How a member of the “Christian Left” Thinks

I try, I really do. I really try to give an open mind to people who claim to be “Christian Left,” “pro-life Democrats,” etc., but it just doesn’t work. To be a part of the Christian Left, it seems that one must:

1. Turn a blind eye towards, if not condone, all the moral filth promoted by the Left in general, while condemning members of the Christian Right for being political allies of some people who are greedy or racist.
2. Support Socialism, even though the Popes have unequivocally and consistently condemned it.
3. Repeatedly insist, “Judge not lest ye be judged” when it comes to abortion, contraception, homosexuality or divorce yet simultaneously (and at the same time) insist that everyone who supports a conservative position is secretly racist, sexist or greedy, even if the latter’s words give no indication of those positions.
4. Clairvoyantly insist that all who profess to be pro-life or pro-family are just covering up deep-seated hatred for women, gays, or humanity in general.
5. See “racism” in any political cartoon, joke or photoshopped image regarding Barack Obama, yet say that even the most offensive depictions of George W. Bush or Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum are excusable because “rich white guys deserve it.”
6. Ignore statements like, “It’s Constitutional, m*****f****s” or even defend such statements as acceptable political speech yet say that “You’d have to be an idiot to think Obamacare’s giving you anything for free” is offensive and crosses the line.
7. Ignore if not support horribly sexist comments about Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Ann Romney, etc., but say that Rush Limbaugh crossed the line by saying an unmarried girl who claimed to spend $1000 a year on birth control is a “slut.”
8. Again, while supporting “freedom of choice,” “same sex marriage,” etc., you insist on condemning “hate speech” and labelling any statement of traditional Christian morality, even from the Bible itself, as “hate.”
9. Make no comment when liberals say, “Republicans are nothing but a bunch of hatemongers,” but when a conservative friend quotes Russell Kirk or Dietrich von Hildebrand and tries to philosophically explain his position, and the liberals just jump in and say, “See? Another hate-monger,” you tell the conservative to cool it.
10. Most of all, to be a member of the “Christian Left,” you must support the notion of “progress,” even though if you’re truly a believing Christian you’ll know there’s no such thing: the only “progress” in human history happened 2000 years ago, and there is only the choice between accepting Christ’s grace through the Church and the Sacraments and not accepting that grace. There is individual progress in holiness, but the world can never have “progress,” especially when “progress” is defined as moving *away* from the principles of Christendom.
“Progressives” condemn the Christian Civilization of ca. 400-ca. 1800 as “the Dark Ages,” by definition condemning the Christianity that informed those times, so how could any Christian be a “progressive”?
“Progressives” ascribe to a false Marxist view of history, or at least to the Hegelian system upon which Marxism was based, which runs contrary to the Christian view of history elucidated by St. Augustine, so how can any Christian be a “progressive”?

I hate it when I lose thoughts

There was some big story earlier this week that I wanted to comment on, and didn’t, and of course forgot which story and what I was going to say. Hate it when that happens.

And there have been a lot of big stories, so I thought I’d just give a run down of opinions:

1. The Arizona shooting:
a. the whole thing is a huge win for Obama.
b. If Giffords was so concerned about safety, why didn’t she use better security? She didn’t use basic security protocols at these events, and she put people’s lives in danger.
c. Everyone keeps trying to claim the shooter for the other side, but he really just exemplifies what I’ve been warning about since 2006: a generation of people who’ve been raised on MTV and Comedy Central, Michael Moore and Glenn Beck, who don’t necessarily have a coherent political philosophy other than anger at “the establishment.”
d. Sarah Palin is evil because she used a “targeting” metaphor (and I agree the way she did it was in bad taste, especially for a pro-lifer, and especially someone who has been a victim of some equally vicious rhetoric). But let’s not forget 8 years of “kill Bush”, Alec Baldwin’s tirade about Henry Hyde, and all the hateful things that the liberals have said and are saying about Palin. They are such hypocrites.

2. The arrest of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania. Yet another example of the kind of depraved monsters who engage in this “medical practice.”

3. Rick Santorum says it’s hypocritical for Barack Obama, an African American, to suggest we can define who is and isn’t human, and the liberals say that Santorum should apologize for making such an “offensive” comment. HUH?

4. EWTN is acquiring the National Catholic Register. Good to get the Register out of the hands of the Legion of Christ, but is it a wise move for EWTN, which is in perpetual financial trouble, to buy a newspaper, when print news is a rapidly dying medium? And, as one of my Facebook friends pointed out, they should have bought the National Catholic Reporter and then fired everyone who works for it.

5. John Paul II’s speedy canonization will proceed with a beatification on May 1. So much for the photos showing JPII standing with Maciel and Maciel’s illegitimate family. So much for concerns that too many of JPII’s “friends” were speaking out of turn. They won’t beatify Pius XII because of calumnies that are spread against him which have no basis in fact and scandalize non-believers, yet John Paul II, who did so much to scandalize faithful Catholics, is getting fast-tracked. I don’t even necessarily question his sainthood, but I get tired of the attitude that we are supposed to just ignore the Koran Kissing, the pagan sacrifices at the Assisi Conference, his association with Maciel, and other damaging facts. These need to be *explained*. The explanations are there. I often use some them myself. Some things I’m still waiting for better clarity on. But if they’re going to beatify him, and they’re *not* going to beatify Pius XII, then they need to do some explaining.

6. Monday our country honored the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who said we should judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. King was himself an adulterer, and one of his closest associates, Bayard Rustin, was a Communist and a homosexual. Forty years after his death, Americans elected Barack Obama, a man of no discernible character, due to the color of his skin.

7. A secular news story has tried to make a stink about the disappearance of Fr. Thomas Euteneuer from public eye. Most notably, Euteneuer’s book on exorcism which came out last summer is out of print and is selling for hundreds of dollars online. HLI says that the book merely sold out, and they opted not to reprint it, since Fr. Euteneuer left HLI.

When Fr. Euteneuer announced his resignation from HLI, I said at the time I didn’t think this was any conspiracy or “smack down.” There are ways things are phrased. When the Jesuits tried to use obedience to silence Fr. Fessio a while back, his public statements honored obedience while making it clear he didn’t agree with their decision. When Cardinal Egan recalled Fr. Pavone from Priests for Life, Fr. Pavone said he was complying but looking for options (and did).

Fr. Euteneuer’s statement expressed full compliance. I think he requested to be recalled by his bishop. Exorcists are supposed to be generally out of the spotlight, for a variety of reasons (avoiding sensationalism, maintaining personal humility, etc.) I think that he has chosen this change in direction of his life, and we should honor that.

8. As if Ellen Degenerate wasn’t bad enough, that strange looking creature they hired to replace Simon on American Idol is just too disturbing to look at, even on advertisements.
That brings up the point that one of the effects of my dissection is that I’ve narrowed down a lot of my viewing even more. I’m trying to avoid anything that will unnecessarily raise my blood pressure, and trying to avoid anything that might possibly be an occasion of sin.

