Posted on 09/11/2008 10:57:32 PM PDT by joanie-f
Most conservatives decry the ‘bread and circuses’ atmosphere of modern politics, principally because the consistent focus on meaningless pursuits takes the citizens’ focus away from the important issues … even crises … that must be considered, and faced, if we are to remain a free society.
Our Founders continually warned that liberty, and the republican form of government that is best suited to ensure it, can only be maintained through an informed citizenry.
Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, are necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties.
Many of us consider the ‘bread and circuses’ nature of modern American society to be most frequently exhibited in our adulation of the Hollywood crowd, professional sports figures, and reality programming, the accumulation of creature comforts, the me-oriented nature of the citizenry, the need to ‘be entertained’, etc. … with an incremental de-emphasis on genuine heroes, the importance of personal character and responsibility, and a sense of civic duty ... which includes being educated about our history, and concerned about our future as a free society.
I completely agree that all of the above trends have increased in intensity over the past fifty years, and that, if they continue to gain momentum, our very lives, liberties and sovereignty as a nation are in grave danger.
A sub-level of this toxic trend has become glaringly apparent over the past few weeks of the election campaign.
Our republic is facing potentially deadly crises the likes of which there is no historical precedent:
... and on and on, ad infinitum ...
One would think that, with one of the (if not the) most crucial presidential elections in the history of our republic approaching in fewer than eight weeks, the crises mentioned above would be foremost on the minds of every American who intends to step into the voting booth on November 4th. And, even more importantly, one would think that the American media (the self-appointed purveyors of information and education) would be hard at work seeking, and reporting, the candidates’ opinions on, and proposed solutions to, all of the above.
Yet what do we predominantly see and hear in all of our media outlets? What are we being subliminally told is of utmost importance in this crucial election?
Many of my conservative friends, all of whom are true patriots, have voiced the opinion over the past few days that they are glad Barack Obama and the left are ‘getting a taste of their own medicine’ via the production of the new RNC ad that plays off of Obama’s lipstick/pig gaffe, and they are pleased with all of the attention his gaffe, whether innocent or purposeful, is receiving.
I could not possibly disagree more vehemently.
By producing such an ad, and even debating Obama’s intent – indeed, by even giving credence to this story – conservatives are accomplishing three fatal outcomes:
(1) they are legitimizing the bread and circus atmosphere in this election process
(2) they are stealing a worthless page out of the left’s playbook
(3) they are spending major campaign funds on nonsense advertising that would be better spent educating the public about issues of critical importance to our republic
On my list of 'Things I Want the Voting Public to Know about Barack Obama That the Media Aren't Reporting', there are 8,563 items ahead of the fact that he may (or may not) have referred to his opponent as a pig.
I think the McCain campaign, and the RNC, should be telling us about those 8,563 things in their campaign ads, and leave the lipstick remark to those who believe it has some importance in the grand scheme of things. The fact that they have wasted the donations of loyal Republicans on such nonsense is infuriating to me.
The media, academia, and the political left profit from such abject stupidity. It allows them to fill the airwaves with such drivel, and to scrupulously avoid discussion of Barack Obama’s dark, longstanding connections to anti-American zealots and his agenda to impose his Marxist/black separatist ideology on a populace that has been programmed to be preoccupied with ‘looking the other way’.
Half of the American electorate is ready to put such a man in the White House. And I believe that ninety percent of that group possesses no real knowledge of his infamous background or his ultra-left-leaning agenda.
Why have so many of our countrymen fallen into such an ignorant stupor? Because, for fifty years, we have allowed the leftists in the media, our institutions of ‘higher education’, and Hollywood to incrementally turn our focus away from the enemy within ... and toward tattletale pranks and kindergarten pursuits.
I don't give a rat's patoot what derogatory label one candidate may affix to another. What I do care about is whether that candidate intends to dismantle the noble foundations upon which my country was built.
And the media be damned.
We're going to pay a terrible price for allowing ourselves to be so pliant in the hands of those who most certainly do not have our best interests at heart.
~ joanie
Understood.
AMEN to that, joanie-f!!! That is just exactly the point. The "Voice of the People" has been utterly suppressed, for all intents and purposes, on life questions. Only "experts" are allowed to opine on such matters.
