Rob Monti,
Your Favorite MonT-SteR!
Blogs with
MonT-SteR Appeal
Alpha & Omega Min.
Atheism Presupposes Theism
Atheism Sucks!
Christians Behaving Badly
Come Reason Ministries
Facing the Challenge
His Hand is On the Door
Let's Try Freedom
ProLifeBlogs
The Thinklings
World Magazine Blog
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rapid-fire political potpourri
Infuriating
As many of you know, that poisonous train wreck of a stimulus bill passed, and it wouldn't have happened without Senator Arlen Specter's continued perfidy. I'm not a Pennsylvania resident, but my grandparents are. They are part of the "greatest generation," and my granddad served honorably during World War II. So you can imagine my shock when I found out that the stimulus bill contains measures that ration health care to senior citizens using Medicare based on a cold, unfeeling equation.
That's right, folks. The stimulus bill sets up a new bureaucracy that determines which of our seniors get health care and which ones don't.
You need bypass surgery? Hmm, let's see here. According to actuarial tables, given your medical history and hereditary risk factors, you only have another 2 years of average life expectancy. Let me plug your numbers into our formula here, and... Ooh, sorry! You might beat the actuarial table, but we can't risk it. Giving that bypass to someone a bit younger is a better use of health care dollars. Well, better get your house in order. Next!
Doesn't sound very nice, does it? I appealed to Senator Specter not to support the bill for this and many other reasons. Millions of other citizens like me did the same. He voted for it anyway. And folks, I'm not just ticked. I'm fire-breathing, nail-spitting mad.
So I sent the good senator a note, letting him know exactly how I feel:
Embarrassing
Sigh...
I can only conclude from this that a significant portion of Obama's supporters believe that they have elected a personal Santa Claus.
Julio, if you don't like the pay and benefits at MacDonald's, then FIND ANOTHER JOB. Don't blame others for the fact that the Mickey D's health care plan ain't all that. What in heaven's name do you expect? It's MACDONALD's! If you can't find another job, then it's YOUR responsibility to do what you can to enhance your resume, acquire better skills, and find a better situation. YOU take initiative. Don't lower yourself by begging the President to make MacDonald's give you the moon just because YOU think they should.
Sheesh.
Perplexing
The "I Love You, Barack" lady has been making the rounds on the `net:
Don't get me wrong here -- my heart goes out to Henrietta Hughes. Once again, however, someone has an opportunity to sit in President Santa Claus's lap and present a wish list. Is this really appropriate? I'm all for approachability in public officials, but I feel like there's some sort of impropriety in the way she and good ol' Julio address the President.
The onlooker behind her could barely contain herself. Her bottom lip was quivering. You could see that her respiratory rate had increased. Folks, I'm flummoxed by this.
Mrs. MonT-SteR reminded me that I have the benefit of being grounded in Christ, of having hope in God, of knowing that I'm cared for by His hand. Not everybody has that. And so they will glom onto whatever seems to offer it in their estimation.
It's wrongheaded, but a lot of people are focusing affection that ought to be reserved for God Himself on President Obama. He's a man, and like any man he's bound to disappoint at some juncture. But it's a good reminder that the hope we have in Christ needs to be shared as widely and liberally as possible.
Frightening
This article needs no comment. We really do hang by a thread. Man, in his pride, has lost control of everything. I continue to assert that this country will disintegrate in short order apart from another Great Awakening that impacts every state in the union.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Infuriating
As many of you know, that poisonous train wreck of a stimulus bill passed, and it wouldn't have happened without Senator Arlen Specter's continued perfidy. I'm not a Pennsylvania resident, but my grandparents are. They are part of the "greatest generation," and my granddad served honorably during World War II. So you can imagine my shock when I found out that the stimulus bill contains measures that ration health care to senior citizens using Medicare based on a cold, unfeeling equation.
That's right, folks. The stimulus bill sets up a new bureaucracy that determines which of our seniors get health care and which ones don't.
You need bypass surgery? Hmm, let's see here. According to actuarial tables, given your medical history and hereditary risk factors, you only have another 2 years of average life expectancy. Let me plug your numbers into our formula here, and... Ooh, sorry! You might beat the actuarial table, but we can't risk it. Giving that bypass to someone a bit younger is a better use of health care dollars. Well, better get your house in order. Next!
Doesn't sound very nice, does it? I appealed to Senator Specter not to support the bill for this and many other reasons. Millions of other citizens like me did the same. He voted for it anyway. And folks, I'm not just ticked. I'm fire-breathing, nail-spitting mad.
So I sent the good senator a note, letting him know exactly how I feel:
Dear Senator Specter:
You have betrayed your country by supporting a bill that puts generations to come into hock. Moreover, you have voted for legislation that will wreck our economy and ration health care to citizens like my grandparents -- Pennsylvania residents who are part of the "greatest generation" that saw our nation through the perils of World War II and the Cold War.
They deserve better. We all deserve better.
Therefore, be assured that I, as a United States citizen, will devote all the time and treasure I can muster to oppose you when you are next up for re-election, in hopes that someone more worthy of your office will be duly elected in your place.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Monti
Virginia Beach, VA
I'm serious about this. Senator Specter has to go. I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure he loses the next Republican primary. Stay tuned...You have betrayed your country by supporting a bill that puts generations to come into hock. Moreover, you have voted for legislation that will wreck our economy and ration health care to citizens like my grandparents -- Pennsylvania residents who are part of the "greatest generation" that saw our nation through the perils of World War II and the Cold War.
They deserve better. We all deserve better.
Therefore, be assured that I, as a United States citizen, will devote all the time and treasure I can muster to oppose you when you are next up for re-election, in hopes that someone more worthy of your office will be duly elected in your place.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Monti
Virginia Beach, VA
Embarrassing
Sigh...
I can only conclude from this that a significant portion of Obama's supporters believe that they have elected a personal Santa Claus.
Julio, if you don't like the pay and benefits at MacDonald's, then FIND ANOTHER JOB. Don't blame others for the fact that the Mickey D's health care plan ain't all that. What in heaven's name do you expect? It's MACDONALD's! If you can't find another job, then it's YOUR responsibility to do what you can to enhance your resume, acquire better skills, and find a better situation. YOU take initiative. Don't lower yourself by begging the President to make MacDonald's give you the moon just because YOU think they should.
Sheesh.
Perplexing
The "I Love You, Barack" lady has been making the rounds on the `net:
Don't get me wrong here -- my heart goes out to Henrietta Hughes. Once again, however, someone has an opportunity to sit in President Santa Claus's lap and present a wish list. Is this really appropriate? I'm all for approachability in public officials, but I feel like there's some sort of impropriety in the way she and good ol' Julio address the President.
The onlooker behind her could barely contain herself. Her bottom lip was quivering. You could see that her respiratory rate had increased. Folks, I'm flummoxed by this.
Mrs. MonT-SteR reminded me that I have the benefit of being grounded in Christ, of having hope in God, of knowing that I'm cared for by His hand. Not everybody has that. And so they will glom onto whatever seems to offer it in their estimation.
It's wrongheaded, but a lot of people are focusing affection that ought to be reserved for God Himself on President Obama. He's a man, and like any man he's bound to disappoint at some juncture. But it's a good reminder that the hope we have in Christ needs to be shared as widely and liberally as possible.
Frightening
This article needs no comment. We really do hang by a thread. Man, in his pride, has lost control of everything. I continue to assert that this country will disintegrate in short order apart from another Great Awakening that impacts every state in the union.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: politics
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Live comments on the Saddleback Civil Forum
Well, here's my ultimate take on the whole thing.
I think Obama is a well-spoken man who is at ease with himself. On the stump, I've found him to be rather haughty and arrogant -- the accusation of messiah-complex that is often leveled at him is not without warrant. But tonight, he was self-effacing, conversational, friendly, likable. I can understand why people are taken with him.
If you listen to him carefully enough, however, you hear inconsistencies that cast doubt on the steadiness of his core principles. Recall that when he had to distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his speech more or less threw his grandmother under the bus as a knee-jerk racist after the fashion of "typical white people" (Obama attempted to do damage control on that comment after the fact, but not successfully IMHO). Contrast that with tonight, when he told Rick Warren that his grandmother is one of the great sages in his life. I'm confused...
Plus, I just find the lion's share of his thinking and politics noxious. The guy's a socialist -- no two ways about it. His discussion of the Supreme Court's role was just plain weird (I wanted to say inane, but let's be charitable), and his position on abortion is essentially a punt on the central human rights issue so he can maintain a politically expedient pro-choice posture (too bad those in the womb can't vote).
Turning to McCain, readers of my blog know that I'm not his biggest fan. Campaign finance reform was nothing short of a brazen assault on the First Amendment. He was the chief champion of that legislation, and it flies in the face of the oath a president takes to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, he's been a sell-out on immigration reform (or, more precisely, amnesty for illegal aliens). So I'm predisposed to being extraordinarily skeptical of McCain as a presidential candidate.
That said, he is a consistently pro-life candidate, which is important to me. The annual slaughter of 40 million unborn babies is nothing short of a modern holocaust of shocking proportions, and IT MUST END. I could never, in good conscience, vote for someone who is pro-choice. And he does hold to a number of conservative issues (keeping taxes low, tough stance on national security, constitutionalist judges, etc.). From my perspective, he's definitely preferable to Sen. Obama.
I thought McCain did pretty well tonight, although I found him stiff at times (especially when he discussed his personal faith). And he seemed to revert here and there to stump speech mode, something I think Obama avoided more successfully. Even so, I think McCain came across in a surprisingly warm, engaging fashion (as opposed to some stoic, old fart of a curmudgeonly war hero). In any case, in a contest of substance versus fluff, McCain won hands down. His black eyes: a rambling, non-answer on privacy vs. security; no clear enunciation of policy with respect to when and how much America should act as world policeman.
I'd like to express my appreciation to Rick Warren and Saddleback for a number of things:
8:04 p.m.
Question segment #1 is going to deal with leadership issues.
First question to Barack has to deal with the three wisest people who have influenced him.
His answer:
Barack Obama (BO): Difficult youth. Experimented with drugs. Associates struggles as a young man with selfishness -- so preoccupied with his own dissatisfaction that he couldn't see the needs of others. (A candid answer, I think.) America's greatest moral failure in his lifetime is its failure to abide by the precept of doing good to "the least of one's brethren." Applies to poverty, racism, sexism, and not providing ladders of opportunity.
RW: Common ground and common good. Did you ever go against party loyalty and self-interest in the interest of America?
BO: Cites campaign finance reform. (Blech. This is a terrible example, as it stomps brazenly all over the First Amendment. Sorry, Barack -- not in the best interest of the country.)
RW: What's the most significant position you've held that you ended up changing your mind on?
BO: Welfare reform. Felt that welfare had to be changed, but was concerned that the bill Bill Clinton signed would prove disastrous. But it worked better than anticipated. Convinced that work is the centerpiece of social policy. Provides a sense of both purpose and community. (Obama is to applauded here -- too bad this philosophy doesn't filter into the rest of his policy ideas.)
RW: What's the most gut-wrenching decision you had to make, and how did you process that?
BO: Cites his anti-war stance. (I find this to be a disingenuous answer. Hindsight is 20/20, Barack. He's touting his vaunted prescience with respect to the Iraq war being ill-conceived and unjust. He said he had doubts with respect to WMD from the outset. So even though Russia, France, Britain, Israel, and the US all had intelligence on Saddam's WMD program, you were singularly discerning -- above and beyond the intelligence capabilities of multiple nations. Stop insulting my IQ. Barack's anti-war stance is grounded in ideology before evidence, and as such it was not a gut-wrenching decision at all.)
Commercial break
8:20 p.m.
Rick warren asked Obama about his faith. He's professing that Jesus died for his sins, but says that "hopefully" his sins will be washed away. ("Hopefully" isn't exactly the orthodox Christian position on the efficacy of Jesus' sacrifice, but we won't quibble too much right now.)
Rick says that he's getting to the "tough" questions.
Abortion! Rick says he has to deal with this issue all the time. Cites the statistic of 40 million abortions per year. At what point does a gestating baby get human rights? (Yay! I'm so glad he asked this question!)
BO: States that deciding when a gestating baby is fully human is "above my pay grade." He's pro-choice, believes in Roe v. Wade -- not because he believes in abortion, but because he doesn't think women make the decision to have an abortion casually. Says the goal should be to reduce the # of abortions.
RW: Has Obama ever voted to limit or reduce the # of abortions?
BO: He's against late-term abortion. If you believe that life begins at conception, he can't argue. But he can say, "Can we work together to reduce the # of unwanted pregnancies?" How do we provide resources that allow a woman to keep a child? (I think these are specious, or at least tertiary questions -- is abortion wrong or not? If wrong, it should be outlawed, plain and simple).
RW: Define marriage.
BO: Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. As a Christian, it's a sacred union. God's in the mix.
RW: Would you support constitutional protection for that definition of marriage?
BO: No. Historically, we haven't defined marriage federally. It's a state issue.
Interrupted by first-born son asking to watch a movie. Actually, he climbed on my head. Hang on...
8:40 p.m.
RW: Define rich.
BO: $150k/yr. down is middle class to poor. $250k/yr. and above is rich. (What about $151k/yr. to $249k/yr?). $150k/yr. and below will see a tax cut under his plan. Asserts again that $250k+/yr. is "rich." (He still hasn't addressed that apparent no-man's land between $150k and $250k/yr. Does he realize that?)
Obama's answers on the purpose of the Supreme Court and which justice he wouldn't nominate were -- well -- strange. It's designed only to limit the power of the chief executive? Huh? What about 9th grade civics -- highest body in the judicial branch, created to interpret and clarify law, and all that? And Barack's assessment of Clarence Thomas was essentially that he is a dunce and therefore unworthy of being on the court. He wouldn't nominate Scalia just because they disagree (what are the nature of those disagreements, Barack?), and he doesn't like the way John Roberts presides over the court because he's too compliant vis-a-vis the Oval Office. Sorry folks, but this is pablum. And he accuses Justice Thomas of thoughtlessness...
RW: There are 148 million orphans in the world. They don't need to be in orphanages. They need to be in families. Would there be a willingness to create an emergency plan for orphans?
BO: Thinks it's a great idea. Wants to work with international organizations. Part of the plan needs to be preventing unwanted children with good health care (my hunch is that this means Planned Parenthood style solutions in Barack speak).
RW: What should we do about religious persecution?
BO: Cites our complex relationship with China -- they're a trading partner, but they are actively engaged in persecuting people of faith. We need to "bear witness" and "speak out." We also need to lead by example. (Ugh. He's turning this into an anti-Gitmo rant. Can we stay on the subject?) We can't talk about religious persecution when Gitmo exists. (Dangblasted moral equivalence at work. As though Gitmo and sending Christians to labor camps are the same thing. Gimme a break.)
RW: Why do you want to be president?
BO: (This is The MonT-SteR's interpretation of what he said.) Basically, we're only great to the degree that we're socialist (disguised cleverly in language of empathy). That's why he wants the office, so he can turn us more in that direction. No thanks, Barack. Just say no to Marx and Lenin.
Next up, McCain's turn. Rather than type out RW's questions, I'm just going to organize it topically.
9:04 p.m.
McCain on Leadership
Wise leaders he'd depend on:
McCain led against party's interest and his own best interest on climate change, spending, tort reform, etc. The most trying was when he was first in Congress, Reagan wanted to send Marines to Beirut in a peace-keeping mission. He opposed Reagan, and the marines ended up getting bombed.
McCain's most significant reasoned flip-flop: Off-shore drilling. He knows that people disagree, but states that it's a national security issue. We're sending $700 billion to parties in the world who don't have our best interests at heart. We can't allow that. We need to have a multi-faceted, broad-based approach to energy policy and reform.
Most gut-wrenching decision: When McCain was in prison camp. Was going to be released, but refused. Was the toughest decision he made. Took lots of prayer.
Next up, worldview issues.
McCain on Worldview
Talks about his faith. Mentions salvation and forgiveness through Christ in about four words, seems very uncomfortable. Mentions that Christian faith embraces the world. (Hope that is a confession of mankind's universal need for Christ rather than theological universalism....) Falls into a story about Christmas in his POW camp, how when he was allowed to stand outside his cell on Christmas day, a guard came and drew a cross in the dirt. It was a special moment when enemy combatants were merely two Christians joining in worship in a dark place.
Abortion -- McCain states that a baby has human rights at the moment of conception. Has a 25-year pro-life record. Will be a pro-life president with pro-life policies.
Marriage -- Union between one man and one woman. People can enter into legal agreements and so forth (parallel to Obama's support for civil unions). If the courts attempted to force unilateral recognition of same-sex marriage, at that point McCain supports a Constitutional amendment.
Stem cells -- very great struggle and dilemma for the pro-life community. McCain wants stem cell research, but very optimistic about adult stem cell research. As it progresses, the debate will be moot.
Does evil exist? Yes -- it needs to be defeated. He's going to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Transcendent battle of the 21st century is the struggle between the West and extremist, radical Islam. It is palpably evil and must be defeated.
McCain says he would not have nominated Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens. President's responsibility is great. Nomination should be based on proven record and constitutional perspective (not legislating from the bench). Proud of Bush for nominating Roberts and Alito.
On faith-based organizations: Can faith-based organizations hire those who adhere to their belief system? (Barack felt that they could not if receiving federal funds.) McCain says yes -- to require otherwise is to cripple the organization itself.
Education -- should there be merit pay for the best teachers? Yes. Choice and competition is the solution. Vouchers work. Home schooling works (yes!). Charter schools work. Choice and competition is a simple solution, but it has the potential to reform our education system. This is the civil rights issue of the 21st century -- sending children to failing schools is unjust.
Taxation -- McCain's wants everybody to get wealthy. Doesn't believe in taking the money of the rich. Small business owners work hard, and are classified as rich. But raising taxes on them would be onerous and damage the economy. Jokes that $5 million/yr. is the cut-off for "rich," and acknowledges that he's probably going to be taken out of context for that comment. Joked sardonically about spending $3 million of federal money on a DNA study of bears in Montana -- was that a paternity issue or a criminal issue? It's funny, but it isn't. During hard economic times, that kind of spending should be eradicated.
When our right to privacy and national security collide, what takes precedence? Mentions right to privacy with respect to union ballots (to eliminate intimidation). (Mm. McCain's answer is rambling here. Nothing substantive -- he's ranting about political infighting. Acknowledges the tension, but doesn't present any solutions or coherent method of handling the question RW put to him. Sorry Sen. McCain, you blew it on this one....)