Still feel like there’s another big news story of the week I wanted to comment on, but that covers most of ’em.

So, the Obama Administration finally “Bares All”

The Department of Health and “Human Services,” presided over by “Catholic” Kathleen Sebelius, recently completed the most extensive long-term study ever done of abstinence teaching (particularly by parents) and teen fornication. At first, the Obama Administration tried to resist publicizing the results (obviously having something to hide; that is Obama’s m.o., right?), but several appeals got the results released, and LifeSite News has a summary as well as the whole text.

As we all know, the “conventional wisdom,” pushed by the liberal establishment in the media and the educational system, is that “abstinence education” “doesn’t work,” that parents and schools alike need to teach teenagers about artificial contraception “because they’re going to have sex anyway.” I even heard these arguments in Catholic school–I heard these arguments in Catholic school from classmates whose parents were NFP instructors! (This led to my traditionalist bias against NFP). Of course, in the past couple years, Bristol Palin has been the poster girl for “abstinence doesn’t work.”

In a debate on this subject, an Internet friend of mine was responded to a comment of that sort by suggesting that the liberal in question count the number of people who are traditional minded Catholics, orthodox Jews or Evangelical Protestants whose teenagers getting pregnant compared to the number of secularist families whose teenagers are having sex and getting pregnant.

Indeed, the HHS study has shown, in summary, that abstinence education *does* work. Families with religious values or conservative attitudes are less likely to have teens who engage in sex. Teens who come from minority or less educated families are more likely to opposed sex before marriage. With the exception of African Americans, teens whose parents oppose fornication are less likely to engage in it.

You can read the full text here.

In related news, here’s a nice little blog post on the link between oxytocin and the psychology of sex and promiscuity. The importance of oxytocin (and dopamine and endorphines, which are its predecessors) to human psychological development, relationships (sexual and otherwise), addictions and morality has been a big area of interest to me for the past year and a half or so. There’s really a lot of scientific evidence that validates traditional morality, yet of course the secularists ignore the moral implications of the research, and you don’t often hear Christians talking about it, so it was nice to see this piece.

Haley Versus Barrett: Who’s more Pro-Life?

As we prepare for the run-off in the 2010 South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary, I hope to do a series of pieces comparing candidates Nikki Haley and Gresham Barrett.

First, obviously, is pro-life.

On Haley’s page, under “Right to Life,” there are three items.
The first is this video:

The second is this text:

I believe every life has a value and is blessed by God – my husband was adopted and my pro-life convictions stem from the fact I feel the blessings of that value every day knowing someone chose life for him. I see it every day in my two children as I watch them grow. My hope is that we continue to encourage and work towards educating that value of life to everyone.

OK, pretty generic Republican speech.

The third item is a letter from Holly Gatling of SC Citizens for Life, certifying Nikki Haley’s 100% pro-life voting record.

At one point last year, when I first heard of her campaign through Facebook, I found the state website that shows various pieces of legislation and legislators’ votes on them. Most of the votes were procedural, and full of so many double-negatives, I couldn’t figure out what was saying what. However, Haley had added her name to the list of co-sponsors for the South Carolina human life amendment.

Meanwhile, contender Gresham Barrett emphasizes self-congratulation on the meaningless partial birth abortion plan and the specific legislation for a 24 hour waiting period in South Carolina.

Granted, neither candidate expresses a particularly activist agenda on abortion, but there are key differences.

a) Haley, advertises her 100% rating which includes the Human Life Amendment; Barrett’s rhetoric shows him to be a dyed-in-the-wool incrementalist.
b) Haley emphasizes her personal commitment to the pro-life cause (due to her husband being adopted), versus Barrett’s focus being more clearly political,

I have always favored pro-life women over pro-life men, because most people do think of this as a “women’s issue.” I have always maintained that the only way to truly stop abortion is to have pro-life women in office, or men with strongly pro-life wives. Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush are all pro-choice. Former SC Governor David Beasley’s father-in-law was an abortionist.

Secondly, male or female, every truly committed pro-lifer has a personal reason for being so. For Sarah Palin, it’s her son with Down’s syndrome and her out-of-wedlock grandchild. For Nikki Haley, it’s her husband.

Whatever Nikki Haley’s Religion and Ethics May be, Andre Bauer’s are Plain as Day

Will Folks, a Republican blogger, and Larry Marchant, a former paid consultant for current South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, have both claimed to have had “inappropriate physical relationships” with State Representative Nikki Haley, current front runner in the SC GOP gubernatorial primary.

She’s running against Bauer, who tried to make political hay out of current governor Mark Sanford’s adultery last year, but has lost huge support since his comments this past winter comparing people on school lunch programs and unemployment to “stray dogs.”

In radio interview, Haley denied the allegations wholeheartedly. As Columbia CBS station WLTX 19 puts it,

Haley once again defended herself against a claim that she had a sexual encounter with consultant Larry Marchant Thursday afternoon on “The Afternoon Drive with Keven Cohen/560 WVOC Radio.”

On a side note, I’d like to point out the dangling preposition in the above sentence, which indicates that the alleged affair took place on the radio show, not the interview.

Anyway, when asked if she would resign if evidence were presented that proved the allegations, Haley replied,

“Yes.”

This is very disheartening in and of itself, because in political liespeak, this basically means, “Yes, I did it, and if it’s proven, I’ll admit it.”

After all, if the allegations were completely *untrue*, wouldn’t she have said, “Since the allegations are untrue, no evidence can be presented to prove them”?

Or, maybe, “I admit we were alone for such-and-such a time, and apologize for the impropriety, but nothing happened”?

Nevertheless, the fact that both accusers have close financial ties to the Bauer campaign creates a great deal of doubt.

While many outlets yesterday reported the possession of “texts” by Folks that allegedly document the alleged affair, the texts in question–if they are real–only document a *discussion* of the allegation among various campaign workers.

However, given the fact that our current governor, who built his name on his “Christian values” then turned out to be a total sleaze, has put this state, and the Republican Party, through enough already, and given the fact that SC’s traditional GOP leaning is tenuous at this point, don’t we need a little more certainty?

Yet again, if the allegations *are* false, that would be precisely the motive for making them up.

Folks’ “evidence” consists of phone records documenting numerous phone calls, most of them late at night, sometimes several hours long. The phone calls date to a time when Folks *worked* for Haley.

At least Marchand has the evidence that he and Haley were *away* attending the same out of state convention.

I mean, as Ben Matlock would say, “COME AWN!”

PHONE CALLS? I’m sure someone can dig up hundreds of hours worth of phone calls between Karl Rove and George W. Bush. . . .

I first learned of Haley’s campaign through Facebook, and I’ve been following her Facebook pages for a year now. Haley’s definitely adept at New Media, and one of the things I’ve picked up on from her FB statuses is that, unlike most politicians, she makes time for her family.

If a former advisor wants to make the claim they were carrying on an extensive affair, shouldn’t he be proving they *didn’t* talk on the phone?

