St. Santorum Fails the Defender of Truth Test

Rick Santorum knows by heart the definition & meaning of "sin of omission." His failure to correct or rebut the angry, benighted cottonhead, who spewed vicious hate speech and bashing and libeling President Obama, is a gigantic fissure in his vaunted "values" image.

Is the distant possibility of the Presidency or the offer of the position of candidate for Vice President on a 2012 GOP ticket more important to Santorum than the chance he forfeited to be a courageous guardian of truth and decency?

Pragmatic omission has trumped Santorum's lengthy claim to the "moral high ground." With this one glaring omission and his milquetoast attempt to justify his grievous omission and error at the moment the incident occured will haunt Rick to the last days of his life.

Angry curmudgeon and hate-ranter woman in the audience:

"I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not. He constantly says that our constitution is passé, and he ignores it as you know and does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn't something being done to get him out of government? He has no legal right to be calling himself president."

To make things worse. Santorum, by not rebutting the lying woman, built on the power and momentum of her assertion and cleverly joined in on her verbal thrust. Added immediately by Rick Santorum:

"Well look, I'm doing my best to get him out of the government right now.... And you're right about how he uniformly ignores the constitution. He did this with these appointments over the recess that was not a recess, and if I was in the United States Senate I would be drawing the line."

Were Santorum a genuine man of integrity and greater courage he would have reacted as did Sen. McCain during his 2008 campaign: Republican John McCain directly confronted an angry woman who at that time pejoratively described Mr. Obama as an "Arab" by saying:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man ... [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

The weak courage displayed by Santorum's meek excuse for his omission of an instant "moral challenge" is highly revealing: "I don't feel it's my obligation every time someone says something I don't agree with to contradict them, and the President's a big boy, he can defend himself and his record..." In other words I chose to protect those of my supporters who agree with this angry woman, and I certainly don't want to offend them or lose their votes.

In other words, Santorum will shield his supporter(s), however malicious or in error. This he did in order to protect his media sound bite for the evening's news hour. He'd leave the world believing he didn't know the answer to the woman's assertion. Or did he choose to simply refuse to defend the President under sharp attack, thus giving the distinct impression, he Santorum (smiling) relished this savage attack on the President's character? Coupled with Santorum's reference to the President as a "big boy" Rick's demeaner smacks of a deeper and far more troubling subliminal, instantaneous, instinctive approving rejoinder; revealing a very dangerous biased interpretation from deep within Santorum.

How simple would it have been for Santorum to say he's our President and an honorable Christian man; then defend Obama's honor with the whole truth?

But "(r)ather than disagreeing with the questioner or correcting her assertion by reminding her that President Obama is in fact a Christian, Santorum ignored the more controversial parts of her question." Observed Lee Bailey's EuroWeb site.

St. Santorum, the "values" endorsee of the Texas Religious Right 150 Coalition, has failed the moral courage test. Give Santorum a solid F- !

SEE Also: Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.

Original.

Selling out Jesus: When Politics Trump Eternal Truth

This is in response to an increasing number of Evangelical endorsements of Newt Gingrich.

The Failure of Rev. Dr. Bill Monroe, Florence, South Carolina Fails to Defend His Christian Faith's Moral Standards Against Newt's Sexual History of Repeated Sexual Indiscretions Is a Serious Denial of Fundamentalist Beliefs

South Carolina is home to 2,100 Southern Baptist Churches with 670,000 members. It has apparently lost its authority and hold on itself to the moral high ground.

The moral high ground (Character Counts) has been abandoned by one of the state's most well-known T.V. minister and denominational leader, Pastor Bill Monroe. Why?

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More and more Baptists/Evangelicals/Pentecostals are slipping out of the yoke of rigid fundamentalism and going for a new polity, a religion driven and based on a Marketplace, economic model, abandoning the prior commitment to the sterling principles found in the Holy Bible.

The Evidence of Change (God Hopping) is Everywhere
Their new churches look and act like humongous country clubs with clergy who aspire to become media celebrities. Many newly-erected buildings are festooned with boutique names to hide their actual doctrines and denominational affiliations. Now, more and more, these formerly Fundamentalist congregations are simply formed as non-denominational, inter-denominational, or free form.

Mega Churches are choreographed with hi-tech congregational karaoke-style singing "praise songs and choruses" steeped in adoration and praise, filled with scant theological content, infused with high calorie emotionalism and passion. Intimacy with Jesus, confession of personal failure, an outpouring of neediness, and a plaintive cries for comfort are palpable. It's a tough world out there!

