Tag Archive for john_mccain at Zeal For Truth

Tag Archive for 'john_mccain'

Conservatives: This is Your Own Fault

Published by Colin November 5, 2008 in Politics. 68 Comments

While I am not interested in as ridiculous a tirade as Focus on the Family engaged in during this stupidity, I would like to make a few interpretations and predictions regarding the next four years of the Barack Obama administration.

First of all - a note to all you conservatives who voted for McCain and also Bush in 2004 - I am blaming you. This is what a voting philosophy of the lesser of two evils has gotten you. You marginalised and mocked the one man who even held a glimmer of old-right economic values and fiscal conservatism. Take a moment to consider the so-called “conservative” candidates you’ve supported as the lesser of two evils since Ronald Regan:

John McCain
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
Bob Dole
George Bush
George Bush

Are you now surprised that America, which generally supports you when you campaign for things like balanced budgets, lower taxes, private property rights, civil liberties, families and free-enterprise, has now elected the party of one of the most unpopular congresses in modern US history? You have allowed your party to be completely subjugated by a neo-conservative group of right-wing socialists - and this is what you deserve - a taste of your own medicine. I washed my hands of the GOP five years ago, partly because I saw this coming - it was an inevitable correction in the political marketplace.

Any changes that Obama now makes using expanded executive power is your fault. You gave George W. Bush unprecedented power in the executive to do all manner of unconstitutional things - now, the man you most fear inherits that power. You had the mandate to reverse the power of the executive branch and you expanded it more than ever - and Obama will now wield that with a vengeance.

In fact, you have set a precedent for using a congressional majority to vest power in the executive, because by circumventing the legislative branch, political agendas can now go through faster and with more force. Welcome to the Obama administration, because of the power you gave George W. Bush, expect the next 40 years of the left-wing agenda to come to pass in eight.

I suspect this includes:

Wage and price controls - When the economy continues to go sour after the bailout fix has run out, including massive inflation, Obama will use his expanded executive power to control wages and prices. There will be record unemployment, increased poverty and shortages of gas, food, healthcare and other essentials.

More wars - towards the end of the Obama administration, I expect him to send in troops or air strikes in some new country - probably Pakistan or Iran. Who knows, if the economy gets bad enough, Obama might very well start WWIII with Russia by sending troops to “protect democracy” in Eastern Europe.

Universal Healthcare - This will still take congress’s approval, but Obama will get some form of universal healthcare - putting the final nail in the coffin of what used to be the greatest and most innovative system in the world.

More Federal Control in Education - Again conservatives, this is your fault. You encouraged Bush to dramatically increase federal involvement in education. Now enjoy Obama using this new power to expand the role of the Department of Education.

I am glad that Obama has won. I can’t imagine what another four years of neo-conservative power-mongering would bring. Hopefully conservatives find a moment to humbly reflect in all of this - and repent of just how far they’ve fallen. Their zeal for power overshadowed their traditions and principles.

It might take another new-deal and depression for them to get it - but so be it. This may not be the candidate you directly voted for all these years, but he is the unintended consequence of every vote for a right-wing, neo-conservative socialist as the lesser of two evils. Conservatives: you deserve Barack Obama.

Ron Paul Throws His Weight Behind the Constitution Party

Published by Colin September 23, 2008 in Religion, Politics and Current Events. 20 Comments

In a somewhat surprising move, Ron Paul has chosen to buck his libertarian roots and endorse the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin for President. In a long, very personal and very revealing piece, Paul makes a couple of observations about this decision and his run at the White House. This one stuck out:

Ironically the most difficult group to recruit has been the evangelicals who supported McCain and his pro-war positions. They have been convinced that they are obligated to initiate preventive war in the Middle East for theological reasons. Fortunately, this is a minority of the Christian community, but our doors remain open to all despite this type of challenge. The point is, new devotees to the freedom philosophy are more likely to come from the left than from those conservatives who have been convinced that God has instructed us to militarize the Middle East.

Paul, like many of us Christians who deeply lament the unbiblical support from our brothers and sisters of offensive war, murder, lying and blasphemy - and those who have sold themselves out to John McCain’s “evil” because it is “less evil” than Barack Obama’s “evil” has decided to embrace a genuinely Christian candidate in Chuck Baldwin. From the pastor himself:

For one thing, a sizeable number of believers allowed President George W. Bush to redefine their Christian principles almost out of existence. They willingly looked the other way while Bush betrayed his word (not to mention the Constitution) and catapulted conservative principles into outer darkness. To the point, that they can now even support someone as liberal as John McCain and still call him a “conservative.”