On the one hand, we who Haley claims to be: a busy politician and mom, involved in her kids’ life as much as her political work, staying up late and talking on the phone to a campaign aide about campaign matters when she can squeeze the time in.

On the other hand, the claim that she was doing all those things *and* callling this guy late at night for hours *and* sneaking off to have sex with him??? Huh?

Evidence of an affair would be hotel and restaurant receipts, showing they were actually in the same places at the same times.

Sarah Palin has reaffirmed her endorsement of Haley, comparing the accusations to the numerous trumped up ethics charges that drove her out of office in Alaska.

Meanwhile, ex-First Lady and Adultery Victim Jenny Sanford has come out in Haley’s defense, saying that “our state is better than this” (I don’t know about that one).

Sanford, whose endorsement given her own background ought to mean something, was referring both to the sexual allegations and to racist concerns about Haley’s Indian ethnic background.

Haley is presently a state representative representing Lexington County, and the senator from that county, Jake Knotts, recently referred to her as a “raghead” in an interview, applying the racial epithet (which is wrong on numerous levels) to both Haley and Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, CBN’s David Brody has compared Haley to Obama in a more honest way; apparently, Haley has been ambiguous about her exact religious leanings in the past.

In April, the statement “Are you a Christian” on her campaign’s FAQ page was a vague reference to Almighty God; at present, it says “Christ.” In 2004, when she ran for state senate, she claimed to be practicing both as a Methodist and Sikh, attending both services weekly. Newspapers in the US and India praised her as the first Sikh to be elected to US political office.

I don’t know a lot about Sikhism, but from skimming the Wikipedia entry, I’ve deduced how it’s the kind of religion that can be easily meshed with liberal Christian theology, and Christian denominations don’t come more liberal than the Methodists (let’s remember–Hilllary Clinton’s a Methodist). As I’ve heard it said by former Methodist’s on The Journey Home, one needn’t “believe” anything in particular to be a Methodist–there’s no required credo–just a required hymnal.

Now, it’s possible Haley has sincerely adopted a more sincere Evangelical Christianity over the years, and dropped away from regular Sikh observance. It’s also possible her Christianity is in the mode of George W. Bush or, worse, Mark Sanford.

At least she’s able to make a firm statement of belief in Christ–that’s more than Barack Obama can do. He can only mmuster that Jesus is one of many “great teachers,” or that “I believe in the Sermon on the Mount” (even though he apparently ignores the parts about adultery, lust, divorce, greed, serving two msaters, etc.).

As I’ve said many times, I care less about what a candidate’s religious beliefs are than I do about whether he or she is sincere in those beliefs. I care more about whether the candidate is honest, and whether the candidate believes in Natural Law.

Spiritually, I can understand that we are all fallen, and, as a Catholic, I know how hard it is to live in a state of grace *with* the sacraments. I am honestly surprised people without the sacraments don’t commit adultery all the time. One also has to consider that, to Evangelicals, as has been stated by some of them on this blog, Christ’s forgiveness often means the ability to just go on sinning that grace may abound.

However, anyone who campaigns as a “values” candidate needs to be extra careful.

Sadly, in this midst of all this, Mike Huckabee has reiterated his own support of Andre “stray dogs” Bauer.

I can tell you this much: I don’t know whether Nikki Haley is a good Christian or not, but I do know that Andre Bauer is *not* a Christian.

When will that word be considered equivalent to the “N” word?

It’s not just insulting to the mentally handicapped; it’s insulting to all disabled people.

And when it’s used by Rahm Emmanuel, whose brother advocates the very “death panels” Sarah Palin was accused of being a nut for speaking against, it is all the more monstrous.

Thus, when the poorly-named Emmanuel used the word “retarded” to describe some Democrat political strategy, Sarah Palin rightly called on him to resign.

Is this met with any kind of “she’s right” from the ultra-sensitive, tolerant types on the Left? Apparently not. The same people who think that Trent Lott saying “If he’d run again, Strom Thurmond would have made a great president” was equivalent of a lynching seem more perplexed at Palin’s perturbation! One of the headlines, as linked on Yahoo, reads, “Why Palin was incensed,” as if we shouldn’t know why she’s upset!

Meanwhile, Yahoo saw this as a wonderful opportunity for another link: “Palin’s shadow over AK“. Shadow??? The shadow of the Democrats’ many phony ethics accusations, you mean? The shadow of the Democrats’ dirty politics, you mean?

While another governor made ethics headlines for using government jets to fly to Argentina to “hike the Appalachian trail,” Palin’s “ethical” problem was taking her family with her while travelling on government business!! Oh, what a horror! Like 6 extra people on a government plane is that big a deal! Like the president never does something like, Oh, fly Air Force One over New York to take his wife out to dinner!!

Of course, Democrats hate children, and Democrats hate families, and hate the idea of a family who are actually close, or that people might actually value time with their children, and supervise their children, rather than surrending their children to the care of daycares and public schools during all waking hours.

“We’re not out to get Sarah Palin; she’s just a rotten person!”

Had the dyspeptic experience of  being forced to hear (P)MSNBC during breakfast at an establishment this morning.    I was sitting there for about two hours, listening to this harpy go on  and on about Sarah Palin’s memoir:

MSNBC Anchoress (and I paraphrase): “In her new memoir, Going Rogue, Sarah Palin accuses the media and some McCain staffers of trying to sabotage her and destroy her reputation.  This is patently false, and here to prove it on this media program with me, a member of the media, is a former McCain staffer who thinks Sarah Palin is a big doodyhead.  I mean, come on, this woman had no qualifications, her daughter was pregnant, and there are questions about whether she deceived McCain about that, and she is a partisan figure, and nobody likes her.

Mr. FormerMcCainStaffer, on your website, www.IHateSarahPalin.com, you say that everything she says in her memoir is a lie.  Is that what you really think?”
FormerMcCainStaffer: “Yes,  Ms. Anchorbabe.  I don’t know how she comes up with all these lies.  Everyone knows she was a bad pick for vice president, and this just proves it.  She destroyed McCain’s chances of getting elected, and she’s trying to blame us.”
Anchorbabe: “True, but isn’t is also that Sarah Palin is an idiot, and a backstabber, that she lied about her daughter’s pregnancy [which can hardly win support among values voters] and she’s ungrateful to the McCain Campaign for giving her a chance?  Her approval ratings among pro-abortion Democrats are at rock bottom.  Yes, she’s got huge approval with the certain segment of the partisan, hateful, anti-abortion traditional values Far Right Fascist crowd, but nobody likes them anymore.  And she can hardly have support among the social conservatives because her teenaged daughter was pregnant and she tried to keep it secret, isn’t that right, Mr. Staffer?”
Staffer: “Absolutely, AnchorBabe.  And this so-called memoir will just sink her approval ratings even lower.  All she does is paint herself as a victim, and nobody likes a whiner.  No one ever got elected president by playing the victim in a memoir.”
Anchorbabe: “And then there’s that whole teenaged pregnancy thing.  Did I mention there are questions about whether she lied to the McCain campaign about that? . . . .Well, that’s all the time we have for this segment.  Up Next: Sarh Palin’s controversial new memoir: Is she committing libel against the media and the McCain campaign?  A former McCain staffer will be here to listen to my opinion!”