Commercial break -- I have to say thus far that I've found McCain far more substantive. He got stiff when he talked about his own faith life and what Christianity means to him (I think that makes him uncomfortable). Obama was far more comfortable discussing his faith. But Obama really is all about feel-good fluff. So far, McCain is (for the most part) giving more cogent answers. Honestly, I wasn't expecting that.
9:40 p.m.
McCain on America's Responsibility to the World
Freedom is worth dying for. There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world, so we can't possibly remedy everything. America's most precious commodity is her blood. We've shed our blood for others in a way no other nation has. Just as we defeated communism, we can defeat radical Islam. RW asks when we should intervene in situations like Darfour, Georgia, etc. McCain says that we need to stop genocide whenever we can (but particularly when it's in the interest of our national security). We need to marshal world forces. RW mentions that Russia is reasserting itself in Georgia and Poland, asks McCain to comment. He mentions the bloodshed and suffering, saddened by Russia's behavior. Mentions that Georgia was one of the earliest Christian nations. Georgian President was educated in the U.S., returned to forge a successful democracy. We need to not only negotiate a cease-fire, but insist that Georgia's territorial integrity be respected. It wasn't an accident that the presidents of other former Eastern Bloc countries flew to Georgia to show solidarity. This conflict is also about Russian control over energy. We need to send a message to the Russians that such behavior is not acceptable. (Unfortunately, McCain doesn't outline quite what that message should be beyond angry denunciations. A little fluff here....)
On religious persecution -- use the bully pulpit. Cites Reagan's example (he called the Soviets the evil empire, called upon them to tear down the Berlin wall). Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we help the oppressed in the world. Knows first-hand the price and preciousness of freedom.
Why he wants to be President: Wants to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves. Time to unify the country. America wants hope and optimism. Wants people who won't vote for him to know that he'll be their president as well.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Well, here's my ultimate take on the whole thing.
I think Obama is a well-spoken man who is at ease with himself. On the stump, I've found him to be rather haughty and arrogant -- the accusation of messiah-complex that is often leveled at him is not without warrant. But tonight, he was self-effacing, conversational, friendly, likable. I can understand why people are taken with him.
If you listen to him carefully enough, however, you hear inconsistencies that cast doubt on the steadiness of his core principles. Recall that when he had to distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his speech more or less threw his grandmother under the bus as a knee-jerk racist after the fashion of "typical white people" (Obama attempted to do damage control on that comment after the fact, but not successfully IMHO). Contrast that with tonight, when he told Rick Warren that his grandmother is one of the great sages in his life. I'm confused...
Plus, I just find the lion's share of his thinking and politics noxious. The guy's a socialist -- no two ways about it. His discussion of the Supreme Court's role was just plain weird (I wanted to say inane, but let's be charitable), and his position on abortion is essentially a punt on the central human rights issue so he can maintain a politically expedient pro-choice posture (too bad those in the womb can't vote).
Turning to McCain, readers of my blog know that I'm not his biggest fan. Campaign finance reform was nothing short of a brazen assault on the First Amendment. He was the chief champion of that legislation, and it flies in the face of the oath a president takes to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, he's been a sell-out on immigration reform (or, more precisely, amnesty for illegal aliens). So I'm predisposed to being extraordinarily skeptical of McCain as a presidential candidate.
That said, he is a consistently pro-life candidate, which is important to me. The annual slaughter of 40 million unborn babies is nothing short of a modern holocaust of shocking proportions, and IT MUST END. I could never, in good conscience, vote for someone who is pro-choice. And he does hold to a number of conservative issues (keeping taxes low, tough stance on national security, constitutionalist judges, etc.). From my perspective, he's definitely preferable to Sen. Obama.
I thought McCain did pretty well tonight, although I found him stiff at times (especially when he discussed his personal faith). And he seemed to revert here and there to stump speech mode, something I think Obama avoided more successfully. Even so, I think McCain came across in a surprisingly warm, engaging fashion (as opposed to some stoic, old fart of a curmudgeonly war hero). In any case, in a contest of substance versus fluff, McCain won hands down. His black eyes: a rambling, non-answer on privacy vs. security; no clear enunciation of policy with respect to when and how much America should act as world policeman.
I'd like to express my appreciation to Rick Warren and Saddleback for a number of things:
- Thanks for hosting this forum. It was very informative, and I think it gave us a good glimpse into the minds and hearts of the candidates. I appreciate you taking the lead on forging a dialogue between the candidates and the faith community
- Thanks, Rick, for asking tough questions that the media will typically shy away from (especially with respect to Obama). I think it was apropos and fair for each candidate to be asked the same set of questions.
- I really appreciated the judicious avoidance of direct questions about climate change. I still maintain that Rick Warren is grievously in error for embracing pop global warming theory, and I was really glad not to have to listen to such poppycock tonight. Looking forward to Rick's own "wise flip-flop" on this issue.
8:04 p.m.
Question segment #1 is going to deal with leadership issues.
First question to Barack has to deal with the three wisest people who have influenced him.
His answer:
- His wife. She's both wise and honest.
- His grandmother. (Would this be the typically white racist grandmother he's alluded to in previous public gaffes?)
- Cites Ted Kennedy as an influence in domestic policy (YUCK!). Wants a forum of advisors that have a breadth of views. (I guess this means they would span from left-center to moonbat. :)
Barack Obama (BO): Difficult youth. Experimented with drugs. Associates struggles as a young man with selfishness -- so preoccupied with his own dissatisfaction that he couldn't see the needs of others. (A candid answer, I think.) America's greatest moral failure in his lifetime is its failure to abide by the precept of doing good to "the least of one's brethren." Applies to poverty, racism, sexism, and not providing ladders of opportunity.
RW: Common ground and common good. Did you ever go against party loyalty and self-interest in the interest of America?
BO: Cites campaign finance reform. (Blech. This is a terrible example, as it stomps brazenly all over the First Amendment. Sorry, Barack -- not in the best interest of the country.)
RW: What's the most significant position you've held that you ended up changing your mind on?
BO: Welfare reform. Felt that welfare had to be changed, but was concerned that the bill Bill Clinton signed would prove disastrous. But it worked better than anticipated. Convinced that work is the centerpiece of social policy. Provides a sense of both purpose and community. (Obama is to applauded here -- too bad this philosophy doesn't filter into the rest of his policy ideas.)
RW: What's the most gut-wrenching decision you had to make, and how did you process that?
BO: Cites his anti-war stance. (I find this to be a disingenuous answer. Hindsight is 20/20, Barack. He's touting his vaunted prescience with respect to the Iraq war being ill-conceived and unjust. He said he had doubts with respect to WMD from the outset. So even though Russia, France, Britain, Israel, and the US all had intelligence on Saddam's WMD program, you were singularly discerning -- above and beyond the intelligence capabilities of multiple nations. Stop insulting my IQ. Barack's anti-war stance is grounded in ideology before evidence, and as such it was not a gut-wrenching decision at all.)
Commercial break
8:20 p.m.
Rick warren asked Obama about his faith. He's professing that Jesus died for his sins, but says that "hopefully" his sins will be washed away. ("Hopefully" isn't exactly the orthodox Christian position on the efficacy of Jesus' sacrifice, but we won't quibble too much right now.)
Rick says that he's getting to the "tough" questions.
Abortion! Rick says he has to deal with this issue all the time. Cites the statistic of 40 million abortions per year. At what point does a gestating baby get human rights? (Yay! I'm so glad he asked this question!)
BO: States that deciding when a gestating baby is fully human is "above my pay grade." He's pro-choice, believes in Roe v. Wade -- not because he believes in abortion, but because he doesn't think women make the decision to have an abortion casually. Says the goal should be to reduce the # of abortions.
RW: Has Obama ever voted to limit or reduce the # of abortions?
BO: He's against late-term abortion. If you believe that life begins at conception, he can't argue. But he can say, "Can we work together to reduce the # of unwanted pregnancies?" How do we provide resources that allow a woman to keep a child? (I think these are specious, or at least tertiary questions -- is abortion wrong or not? If wrong, it should be outlawed, plain and simple).
RW: Define marriage.
BO: Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. As a Christian, it's a sacred union. God's in the mix.
RW: Would you support constitutional protection for that definition of marriage?
BO: No. Historically, we haven't defined marriage federally. It's a state issue.
Interrupted by first-born son asking to watch a movie. Actually, he climbed on my head. Hang on...
8:40 p.m.
RW: Define rich.
BO: $150k/yr. down is middle class to poor. $250k/yr. and above is rich. (What about $151k/yr. to $249k/yr?). $150k/yr. and below will see a tax cut under his plan. Asserts again that $250k+/yr. is "rich." (He still hasn't addressed that apparent no-man's land between $150k and $250k/yr. Does he realize that?)
Obama's answers on the purpose of the Supreme Court and which justice he wouldn't nominate were -- well -- strange. It's designed only to limit the power of the chief executive? Huh? What about 9th grade civics -- highest body in the judicial branch, created to interpret and clarify law, and all that? And Barack's assessment of Clarence Thomas was essentially that he is a dunce and therefore unworthy of being on the court. He wouldn't nominate Scalia just because they disagree (what are the nature of those disagreements, Barack?), and he doesn't like the way John Roberts presides over the court because he's too compliant vis-a-vis the Oval Office. Sorry folks, but this is pablum. And he accuses Justice Thomas of thoughtlessness...
RW: There are 148 million orphans in the world. They don't need to be in orphanages. They need to be in families. Would there be a willingness to create an emergency plan for orphans?
BO: Thinks it's a great idea. Wants to work with international organizations. Part of the plan needs to be preventing unwanted children with good health care (my hunch is that this means Planned Parenthood style solutions in Barack speak).
RW: What should we do about religious persecution?
BO: Cites our complex relationship with China -- they're a trading partner, but they are actively engaged in persecuting people of faith. We need to "bear witness" and "speak out." We also need to lead by example. (Ugh. He's turning this into an anti-Gitmo rant. Can we stay on the subject?) We can't talk about religious persecution when Gitmo exists. (Dangblasted moral equivalence at work. As though Gitmo and sending Christians to labor camps are the same thing. Gimme a break.)
RW: Why do you want to be president?
BO: (This is The MonT-SteR's interpretation of what he said.) Basically, we're only great to the degree that we're socialist (disguised cleverly in language of empathy). That's why he wants the office, so he can turn us more in that direction. No thanks, Barack. Just say no to Marx and Lenin.
Next up, McCain's turn. Rather than type out RW's questions, I'm just going to organize it topically.
9:04 p.m.
McCain on Leadership
Wise leaders he'd depend on:
- General Patraeus -- great military leader. Took us from defeat to victory.
- John Lewis -- (I don't know who this is...)
- Meg Whitman -- CEO of eBay.
McCain led against party's interest and his own best interest on climate change, spending, tort reform, etc. The most trying was when he was first in Congress, Reagan wanted to send Marines to Beirut in a peace-keeping mission. He opposed Reagan, and the marines ended up getting bombed.
McCain's most significant reasoned flip-flop: Off-shore drilling. He knows that people disagree, but states that it's a national security issue. We're sending $700 billion to parties in the world who don't have our best interests at heart. We can't allow that. We need to have a multi-faceted, broad-based approach to energy policy and reform.
Most gut-wrenching decision: When McCain was in prison camp. Was going to be released, but refused. Was the toughest decision he made. Took lots of prayer.
Next up, worldview issues.
McCain on Worldview
Talks about his faith. Mentions salvation and forgiveness through Christ in about four words, seems very uncomfortable. Mentions that Christian faith embraces the world. (Hope that is a confession of mankind's universal need for Christ rather than theological universalism....) Falls into a story about Christmas in his POW camp, how when he was allowed to stand outside his cell on Christmas day, a guard came and drew a cross in the dirt. It was a special moment when enemy combatants were merely two Christians joining in worship in a dark place.
Abortion -- McCain states that a baby has human rights at the moment of conception. Has a 25-year pro-life record. Will be a pro-life president with pro-life policies.
Marriage -- Union between one man and one woman. People can enter into legal agreements and so forth (parallel to Obama's support for civil unions). If the courts attempted to force unilateral recognition of same-sex marriage, at that point McCain supports a Constitutional amendment.
Stem cells -- very great struggle and dilemma for the pro-life community. McCain wants stem cell research, but very optimistic about adult stem cell research. As it progresses, the debate will be moot.
Does evil exist? Yes -- it needs to be defeated. He's going to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Transcendent battle of the 21st century is the struggle between the West and extremist, radical Islam. It is palpably evil and must be defeated.
McCain says he would not have nominated Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens. President's responsibility is great. Nomination should be based on proven record and constitutional perspective (not legislating from the bench). Proud of Bush for nominating Roberts and Alito.
On faith-based organizations: Can faith-based organizations hire those who adhere to their belief system? (Barack felt that they could not if receiving federal funds.) McCain says yes -- to require otherwise is to cripple the organization itself.
Education -- should there be merit pay for the best teachers? Yes. Choice and competition is the solution. Vouchers work. Home schooling works (yes!). Charter schools work. Choice and competition is a simple solution, but it has the potential to reform our education system. This is the civil rights issue of the 21st century -- sending children to failing schools is unjust.
Taxation -- McCain's wants everybody to get wealthy. Doesn't believe in taking the money of the rich. Small business owners work hard, and are classified as rich. But raising taxes on them would be onerous and damage the economy. Jokes that $5 million/yr. is the cut-off for "rich," and acknowledges that he's probably going to be taken out of context for that comment. Joked sardonically about spending $3 million of federal money on a DNA study of bears in Montana -- was that a paternity issue or a criminal issue? It's funny, but it isn't. During hard economic times, that kind of spending should be eradicated.
When our right to privacy and national security collide, what takes precedence? Mentions right to privacy with respect to union ballots (to eliminate intimidation). (Mm. McCain's answer is rambling here. Nothing substantive -- he's ranting about political infighting. Acknowledges the tension, but doesn't present any solutions or coherent method of handling the question RW put to him. Sorry Sen. McCain, you blew it on this one....)
Commercial break -- I have to say thus far that I've found McCain far more substantive. He got stiff when he talked about his own faith life and what Christianity means to him (I think that makes him uncomfortable). Obama was far more comfortable discussing his faith. But Obama really is all about feel-good fluff. So far, McCain is (for the most part) giving more cogent answers. Honestly, I wasn't expecting that.
9:40 p.m.
McCain on America's Responsibility to the World
Freedom is worth dying for. There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world, so we can't possibly remedy everything. America's most precious commodity is her blood. We've shed our blood for others in a way no other nation has. Just as we defeated communism, we can defeat radical Islam. RW asks when we should intervene in situations like Darfour, Georgia, etc. McCain says that we need to stop genocide whenever we can (but particularly when it's in the interest of our national security). We need to marshal world forces. RW mentions that Russia is reasserting itself in Georgia and Poland, asks McCain to comment. He mentions the bloodshed and suffering, saddened by Russia's behavior. Mentions that Georgia was one of the earliest Christian nations. Georgian President was educated in the U.S., returned to forge a successful democracy. We need to not only negotiate a cease-fire, but insist that Georgia's territorial integrity be respected. It wasn't an accident that the presidents of other former Eastern Bloc countries flew to Georgia to show solidarity. This conflict is also about Russian control over energy. We need to send a message to the Russians that such behavior is not acceptable. (Unfortunately, McCain doesn't outline quite what that message should be beyond angry denunciations. A little fluff here....)
On religious persecution -- use the bully pulpit. Cites Reagan's example (he called the Soviets the evil empire, called upon them to tear down the Berlin wall). Judeo-Christian principles dictate that we help the oppressed in the world. Knows first-hand the price and preciousness of freedom.
Why he wants to be President: Wants to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves. Time to unify the country. America wants hope and optimism. Wants people who won't vote for him to know that he'll be their president as well.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: Barack Obama, John McCain, politics
Saturday, July 12, 2008
RIP, Tony Snow
I was very sad to learn this afternoon that Tony Snow -- journalist, commentator, news anchor, radio host, musician, intellectual, public servant, and family man -- died of cancer early this morning at 2 a.m.
He was one of a kind in politics. Friends and colleagues have labeled him something of a renaissance man, which he certainly was; just look at all the roles he fulfilled and how expertly he discharged them. He's credited (however begrudgingly by some) with changing the culture of the White House press corps during his short tenure as press secretary.
How?
I first heard Tony Snow on talk radio, and I was impressed with the breadth of his knowledge, as well as his eloquence and erudition on the fly. I always found him very stimulating to listen to. But his unique way with contentious callers was even more impressive. It didn't matter how stridently they disagreed or how vehemently (or insultingly) they argued, Tony had a cool head that just didn't get rattled. Even when he was hard-hitting in his rejoinder to an interlocutor, there was an undeniable kindheartedness that came through -- so much so that my wife, who doesn't really like political theater or commentary, would say, "Tony's a good guy," and gladly listen to him. I suspect that his ideological polar opposites found themselves doing much the same thing in spite of themselves.
"Civility in political discourse" is reverently and longingly bandied about a great deal these days, usually in association with a call to "bipartisanship" -- a political cuss word that, in today's climate, means ideological compromise for one side of the aisle and not the other. Tony Snow embodied civility in political discourse, and he proved that it can be done without sacrificing core principles.
Others have spoken of him as a man of deep faith, which was doubtless the reservoir of his gentility. I remember a mailbag segment on FoxNews Sunday featuring a viewer's scathing attack on Tony's belief in the resurrection of Christ, likening it to belief in Xenu and the Easter Bunny. Tony's response was rendered in unabashed fashion, but with a kindly smile: "Atheistic jabs notwithstanding, yes, I believe!"
It seems fitting, therefore, to close with some of Tony Snow's own words from a Christianity Today article about reconciling the faith that so guided and informed his life and the disease he finally succumbed to this morning:
Farewell, Tony. Your heart, intellect, and aplomb endeared you to so many; among public figures on the scene today, you really were one of my heroes. Thanks for giving the most you ever could offer to God and man. You will be sorely missed.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
I was very sad to learn this afternoon that Tony Snow -- journalist, commentator, news anchor, radio host, musician, intellectual, public servant, and family man -- died of cancer early this morning at 2 a.m.
He was one of a kind in politics. Friends and colleagues have labeled him something of a renaissance man, which he certainly was; just look at all the roles he fulfilled and how expertly he discharged them. He's credited (however begrudgingly by some) with changing the culture of the White House press corps during his short tenure as press secretary.
How?