Mega Churches play a role as platforms/stages for commercialism, business networking, hard-driving Entrepreneurs and MLM recruiters.

Millions of dollars of books, tapes, DVD's and other paraphernalia are hawked in the vestibules. Some churches publish a Christian Directory to their members to keep the flow of business inside the flock.

Attending church represents a ripe business opportunity!

So in Low Country a gigantic shift has eroded away the standards and faith of the forefathers of faith there. Doubtless, the rough ride taken having endorsed and backed "Cowboy Christian" G.W. Bush took much of the shine off the concept of Christian-in-chief once enthusiastically ascribed to W.

Foggy denial is a perfect place to hide from the momentous and terrible carnage and human suffering laid at the feet of a "war of choice" George W. Bush-the man who claimed God's blessing and guidance in his political debacles and warmongering.

The tragic consequences of the Bush failures and willful mayhem lie openly at the feet of South Carolinians who were the first block of "values voters" to propel Bush into the 2000 Presidential Race.

The "values voters" egregious mistake: Putting their full "righteous" faith and confidence behind George W. Bush, knowing his weaknesses, alcoholism, drug use, insincerity, intoxicated debauchery and loose/wild-living prior to his pronouncement of personal "salvation" succeeded in suckering many.

A good salvation/redemption story is always a big hit, especially if it is coupled with a celebrity. The mantra became, "He's 'born-again'- now he's one of us."

Christian South Carolinians this presidential primary season "seem more pragmatic about choosing a candidate than they have before." They are making an adjustment. TODAY, BEING 'BORN-AGAIN' TAKES BACK SEAT TO 'ELECTABLE.'

Beat Obama is more sacred than beat the Devil: Politics trumps "born again" salvation as the highest value.

They want a candidate who "will be best suited to defeat President Obama, fix the economy and promote Republican values according to interviews with dozens of voters, analysts , elected officials and religious leaders" interviewed and reported by Serge F. Kovaleski of the New York Times. 1.18.12.

Perhaps it is beginning to dawn on South Carolina; the impact their humongous mistake in endorsing G.W. Bush. Failure to carefully examine W morally and politically; Evangelicals thereby dismissed certain attributes and flaws that would have otherwise have been clear red flags for them as to the flawed quality of Bush's leadership abilities and his weak intellectual acumen. America and the whole world have paid an incalculable price for their omission!

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The use of the "born again" miracle, as a prime reason for a political endorsement, seems not to factor as much in their rush to embrace the sexually addicted Newt Gingrich here in 2012.

Some Fundamentalists seem to have chosen to accept the mode of redemption that Newt has adapted for his moral scrub-up.

Does Newt's use of the Roman Catholic system of long and expensive, legalized annulment(s) to enter the realm of the "redeemed" strike on authentic note with them? Newt's sins are now only "past history?" Newt's Catholic conversion, as described, is definitely not the Evangelical/Baptist equivalent of being "born again."

However, the compromise which "evangelicals" such as Dr. Bill Monroe have made by endorsing Newt, compounds their earlier compromised stance to overlook or ignore the glaring character flaws of W. Such sell-outs have now greased the rails, lowering the standards, to admit Gingrich to the place of religious acceptance and approval by "values voters" portends a tragic future and a nasty national election campaign and beyond. This process is taking a mighty toll on Fundamentalists' historic allegiance to the Bible and high moral standards.

"The Marketplace" has encroached upon the House of God and made it into a neo-pagan temple of commerce and politics.

The power and authority of the Ten Commandments has been abandoned - Commandment Number 7: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

Newt Gingrich's fancy footwork mitigating his sexual addictions and divorces has been brought to the forefront. Southern Baptists in the Evangelical block, e.g. 60% of South Carolina's GOP primary voters are Fundamentalist Christians. Voting for Gingrich in large numbers, they have abandoned truth and biblical principles based on literal truth found in the Bible. This is a serious lapse, a tell-tail indicator of coming problems for the denomination and "values" movement impacting its moral authority going forward.

Most "frequent church attendees" are apparently woefully ignorant of the basics of the Southern Baptist trademark: literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments and Scripture. Charge this up to the shift of its pastors and leadership, who have become more interested in single issues and winning at politics than doing the gospel work of encouraging and securing confessions of faith and teaching the unchanging Biblical laws for human behavior via helping people become "born again."

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How did the South Carolina Baptist leader Rev. Dr. Bill Monroe defend his endorsement for Gingrich?

