The Anti-Chafee

Political conservatives who live in RI (all 6 of us) have a very tough decision to make next week.  In the governor’s race, should we vote for John Robitaille, a conservative Republican, or dare we take a huge leap and vote for Frank Caprio, a Democrat, who will be campaigning this weekend with none other than former President Clinton?

Why would conservative Republicans give the time of day to, let alone vote for someone like Caprio? For conservatives, the good side of Frank is that he is a fiscal conservative, a lover of small business, and an opposer of overly burdensome taxes.  On social issues he’s part way on the dark side; he said that if the General Assembly approved of gay marriage in RI - which they’re apt to do with so many of the leaders gay - he would sign the bill.  I think he should wait to see what voters want on that issue, but there it is.

On the Republican side, Robitaille has the right stance on issues, and he’s been gaining some momentum, but the problem RI conservatives face is, who do you vote for to assure that Lincoln Chafee loses?  With a recent Rasmussen poll showing Chafee in the mid-thirties while Caprio and Robitaille in the mid to upper twenties, the state sits on a precipice.

Chafee will tax us enough for the few remaining productive citizens who work and pay taxes will get to pay even more taxes unless they’re smart enough to move to less taxing neighboring states like Taxachusetts or Connecticut, a mere 40 miles away at the most.  Even Taxachusetts will be a tax haven for RIer’s were Chafee to win.

RI passed the tipping point long ago where the gimme’s beat out the tax-me’s a long time ago, and will continue their stranglehold on the state to ask for more and more from the poor tax-me’s unless drastic action is taken.

In South Carolina, the Republican governor mandated that if the legislature wants to spend more on a high priority like schools or roads, they have to subordinate something else in the budget and maintain the volume of what the burdened taxpayers already contribute to the state.  In 11.5% jobless RI, Chafee thinks we can increase what the taxpayers contribute so we can spend more and more.

As Bill Murray said about the groundhog in the movie “Groundhog Day,” “He must be stopped!”

If we don’t stop Chafee, the few of us who pay the taxes for all the gimme’s in the state will have to leave or become bankrupt, and that will in turn most definitely bankrupt the state.

So it’s time for us decide.  If we pool our votes in one direction or the other, we can be assured of a Chafee loss, but who to choose?

As for me, I’m going to take the initiative and say I think Caprio’s got the best shot.  Anyone who tells a president of his own party to “stuff it,” is courageous enough for me to know he will be courageous about the smaller things – like opposing taxes and helping to rebuild business and jobs this state.

I ask you five remaining RI conservative Republicans to join me.

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Beck’s America

I must say I was impressed with the turn out at Glenn Beck’s Restore America rally at the mall in DC yesterday, but I’ll also admit, I’m a bit uncomfortable.  The event has all the earmarks of the early days of the Moral Majority – a well meaning conglomeration of Catholics, Evangelicals and others seeking a moral high ground for America in a political context.  Beck’s “get back to God” falls into this category in my humble opinion, but it also begs an important question or two: “Which God?”  “Whose God?”

Some time ago I was confronted with the very well thought out and well written Manhattan Statement.  Frankly, for me, it has all the right ideas.  But those who sign the statement claim to agree with one another on some basic tenets of faith, and the unfortunate thing about the Manhattan Statement is that some of the signers really do not agree about the nature of God, though they claim to, so in good conscience I could not sign it , and though one of my most favorite Christian authors,, Chuck Colson, endorses the Statement, another of my most favorite Christian writers, R. C. Sproul, could not and did not, and for the reasons I have also come to.

So if I can’t sign something as excellently thought out, comprehensive, well written and in the right direction on all matters social and political as the Manhattan Statement, I find myself all the more at odds with the very broad, very generic “get back to God” theme touted in DC yesterday.  In fact, it gives me kind of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I see so many who, with good intentions, are getting swallowed up in something so shallow.  And when it dissipates, they will be disillusioned.

Beck is a Mormon, and as a Christian I say Christ was the God-Man sent by the Father, foreshadowed in the Old Testament as the “Son of Man” as mentioned in the Book of Daniel; Immanuel and the suffering servant in the Book of Isaiah.  Mormons do not agree with Christ’s claim to diety, that as Christ claimed, “Before Abraham, I Am,” and that Christ was / is the God-man, the Second Adam, who paid humanities debt with His own flesh and blood and justified His flock.  We are millions of miles apart on tenants of faith, though we may have agreement about culture, social issues, government intrusion, taxes, but let’s be honest, we do not agree on who is God.

So I’m a bit uncomfortable about Beck and those flying under his flag right now, including Sarah Palin.  Oh it’s nice to hear public figures make professions of faith in public, it encourages their fans to do likewise, but give me Billy Graham for that kind of thing. 

I know this is a departure from the many of my compatriot conservatives with whom I find myself in general agreement on the tactical issues, but let’s just agree to disagree about this fundamental, strategic concept for conservatism in America.  My God is a lot bigger than what Beck and co. are making Him out to be.  He is not a vague moral choice.  He is God.  And don’t mess with Him.  Don’t use Him like this please.  He just might not like it, and might let you know in some of the ways He showed it in His word.  Be careful with this.

