Posted on 08/30/2008 7:09:59 AM PDT by chessplayer
Taking a look at the stories in the Old Media will show that the Media is turning attack dog ASAP on McCain's choice for vice president, Sarah Palin. Notice the main meme is her supposed "inexperience." Funny how Palin was the VP pick for about 15 seconds before the Old Media went after her "inexperience" while they have yet to hit Barry Obama on HIS inexperience at all and he's been running for president since 2004. We should also note that Palin didn't get the honeymoon that Biden got when his announcement was made. But, the worst is yet to come and the Daily Kos is doing its level best to mine the lowest of lows. In a Kos diary today, it is being alleged that Sarah Palin "faked" the pregnancy of her last child, a baby born with Down's Syndrome. The claim is that it was her teenaged daughter's child, not hers. And, true to form, the Kossacks took that absurd calumny and hate even further in the comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
1) Kolo: since you speak from such personal experience, I can fully understand your reaction. God bless your son and the 25 years you have been his loving father. Only someone who has parented a child with Down's Syndrome knows the extraordinary amount of time and effort and frustration and exhaustion and elation that comes with such a God-given task.
I think you're right, Kolo. Neither Sarah Palin nor her husband understands yet how their lives have been "profoundly changed by this baby." If they did, perhaps her choice to run would have been different.
2) Kosta, as my mother always told me, we do not have children when we decide; we have children when God decides to give them to us. At 44, I really would doubt this was a planned pregnancy. So it would be difficult to fault Palin for either the pregnancy, or for the brave choice to continue the pregnancy.
My two cents as a conservative is that Palin is a wonderful, energetic, intelligent personality for the Republican ticket.
My reaction as a wife and mother, however, is a little different. She's taking on an enormous work load (what could be greater in all the world?) while she still has small children at home, a son leaving for war, a pregnant, teen-aged daughter and a newborn who requires tremendous time and care.
The women's movement has been around long enough for a lot of us to know we can't "do it all." It's almost as if McCain saw the many fine attributes of Palin and didn't realize that some of those attributes might actually work against her because they rightly should come first in her life.
Whatever happens next, the election comes down to voting for a socialist or someone else. And I'll never vote for a socialist.
That is certainly our hope and prayer.
Whatever facts are available so far (read my other posts) indicate that there is good reason to doubt her decision-making, including her membership for 2 years in the 1990's in the separatist Alaskan Independence Party. [NYT, Sep 1, 2008], and that she was endorsed by the Alaskan Libertarian Party in her quest for governorship.
Does that give me confidence she is just right for the VP/Prez position? No it doesn't.
Do I judge her? You bet! That's what democracy is all about. As a voter, that's "my job," and if I didn't judge candidates I would be an irresponsible voter.
But I limit my judgments to evidence other than some gnostic knowledge of God's purpose in her or anyone else. If that's how nit is, why don't we just dispense with elections and ask some religious nut to ask God who is who and we could all save plenty of time and money.
In the meantime, I think I will stick with critical thinking and reason as a lot more responsible approach than simply assuming that such as such is a God-sent. How do you know Obama isn't? God told you?
Doubting a candidate, especially for such a high position, is a duty of every citizen until any doubt has been removed and until every peace of dirty laundry has been exposed and proven clean.
In the meantime, you can work on providing some sensible evidence that she is God-sent. Good luck.
That's a plus, not a minus.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
That means God "makes" us have children. I don't buy that, and you know that. That may be what you believe, and I am fine with that, but that is by not necessarily the way it is.
At 44, I really would doubt this was a planned pregnancy. So it would be difficult to fault Palin for either the pregnancy, or for the brave choice to continue the pregnancy
I salute her choice for continuing the pregnancy. But if she thought the pregnancy was something God decided she shold not have been saddened, confused and shocked, words she used to describe her reaction when she found out (at 16 weeks) that the child has Down's Syndrome.