To illustrate, a few years ago I wrote to Senator Kerry to urge him to vote for legislation that would make partial birth abortion illegal. He wrote back with a four-page, densely spaced form letter that rattled off all the "expert opinion" that had convinced the Senator (a nominal Roman Catholic) to conclude that partial birth abortion was just another perfectly legitimate "medical procedure." He said on that basis he intended to vote against the bill, which he did.
Senator Kerry — and the Washington establishment in general — does not listen to the vox populi....
Thank you oh so much for your superb essay/post!
"...Or to the people." Tenth Amendment.
Thank you so much for writing, dearest sister in Christ!
...I have to think he's smart enough....and she's smart enough to realize if they win this, they won it because the 'base' pulled them through and the 'base' expects good things from them....
If he even thought of dissing the 'base' once he's elected (if he's elected) I can't imagine she would be silent!
Oops, forgot to mention that. LOLOL!
She may. She may not. He may just tune her out and there isn’t a lot that she can do about it if he does.
As a challenger to an incumbent, she could criticize the party and the incumbent from that party. Will she do the same when she is part of the administration? I hope that she does.
Don’t get me wrong. I like her. I just don’t believe that she will have as much of a chance to be as outspoken as we’d like.
The bottom line is that I don’t trust him to care what we think so I won’t get my hopes up. She definitely will be the better half of the team, but just as surely, the weaker half.
..We are very aware at FR what McCain's record is and we're carefully winding our way down this new path he seems to be on when he selected Governor Palin.
We don't need added fuel...We will figure this out for ourselves.
What is this "it" to which you are referring here nmh — do you mean abortion? If the Supreme Court were ever to overturn Roe v. Wade, all that would result would be to return the issue to the oversight of the several states. The Supreme Court cannot create positive law from the bench — that is, a ban of abortion, especially at the state level. (Such a ban would have to come from the individual state legislatures in a post-Roe world.)
What you want — an outright ban from the federal level — can only come from a life-friendly Congress; and we do not currently have one of those. What would be needed is a human life amendment to the Constitution. I'd be all in favor that; but as a political realist, I don't see such an amendment happening anytime soon.
It would take two-thirds of both houses of Congress to propose a constitutional amendment. OR applications to Congress from the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states that it call a Convention for proposing amendments — which cannot be limited to just the single life issue; all kinds of proposed Amendments might crop up. We could have a three-ring circus going on for months, if not years. In the case of the Constitutional Convention route, Congress is just as in charge as it is with the first mode of proposing amendments. Pro-choice members of Congress would be in a good position to throw monkey wrenches into the gears....
But whichever amendment route you take, in the end Proposed Amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the several states in order to take effect as constitutional law.
So you'd be back to the states — which is what you wanted to avoid in the first place! In our constitutional system, there is no end-run around the states when it comes to amending the Constitution.
That the right to life is a "self-evident truth," you and I and Thomas Jefferson all agree. But there are plenty of people today who do not recognize that truth as at all "self-evident." It is "self-evident" only to people of our culture, which is Christian at its core and strongly influenced by the intellectual heritage of ancient Greece and Rome.
For persons who do not share this culture — indeed, who are opposed to it and would like to see it obliterated — the right to life is no "self-evident truth." Indeed, many of these folks refuse to believe that there is any such thing as "objective" truth at all. It's just one man's opinion against any other man's, and neither opinion is any "better" than the other (unless it happens to belong to the sort of person who would say such foolishness in the first place — some species of ideologue I'm sure).
This is what we're up against, nmh. I'm sure that you and I and Eternal Vigilence and roamer_1 all share the longing for a culture of life here in America, one that cherishes and protects life at all its stages, from conception through natural death. I believe we all share this goal; what we're quibbling about is the best route to take to get there.
I think some of the things I've said above are relevant considerations for planning our route, and I offer them to you in that spirit.
Thanks so much for writing, nmh!
I agree that it is a gamble. The fact that it has been spelled out in the party platform is significant though.
McCain was not my first choice for the POTUS candidate, but due the vagaries of the party nominating process McCain was already in by the time we voted in PA.
We do know, of course, what the scenario will be if obama wins.
While I appreciate your post, and certainly agree with much of it, I wouldn't characterize my heart or mind in this as one of "longing" for anything, exactly. Pining after justice just hasn't proven effective at bringing it about. So, I've chosen a new attitude.
We are now making an imperative demand (I'll include the definition of the word "imperative" at the end of this post) that every single sworn officer of the United States take his or her sworn oath seriously and act upon it. That includes strictly enforcing the purpose that the Constitution describes for itself: "to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves AND OUR POSTERITY," and the necessary Fourteenth Amendment protection of all PERSONS, from fertilization to natural death, from being killed without first being charged, tried and convicted of a capital offense.