Here’s what Sarah Palin Actually *said* about “Death Panels”

OK.  So Obama has created the talking point over the past several days that has led many, even many the right, to disparage Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment as being over-the-top, inaccurate, etc. 

As I’ve discussed in several recent posts, the Liberals have based their claim of inaccuracy on the idea that Palin is talking about “end of life” care counseling.  I have speculated, having not read the actual speech till just now, that she wasn’t even talking about that, and she wasn’t.  Even if she *were*, as I’ve previously discussed, end of life care, as they call it, goes against Christian principles.

But Palin was not talking about that. She was talking about the standards for “triage” and health care rationing.  Here’s the text:

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

Where in the speech does she say anything about forced euthanasia?  She is talking about denial of services to those who are deemed unworthy, something that Rahm Emmanuel, Tom Daschle and others have all advocated.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

Here’s an article on what Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother, advocates in terms of health rationing.

Some blogs are suggesting that Palin’s speech was inaccurate because such “death panels” are not in the Bill.  But they *were* in the Bill and were struck down.  Either way, as I said in my last post, it’s the slippery slope.  Why do we want to open the door to these people to allow it? 

One of the things we’re told about the alleged evil of insurance companies is about denial of services to those who need them most.  Does anyone really think the government is that altruistic????  Does anyone really think the government will do better?  Does anyone really think that, when Medicare and Medicaid already have absurd rules for what services they’ll pay for, that a new government insurance plan will be any better?

I have been online since 1997.  I’ve been on message boards, listserves, blogs, Facebook, etc.  I’ve argued these issues time and again with people.  I know my view is an unpopular one with most people, including may self-styled conservatives and many self-styled Catholics.

This is why I know we need Sarah Palin in the public square . We need someone who is a voice against the attitudes about the disabled and those who have genetic disorders, etc. 

I know what it is to grow up in pain, knowing that death is always potentially around the corner.

I know what it is to be ridiculed for being different.

I know what it is to be told that I’m not worthy of being alive. 

I know that liberals and many who call themselves conservatives take it as a given that it is cruel to “knowingly” allow a child to be born with a genetic disorder.  Most people presume that people with genetic disorders should never reproduce, and that people who get in utero diagnoses of genetic defects should have abortions. 

This is how they think.  It’s not just my experience from one or two conversations.  It’s what I’ve heard from every liberal I’ve ever argued with, and from many a yuppie graduate of Franciscan University or Christendom College (though they cover up their eugenicist mentality with perpetual continence or NFP). 

They say these things.  Their “experts” say these things.  The countries that already have government-run health care do these things or are working towards them.  Then, when we call them on it, they say we’re lying!

Here’s a piece on Peter Singer’s contribution to the Death Panel debate.

Here’s a piece on Obama’s appeals to “faith based” Groups to win support for socialism and to redirect the debate on health rationing.

Here’s an article by a disabiltiy group that agrees with Sarah.

Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece on how rationing is central to Obamacare (HT Below the Beltway)

Here’s an article about GE’s role in promoting health rationing.

Here’s an article about how the death panel already exists: it’s the “Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research,” which was part of the “stimulus” bill. 

According to George Will, the draft report on the so-called stimulus bill states the CER will identify medical “items, procedures, and interventions” that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They “will no longer be prescribed” by federal health programs.

This is especially ironic, since one of the original purposes of the federal government getting involved in medical research was the Orphan Drug Act: federally funding research deemed to be too commercially unviable.

Here’s a blog piece from July which points to the rationing provisions in the House plan.

Starving someone to death is not “end of life care”

I’m sick of the lying.  Yesterday, Barack Obama, in a conference call to sympathetic religious leaders, accused his enemies of “bearing false witness” against his socialist health care plan.  The Democrat shills at Yahoo and the AP keep trying to “debunk” the “myths” about “Health Care Reform.” 

He calls the discussion of abortion coverage a “fabrication,” but the point is that, as a priest recently pointed out on Facebook, if abortion is not specifically *not* covered, it is implicitly covered by Obamacare because it is a legal medical procedure.

And then there’s Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels” comment. 

Now, there are two issues at stake here:

1.  Obama and his supporters are conveniently skipping over the question of “rationing”: that in any government-run healthcare system, there is rationing of services.  This is expressed in minimal practice by the waiting lists in Canada and the UK.  I’ll do a separate post on that later.

However, it needs to be said that, when people talk about “death panels,” they’re talking in part about panels that will at least establish triage rules if not the very overt elimination of “inferior people” advocated by Peter Singer, Tom Daschle, and several of Obama’s closest advisors.

2.  The question of “end of life care.” Obama’s supporters, including some Republicans, say the issue is just whether Medicare/Medicaid and the hypothetical “government option” should pay doctors to give “end of life” counseling to elderly and terminally ill patients–things like living wills and such.  They claim it’s not about the government or doctors dictating the end of life decisions, and that provisions specifically forbid euthanasia or assisted suicide counseling.

That’s all a matter of your definition of terms.  Because the Obama Apologists point to the Terri Schiavo case as the example of what they’re talking about.  In *their* view, an individual has the right to decide *not* to receive basic care such as nutrition and hydration.

I’m the first to admit that a patient should be allowed to refuse measures which can be classified as “extraordinary” according to the criteria laid out in the Catechism, and that any one of the conditions listed in the Catechism can be sufficient to refuse a medical treatment.

For example, I don’t get the flu vaccine, even though I’m in the category that “ought to”.  In my experience , every year I got the flu vaccine, I ended up getting a horrible bout of bronchitis or pneumonia .

Or when a particular medication has side effects that are too severe for the particular user, that’s an extraordinary measure in that person’s case.

But basic survival is a moral obligation.  Even if one believes a feeding tube as such is “extraordinary,” one is still obligated to provide *some* sustenance.  It wasn’t just that they removed Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube–that was bad enough-but after they did that, they tortured her by not even trying to give her ice cubes or small amounts of food by mouth.  They brutally starved her to death.

A feeding tube is not the same thing as a respirator or other “life support.”  On a respirator or heart-lung machine, one could theoretically go on for years in a physiological limbo.  But one can also die on such a machine, in spite of artificial survival.  There is no natural cognate to the machine in that case: but for a feeding tube, the natural cognate is just eating or drinking. 

My mother in law lived off a feeding tube for a year.  In terms of basic life functions, there was nothing else wrong with her.  Certainly, there were times she felt like “giving up”–quite frequently, in fact–but she kept going.  Seven years later, she’s living a fairly normal, active senior life. 