I will say it straight out: any Christian or conservative who supports John McCain has no principles left worth defending!

…How could Christians sacrifice their principles and convictions so easily? How could they be so willing to surrender their loyalties–both to Christ as the organic Sovereign of this land, and to constitutional government, which is, itself, built on Biblical principles?

…

There it is: countless millions of professing Christians will eagerly abandon their commitment to constitutional government and Biblical principles in order to accommodate a Republican Presidential candidate. In the minds of many Christians, the Republican Party is more important than the U.S. Constitution. It is more important than conservative principles or even Biblical injunctions. In essence, the Republican Party has become an IDOL in the hearts and minds of many professing believers.

So, how can we ask God to bless America when God’s children have set up the groves of idolatry in their hearts? How can we expect God to heal our land when Christian pastors, Sunday School teachers, deacons, ushers, and faithful church members place more loyalty and allegiance in a political party than they do in the very Word and principles of God?

As surely as the pagans of the Old Testament worshipped before the gods of Baal and Ashteroth, many Christians worship before the GOP. They are willing to sacrifice their children to the policies and practices of unscrupulous, evil politicians–as long as they have an “R” behind their names.

We have a major problem in the church, let alone the conservative political movement when so many claim they agree with the authority of Christ and the bible and yet, out of ignorance or stubborn human-centered pride, support policies that are so blatantly and radically unbiblical and unchristian. There is probably more hope with the left’s base, who though dead wrong on principle, at least seem to understand the concept of principle. It may be easier to convince them that their motives, while correct, are not carried out through socialism, wealth-redistribution, pluralism and so called religious and cultural “tolerance.”

The Christian “right” has gone full-circle this decade. What started as an effort to align one of the major parties with a God-fearing agenda has turned into a power struggle to align God-fearing people with a major party agenda. Paul sees that the mainstream of political Christianity has been so caught up in what these false prophets, teachers and experts are proclaiming that it is time to “evangelize” the left.

Realistically, Paul’s positions have generally been closer to the Constitution Party that the hard-line of the Libertarian Party. Paul’s emphasis on Rothbardian/Austrian economics and his opposition to the drug war makes him friends with the Libertarians, but his views on immigration, Christianity and abortion align him more with the Old Right and Constitution Party.

With this endorsement Paul has shown his true colours, even though it will not make a lot of sense to those who supported him from the left. Once again, he has chosen to follow his principles over politics, and pick a hard-core Christian “libertarian-esque” candidate who emphasises those principles which Paul finds most important.

Here is Paul and Baldwin talking in 2007 about Christian/conservative issues.

Palin Makes Election McCain’s to Lose

Published by Colin September 1, 2008 in Politics. 233 Comments

I need to first disclose that I have no interest in John McCain versus Barack Obama. Both of them would be terrible in my opinion. But I would like to take a moment away from my usual idealistic critique of politics and actually look at the “politics” of politics.

Before Sarah Palin, I think McCain loses the election by seven points - even with the terrible decision Obama made by selecting Joe Biden. However, there are three interest groups that McCain needs in order to win the election:

Christians
Women
Republitarians (libertarian leaning republicans)

John McCain’s strategy, up until this point, has generally cheesed off these groups. He is not a social conservative, and has in fact, actively opposed many social conservative measures. McCain tends to take positions that women do not favour (environment, education, healthcare). Lastly, McCain really ticks of libertarians as his legislation has done tremendous damage to the ability of third parties to advertise, fundraise and receive more equitable election treatment.

But Palin is a shout-out to these groups, especially Christians and libertarians. She is firmly pro-life and a friend of libertarians and even some Ron Paul supporters. Near the peak of Paul’s popularity in the primaries, many supporters were calling for him to seek out Palin as his vice president.

There is a decent block of ex-Clinton supporters who have considered voting for McCain. I think most of these people are insane, because the only reason why they seem to be so opposed to Obama is because he is a male. For those nutcases, McCain just might have locked up their votes.