1.) Pastor Monroe states "after meeting with Newt Gingrich, I believe he not only holds conservative values, but HE WILL FIGHT for them. His broad knowledge and experience in both foreign and domestic affairs give him a distinct edge over other conservatives and HE IS FAR AND AWAY THE BEST DEBATER which will be a critical factor in the upcoming Presidential debates. While I like Gov. Perry and Rick Santorum's conservative views, I BELIEVE NEWT GINGRICH IS THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE WHO CAN WIN. I WANT TO GIVE HIM MY UNQUALIFIED ENDORSEMENT." (emphasis added) 
-- PRESS RELEASE from: Newt 2012, 1.18.12

2.) "Though Monroe has endorsed Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential primary, he says the endorsement is personal and individual and does not represent an endorsement by his church as a whole."
-- WBTW News13


Original.

Disclaimer: This is in response to a number of recent evangelical endorsements of Newt Gingrich, and not meant to be an attack on Evangelicals or infringe on the right of any American to freely practice their own faith.

Plutonian Politics: Dionysian Newt v. Apollonian Barack

Newt's a clear victim of raging narcissism! Candidate Newt Gingrich is burdened with all the errors of unholy and now militant, aggressive, and angry hubris.

Newt is what Nietzsche scholars would label a “Dionysian”: Drawn from Greek mythology:  a man struggling with “his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate.”  “The Dionysian embraces the chaotic nature of … experience as all-important; not just on its own” subsequently and shrewdly utilizing and getting great pleasure derived from ordering about those around him.

Newt (portraying his struggle and envisioning his “heroic” attributes and special visions for himself as his” mission,”- to be the leader of the Free World-saving America and humanity from evils real and imagined)  is (in his own crazy private,  mythical world)  delusional.  It’s Newt’s world in which he truly believes he shares glory with Gen. George Patton and Winston Churchill!

Camille Paglia writes,

“The Dionysian is a force of chaos and destruction, which is the overpowering and alluring chaotic state of wild nature”…Writer Stephen King, “"I used the terms Apollonian (to suggest reason and the power of the mind) and Dionysian (to suggest emotion, sensuality, and chaotic action)” 

Source: Wiki on Apollonian and Dionysian.

America has no place for a Dionysian Wild Man in the White House.  None!

Barack, as an Apollonian leader, represents a man guided by “the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience.”

Newt, the Dionysian, and Barack, the Apollonian, represent sharp conflict in the present political battle. The fact that the “Dionysian and the Apollonian form a dialectic,” highlights the understanding, “they are (sharply) contrasting” conflicting, and in an ageless struggle for raw aggressive power versus creating beneficial change and recovery.

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As boldly cast in Gingrich’s new battlefield-campaign banner, Newt promotes himself to the nation and the world as: "Newt the Fighter. The only Conservative who can beat Obama."

Gingrich's newly unveiled slogan. That bodacious claim, I can "beat" Obama, holds a double meaning: Win over one's opponent , but also reek harm and hurt upon the President-even, if limited, due to social convention, to the metaphorical sense of an old fashion "beating." This appeals perfectly, in an appalling manner, to many of the "toughs" who are anti-government and anti-equality and want Newt to "take off the gloves."

Characterized like Nietzsche was during his lifetime, Gingrich is an "Atavist run amok who should gather tigers and panthers about his knees" as Newt is wont to do (being a self-proclaimed maven of the ZOO), but Newt isn’t licensed to rally the Bible Thumpers with guns-at-the-ready, the roaming and self-contained/activated cells of militias all across America, wild-eyed men inspired and prompted by Gingrichian rants, all to march out of the palmetto swamps and rid America of the "Kenyan"-the closet “Muslim”

To wit:: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you piece together [his actions]?" -- Newt's Quip, September , 2010

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Like the strident Nietzsche, Gingrich denigrates the so-called "soft" approach to America’s challenges (Michael Borone: Hard America, Soft America), the nation's problems and civics. The issuance of "food stamps" hunger abatement to millions of Americans going hungry is but one example of the strict application of "harsh discipline" which Gingrich will mete out upon those who must work or not eat.

Newt's hard "disciplining model" of governance (select program eliminations) includes the adjunct-bashing "liberals" whom he despises. Those "soft" bleeding heart liberals are the nation's life guardians of men, women and children and their basic human needs and rights.

In turning a cold cheek away from human need and misery, Newt calls up with "increasing intensity" the "strong dark-side spirits" of the angry. Those of the disaffected filled with racial and economic angst. He speaks effectively to rally the disaffected to gather with him: "the Warrior."