Now, when she was at the worst of her situation, she’d had several surgeries, infections, etc., and it was pretty dire.  It would have been one thing to say, “I don’t want any more surgeries.”   Had she made that decision, it would have been sad and tragic and ironic (given that the last one was the one that worked), but that would have made sense.

However, to say, “Take out the feeding tube” would *not* be a morally acceptable decision, because, while it’s a very nuanced difference, that would have been to actively kill her. 

Certainly, these matters are complex.  We are not, as Obama has claimed, “God’s partners in matters of life and death”–at least not in the way that he means.  Indeed, we should be God’s “partners’ in these matters, if he means prayerfully deciding what action is most in keeping with moral law.  But when we force God’s hand, whether it’s by contracepting, or using IVF, or by denying basic life sustenance to a seriously disabled or terminally ill person , we are not “partnering”–we’re controlling.

Recently, some friends’ former son-in-law passed away.  Their grandson was faced with the troubling decision of whether to “pull the plug” on his own father.  God was merciful, and his father passed away that night on the life support, anyway.

On the other hand, there was a family member who, after multiple bouts with cancer, signed a living will with a blanket refusal of life sustaining measures, which was phrased so broadly that, when the time came, she was starved to death.

And then there was a family friend who was in a horrible traffic accident like a year and a half ago.  When it first happened, he was on lifesupport and not responding, and there was a big debate about “pulling the plug.”  Before a decision was made, he woke up.  Then they said he was completely paralyzed.  Then he wasn’t.  Now he’s walking again and, while not 100%, mostly back to his old life.

As I have read many stories of middle aged Marfans who coughed too hard, thus dissecting their aortas, and then went into comas for several months only to die of respiratory failure when their lungs filled up with blood, I wonder how I want such a situation handled.  I don’t want to be arbitrarily denied care or taken off the machines.  I don’t want to die *only* because a living will was improperly written or whatever, too vaguely.  

Or my wife’s cousin, who was the center of a national Botox scandal, whose father almost “pulled the plug” when things were most dire (they brougth the family together and used the minimal communication they were able to get from her–as they do with people with “locked in” syndrome–to get her response on which family member she wanted as her representative), but she’s since recovered.

I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of shutting down “life support,” nor with the idea of “brain death.”  

So much of it depends on the exact circumstances ,an

Should people have living wills?  Yes, if only to protect themselves from the  Michael Schiavos of the world. 

Should people carefully consider these issues?  Yes. 

Should doctors or the government or the insurance be the ones to “counsel” people?  No.  This decision should be made with detached parties who have the expertise in the moral rules, with a thorough understanding of the medical situation and possibilities, not with those who have a vested interest in the situation.

Obama implies he’s not a believing Christian

“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that,” an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.”

I know people are going to call this a stretch, but one thing I’ve experienced first hand, and through many conversations, is how different the death experience for those who have faith and those who don’t.

One person’s “agonizing” death from cancer may be a time of family togetherness, all-night prayer vigils, hand holding and hugging and hymnody.  Another’s death really is agony: dark-rooms, somber relatives, no one speaking, everyone standing at a distance. 

We had a big conversation about this at my Carmelite meeting a few months ago.  People told amazing stories of relatives’ deathbed conversions.  Some talked about relatives who had no faith, whose deaths were *horrible.* “You could feel the demons in the room,” said one lady of her brother-in-law’s death experience.  He was writhing in the bed, screaming.  Suddenly, he asked for a priest.  They got the priest who’d been waiting outside, blocked by the atheist relatives.  The priest received the dying man into the Church, and the whole room changed.

When you hear liberals talk about death, they talk about the agonizing nature of it. And the liberals, and the media, just don’t get it.  They think people have a “choice” about “end of life” care (to a certain extent, we do).  They say that the Schiavo case was a matter of “choice” and “family decisions” in which the government had no place (even though it had been in court for years, and the federal involvement was merely giving the family a chance at an appeal to someone other than the corrupt judge who always ruled in Michael’s favor).

But you don’t have the choice not to accept basic nutrition.  You have to the choice to refuse medical care, under certain circumstances . You do *not* have the choice to turn down basic nutrition or hydration, even to the point of refusing to provide nutritoin or hydration to a dying person when one has pulled the plug.

But his talk of the agonizing experience of watching his grandmother’s death–and how much did he actually experience?  Was it agonizing because of his guilt of putting his own ambitions above family?–betrays the fact that he thinks death is something fearful.

Years ago, before my heart surgery, the topic was being discussed at a Cursillo Ultreya.  Members were discussing their ailing parents and how sad it was they were dying in their 80s or whatever, and Dad said, “When John dies, it will be the happiest day of our lives.  All he wants is to go to Heaven, and why should we be sad that he gets his heart’s desire?”

The 2012 Campaign Begins: And Obama is vulnerable.

A recent Rasmussen Poll says that, if the 2012 election were held today, Obama would tie Mitt Romney and only slightly beat out Sarah Palin if either one won the Republican nomination.

Again: Obama’s popularity is a myth. It’s just that he has a devoted following–of only about 26% of the voting population.

“They hate her, they really really hate her”

Please understand: if you don’t want to vote for Sarah Palin if she runs  for office again, fine.  But I think that anyone concerned about family values/subsidiarity/the pro-life movement should see significance in the way the media, the Democrats and the Republican leadership passionately hate this woman

Candidates rarely come back after losing an election for President *or* Vice President: Kemp, anyone?  Quayle?  Kerry?  Mondale? Ferraro?  Dukakis?  Bentsen?  

McCain and Palin *lost*, yet the media still kept hounding her. 
15 “ethics inquiries” cleared of all charges, over a half million dollars in personal legal bills and millions of dollars in taxpayer and party money spent to clear those frivolous charges, and *not one* proved even grounded.

An accusation does not guilt make.  Obama won’t even provide the documentation required to get a driver’s license, much less be president, and those of us demanding that he produce it are called fanatics and conspiracy crackpots.

Meanwhile, this woman who, at worst, is no more corrupt than every other politician in the known world is maliciously calumniated.   Funny that a woman whose husband resigned from a lucrative job at BP so she wouldn’t be accused of having a conflict of interest as governor, a woman who increased taxes on Big Oil in Alaska, cut government perks, ticked off numerous lobbies and ousted all sorts of corrupt state and local officials in her career, is being labelled “corrupt.”

So, between the malicious “ethics inquiries,” combined with personal attacks on her children, Palin resigned.  Resigned to protect her children.  Resigned to end the frivolous ethics inquiries that were interfering with state business (hey–whatever you think of the various investigations of Slick Willie, did Bill Clinton ever offer to resign?)   Resigned so she could start raising money to pay her legal debts and start fighting the cultural battle against these people freed from the constraints and dignities of political office.

Now what?

Do they sit back and declare victory?  Do they rest satisifed?

Nope.

Now, even though she’s resigned, they’ve filed an ethics complaint against her because of the independent fund started to pay off her debts!!!!!

In his report, Daniel said his interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with common sense.