We will no longer offer an ounce of political support to any candidate who will not adhere to their sworn oath before God to do this, or accept any more mere lip service or excuses.
"States' rights," Constitutional amendments, no matter how attractive or seemingly good, 'better' judges, etc., are all nothing more than excuses now for politicians to break their oaths and to do nothing to stop the slaughter. Every member of the Executive branch, the Legislative branch and the Judicial branch is sworn before God to protect innocent human life, and it's far past time for us to demand without equivocation that they simply do it. Period. End of story.
Until Christians stop lending their sacred franchise to the enablers of abortion, including politicians like John McCain, it will not cease.
But, the moment the Body of Christ draws the line without compromise, we will be heading swiftly towards victory over this overriding evil. Deprive them of their votes and the politicians will come around so fast it will make your head spin. In America the people are sovereign, and they must begin to act like it again.
God bless you, and I pray that you and others like you will join with us in the new attitude of the Personhood Movement.
Main Entry:
im·per·a·tive
Pronunciation:
\im-ˈper-ə-tiv, -ˈpe-rə-\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English imperatyf, from Late Latin imperativus, from Latin imperatus, past participle of imperare to command — more at emperor
Date:
15th century
1 a: of, relating to, or constituting the grammatical mood that expresses the will to influence the behavior of another b: expressive of a command, entreaty, or exhortation c: having power to restrain, control, and direct2: not to be avoided or evaded : necessary
synonyms see masterful
— im·per·a·tive·ly adverb
— im·per·a·tive·ness noun
No, it isn't. It's mere meaningless lip service. Personnel IS policy.
Just found this on the McCain site. He is clearly stating he is not supporting experimentation that involves the use of human embryos.
“As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.
Where federal funds are used for stem cell research, Senator McCain believes clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress, and that any such research should be subject to strict federal guidelines.”
I completely agree with you here, roamer_1.
But not with you here: "I also profoundly disagree with the notion that one cannot legislate morality, as all law is, by it's nature, a measure to govern lawlessness. " Law doesn't "govern lawlessness." On my view, that term is so abstract that it conveys little concrete meaning. Rather, law imposes penalties on behaviors that are unacceptable/intolerable to society as defined by legislatures expressing and acting on behalf of the public interest. The emphasis is on behaviors. Evidently you believe that the mere existence of the penalty will have a profound behavior-modification effect — as if human beings were just so many lab rats in a Skinnerian experiment.
B. F. Skinner — the "father of behaviorism" — observed that rats, once they are exposed to a penalty (repeatedly if necessary), will modify their behavior so as to avoid it. But surprise, surprise! Human beings are not lab rats; and so they do not always modify their behavior in response to potential "penalties."
Let me illustrate this from a dandy example, an especially good one since it involved an Amendment to the federal constitution: Article XVIII — the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the United States, etc. All this Amendment did was create a black market for alcoholic beverages and the proliferation of "speakeasies." Sure, the police would raid the speakeasies, and arrest their customers. The customers then paid the "penalty," and sooner rather than later were back on the streets — and back to the speakeasies.
Whatever "moral issue" was involved here, the mere existence of law couldn't touch it. You can prohibit something all day long, but if the people want it, they will get it. And don't fool yourself about that!
Of course the federal government cannot grant itself power over life or anything else. It has a charter to execute which it received directly from the sovereign People; nothing more, nothing less — and it is a charter that is supremely devoted to the defense of the life, liberty, and property of the people. All the powers that the federal government has ultimately are grants from the people. (And the people live in the several states.)
So we can say we understand the federal obligation to defend Life while noting that the federal government is acting as if it did not recognize its obligation. TO US.
And for heaven's sake certainly I understand that it is not the government that confers on us our rights!!! Our human rights to life, liberty, and "the pursuit of happiness" come to us individually, directly from God. This is what makes them sacrosanct, such that no worldly government may interfere with them, abridge them, or modify them, let alone revoke them. Government simply has no power to do so under our constitutional system.
I'll leave off for now, roamer_1 — I have some chores to get to. Truly I've enjoyed our discussion! and will check back with you later today.
Thanks so much for writing!
You may be right. We can only wait and see.