"Join with me," Newt trumpets in a clarion call to mount a march, a crusade, against big government, elites, capitalists on Wall Street, and minorities who "refuse" to work, and a long list of other malefactious elements.

Knight Gingrich's militant march is built on his vain-glorious grandiosifying hope to become the "ubermensch." Gingrich aspires to become THE OVERMAN-who will mount the holy battle against the forces of evil.

This threatened political and cultural “war” includes the kinds of things Newt imagines are evilly engulfing America.

Now is a highly turbulent time, a period of economic depression in which Newt’s kind of  extremism appears to be "heroic" and erroneous ideology and misjudgments can seem like gospel. These "opportunities" Newt comprehends and relishes with a keen political predator's eye for prey.

Ruminate on this bold Newtonian utterance: "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." --The Atlanta Journal, 1994

Let’s not go thoughtlessly into the Plutonian Darkness of the 2012 Election unaware of the extreme nature of  the forces rallied by Gingrich and amassing against President Obama.


Original Part 1 and Part 2.

Newt's Crafty Ploy: Outfox the Values Voters In South Carolina

It's another sample of Newt Gingrich's crafty redefinition of his own soiled character: Being "scrubbed up" by his knelling confession to the great Dr. Dobson, and additionally (for good measure), Newt's subsequent bold decision to convent to Roman Catholicism.

"From a Catholic point of view, Newt's sins no longer exist-they've been absolved. He's made a fresh start in life. So Newt will continue to sin and confess but there aren't going to be a lot of Catholics who will hold that against him. They understand why being a Catholic makes a difference." 

Source: Reported by based on Max Blumenthal's conversation with Deal Hudson, a Catholic political adviser to President Bush and Karl Rove, founder of the seminal Catholic journal, Crisis magazine.

Newt's conversion was all "a cold hard calculation." It was Newt's choreographed attempt to enter the "sacred circle" of the "born again" which satisfies the soulful approval/acceptance by the far right religious base of the GOP. It's these folk who go "all out" in blind support for a high profile "redemption" testimony.

There it is: Gingrich's grandiose game plan - lay claim to the "open-armed" "welcoming willingness" of millions of Fundamentalist, Evangelicals, and Pentecostals to believe in, and accept the sexually addicted Gingrich into the company of the "saved"-all scrubbed up.

BUT is it real?

Is it morally transformative?

Is it believable?

Is it a calculated sham?
Will it work to win over Protestant Evangelicals?

Newt's 180 degree turn to Catholicism, is it a deceptive device to find favor and "redemptive acceptance" from the Religious Right voting base in spite of his life-long low-life sexual history?

Conservative students at Catholic University protested Newt's showy conversion:

"When Catholic University announced in January 2005 that Newt Gingrich would deliver a speech on campus, a group of students rose up in protest, accusing the twice-divorced, admitted philanderer of violating the Catholic values that their school was founded upon."
-- Max Blumenthal

Excerpt from Huffington Post, "Newt Gingrich Marriage Infidelities: Church Forgives, But Voters?":

"On the issue of him cheating on wife one with wife two, and on wife two with wife three, and the hypocrisy that comes along with Gingrich being a key figure in the Bill Clinton impeachment process, it's not going to be lost on many evangelicals, who do care about sexual morality," said Laura Olsen, a political science professor at Clemson University in South Carolina.

"BUT A BIG PART OF EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY IS THAT WE ARE A FALLEN HUMANITY AND WE ARE NEVER GOING TO LIVE UP TO PERFECT IDEAL. ... IT'S MORE OF A QUESTION OF SAYING 'I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MISTAKE AND I NEED TO TURN TO GOD,'" OLSEN SAID.

"Roman Catholics such as Gingrich -- he converted to the religion of his wife in 2010 and has fashioned himself as a Christian fighting an increasingly secular world -- differ substantially from evangelical Protestants in several ways, from their belief that bread and wine transform into the blood and body of Christ during Mass to the role of the pope and priesthood.

"But when it comes to forgiveness, there are similarities. While Catholics are required to confess their sins to priests in order to be absolved, they are also encouraged to pray and confess in private to God, as is common among evangelicals, who tend to identify with an experience of personal conversion, a strong personal relationship with God and a need to spread the gospel. Both strains of Christianity uphold the varied interpretations of the original sin, the idea that either humans or humanity lost innocence after the fall of Adam and Eve.

"In the Roman Catholic Church, where civil divorces aren't recognized, Gingrich also has needed to convince authorities that his previous marriages were not really marriages.

