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
When was the last time that the Left had an idea, position, or campaign that wasn't based entirely on a t-shirt-style slogan.
Jesus never spoke of personal rights. He also never spoke of different races needing different rules or ideas. He spoke of all men having responsibilities to their fellow man, but never once noted that it was Ceasar who should be used as a broker for satisfying those responsibilities.
I'm not sure that God was concerned so much with their desire for a king, but rather he was opposed to their want of a king like themselves and ultimately reject a righteous king that actually cared for them.
Anyone that is a born again Christin has the same direct line as I do.
That's easy: for political gain. The Right has an incredibly strong support from more than 60% of Christians, and anything that damages that support is a net positive for them on election day.
Further, the Liberals, who weild guilt like a scalpel, cannot allow those Christians who vote for Democrats to feel like their stances are incompatible, and that they are choosing petty politics over their faith. The Left might lose potential votes... the only thing that actually matters to their leadership.
Great reply.
thank you.
My note to Linda,
Subject: Jesus would vote Democratic
Ms. Valdez,
Somehow in your editorial you didn’t mention the number one item of faith for Democrats/liberals. Not a word was written about the adamant demand for unfettered abortion at any time and everywhere in the world.
Babies are the most innocent and helpless among us, it’s hard to picture Democrats/liberals clinging righteously to Jesus’ teaching of “love, tolerance, forgiveness, charity and humility” as a baby’s head is extracted, pierced, and their brains are sucked out.
I know that liberals are ubiquitously brilliant, just ask them, so maybe this won’t be a problem, but I’m foolish enough to think that Jesus would bemoan the 30 – 40 million American babies killed by abortion and maybe ask some questions.
RJL
Great line. I would add that liberals are more than willing to hire someone else to spill blood for their agenda (see: Abortion).
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.
Excellent, it's a keeper.
Turning Christ in to a political activist is the height of blasphemy.
This is the same BS the left always uses for trying to define the Democrat party as the party of "god". This must be some Wallis manure.
Christ never preached BLIND love.
This is the same as when homosexuals demand christianity must accept and sanction their sexual behavior because it would be "unchristian" to judge homosexuality as wrong.
I mark Sheehan, the "phrase the argument" DNC movement, and even this jesus would vote debate as THE RETURN OF PONYTAIL REPORTER. (this is when Bill Clinton was asked by some hippie reporter to think of americans as "his chuuuldren")
Newflash to the hippies, stop smoking pot.
Idiot lefties...correction...all lefties will say anything to give justification to their illogical ideals. It makes them feel good.
Bahahaha
Let's see what his "Dad" had to say on what the RATs want to put in every school K-12
What Does the Bible Say About . . . .
HOMOSEXUALITY, ADULTERY & OTHER SEXUAL SINS
http://www.bibleplus.org/homosexuality/homo.htm#The%20story%20of%20Sodom%20and%20Gomorrah
JESUS WOULD NOT MURDER BABIES.
lol...right. King of kings, Lord of lords. I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of voting or debate when Christ returns.
Jesus wouldn't even vote RINO.
I suspect he would be clear to say Immorality in the name of being fair is still wrong.
Abortion is wrong.
I suspect what he said back then is still what he would say now:
Love the Lord your God with everything you've got (my truncated summary) and love your neighbor as yourself.
He also didn't say, "Set up a government that will love your neighbor (in the sense of taking care of his needs) for you so you don't have to."
He certainly wouldn't be behind those who are trying to take God out of the public sphere.
But then, the liberal viewpoint in religion hasn't believed Jesus was God for years and years. They haven't believed in the orthodox view of the Trinity for years and years. Forget the virgin birth, they don't believe in the miracles, and most especially, the ressurection is talked away, like it was some symbolic event.
Their image of Jesus is far from the Jesus I worship. That image could vote democratic, but that's not the Jesus that the disciples knew.
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