruthShallSetYouFree
I live in Morris County, NJ, a red stronghold in a blue state. Last night, my wife and I went out to dinner with another couple, with whom we have been very close friends for 25 years. The political leanings of the four of us range from very, very conservative to extremely conservative.
While waiting for our food, we sipped some wine and waxed poetic about the recent election. I’m sure it was a scene that was duplicated in virtually every city in the country, if not the world. The discussion was taking place in normal conversational tones. We did not whisper when we said “Kerry,” nor shout when we said “Bush.” The restaurant, a small establishment in a strip mall, had only a few other patrons at the time. While aware that our words could be easily overheard if anyone was paying attention, we were not concerned because we were not using foul language nor making any really insulting observations. Indeed, our conversation could have easily been taking place at one of those “town meetings” that the lib cable networks like to hold.
Apparently, the nature of the conversation (basically a group “Hi-Five”) was more than a distraught, disgruntled liberal at a nearby table could bear. She was an attractive, older woman (she admitted to being 70) who had the longish hair and aging-hippie clothing that is typical of her ilk. My best guess is that she is a retired school teacher. She was dining with what appeared to be her husband. After suffering in silence for several minutes, she got up from her seat (she was sitting directly behind my wife and me) and walked over to our table.
If you are anticipating a blow-by-blow description of a major altercation, you’ve come to the wrong place. The woman put her arms gently on our shoulders and said, quite softly, that she had worked very hard for the past several months on the Kerry campaign, and was so upset and disappointed that things had not gone their way. I was in no mood to have a political discussion with Miss Birkenstock, so I basically ignored her. Indeed, a rolling of the eyes for my friends across the table was my entire physical reaction.
My wife, who, in the past year or so, has gotten far more interested in politics, could not let the moment pass. She said to the woman, in a very soothing voice, “Don’t worry, the country will be fine, Bush is a decent, honest man.”
The lib lady complained of the “lack of compassion” on the right. My wife defended our side and mentioned that she and I volunteer at an afternoon center for minority kids, helping them with their homework, and questioned if Kerry or Jesse or Sharpton or any of the “compassionate” libs pay more than lip service to the notion of helping the disadvantaged. The woman’s only really aggressive parting shot was that she hoped we all enjoyed living in a “theocracy.”
That actually struck me as funny, and, apparently, is a new liberal catch-word. We four conservative celebrants are composed of a secular Jew (me), an Eastern Orthodox Christian (my wife) and two lapsed Protestants. My wife is the only one of the four who is a regular church-goer. This notion that because “values” were an important component in the Bush victory, we have become a bible-thumping, holy-rolling theocracy is merely another instance where the left just doesn’t get it.
Here’s what they are missing: organized religion codifies morality, gives it form and structure, but morality (i.e., knowing right from wrong and doing what is right) does not require one to practice Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam. While religions clearly counsel their adherents to practice morality (except for the Wahabbi branch of Islam, but that’s for another essay), practicing morality does not require one to be a member of any particular religion, or any religion at all, for that matter. Our Founding Fathers, though they were Christians, were very much aware of this, and set up our Constitution to allow each citizen to practice whatever religion he might choose, or none at all.
John Kerry was being most disingenuous when he responded to a question in the last debate, about how he, as a Catholic, could condone the practice of partial birth abortion. He did his usual bob and weave and tap dance, and offered up the notion that, as a practicing Catholic, he finds the procedure abominable, but he can’t allow his personal religious beliefs to affect his political views. (Truth be told, Senator Kerry was really afraid that anything less than 100% acceptance of the precepts of the Planned Parenthood Wing of the Democrat Party would cost him their support.) Okay, John (and any other liberals who are lurking), here’s the scoop: What you said is totally, unquestionably, ridiculously WRONG!
A visitor could come here from another planet and would know that killing a two-year old kid is wrong. It wouldn’t take much of an inductive leap to realize that pulling a 9-month fetus halfway out of the birth canal and then piercing his skull and sucking his brain out is also wrong. Wrong for Christians, wrong for Jews, wrong for Muslims, wrong for atheists. Wrong! And anyone with a shred of morality and a working brain would also realize that kicking a pregnant woman in the abdomen and destroying the baby growing inside her is different from punching a guy in the mouth and knocking out a tooth.
If my liberal co-diner wants to see a real theocracy, she should visit the Mullahs in Iran. or the Muslims in Saudi Arabia. What we have in these United States is a return of good old-fashioned morality. Naturally, the amoral left equates that to a theocracy. It does not bode well for them in ’06 or ’08.
BTW, do you get the impression that there are certain people of faith that DEMS would like to see "disenfranchised?"
How true. Just like when they call us fascists.
Slightly off your request, but tangential...
The notion that Conservatives don't care about people;
Eric Hogue sat in for Hugh Hewitt the other day *talk radio* and got a call from an 8 year old that hated republicans for the same reason. It was scary to hear this kid talk.
We Conservatives, like my wife and I are just uncaring.
My wife and I have invested a large portion of our life's savings into real estate, stocks and other investments over our 20 years together. The proceeds have been sufficient to put us in a pretty comfortable financial position.
About 5 years ago, we started investing in a program that is guaranteed to lose us money. We bought a large piece of land and started sinking money into it to develop a summer camp for kids. So far, we have dumped close to $45,000 (not counting the land itself) and the money is gone. Not a penny comes back to us.
