"Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort"
Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.
The group making the threat, which came together Saturday in Salt Lake City during a break-away gathering during a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council...
14 comments:
MAKE MY ELECTION YEAR!
I've been saying this for months. No way conservative Christians vote for a pro-choice Giuliani. Absolutely no f***ing way. Could you imagine liberals voting for a pro-life Democrat? Not in a gazillion years. Third party to the rescue. Now liberals are that mad, and don't even believe that pro-lifers are going to hell.
The only way the Republicans would win in such a situation would be if the Loony Left wing of the Demcoratic Party ran their own candidate like they did in 2000 - thank you very much Mr. Nader.
The stakes are too high right not play silly little games about who is the "real" liberal. We need to save democracy itself here and if the Bigots for Jesus are going to shoot themselves in the foot, we should be smart enough to kick them when they're down.
By the way, did you hear McCain's announcement that the United States is a Christian nation? That the Constituion is a Christian document!?
I'm thinking of posting something about how absurd that statement is (where in our Constitution does it say "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"? Where in the Bible does it say that indvidual liberty is more important than duty to a king or state?) but I got a pile of work to do and may not have time for a week or so.
The Bible is fundamentally monarchist in its outlook - not suprising given when and by whom it was written. The idea that the Constitution is based on the Bible is laughable.
It is fair to say that many of the founders believed that liberty was divinely ordained. Indeed, Jefferson wrote that in the Declaration of Independence. Many found inspiration in the gospels for their beliefs. Others connected the reformation with liberty - the freedom to think for oneself, the belief that each individual was equally able to have a relationship with God. Most expressly believed that what they called "Christian civilization" was responsible for the triumph of the Enlightenment. Like Jefferson, however, who actually edited the gospels, few of these would have said that the Bible was the source of their beliefs in liberty. The Hebrew Bible in particular is so full of what RBR describes as to make the assertion laughable. And none of them believed as an article of faith that the bible should be taken literally. That, indeed, is why Jefferson undertook to edit out the false bits.
I was taught that the chief influence on the founding fathers was from scholars of the Enlightenment like Locke and Montesquieu, and they usually traced their heritage to the Greeks. Yet while many of the founding fathers were also outspoken in their opposition to some aspects of Christianity as practiced in their day, LTG is right that nearly all of them still considered themselves good Christians.
But if that heritage makes us a Christian nation, are we also a White nation? A patriarchal nation? At different times in our history, it behooved conservative politicians to make such assertions, and McCain is no different. When he says we are a Christian nation, he is not wading into a historical debate: he is just speaking in code to the Evangelicals.
Dr. S is right about speaking in code. That's the scary part. Code for what? I can guess. It's code for "I will use the power of the state to oppress all the right people: Homosexuals, intellectuals, immigrants, the urban poor etc."
It's also code for "the Straight Talk Express is toast"
I view McCain's remark as pandering to a disaffected constituency. Telling them what they want to hear. Actually, every politician does that. See former-prosecutor Giuliani's immediate and shameless support for Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence.
I look forward to the day when politicians pander to my demographic - engaged but cynical voters who sit outside the traditional two party system.
And meanwhile, Romney is just hoping people think McCain was talking about Jews and Muslims.
Dead Parrot...the two party system is not in place because of mere tradition. It is enforced by the electoral system. So long as we have single member congressional districts and a presidency that elects a single person (Switzerland has a Presidential Council), we will have a two party system (at least locally).
Also, keep in mind. Politics is a collective exercise. From the point of view of every individual, no party will be perfect. There will always be flaws percieved. The point is not to find the party that exactly fits your preferences. Nor is it to cynically throw your hands up in disgust when you don't. The point is to find the party that fits you best among the viable options and vote for that one. If you want it to change, get involved. Volunteer at your local party organization. Volunteer to be on the platform committee etc. Don't just say, "the party system is fatally flawed because not enough people have my combination of preferences."
The sooner the interested voters who complain about the party system stop dreaming about some ideal party just for them and get really involved to improve one party or the other (preferably both) the better it will be for all of us.
Dead Parrot's self-description, a cynical voter outside the two-party system, defines a rather broad class of Independents. And aren't independents the most sought-after demographic in a general election? (In a primary, of course, one should not expect politicians to spend much of their time pandering to people outside their party.)
I would suggest that part of what makes self-described independents so frustrated with the system is precisely the passive attitude they take. Waiting passively for the two parties to pander to them for the month or two around election time will never produce the desired effect.
Only by getting involved in one party or the other will such voters really feel represented.
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