I first heard Tony Snow on talk radio, and I was impressed with the breadth of his knowledge, as well as his eloquence and erudition on the fly. I always found him very stimulating to listen to. But his unique way with contentious callers was even more impressive. It didn't matter how stridently they disagreed or how vehemently (or insultingly) they argued, Tony had a cool head that just didn't get rattled. Even when he was hard-hitting in his rejoinder to an interlocutor, there was an undeniable kindheartedness that came through -- so much so that my wife, who doesn't really like political theater or commentary, would say, "Tony's a good guy," and gladly listen to him. I suspect that his ideological polar opposites found themselves doing much the same thing in spite of themselves.
"Civility in political discourse" is reverently and longingly bandied about a great deal these days, usually in association with a call to "bipartisanship" -- a political cuss word that, in today's climate, means ideological compromise for one side of the aisle and not the other. Tony Snow embodied civility in political discourse, and he proved that it can be done without sacrificing core principles.
Others have spoken of him as a man of deep faith, which was doubtless the reservoir of his gentility. I remember a mailbag segment on FoxNews Sunday featuring a viewer's scathing attack on Tony's belief in the resurrection of Christ, likening it to belief in Xenu and the Easter Bunny. Tony's response was rendered in unabashed fashion, but with a kindly smile: "Atheistic jabs notwithstanding, yes, I believe!"
It seems fitting, therefore, to close with some of Tony Snow's own words from a Christianity Today article about reconciling the faith that so guided and informed his life and the disease he finally succumbed to this morning:
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue -- for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue -- for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
Farewell, Tony. Your heart, intellect, and aplomb endeared you to so many; among public figures on the scene today, you really were one of my heroes. Thanks for giving the most you ever could offer to God and man. You will be sorely missed.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: Christianity, politics, Tony Snow
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
MonT-SteR Super Tuesday coverage
Update #1 - 8:30 p.m.
Update #2 - 10:22 p.m.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Update #1 - 8:30 p.m.
Update #2 - 10:22 p.m.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: 2008 election, politics, Super Tuesday
Monday, November 05, 2007
Things that make you go hmmmm....
I received an e-mail update today from a local ministry, urging prayer for tomorrow's election. The message contained the following titillating tidbit:
Well, now, just who is this mysterious former senator? Would his first name happen to be George? And, if so, did this discussion regarding the efficacy of prayer (or the lack thereof) vis-a-vis elections come before or after the infamous "macaca" incident? If before, I wonder if Jim Webb's predecessor might now reconsider his stance on prayer?
Just a thought...
In other non-political news, the entire MonT-SteR CLAN goes to the baby doctor tomorrow to find out whether or not BabY MonT-SteR #2 will be a boy or a girl. I'm so excited!
I'll post the results of our ultrasound tomorrow...
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
I received an e-mail update today from a local ministry, urging prayer for tomorrow's election. The message contained the following titillating tidbit:
I once had a conversation with a U.S. Senator from Virginia, telling him how I had prayed for him and others and how I believed prayer had influenced a number of elections. I was surprised when he said to me, "I don't really believe prayer influences elections." While respecting his leadership, I politely disagreed with him, because I sensed he was courting trouble. Though he was heavily favored to win and even rumored to be a presidential candidate, he lost his next election to another man who serves as a Senator for the State of Virginia.
Well, now, just who is this mysterious former senator? Would his first name happen to be George? And, if so, did this discussion regarding the efficacy of prayer (or the lack thereof) vis-a-vis elections come before or after the infamous "macaca" incident? If before, I wonder if Jim Webb's predecessor might now reconsider his stance on prayer?
Just a thought...
In other non-political news, the entire MonT-SteR CLAN goes to the baby doctor tomorrow to find out whether or not BabY MonT-SteR #2 will be a boy or a girl. I'm so excited!
I'll post the results of our ultrasound tomorrow...
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: announcements, politics, prayer, The MonT-SteR
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Is The MonT-SteR a Fred Head?
Fred Thompson formally announced his candidacy for president this evening on Leno's show. Perpetually pessimistic pundit John LeBoutillier has already hailed Thompson's entrance into the race as a big yawn, saying it's too little too late. But I'm not so sure.
Citing my own example only provides anecdotal evidence, but for my own part, the race has been a big yawn up to this point. Although I'm loosely considering them both, I'm deeply suspicious of Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani. I have sworn that I would never vote for McCain because of thatstupid perniciously unconstitutional campaign finance law he co-sponsored. As Hillary's latest fundraising scandal proves, McCain-Feingold is a textbook case of legislative impotence. It hasn't solved one dadburned thing. Any man who thinks such a brazen assault on the First Amendment ought to be codified has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS sitting in the Oval Office. Thankfully, his candidacy is more or less DOA at this point. Mike Huckabee, on the other hand, has some potential, but I don't see him as being electable on a national scale. In all, I'm disenchanted with the entire field of Republican candidates.
Enter Fred tonight. I have a few qualms about the fact that he announced on Leno's show (I think presidential politics and pop culture are a bad mix), but it may have been a brilliant tactic. He's certainly differentiated himself from the rest of the field. He explained his rationale for getting into the race late, saying that 1) people traditionally have announced after Labor Day, and 2) nobody's going to pass him over just because he got in later than everybody else. I, for one, am already sick of debates and campaigns (it's much too early for all this) -- so I found Thompson's rationale and relaxed demeanor somewhat appealing. As a result, for the first time this election cycle, I visited a candidate's Web site. I listened and I read a little. And I liked what I saw. If you check his Web site (www.fred08.com), it is apparent that Thompson is willing to teach about conservative ideals -- something that a presidential candidate hasn't done well (to my knowledge) since Reagan.
I'm not jumping on the Thompson bandwagon just yet, but I haven't been as interested in any of the Republican candidates as I am in him. Stay tuned -- The MonT-SteR may well become a Fred Head.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Fred Thompson formally announced his candidacy for president this evening on Leno's show. Perpetually pessimistic pundit John LeBoutillier has already hailed Thompson's entrance into the race as a big yawn, saying it's too little too late. But I'm not so sure.
Citing my own example only provides anecdotal evidence, but for my own part, the race has been a big yawn up to this point. Although I'm loosely considering them both, I'm deeply suspicious of Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani. I have sworn that I would never vote for McCain because of that
Enter Fred tonight. I have a few qualms about the fact that he announced on Leno's show (I think presidential politics and pop culture are a bad mix), but it may have been a brilliant tactic. He's certainly differentiated himself from the rest of the field. He explained his rationale for getting into the race late, saying that 1) people traditionally have announced after Labor Day, and 2) nobody's going to pass him over just because he got in later than everybody else. I, for one, am already sick of debates and campaigns (it's much too early for all this) -- so I found Thompson's rationale and relaxed demeanor somewhat appealing. As a result, for the first time this election cycle, I visited a candidate's Web site. I listened and I read a little. And I liked what I saw. If you check his Web site (www.fred08.com), it is apparent that Thompson is willing to teach about conservative ideals -- something that a presidential candidate hasn't done well (to my knowledge) since Reagan.
I'm not jumping on the Thompson bandwagon just yet, but I haven't been as interested in any of the Republican candidates as I am in him. Stay tuned -- The MonT-SteR may well become a Fred Head.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: 2008 election, Fred Thompson, politics
Friday, May 25, 2007
Non sequiturs and broken toilets
Update (Sat., May 26, 2007, 3:37 p.m.):
I sent letters to Senators Warner and Web outlining (in principle) my opposition to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611). Here's the letter I sent to Sen. Warner:
Update (Sat., May 26, 2007, 3:37 p.m.):
I sent letters to Senators Warner and Web outlining (in principle) my opposition to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611). Here's the letter I sent to Sen. Warner:
The Honorable John Warner
United States Senate
225 Russell Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Warner:
I am gravely concerned about the impact that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) will have upon our nation if it passes.
As the grandson of an Italian immigrant who entered America through Ellis Island in the 1920s, I believe that controlled, legal immigration has enriched the United States and served, in part, to make it the great nation it is today. Unfortunately, CIRA does not meet the definition of controlled, legal immigration because of its amnesty provision.
The estimated 12 million illegal aliens are here for one simple reason: they have flouted our laws. American citizenship implies respect for and obedience to our laws and creeds. If the very foundation of an illegal alien's presence here is criminality, it is palpably unreasonable to expect that they will make good American citizens once granted amnesty. Thus, the act of decriminalizing their presence here is misguided at best, dangerous at worst.
Moreover, CIRA's amnesty provision is manifestly unjust and unfair to every immigrant who has respected the laws of our country and submitted to the legal process required to gain citizenship. Decriminalizing illegal aliens already in our country says to others waiting to become American citizens that circumventing our immigration laws is without consequence. This has the undesirable effect of encouraging further illegal immigration.
Some have cited the necessity of CIRA given the logistical and financial challenges associated with enforcing existing immigration law. I utterly reject this premise. The negative impact that illegal aliens have had on medical systems in border cities is well documented, as are the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that go each year to illegals who have illicit access to the welfare system. For reasons stated above, CIRA will exacerbate such problems rather than mitigate them. On that basis, it seems apparent that our long-term economic and security interests are better served by bearing the expense and effort associated with enforcing current immigration law now.
As a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am registering my fervent opposition to CIRA with your office. In addition, I respectfully request that you vote against this ill-conceived, pernicious bill that has the potential to harm our country deeply if not irreparably. If you support it, please know that you will forfeit both my vote and my support for your office in perpetuity.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Monti
It's after 4 a.m.
I am sitting at my computer at this ungodly hour for two reasons:
Now, understand friends, that I am not anti-immigration. Far from it. I am the grandson of an Italian immigrant. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that America welcomed my grandfather and his family here in the late 1920s. Controlled, legal immigration is a good thing, and it's part of what has made the United States a great nation.
Illegal immigration is another matter, for a number of reasons:
Given the gravity of the issue, I was utterly dismayed to hear Sen. John McCain (R, Arizona) defend his stance on immigration with one of the biggest, most INANE non sequiturs I have ever heard. There are 12 million illegal aliens in our country, he said, and that makes enforcing current illegal immigration law (i.e., DEPORTING them) untenable. The only alternative, according to McCain's logic, is this awful amnesty bill that he co-sponsored with the likes of Ted Kennedy.
My problems with Sen. McCain's rotgut reasoning are as follows:
Folks, I don't mean to be hard-nosed here, and I don't wish to overlook the human element in all this either. Those who know me well know me as a man of compassion. The Business Week article I cited above makes reference to a family of illegal immigrants that has started its own business and worked its way into the middle class. I applaud their hard work and ingenuity, and I don't relish the thought of uprooting them and sending them packing. But the incontrovertible facts remain. They broke the law in order to get where they are. They made the choice to do that. They knowingly risked the consequences. We are culpable only insofar as we failed to enforce our laws. And so we face the painful prospect of forcing many such families out of the country.
The guilt we may feel at that notion should not stem from the enforcement of the law. It should stem rather from the libertine foolishness and cowardice that brought us this mess. And now the likes of Sen. McCain and President Bush would have us codify it and call it progress.
Not on your life, gentlemen.
I am sitting at my computer at this ungodly hour for two reasons:
- Our bedroom bathroom toilet decided to break in the middle of the night. To keep our floor from being flooded, I had to enlist the assistance of my sleepy wife and dig the toolbox out of the closet. The only fix at 3:45 a.m. was to just close the valve that feeds the toilet until we can get maintenance in here. Unfortunately, the valve was stuck, so I had to crawl around on the floor with a wrench to get it to turn. Nothing like having your face in a toilet in the wee hours of the night.
- As a result of these activities, I can't get back to sleep at the moment. So I'm blogging.
Now, understand friends, that I am not anti-immigration. Far from it. I am the grandson of an Italian immigrant. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that America welcomed my grandfather and his family here in the late 1920s. Controlled, legal immigration is a good thing, and it's part of what has made the United States a great nation.
Illegal immigration is another matter, for a number of reasons:
- Illegal immigrants (NOT "undocumented" immigrants, which is one of the Left's favorite designer propagandist phrases), by definition, must flout our nation's laws to be here. The very foundation of their presence in our country is criminality. Some political elements are keen to dismiss this fact by casting illegal immigrants as innocents who have merely come to the U.S. for economic opportunity. That is not an excuse. Bank robbers are motivated by economic opportunity as well, but we don't hesitate to arrest and prosecute them. Law breaking is law breaking, plain and simple.
- Excusing and coddling illegal immigration represents an enormous security risk to our nation. It is a matter of public record now that potential Islamic terrorist elements could be slipping into our country the very same way many illegal aliens do -- via our porous southern border with Mexico.
- Our political unwillingness to follow immigration law has translated into law enforcement's inability to interdict violent or damaging crimes committed by illegal aliens. There was a firestorm here in Hampton Roads not too long ago because an illegal alien caused a drunk driving accident that killed two teenage girls. This particular illegal alien had been arrested for driving while intoxicated well before the fatal crash; he should have been deported with prejudice at that time. Instead, the court gave him a mild slap on the hand in the form of time served and a pittance of a fine. He was released and warned not to drive. We all see how well that worked. This is a clear, practical example of how our failure to enforce immigration law is actually a dangerous practice that threatens the safety of the citizenry in palpable ways.
- Others have dealt with the deleterious economic impact of illegal immigration, but I view this as a lesser (though not unimportant) issue, so I shan't belabor that here. Here are couple good articles I found on how illegal immigration strains our medical system to the breaking point and saps billions of taxpayer dollars. Here's a third article from Business Week outlining how capitalism stripped of morality has led big business to fatten its bottom line while selling out American citizens by catering to the illegal alien population.
Given the gravity of the issue, I was utterly dismayed to hear Sen. John McCain (R, Arizona) defend his stance on immigration with one of the biggest, most INANE non sequiturs I have ever heard. There are 12 million illegal aliens in our country, he said, and that makes enforcing current illegal immigration law (i.e., DEPORTING them) untenable. The only alternative, according to McCain's logic, is this awful amnesty bill that he co-sponsored with the likes of Ted Kennedy.
My problems with Sen. McCain's rotgut reasoning are as follows:
- The notion that the number of illegals makes law enforcement impossible is ridiculous. There are between 250 and 300 million people in the U.S. If we can't enforce the laws on the books with 12 million, we might as well shrug our shoulders and give up on enforcing laws vis-a-vis the rest of the populace. After all, if we can't enforce laws that effect 12 million people, what makes us think we can do so with over 20 times that number? Of course, no reasonable person would think along these lines -- which makes it inexcusable for a U.S. Senator to do so.
- The logistical challenge and expense of deporting 12 million illegal aliens are often cited to assert that, in essence, amnesty is the only alternative. Given that 1) our lax attitude toward illegal immigration has the real possibility of resulting in a mushroom cloud over one or more of our major cities, 2) illegal immigration already costs the federal government billions of dollars each year, and 3) that amount is likely to double the moment we give amnesty to illegal aliens and will increase each year thereafter, I don't see how the Senator can reasonably maintain this position.
Folks, I don't mean to be hard-nosed here, and I don't wish to overlook the human element in all this either. Those who know me well know me as a man of compassion. The Business Week article I cited above makes reference to a family of illegal immigrants that has started its own business and worked its way into the middle class. I applaud their hard work and ingenuity, and I don't relish the thought of uprooting them and sending them packing. But the incontrovertible facts remain. They broke the law in order to get where they are. They made the choice to do that. They knowingly risked the consequences. We are culpable only insofar as we failed to enforce our laws. And so we face the painful prospect of forcing many such families out of the country.
The guilt we may feel at that notion should not stem from the enforcement of the law. It should stem rather from the libertine foolishness and cowardice that brought us this mess. And now the likes of Sen. McCain and President Bush would have us codify it and call it progress.
Not on your life, gentlemen.
Labels: illegal immigration, John McCain, John Warner, politics, President Bush
Monday, December 18, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
In defense of Cumberland (again)
Back when the Abu Ghraib scandal first broke in 2004, I was horrified to learn that the reservists who had engaged in the tawdry, sadistic behavior captured in those now infamous photos were part of a unit that is stationed near my beloved hometown, Cumberland, MD.
As the rest of the world learned this, they began to wonder, "What is it about Cumberland that would breed such perverse, twisted, abusive soldiers?" Then, reporters from the rest of the world flocked to Cumberland to investigate, convinced that the barbarism of a handful of reservists would be clearly reflected in the community at large.
I wrote a blog post in May of that year as a rebuttal to such ridiculous, ill-formed generalizations. It's an unfortunate truth of life that it only takes a few bad eggs to besmirch the reputation of many. As axiomatic as that is, I had hoped that intelligent journalists would find a way to paint a balanced picture of the city I was born and grew up in. I was wrong then, and the media continues to prove me wrong.
Last Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a report on Joe Darby, the reservist who accidentally uncovered the abuses at Abu Ghraib and blew the whistle on them. Joe had been a resident of the Cumberland area; when the time came for him to return home from Iraq, the Army told him it was simply too dangerous to go back to Cumberland. A security assessment conducted by the Army showed that resentment toward Darby for his role in exposing the scandal was so intense that it represented a genuine threat to his life.
Understand, friends, that I do not doubt the Army's conclusions about the danger posed to Darby and his family. Nor do I dispute Anderson Cooper's right to report it. But I strenuously object to the scurrilous manner in which Cooper and CBS suggested that the entire city of Cumberland was united in monolithic, snarling hatred for Joe Darby and his actions.
The report's inaccuracies:
The drumbeat of media bias rolls on. Cumberland is just one of its latest victims.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Back when the Abu Ghraib scandal first broke in 2004, I was horrified to learn that the reservists who had engaged in the tawdry, sadistic behavior captured in those now infamous photos were part of a unit that is stationed near my beloved hometown, Cumberland, MD.
As the rest of the world learned this, they began to wonder, "What is it about Cumberland that would breed such perverse, twisted, abusive soldiers?" Then, reporters from the rest of the world flocked to Cumberland to investigate, convinced that the barbarism of a handful of reservists would be clearly reflected in the community at large.
I wrote a blog post in May of that year as a rebuttal to such ridiculous, ill-formed generalizations. It's an unfortunate truth of life that it only takes a few bad eggs to besmirch the reputation of many. As axiomatic as that is, I had hoped that intelligent journalists would find a way to paint a balanced picture of the city I was born and grew up in. I was wrong then, and the media continues to prove me wrong.
Last Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a report on Joe Darby, the reservist who accidentally uncovered the abuses at Abu Ghraib and blew the whistle on them. Joe had been a resident of the Cumberland area; when the time came for him to return home from Iraq, the Army told him it was simply too dangerous to go back to Cumberland. A security assessment conducted by the Army showed that resentment toward Darby for his role in exposing the scandal was so intense that it represented a genuine threat to his life.
