Posted on 11/07/2004 1:30:29 AM PST by Pikamax
God bless America for dropping the dead donkey
GERALD WARNER
IT’S the morality, stupid! The American presidential election turned out to be a bonfire of the vanities for the acolytes of political correctness (even Tom Wolfe was supporting Dubya). So much for Bill Clinton’s suddenly outdated axiom that elections are about the economy - not that the notorious Oval Office onanist could credibly have opted for moral confrontation. As forecast in this column last week, America’s Christian and cultural conservatives came out fighting and reclaimed their country.
The whole notion, of course, was risible in the eyes of the liberal media on both sides of the Atlantic. That people in the 21st century ("in this day and age", as liberalism’s most brain-dead cliché phrases it) would come out and vote on abortion, stem-cell research and homosexual ‘marriage’, instead of addressing such important issues as medical welfare, gender equality and closer engagement with Europe had the liberal élite rolling in the aisles. They are not laughing now. They stopped laughing at around 7.30pm, Eastern Time, on Tuesday evening, as the first disturbing reports came in from the Florida count.
Until then, the Democratic camp and its media fellow travellers had revelled in the reports of a record turnout. As their television screens relayed pictures of unprecedented queues snaking for several blocks around polling stations, the élite leaped to the egotistic, patronising conclusion that the common people had come swarming out, like extras in an Eisenstein film, to implement the revolution that their betters had devised for them.
That crass delusion epitomised the fissiparous detachment of the liberal subculture from the real America: those lines of voters were not The People - just people, the mainstream Americans with whom the Democrats are now hopelessly out of touch. They were mostly Christians; but they were not, for the most part, bible-thumping disciples of white-suited tele-evangelists - at least not in the states that crucially mattered. They were ordinary, church-going husbands and wives, mild in their manner but firm in their convictions. In 2000, when it was "the economy, stupid", no fewer than four million of them abstained. This time, they came out.
And no wonder they did. The East Coast and Californian liberals had made a science of provocation. The nightly spectacle on television of thousands of same-sex ‘marriages’ in California and Massachusetts was promoted by the homosexual lobby on the principle that familiarity breeds content. The reaction of Middle America to this in-your-face aggression was quite the reverse.
Liberals’ inexplicable fixation with the militant homosexual cause (representative of less than 3% of the population) proved self-destructive. In the past month, that lobby has destabilised such widely disparate institutions as the Anglican Church, the European Commission and, now, the Democratic Party. With all 11 states where referenda were held on same-sex marriage rejecting the proposition by majorities that had to be weighed rather than counted, the constitutional amendment that will finally resolve this issue is in the bag.
How quaint, thought European and New York liberals, that voters should be concerned that one in four Americans is aborted in the womb, when they could be supporting measures that would put an extra $500 in their pockets. How ignorant to oppose stem-cell research that will save so many lives. Who got their priorities right? Are the Americans not more thoughtful, more moral and more intelligent to worry about mass extermination of babies?
As for the exploitation of human embryos, it is not hill-billy stupidity to query the destruction of human life, especially when the inflated claims being made for embryo stem-cell research are as far-fetched, in truly scientific terms, as those made for the Philosopher’s Stone and a cruel deception of the critically ill. And is it not strange that this nation of Luddites and scientific illiterates can send probes to the farthest reaches of the solar system, while enlightened Britain can barely run a train up the West Coast line from London to Glasgow?
Make no mistake, this election was a Christian-led counter-revolution. The national exit poll conducted for Associated Press and the major US television networks found that the highest electoral motivation, at 22%, was "moral values". Among weekly churchgoers, Bush scored 61%, Kerry 39%. This broke down into 70% of Protestants, 56% of Catholics. The latter have had their moral and doctrinal sensitivities blunted by Vatican II, yet there are signs that even Catholics indoctrinated by Justice ’n’ Peace guff are on the turn. When the chips were down, in the swing state of Ohio, 65% of Catholics came out for Bush.
As this column predicted last week, the state of Iowa, with its large Catholic electorate, defected to Bush; the other state forecast to do the same - Wisconsin - was just held by John Kerry. Nationally, he got the support of 60% of those who said they "never" attended church; but since they amount to 14% of voters, that was scant consolation.
