Posted on 11/07/2004 1:55:26 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The transcripts show that John F. Kerry said the right things to connect with religion-minded voters, with his earnest speeches about God's work on Earth and invocations of faith and Scripture. Yet they landed with a thud on a populace conditioned to view liberal Democrats as faithless intellectuals.
No doubt Kerry's stiff New England style didn't help. This is not what religious faith looks like to much of the rest of the country, especially the South.
Yet one candidate's stiffness cannot fully explain the "God gap" that drives people of faith, and those more concerned with moral issues than economic ones, to vote disproportionately Republican. They just don't believe that the Democrats share their values. More than any other factor, this failure cost the Democrats the presidency and four Senate seats on Tuesday.
Democrats are getting free advice from all over. We do not agree with those who say the Democratic Party must embrace moral issues as now defined by conservatives and exploited by Republican strategists. Opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights will always be Republican issues, and the Democrats shouldn't want them.
What the Democrats should do is recast their own issues in moral terms. It shouldn't be hard. Democrats seem oblivious to their platform's moral potency: innocent children suffering because their families can't get health insurance; platoons of young men and women dying in a war that didn't have to be; the pillaging of God's green Earth. Those are "values" issues too, but the Democrats haven't figured out how to frame them that way.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Morality can be cloaked in religious terms but in the end these rules are necessary for survival because they work. Moral societies prosper, immoral societies decay, not because one is good and the other bad, it's because one follows the laws of survival and the other doesn't.
Maybe people in this voted for Bush in this election out of survival instinct.
As I see it, the Democrats want to force their views on everyone regardless of how revolutionary those ideas are. I'm from the South and in the South we trust people as long as they do not give us a reason not to trust and for many years now we have had hundreds of reasons not to trust Democrats because they have shown us they are not trustworthy. Now that Christian values are being looked at, watch them try to mimic..It will not work because true Christians are quite good at spotting hypocrites. The liberals talk a lot but the action does not match. They want to be able to act out their "basic instincts" each and every time the mood hits and they want someone else to bear the consequences. It is called instant gratification and it is the thing that the Christian faith says we must control if we are to truly love our neighbor as ourselves because total self-gratification does not love..We have a huge opportunity now, first in our families and in our neighborhoods to pull together in a "love thy neighbor" mode which the world has never seen. Let's do it! Bake those cookies at Christmas for those who live on either side of you or in your building. Ask that elderly person over for a chat and a cup of coffee. Ask them about their lives and make them feel the continuing purpose that God has as long as life endures. I do some of this but not enough so I am talking to myself here. Last week I began by taking cookies to a 93 year old who has just lost his wife. He is very lonely and just relishes the gift of time anyone gives which shows an interest in him. The nursing homes are full and a great place to take simple holiday gifts and to give a lonely old person a hug..Then, there are the little children.."Suffer the little children and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of Heaven." Need I say more on this Sunday morning..Have a good one!
They desperately do not want the people to decide these issues. They can control the courts, sometimes through corruption but it is very hard to totally control "the people."
Great advice.
---"What the Democrats should do is recast their own issues in moral terms. "'
There has never been a time in all of their existence that they HAVE NOT cast their issues in moral terms!
There has never been a time in all of their existence that they have not sneered down at all others from the heights of their moral superiority!
They have been calling anyone who does not agree with them "Hitler", "Nazi" and "evil" for as long as I can remember. (I recall calling them on that tactic in the late '70's)
The problem with Liberals is that they believe THEMSELVES to be the progenitors of all that is right and good on the earth.
Democrats take a few positions with a moral underpinning. But in the majority of causes, they're on the wrong side.
-- Democrats are opposed to war in principle, but are unaffected by the actual, existing war on babies that is abortion.
-- Democrats support government "welfare" programs, but could care less about giving tax relief to working Americans.
-- Democrats would like everyone to have an income, but are unconcerned about the wealth-destructive effect our illegitimate, continuously inflating fiat currency.
This list is very long.
It is not enough for Democrats to now *say* they support the right side of an issue -- their history of taking the wrong side is so extensive; they need to actually make real progress in rectifying past misdeeds before claiming the right to shape policy.
Excellent take. The bulwark of Western civilization is imperiled by the libertine left. Their claim to moral superiority is spurious, and has always been about disestablishmentarianism-----tearing down our morally-based cultural strengths. Their religious-hating politics are calculated to destroy, not build on Western Civilization, as their oft-repeated agenda demonstrates:
THE LIBERAL CREDO
1. Capitalism creates oppression; government creates opportunity.
2. Traditional gender roles are artificial but feminism and homosexuality are government-protected lifestyles. 3. Self-esteem is paramount; government must undertake to
guarantee each citizen-victim self-esteem no matter the cost.
4. The ACLU is good, because destroying religion and silencing believers are protected by the Constitution and the First Amendment; The NRA is bad because it defends the Constitution.