"Gingrich began the annulment process, which may take years, in 2002 with a request that the Archdiocese of Atlanta declare "null" his marriage to his second wife, Marianne Gingrich. Church observers believe he asked around the same time to annul his first marriage. Both requests presumably were successful, as Gingrich is now in good standing with the church.

"Church records on annulments are kept confidential and Gingrich's current priest, Msgr. Walter Rossi of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., declined to talk specifics about his parishioner. Experts in canon law, the internal rules of the church, say it's unlikely that a twice-divorced and twice-remarried man could join a Catholic church without his previous marriages being annulled."
(emphasis added)

Ask any of the 150 Texas Far Right Religious Leaders who endorsed Santorum how they stand on high moral principle. Some of that crowd still hold support for Newt rather than Santorum. They plan to promote an endorsement for Gingrich in spite of his past immoral sexual behaviors. He said that's past history, didn't he?

Where's the Moral Consistency in the behavior of these Gingrich supporting Texas 150; self-proclaimed religio-politicians and moral leaders?

What does it say about the "values voters" and their endangered commitment to God's 10 Commandments, when "winning at politics" undermines their moral principles and basic religious values?

See also:
Obama is the Anti-Christ & Dead Jerry Falwell has sent urgent word from Paradise “Vote Gingrich”
Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.

Original.

Welcome to Planet Willard: Michigan's Wayward Son Mitt Romney to Rule His Own World

Willard “Mitt” Romney is on his way to greatness, as a current Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) “saint” in good standing.

Whether he loses his bid to become president of the United States and the platform that provides to promote the cult of Mormon or not.  Even if Mitt should lose his some $250 million in his Bain-based assets, Mitt will still be, without doubt, the lord and godlike master of his own planet - Planet Willard - somewhere out there in the great Mormon created, fictional celestial beyond. 

So Don’t Cry for Romney, Righteous America...

“After death, a good Mormon man who has followed a few certain rules is catapulted to this same status and receives his own planet to populate and rule over."

To receive this honor, a man must be "married for eternity" in the Mormon temple. This special marriage is binding after death as well as until it.

“’Celestial’ marriage, as this eternal marriage is often called, is essential for Mormon women. Without being celestially married to a holder of the priesthood, a woman cannot be 'saved'.”

Source: Austin and Fife, Alta Saints of Sage and Saddle. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press (1980)

“Mary Ettie Smith, a Mormon woman who left the church and Utah in 1856, said that ‘women do not amount to much in themselves,’ and that women in those times were often celestially married to men they had no intention of ever living with, so that they could have a man who would be able to get them into heaven."

Source: Green, N. W. Mormonism: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition, Embracing the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie Smith. Hartford, Belknap & Bliss (1870)

So Mavens for Mitt, all you evangelical born-again Christian women for Romney, join up with the Latter Day Saints and get and wear your special Mormon underwear.  If you’re exceptionally lucky, you may spend unending eternity with your Lord and Master Mitt on his own far - off Planet Willard.

How divine? Seriously… How ludicrous and silly?  An orthodox Christian belief?

... Not on your eternal soul!

Disclaimer: This is in response to a number of recent evangelical endorsements of Mitt Romney, despite decades of attacks on Mormonism by the religious right, and not meant to be an attack on the LDS or infringe on the right of any American to freely practice their own faith.


Original.

MLK Day's March on Michissippi's (Michigan's) Dictator Gov. Rick Snyder's gated estate/mansion

Well over a thousand citizens from all around Michissippi (Michigan) rallied to march on Martin Luther King Day to Rick Snyder's gated estate. They were motivated by the racial implications of Snyder's imposition of dictatorial control over predominately Black communities in Michigan.

The Emergency Manager "plantations" established by Snyder's Legal Beavers and legal corporations (under his direct control) have begun the re-enslavement of Michigan's poorest citizens, people largely living in governmental units racially abandoned to minorities. These units are now being systematically stripped of the rights of citizenship-for their "own good" by a business-first Big Boss-Rick Snyder.

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It boils down to voting rights, civil rights, and local control of local affairs. The growing sense of inequality imposed by the GOP-dominated Michigan government, having total control of all three branches of state government, is bringing the public outcry to a boil.

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Bill Moyers outlines the current national, intense and growing sense of inequality. Moyers writes below that Americans are just now "waking up" to the danger posed by the impacts such Snyder's have on working people, the 99%:

Waking up is right.

Waking up to the reality that inequality matters.