An ordinary citizen facing legal charges is not likely to be able to generate donations to a legal defense fund, he wrote. “In contrast, Governor Palin is able to generate donations because of the fact that she is a public official and a public figure. Were it not for the fact that she is governor and a national political figure, it is unlikely that many citizens would donate money to her legal defense fund.”

Yeah, but she wouldn’t have suffered these attacks if she were an “ordinary person,” either.

“Country Club Republicans”?

Apparently, Ron Paul has called Sarah Palin a “Country Club Republican,” saying that her lack of overt criticism of globalism implies support thereof.   Yet Palin herself endorsed Ron Paul in the primary.  And I don’t see how there is much need for infighting at this level of the conservative movement.

I like this part, though:

On reflection, it is the country club Republicans who have been most critical of Sarah Palin. That would be the Peggy Noonans, the David Frums and the Colin Powells of the GOP’s Vichy wing.

Dismissing Sarah’s Supporters

One of the responses labelled at those of us who criticize Obama is “So does that mean you hate the 54% of Americans who voted for him?” (Actually, it’s more like 26% of Americans, if not less).

Yet, with Sarah Palin, one of the baffling things is how the media totally dismiss her support “from the Republican base.” Those of us who support her are accused of “identity politics” and not thinking.

Yet we have a president who was elected largely because of people (white and black) who had the illusion that he was “like them.” Obama was elected on style, not substance. And Republicans have been running on identity politics for 30years: Ronald Reagan’s, just as the Democrats ran on identity politics of FDR and JFK for 60 years.

But, just as there are differences in polls between church attending Catholics and self-identified Catholics who do not attend Mass every week, I wonder about polls of those who support and oppose Sarah Palin.

I look at what David Letterman and “Celtic Diva” did to Palin’s children, and I read the words of Palin’s resignation speech, and then I hear the pundits, on both sides, saying they “don’t understand why she resigned.”

They don’t, huh?

Peggy Noonan, a childless harpy who claims to be Catholic and pro-life (but doesn’t put as much emphasis on either as she does to the Grand Old Party), gloats that Palin knew she “couldn’t cut it.”

Palin’s critics say she can’t stand to be criticized. Like the schoolyard bullies when the geeks and good kids they terrorize start crying, Palin’s enemies say, [cue Nelson Muntz]: “HA HA!” “She can’t cut it!” “She tried to play in the big leagues with us, and she couldn’t take the heat!”

They express bewilderment over her resignation, but anyone who is a parent should be able to understand her resignation.

They say, when you are pregnant or planning a child, that “everything changes.” I used to take offense at that notion. I used to think I knew about parenting. I used to think that when people said, “Everything changes,” they were speaking from a materialistic, “You can’t go on ski trips anymore” mentality.

But, no, everything does change. Change, of course, doesn’t have to mean you lose something. But everything becomes amplified. Just about every politician and pundit who’s made it big has done so at the cost of his or her children.

Alan Keyes and Dick Cheney both have lesbian daughters, and honest psychologists admit that lesbianism is caused by a dysfunctional bond with the father.
How many Republican “leaders” are divorced and remarried?
Who was the only divorced and remarried president?
How about all these one and two children political families? Lots of secondary infertility among the ruling classes? Lots of serious use of NFP? I doubt it. If they were all successful at NFP, they’d be promoting it. If they were all having secondary infertiltiy, they’d be working to cure it.

Lots of adultery among politicians, too. Isn’t that right Bill and Ted and Rudy and Mark?

Put your daughters in pretty dresses, tell them to smile and wave, and shove them off the stage. That’s the order of business for most politicians.

Sarah Palin takes her daughters to work and puts it up to family vote whether she should resign from office.

Would Rick Santorum do that?

I really would like to see a poll done of how many parents versus non-parents support Sarah, and how many parents of 4 or more kids support Sarah versus parents of 2 or less.

If I were in public life, and someone did to my kids what these Liberals have done to Sarah Palin’s kids, I’d be waging an all-out war.

I’d take the gloves off, and I do.

I’ve cut off relatives for less. We don’t anyone who’s “pro-choice,” or in any way eugenicist, near our children.

Those who understand that sentiment support Sarah Palin.

For Sarah, the gloves were her gubernatorial position, which required of her a dignity she could not compromise to fight for her children.

So, faced with the choice of fighting for her children and retaining her political status, she fought back.

And “She can’t take criticism” is all these bullies have to say for themselves.

Noonan versus Palin

So, Peggy Noonan has written yet another scathing piece on Sarah Palin. Noonan raises some interesting points, but her thesis, as this blogger points out, is fundamentally that Palin is not a “Beltway” type–or, as I put it last week, a Freemason.

One of the criticisms of Palin is that she is unprepared for “world leadership.” Wasn’t the same criticism levied against both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush?

Another claim is that she engaged in “nepotism” because, when she was mayor of Wasilla, she hired people she knew. One person’s “nepotism” is another person’s “networking,” especially when you live in a small town.

Another claim is that she “waffled” on the Bridge to Nowhere, which, in fact, she did change her position on, deciding that it was too expensive a project, and was not a realistic approach to building infrastructure.

Last weekend, I watched the rerun of the documentary Greta Von Susteren did on Palin’s life when she was nominated for Vice President. Everything I learn about Palin makes me like her better.

And, with few exceptions, most of the criticisms made against her are:

a. Calumnies
b. Attacks on her family or family status
c. Claims that she doesn’t have what it takes to deal with Washington politics. But if you look at what she’s accomplished in Alaska, she is a very capable politician.

That’s exactly what the Washington types fear. Noonan says we need a leader to get us out of our economic crisis: then why not a woman who has proven she understands the balance between infrastructure and fiscal responsibility, who made enemies in her own party and in the special interests by raising taxes on oil and cutting many of the “perks” in state government?

It’s precisely that they *don’t* want these reforms that makes them hate Palin so much. She threatens them.

When Rush Limbaugh and the Swift Boat people played actual recordings of John Kerry contradicting himself on his Vietnam record, it was “conservative lies.” When conservatives quote actual statements of Barack Obama to show how his views disagree with ours, we’re accused of lying.

Yet liberals make up all sorts of groundless accusations and rumors against Sarah Palin, those rumors get discredited in multimillion dollar investigations, and the Left and the Republican elites still insist that Palin is as corrupt as they come.

Sarah resigns: what next?

So, Sarah Palin has resigned.

Why? Predictably, liberals are thinking the worst possible things.

“Another scandal.”  What scandals?  Most of the “scandals” have been manufactured by her enemies and proven groundless.  Trig?  Yep, disability is horribly scandalous to Democrats.  The fact that Bristol did not have an abortion?

Are we to believe that every politician’s teenaged daughter, particularly every liberal policitian, is a virgin??  Barack Obama says he expects his daughters will fornicate, and he doesn’t want them “punished for their mistakes”. 

More lkely, she’s sick of the relentless and heartless attacks on her family from the Democrats and the Mainstream Media. 