5. Standardized IQ tests are racist; racial quotas and affirmative action are not.
6. Conservatives are racists; everybody knows that Black people can't make it on their own without big-buck government assistance programs and Hollyweirdos to proselytize the message 24/7.
7. Normal sex is perverted. Threesomes, bestiality, necrophilia, homosexuality are just new ways to get a thrill.
8. Moral indignation is a liberal's standard strategy for endowing our output with superiority.
9. Victimization is our basic belief by which we blame and find others responsible for our own personal failures, then expect taxpayers, deep-pocketed individuals, or the courts to bail us out. It feels good to be in the throes of "victimization" and either A) causing victims, B) concocting victims, C) playing victim, D) commiserating over victims, or E) creating another class of victims to bleed over.
10. It's a liberal's duty to treat Middle America in the manner of raising mushrooms, that is to say, keep them in the dark and feed them lots of horse manure.
A couple of years ago, our govenor tried to enact sweeping tax increases that were ultimately rejected by a 2/1 vote of the people. During the campaign leading up to the referendum, each Sunday saw a new editorial by a minister of a large urban church in heavily democrat counties. These editorials were all the same, 'It is your duty as a Christian to support these tax increases.' These calls were often accompanied by references to scripture. I fully expect democrats to adopt these tactics in the future. It will fail in these 'Red' states just as badly as the referendum failed since real religious persons know that the Bible itself warns against 'false prophets' and tells us to judge them by their acts, not their rhetoric.
Just keep this firmly in mind...if it weren't for the millions of Christians who voted for this Christian president, you would be looking at at least four years of John Kerry as leader of the free world. Without the tremendous involvement of people of faith in this election, President Bush could not have won, and if the Libertarian Party insists on its amoral stance, it will never amount to more than it is today.
Whether people believe it or not, this is why the dems don't get it. They just can not grasp the fact that people who believe in God know what God's will is for the most part, (bible) and Abortion and Gay Marriage is certainly not contained there in as God's values. These two issues are certainly not the end all issues for the electorate, but the republicans have shown who is willing to be more responsible with articulating their views.
The repubs actually have learned you can not FORCE your will on the citizens. It's ironic since the 60's how the dems have taught a "NO VALUES" way and here we are 40 years later and they are paying the price for their selfish ignorance!
Kitty, I realize that, and I don't begrudge you anything. However, you have to likewise realize that while the actual atheist vote was probably miniscule, that countless non-church going men and women voted for President Bush as well, and without them, Kerry would have won as well. The GOP is a big tent, and the simple truth is that he couldn't have won if we hadn't all pulled together.
You and I worked together to get this man elected Kitty. I give you full credit for your part, and I thank you. Don't you think it's only fair that I get the same in return? After all, my vote counted for as much as yours did.
I've figured out the new democrat strategy for winning elections. Instead of calling us 'dumb redneck Christians' for not supporting their ideas, they'll call us 'immoral redneck Christians' for not supporting their policies.
I don't think we have much to worry about.
I have no doubt that this was a war of good vs evil. Now it is up to us to live up to the image.
You know, they are running out of things to call us.
Sorry, it's late, I'm sick, and I didn't initially catch your last sentence. Why does this libertarian thing keep coming up? Someone else said I was a libertarian earlier to day (and I pinged him). Sorry to dissapoint, but I'm not a libertarian.
I don't do drugs, have no desire to start doing drugs, and I even regret the drugs I partook of in my youth. With the possible exception of marijuana, I don't want to legalize drugs either. A drugged up society is a dangerous society, and to sum up my feelings on that, I have children. Nuff said.
I want a strong military with strategic bases around the globe as needed. The LP party notion of no deployment abroad is suicidal.
I'm very much pro-Isreal, and find the LP position of throwing Israel to the dogs to be reprehensible. I want no part of it.
I don't cheat on my wife, don't want to cheat on my wife, and I certainly don't want another wife . As far as my political position on gay marriage etc, it wouldn't break my heart if the fed got out of marriage business.
I don't have a problem with speed limits, zoning laws, drivers licenses, airport searches or any of the common sense law and order measures the libertarian party routinely screams about.
I think Roe should be overturned, and the issue of abortion should be sent back to the states. Some will ban it, some won't. It should be a state issue as it was before 1973.
Those are the big LP issues that come to me off the top of my head. I agree with very little of it. Do you people just assume that anyone who isn't a christian must be a libertarian or what?
I hear you. I don't know which is worse, the left assuming that I must be one of them because I'm not religious, or some of those on the right who instantly assume the same thing. I'm amazed at a few threads on freep, where it's almost like disbelief that I'm a hard-core Bush supporter, and an atheist.
Your are right about the millions of Christians voting, but that was only putting our faith to work. I believe that it was the millions of prayers going up that actually got the job done. We must not let down now.
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