Posted on 08/18/2005 7:34:07 AM PDT by against_kerry
The Democrats turn their lonely eyes to Hillary: Give us a message. Lead us home.
Even for the Wonder Woman of the Party of JFK, this is no easy task. How to decry the excesses of the Bush administration and the GOP Congress without validating the label "The Party of No"?
How to lure enough GOP votes to win elections at a time when Democrat means liberal and liberal is a term of derision?
A Web site set up by a minister and his daughter (www.liveliberal.com) has an answer you can wear on a T-shirt: "Liberal is not a dirty word."
Retired Lutheran minister Daniel Bruch of Live Liberal gets right to the point: "I don't know if Jesus was the first liberal, but he was an important one."
Jesus taught love, tolerance, forgiveness, charity and humility. Don't take my word for it. Read the New Testament. It's not that long. And it's not about fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism, judging one another or dominating the Earth. It outlines a philosophy based on a really radical idea: Love your creator, love yourself, love your neighbor as yourself.
When it comes to following this lesson, the current administration "is walking 180 degrees opposite of the person they call their savior," Bruch said in a phone interview.
On their Web site, Bruch and daughter Sarah offer quotes and essays on liberalism that Hillary Rodham Clinton should work into her speeches. For example, "liberals support changes that increase personal freedom and tolerance, and exercise the liberty to empower government to the extent necessary to achieve those ends."
Instead of trying to make their best candidate, Clinton, into a vanilla-flavored, inoffensive centrist, Democrats ought to boldly point out that liberals provided the impetus to move society toward acceptance of civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, consumers' rights, etc.
Liberals also deserve "family values" mantle because the 40-hour workweek, laws against child labor and other protections for workingmen and women were liberal ideas of old. High-quality childcare is a liberal idea for today's working families.
They should be "for" better wages.
They should be "for" national health care.
They should be "for" being liberals. They should point out that Jesus was a liberal, too.
Somehow, Democrats let others define them as elitist snobs. That label, not the liberal label, is the one Democrats have to shake.
Can Hillary help them do it?
She has the charisma and the intelligence -- and she has infinite patience, or Bill would be toast. She needs the guts to take a proud left turn and loudly proclaim that the United States is not a "Christian nation" in any pinched or exclusionary way. It's a nation that honors the individual rights of pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others, as well as Christians.
It is also nation that acts for the common good in ways that were meticulously outlined by a radical liberal named Jesus. Linda Valdez is an editorial writer at The Arizona Republic. She can be reached at linda.valdez@arizonarepublic.com
Someone call the ACLU
Personally I think Jesus would be an independent and wouldn't run around telling others how to vote.
Interesting she lists pagans first.
Uhm, ok. I'm having a tough time picturing Jesus as a NARAL rally.
Even for the Wonder Woman of the Party of JFK, this is no easy task.
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You mean "the Party of Bill Clinton"...let's keep the blame where the blame belongs.
Yes, he would be a single issue voter, and base his vote on the abortion issue.
The RAT party has become the home of some of the stupidist people in the counry
One wonders what Jesus would make of a party that whole-heartedly endorses and promotes the dismemberment and vaccuuming out of babies in utero. Something about millstones comes to mind...
What a pathetic article. According to the article, Jesus would vote for abortion.
OK - what part of the Ten Commandments can the authoress not understand?
I think that you are wrong. I vote exactly the way that the Bible tells me to. No doubt that Jesus would be a conservative!!!!!!
A Mega-Barf Alert is mandatory with articles like this...
- Samuel Johnson
I think Jesus would be encouraging responsibility and honesty, something lacking in today's society.
The ACLU would file a lawsuit to prevent Jesus from voting because that would be mixing "religion" and "state".
Plus, Jesus might turn the ballots into wine.
Hopefully, He would just raise His hand, and smite ALL politicians.
Doublethink is insufficient to handle this. I need to go to triplethink.
When I start explaining government and power to liberal friends, the give me the same look that a dog gives when explaining nuclear physics to them. The start looking nervous and uncomfortable when I tell them that I don't want to be chained to the oars of the ship of government when Hillary wants to take her friends and political cronies water skiing. They really don't like it when I tell them that "liberal" was a term that FDR hijacked to mean "not quite as authoritarian as Hitler and Mussolini". A liberal is a socialist who isn't quite willing to get blood on his hands yet.
Yep, those liberals are "tolerant" of those who don't think like them... Yeah, right. Have you heard them make fun of "Jesus nuts"? I have. And love? How about using a woman who's son has died - who's husband is leaving her? And for their political gain? They would sell their grandmothers for political gain - and they do. Look how they've stonewalled saving Social Security.
And charity? Not on their dime - and then the "charity" is used to make the vulnerable dependent. Turns 'em into animals, but hey, they vote for dems... And forgiveness? They never forgive - dems are the party of hate. They hate Bush, they hate conservatives, they hate people who stand for life, they hate people who own guns, they hate the military, they hate conservatives.
Wishful thinking.
The first thing that Jesus taught was Love God.
That automatically excludes Democrats who big government.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time not responding by saying "Jesus tap-dancing Christ." This column is offensive.
Christ Almighty cares not for earthly politics, of that I'm sure. I'm also sure that He would be the last individual to support the agenda of NARAL.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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