I’m hoping that she sees the historical writing on the wall, and understands that the Grand Old Party needs to be euthanized.  After suffering attacks even from party leadership, I’m hoping she’s getting ready to organize her own third party movemeent.

In any case, what would you do if you had David Letterman joking about your children being molested, the Alaskan Democratic Party insulting your disabled son, unnamed Republican leadership calling you all sorts of names and making false accusations against you?  And that’s the stuff we know about.ve legal debts

While the above article from _The Atlantic_ suggests she’s just greedy, someone at American Catholic points out that Alaska law does not allow its governors to collect outside money, and she now has extensive legal debts thanks to the  frivolous lawsuits and ethicalmplaints raised against her.

Sarah specifically cited the attacks on her family in the resignation speech, saying, “only a dead fish goes with the flow.” 

Pundits are saying her political career is over.  It may be.  She may just be sick of it.  If so, good for her.  If she wants to start an alternate party, great.

But this is definitely the death knell of the GOP.  There’s no way the GOP can mount a successful candidate for 2012 now.  And, again, we need to be focusing on 2010, not 2012, and who is in the position to lead *that*?

OK, so that’s the official story from the talking classes.

They’re saying they don’t understand, that she didn’t explain herself, etc.

Not true at all.  SarahPAC has the full text.

Contrary to MSM reports, she *does* give her reasons:

1.  The aforementioned legal debts, and the fact that the  frivolous ethics complaints are impeding her from serving as governor, costing her and the taxpayers millions of dollars.

2.  The assaults on her children, particularly the hateful assaults on Trig. 

In fact, this decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life – my children (where the count was unanimous… well, in response to asking: “Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children’s future from OUTSIDE the Governor’s office?” It was four “yes’s” and one “hell yeah!” The “hell yeah” sealed it – and someday I’ll talk about the details of that… I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.) Um, by the way, sure wish folks could ever, ever understand that we ALL could learn so much from someone like Trig – I know he needs me, but I need him even more… what a child can offer to set priorities RIGHT – that time is precious… the world needs more “Trigs”, not fewer.

How many politicians would consult their kids on their careers?

The MSM are baffled.  They say her speech is “rambling”–it isn’t.  In fact, it’s very rhetorically artful and well thought-out.

They say she didn’t explain herself.  She did.

Some are even criticizing her for “comparing herself to our troops in Kosovo” (actually, she cited them as inspiration).

She may very well be telling the truth that she wants out of politics completely, that she wants to work from behind the scenes .

But Palin is a lot smarter than her enemies think she is. She’s very intelligent, and she understands conservatives, and she understands conservative philosophy.

What is the ideal candidate for a conservative?  The candidate who is elected by conscription, as Socrates says.  The story of that Greek guy who was a farmer and would put down his plow to lead the Athenian armies to victory but wouldn’t allow them to crown him king.  George Washington.

Palin may be playing the most artful card she can as a conservative: stepping out of politics so her supporters will demand her.

In any case, this basically proves what I’ve said: it’s the Freemasons.

Sanford and Palin were among the top names to be the resurgence of conservatism.  Both opposed the “Stimulus money”–and the stimulus money is the very thing the conspiracy theorists have been predicting for years.

I mean, come on.  was Sanford’s “disappearance” really that much of a mystery ? Do you know where your governor is?  Or did they know about his adultery, or learn about it in advance, and create the whole firestorm to expose him and destroy him?
They’ve tried everything else on Sarah Palin, but since she *is* ethical, they can’t make anything stick, but they’ve driven her into near bankruptcy in the process.  So insead, they threaten her children–if what David Letterman said is what we know, if what “Celtic Diva” posted on the Intenret is what we know, what threats have the Palins been receiving in private?

Why they hate Sarah Palin

A blog called Why Mommy is a Republican has series of posts about the hatred for Sarah Palin among the GOP leadership and her support among the base.  Not to beat a dead horse, but the Whig Party died in the 1850s because the Christian base dumped the Northern Capitalist leadership.

The Anchoress, quoting some passages from other blogs and columns considering the same question, asks, “Why do they hate Sarah Palin?”
Her answer is that, like Bush, they’d love her if she were a Democrat (except the abortion thing).

But I’d suggest something completely different . The hatred of Palin is different than the hatred for Bush, precisely because she *lost*. It would be one thing if McCain won and they constantly picked on Palin as VP.

But they hate Palin for the same reason that they’ve put Obama on a pedestal since 2004: they know she’s to Republicans today what Obama was to liberals 4 years ago: the pre-anointed front runner of 2012 who embodies everything the Base stands for.

Plus, Palin really is what she claims to be, what Newt Gingrich was in 1994, what Rush Limbaugh was when he first hit national celebrity in the early 1990s: an outsider.

They call her “inexperienced,” but she’s a poliical outsider who managed to get elected governor, even bucking her own party in a war against corruption.

You want to know the absolute, “you betcha” reason they hate Sarah?

She’s not a Freemason.

Anyone who thinks our government is *not* run by secret societies (and we should really use the term collectively; it’s not really one vast conspiracy) should only look as far as “Skull and Bones.” A disproportionate number of Supreme Court Justices and Presidents, as well as other major political figures and business leaders, including “Catholic” pundit William F. Buckley, have been members of the same fraternity at Yale. Both candidates in 2004 had been members of “Skull and Bones” during their times at Yale.

Or just the common use of the term “Old Boys’ Club” by liberals and/or grass roots activists of either side.

She’s truly an outsider, not a member of a secret society, not a wealthy heiress, not someone they can control with their handlers and blackmail.

Sarah Palin is not someone you’ll see backing away from principles for power the way people like Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum have done. One may not agree with all her beliefs or principles, but one knows she’s going to abide by them.

She’s also a confident, capable politician who will not be “handled,” which is why the anonymous “Republican insiders” who keep getting quoted in the media hate her, as well. It’s why the McCain Campaign internally turned against her.

She may be “inexperienced,” but “you betcha” she wouldn’t be asking a lawyer, while signing an executive order, “Now, what does this one do?” in front of the media the way Obama was doing during his first days in office.

That’s why they hate her.

Another reason I’m a conservative: liberals despise disabled people

Case in point is this ad by the Alaska Democrats which mocks Trig Palin.

The ad was made by a blogger who goes by “Celtic Diva” and is apparently an official blogger for the Alaska Democratic Party.

(The link above will take you to a blog post which shows the ad and offers advice for how to take action)

 

One of the things that annoys me about Democrats is taht they persist in the myth that their “base” is blue collar workers and minorities, even though, for 40 years, their real base has been rich young whites.  They go to college and get brainwashed by the liberal universities.  They feel guilty about being raised in privilege, but rather than adopting a traditional Christian response to such guilt and giving away everything to join the monastery or convent, they try to assuage their guilt by joining the Democratic Party and, as Evita puts it in the eponymous musical, “giving donations –just large enough–to the  correct charities.”