She would have accepted it as a real possibility, given her age, and as God's will. If you put everyting in God's hands, then nothing should shock, sadden or confuse you.
So, the Grand Old Party dominated by Evangelicals is now led by a presidential candiate who is anything but conservative, and a Libertarian? Where is Ron Paul?
Dr. E, thanks for the kind words. I very much appreciate them.
“Only someone who has parented a child with Down’s Syndrome knows the extraordinary amount of time and effort and frustration and exhaustion and elation that comes with such a God-given task.”
When our son was born, I asked God why we had been cursed. I thought, at 32, that I would never be able to retire, that life as “I” had planned it was all over. And indeed life as I had planned it was all over. My career took a different turn, the lives of my wife, myself and our oldest son headed off in a direction we never could have imagined...no acceptance of judicial appointments, no big trial practice, no acceptance of corporate board positions in exchange for dealing with hospitals and medical specialists and special ed systems and the state legislature for 25 years and spending the past 21 years on the board of the largest provider of homes and work for people with mental retardation and autism and schooling for children with autism in the state. Our boy’s birth was and is the greatest blessing we as a family and indeed our parish community have ever received. Everything has been different and everything has turned out blessed, if not easy.
My Christian Orthodoxy teaches me that we need to die to the self in order to become Christ-like and advance in theosis. Some of us, like me, fail miserably at that but God does give us opportunities to straighten out...or a good slug with a metaphorical 2X4. Our son was that 2X4 and I thank God for him every day.
Just because God knows the script doesn't mean that I do.
It can get pretty, ab-so-lute-ly exciting at times wondering how something's gonna turn out.
You are clay in the potter's hands, kosta.
Amen.
That's because it's much easier to thank God when things are going well, and shake our hands at God when they are not. Job comes to mind.
It can get pretty, ab-so-lute-ly exciting at times wondering how something's gonna turn out.
You are clay in the potter's hands, kosta.
Amen. It's all part of the paradox at the heart of our Christian faith. Men act; yet God ordains. We certainly feel like autonomous beings, moving through this life tethered only by our own desires.
But somehow, it is all according to God's purpose, one way or another. Even the bad stuff has its reason. Thank God, the reason for everything in our lives is Jesus Christ.
"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." -- Colossians 1:16-17"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." -- Romans 8:28
"All things."
If you put everything in God's hands then you do know, because no matter what happens it's God's doing, and it should not shock, or disappoint you. That's why Islam means "submission." I am Orthodox. I don't believe what Islam believes.
I think God gave us reason for a reason: to make rational decisions which can include God's will (virtue) or oppose God's will (vice).
Either way, we reap the consequences of our decisions.
You are clay in the potter's hands, kosta.
Your analogy doesn't follow. God made Adam out of clay and then gave him life and reason so he is capbale of being a responsible, rational and virtuous being.
Your own version of Chrisitnaity believes that God not nonly finished forming the clay, but had predetermined what will happen with each clay piece he made before he even made them.
The only God worth discussing must be "all." If He isn't, then He is not God. He's just another powerful being.
More powerful than me is not such a great commendation. "Eternal Sovereign" is.
Job is an excellent example of a man who learned to thank God for everything in his life because it is all of God for His glory and the welfare of His family.
Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days." -- Job 150:10-17 "And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
lol. Well-said.
Amen Forest Keeper! My pastor, for over 50 years served a ministry to handicapped people, most with Down’s syndrome. I have seen with my own eyes that they are capable of coming to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God knit them in the womb same as the rest of us, for His glory.
That's one way to look at Job. The other way is to simply recognize that, although he was "perfect," he was also proud and self-righteous.
His story is a lesson in humility and a reminder that God doesn't owe us anything.
Amen!
Sometimes it takes seeing the faith of someone who doesn't "reason" as well as we might for us to realize that faith itself is a free, unmerited gift of God's grace given to whom He will.
Faith doesn't require "reason." It requires grace.
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