Understand, friends, that I do not doubt the Army's conclusions about the danger posed to Darby and his family. Nor do I dispute Anderson Cooper's right to report it. But I strenuously object to the scurrilous manner in which Cooper and CBS suggested that the entire city of Cumberland was united in monolithic, snarling hatred for Joe Darby and his actions.
The report's inaccuracies:
- Anderson Cooper referred to Cumberland as "a military town" in the report, which is a gross mischaracterization. I currently live in Virginia Beach, which is home to the Oceana Naval Air Station. Virginia Beach is part of the broader Tidewater area, where the Navy has a significant presence with at least two bases. Navy battle groups are stationed here, and their vessels are repaired in local shipyards. This, friends, is a military town. From what I've read, Cumberland is home to a small reserve unit of around 250 soldiers and a tiny VFW post. That is not a military town. Besides, I grew up there. I lived there for over twenty years. Not once did I ever hear someone refer to Cumberland as "a military town." But painting it that way may have served the intended rhetorical bent of Cooper's piece. Cumberland was neatly transformed into an ideological foil -- a fabricated example of "a military town" whose sympathies were with criminals rather than a courageous whistle-blower. This calumniates the very mindset of the armed forces, suggesting that Abu Ghraib was the natural outflow of our military's character and surrounding culture. Such assertions are not without precedent. Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh recently stated that the American military has never been more murderous or wantonly destructive as it has been in Iraq. I have no doubt that many in the mainstream media are sympathetic to his view. I wonder where Mr. Cooper stands? Or is his apparent hit-piece on Cumberland indicative of some agreement with Hersh's vitriolic and unfounded prejudice against the military?
- In any case, identifying Cumberland as a military town laid the groundwork for Cooper's report to move from the particular to the general in an unwarranted fashion by extrapolating the views of some Cumberland residents to all of them. At about five and a half minutes into the report, Cooper describes Cumberland as "a military town that felt Darby had betrayed his fellow soldiers." Cooper explicitly states here that the entire city was collectively and uniformly hostile to Darby. Not once during the 11-minute piece did Cooper interview a Cumberland resident who supported Darby or applauded his actions. This, I presume, was to suggest such people don't exist in Cumberland, but they incontrovertibly do. Mere logic indicates that this would be the case, but a simple visit to the editorial page of the Cumberland Times-News or a Cumberland message board confirms it. I cannot fathom why Mr. Cooper, a supposedly accomplished journalist, failed to do this.
The drumbeat of media bias rolls on. Cumberland is just one of its latest victims.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: Abu Ghraib, Cumberland, Joe Darby, media bias, politics
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Blog the vote!
2006 MonT-SteR Election Installment #2
2006 MonT-SteR Election Installment #2
2006 MonT-SteR Election Installment #1
Labels: politics
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Media bias questioned
A fellow blogger by the name of Chris Ridgeway visited my blog over the weekend, and made some thoughtful comments regarding my post that was critical of statements recently made by Hillary Clinton and the ensuing media coverage (or the lack thereof).
Chris says the following:
For this reason, Chris, I'm not willing to grant that what I implicitly stated in my post was mere assumption or, as you later state in your response, only a "theory." Yes, I intimated by my comments that the media leans to the left, but that's only because it's a fact that can be soundly demonstrated by research and statistics, as well as statements and admissions made by journalists themselves.
Chris continues:
Regarding the problem of "making brash assumptions about the political party of true Christianity," I can't help but think that you are lumping me together with people who believe God likes conservative Republicans better than liberal Democrats. That's a silly and offensive notion, and I don't ascribe to it. As a Christian who looks to the Bible as the chief and final authority not only on matters of faith and practice, but also ultimate truth, I will say that I find the political ideology of liberalism to be in conflict with Christianity far more often than it harmonizes with it. That's not to say that political conservatism always harmonizes with it either. Clearly, it does not.
I see some finger pointing in my direction in your final sentence. Are you trying to characterize my post on Hillary and media bias as whining? If so, I don't think that's accurate or fair. If your overarching point is that Evangelicals often complain with ungodly tone and frequency about media bias, you might have a good argument to make. As for your point on responding to media bias with pure motives and humility, I wholeheartedly concur. The late Ed Cole used to say that believers need to learn how to contend for Christianity without being contentious -- Paul calls it speaking the truth in love. I strive to do that, and I admit that I do not always succeed. If you or any of tMR's readers wish to offer me some constructive criticism in this area, I'm open to hearing it.
Thanks, Chris, for taking the time to visit my blog and share your thoughts. I hope you'll come back often.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
A fellow blogger by the name of Chris Ridgeway visited my blog over the weekend, and made some thoughtful comments regarding my post that was critical of statements recently made by Hillary Clinton and the ensuing media coverage (or the lack thereof).
Chris says the following:
[As] a Christian pastor-in-training (insert evangelical buzzwords for credibility here), I've got a question. I accept your facts: Jerry Fallwell speaks, and media laughs. Hillary Clinton invokes Jesus, and maybe there isn't a backlash.Obviously, it would be silly for me to assert that every single member of the American media is sympathetic to liberal ideology and causes; clearly, that's not the case. It's equally untenable for me to say that all members of the media are in political lockstep with Sen. Clinton. However, research on the media covering the past several decades indicates that 1) the vast majority of the media is sympathetic to political liberalism, 2) by extension, they are unsympathetic (or hostile) to competing ideologies or political perspectives, viz. traditional, conservative, or even Christian thought, and 3) the majority leftist orientation of the media frequently colors the reporting they do.
I'm just not sure I am with your assumptions: which unexplicitly but generally seem to be 1) the media is liberal like Hillary Clinton would be considered liberal 2) the media gives favorable coverage to liberals because they belong to the same club.
For this reason, Chris, I'm not willing to grant that what I implicitly stated in my post was mere assumption or, as you later state in your response, only a "theory." Yes, I intimated by my comments that the media leans to the left, but that's only because it's a fact that can be soundly demonstrated by research and statistics, as well as statements and admissions made by journalists themselves.
Chris continues:
"[Your view of the media is] the prevaling oppressed evangelical theory. But pardon me [for] taking a quick try at neutral bias: aren't there any other factors that could affect media coverage?These are good questions. Let me try to tackle them one at a time:
What differences in content exist between Jerry Fallwell's (or pick another) last religious proclaimation, and Hillary's?
How about differences in presentation and tone?
How about differences in source credibility in a pluralistic society?
- What differences in content exist between Jerry Fallwell's (or pick another) last religious proclaimation, and Hillary's?
If I understand your point here, I think it is well taken with respect to Rev. Falwell and Pat Robertson -- they tend toward the open-mouth-insert-foot syndrome, and their public statements are sometimes lacking in civility or grace. But in a way, that very fact also serves to bolster the original point I was making. Hillary flamed those in favor of immigration reform as "contrary to the spirit of the Scriptures" and favoring laws that would ultimately criminalize Christ Himself. The implication is that if one favors getting tough on the illegal immigration problem we have in this country, then he or she is motivated by the same unwholesome ideals and and prejudices that ultimately incarcerated Jesus Christ. How else is one to take such comments? In terms of content or meaning, I don't see how this differs significantly from many of the controversial things that Falwell or Robertson say (not counting calls for assassination of foreign leaders, of course). That's why I felt the need to highlight the hypocrisy inherent in the pass the media gave to Hillary when she made these statements. If any Christian minister of national prominence called a press conference and accused anyone who supports laws restricting abortion protesters of being contrary to the spirit of the Scriptures and tantamount to criminalizing Christ Himself, how do you think the media would react? Favorably? How much would the separation of church and state get mentioned in the ensuing coverage? Did we hear anything like that vis-a-vis Hillary's comments? - How about differences in presentation and tone?
For the most part, I think I answered this above. - How about differences in source credibility in a pluralistic society?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this question, but I'll do my best to respond. I assume that you intend "source" to refer to whoever is making public comments -- in this case, Hillary Clinton and certain Christian ministers of national prominence. Your reference to pluralism seems to imply that, in a pluralistic society, higher levels of credibility will by default be conferred upon certain individuals based upon prevailing social proclivities. So, as I understand it, your question appears to raise the following issues: 1) how favorably or unfavorably Christian ministers are typically viewed through the pluralistic lens of society at large, 2) by extension, how specific Christian ministers (i.e., the Falwells, Robertsons, and Dobsons of the world) are typically viewed by our pluralistic society, and 3) whether or not Christians should expect anything different. If I've understood your question correctly, answering it is a bit of a sticky wicket. One could write pages in response! In a nutshell, my thoughts are as follows:- Disciples of Christ are forewarned in the Scriptures that we will typically experience persecution and rejection from the world:
"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you." (John 15:18-19)
So, as you seem to intimate by your question, it is no surprise that a pluralistic world would be predisposed to regard orthodox Christianity and its proponents with disdain. According to the Scriptures, that's a fact of life for a believer. However...
Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. (1 John 3:13) - The Scriptures also teach that the world is culpable before God for this same predisposition:
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. (John 1:10-11)
Although we are told to expect that the world will persecute the Church just as it persecuted Jesus, clearly it is something that ought not happen. So, while a pluralistic society may naturally tend toward actively discrediting Christians, the Scriptures do not sanction such a phenomenon. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)
He who receives [My followers] receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. (Matthew 10:40) - It seems, therefore, that we are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Messengers of the Gospel ought to be received and respected by society at large, but we are taught that, for the most part, we will not be. How do we respond?
- Forgiveness and forbearance are prescribed, of course. I think the contention implicit in your question is that many Christians (particularly those with large public ministries) do not respond appropriately -- that the tone they tend to strike merely compounds the prevenient intolerance the world has for Christianity, thereby opening them even more to things like ill treatment in the media. I have to admit that in many instances, your point certainly applies.
- Nevertheless, the fact still remains that Hillary used religious rhetoric that was strident in its own right. The very point your question raises ought to apply to her comments as well. If the media were consistent, she too would have been held up to scorn and public ridicule for appealing to Christianity in such a manner to justify her political stance. That didn't happen, leading me to conclude that the media has a template for what Christians ought to believe, or that they are okay with Christianity only as long as its practical outworking harmonizes with their own worldview. This constitutes clear and willful bias, and I think it's both reasonable and fair to call attention to it -- especially when said media purports to be unbiased and impartial in its reporting.
- Disciples of Christ are forewarned in the Scriptures that we will typically experience persecution and rejection from the world:
I guess my point is this: as a devoted Christ follower - I'm willing to assume that there is some biased reporting out there. But sometimes I can't help but feeling that we can't get off the "we're" oppressed block, and possibly forget that we're making brash assumptions about the political party of true Christianity, the words of a US Senator vs. a TV preacher, the purity of our own motives when being frustrated on criticism, and the way humility typically wins over whining.As for the "we're Evangelicals and we're oppressed" sentiment, modern circumstances often make it easy to lose sight of the fact that we serve a victorious Christ who has overcome the world. But I can honestly say that I wasn't motivated by such feelings when I criticized the media's handling of Sen. Clinton. My purpose was to highlight obvious duplicity and bias which belies the external veneer of impartiality that the media attempts to maintain. Why? Because I think biased reporting is a harmful and ultimately deceitful practice, and the media should put a stop to it. Should I let it get to me? Probably not as much as I do. But pointing it out is truth telling in my book, and I see nothing wrong with that.
Regarding the problem of "making brash assumptions about the political party of true Christianity," I can't help but think that you are lumping me together with people who believe God likes conservative Republicans better than liberal Democrats. That's a silly and offensive notion, and I don't ascribe to it. As a Christian who looks to the Bible as the chief and final authority not only on matters of faith and practice, but also ultimate truth, I will say that I find the political ideology of liberalism to be in conflict with Christianity far more often than it harmonizes with it. That's not to say that political conservatism always harmonizes with it either. Clearly, it does not.
I see some finger pointing in my direction in your final sentence. Are you trying to characterize my post on Hillary and media bias as whining? If so, I don't think that's accurate or fair. If your overarching point is that Evangelicals often complain with ungodly tone and frequency about media bias, you might have a good argument to make. As for your point on responding to media bias with pure motives and humility, I wholeheartedly concur. The late Ed Cole used to say that believers need to learn how to contend for Christianity without being contentious -- Paul calls it speaking the truth in love. I strive to do that, and I admit that I do not always succeed. If you or any of tMR's readers wish to offer me some constructive criticism in this area, I'm open to hearing it.
Thanks, Chris, for taking the time to visit my blog and share your thoughts. I hope you'll come back often.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: Christianity, media bias, politics
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Thou hypocrite
Any time Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson comment on politics from a religious perspective, there's nothing but hooting and catcalls in the media for the following week.
So what happens when certain left-leaning politicians mix religion and politics?
You can hear the crickets chirping.
Case in point example: Hillary Clinton decrying newly proposed legislation that would crack down on illegal immigration. She says it's not in keeping with her understanding of the spirit of the Scriptures. Furthermore, she argues, it would criminalize the likes of the good Samaritan and ultimately Jesus Himself. This, friends, is not harmless religious philosophizing. It's vicious rhetoric that is designed to pigeonhole people who actually want to enforce our nation's laws vis-a-vis immigration as racist, anti-compassion, anti-tolerance, and ultimately anti-Christ.
Note the complete and utter absence of a media firestorm. This highlights the absolute hypocrisy of many on the left. God-talk is okay as long as the invocation is in support of a libertine stance on contemporary issues. But it's only the right that illegitimately hijacks Jesus as a political football for their closed-minded ideals.
Right.
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Any time Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson comment on politics from a religious perspective, there's nothing but hooting and catcalls in the media for the following week.
So what happens when certain left-leaning politicians mix religion and politics?
You can hear the crickets chirping.
Case in point example: Hillary Clinton decrying newly proposed legislation that would crack down on illegal immigration. She says it's not in keeping with her understanding of the spirit of the Scriptures. Furthermore, she argues, it would criminalize the likes of the good Samaritan and ultimately Jesus Himself. This, friends, is not harmless religious philosophizing. It's vicious rhetoric that is designed to pigeonhole people who actually want to enforce our nation's laws vis-a-vis immigration as racist, anti-compassion, anti-tolerance, and ultimately anti-Christ.
Note the complete and utter absence of a media firestorm. This highlights the absolute hypocrisy of many on the left. God-talk is okay as long as the invocation is in support of a libertine stance on contemporary issues. But it's only the right that illegitimately hijacks Jesus as a political football for their closed-minded ideals.
Right.
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: media bias, politics
Saturday, January 28, 2006
MonT-SteR Talk
Every so often I listen to Bill O'Reilly's radio show, and while I often agree with him, we consistenly part company when he discusses morality. His ideas about morality are as self-contradictory and ineffectual as can be. He may come down on the right side of the issue here and there, but the way he gets there is an absolute mess. A couple of discussions he had with callers this week were good examples of this; I thought I'd highlight them by conducting an imaginary interview with O'Reilly. I'll have to do these more often -- they're challenging and fun to create!
The MonT-SteR: Howdy friends! This is MonT-SteR Talk, where I -- Your One and Only Favorite MonT-SteR™ -- have the amazing opportunity to interview the glitterati and cognoscenti of our times. We've got a great show for you today. Up first: he's the firebrand of Fox News and host of the fabled No Spin Zone, Bill O'Reilly. Mr. O'Reilly, thanks for agreeing to appear on MonT-SteR Talk today. I'm delighted to have you on the program.
Bill O'Reilly: Thanks. Glad to be here lookin' out for the folks, as always.
TM: Mr. O'Reilly, I know you are on the receiving end of a lot of bashing and vitriol, and it doesn't come from just one side of the political spectrum.
BOR: That's right, it doesn't. Too many of the folks out there are driven by ideology, both on the right and the left. They're the ones who can't stand the No Spin Zone. We cut through the spin and the propaganda to get to the truth of the matter, and we do that without partiality.
TM: Well, let me come to the point. There's a specific reason why I asked you to come on MonT-SteR Talk. Whenever you discuss morality from a faith-based perspective, I find that I am in profound disagreement with you.
BOR: Okay.
TM: Let me give you an example. A couple days ago on your program, you were dealing with the issue of state sanction of gay marriage. A gentleman called your radio program and commented that sodomy was a crime because the Founding Fathers and their generation -- who, according to the caller, founded this country based upon the Bible -- knew that same sex attraction was proscribed in the Scriptures.
BOR: Yes, I remember that call.
TM: Okay, and here (as I understood it) was your response. You disputed the notion that the Founding Fathers used the Bible as the basis for the country's founding documents, and said that they were guided instead by a more generic Judeo-Christian ethos. Am I okay so far?
BOR: Keep going.
TM: You then went on to say in essence that using Scripture as the basis for arguing and deciding the issues of our time -- like gay marriage -- can't be done. You said that one must make a "secular" appeal within the public arena of ideas.
BOR: Right. We're not a monolithic culture. You can't go out there and expect to make and enforce laws based on the Bible.
TM: And yesterday, you went so far as to say that people who quote the Scriptures (I think you specifically mentioned Leviticus and the Old Testament) and expect or desire them to the basis of law in our country are "nutty." Is that accurate?
BOR: It is accurate, and I stand by it.
TM: Well, it's at that point that your ideas about morality become completely incoherent.
BOR: How so?
TM: You consistently appeal to a Judeo-Christian ethos that animated the thinking of the Founding Fathers as they framed our democratic republic. And you rely on the existence of this Judeo-Christian ethos to rebuke what you call the "secular progressives" who are attempting to steer the social fabric of our country away from that paradigm. Now, my question to you, sir, is this: Where does that Judeo-Christian ethic come from, if not from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible?
BOR: You miss my point. The Founding Fathers didn't take law straight from the Bible in chapter and verse fashion. Last time I checked, we don't have a theocracy in this country.
TM: Do you admit that the Judeo-Christian ethos you refer to is derived from the Bible?
BOR: Yes.
TM: Then I fail to see how you can reasonably maintain that codifying (or wanting to codify) the moral ideas and principles advanced by the Bible in either our founding documents or modern law is "nutty."
BOR: Look -- you're not going to win any arguments about which social direction our country should go today by quoting Scripture. It doesn't work like that. Too many people don't even accept the Bible as binding in any way. They don't believe it. You're not going to convince them by saying, "Hey, you can't do this because Leviticus says not to."
TM: Then how does one frame a moral argument at all?
BOR: You have to do it in a secular manner.
TM: You're contradicting yourself, then.
BOR: No, I'm not.
TM: You are. What point is there in appealing to Judeo-Christian ideals as you do if you can't even argue by them?
BOR: Arguing by Judeo-Christian ideals is different than arguing from the Bible.
