Barack Obama: The Gangbanger's Choice

On page 40 of the October 6 issue of Newsweek, there's an article about how the black community is pinning its hopes on a win by presidential candidate Barack Obama. In that article, they quote the renowned political analyst known as Snoop Dogg:

"People that I know that have never cared about politics are registering to vote this time: gang members, ex-cons, you name it. I hate to see a lot of that hope go down the drain, and if he loses, it will."

Personally, it seems to me that the only way to offer real hope to gang members and ex-cons, such as the ones who apparently comprise a significant portion of Snoop's best friends, is to lead them to salvation in Jesus Christ. But there seem to be a lot of folks these days who can't quite grasp the idea that Barack Obama isn't the Messiah, so perhaps that's just splitting hairs.

You had to love the part of the article which quoted a person named Daetwon Fisher, who said, "I know there is already talk about protests and stuff if he (Barack) loses, and I'm down for that."

So it isn't just gangbangers and other criminals who are longing for Barack Obama to win. There are also a lot of chronic whiners and sore losers who are so paranoid that they cannot conceive of a situation where John McCain might win the election fair and square. The election hasn't even been held yet (with the exception of places which allow early voting), and the final votes haven't been tallied in any of the voting precincts, so there's obviously no objective basis for making accusations about stolen elections. Nevertheless, these folks are assuming that if Obama loses, it will mean that the election was "stolen" (to use the phrase which became popular during the last two presidential elections). You can't reason with people like that, because their prejudices stand in the way of anything resembling sound judgment.

They're almost as irrational as another African-American icon, P Diddy, who stated that Sarah Palin was obviously unqualified to serve as Vice-President because she was from Alaska!

Ten Very Good Reasons To Vote for John McCain

I just found a blog post which I thought was particularly well written. Here's a link.

A Poem For Election Day

Something's stinkin' in the Land of Lincoln.
If you vote for B.O., you're really not thinkin'.
If you have a brain, you'll vote for McCain.
A vote for Obama is surely insane.

Unless of course, you approve of infanticide,
or if you think that the right to life should be denied.
If killing little babies is part of your plan,
then vote for Obama. He's your man.

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Great poetry? No. But true nevertheless.

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NOTE: To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.

Morons In The News

Yesterday's issue of the Chicago Sun-Times seemed as if most of it was written by propagandists for the Obama campaign.

For instance, there was the fascinating blurb which quoted "P Diddy", whose opposition to Sarah Palin seemed to be based solely on the fact that she was from Alaska. (He repeated the word "Alaska" four times, just to make sure that everyone understood him clearly.) Diddy argued that people from Alaska were unqualified to serve as Vice President because of the scarcity of black folks in that state. Diddy also took issue with Alaska because "there aren't even any crackheads in Alaska". Personally, I would have thought that that would be a strong selling point in favor of Alaska. But Diddy apparently thinks we'd be better off with a VP hailing from some place like Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, known for its problems with drugs, gangs, drive-by shootings and kids who feel fortunate to make it past their tenth birthdays.

P Diddy, by the way, used to be known as Puff Daddy. The next time he decides to change his nickname once again, I'd suggest that he seriously consider going with Piss Doody.

Then there was an article, on the next page of the Sun-Times, by TV news anchor Carol Marin (or, as I like to think of her, Marin the Moron). She essentially argued that the "production values" seen during TV coverage of the Republican convention had been below par in comparison with the stellar production values seen earlier in Denver at the Democratic convention. Well, that's hardly surprising. Obama has about 90% of the people in Hollywood in his pocket.

PT Barnum has been quoted as saying that "there's a sucker born every minute". He was a man known for putting on a great show. Abraham Lincoln, relatively speaking, was not. But I'm glad that it was Lincoln, not Barnum, who was elected to serve as President.

Barnum isn't alive, of course, but there are plenty of Barnum-like characters running around today, like Cher, or like Madonna (who infamously mocked Christ by having herself "crucified" on stage, and who later had the audacity to compare George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler). Perhaps Carol Marin would prefer that we elect Cher or Madonna to the presidency.

Maybe Ms. Marin should worry less about production values and more about moral values. Or is that asking too much?

