Choose this election who will serve
John Zmirak lays out the stark choice ahead of voters.
That is how clear American politics is becoming. Here’s what the next election should be about, if we do our jobs: The Little Sisters of the Poor vs. The Big Merchants of Baby Parts.
It really is that simple. We must press every politician in America to take a clear, explicit stand on two critical issues which can rouse the right passions of Americans: Religious freedom and abortion profiteering. No Republican who won’t support the First Amendment Defense Act and zero out federal aid to Planned Parenthood is worth even two seconds’ consideration. We should flee them as near occasions of sin.
So no, he's not "giving the GOP a pass" as some of us sensible Christian conservatives are accused of doing from time to time.
There’s a lot of junk in the Republican pond, but it still supports life from time to time. The Democratic, by comparison, is a mauve-coated pool of radioactive, flesh-eating bacteria. Their connection with any meaningful concept of the Good has long been tenuous, but now it has snapped. How else to explain apparently sane people who would use police and prisons to punish Christian bakers, but not the merchants of unborn children’s lungs and livers. The Republicans are imperfect but not committed to such monstrosities, showing glimmers of right reason on a list of important issues. Theirs is the only party where at least some leading politicians
Don’t want to actively persecute the church with punitive taxes and lawsuits if we don’t bless acts of sodomy at our altars and teach our kids to approve them in church schools.
Don’t want to send the police to stop nuns from caring for the poor unless they hand out abortion pills.
Don’t want to shovel half a billion dollars every year to the abortionists of racist-founded Planned Parenthood, who appear to be making a tidy profit selling organs from butchered babies.
Aren’t in the pockets of self-serving public employee unions that want to vote themselves the kind of benefits that just bankrupted Greece.
Aren’t so drunk on multiculturalist absinthe that they mix up jihadist thugs with Christian preachers.
Don’t want your taxes to fund sex-change operations for recently amnestied illegal aliens and felony prisoners.
I agree!
ReplyDelete"So no, he's not "giving the GOP a pass" as some of us sensibe conservatives are accused of doing from time to time."
ReplyDeleteNo, but you and I both know that the GOP considers traditionalist/conservative Christians to be reliable voters. And, given past elections, who can blame them. Face it, there's been a lot of huff and puff about the GOP not following through on their commitments to Christian voters, but the Christians have been loathe to withhold their votes lest Cthulhu Democrat wins the election.
So Zmirak's bluster ends up being exactly that...wind, with no substance. The only thing that will truly change the GOP is for Christians to withhold their votes and let the party fall into the basement. If enough Christians did that and made it clear that they are no longer going to bend over for the Republicans, maybe, just maybe they would start listening to us.
But as long as we vote for terrible because we fear absolute evil, we will end up with nothing better than terrible. That is a fact you can take to the bank.
The Other Anonymous
Have you ever worked on a political campaign?
DeleteYes, both as a precinct and county worker for other candidates (Robertson, Keyes, Buchanan, Huckabee to name a few) and as a candidate in my own right. I've also been a GOP central committee member at the county and district level in my state.
DeleteThe GOP is quite happy to accept the votes of evangelical/traditional conservatives, but they do very little in return. Yes, the Democrats are far more evil (see my reference to Cthulhu), but the GOP do us no favors at all with their fair-weather friendship of the Christian voting block.
The Other Anonymous
While I have the same disdain for the GOP leadership as you, Other Anon, I gotta disagree on the withholding votes strategy for a couple of reasons.
DeleteFirst is that it doesn't work in the short term. All that happens as a result is that the evil gets further along their path in the meanwhile, which will only make the task more difficult. The last three years, after many conservatives withheld their votes for Romney, are witness to that. Lives are in the balance in the meanwhile, and there is at least some value, and important value, in a not-getting-worse result.
Second is that the current GOP leadership fears primary election attacks from the right more than they fear losing their seats. The attacks by the House and Senate leadership on the conservatives are testament to that. If these attacks stop, they'll just be more emboldened to try to out-Democrat the Democrats. After all, they need to gather enough cash and influence while in office so they can continue the hush money payments.
No, I think the key is to avoid splintering of conservative opposition to the "most electable" types. That's how McCain got the nomination in 2008, and it smoothed Romney's nomination in 2012 (along with weak opposition). Conservatives who are not getting traction need to recognize that early in the process, and throw in with the stronger horse.
"The last three years, after many conservatives withheld their votes for Romney, are witness to that."
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that while people withheld votes from Romney, they gave both houses of Congress to the GOP. What have they done with that power to actually turn things around?
If you want to have a case study in how this attitude actually works against our interests, contrast the 1994 election cycle and the 1996 election cycle with the 2000 cycle.
1994 - Contract with America and Newt Gingrich. The GOP have control of both the House and Senate. At the behest of Gingrich the GOP tables the Human Life Amendment in subcommittee to focus on "economic issues".
1996 - The opening salvo of the Great Culture War, with the GOP convention. A huge fight takes place regarding the platform, and the pro-life side wins. Dole, the nominee, with the backing of Haley Barbour, the GOP National Chair, essentially rebukes the pro-life portion of the platform. Conservative Christians stay home in droves and let Clinton win.
2000 - The GOP actually begin to pay attention to the Christian Conservatives, and in 2003 Bush signs the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, the first piece of significant pro-life legislation since the Hyde Amendment. Of course in 2004 they return to taking us for granted again.
The point is that in 1996 the Christians in the GOP said no, we would rather let Clinton have another 4 years than sell out to Dole. They stayed home and let the chips fall where they would.
Letting the White House go to a Democrat will not end the world as we know it as long as the Congress stays in the hands of Republicans, especially the House. If we are going to ever have a chance of seeing our principles become the law of the land we need to stand firm and essentially tell the GOP that it is our way or the highway. Let their chosen candidate fail if he/she does not truly support our beliefs.
We've been buying into the lesser of two evils mantra for a generation or more now, and the only thing that has consistently happened is that evil has won, in one form or another. Unborn children continue to die, our culture continues to slide into the pit of hell, and we turn Christ into a prostitute for the "centrist" GOP candidate.
Face it, we have Stockholm Syndrome.
The Other Anonymous
I forgot to include this URL earlier.
Deletehttp://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/007/473nemte.asp