Posted on 08/18/2005 8:39:28 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.
Liberals like Jesus all the way up to that "I am the way, the truth and the life NO MAN comes to the Father but by me". That kind of exclusive way to heaven really bothers the libs.
Liberals have a bible that could be defined as "selective reading texts".
Endorse, no, but that doesn't mean Jesus wanted government to BAN him either.I haven't seen the government closing down too many churches lately.
-Eric
Yep! Pray to God, and all is well. Pray to Jesus, or to God (same) in Jesus Name, and and you'll offend someone. Which God do these people pray to, anyway?
Republicans appear to be more generous than Democrats when donation rolls are examined.
Also charitable giving increased when taxes were cut in the 1980s.
What does "personally done" mean?
How does national health care equate to one individual doing ANYTHING except paying his mandated taxes?
Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. We have to live under man's law but obey God's law.
Jesus would probably not have voted. Not to stay "impartial" but because He worked on a larger scale than government.
The left mapped out the Republican states after the 2004 election and called it Jesusland. Jesus knows no borders. Mohammed does though, there are references to "Islamic territory".
Someone here on FR had a tagline that was something along the lines of:
God is not a Republican. But he is definitely NOT a Democrat.
Just some hucksterism to get some yellow dog democrats back on the plantation. They'll mock the superstious Christians behind closed doors.
Um...well OK they haven't. But this hostility towards Christianity that is given off by the left certainly wouldn't make Jesus too happy.
I also take issue with the headline.
I ALWAYS vote democratic(ally) for Republicans.
There is no Democratic party any more than there is a Republic party.
Dear Reverend: Most conservatives would agree with you, however, the devil is afoot about the planet and his minions will not be appeased with "love". The "Almighty" Himself, has had to flood the entire planet and destroy two ancient cities to rid the world of sin. For the time being, mankind will need to understand that the United States is Noahs Ark until a peaceful world can be restored.
They always try to take credit for Jesus. Dangerous game, to try to say what God is for or against.
Seems to me that Jesus said: "Thou Hypocrite, take the beam out of thine own eye so that thou can see clearly to help thy neighbor remove the mote from his own." and "If thine eye offends, pluck it out. Better to go through life with one eye than for the entire body to go through eternity in hell."
Jesus was not all sweetness and light, as we know, but they conveniently write out of the NT in order to gain approval for all their mortal sins. At least when I do wrong I admit it, I hope, except when I fool myself.
We all know that is true!!
They like the compassion of Jesus but want to ignore anything divine. And hey, He associated with outcasts like prostitutes and tax collectors.
Thanks for the input. Gold star for you!
Not everyone had long hair. And I'm sure they didn't wear sandals in the winter.
:):):)
Somehow??? They have done a fine job of defining themselves as elitist snobs by the hypocrisy they live out in public and private, everyday.
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