Finally, the last reason Palin was an excellent choice is at the top of this article. With a significant amount of voters being complete and utter morons, having a MILF on your ticket is going to get you quite a few votes. Perhaps this is finally the year that the college-age voting bracket breaks 50%.

McCain has now put himself in a position to win this election - in fact, I expect that it is his to lose. Obama is demonstrating more and more everyday that he has absolutely no desire to stick to his major sales point of change in Washington. If these trends continue, expect to see another four years of republican rule in the White House.

Ron Paul Republican Destroys Neo-Con Rival

Published by Colin May 7, 2008 in Politics and Current Events. 29 Comments

Yesterday we talked a little about B.J. Lawson, a 33-year old with no political experience, running for congress in North Carolina. Last night, Lawson destroyed his opponent with over 70% of the vote. The key is, that Lawson did it primarily on his own merits, without the help of many Ron Paul supporters.

Ron Paul pulled down a little over 7% with 37,392 votes statewide. Lawson received 70% of the vote with a total of 24,410 in just his district. Take Durham County, for example, where Ron Paul received 690 votes but Lawson pulled in 4,501. That means a lot of John McCain, Mike Huckabee or “None of the Above” supporters went with Lawson over the toe-the-line Republican challenger Augustus Cho.

This results in an interesting analysis: while republicans do not like Ron Paul, they do like his message. Obviously, Lawson (as we mentioned yesterday) has a slightly less-aggressive tone than Paul, but his philosophical arguments remain almost identical. Cho (who is also a presbyterian minister) was a bastion of neo-con, neo-fascist philosophy - he sounded exactly like a mix between Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson (debate: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - two of the candidates beloved by more traditional republicans.

The next big test of course, is what a more conservative, constitutional and philosophically consistent republican will do against a democrat - especially an incumbent like David Price. Cho declared of his opponent:

It’s going to take a true republican to beat David Price. Not a libertarian closet-republican… whose essentially going to divide up our party. If you support Ron Paul, then you know what? You need to support my young primary opponent because he’s a Ron Paul libertarian: 100%. If you go to his webpage, everything he stands for is right there. I call him Ron Paul Jr., because that’s what he is.

He’s not going to beat David Price. When David price looks at this guy, he’s going to look at him and spit him out.

While it is clear that Lawson has an uphill battle, it is just as clear that Ron Paul’s message can win within the republican party. In fact, Ron Paul’s message may be the only thing that can save the GOP in congress - which is looking like it’s going to get obliterated this November.

McCain’s March Madness Hypocrisy

Published by Colin March 17, 2008 in Politics. 5 Comments

For the entire life of this blog, I have restrained myself from posting about sports. Ah, but the glorious day has finally come when the worlds of politics and sports have collided on the pages of Zeal For Truth.

John McCain is a big fan of college basketball (maybe he swayed the NCAA tournament committee to put in Arizona this year) - so much so that it is becoming an annual tradition for the Senator to sponsor a bracket competition on his site (last year’s included campaign gear to the winner). McCain even bets in an office pool with his staff - or at least did last year.

This is all wonderful and good. I would definitely say that sports betting is almost as American as apple pie.

Cue McCain, who declared that sports betting in legal Nevada Casinos “feeds illegal betting on campuses and on the Internet, leads to corruption of college athletes and sets students on the path to becoming problem gamblers.” Naturally of course, McCain has been a huge advocate of banning the practice of betting on college sports.

McCain is a big fan of regulating sports in general - from steroids, gambling, boxing, internet gambling and Title IV.

I’m not so much surprised by this blatant hypocrisy as I am expectantly disgusted. But this is typical of so many politicians and their supporters - the desire for laws to be placed on everyone else but them. It has been a well-documented historical phenomenon that the office of lawmaker is popular because it provides the best opportunity to put one’s self above the law.

What really needs to happen to fix this is a law against hypocrisy. All the anti-pornography advocates (many who use pornography), all the prohibitionists who drink and smoke and all the anti-gamblers who fill out brackets in office pools should be thrown in jail. But that law, like any other law regulating against basic human freedom, would not work and is not ethical.

It needs to be acknowledged that McCain is not a special case - his situation merely reveals the self-righteous hypocrite in all of us. For the Christian, you should take an extra moment to consider your hypocrisy, as your eternity may be effected by it:

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? (Romans 2:1-3)

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