Incidentally, I realize that some folks consider the use of the word "morons" to be offensive. But actually, I would never use the word to describe anyone who was genuinely retarded, because such people can't help the fact that they lack intelligence.

The problem with people like P Diddy and Carol Marin isn't that they were shortchanged at birth, in terms of intelligence. The problem is that they refuse to use the brains God gave to them. They say the first things that come to their heads, rather than taking the time to think about the implications of what they're about to say or write.

Barack Obama and Infanticide

Being a Republican who lives in Chicago has always felt a bit like being a fish out of water (to use a cliche which is nevertheless useful from an analytical point of view).

That's never been more true than this year, thanks to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, whose strong ties to Chicago only serve to amplify the affinity which this predominantly "blue" city would probably feel for the man anyway.

Being the "odd man out" can be an uncomfortable experience, but there are worse things than feeling uncomfortable. I don't have any difficulty explaining why I won't be voting for Barack Obama in 2008. I just point to articles such as the one which is available via this link.

(Here's a link to another article on the same subject, and here's another one.)

I should mention that I have met Jill Stanek, who is discussed prominently in the aforementioned article, and I've corresponded with her via e-mail on a number of occasions. She is single-minded in her pursuit of justice for the unborn children and infants whose lives are regularly taken in abortion clinics and hospitals throughout our nation.

Jill's 8/17/2008 blog post continues her pursuit of truth with regard to the question of just what Barack Obama has or hasn't done with regard to the Induced Infant Liability Act (the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act). Ditto for her 8/20/2008 blog post.

I applaud Jill for her moral courage. As I see it, such moral courage is a personal quality which Barack Obama lacks.

Those Disingenuous Democrats

Last year around this time, Time magazine published an article about how the Democratic party had finally begun to reach out to people who were passionate about their faith in Christ. A woman named Amy Sullivan wrote an entire book, entitled The Party Faithful, about that shift in strategies among leaders of the Democratic Party. And a recent article in Christianity Today suggests that Barack Obama, whatever his other flaws might be, understands that dismissing such voters or denigrating them for their beliefs is no longer a viable political option.

These might all be signs for rejoicing, if it were not for the fact that the fundamental platform of the Democratic party with regard to issues such as abortion and gay rights is based on the absurd notion that the illegalization of practices which happen to be condemned in disproportionate numbers by devout Christians is a violation of the First Amendment solely on account of that fact.

Opposition to homosexuality and the gay agenda is not an intrinsically religious position, although it certainly is true that the majority of those who oppose those things happen to be stalwart believers in Christ. The promotion of the homosexual agenda ought to disturb anyone, Christian or otherwise, who understands the full societal implications of accepting the premise that people are genetically programmed to think and act the way they do. Acceptance of that premise opens a Pandora's box which has the potential to undermine the fundamental idea (which is essential for a well ordered society) that it is legitimate to hold people accountable for their actions.

But even though I am disturbed by the promotion of the gay agenda, the gravity of that issue pales in comparison with the issue of abortion. Gay marriage, as offensive as it might be to those of us who understand the extent to which it undermines biblical definitions of marriage and family, does not involve the deliberate killing of more than a million people every year. Abortion does.

For many years, the liberals who have ruled the Democratic party have vehemently denied that faithful Christians deserved an equal voice with regard to matters of life and death, such as the issue of abortion. Anyone who dared to suggest that unborn children deserved legal protection from those who would deprive them of their right to life was assumed to be a fanatical zealot bent on returning America to the days of the Inquisition, even in the absence of evidence which would support such an assumption.

If indeed the Democratic party has finally realized how incredibly offensive and undemocratic that claim is and always was, that's great. The question is this: Will it eventually dawn on Democrats that their (allegedly) revised attitude about religion and religious people also requires a revision of attitudes about matters directly impacted by their longstanding hostility towards religion and towards people of faith? Or will they continue to parrot the same tired old arguments, which have long since been disproven, to the effect that the enactment of pro-life legislation would undermine the separation of church and state? That, to me, is the real issue.