Besides being an over generalization of my posts, how long must one be here to offer an opinion? And since you are aware of his record, why would citing it a problem?
Before being posted to the thread, the moderators review each post and they apparently (I’m guessing) do not have the same suspicions.
Have I posted anything that is untrue?
I posted known facts, asked questions, and expressed my opinion all in a polite and respectful manner. How is that wrong on a political discussion forum?
If the Supreme Court ruled that it is legal to murder any other class of persons designated by religion, skin color, sex or sexual preference there would be riots in the streets.
At the present time withholding money, the life blood of politics, is the most constructive way to get their attention.
Exactly.. especially purple States.. Any amendment must be ratified by the States.. Unless it is the Income Tax and Federal Reserve which was not ratified but forced on us anyway.. Some States will NOT ratify outlawing federal abortion..
I didn't say they were not.
Laws legalizing abortions are *not*, as they fall afoul of the very premise for which our government was established.
True enough. I didn't say anything to the contrary.
Likewise, states may write laws describing capital punishment for crimes- These are Constitutional, and are the state's by right, providing there is due process. A state cannot give itself the power to kill it's citizens without cause- That is prevented by the Constitution. It is the same thing.
I made that point myself.
Murder penalties are dealt with severally at the state level, as are most crimes, as would criminal prosecution of abortion.
That is exactly what I am advocating.
What I insist upon, and as you, yourself, said, is a "proper reading of the Constitution", but in the light of the Declaration of Independence, and within the scope of the greater Judeo-Christian ethic, as it was meant to be, and as it was established.
No disagreement there. There is no other "light" by which to properly read the Constitution. But you can insist until you are blue in the face. Things will still have to work through the Constitutional process of government in the hands of imperfect men unless you by-pass it or eliminate it.
What I propose does not take the prosecution away from the states, but only defines the parameters federally, as is proper. Namely, It would be illegal everywhere in these United States to perform abortions on the grounds that it is above the powers of the state, and above the powers of the federal government, to allow the purposeful taking of human life *at all* without due process or just cause.
How is that proper? The federal government doesn't "define the parameters" of any other murder statute. It is up to the state to write those laws and, like all laws, are subject to challenge in the court system. You apparently want to bypass that basic structure of our republic. That is not federalist it is centralist. Or, as I accurately described it before, statist.
What is so very important in this issue is this: If government is given power over these unalienable rights, that means that government will invariably decide it has the power to determine who to delegate those right to, and who to take them from.
That is a non-sequitur. No one, least of all me, has suggested the government has "power over unalienable rights." It does have authority to make, enforce and adjudicate law and the founders created a very specific structure by which it is supposed to operate to do that.
It is understandable that you don't trust that system since it appears to have failed so often and so badly. But IMO it is not the system that has failed but the use of it by the people and our representatives that is at fault. Over the course of our history the system has been mis-used and ignored. The system can't be blamed for that.
You, like others, are arguing the false premise that we, who want the matter back in states' purview, believe it is Constitutional for states to make abortion legal. That isn't true. First of all making something a law does not make it Constitutional it just makes it a statute vulnerable to all the challenges that any statute is. Secondly we rightly see that more challenges could be made if all fifty states had their own set of statutes. We also see that the problem isn't really about what laws are made. It isn't even about how those laws are interpreted by the courts.
All legislation is potentially bad and subject to potentially bad court decisions. When the federal government makes a bad law it is bad law for all fifty states and the opportunity to challenge it is narrowed down by a huge factor. The same is true when federal courts are the only venue for challenge. The decision affects all fifty states and the scope of possible appeals is greatly diminished.
The problem is that life in the womb isn't considered to be an individual human life by current legal definition. Until that changes any law outlawing abortion, federal or state, would be subject to rejection. The only way that will change is by having many fervent arguments in the courts of law. Arguing "unalienble right to life" is pointless since the courts will never disagree with that premise. They will simply disagree about what is life. Checkmate. Put it on the federal level and it's super-checkmate.
That is the crux of the issue. Great post from beginning to end. As usual you bring a superlative clarity to everything you address.
Either we trust that the system our Founders gave us is workable to the ends of justice and protection of our unalienable rights and dig in and use it or we ought to stop playing semantic games about Constitutionality and admit that we want to scrap it. I'm still on board with the former view.
Speak for yourself. I run into "states rights trumps unalienable rights" types every day. And that is exactly the position McCain holds. Ron Paul too.
You may fool some, but you won't fool me.
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