• It matters because what we're talking about is what it takes to live a decent life.
• If you get sick without health coverage, inequality matters. If you're the only breadwinner and out of work, inequality matters.
• If your local public library closes down and you can't afford to buy books on your own, inequality matters.
• If budget cuts mean your child has to pay to play on the school basketball team or to sing in the chorus or march in the band, inequality matters.
• If you lose your job as you're about to retire, inequality matters.
• If the financial system collapses and knocks the props from beneath your pension, inequality matters.

I (Bill Moyers) grew up in a working class family. We were among the poorest in town, but I was rich in public goods.

I went to a good public school, played sandlot ball in a good public park, had access to a good public library, drove down a good public highway to a good public college, all made possible by people I never met. There was an unwritten bargain among the generations - we didn't all get the same deal, but we did get civilization.
That bargain is being shredded.

The occupiers of Wall Street understand this. You could tell from their slogans.

A fellow young enough to be my grandson wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: "The system's not broken. It's fixed." That's right. Rigged. And that's why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself, but at the crony capitalists who resorts to tricks, loopholes, and hard, cold cash for politicians to make sure insiders prosper and then pull up the ladder behind them.
Yes, Americans are waking up.

• To how they're being made to pay for Wall Street's malfeasance and Washington's complicity. Paying with stagnant wages and lost jobs, with slashing cuts to their benefits and to their social services.
• And waking up to the grotesque Supreme Court decision defining a corporation as a person, although it doesn't eat, breath, make love or sing, or take care of children and aging parents.
• Waking up to how campaign contributions corrupt our elections; to the fact that if speech is money, no money means no speech.

So the collective cry has gone up loud and clear: enough's enough.

We won't, as I said, know for a while if this is just a momentary cry of pain; or whether it's a movement that, like the Abolitionists and Suffragettes, the populists and workers of another era, or the Civil Rights movement of our time, gathers force until the powers-that-be can no longer sustain the inequality, the injustice and yes, the immorality of winner-take-all politics.

See Related Interviews on which this Essay is based and a Related Op-Ed:
Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality (Jan 13, 2012)
America Wakes Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters (Jan 18, 2012)


Original.

Obama is the Anti-Christ & Dead Jerry Falwell has sent urgent word from Paradise “Vote Gingrich”

Trouble amid the "Jesus told Us All" Texas secret conclave deciding on their chosen one for "holy anointment" for "God's choice" in the 2012 GOP Nomination process.

Needing to have a voice in the GOP in order to save their billion dollar Christian Broadcasting and allied businesses, a secret group of 150 Rad Religious Rightists met in Texas at the ranch home of the man who promoted the tsunamic change in the Southern Baptist Convention from religiously moderate to hard-shell extreme Fundamentalists,one Judge Paul Pressler.

The following monologue from MSNBC News is most enlightening:

"One very specific point of light in the religious right pantheon has made his own endorsement today.

"Do you remember old Tim LaHaye?

"Tim LaHaye - the author of all of those books about the rapture, Mr. Left Behind, the Obama is the anti-Christ guy...Tim LaHaye, Mr. Rapture - today endorsed Newt Gingrich for president. He sent a letter to South Carolina religious leaders urging them to unite behind Newt Gingrich`s candidacy. Mr. LaHaye describing Newt Gingrich as having the best chance of beating President Barack Obama.

(LaHaye's) letter said, quote, 'IF WE DO NOT CHANGE OUR LEADERS IN THE NEXT ELECTION, WE WILL END UP BEING LIKE THE GODLESS SOCIALIST COUNTRIES OF EUROPE THAT WILL SO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY IN FOUR YEARS, THAT MANY EXPERTS BELIEVE WE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO RECLAIM IT FOR MORAL AND PHYSICAL SANITY.'

(We may ask) "who the experts are who say I agree with him. But, (we) should also note that Tim LaHaye in his letter also says that Jerry Falwell is endorsing Newt Gingrich from beyond the grave.

"Jerry Falwell, of course, is dead.

"But Tim LaHaye says in this letter that before Jerry Falwell died, he told Tim LaHaye that, quote, 'Speaker Newt Gingrich is the most qualified man in America to run as president of the United States.' Mr. Gingrich for his part said today that he was very happy to receive the endorsement of Tim LaHaye.

"Mr. Gingrich did not comment on whether or not he was happy to receive the endorsement of dead Jerry Falwell." 