TM: But you just admitted that a Judeo-Christian ethos is derived from the Bible.
BOR: Look. I don't want to sit here and go back and forth. It's pointless. Tell me your bottom line, I'll respond to it, and let's move on.
TM: My bottom line is this: trying to argue morality by secular means simply cedes the high ground to the secular progressives. You're coming at the whole question of morality on their terms. Why should we do that? Take the issue of gay marriage, for example. How are you going to argue against that on secular grounds? To say that the family unit is traditionally composed a certain way is only to invite the question: What's to stop us from changing the definition of the family unit? You don't have an argument to stand on until you bring in the notion of a Creator who has a telos -- a purpose and design of His own -- for human sexuality or the human family. Now, our founding documents recognize the existence of this Creator, and they depend on the notion that His decree supersedes that of nations or their leaders. If He bestows liberty, as the Declaration of Independence states, then no people or government can licitly claim the right or ability to take that away. In a word, it's immoral because it is proscribed not by men, but by God.
I think this shows that a Judeo-Christian ethos presupposes that moral good is theonomous. It follows logically that it is also theonomously revealed in the Scriptures the Judeo-Christian ethos depends on. When you throw out arguing morals along those lines, you really are cutting off your nose to spite your own face.
BOR: Well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that.
TM: Okay. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Thanks for being on the program, Mr. O'Reilly.
BOR: Thank you.
Every so often I listen to Bill O'Reilly's radio show, and while I often agree with him, we consistenly part company when he discusses morality. His ideas about morality are as self-contradictory and ineffectual as can be. He may come down on the right side of the issue here and there, but the way he gets there is an absolute mess. A couple of discussions he had with callers this week were good examples of this; I thought I'd highlight them by conducting an imaginary interview with O'Reilly. I'll have to do these more often -- they're challenging and fun to create!
The MonT-SteR: Howdy friends! This is MonT-SteR Talk, where I -- Your One and Only Favorite MonT-SteR™ -- have the amazing opportunity to interview the glitterati and cognoscenti of our times. We've got a great show for you today. Up first: he's the firebrand of Fox News and host of the fabled No Spin Zone, Bill O'Reilly. Mr. O'Reilly, thanks for agreeing to appear on MonT-SteR Talk today. I'm delighted to have you on the program.
Bill O'Reilly: Thanks. Glad to be here lookin' out for the folks, as always.
TM: Mr. O'Reilly, I know you are on the receiving end of a lot of bashing and vitriol, and it doesn't come from just one side of the political spectrum.
BOR: That's right, it doesn't. Too many of the folks out there are driven by ideology, both on the right and the left. They're the ones who can't stand the No Spin Zone. We cut through the spin and the propaganda to get to the truth of the matter, and we do that without partiality.
TM: Well, let me come to the point. There's a specific reason why I asked you to come on MonT-SteR Talk. Whenever you discuss morality from a faith-based perspective, I find that I am in profound disagreement with you.
BOR: Okay.
TM: Let me give you an example. A couple days ago on your program, you were dealing with the issue of state sanction of gay marriage. A gentleman called your radio program and commented that sodomy was a crime because the Founding Fathers and their generation -- who, according to the caller, founded this country based upon the Bible -- knew that same sex attraction was proscribed in the Scriptures.
BOR: Yes, I remember that call.
TM: Okay, and here (as I understood it) was your response. You disputed the notion that the Founding Fathers used the Bible as the basis for the country's founding documents, and said that they were guided instead by a more generic Judeo-Christian ethos. Am I okay so far?
BOR: Keep going.
TM: You then went on to say in essence that using Scripture as the basis for arguing and deciding the issues of our time -- like gay marriage -- can't be done. You said that one must make a "secular" appeal within the public arena of ideas.
BOR: Right. We're not a monolithic culture. You can't go out there and expect to make and enforce laws based on the Bible.
TM: And yesterday, you went so far as to say that people who quote the Scriptures (I think you specifically mentioned Leviticus and the Old Testament) and expect or desire them to the basis of law in our country are "nutty." Is that accurate?
BOR: It is accurate, and I stand by it.
TM: Well, it's at that point that your ideas about morality become completely incoherent.
BOR: How so?
TM: You consistently appeal to a Judeo-Christian ethos that animated the thinking of the Founding Fathers as they framed our democratic republic. And you rely on the existence of this Judeo-Christian ethos to rebuke what you call the "secular progressives" who are attempting to steer the social fabric of our country away from that paradigm. Now, my question to you, sir, is this: Where does that Judeo-Christian ethic come from, if not from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible?
BOR: You miss my point. The Founding Fathers didn't take law straight from the Bible in chapter and verse fashion. Last time I checked, we don't have a theocracy in this country.
TM: Do you admit that the Judeo-Christian ethos you refer to is derived from the Bible?
BOR: Yes.
TM: Then I fail to see how you can reasonably maintain that codifying (or wanting to codify) the moral ideas and principles advanced by the Bible in either our founding documents or modern law is "nutty."
BOR: Look -- you're not going to win any arguments about which social direction our country should go today by quoting Scripture. It doesn't work like that. Too many people don't even accept the Bible as binding in any way. They don't believe it. You're not going to convince them by saying, "Hey, you can't do this because Leviticus says not to."
TM: Then how does one frame a moral argument at all?
BOR: You have to do it in a secular manner.
TM: You're contradicting yourself, then.
BOR: No, I'm not.
TM: You are. What point is there in appealing to Judeo-Christian ideals as you do if you can't even argue by them?
BOR: Arguing by Judeo-Christian ideals is different than arguing from the Bible.
TM: But you just admitted that a Judeo-Christian ethos is derived from the Bible.
BOR: Look. I don't want to sit here and go back and forth. It's pointless. Tell me your bottom line, I'll respond to it, and let's move on.
TM: My bottom line is this: trying to argue morality by secular means simply cedes the high ground to the secular progressives. You're coming at the whole question of morality on their terms. Why should we do that? Take the issue of gay marriage, for example. How are you going to argue against that on secular grounds? To say that the family unit is traditionally composed a certain way is only to invite the question: What's to stop us from changing the definition of the family unit? You don't have an argument to stand on until you bring in the notion of a Creator who has a telos -- a purpose and design of His own -- for human sexuality or the human family. Now, our founding documents recognize the existence of this Creator, and they depend on the notion that His decree supersedes that of nations or their leaders. If He bestows liberty, as the Declaration of Independence states, then no people or government can licitly claim the right or ability to take that away. In a word, it's immoral because it is proscribed not by men, but by God.
I think this shows that a Judeo-Christian ethos presupposes that moral good is theonomous. It follows logically that it is also theonomously revealed in the Scriptures the Judeo-Christian ethos depends on. When you throw out arguing morals along those lines, you really are cutting off your nose to spite your own face.
BOR: Well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that.
TM: Okay. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Thanks for being on the program, Mr. O'Reilly.
BOR: Thank you.
Labels: Bill OReilly, Christianity, politics
Friday, September 09, 2005
Katrina craziness
Where does one begin?
Since Katrina made landfall, The MonT-SteR has done quite a bit of news shopping to keep abreast of things. The news has been hard to stomach. I was appalled by the stream-of-misery stories emanating from the Superdome, to say nothing the tales of families torn asunder by the evacuation process, or the teary pictures of motherless children and childless mothers searching desperately for loved ones. One photo in particular got to me. It was a shot of people who had finally been herded onto a charter bus to be taken from the Superdome to Houston, TX. The bus seats were full of glum, exhausted, shell-shocked faces, all deathly silent and wearing vacant stares. I wept when I saw it.
The people of our country have responded in kindness and compassion. Some have given generous amounts of money. Others have opened their homes to displaced families. Many have traveled directly to the affected regions to lend aid and comfort in person. And then we have these shining jewels of humanity at its best:
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Where does one begin?
Since Katrina made landfall, The MonT-SteR has done quite a bit of news shopping to keep abreast of things. The news has been hard to stomach. I was appalled by the stream-of-misery stories emanating from the Superdome, to say nothing the tales of families torn asunder by the evacuation process, or the teary pictures of motherless children and childless mothers searching desperately for loved ones. One photo in particular got to me. It was a shot of people who had finally been herded onto a charter bus to be taken from the Superdome to Houston, TX. The bus seats were full of glum, exhausted, shell-shocked faces, all deathly silent and wearing vacant stares. I wept when I saw it.
The people of our country have responded in kindness and compassion. Some have given generous amounts of money. Others have opened their homes to displaced families. Many have traveled directly to the affected regions to lend aid and comfort in person. And then we have these shining jewels of humanity at its best:
- It bothers me greatly that the Christian voices that seem to trumpet the loudest in times of tragedy are those who proclaim (and seem to relish) the arrival of God's judgment in the likes of disasters like Katrina. I recently preached a sermon on Luke 13 that deals with this very issue. Jesus cites two examples of suffering or catastrophe where people were killed by human agency or accidental means. He says to his audience in verses 3 and 5, "Do you think that the people who suffered these fates are greater sinners or worse culprits than everyone else? I tell you, no; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." What He is saying is this: 1) Don't assume that God metes out judgment in every instance of disaster or personal calamity, 2) By extension, don't assume that you are more righteous than those who suffer calamity, and 3) As a corrollary to number 2, don't assume that you are escaping judgment just because disaster hasn't befallen you.
Did God judge New Orleans by sending Katrina? It's not beyond the realm of possibility, nor is it without biblical precedent. God is love, but He is also judge, and he does bring the nations to account for their deeds. But Luke 13 seems to indicate that Christians ought to refrain from being so glib in their pronouncements of gloom and doom. The locus of the Church's ministry in such times ought to be in reaching out with the love, care, and compassion of Christ -- not in smug proclamations of judgment from the comfort of an easy chair.
Ever heard of Jonah, folks? You know, the guy who wanted God to fry those brutal, savage, imperialistic Assyrians? Did God allow him to just sit back and wait for Him to destroy Nineveh? Or did He send Jonah in mission to them in hopes that they would repent so they could be spared? And what did Jonah learn in the end -- that God enjoys laying waste to entire cities, or that He'd rather spare them? Is God pleased when his people are happy about or hopeful for the destruction of sinners? Or would he prefer them to be motivated by His heart for compassion and rescue and reach out to sinners with His truth? - Kanye West, a rapper with an album at the top of the charts, participated in a telethon to raise funds for Katrina victims. Mr. West decided to turn this charitable outreach into his personal soapbox and proceeded to lambaste the alleged racism of the media and President Bush. He has been roundly (and rightly) criticized for his petulant grandstanding, but that hasn't deterred him. On the Ellen deGeneres show this morning, West continued his anti-Bush tirade:
"They have been trying to sweep us (African-Americans) under the kitchen sink and it was so in people's faces and so on TV... that they couldn't even hide it any more.
Three words, Kanye: GET A GRIP. The concerns about New Orleans's extreme vulnerability to a strong hurricane predate the Bush administration. Hordes of city, state, and federal officials have been acutely aware of it for a long time. Why didn't you accuse them all of trying to "sweep... (African-Americans) under the kitchen sink"? Back when the Army Corps of Engineers first built the levee system, they knew it would only handle a category 3 storm. Are they racists too? Are the politicians who authorized the project (not George W. Bush) also racists for not expending the additional billions of dollars to make the levees high enough to withstand a category 5 storm?
"Down there, people are living below the poverty level to start off with, before this happened.
"A year ago I was on tour with USHER and we had a hurricane hit Florida and everybody was saying, 'If this hurricane went to Louisiana, if it went to Mississippi, they wouldn't be able to handle it.' (That was) a year ago - and there was nothing done about it."
Your vicious diatribes against the President are merely race-baiting, politically motivated claptrap. Why, Kanye? Why would you defile a fundraiser for hurricane victims by spouting such hateful nonsense? What did it solve? Did it ease the suffering of any of the hurricane victims? Did it bring in any more donations for them? Did it feed a hungry baby, or reunite a family? Couldn't you have put your political posturing aside for a little while?
What is it with these celebrities? Can't they do something good for its own sake without twisting it into a tortured, withering assault on political opponents? - And then there's this lovely story about a homeowner's association in Ocala, Florida that got wind of some residents opening their homes to Katrina evacuees and promptly quashed these pernicious acts of kindness. The board posted notices on everybody's door stating that such charity was strictly forbidden by the association's charter. The president of the association, Bob Watson, said he felt "damn bad" about having to send out the notices, but also said he has a "legal responsibility to enforce the deed restrictions." You know what I say, Mr. Watson? Every resident of Majestic Oaks that cares more about their precious charter than helping Katrina victims is an absolute disgrace, and they ought to burn hotly with deep and abiding shame and embarrassment at their odious greed and hard-heartedness. Pure and simple. Any homeowners association charter that prevents such charity deserves to be torn to shreds and burned with extreme prejudice. As long as homeowners associations are havens for people who take special pleasure and delight in legalistic, controlling behavior, The MonT-SteR will NEVER live in a community that's governed by one. PERIOD.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: celebrities, hurricane Katrina, politics
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Sen. Durbin's mindless pablum
The MonT-SteR is angry, my friends. Very angry. I tried not to comment on this, as it is something of a political issue, but it deals with the problem moral relativism that I've railed against time and again on tMR.
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) took to the floor of the Senate earlier this week to recycle and regurgitate the MoveOn.org Bush=Hitler ads, except he expanded their scope to assert that U.S. Military=Nazis and Guantanamo Bay=Nazi Concentration Camp.
Folks, we're talking about Nazis here. People who willingly served in Adolph Hitler's nightmarish war machine, which was bent on forcibly subjugating the rest of the world and animated by a hateful, ruling paradigm of vicious racism. They killed SIX MILLION JEWS by shooting them, gassing them, starving them, experimenting on them, vivisecting them -- I could go on.
At the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, the captured enemy combatants are allowed to practice their faith. We give them Qur'ans and prayer rugs so they can do so, despite the fact that their faith is ostensibly what fuels their hatred of this country. We feed them meals of roasted chicken and lemon fish with two vegetables and two kinds of fruit. And yes, we chain them. We play loud music in the prison. We turn the air conditioning down and turn up the heat. We keep them off balance, tired, and weakened for the purpose of interrogation and to keep them from being a danger to our soldiers. But we are not engaged in a Hitleresque extirmination of Arabs and/or Muslims, borne of prejudicial hatred. We do not kill them in gas chambers and then burn them in furnaces. We do not conduct medical experiments on them. We are certainly not starving them to death.
Sen. Durbin waxed further in eloquence, comparing our military to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Has anyone ever seen footage of the mass graves that were uncovered in the wake of the Khmer Rouge's original insurgency? I remember seeing images of skulls piled high and deep. Pol Pot and his ilk assassinated intellectuals and skilled workers, closed down schools and factories, forced everyone into what amounted to slave labor camps, and contributed directly to the starvation of 1.5 million people. Boy, who can distinguish American GI's from that lot?
Sen. Durbin's comments are offensive, to say the least -- insipid, asinine, incoherent drivel, through and through. And he's standing by his statement for now, which means one of two things:
On that note, here's the most tragic thing about this whole affair: There are scores of Americans out there nodding assent to Sen. Durbin's pablum, saying to themselves, "It's about time somebody spoke up." It disturbs me that so many of my fellow citizens are 1) unaware of history and therefore lacking the sense of proportion necessary to understand how mindless Sen. Durbin's comments are, and/or 2) so bereft of any moral (common?) sense that they really can't see the difference between our military and the acts of Nazis or the Khmer Rouge.
In either case, America has a big problem as long as enough citizens are content to think like this. The end of moral relativism is moral anarchy, where good and evil are "living, breathing" terms subject to redefinition by the whimsy of individual proclivity. This whole flap involving Sen. Durbin is a case-in-point example. Hitler was evil, you think the Bush administration is evil, so just equate the two. As long as it suits your beliefs (or purposes), all is well.
Ugh.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
The MonT-SteR is angry, my friends. Very angry. I tried not to comment on this, as it is something of a political issue, but it deals with the problem moral relativism that I've railed against time and again on tMR.
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) took to the floor of the Senate earlier this week to recycle and regurgitate the MoveOn.org Bush=Hitler ads, except he expanded their scope to assert that U.S. Military=Nazis and Guantanamo Bay=Nazi Concentration Camp.
Folks, we're talking about Nazis here. People who willingly served in Adolph Hitler's nightmarish war machine, which was bent on forcibly subjugating the rest of the world and animated by a hateful, ruling paradigm of vicious racism. They killed SIX MILLION JEWS by shooting them, gassing them, starving them, experimenting on them, vivisecting them -- I could go on.
At the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, the captured enemy combatants are allowed to practice their faith. We give them Qur'ans and prayer rugs so they can do so, despite the fact that their faith is ostensibly what fuels their hatred of this country. We feed them meals of roasted chicken and lemon fish with two vegetables and two kinds of fruit. And yes, we chain them. We play loud music in the prison. We turn the air conditioning down and turn up the heat. We keep them off balance, tired, and weakened for the purpose of interrogation and to keep them from being a danger to our soldiers. But we are not engaged in a Hitleresque extirmination of Arabs and/or Muslims, borne of prejudicial hatred. We do not kill them in gas chambers and then burn them in furnaces. We do not conduct medical experiments on them. We are certainly not starving them to death.
Sen. Durbin waxed further in eloquence, comparing our military to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Has anyone ever seen footage of the mass graves that were uncovered in the wake of the Khmer Rouge's original insurgency? I remember seeing images of skulls piled high and deep. Pol Pot and his ilk assassinated intellectuals and skilled workers, closed down schools and factories, forced everyone into what amounted to slave labor camps, and contributed directly to the starvation of 1.5 million people. Boy, who can distinguish American GI's from that lot?
Sen. Durbin's comments are offensive, to say the least -- insipid, asinine, incoherent drivel, through and through. And he's standing by his statement for now, which means one of two things:
- Sen. Durbin actually believes this ridiculous moral equivalency garbage, which only displays his complete and utter ignorance. If this is indeed the case, then the man has no business being an elected representative of ANY kind, let alone a U.S. Senator.
- He doesn't believe it, but says it anyway in order to denigrate the Bush administration and score political points -- even more despicable, and even more indicative of how unfit he is for public office.
On that note, here's the most tragic thing about this whole affair: There are scores of Americans out there nodding assent to Sen. Durbin's pablum, saying to themselves, "It's about time somebody spoke up." It disturbs me that so many of my fellow citizens are 1) unaware of history and therefore lacking the sense of proportion necessary to understand how mindless Sen. Durbin's comments are, and/or 2) so bereft of any moral (common?) sense that they really can't see the difference between our military and the acts of Nazis or the Khmer Rouge.
