Posted on 09/27/2006 11:30:48 AM PDT by truthandlife
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has launched an attack on Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, saying Dobson and his "band of thugs” are "nasty bullies” and accusing the Republicans of pandering to the Christian right.
In an interview with Ryan Sager, author of the book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party,” Armey said the GOP was "adrift and rudderless” in its commitment to small government.
When pressed by Sager about what he feels is wrong with today’s Republican Congress, Armey – who became majority leader when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994 and retired in 2003 – said: "The criteria of choice in just about every behavior you see in Congress today is politics. Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? There’s not a conservative, Constitution-loving, separation-of-powers guy alive in the world that could have wanted that bill on the floor.
"That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson. That’s all it was. It was silly, stupid, and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. But the question was will this energize our Christian conservative base for the next election.”
Sager asked why it seems that Christian conservatives are more powerful now than in the 1990s. Armey replied: "To a large extent because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There’s a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn’t work unless it’s dumb . . . These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic.”
Armey, who was first elected as a Congressman from Texas in 1984, toned down his remarks – but only slightly – in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 23. He again brought up Dobson: "The national representatives of the social conservative movement used to be sophisticated and tolerant. Today, they are sophomoric and angry. It's an embarrassing spectacle seeing leaders bullied around by the likes of James Dobson, or watching the Christian Coalition team up with MoveOn.org in support of bigger government.”
Armey – now chairman of FreedomWorks, a national grassroots advocacy organization – did not reserve his criticism for the GOP, going on to write: "Perhaps the only thing more embarrassing than being a loyal Republican in this election season is being a loyal Democrat. Although the party has offered no proposal to fix Social Security, the aspiring House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader hopeful, Harry Reid, held yet another press conference recently denouncing the secret Republican plan to "privatize" the failing entitlement.
"While Democrat pollsters are no doubt telling their candidates that the P-word will effectively scare seniors and other swing constituencies to the polls, this strategy has consistently failed in past election cycles.”
Yes, I've heard of a typo, and it looks like you just made another (grammer) Yet how can you logically jump to the conclusion from my comments that I take my orders from Dobson?
Agreed. I was thinking the same thing when I read those comments. It would seem the idea of small government died with the Bush administration, as recently suggested by Fred Barnes. So why isn't Dick Armey whining about them?
I remember having an uncomfortable feeling watching and listening to DA when he was in the House. He seemed edgy, unstable, and antagonistic.
Real conservatives want smaller government. Real conservatives don't want to use the government to push through legislation covering some pet peeve just because they can. For example, I hate smoking. However, it would never cross my mind to use the power of government to ban other people from smoking or allowing smoking in their businesses. "Social Conservatives" (really just Southern Democrats captured by Nixon's Southern Strategy) see nothing wrong with using law to force their beliefs on others. Those folks are not Real Conservatives any more than are Radical Environmentalists.
That's your job to see that good solid conservatives are running in the primaries. Don't just sit there and whine. Do something about it.
I am not talking about your typing. I am addressing your vitriolic attacks on anyone who has a faith in Jesus Christ. I looked over your past posts, and one thing you are consistent about is belittling and mocking Christians. I do not know what hurt you are nursing from your past, but God is a forgiving God. I will pray for you, that you can release your hate of anything Christian.
I like Dr. Dobson and I respect what he has invested his life in. What have you done to serve? How have you spent your life? What will you have accomplished by the time you die? I hope and pray you have a positive impact on the world.
God Bless You
Ibheath
Apparently you're unaware of the meaning of the word "penumbra."
Conservatism != Libertarianism .
Good Lord, there have been more straw men erected in this thread than you'd see in a drive through Iowa cornfields! I call "no fair"!
Just how many in the "christian right" want to establish a theocracy? 100, 200 people of the 24 million? It's pure hyperbole to say that a marriage definition or protecting the innocent equate to "forcing beliefs on others". By that definition, ANY law would qualify.
I am well aware of the meaning of the word "penumbra" as used by Justice Douglas in Griswald v. Connecticut to create a constitutional right that didn't exist anywhere in the test of the Constitution, and which was later used by Justice Blackmun to give women the constitutional right to kill their unborn children.
I think we should at least get through the 2006 mid term elections first. There is a matter of survival to control the House and Senate. Once November is past, then conservatives will beging to assemble a slate of candidates.
Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have not done any favors for GOP conservatives, they have actually sidetracked the efforts to maintain control of the House and Senate with their constant drivel.
Then you should be aware that penumbra means "partial shadow" not "underlying principle."
That's one of the dictionary definitions. I'm talking Supreme Court definitions. FYI:
http://www.nationalreview.com/levin/levin200503140754.asp
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/griswold.html
Note Justice Douglas' use of the word "penumbra":
In NAACP v. Alabama we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid "as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association." Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. The right of "association," like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion; and while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.
The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen.
RINOS working their way out of the wood work.
We are beginning to see more and more of them in recent months.
I believe that depends on who you ask.
Good Lord, there have been more straw men erected in this thread than you'd see in a drive through Iowa cornfields!
I agree. Like the one about Dick attacking all Christians. Had he done that, I would share the anger of many posters on this thread. But he didn't. He was talking about Dobson and his organization.
It is as fallacious to use an overly broad brush to defend Christians as it is to attack them. The left tries (and tries, and tries...) to paint the Christian right as a monolithic, hive-like entity. This is patently false, but treating a criticism of A Christian as equivalent to criticizing ALL Christians is not the best refutation of that notion. It would be like accusing someone who voices a strong disapproval of Guiliani or McCain of being anti-Republican.
It's pure hyperbole to say that a marriage definition or protecting the innocent equate to "forcing beliefs on others". By that definition, ANY law would qualify.
I totally agree with you regarding protecting the innocent. I believe that the only laws that should exist are those that protect people from other people. But the harsh reality is, many laws exist (or are "pending existence") which DO qualify as "forcing belief". It is easy to see when it comes from the left; it's not so easy when it comes from our side. In all of these cases, the laws are justified using tenuous rationales for protecting some group or another, when in reality they are attempts to make everyone "be like me".
Not the same thing. Penumbras relate to contextual circumstances.
The Constitution enumerates rights like the right to bear arms, speak freely, assemble, to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment or unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.
However, only living people can even exercise such rights in the first place.
That's not circumstantial - that's a fundamental assumption without which the Constitution is a nonsense document that at this present moment in time enforces the right of people who died a hundred years ago not to be charged excessive bail.
You are arguing your pooint like a liberal justice trying to legislate from the bench. I don't think Justices Scalia or Thomas or the "Great One," Mark Levin, would agreee with you. I certainly don't.
Sad way to admit you have no argument.
Perhaps Armey's little organization isn't as successful as Dobsons!
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