Why would two people who are reasonably knowledgeable about investments dump so much money into a venture like this?
We bring in kids whose parents are incarcerated, on drugs to the point they have been removed, and often living in foster homes. We give them an opportunity to learn about animals, camping, nature, gardening, and most importantly, the LOVE that Jesus Christ has for them.
Many of these kids come to accept Jesus as their savior. Living in the situations they do, the value this provices is priceless.
Hence, the ROI for this project is infinity.
If we didn't care about others, we could have taken a world tour with the money.
But now the project is stable, we can see kids each year come to the Lord and in 20 years we will have adults come knocking on our door telling us how much that week of summer camp meant to them. We think it is worth it.
We know many, many other Republicans who do similar things. What bothered me most was that some 8 year old's parents and teachers were filling her little head with this stuff. Who knows? Maybe we will get lucky and she will come to camp some time and find the truth?
No fava beans? I thought all Republican Theocrats ate human flesh.
I live in Hunterdon (used to live in Morristown) and this place went really solid for Bush also. Your post was great and I have to admit I had a similar reaction from my next door neighbor. There was no yelling but he and his family are no longer inviting me (nor any of his other neighbors who voted for Bush) to dinner ever again.
You got me on that one. It was the strangest thing. I guess she was trying to indicate that she was being non-confrontational.
I get the impression that the Dems would like to disenfranchise any and all people who don't vote for their candidate.
What's morally Right and what is morally Wrong will always be a "grey" area with libs. Hence their downfall
That would be too obvious....so much easier to paint "evangelicals" as dangerous. Let's see....wasn't it the Washpost that called 'em "poor, uneducated, and easily led?"
An in-law sent me an editorial endorsing Kerry. I responded that the editorial was really only luke warm for him and that the Dems did not have any coherent stand on anything, only their hatred for Bush.
I said that, like 2002, the dems would lose more Senate seats and even House seats since they had only one issue, which was a vote against Bush. No one wins that way. She bet that they would not.
Just got the check. I will return it since they are really hurting with the loss. No need to rub it in.
That infidels should be decapitated is a moral value. It's just one that I don't agree with.
God bless you and your wife--you are doing the work Christ calls us to do. The line about what you do to the least of Christ's brothers comes to mind when I read your story.
I work with a pro-life organization (Catholic) that helps women in crisis pregnancies. We provide them with material, emotional, and spiritual help (if they desire the spiritual help). Tomorrow we are throwing a shower for a young woman about to have a baby girl in about 4 weeks. We have done many of these showers, and it always amazes these young women are shocked that total strangers care about them and their babies. We in the pro-life movement have been accused of just wanting to save babies and not caring about the mother or what happens to them once the babies are born. This is not true...how many pro-abortion people do you see digging into their own closets to find maternity and baby clothes for total strangers? How many of them help these young women get to their doctor's appointments? How many of them help these young ladies with finding a place to live that is safe for them and their child(ren)? Yet we conservatives are the 'uncompassionate' ones...
Keep up your good work!
As my wife and I listened to that story on the radio, I thought to myself.. "When that kid is 18, they are going to be a Republican because they will realize that they have been lied to their entire life and will reject those who lied to them..."
Always an optimist! :)
but he and his family are no longer inviting me (nor any of his other neighbors who voted for Bush) to dinner ever again.
....well darlin let your neighbors eat crow while you dine on steak!
On 'moral values' I see this more as the idea of traditional, organic society underpinned by family, faith, common patriotic cause but personal individualism, rural realism, common sense, compassion and self-restraint. These have been the underpinnings of society in America.
By contrast, the left and hypercivilized Europe try to replace the individualist compassion and family relations with government structures, and feel comfort in belonging to a 'system' to handle these roles, even if that system is compulsory. Contrary to the left's disdain for 'moral values' as a political idea, the Dems have pushed morality on the public via the government as a central cause. They do not appreciate the intrusiveness of their plan, or that government crowds out and destroys certain necessary organic elements of society that folks rightly try to preserve.
The libs like the lib you met see their ideas as forward-moving enlightened thinking, and traditional values as backward, bigoted and primitive. The libs are still drunk on their progressive-ism from the 60's -- civil rights and Vietnam -- they still feel the rightness of their cause is unquestionable, and they see issues through the same prism.
My aunt, who has voted straight-ticket Republican since 10 years before I was born and who is otherwise very level-headed, does the exact same thing even to total strangers. Some people are just grabby by nature (and it drives me nuts when she does it to me).
These amoral people cannot admit that man needs anything but his selfishness (ie: if it feels good, do it.)
Freedom is NOT unmitigated sin and licentiousness. The left's notion of "freedom" is complete decadence and depravity.
No person watching television, listening to the radio, going to the movies, watching the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and the neverending slaughter of the unborn can argue America is suffering from TOO MUCH CHRISTIANITY.
I'd tell this woman who fears a theocracy if America were to become a theocracy, we'd have to ban everything coming out of Hollywood and New York, not to mention the Internet, which is mostly pornography. I don't see a danger of any of that happening.
Where these people don't get is they have the freedom to be stupid and sinful but not the freedom to put a government stamp of approval upon it and force the rest of us to go along.
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