In either case, America has a big problem as long as enough citizens are content to think like this. The end of moral relativism is moral anarchy, where good and evil are "living, breathing" terms subject to redefinition by the whimsy of individual proclivity. This whole flap involving Sen. Durbin is a case-in-point example. Hitler was evil, you think the Bush administration is evil, so just equate the two. As long as it suits your beliefs (or purposes), all is well.
Ugh.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: moral relativism, politics
Sunday, June 12, 2005
I'm not listening...
Just visited the Drudge Report a short time ago. Drudge has his infamous flashing police light animation on his front page, signifying a bombshell story.
This particular bombshell involves the latest tell-all book on Hillary Clinton, The Truth About Hillary. In it, author Edward Klein allegedly reports some shocking things about the Clinton family -- including disturbing and intimate details about the nature of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton's marital relationship, as well as the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy with Chelsea. I'm no fan of the Clintons, but out of respect and compassion I refuse to repeat the specific allegations here. If you really want to know the details, go check out Drudge.
My point in bringing this up is to say this: The public really doesn't need to know this sort of thing. I don't want to know about it. My heart goes out to the Clintons tonight. Who among us would be happy to see the most sensitive, embarrassing, and shameful details of their dysfunctions become grist for the American media machine? I don't know the Clintons personally, and so I have no way of knowing whether or not Klein's book is accurate on this point. The truth of the matter is I don't care. None of us should. One may disagree with the Clintons' politics or their motivations for seeking high office, but they are still human beings with feelings.
Mr. Klein, if what Drudge says is true, then I have to wonder what your motivation was in putting this information in your book. I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I'm even more appalled to learn that John LeBoutillier, author of Harvard Hates America and an incurably pessimistic NewsMax.com pundit, has seemingly thrown his support behind the book in wholesale fashion. I respect Mr. LeBoutillier, but the following statement from his latest article on Klien's book alarms me:
Whatever Klein's accomplishments as a writer, however accurate the rest of his book's contents may be, it will all be overshadowed by what Drudge is reporting tonight if it proves true. Here's why, according to the Scriptures:
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Just visited the Drudge Report a short time ago. Drudge has his infamous flashing police light animation on his front page, signifying a bombshell story.
This particular bombshell involves the latest tell-all book on Hillary Clinton, The Truth About Hillary. In it, author Edward Klein allegedly reports some shocking things about the Clinton family -- including disturbing and intimate details about the nature of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton's marital relationship, as well as the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy with Chelsea. I'm no fan of the Clintons, but out of respect and compassion I refuse to repeat the specific allegations here. If you really want to know the details, go check out Drudge.
My point in bringing this up is to say this: The public really doesn't need to know this sort of thing. I don't want to know about it. My heart goes out to the Clintons tonight. Who among us would be happy to see the most sensitive, embarrassing, and shameful details of their dysfunctions become grist for the American media machine? I don't know the Clintons personally, and so I have no way of knowing whether or not Klein's book is accurate on this point. The truth of the matter is I don't care. None of us should. One may disagree with the Clintons' politics or their motivations for seeking high office, but they are still human beings with feelings.
Mr. Klein, if what Drudge says is true, then I have to wonder what your motivation was in putting this information in your book. I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I'm even more appalled to learn that John LeBoutillier, author of Harvard Hates America and an incurably pessimistic NewsMax.com pundit, has seemingly thrown his support behind the book in wholesale fashion. I respect Mr. LeBoutillier, but the following statement from his latest article on Klien's book alarms me:
Over frequent lunches with our mutual friend, famed TV reporter Liz Trotta, a Columbia Journalism School classmate of Klein's from 40 years ago, we have been discussing the Hillary project from its conception, through the hiring of his research assistants to the actual interview process whereby Klein talked to almost 100 people close to Hillary, going back to the 1960s.Was LeBoutillier aware of the more tawdry, intrusive section(s) of Klein's work on Mrs. Clinton? If so, I think he ought to be far less effusive in his praise. LeBoutillier goes on to laud Klein's journalistic and literary pedigree, ostensibly to elevate the repute of his latest book on Hillary Clinton. Sorry, John, but if Klein has indeed included the contents alluded to on the Drudge Report, then the book is disreputable, and it deserves to fail.
Whatever Klein's accomplishments as a writer, however accurate the rest of his book's contents may be, it will all be overshadowed by what Drudge is reporting tonight if it proves true. Here's why, according to the Scriptures:
"He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy conceals a matter." -Proverbs 11:13As far as the Bible is concerned, gossip is utterly despicable. A little folly, Mssrs. Klein and LeBoutillier, outweighs much wisdom. That's why the accusations of Klein's participation in a "right-wing conspiracy" will ring true, even if they are genuinely hollow. And Klein's work will be deservedly rejected by the masses as a result.
"He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets; therefore, do not associate with a gossip." -Proverbs 20:19
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Dear Senator Warner...
I learned today that Senator Warner (R-VA) is among the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who compromised on the Democrats' abuse of the filibuster. Rather than change the procedural rules of the Senate to keep the Democrats from using the filibuster to pervert the "advice and consent" clause of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, Warner teamed up with the likes of the sour-faced Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to see how they could avoid "the nuclear option" -- which is a disingenuous moniker for what would actually restore constitutional procedure and order in the Senate. They all signed a "memo of understanding" that would bring three of the President's judicial nominees to the floor of the Senate for a vote ASAP. That part sounds good, but the odious portion of the compromise would require the President to bring a pool of potential nominees to the Judiciary Committee, which would confer with the President to identify "acceptable, bi-partisan" nominees and weed out extreme ones. Plus, the Democrats reserve the right to filibuster again if the circumstances surrounding a nominee become "extraordinary" enough to warrant it. So this "memo of understanding" not only waters down the powers the Constitution clearly grants to the President to appoint judges, it also clears the path for the Democrats to continue their obstructionism unabated. Tell me, Senator Warner: What is the difference between this "compromise" and just giving the Democrats everything they want? I sure don't see it.
Anyway, I e-mailed Senator Warner, who I've happily supported in the past, to express my disappointment with his actions:
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
I learned today that Senator Warner (R-VA) is among the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who compromised on the Democrats' abuse of the filibuster. Rather than change the procedural rules of the Senate to keep the Democrats from using the filibuster to pervert the "advice and consent" clause of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, Warner teamed up with the likes of the sour-faced Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to see how they could avoid "the nuclear option" -- which is a disingenuous moniker for what would actually restore constitutional procedure and order in the Senate. They all signed a "memo of understanding" that would bring three of the President's judicial nominees to the floor of the Senate for a vote ASAP. That part sounds good, but the odious portion of the compromise would require the President to bring a pool of potential nominees to the Judiciary Committee, which would confer with the President to identify "acceptable, bi-partisan" nominees and weed out extreme ones. Plus, the Democrats reserve the right to filibuster again if the circumstances surrounding a nominee become "extraordinary" enough to warrant it. So this "memo of understanding" not only waters down the powers the Constitution clearly grants to the President to appoint judges, it also clears the path for the Democrats to continue their obstructionism unabated. Tell me, Senator Warner: What is the difference between this "compromise" and just giving the Democrats everything they want? I sure don't see it.
Anyway, I e-mailed Senator Warner, who I've happily supported in the past, to express my disappointment with his actions:
The Honorable John WarnerI'll post any response I get here on tMR.
United States Senate
225 Russell Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Warner:
I wish to express my deep and abiding dismay and disappointment to learn that you are among the Republican senators who have seen fit to compromise with the Democrats on the issue of filibustering President Bush's judicial nominees.
What the press derisively calls "the nuclear option" is actually nothing less than a restoration of constitutional order and procedure in the Senate that the Democrats have blatantly flouted for partisan political gain. It is, therefore, more properly named "the constitutional option," and as such I fail to comprehend your apparent desire to avoid its successful implementation. Your participation in the compromise undermines the work the Republican leadership in the Senate has done to put an end to the Democrats' abuse of the "advice and consent" clause contained in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.
As a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia who is concerned about the Democrats' obvious disdain for the rule of law, I respectfully request that you withdraw your support from the compromise and vote to end the use of the filibuster to keep the President's judicial nominees from receiving an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Monti
6304 Ardsley Square, #201A
Virginia Beach, VA 23464
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: John Warner, politics
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Kerry-media axis holdout untenable
In addition to the reasons I mentioned in my final Election night installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth, there is yet another factor mitigating against the Kerry-media axis' stubborn refusal to put Ohio in Bush's column.
Take a look at the numbers in Pennsylvania today. Kerry's margin of victory there is slimmer than Bush's in Ohio by about 11,000 votes. Nevertheless, the networks confidently called Pennsylvania for Kerry early last night and are still holding out on projecting Ohio for Bush -- despite the fact that 100% of the precincts have reported in (compared to 99% for PA).
I don't hear any talk of a Bush challenge in PA in the media. I don't hear any media speculation about what legal recourse is available to Bush in PA and what it might turn in his favor. I haven't heard a word about how "every vote needs to be counted" in PA. There haven't been any media calls for patience in declaring a winner in PA, lest voters who cast provisional ballots be disenfranchised. To my knowledge, Tom Brokaw's patronizing refrain of "What's one more day?" hasn't been applied to the utlimate outcome of the PA election results.
I had mixed feelings about the media last night as I watched the election coverage. At times, I thought they were doing a good job of exercising restraint in projecting state winners. This morning, I'm back to being completely disgusted with them all.
Bias, bias, and more bias. If they were honest about it, I wouldn't mind so much. But this utter pretense of objectivity that Jennings/Brokaw/Rather/Lehrer/etc. maintain frosts my butt to the core.
Journalistic malpractice. There ought to be a law against it.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
In addition to the reasons I mentioned in my final Election night installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth, there is yet another factor mitigating against the Kerry-media axis' stubborn refusal to put Ohio in Bush's column.
Take a look at the numbers in Pennsylvania today. Kerry's margin of victory there is slimmer than Bush's in Ohio by about 11,000 votes. Nevertheless, the networks confidently called Pennsylvania for Kerry early last night and are still holding out on projecting Ohio for Bush -- despite the fact that 100% of the precincts have reported in (compared to 99% for PA).
I don't hear any talk of a Bush challenge in PA in the media. I don't hear any media speculation about what legal recourse is available to Bush in PA and what it might turn in his favor. I haven't heard a word about how "every vote needs to be counted" in PA. There haven't been any media calls for patience in declaring a winner in PA, lest voters who cast provisional ballots be disenfranchised. To my knowledge, Tom Brokaw's patronizing refrain of "What's one more day?" hasn't been applied to the utlimate outcome of the PA election results.
I had mixed feelings about the media last night as I watched the election coverage. At times, I thought they were doing a good job of exercising restraint in projecting state winners. This morning, I'm back to being completely disgusted with them all.
Bias, bias, and more bias. If they were honest about it, I wouldn't mind so much. But this utter pretense of objectivity that Jennings/Brokaw/Rather/Lehrer/etc. maintain frosts my butt to the core.
Journalistic malpractice. There ought to be a law against it.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: media bias, politics
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
MonT-SteR election coverage
3:14 a.m.
Sixth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
2:17 a.m.
Fifth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
1:27 a.m.
Fourth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
11/03 - 12:02 a.m.
Third Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth (via Audlink)
9:36 p.m.
Second Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
11/02 - 8:25 p.m.
First Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth (via Audioblogger)
3:14 a.m.
Sixth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
2:17 a.m.
Fifth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
1:27 a.m.
Fourth Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
11/03 - 12:02 a.m.
Third Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth (via Audlink)
9:36 p.m.
Second Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth
11/02 - 8:25 p.m.
First Election Night Installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth (via Audioblogger)
Labels: 2004 election, politics
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
MonT-SteR election
In the hopes of persuading some wayward undecided voter who might stumble upon my blog before heading to the polling place, I've made an audio post about why I'm voting the way I'm voting. I was a little too verbose for Audioblogger's (paltry) time limit, but I think you'll get the gist.
Whether you're GOP or DNC, libertarian or liberal, please make use of the sacred privilege you have to choose your elected officials. Don't take your freedom for granted -- go vote. As a prominent person in politics recently said, "Freedom is God's gift to man."
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
In the hopes of persuading some wayward undecided voter who might stumble upon my blog before heading to the polling place, I've made an audio post about why I'm voting the way I'm voting. I was a little too verbose for Audioblogger's (paltry) time limit, but I think you'll get the gist.
Whether you're GOP or DNC, libertarian or liberal, please make use of the sacred privilege you have to choose your elected officials. Don't take your freedom for granted -- go vote. As a prominent person in politics recently said, "Freedom is God's gift to man."
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: 2004 election, politics
Monday, October 18, 2004
Kerry's platitudinous morality
During an interview with Tim Russert that occurred back when Sen. Kerry was competing with his Democratic rivals for the Presidential nomination, the question of faith in God came up. At that time, Kerry expressed a certain distaste for President Bush's frequent references to the Almighty in public venues. In the third presidential debate, however, Kerry spoke more about faith and God than the President did. I don't know the Senator's heart, so I have no means of determining how genuine his profession of faith is. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but think that the sudden profusion of God-talk from Senator Kerry came off a little desperate and "me too-ish." It certainly contradicted his sentiments at the time of the aforementioned interview with Russert.
Kerry quoted James 2:26 in the last debate, which states that faith apart from works is no faith at all. Since that night, Kerry's "faith with deeds" slogan has become a frequent campaign refrain, designed to imply that the President's references to his faith in God are so much empty rhetoric. If the President is a genuine man of faith (the logic goes), then he'd do more for middle-class families and the working poor instead of giving gazillions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
I think that's a simplistic line of reasoning that fails to deal with the complexities of economics and market forces (to say nothing of the issue of government's proper role or the morality of confiscatory tax rates), but I won't argue with it for now. I'm more interested in applying Kerry's "faith with deeds" credo to his own position on abortion.
"I'm a Catholic," says Sen. Kerry, "and so I am not in favor of abortion. But my stance on abortion is borne of my faith, and I can't impose my faith on others. Therefore, I continue to support a woman's right to choose."
Take the dubious appeal to church-state separation out of the equation, and Sen. Kerry's position sounds like a lot of conventional moral pronouncements: "I don't particularly approve of X, but I don't have any right to force those who practice X to stop doing it."
Ravi Zacharias, one of The MonT-SteR's favorite Christian ministers, aptly illustrates the incoherence of such slushy, subjective thinking on morality. He tells the story of an encounter he had with a college student who didn't approve of one of his lectures. Dr. Zacharias had been making a case for objective morality that both transcends and trumps the whimsy of human convention. The student approached him after his talk and said, "Who are you to tell me what is right and wrong? I don't believe that there is such a thing as objective morality."
"Let me ask you a question," Dr. Zacharias replied. "What if I were to bring a baby up here to the podium and cut him into little pieces with a butcher knife right in front of your eyes. Would I be doing anything wrong?"
"I would not like what you did," the student responded, "but I could not say that it was wrong."
Most reasonable people recoil at such twisted logic. At a visceral, almost instinctive level, we all know that there are things that ought not be done. C. S. Lewis makes this very point in Mere Christianity:
Of course, neither Bill Clinton nor Sen. Kerry would grant that slavery should remain licit for any reason. Why not? Because it's incontrovertibly wrong, and they are willing to support its continued prohibition on that basis. Without a doubt, they would both tell you that the Emancipation Proclamation -- a decree that "foisted" the moral views of some upon others -- was a great good in American history.
Anyone who asserts that one cannot legislate morality is full of donkey dust. Given the witness of history and everyday laws against theft and murder, it's simply not a sustainable position. We learn from the likes of the Nazis, the Confederacy, and common criminals that there are those in this world who desire to practice wrong; beyond that, they may very well insist that the evil they commit is actually good. History also teaches us that standing up and saying to such people, "You cannot have the right to do what is innately wrong," invariably stirs controversy and disputing. It may well demand great sacrifice from those courageous enough to unequivocally champion right and oppose wrong. In the end, however, it serves the greater good.
It is on this precise point that Kerry's own faith is decidedly without deeds. In hiding behind church-state separation, he attempts to claim the luxury of being pro-choice and pro-life at the same time. If a politician tried to be pro-slavery and anti-slavery simultanously, he would get hooted off the political stage.
Truth by nature is exclusive; if something is true, whatever contradicts it is false. Morality that comports with truth exhibits the same exclusive feature; if something is objectively right in a moral sense, whatever contradicts it is wrong. Presumably, Sen. Kerry professes Christianity because he believes it is reflective of ultimate reality (if that's not the case, then what's the point of being Christian at all?). Thus, moral pronouncements that flow from a genuinely biblical perspective represent the truth and, by extension, actual right and wrong. If Sen. Kerry really does find that Christianity and abortion on demand are mutually exclusive, then his stated position on abortion is incoherent and self-stultifying.
He should be echoing the abolitionists of the past: "You cannot have the right to do what is wrong." Instead, he has parroted a moral platitude that ostensibly allows him to play both sides against the middle.
Sorry, Sen. Kerry. You won't get away with that here.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
During an interview with Tim Russert that occurred back when Sen. Kerry was competing with his Democratic rivals for the Presidential nomination, the question of faith in God came up. At that time, Kerry expressed a certain distaste for President Bush's frequent references to the Almighty in public venues. In the third presidential debate, however, Kerry spoke more about faith and God than the President did. I don't know the Senator's heart, so I have no means of determining how genuine his profession of faith is. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but think that the sudden profusion of God-talk from Senator Kerry came off a little desperate and "me too-ish." It certainly contradicted his sentiments at the time of the aforementioned interview with Russert.
Kerry quoted James 2:26 in the last debate, which states that faith apart from works is no faith at all. Since that night, Kerry's "faith with deeds" slogan has become a frequent campaign refrain, designed to imply that the President's references to his faith in God are so much empty rhetoric. If the President is a genuine man of faith (the logic goes), then he'd do more for middle-class families and the working poor instead of giving gazillions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
I think that's a simplistic line of reasoning that fails to deal with the complexities of economics and market forces (to say nothing of the issue of government's proper role or the morality of confiscatory tax rates), but I won't argue with it for now. I'm more interested in applying Kerry's "faith with deeds" credo to his own position on abortion.
"I'm a Catholic," says Sen. Kerry, "and so I am not in favor of abortion. But my stance on abortion is borne of my faith, and I can't impose my faith on others. Therefore, I continue to support a woman's right to choose."
Take the dubious appeal to church-state separation out of the equation, and Sen. Kerry's position sounds like a lot of conventional moral pronouncements: "I don't particularly approve of X, but I don't have any right to force those who practice X to stop doing it."
