Sep 05 2008
links for 2008-09-05
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Let me get this straight. Republicans (formerly the party of small government) want to argue that it's private charity rather than government that is best at helping people, but then ON NATIONAL TELEVISION they ridicule a candidate for his *private* charity work. (Yes they, meaning the thunderous applause at Sarah Palin's remark about community organizers.) Not the way to win my vote, guys. I'm appalled, in fact. I suppose, though, that mocking a person's decision to work in private charity is ALMOST as honest as saying, "We admit it. We just don't care about poor people."
September 6th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
That’s not really how it came across to me. The thought that crossed my mind when I heard it was that she was trying to answer criticism that she’s inexperienced, saying that her career prepared her to be president at least as well as Barack Obama’s career. Others have suggested that the particular work that Obama was doing (allegedly, collecting signatures for ACORN) was mere political activism, and not especially valuable. Then again, I’ll grant that Palin’s comment, taken at face value, was a bit incendiary in tone.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Obama’s work for ACORN was as a lawyer (employed by a law firm, retained by ACORN), representing the organization in a lawsuit regarding laws which made it difficult for certain classes of eligible citizens to register to vote, to exercise their most fundamental political right. So which community organizing was it that was of no value? Would that be the voter registration drive for Project Vote? The education/training efforts of laid-off steelworkers for the Developing Communities Project? The faith-based initiatives of the Gamaliel Foundation?
Weak. It was a meanspirited dig at a person’s genuine efforts to spend his time engaging in work that actually does help the poor and disenfranchised, rather than in the lucrative corporate career that his law degree could have brought him. And I’m pretty sure you and I regularly pray to a Man who left his nice stable job to wander the countryside and reach out to the poor and the sick.
So it’s all well and good for Sarah Palin to pay lip service to Christianity with false rhetoric about governing “with a servant’s heart,” (hey! how about those attempted book-bannings in Wasilla!) and reflexively saying “God Bless America” at the end of every speech. But come November, I’d rather vote for a guy who actually demonstrated what it means to have a servant’s heart in his own career.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
My child you have been too long in the Beltway…
Look closer at what community organizers do in Chicago and who funds them and at ACORN. An organization that has a proven track record for fraud in its voter registration drives (living, deAD AND FICTIONAL). Look alittle closer at the funding and how it was spent for the education/training as opposed to the results. Did Obama run the program…or merely work the program?
As far as who was “served” … poor and disenfranchised … look again and ask why poor or how dienfranchised. Their own fault or our fault for letting them too long suckle at the government teat … which is attached directly to my (and your wallet). The allusion to Jesus as compared to Obama is especialy troubeling. I don’t remember my Lord enerting into any questionable real estate deals to aquire an earthly mansion.
The critisim of Palin and the judgement of her using “false rhetoric” seems to be just what you are criticising in others. One last thing … if you last line is true … you’ll vote for McCain
September 14th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I’m not going to vote for a guy who sold out on the torture issue- I understand the need to compromise, secure the base, blah blah, but there is just no call to sell out on waterboarding when you have the unquestionable moral high ground on the issue. We’re the United-friggin’-States- we’re supposed to be APPALLED by that behavior, not splitting hairs over who exactly deserves Constitutional protection and maintaining prisons overseas so we don’t have to deal with those pesky human rights questions. As Christians, we’re supposed to know that we are endowed with rights by our Creator, and the Constitution simply enumerates some of the rights everyone has, obliging the government to honor them.
And while we’re on the topic of corrupt business deals, maybe we could talk about John McCain’s relationship to Charles Keating and the federal investigation thereof. Really. Or the sheer quantity of government earmarks Sarah Palin secured for Wasilla and the rest of Alaska. I’d be sympathetic to the fearmongering about my wallet if the Republican party had ANY remaining interest in being the party of small government, but then they pretty much threw that out the window with continued mismanagement of our military engagements, the warrantless wiretapping, continued efforts to undermine the decisions consenting adults make to arrange themselves in a household unit, etc.
If I have to choose between a police state and a welfare state, I’ll choose the welfare state every time.