They’re really a bunch of valley girls who look at all the suffering that goes on in the world and say, “Eww! Gross! How could anyone live like that?”

As they drink their Starbucks coffees and wear their designer clothes and eat expensive organic food, all of which they obtained by driving around in their expensive Hondas, before they go off to pay $9 a person to watch the latest politically correct film by Steven Spielberg or Ron Howard, liberals bemoan the sufferings of starving or disabled children.

But their solution is not to deprive themselves of privilege so as to share with the poor. Their solution is to say, “It’s better that they should have never existed at all.”

And it’s nothing new. Flannery O’Connor writes about it in “Memoir to Mary Anne.”

Why should Registered Democrats Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Ted Turner (each of whom I admired in my teen years because I bought the lie that all rich people were Republicans, so I presumed that a) they were Republicans and therefore, b) they were pro-life)–why should they give up their ski resorts and country clubs and jet setting to actually share with the poor when they can just use a fraction of their enormous wealth to exterminate the poor and disabled?

The Valley Girl Party wants to think the world is–or should be–a pleasant place to live. They like their worldly lifestyles. They can’t imagine any different. Remember: the Woodstock Hippies of 1968 and campus rioters of the 1970s were the Yuppies of 1985.

They don’t want to see anything unpleasant. If a marriage is difficult, that’s unpleasant. Get a quickie divorce and trade a spouse in for a new model. If raising kids is difficult, unpleasant, ship them off to 20 after school activities a week and daycare when school’s out.

Having kids deprive you of all the luxuries you think you’re entitled to? Take a pill.

Discover that your gay friends are dying of a gruesome disease like AIDS? Demand an instant cure.

Conceive a child with a genetic disorder? Have an abortion.

It’s the easy way out. It’s the more superficially pleasant way ot handle it.

Down’s syndrome is unpleasant. Marfan syndrome is unpleasant. Cystic Fibrosis is unpleasant. AIDs is unpleasant. Poverty is unpleasant.

What’s downright repulsive though is the narcissism of the American Left.

Once again, Sarah Palin shocks people by . . . acting like a Christian!

Republican activists keep saying for some reason that Sarah Palin is the embodiment of what’s wrong with conservatism, that the Party needs to distance itself from Palin to succeed–despite the fact that she’s the main reason McCain got the votes he did.

In any case, here’s a cool column praising Palin for her forgiveness of David Letterman.  First, Palin made a national name when she defied conventional worldly wisdom and welcomed her son with Down’s syndrome, Tripp.

Then, when the Left leaked photos of an apparently-pregnant Bristol (initially insinuating that Tripp was Bristol’s baby), Palin defied the secular world’s impression of Christians by forgiving her daughter’s sin and supporting her, but also having Bristol take true responsibility for her actions.

To the Left, apostate Puritans that they are, this was a scandal: the Palins were “bad parents” because they didn’t provide their daughter with contraceptives, and they didn’t drive her to the abortuary as soon as they found out she was pregnant out of wedlock.

Now, after a week long battle with David Letterman over his horribly offensive comments, Plain has forgiven Letterman, once again showing that she’s a Politican who actually lives her Christianity. 

No, at a time when both conservatism and Christianity have lost their hard-gained political influence in America due to the hypocrisy of people like Bush, Coulter and Hannity, Sarah Palin is *exactly* what we need.

“Liars from Satan!”

My father-in-law has a favorite expression regarding the Media and the Democrats:  “Liars from Satan!” 

That expression really comes to mind when I watch the way the media treat Sarah Palin.  They do everything they can to trash her, even at the expense of their own claims of feminism.

Liberals hate nothing more than someone who should be one of their “pet demographics” and isn’t.  When teens and college students are liberal, they’re “the voice of the future.”  When they’re conservative, they’re “uneducated” or “brainwashed” or “need to get a graduate degree.”  When Blacks are conservatives, they’re Uncle Toms.  When women are conservatives, they’re Setting Back Feminism.  Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter have both been accused, both in direct Internet comments and through fictional caricatures, of “sleeping their way to the top.”  I think I blogged about the review I read of Oliver Stone’s W., which said that the movie really makes its protagonist sympathetic, in part from its desire to make Cheney and Rove the real villains, but most of all its expression of absolute disdain for Condoleeza Rice.

So Sarah Palin embodies everything the liberals hate: she’s conservative.  She’s a woman.  She’s happily married and has a “big family” of five kids, yet she’s hugely successful.

They criticize her parenting the way they would never criticize the parenting of any liberal male politician.  They think she’s a bad mother not be Bristol engaged in fornication but because Bristol did so without parent-provided contraceptives.  Their own daughters may be engaging in all sorts of immoral behavior: they don’t care, so long as its kept a secret, and a baby sure is a way to bring things out in the open.

I guess what really ticked me off was a comment I read–it was a quotation of someone in an article about the feud with David Letterman–in which the person said, “Sarah Palin was the one who made her daughter’s pregnancy an issue and tried to get political points from it.”

That just infuriated me.  The liberals dug it up.  They even tried to say that Trip was Bristol’s son, by confusing the dates on some photographs.  They were the ones who made it an issue.  The Palins dealt with it nobly.

And, yes, it was a perfect expression of her Christian values: not encouraging fornication by passing out contraceptives, and not calling her grandchild a “mistake” the way Obama says he would, but embracing the situation and encouraging their daughter to take responsibility.

It just infuriates the liberals even more that they can’t “pin that” on her, that their Pharisaical attempt to say, “Gotcha” blew up in their faces as making Palin all the more a hero.

So, she goes to a baseball game with her 12ish daughter Willow.  Letterman makes some comment about Alex Rodriguez (whoever that is) “knocking up” her daughter during the ninth inning.  I thought I read something else about Letterman making a comment about attire.

Anyway, as one commentor put it in a “status” on Facebook: If the situation were Rush Limbaugh instead of David Letterman, and Michelle Obama (who does dress her daughters rather immodestly), Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton instead of Sarah Palin, the media would be crying for his head.

In this case, they’re attacking Palin for taking Letterman’s jokes too seriously.

For most of the day Friday on Yahoo, the headline was a video about “Palin’s Awkward Interview” with Matt Lauer.  She refused to accept Letterman’s apology.  Letterman claimed he was confusing daughters and the joke was referring to Bristol, not Willow, as if that excuses it.

She implied that Letterman’s a dirty old man and said that she wouldn’t trust her daughter around him (she reminded me much of my wife here.  I told Mary about the exchange, and she said, “I wouldn’t trust my daughter around someone who said that.  Of course, I can’t trust my daughter around anyone who’s pro-choice, because they don’t care about children”).

Lauer shot back, “Isn’t that just as offensive to say?”

Trent Lott said that Strom Thurmond, after he changed his views on civil rights, would have made a good president, and his career was over.

Joe Biden said that Barak Obama was important because it was so unusual to see an “articulate, clean-cut black man,” and he got made Vice President.

At least the media keep giving us more reasons to like Sarah Palin.