No matter how "friendly" Barack Obama may seem towards religion and religious people, the bottom line, for me, is that his radical pro-abortion political views are contrary to everything that I believe good government ought to be. Protecting the most vulnerable members of our society from exploitation and abuse and the deprivation of their God-given rights is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any legitimate government, whether one is talking about the elimination of slavery during the 19th century or the elimination of abortion during the 21st century. I have seen no persuasive evidence to suggest that there is any justification for the denial of such legal protections insofar as unborn children are concerned. It is not a matter of religious dogma, nor was it ever a matter of such dogma. One can make a strong case against legalized abortion without ever uttering a single argument which relies for its veracity upon religious premises (unless one is talking about the premise, which is explicitly stated in the Declaration of Independence, to the effect that human rights are inalienable for the precise reason that their origin is divine).

Barack Obama and others within the Democratic party would like you to believe that their party has turned over a new leaf. They would like you to believe that they are no longer hostile to Christians or to Christian values. But actions speak louder than words. When Democrats begin to demonstrate a newfound respect for the innate right to life of all human beings, from conception until the time of natural death, then their claims will begin to have some credibility. Until then, my advice is that you should view their claims with a great deal of skepticism. When it comes to electing the person who will lead the United States for the next four years, we would do well to worry less about the person's level of church attendance and the amount of religious rhetoric typically uttered by the person when making speeches, and to worry more about how that person's faith translates into policies which treat all human beings in a manner which is consistent with the faith which that person claims to possess. Neither party does this perfectly, to be sure, but it's my opinion that the party which condones the legal killing of more than one million unborn children every year has the worst record when it comes to respect for human rights, notwithstanding their claims to the contrary.

Why The Democrats Won't Get My Vote

It's way too early to predict who will be elected President of our country in 2008. However, if Barack Obama loses the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, or if he loses the presidential election in November, it seems likely (based on the racial paranoia which afflicts large segments of this country) that numerous people will claim that he lost because he was black.

There may be some people in this country for whom Obama's race is considered an important factor. But I'm not one of them.

I'd be happy to vote for Alan Keyes, for example, if I thought he had any chance at all of winning during this election cycle. (In fact, I think Keyes would make a much better candidate than John McCain --- and maybe even a better candidate than Mike Huckabee, although that would be a close call for me.) Unfortunately, I think that the probability of Keyes winning is virtually nil. Even though McCain isn't my idea of the ideal candidate, he's still a much better choice than Obama or Clinton.

There are many issues facing our country, so it's important not to be a one-issue voter.

Having said that, I believe that some issues so outweigh other issues that those issues are pivotal in deciding how one ought to vote. During the antebellum era, that issue was slavery. In my opinion, that pivotal issue is now the abortion issue. In America, abortion has taken roughly 50 million human lives since being legalized in 1973. What could possibly be more important than passing laws (and amending our Constitution) in order to end America's national holocaust?

When it comes to the abortion issue, it really doesn't matter whether the Democratic nominee is Obama or Clinton. The views of both of them on that subject are equally abhorrent. Notwithstanding the fact that Bill Clinton wanted to make abortion "rare," and notwithstanding his written acknowledgment that human life begins at conception, his unwillingness to support pro-life legislation made his alleged dislike of abortion essentially worthless. Hillary's views on that subject are virtually indistinguishable from Bill's.

One doesn't need to be a conservative Republican or a Christian such as myself to understand the importance of the abortion issue. In an article by jazz critic and Democrat Nat Hentoff, Hentoff (a writer for the Village Voice) said that he was appalled by Barack Obama's extremely liberal views on the subject of abortion. (Here's a link to a longer, and earlier, article Hentoff wrote about abortion. Hentoff also wrote an excellent book about the hypocrisy of liberals who claimed to value civil liberties while simultaneously opposing the freedom of conservatives to express their opinions in the public square. The book contained a detailed consideration of the way in which "pro-choice" people suppressed the choice of people to make up their own minds about the abortion issue by hearing both sides of the argument.)

There have been a few rare pro-life Democrats (such as Bob Casey of Pennsylvania or Glenn Poshard of Illinois), but the overall evidence leads me to conclude that the Democratic party as a whole is on the wrong side of the most important issue currently facing our nation. That's particularly true when one considers the shameful way in which the Democratic party (which allegedly values "tolerance" highly) has excluded or marginalized people such as Casey and Poshard time and time again.