(Adapted & Emboldened for emphasis)

See Also: "Tim LaHaye, 'Left Behind' Author, Endorses Gingrich, Says Jerry Falwell Backs Newt From Grave" on Huff Post January 13, 2012.


This Endorsement of Gingrich by LaHaye et.al. is Desperate
THE ONE CLEAR MESSAGE in all the falderol is: The Rad Religious Right are far more interested in winning the election by:

1.) Backing their choice of candidates (however flawed) based on "perceived electability",

2.) Keeping an inside track to the hundreds of millions of taxpayer/handout dollars going to their so-called "faith-based" projects and initiatives,

3.) Renewing/having the "inside track" to the Oval Office as the Rad Religious Rightists did under George W. Bush.

These items are more important to the Rad Religious Right than is elevating/protecting moral purity (which Gingrich has not/does not possess) and defending the moral "high ground" so revered and sacred to their faithful followers who regularly vote as "a body of one" at the polls.

One wonders how this all plays in Heaven?


Original.

One Thing Social Conservatives Dislike as a Candidate for President: A Sex Addict

If Newt Gingrich is to pass muster with the "values voters"- strong convictions evangelical Christians - he will have to pass the morals test. The job of president is far beyond the biblical role of a Christian elder. The character history of a "elder" requires that person to pass a biblical minimal standards task: "one in whom no fault is found."

This is the scripture verse lining out the moral qualifications for a early Christian deacon:

"An Elder ought to be one in whom no fault is found and is the husband of one woman, is of a vigilant mind, sober, orderly, loves strangers and is a teacher."
-- I Timothy 3:12

If there is one thing that most social conservative Americans dislike in a candidate for president it's a sex addict. 

Fred Barnes wrote recently in THE WEEKLY STANDARD in "The History of Newt: Are Republicans ready to look past his transgressions?":

"... Gingrich has 'told friends he's like Richard Nixon, not particularly likable and hated by the press and the left.' And here we see Gingrich taking a page from Nixon's playbook. If there was one thing Americans disliked more than the not particularly likable Nixon, it was dirty hippies."

Newt must believe that if one has a new haircut, a clean, odorless body, and a filthy mind, that because that person is not "dirty," cleaning up should qualify that individual for the office of a church "elder"? What about Newt with a stylish haircut, crisp suits, and a long history of sexual indulgence, if not addictions to fornication and adultery? Does just cleaning himself up with a confession to Focus on the Family's James Dobson and subsequently becoming a a Roman Catholic convert overcome and expunge his immoral past?

If there is one thing that most Americans dislike in a candidate for president: Being a sex addict. Newt's history is that of a serial adulterer. He has a long, early, history of easy sex and lax, if non-existent restrain on his libido.

Writer Paul Wilkes in "THE GOOD ENOUGH CATHOLIC" penned:

"Not that we Catholics are better or stronger, or more or less sexed, than other Christians or non-Christians; but there is simply a Catholic way of looking at things. We know the ideal; Catholicism has never been a religious faith that has called for anything less than the best in people. There IS such a thing as a Catholic ethic of sexual morality " and it makes sense, because it is based on the firm foundation of true love of self and true love of others, inspired by God's love for all. It is an ethic worth pursuing, a way of respecting sexuality that can last a lifetime, a legacy worth passing on to children who need a true and steady beacon by which to guide their lives."

Do you want to see into the twisted mind of Gingrich?
Read for yourself Gingrich's co-authored novel, with the title "1945". The book "1945" is a 1995 alternate history novel, which included descriptive lewd sexual material. Here's what occupied Gingrich's characters in his novel as per the September 1996 issue of Locus (issue 428, Vol. 37 No. 3):

"Baen (publishing) has been running full-page ads for 1945 by Newt Gringrich and William R. Forstchen, saying, 'You've heard the noise, now read the book.' Well, I've read the book, and I'm going to save you the trouble.

"The quotes you've seen in print and heard read over the air, the stuff about the pouting sex kitten and all, come from the first three pages. That may be because that's as far as anyone could get in the Forstchenian awfulness, but I am made of sterner stuff... So this is the last time I'll mention that "noise" Baen is so concerned about, other than saying that it's a pity the paragraph dealing with the pouting sex kitten was disemboweled between the bound galley review stage and the printed book stage. Her kneeling athwart her lover's shoulders would have added entertainment value that this book sorely needed.

"Our story starts with John Mayhew, Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, wrapped in passionate embrace with his mistress who is, oh dear! a Nazi spy. He, poor fool, dazzled by her charms, reveals the US atomic bomb secrets to her.