When you have your rallies, I might smile wryly as I hear the ideas with which I may have some agreement, and perhaps chuckle embarrassingly a bit when I hear something hollow said about a generic god, and you might find the likes of me going along for the ride for now.  But let’s be clear, as the President would say in a his typical patronizing manner, I am not one of you.  I march to a different Drummer, and if and when the going gets us into the slough of despond, I will not be standing with you on getting back to God.  Your God is too small.

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My Letter to Congressman Jim Langevin – D – RI

Today, my Congressman, Rep. James Langevin, responded to me by email regarding my many entreaties to for him to oppose the ObamaCare Bill some months ago.  Below is my response to him.

Dear Jim:

Thank you for getting back to me on this subject after a number of months.  I am appreciative regardless of the fact that a lot has gone under the bridge since you voted for this terrible bill.  But you wrote to me on an auspicious day.  Excellent articles in today's Projo and Wall Street Journals underscore how anachronistic your email is today.

RIers woke up this morning to headline in the Projo of Blue Cross raising its rates about 13% for 2011.  13%.  Don't tell me it would have been worse without Obamacare because since I wrote you about my opposition several months ago, articles have abounded on how this bill will cost us much more than what we pay for our current health care plans, not to mention the extra tax burden it will now place upon us as it was conveniently and only recently revealed by the CBO, long after the lemmings approved it.

Also in today's paper, not the Projo but the Wall Street Journal, is an editorial entitled "No, You Can't Keep Your Health Plan."  The horror of that thought!  All brought on by this awful piece of legislation which you voted for.

If you recall Jim, I sent you lemons at great expense to me to get your undivided attention as to why this bill is bad for me, bad for my family, bad for the state and bad for the nation, but you not only did not heed one iota of my advice, you out and out voted for this pig of a bill without reservation.

One last observation.

I'll confess I voted for you over more liberal Republican counterparts in the past, particularly those who were opposed to the rights of the unborn, but your position on this issue has pushed me back a bit.  Today happens also to be election day in a number of states.  Long time Democrat stalwarts are about to get thrown out of office.  Results are not in yet, but I predict a rout.  Now I will grant you that RIers' are a lot more tolerant of liberal Congressmen and women, but I have a feeling, November 2010 will be very different.

See you in November, Jim.

Regards,

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Breath in – Breath out

Is it me, or is there something in the drinking water?  There seems to be a movement afoot in social settings – industry, churches, government, designed around the concept that we are a bunch of stultifying dunderheads.  We need to be taught how to do things we’ve been doing reasonably well for years.  There is a “How to” guide now for just about everything from counting socks to boiling an egg.  Need to run a little group?  There’s a guide for that, and yes, oh, by the way, you must take the online course for that.  Need to manage a small team?  There’s a guide for that. Need to (fill in the blank).  Yup, we’ve got a self teaching tool for that too.

Where did all this come from?  I think we older (more senescent) folk can determine the answer when we go out to our driveways, get into our automobiles, start them up and head on into traffic.  No one – I mean NO ONE follows any rules, not even the laws of physics.  By the way, if you would like to live to see your grandkids, drive like everyone around you are aliens from Mars who have no idea what a stop sign is, let alone a turning signal.

It wasn’t long before managers and leaders from mega-churches to post offices figured out that they had better retrain us and retrain us fast – and they want to do it the same way the Republicans want to address healthcare reform: starting from “a clean piece of paper.”  Care not a wit, and make no assumptions that you might be teaching an auditorium of neurosurgeons about how to put ointment on a mosquito bite.  Just follow the teaching guide.

My theory is that this really all began because someone noticed the caliber of what is coming out of our education systems.  Easy solution: RETRAIN EVERYONE!

I have another theory: that this will meet up with a swift demise.  Something similar, perhaps, to when Jack Welch hit GE and determined that the business was running a tad inefficiently with all this type of nonsense going on, the layers it made in the structure, and the general “statist” approach on the factory floor.  Not to mention that relatively normal people (i.e., normal smart people) didn’t need to be given a guide on how to breath.  Suddenly, a Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley character will come on the scene like a hero in the white hat who arrives just before the train runs over the victim and stands athwart history yelling stop!

In the mean time, as for me, I’ll duck my head, learn about how to count my socks and make a boiled egg, then move on to the next insipid, sophomoric guide to a better life.

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Projo Sucker Punches Scott Brown

This morning’s Projo carries a rabid commentary from The Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham against Scott Brown, making the despicable charge that Brown is somehow against raped women.  The Democrats are pretty desperate to do this, and the Projo’s complicity should be condemned roundly by level headed, middle class Rhode Islanders.

With printed media on the rocks, I think the Editorial board at the Projo has gone mad.  They must have hired a bunch of recent grads and fired all the experienced regulars to save money.  It’s bad enough that they raised prices by 50% in the last year – they now must subject us with hyper-liberalism and no balance to it.

In the mean time, a more interesting irony is that President Obama comes today to support the mindless Coakley, who in 2008 was rebuffed Obama, sticking tenaciously to the already defeated Hillary Clinton.