Across the Union, this election was as historic as it was dramatic. George W Bush led by 3.5 million in the popular vote and won four million more votes than Ronald Reagan in his 1984 landslide. The turnout was the equivalent of 70% in a British election, with 120 million Americans casting their votes. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are now in solid Republican control: that makes a conservative Supreme Court, with both power and a strong popular mandate to reverse Roe v Wade and other liberal obscenities, a shoo-in.
"Dude, here’s our country!" That is what real Americans told Michael Moore, the hygienically challenged human hamburger whose Pravda-style propaganda has earned him more fans in Cannes than in all 50 states of the Union. Now he wants Hillary Clinton to challenge for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Great idea: an East Coast, liberal, feminist überbitch that might have been computer-realised by Karl Rove, to leave the Democrats with just California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Bring her on!
Hillary would be an appropriate sequel to Theresa Heinz Kerry, the worst First Lady that America never had. Yet the one memorable phrase of her non-campaign might have summed up the motivation of those millions of middle Americans queuing for seven hours outside polling stations: "Shove it!"
The whole vile, patronising agenda of the bespectacled drabby wimmin, the Florida conspiracy bores, the wine-bar Europhiles and the Hollywood freak show has been trashed. Infanticide is out of fashion; embryos may not be cannibalised much longer; Butch and Sundance will not be taking a trip down the aisle in their lifetimes. Consider it shoved, lady.
I love it, the guy writes a great political article and slams Vatican II at the same time.
Gotta love it!
While purist conservatives examine their navels on another thread about how much bigger the margin of victory would have been if only this or that had been done..I want to enjoy this GREAT article..
WE WON!
Life is good.
"I think I'm in love with this writer."
Me too!
I loved this part "The [Catholics] have had their moral and doctrinal sensitivities blunted by Vatican II, yet there are signs that even Catholics indoctrinated by Justice ’n’ Peace guff are on the turn."
He really gets the Catholics. I knew something was happening when I went to Mass two weeks before election and the priest gave a homily all against abortion, embryo research, euthanasia, he was practically pounding on the lectern saying "THIS IS MURDER!" and all in a quite pointed political context (no endorsement given, of course). I sincerely have never seen anything quite like that in a Catholic Church, and I've seen this man say Mass before, it was amazing. I was thinking "The revolution must have begun."
Thank the Good Lord we won this round, but it's gonna be a slog, we must not stand down, but keep fighting the forces of evil and socialism wherever they are found.
Concur..who IS this guy?..we shoudl start a mini-fan club for him..I checked the paper..no e-mail link..can anyne find one?
the élite leaped to the egotistic, patronising conclusion that the common people had come swarming out, like extras in an Eisenstein film, to implement the revolution that their betters had devised for them.
That's really what it was. And they are just so infuriated that we somehow rebelled against our role in their little drama.
"And they are just so infuriated that we somehow rebelled against our role in their little drama"
Yep, that's so true. I guess they really did miss the hidden meaning of the stupendous success of "The Passion of the Christ", tens of millions of people that Hollyweird never knew existed.
Ouch. That's going to leave quite a few marks.
This appears to be a common theme amongst liberal leaning political science interpretters. This interpretation is also echoed amongst American liberals.
Be prepared for many liberal unbelievers to now focus on buttressing their positions in religious overtones with the primary intent of gaining power, while ignoring the consequences of scarring their souls. I suspect many, many, many false doctrines which have only been pronounced by those who hate believers, will now be advocated by the liberal elite in an attempt to 'tactfully' influence the beliefs of the popular vote.
For these reasons, Christians within America need to be more alert and studious of Scripture on a daily basis. Past Scriptural arguments which appeared to only discern between denominations are more likely to become issues between secular power structures, not in an attempt to remain faithful to God through Christ, but in an attempt to advocate one human institution over another.
Excellent point!
He misses a point. The vote was for a party that opposed more government programs (they were morally reprehensible as well) and against a party that was only interested in the further expansion of more government programs to expand the nanny states reach into the wallets, lives and free time of the people. The revolution is against the professional policy wonks who think they know better how we should spend our time and money than we ourselves. It is on the set of people who view the set of unennumerated powers retained by the people as being a null set rather then everything that wasn't specifically given to the congress.
And which state had a measure to give the people back and extra $500 per taxpayer??
Carolyn
Major b*tch slap!
I think the author should have just told it like it is. /sarcasm
God bless America!
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