Ravi Zacharias, one of The MonT-SteR's favorite Christian ministers, aptly illustrates the incoherence of such slushy, subjective thinking on morality. He tells the story of an encounter he had with a college student who didn't approve of one of his lectures. Dr. Zacharias had been making a case for objective morality that both transcends and trumps the whimsy of human convention. The student approached him after his talk and said, "Who are you to tell me what is right and wrong? I don't believe that there is such a thing as objective morality."
"Let me ask you a question," Dr. Zacharias replied. "What if I were to bring a baby up here to the podium and cut him into little pieces with a butcher knife right in front of your eyes. Would I be doing anything wrong?"
"I would not like what you did," the student responded, "but I could not say that it was wrong."
Most reasonable people recoil at such twisted logic. At a visceral, almost instinctive level, we all know that there are things that ought not be done. C. S. Lewis makes this very point in Mere Christianity:
[The] human idea of decent behavior [is] obvious to everyone. [If that was not the case], then all the things we said about [World War II] were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced? If they had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair.Suppose the logic Sen. Kerry applies to abortion had been typical of the American attitude toward Nazi Germany? "I don't particularly like unjust military conquest or the wanton slaughter of 6 million Jews, but I don't have the right to impose my views on others." What if we had applied such thinking to slavery? "I'm a Christian, and as such I believe that slavery is wrong. But that's a position borne of faith, and I can't impose my religious views on other people. So I will continue to support the slaveholder's right to own or sell African-Americans as slaves." Or, to borrow Bill Clinton's phraseology, "Slavery ought to be safe, legal, and rare."
Of course, neither Bill Clinton nor Sen. Kerry would grant that slavery should remain licit for any reason. Why not? Because it's incontrovertibly wrong, and they are willing to support its continued prohibition on that basis. Without a doubt, they would both tell you that the Emancipation Proclamation -- a decree that "foisted" the moral views of some upon others -- was a great good in American history.
Anyone who asserts that one cannot legislate morality is full of donkey dust. Given the witness of history and everyday laws against theft and murder, it's simply not a sustainable position. We learn from the likes of the Nazis, the Confederacy, and common criminals that there are those in this world who desire to practice wrong; beyond that, they may very well insist that the evil they commit is actually good. History also teaches us that standing up and saying to such people, "You cannot have the right to do what is innately wrong," invariably stirs controversy and disputing. It may well demand great sacrifice from those courageous enough to unequivocally champion right and oppose wrong. In the end, however, it serves the greater good.
It is on this precise point that Kerry's own faith is decidedly without deeds. In hiding behind church-state separation, he attempts to claim the luxury of being pro-choice and pro-life at the same time. If a politician tried to be pro-slavery and anti-slavery simultanously, he would get hooted off the political stage.
Truth by nature is exclusive; if something is true, whatever contradicts it is false. Morality that comports with truth exhibits the same exclusive feature; if something is objectively right in a moral sense, whatever contradicts it is wrong. Presumably, Sen. Kerry professes Christianity because he believes it is reflective of ultimate reality (if that's not the case, then what's the point of being Christian at all?). Thus, moral pronouncements that flow from a genuinely biblical perspective represent the truth and, by extension, actual right and wrong. If Sen. Kerry really does find that Christianity and abortion on demand are mutually exclusive, then his stated position on abortion is incoherent and self-stultifying.
He should be echoing the abolitionists of the past: "You cannot have the right to do what is wrong." Instead, he has parroted a moral platitude that ostensibly allows him to play both sides against the middle.
Sorry, Sen. Kerry. You won't get away with that here.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: 2004 election, abortion, church and state, John Kerry, morality, politics
Thursday, October 14, 2004
I'm a pro-life Christian and I vote
Well, my October 11 response to Chuck Currie's article, "I'm a Pro-Choice Christian and I Vote," elicited a rebuttal from the author himself.
His reply invites several avenues of attack, and I intend to critique it thoroughly. In fairness to Chuck, however, I think it's going to have to wait for the following reasons:
Stay tuned....
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Well, my October 11 response to Chuck Currie's article, "I'm a Pro-Choice Christian and I Vote," elicited a rebuttal from the author himself.
His reply invites several avenues of attack, and I intend to critique it thoroughly. In fairness to Chuck, however, I think it's going to have to wait for the following reasons:
- Chuck stated in his comment that he's very busy at the moment and doesn't have the time to engage me in a rejoinder-surrejoinder kind of debate.
- My original post was somewhat gauche in that I addressed Chuck personally in it without contacting him directly. I fully expected that he would notice it and respond at some point (which he obviously did), but it would have been far more gentlemanly for me to contact him and say, "Hey, I've written about your stance on abortion at my blog. You're welcome to respond." My apologies, Chuck. That was discourteous and cowardly. The Internet is a haven for anonymous, hotheaded rhetorical warfare that excels at inflaming tempers and persuading no one. If I really stand for reasoned discourse that is irenic in its tone and reflective of Christian charity, then I have to conduct myself differently online.
- We would each prepare a short bio and our position (perhaps in 2000 words or less) for the other to post on his blog.
- We would then make a formal rebuttal on our own blogs, which we could each comment on thereafter at our leisure.
Stay tuned....
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: abortion, church and state, politics
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
A plea for circumspection
Blogs4God recently showcased some liberal Christian blogs, including that of seminarian Chuck Currie.
An entry Chuck wrote, entitled I'm a Pro-Choice Christian and I Vote, caught my eye. The title aptly describes the content of the post.
Abortion is a lightning rod issue. I can't think of too many subjects that are more divisive and controversial. As I stated previously vis-a-vis homosexuality and gay marriage, the heated rhetoric generated by such a touchy subject often makes calm and reasoned discourse on the issue impossible. The same applies to abortion. Bearing that in mind, I will attempt to be as irenic in my tone as possible.
I find a disturbing trend among many pro-choicers that is actually a subset of a larger moral pandemic in America: They haven't thought their position through. A woman simply has a sacrosanct right to end a pregnancy by destroying that inconvenient mass of cells (otherwise known as a fetus) in her uterus. To suggest otherwise is to engage in a misogynistic effort to rob women of their physical and sexual autonomy. Period. End of story.
I witnessed this phenomenon on the Sean Hannity show. Sean was giving his left-leaning interns a hard time on various and sundry moral issues, and he asked one what the "cut-off" date for an abortion ought to be. If memory serves, she arbitrarily chose the beginning of the second trimester, because that was what was "legal." I was screaming at the radio, "Well, where does the idea of 'legal' come from?!?"
The fact is, friends, that legality is derivative. According to the law of the land, murder is "illegal." Why is that? Because unjustly ending another person's life is wrong. And why is it wrong? At this point the question of morality gets a bit sticky. Do morals proceed from a consensus of subjective human sensibilities, or are they transcendent and absolute? The former leads inevitably to moral anarchy. If the latter is the case, where do morals originate? Are they simply self-existent, as objectivists like Ayn Rand might have us believe, or are they themselves derivative?
Christianity contends that objective morality is an outflow of God's person, nature, character, and activity. As such, Christians must be circumspect when evaluating contemporary moral issues. Conventional morality simply will not do if it is diametrically opposed to who God is and what He values.
Chuck, man, are you actually going to sit there and tell me that abortion is in sync with who God is and what He values? Do you really think the Author of Life is okay with the wanton destruction of millions of unborn children day in and day out? As a follower of Christ, can you reasonably argue that the God who calls us to defend those unjustly sentenced to death is pleased when you happily support the sacrifice of life on the altar of autonomy?
I'd like to gently suggest that you need to think your position through a bit more -- and that you need to repent.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Blogs4God recently showcased some liberal Christian blogs, including that of seminarian Chuck Currie.
An entry Chuck wrote, entitled I'm a Pro-Choice Christian and I Vote, caught my eye. The title aptly describes the content of the post.
Abortion is a lightning rod issue. I can't think of too many subjects that are more divisive and controversial. As I stated previously vis-a-vis homosexuality and gay marriage, the heated rhetoric generated by such a touchy subject often makes calm and reasoned discourse on the issue impossible. The same applies to abortion. Bearing that in mind, I will attempt to be as irenic in my tone as possible.
I find a disturbing trend among many pro-choicers that is actually a subset of a larger moral pandemic in America: They haven't thought their position through. A woman simply has a sacrosanct right to end a pregnancy by destroying that inconvenient mass of cells (otherwise known as a fetus) in her uterus. To suggest otherwise is to engage in a misogynistic effort to rob women of their physical and sexual autonomy. Period. End of story.
I witnessed this phenomenon on the Sean Hannity show. Sean was giving his left-leaning interns a hard time on various and sundry moral issues, and he asked one what the "cut-off" date for an abortion ought to be. If memory serves, she arbitrarily chose the beginning of the second trimester, because that was what was "legal." I was screaming at the radio, "Well, where does the idea of 'legal' come from?!?"
The fact is, friends, that legality is derivative. According to the law of the land, murder is "illegal." Why is that? Because unjustly ending another person's life is wrong. And why is it wrong? At this point the question of morality gets a bit sticky. Do morals proceed from a consensus of subjective human sensibilities, or are they transcendent and absolute? The former leads inevitably to moral anarchy. If the latter is the case, where do morals originate? Are they simply self-existent, as objectivists like Ayn Rand might have us believe, or are they themselves derivative?
Christianity contends that objective morality is an outflow of God's person, nature, character, and activity. As such, Christians must be circumspect when evaluating contemporary moral issues. Conventional morality simply will not do if it is diametrically opposed to who God is and what He values.
Chuck, man, are you actually going to sit there and tell me that abortion is in sync with who God is and what He values? Do you really think the Author of Life is okay with the wanton destruction of millions of unborn children day in and day out? As a follower of Christ, can you reasonably argue that the God who calls us to defend those unjustly sentenced to death is pleased when you happily support the sacrifice of life on the altar of autonomy?
I'd like to gently suggest that you need to think your position through a bit more -- and that you need to repent.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Would the Gipper be pleased?
Editor's note: This is an unfinished post. I hope to have the time to complete it in the future. For now, just so I can move ahead with other tMR-related projects, I'm publishing this in its incomplete form.
When former President Ronald Reagan slipped the surly bonds of this earth to touch the face of God, political partisanship appropriatley took a quiet back seat for a time -- but not for long. No sooner had Reagan been laid to rest than Democrats began waving fingers in the face of President Bush: "Don't you go exploiting the death of Ronald Reagan to further your own political campaign, Dubya. That would be reprehensible. Of course, we wouldn't put anything past you."
Let's be frank. The very thing the Democrats warned President Bush against -- the very deed they decried as despicable, heartless, cynical, and ruthlessly opportunistic -- is what they have actually done. The facts:
I am digressing from what I intended to do in this post. My real purpose was to pick apart some of Ron Reagan's speech to the DNC. He began by saying:
I'll have to continue this later, friends
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Editor's note: This is an unfinished post. I hope to have the time to complete it in the future. For now, just so I can move ahead with other tMR-related projects, I'm publishing this in its incomplete form.
When former President Ronald Reagan slipped the surly bonds of this earth to touch the face of God, political partisanship appropriatley took a quiet back seat for a time -- but not for long. No sooner had Reagan been laid to rest than Democrats began waving fingers in the face of President Bush: "Don't you go exploiting the death of Ronald Reagan to further your own political campaign, Dubya. That would be reprehensible. Of course, we wouldn't put anything past you."
Let's be frank. The very thing the Democrats warned President Bush against -- the very deed they decried as despicable, heartless, cynical, and ruthlessly opportunistic -- is what they have actually done. The facts:
- Ronald Reagan was debilitated by Alzheimer's up to the time of his death.
- Some claim that embryonic stem cell research holds the cure for this awful disease.
- Early in his presidency, George Bush halted federal funding for such research, citing the ethical conundrum it presents.
- Meanwhile, Democrats have made easing restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research a key tenet of their party platform.
- The DNC achieves what they consider a political coup by getting Ron Reagan Jr. to address their convention in prime-time, for the purpose of plugging the virtues of embryonic stem cell therapy and to denounce the vice of the small minded religious nuts (i.e., President Bush) who stand in its way. Note that Ron Reagan's address comes scant weeks after his father's death.
I am digressing from what I intended to do in this post. My real purpose was to pick apart some of Ron Reagan's speech to the DNC. He began by saying:
Let me assure you, I am not here to make a political speech, and the topic at hand should not -- must not -- have anything to do with partisanship.Well, Ron, then what in the world are you doing at the Democratic National Convention? Why not choose a non-partisan venue to urge that embryonic stem cell research move forward? If keeping things apolitical was your aim, pal, you blew it the instant you agreed to address the donkeys up in Beantown.
I'll have to continue this later, friends
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: moral relativism, politics, stem cells
Monday, May 10, 2004
In defense of Cumberland
By now, we've all seen the photos. The world has seen them.
Naked Iraqi prisoners, cruelly dragged along the ground by a dog leash or forced into degrading positions simulating sex acts -- all for the sport and amusement of a handful of depraved men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military.
Beyond seeing, we've all felt the burning shame and anger these photographs elicit. And we should. We are Americans. We're better than this.
I have the deepest respect for those who serve in the armed forces. They are disciplined, well-trained, freedom-loving, and -- far more often than not -- honorable. Their willful service and sacrifice are the guarantors of the rights and privileges we all enjoy as U.S. citizens. For that, they have my sincere gratitude, heartfelt appreciation, and steadfast support.
But recent events have brought another facet of the military's importance to light. The goulish images emanating from the Abu Ghraib prison demonstrate that the men and women of our military are far more than our protectors. They are also representatives and ambassadors of American civilization. Perhaps more than any other societal indicator, our conduct in war speaks volumes about the quality of our culture. In a speech given a few years ago by Alan Keyes, he observed how remarkable it is that we only used the atom bomb twice in World War II. Some decry the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as consummate expressions of American barbarism. Consider, however, that we were the first to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. No other nation possessed such powerful technology. Had chosen to do so, we could have held the world hostage: Either join the new global American empire or face annihilation.
But we didn't, because we're better than that. It was enough for us to procure Japan's unconditional surrender and put an end to the most destructive conflict the world has ever known.
The projection of American force must always be tempered by the exercise of American restraint; the locus of such restraint resides in the underlying Judeo-Christian values that are so foundational to the success and greatness of our nation. An extreme minority of American men and women chose to depart from those values in a crucial time and region where the cynical, scrutinizing eyes of the entire world are focused. Unfortunately, it takes only a little foolishness to undo much wisdom (see Ecclesiastes 10:1). This is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this whole scandal. The liberation of an oppressed people, the honorable conduct of the majority our armed forces, and the good and upright values the American public holds are all overshadowed in the court of public opinion by the wicked deeds of a select few.
Imagine, therefore, my personal consternation when the world learned that some of the soldiers who perpetrated the abuse at Abu Ghraib came from a batallion of reservists stationed in a suburb of my home town, Cumberland, MD.
In response to this news, a huge cadre of reporters from all over the planet descended upon sleepy little Cumberland (see photo at right), interviewing local yokels to get reaction to the news coming out of Abu Ghraib -- and to find out what it is about Cumberland that would produce the military "monsters" everybody now loves to hate. Many of the reporters apparently proceeded from an assumption of guilt by association; if soldiers from Cumberland behaved so despicably, then Cumberland and its citizens must be despicable as well.
Given the axiom from Ecclesiastes I cited above, I can understand that kind of reaction. Even so, is it really all that difficult to realize that every group of people -- whether a community, a nation, or a military -- is going to have a few bad eggs in it? (HINT: The preceding sentence is a rhetorical question that expects a negative answer.)
When I was a senior at Allegany High School in Cumberland, I took a guitar class. It was one of those blow-off classes we've all had on occasion -- half the time the teacher left us to our own devices. One of the members of the guitar class was a Japanese exchange student. She was almost universally well-liked. Her petite frame, kind face, and polite meekness were endearing. She was also a very good pianist, and on those days when our guitar class ended up being a study hall, she could usually be found banging away at an upright piano that sat at the front of the room. Eventually, the tasteful stream of Bach inventions and Clementi sonatas just got to be too much for some of the yahoos in our class. To my horror, one of them taped a profanity-laden sign to the piano while the exchange student was performing. This quiet, kindhearted girl was a guest in our school, our community, and our country. I felt that all of us were duty-bound to put our best foot forward -- both for her benefit and our own. So, before she had a chance to see the boorish epithets on the sign, I ripped it off the piano and threw it in the trash. Then I asked her as gently as I knew how to take a rest from tickling the ivories. I'll never forget the look she gave me; it was as if I had kicked a puppy. I can't imagine her reaction if she had actually seen the sign.
Believe it or not, there is a point to this story that relates to the Abu Ghraib scandal. It would be positively absurd to assert that my entire high school was racist or anti-Japanese because a few students in my guitar class mistreated a Japanese exchange student. In the same way, the mistreatment of some Iraqi prisoners at the hands of Cumberland natives doesn't make Cumberland (or America) a wholesale incubator for barbarians.
Observers of the Abu Ghraib scandal ought to be able to make a distinction between the errant actions of a few and the values and policies of an entire people. It's a very simple distinction to make, as my guitar class story illustrates. When members of the press, leaders of nations, and terrorists alike fail to make this distinction, I can only conclude that they have chosen not to do so out of political or ideological expedience -- a fact which highlights their own willful ignorance and prejudice vis-a-vis the U.S., not to mention their hypocrisy.
Go ahead. Hold us to standards you are unwilling to live by yourselves. We're used to it. We're Americans.
By now, we've all seen the photos. The world has seen them.
Naked Iraqi prisoners, cruelly dragged along the ground by a dog leash or forced into degrading positions simulating sex acts -- all for the sport and amusement of a handful of depraved men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military.
Beyond seeing, we've all felt the burning shame and anger these photographs elicit. And we should. We are Americans. We're better than this.
I have the deepest respect for those who serve in the armed forces. They are disciplined, well-trained, freedom-loving, and -- far more often than not -- honorable. Their willful service and sacrifice are the guarantors of the rights and privileges we all enjoy as U.S. citizens. For that, they have my sincere gratitude, heartfelt appreciation, and steadfast support.
But recent events have brought another facet of the military's importance to light. The goulish images emanating from the Abu Ghraib prison demonstrate that the men and women of our military are far more than our protectors. They are also representatives and ambassadors of American civilization. Perhaps more than any other societal indicator, our conduct in war speaks volumes about the quality of our culture. In a speech given a few years ago by Alan Keyes, he observed how remarkable it is that we only used the atom bomb twice in World War II. Some decry the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as consummate expressions of American barbarism. Consider, however, that we were the first to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. No other nation possessed such powerful technology. Had chosen to do so, we could have held the world hostage: Either join the new global American empire or face annihilation.