With Friends Like These

When I voted for President Bush during the 2000 election and the 2004 election, I did so in large part because he had paid lip service to the pro-life movement, whereas both Al Gore and John Kerry had openly paid homage to the abortion industry. To some extent, I knew that Bush's claims amounted to lip service, but I felt that even lip service was better than no service at all.

I passionately felt and still feel that abortion was and is the most important issue facing our nation. It wasn't that I didn't care about other issues. But public acceptance of an act which takes roughly a million innocent American human lives every year (and which took up to 1.5 million lives a year for many years) has got to qualify as a major national crisis.

It was clear, even during the 2000 election, that Bush was hardly the dream candidate I might have wished for. He seemed to want to take little baby steps in terms of moving the nation in a direction consistent with complete respect for all phases of human life. I would have much preferred an articulate and passionate pro-life spokesperson such as Alan Keyes, because Keyes really seemed to care about the unborn victims of abortion. But baby steps are better than no steps at all, and thanks to the inequitable way in which national primaries are held, I never got the chance to vote for Keyes when he was a candidate for President. So I took what I could get.

Sadly, with very few exceptions, Bush has consistently put the pro-life issue on the back burner in terms of his priorities. In that respect, he is not noticeably different from his father.

I realize that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq were both important in Bush's mind, but even if he was right about both issues (and that's highly debatable in the case of Iraq), the fact of the matter is that the total number of people killed by both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined are miniscule compared with the numbers of people legally killed every year by abortionists in the United States during the past 30 plus years.

Considering the extent to which the abortion issue and the pro-life vote played a major role in putting Bush in office and keeping him there, the fact that Bush has done so little to advance the pro-life cause seems like a betrayal to me. In my opinion, the significant political losses Republicans experienced in 2006 are due not only to Bush's mishandling of the war in Iraq, but also to the fact that most pro-life Republicans found it very hard to get excited about a political party which had promised much but delivered very little (despite its simultaneous control of the Senate, the House and the Presidency) in terms of saving unborn children.

One of the saddest ironies when it comes to the abortion issue is the extent to which Republicans, who are often characterized as defenders of the unborn, have played a role in terms of aiding and abetting the defenders of legal abortion time and time again.

After all, it was Nixon, not Kennedy or Johnson, who appointed Harry Blackmun, the Chief Justice who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.

Later, when Nixon resigned amidst the scandal of Watergate, his successor Gerald Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. According to this article, Stevens "joined a 2000 decision called Stenberg v. Carhart in which the court struck down a Nebraska law banning so-called 'partial-birth' abortions."

With "friends" like Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, the pro-life movement needed no enemies. (Admittedly, there was no pro-life movement when Nixon first came into power. It was partially on account of Nixon's appointment of Harry Blackmun that such a movement became necessary.)

Gerald Ford took office a year after Roe v. Wade was made into law. If Ford had had any pro-life principles at all, he would have expended a considerable amount of effort making sure that the next judicial appointment went to a man who recognized the stupidity of the Roe v. Wade decision. Say what you will about Nixon, but at least he can be excused to some extent by the possibility that he may not have realized that Harry Blackmun would vote to overturn the abortion laws of most of the states in the union. Gerald Ford had no such excuse.

Instead of doing his best to appoint a judge who would have helped to overthrow Roe v. Wade, Ford turned the entire appointment process over to Attorney General Edward Levi, whose primary criterion when selecting Stevens seems to have been that the two men were buddies from Chicago, where Stevens was serving as a federal appeals court judge and where Levi had been the president of the University of Chicago. (Those who now blame Donald Rumsfeld for much that has gone wrong in Iraq should also pause to consider that Rumsfeld's suggestions to Ford regarding Edward Levi played a significant role in Ford's choice of Levi and in Levi's subsequent choice of John Paul Stevens. It would appear that conservatives and liberals both have good reason to dislike Mr. Rumsfeld.)