Scott Brown needs to win on Tuesday just to return sanity to a few of New England’s institutions, not to mention the nation’s health care reforms.

Go Brown!

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The Real Hypocrites

There is a “news” piece from the Associated Press written by a reporter, Charles Babington, on the “double standard” of the GOP in the healthcare debate.  The essence of Babington’s so-called “news” piece is that Republicans hypocritically voted FOR a Medicare expansion that includes pharmaceutical drugs back in 2003 when they had control of the US Senate.  The claim is that the addition of drugs to the already existing federally funded health care entitlement added half a trillion in costs all by itself, and is actually “worse than” the current expansion in government run healthcare because the half trillion dollars was “deficit financed” which is purportedly unlike the current deficit financed bill because back in 2003 we had no way to finance the drug benefit expansion, and you see this new government entitlement is paid for (out of Medicare?!?!?)

Anyway, what royals me here is that first of all, this is NOT a news item.  It is pure, unadulterated, left of center biased opinion.

Secondly, there is an answer to this kind of sideswipe.

Mark Steyn says that, unlike the add on of drug benefits to an already existing entitlement, as bad as that may have been perhaps, what the Democrats have done is essentially turned over control of over one-sixth of the US economy to the government, and has placed government in between the patient and the doctor:

The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care,” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.

Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the U.S. economy” (i.e., the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade . . . ” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else…

…My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.

As I’ve been saying for over a year now, “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture. The unlovely Democrats on public display in the week before Christmas may seem like just a bunch of jelly-spined opportunists, grubby wardheelers and rapacious kleptocrats, but the smarter ones are showing great strategic clarity. Alas for the rest of us, Euro-style government on a Harry Reid/Chris Dodd/Ben Nelson scale will lead to ruin.

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The Church Shares in Blame for Catholics who Publically Support Abortion

The public argument between Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Bishop Tobin in RI begs the question,…

Why do so many Catholic politicians favor “abortion rights” when the Catholic church itself is clearly in support of the life of the unborn?  Many who call themselves Catholic have supported abortion for decades and very publically. Organizations like Catholics for Choice for example, have been around since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.  So why the dichotomy, and how has this odd contradiction survived for so long?

In the early 1970’s, when the court ruled for abortion, Catholic pols often hid behind arguments like “As for me, I am personally opposed to abortion, but I do not favor government coercion of others to follow what I think is a matter of personal faith or conscience.”  Or “I do not wish to ‘force my religion’ upon anyone else.”

Other arguments would be aimed at having the freedom to choose (even though a bad choice which brings harm to another human being), or the rights of the mother to control her own body (at the expense of another).

In reality, Catholics who favor abortion are really political liberals who have “libertarian” views about their personal freedoms to the point of it being at the expense of others.  Such ideas overstep the bounds of personal liberty and the age old maxim that my right to swing my clench fisted arm in the direction of your nose ends a nanosecond from its surface.

One could apply the vain reasoning of these liberal Catholics to a lot of other bad behaviors, which, when attempted, can be plainly seen as patently absurd arguments.  For example, can anyone imagine a leader from the era of the Third Reich saying something like “As for me, I am personally opposed to death camps, but I consider their existence as a moral issue which is a matter of personal faith upon which I refuse to coerce others to follow.”  Or an anti-bellum Slave owner: “I am personally an abolitionist in my heart of hearts, but cannot in good conscience force my fellow plantation owners to give up their free help.”  Or “I should have the personal freedom of choice to decide what I do on my plantation – whether I have slave labor or not.” These arguments are laughable of course, yet we accept them on the subject of abortion all the time and go on our merry way. 

One reason they have survived is that the leaders of the Roman Catholic church have generally acquiesced in them and continue to this day to allow its members who are pro-abortion to remain members or “receive communion.”  In 1973, the Catholic church, had it really had the courage of its conviction, would have begun the wholesale expulsion of politicians and non-politicians alike with such beliefs.  They would have tossed them out the front doors of their cathedrals, and with great fanfare.  The views really cannot coexist.

So why has the Catholic church has been so tolerant? Why has it for the most part turned a blind eye to the masses who continue to support abortion yet continue to fill their pews?  It is in my opinion the church’s support on other so-called “social justice issues.”  The church opposes capital punishment, and it favors a more tolerant position on illegal immigration and the social justice and welfare of the indigent.  Many of these views are charitable at their core, and right for a church to foster, but are often on the very same agenda as the politically liberal social agenda with the only thing missing from that laundry list of social issues being a “woman’s right to choose…”

So what happens?  Those in the Church with the energy and momentum in supporting the churches social agenda are themselves caught up in the whole liberal social agenda. For that reason, the church should have long ago clearly and decisively incised the pro-abortionists from their roles.

I have an idea.  Do it now.  Use the Patrick Kennedy public debate as a moment in time where the Church comes forward with a public pronouncement, confesses its error for being so acquiescent in the past, and now sends a clear warning to other politicians and lay people to discontinue their support for government sanctioned abortion or be handed their walking papers.

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