But we didn't, because we're better than that. It was enough for us to procure Japan's unconditional surrender and put an end to the most destructive conflict the world has ever known.
The projection of American force must always be tempered by the exercise of American restraint; the locus of such restraint resides in the underlying Judeo-Christian values that are so foundational to the success and greatness of our nation. An extreme minority of American men and women chose to depart from those values in a crucial time and region where the cynical, scrutinizing eyes of the entire world are focused. Unfortunately, it takes only a little foolishness to undo much wisdom (see Ecclesiastes 10:1). This is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this whole scandal. The liberation of an oppressed people, the honorable conduct of the majority our armed forces, and the good and upright values the American public holds are all overshadowed in the court of public opinion by the wicked deeds of a select few.
Imagine, therefore, my personal consternation when the world learned that some of the soldiers who perpetrated the abuse at Abu Ghraib came from a batallion of reservists stationed in a suburb of my home town, Cumberland, MD.
In response to this news, a huge cadre of reporters from all over the planet descended upon sleepy little Cumberland (see photo at right), interviewing local yokels to get reaction to the news coming out of Abu Ghraib -- and to find out what it is about Cumberland that would produce the military "monsters" everybody now loves to hate. Many of the reporters apparently proceeded from an assumption of guilt by association; if soldiers from Cumberland behaved so despicably, then Cumberland and its citizens must be despicable as well.Given the axiom from Ecclesiastes I cited above, I can understand that kind of reaction. Even so, is it really all that difficult to realize that every group of people -- whether a community, a nation, or a military -- is going to have a few bad eggs in it? (HINT: The preceding sentence is a rhetorical question that expects a negative answer.)
When I was a senior at Allegany High School in Cumberland, I took a guitar class. It was one of those blow-off classes we've all had on occasion -- half the time the teacher left us to our own devices. One of the members of the guitar class was a Japanese exchange student. She was almost universally well-liked. Her petite frame, kind face, and polite meekness were endearing. She was also a very good pianist, and on those days when our guitar class ended up being a study hall, she could usually be found banging away at an upright piano that sat at the front of the room. Eventually, the tasteful stream of Bach inventions and Clementi sonatas just got to be too much for some of the yahoos in our class. To my horror, one of them taped a profanity-laden sign to the piano while the exchange student was performing. This quiet, kindhearted girl was a guest in our school, our community, and our country. I felt that all of us were duty-bound to put our best foot forward -- both for her benefit and our own. So, before she had a chance to see the boorish epithets on the sign, I ripped it off the piano and threw it in the trash. Then I asked her as gently as I knew how to take a rest from tickling the ivories. I'll never forget the look she gave me; it was as if I had kicked a puppy. I can't imagine her reaction if she had actually seen the sign.
Believe it or not, there is a point to this story that relates to the Abu Ghraib scandal. It would be positively absurd to assert that my entire high school was racist or anti-Japanese because a few students in my guitar class mistreated a Japanese exchange student. In the same way, the mistreatment of some Iraqi prisoners at the hands of Cumberland natives doesn't make Cumberland (or America) a wholesale incubator for barbarians.
Observers of the Abu Ghraib scandal ought to be able to make a distinction between the errant actions of a few and the values and policies of an entire people. It's a very simple distinction to make, as my guitar class story illustrates. When members of the press, leaders of nations, and terrorists alike fail to make this distinction, I can only conclude that they have chosen not to do so out of political or ideological expedience -- a fact which highlights their own willful ignorance and prejudice vis-a-vis the U.S., not to mention their hypocrisy.
Go ahead. Hold us to standards you are unwilling to live by yourselves. We're used to it. We're Americans.
Labels: Abu Ghraib, Cumberland, media bias, politics
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Yer overcookin' ma grits
The NY Times published a March 31st article on the recent launch of Air America -- the new, happenin' leftist radio talk show network. NOTA BENE: In order to make room for Air America's launch, a number of African-American and other ethnic talk radio programs were reportedly forced to join sauropods and dodo birds in the nether gloom of extinction. How's that for respecting and empowering minorities!
But I digress ...
In the aforementioned article, Janeane Garofalo -- the actress/comedienne turned talk radio host -- makes some prejudicial and self-contradictory statements that are typical of left-leaning rhetoric. Ms. Garofalo basically accuses conservative talk radio hosts of being universally nasty and hateful. In the same breath, she sanctimoniously brings the intellectual capacity of conservatives into question while insisting that she and her colleagues at AirAmerica will refrain from the nasty behavior exemplified by right-wingers. Now that's consistency and kindness in action, wouldn't you say? Point of biblical application: Matthew 7:3-5.
At any rate, her comments inspired the following two-partrant diatribe installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth:
Let me know what you think!
Blessings,
Rob Monti
aka The MonT-SteR
The NY Times published a March 31st article on the recent launch of Air America -- the new, happenin' leftist radio talk show network. NOTA BENE: In order to make room for Air America's launch, a number of African-American and other ethnic talk radio programs were reportedly forced to join sauropods and dodo birds in the nether gloom of extinction. How's that for respecting and empowering minorities!
But I digress ...
In the aforementioned article, Janeane Garofalo -- the actress/comedienne turned talk radio host -- makes some prejudicial and self-contradictory statements that are typical of left-leaning rhetoric. Ms. Garofalo basically accuses conservative talk radio hosts of being universally nasty and hateful. In the same breath, she sanctimoniously brings the intellectual capacity of conservatives into question while insisting that she and her colleagues at AirAmerica will refrain from the nasty behavior exemplified by right-wingers. Now that's consistency and kindness in action, wouldn't you say? Point of biblical application: Matthew 7:3-5.
At any rate, her comments inspired the following two-part
Part I
Part II
Let me know what you think!
Blessings,
Rob Monti
aka The MonT-SteR
Labels: liberalism, media bias, politics
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Gay marriage redux
My hometown newspaper, the Cumberland Times-News, has been a hotbed of debate on the issue of gay marriage lately. After reading some of the letters to the editor, I was inspired to write the following. It's not overtly Christian, but it does raise important questions that (I hope) will inspire people to question their presuppositions (particularly as they relate to God and objective morality). I plan to submit this to the Times-News for their consideration. Readers of The MonT-SteR REPORT will be among the first to know if it's printed.
Answer the Questions Gay Marriage Raises with Care
Rogue mayors and presidential politics have renewed the debate about gay marriage with fresh fervor. Impassioned appeals, both pro and con, are made every day; but the shrill rancor of our national debate has drowned out reason. Those who object to gay marriage on religious grounds are frequently marginalized. Proponents of gay marriage, who have undoubtedly received more than their own share of name-calling, gleefully hurl rude epithets like "zealot," "bigot," or "hate-monger" at people of faith who decry homosexuality. On the other hand, many believers hotly (and wrongly) denounce homosexuals as those who practice an incomparably execrable sin -- one that renders them irremediably godless and subversive to home and hearth. A meeting of minds and hearts is impossible in such a poisoned atmosphere.
We need to calm down and consider: this issue is much larger than personal rights and finger pointing. It speaks to fundamental logical and existential questions about the human condition. Namely, what is objectively normal, healthy human behavior? Is there such a thing? If so, how do we determine what "normal" is? If not, what does that mean for us as a society? Do we attempt to invent, define, and impose an artificial standard of normalcy by consensus, or do we abandon the very notion of "normal" and leave us all to our own individual devices and proclivities? Most importantly, are the answers to these questions intrinsic to humanity, or are they transcendent, requiring us to look beyond ourselves for wisdom and guidance?
In their outworking, all ideas inevitably produce tangible, practical consequences. Thus, the manner in which we answer the question "What is normal?" has far reaching implications. From a logical perspective, that we are even considering whether or not gay marriage should be culturally and constitutionally licit means that the very idea of objective normalcy hangs in the balance. If monogamous, heterosexual marriage is not exclusively normal, then where does our idea of normal begin and end? Some psychologists have recently suggested that children might actually benefit from a sexual relationship with a pedophile. Like it or not, these psychologists are using the rubric of "normalcy" to legitimize pedophelia. Once we discard what have been considered normal parameters for human relational and sexual interaction by embracing gay marriage, can we reasonably tell pedophiles, polygamists, and practitioners of bestiality that what they do is abnormal and undeserving of cultural or legal sanction? Moreover, if we reject the traditional understanding of normalcy vis-a-vis marriage, what does that mean for other categories of normalcy? How can we tell what is exclusively normal, moral, and good if we are constantly subjecting these things to inclusive redefinition? What meaning can notions of right and wrong have in such an environment?
America must debate the issue of gay marriage, but in doing so we have already opened Pandora's box. Take care, ladies and gentlemen, how you answer these questions. For my own part, I fear for our nation if we abandon objective -- yes, even transcendent -- normalcy. To do so is to embrace a destructive, imperialistic moral anarchy with debauching tentacles that will reach far beyond the question of gay marriage.
My hometown newspaper, the Cumberland Times-News, has been a hotbed of debate on the issue of gay marriage lately. After reading some of the letters to the editor, I was inspired to write the following. It's not overtly Christian, but it does raise important questions that (I hope) will inspire people to question their presuppositions (particularly as they relate to God and objective morality). I plan to submit this to the Times-News for their consideration. Readers of The MonT-SteR REPORT will be among the first to know if it's printed.
Answer the Questions Gay Marriage Raises with Care
Rogue mayors and presidential politics have renewed the debate about gay marriage with fresh fervor. Impassioned appeals, both pro and con, are made every day; but the shrill rancor of our national debate has drowned out reason. Those who object to gay marriage on religious grounds are frequently marginalized. Proponents of gay marriage, who have undoubtedly received more than their own share of name-calling, gleefully hurl rude epithets like "zealot," "bigot," or "hate-monger" at people of faith who decry homosexuality. On the other hand, many believers hotly (and wrongly) denounce homosexuals as those who practice an incomparably execrable sin -- one that renders them irremediably godless and subversive to home and hearth. A meeting of minds and hearts is impossible in such a poisoned atmosphere.
We need to calm down and consider: this issue is much larger than personal rights and finger pointing. It speaks to fundamental logical and existential questions about the human condition. Namely, what is objectively normal, healthy human behavior? Is there such a thing? If so, how do we determine what "normal" is? If not, what does that mean for us as a society? Do we attempt to invent, define, and impose an artificial standard of normalcy by consensus, or do we abandon the very notion of "normal" and leave us all to our own individual devices and proclivities? Most importantly, are the answers to these questions intrinsic to humanity, or are they transcendent, requiring us to look beyond ourselves for wisdom and guidance?
In their outworking, all ideas inevitably produce tangible, practical consequences. Thus, the manner in which we answer the question "What is normal?" has far reaching implications. From a logical perspective, that we are even considering whether or not gay marriage should be culturally and constitutionally licit means that the very idea of objective normalcy hangs in the balance. If monogamous, heterosexual marriage is not exclusively normal, then where does our idea of normal begin and end? Some psychologists have recently suggested that children might actually benefit from a sexual relationship with a pedophile. Like it or not, these psychologists are using the rubric of "normalcy" to legitimize pedophelia. Once we discard what have been considered normal parameters for human relational and sexual interaction by embracing gay marriage, can we reasonably tell pedophiles, polygamists, and practitioners of bestiality that what they do is abnormal and undeserving of cultural or legal sanction? Moreover, if we reject the traditional understanding of normalcy vis-a-vis marriage, what does that mean for other categories of normalcy? How can we tell what is exclusively normal, moral, and good if we are constantly subjecting these things to inclusive redefinition? What meaning can notions of right and wrong have in such an environment?
America must debate the issue of gay marriage, but in doing so we have already opened Pandora's box. Take care, ladies and gentlemen, how you answer these questions. For my own part, I fear for our nation if we abandon objective -- yes, even transcendent -- normalcy. To do so is to embrace a destructive, imperialistic moral anarchy with debauching tentacles that will reach far beyond the question of gay marriage.
Labels: Christianity, homosexuality, moral relativism, politics
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Rebuttal to Father Morley
Father Rick Morley is to be congratulated. Despite the controversial subject matter of his September 5th letter to the editor ("As With Slavery, Time May Soften Views Against Gay Bishop"), it was both thoughtful in its presentation and irenic in its tone. Fr. Morley's exhortation to "debate the issue of homosexuality and biblical morality" in humility and with "the fear of God" is well taken. Such matters are too important to fall prey to the propagandistic hysteria that exists on both sides of the issue.
While I applaud the spirit of Fr. Morley's letter, I find his analogy between past Christian thought on slavery and modern Christian thought on homosexuality to be fallacious. His argument is basically this:
The problem with this logic occurs on two levels:
I respect Fr. Morley's overarching premise: Just because someone reasons from Scripture, it doesn't make them right. Pro-slavery Christians are a case-in-point example, and Fr. Morley is right to point this out. Nevertheless, his homosexuality analogy breaks down because some who reasoned from Scripture were right on the issue of slavery. If we are correct to reason from Scripture that homosexuality is vice rather than virtue (and I believe the biblical data bear out that we are--but that'll have to wait for another article!) then Fr. Morley's appeal to the passage of time as a "softener" of such views is 1) misguided, and 2) more analogous to Christians who supported slavery than those who opposed it.
1. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, From Sea to Shining Sea (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 397-398.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
Father Rick Morley is to be congratulated. Despite the controversial subject matter of his September 5th letter to the editor ("As With Slavery, Time May Soften Views Against Gay Bishop"), it was both thoughtful in its presentation and irenic in its tone. Fr. Morley's exhortation to "debate the issue of homosexuality and biblical morality" in humility and with "the fear of God" is well taken. Such matters are too important to fall prey to the propagandistic hysteria that exists on both sides of the issue.
While I applaud the spirit of Fr. Morley's letter, I find his analogy between past Christian thought on slavery and modern Christian thought on homosexuality to be fallacious. His argument is basically this:
- Many people of faith once asserted that the American institution of slavery was sanctioned by the teachings of Scripture. This theological grid prompted such people to denounce the Emancipation Proclamation as unbiblical twaddle.
- With time, these segments of American Christianity came to recognize that the Bible could never be construed to countenance the injustice and cruelty of slavery.
- Today, a number of Christians assert that homosexuality should not be embraced and celebrated as normal, healthy human behavior. Their reasoning (similar to their 19th-century counterparts who supported slavery) is based on Scripture. Just as some Christians once rejected the emancipation of slaves on supposedly scriptural reasons, many Christians today reject the ordination of a gay bishop on the same grounds.
- The passage of time may have the same effect on the thinking of modern Christians with respect to homosexuality as it did on 19th-century Christians who were pro-slavery. To wit, biblical sanction of homosexuality may eventually (and rightly?) become the predominant viewpoint within Christendom.
The problem with this logic occurs on two levels:
- Fr. Morley is correct in his assertion that many Christians erroneously believed slavery to be biblically licit. But his emphasis on this fact belies the largely Christian underpinnings of abolitionism in the northern regions of the country.
Thomas Weld, who became a Christian under the preaching of 19th century revivalist Charles Finney, was among the first abolitionists to paint the struggle against slavery as a struggle against sin.1 The Christian community in the North followed suit, and soon pro-slavery pulpiteers in the South had to contend with stinging biblical retorts from their abolitionist counterparts.2 The Golden Rule was the linchpin of Christian abolitionist thought.3 "Treat others," Jesus taught, "in the same way that you wish to be treated." On this basis, abolitionists posed a poignant and damning question: How many southern slaveholders would willingly trade places with their slaves for even one day?4
Armed with this potent argument, abolitionists proceeded to build a cumulative scriptural case against slavery:How, too, would slaveholders answer Exodus 21:16, "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death"? Or Proverbs 22:22, 23, "Rob not the poor...for the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them"? And Jeremiah 22:13, "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work"? And in the New Testament, James 5:4, "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabbaoth."5
Fr. Morley has omitted a significant part of church history from his analogy. Yes, some Christians did justify slavery with the Bible; but plenty of other Christians who also reasoned from the Bible arrived at the opposite (and correct) conclusion. This brings us to the second problem with Fr. Morley's logic. - His analogy does not even attempt to grapple with the inherent veracity or falsehood of either perspective on homosexuality. Note the unfounded assumptions that are implicit in his analogy:
- Those who opposed the emancipation of slaves on scriptural grounds (an incorrect position) are analogous to those who now oppose homosexuality on scriptural grounds. The implication is that the latter perspective on homosexuality is false.
- Those who supported the emancipation of slaves on scriptural grounds (a correct position) are analogous to those who now sanction homosexuality as acceptable on scriptural grounds. The implication is that the latter perspective on homosexuality is correct.
This is the more egregious of Fr. Morley's errors. I have no doubt that he would agree when I say that the right side won the argument on slavery -- he undeniably implies this in his letter. In doing so, however, he admits something important: one of the camps on slavery was objectively and irrevocably wrong. The falsehood of their position was (and is) independent of the passage of time. It was wholly incorrect from its inception, regardless of the temporal nature of the opinions or feelings of those who espoused it.
The same possibility exists for either position on homosexuality--one objectively adheres to ultimate reality, the other does not. In portions of his letter, Fr. Morley seems to be open to the possibility that those who decry homosexuality might have the correct position. His analogy, however, presumes that this view is incorrect. - Those who opposed the emancipation of slaves on scriptural grounds (an incorrect position) are analogous to those who now oppose homosexuality on scriptural grounds. The implication is that the latter perspective on homosexuality is false.
I respect Fr. Morley's overarching premise: Just because someone reasons from Scripture, it doesn't make them right. Pro-slavery Christians are a case-in-point example, and Fr. Morley is right to point this out. Nevertheless, his homosexuality analogy breaks down because some who reasoned from Scripture were right on the issue of slavery. If we are correct to reason from Scripture that homosexuality is vice rather than virtue (and I believe the biblical data bear out that we are--but that'll have to wait for another article!) then Fr. Morley's appeal to the passage of time as a "softener" of such views is 1) misguided, and 2) more analogous to Christians who supported slavery than those who opposed it.
1. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, From Sea to Shining Sea (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 397-398.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
Labels: Christianity, Cumberland, homosexuality, moral relativism, politics
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Bizarro.
Hear me retell a strange dream I had last night about current political theater in this 3rd installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth.
Hear me retell a strange dream I had last night about current political theater in this 3rd installment of From the MonT-SteR's Mouth.
Labels: 2004 election, dreams, George Bush, John Kerry, politics