Ford's choice of Levi was based on his desire for a person who was "nonpolitical". Apparently, he got what he wanted, in spades. Levi apparently cared more about personal friendships than he did about political principles, despite the fact that it was his job to insure that justice was done throughout the land. It isn't clear from what I've read whether Levi was pro-life himself or not, but if he was pro-life, then he was incompetent. He put his personal friendship with John Paul Stevens ahead of his job responsibilities.

According to MSNBC writer Tom Curry, Ford's most "profound" legacy was his appointment of John Paul Stevens. If appointing a man who helped to protect the status quo in terms of Roe v. Wade is Curry's idea of profundity, then Curry deserves to be in the pro-life hall of shame, along with Gerald Ford and our ostensibly pro-life president George W. Bush.

What does George W. Bush think of Gerald Ford? According to this article, Bush says Ford was a "great American". I beg to differ. Ford's legacy was to help insure that a bad judicial decision would remain in force for many years to come. And the fact that George W. Bush does not recognize that fact speaks volumes, it seems to me, about his level of intelligence and competence.

Am I sorry that I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004? No. As bad as he was and is, his opponents were many times worse. But I may begin to obstain from the voting process altogether if the Republican party cannot begin to get its act together and elect principled Presidential candidates who can be counted on to represent the values of the numerous pro-life people like myself who, more often than not, have played a decisive role in putting them into office.

I am beginning to agree with those who use terms such as "Republicrats" to suggest that there isn't a very significant difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party anymore. This was made especially apparent during the 2006 gubernatorial race in Illinois.

Rod Blagojevitch had made some reprehensible decisions while in office, such as his executive order forcing pharmacists to violate their own consciences, by dispensing what they regarded as pharmaceutical abortifacients, in order to keep their jobs. (So much for "choice". Apparently, pharmacists ought not to have freedom of choice regarding whether or not their hands are stained with innocent blood.)

Nevertheless, Blagojevitch won, because his opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, and her running mate, Joe Birkett, were indistinguishable from the Democrats in terms of their positions on the issues of abortion and gay marriage.

Birkett, who had previously claimed to be pro-life, based his unprincipled alliance with Topinka on his belief that she was the only Republican who could beat Blagojevitch. I thought at the time that that was a major miscalculation on his part, and the election results would seem to bear that out.

Joe seemed oblivious to the fact that the only way to beat an incumbent politician is to offer voters a significantly better alternative and then to appeal to one's political base in order to insure that people who recognize the superiority of that alternative come out to vote. Topinka lost because she was basically Blagojevitch in a skirt, notwithstanding her specious claims that she was a Republican.

Ironically, now that Birkett's 2006 running mate has lost, Birkett is trying to regain credibility with pro-life Republicans by claiming to back certain marginally pro-life measures pertaining to parental consent. Here's what I'd say to Joe if I saw him face to face:

"Sorry, Joe, but conservative voters such as myself aren't buying it. We don't easily get amnesia. We won't forget you unprincipled alliance with Topinka in 2006 for a long, long time to come. By all means, do the right thing and vote in support of pro-life legislation. But don't expect it to do you any good in the next election. That ship has sailed. You had a chance to do the right thing when it would have counted the most, but you blew it, buddy."

What happened in Illinois was heartbreaking, but hardly unique. More often than not, the small difference which does exist between the two major political parties these days is a matter of rhetoric, not a matter of substantive action.

Which is worse? To proclaim that one is pro-abortion and then to demonstrate that that is indeed the case, or to proclaim that one is pro-life and then do nothing to change the status quo regarding legal abortion?

Say what you will about the Democrats, but at least they are honest about their pathetic and immoral indifference to the intrinsic value of human life. That doesn't make me any more likely to vote for them, but it does make me feel that I have been cheated out of the opportunity to vote for candidates who share my own priorities, not just in word but in deed.

UPDATE: It bears mentioning that when it comes to the 2008 presidential elections, there are some big differences between John McCain (who has said clearly that human life begins at conception) and Barack Obama (who not only claimed that answering such a question was "above (his) pay grade," but also opposed Illinois laws designed to prevent infanticide). For me, the choice is clear. Even though I'm not convinced that the pro-life agenda is at the top of McCain's list of priorities, it is at least on that list. Barack Obama's election would be a huge setback for the pro-life cause.