"As befits the scene, the prose is some of the most turgid imaginable. Before we get to the bottom of page one we find such gems as an "initial gambit" (all gambits are openings -- it's what the word means). This should be a warning flag, telling us that we aren't quite in the presence of a master wordsmith.

"The pouting sex kitten's name is Erica, though we don't learn that until page 110, 109 pages after she's introduced. She's Erika by page 115 -- copy editing and proofreading weren't this book's high points, though I still have to give the copy editor points for making it through the book at all. The poor bugger needed a machete."

Remember, it was Newt that pushed the Clinton impeachment while having an adulterous affair with his now, but then future wife. Newt pushed forward with his attempts to "get" Clinton on morals grounds while pursuing his habitual sexual adventures at the same time.

What the nation paid for and what the youth of the world were exposed to was the printing of the papers (The Starr Report) which detailed the sexual activity of the president and his intern. The impact of the material on the here-to-fore sheltered Irish youths was said to be dynamic and debasing.

Restored to moral virginity by his Catholic conversion, Newt Gingrich need never be elevated to the role of an example -a "true and steady beacon by which to guide" the lives of youthful Americans. His tragic and twisted sexual history takes away Gingrich's right to national leadership, even if ultimately endorsed by James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, or Don Wildmod of the American Family Association or not. However, we all have seen what softies the Religious Right weakness is when it comes to stories of repentance and being "born again." They gave us that tragic and flawed cardboard Christian, George W. Bush, didn't they - just because he claimed to be "born again"? Bush was the man who said he answered to and took direction from a "higher father" - thus blaming God for his multiple failures as a president and commander-in-chief, and guardian of the national economy.

-----

Ultimately, it's important to focus on the Gingrichian MO: Toy with ideas, grand schemes, astonishing facts & figures, scenarios & proposals It's this skill set that most endears him to the rad right religious voters-whom he must woo in order to win the 2012 GOP nomination. These things endear Newt to his cultish followers and gin up their racialism.

Now Newt has accepted the role of uber-partisan "war dog"-a highly skilled predator/vicious attacker-who can "draw blood" and destroy. It's this ability of Gingrich to create, tear out, red meat and inflame ideological and racially-tinged carnage that voters, such as those Teapublicans in South Carolina, are raring to join forces with to defeat President Obama.

Gingrich is the most dangerous and amoral man in America, bar none! Newt must be denied the presidency.



Original.

See also previous pieces in this SERIES:

• Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.
• "We Always Need a JESUS CANDIDATE"? - Just Who Will be God's People's Choice for President in 2012 
• Diehard Fundamentalist Evangelicals & Pentecostals have essentially a no-choice “choice” for GOP Candidate for President

Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.

This exactly the OPPOSITE of what the 16 million member Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land wants from the GOP. Land hopes this election helps RECOVER TO THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT the cozy relationship and power granted them under George W. Bush - the inside track and advantage.

Can Any Good Thing Come Out of the efforts of the Texas Religious Right's 150 meeting?

Often in America "policies are adopted, not because they generate more benefit for the body politic, but because THEY BENEFIT AN IMPORTANT SET OF PEOPLE," writes one economist and political observer.

How does the nation benefit from their elevation of Rick Santorum to be their "blessed" choice for GOP presidential candidate?

What is the actual economic and political impact of the cabal of 150 "secret" neo-moral majority participants in coronating a "righteous choice" for the GOP presidential candidacy - Sen. Rick Santorum?

We have endured a long dark, dangerous tunnel of heavy influence by Rad Right Religionists whose influence on legislation has been ubiquitous: The horrific midnight Terri Schiavo, congressional fiasco, the appointment of an overabundance of uber-conservative Roman Catholics to the U.S. Supreme Court, the steady march of pro-lifers stymieing a woman's right to choice in her own health and wellbeing at the state legislative level; and on other issues such as: the decertification of collective bargaining; along with the Koch Bros. use of a multiplicity of astroturf organizations to roll back environmental rules and regulations (EPA) in order to richly "bless" their monolithic gas and oil holdings, the support of Grover Norquist's "No New Taxes" vow, legislation that is anti-science, etc.

Contrast: The Purity of the Founders Opposition to the "Establishment of Religion"

"To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"Unlike many of today's candidates, the founders didn't find it necessary to constantly wear religion on their sleeves. They considered faith a private affair. Contrast them to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (who says he wouldn't vote for an atheist for president because non-believers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who hosted a prayer rally and issued an infamous ad accusing President Barack Obama of waging a "war on religion") and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (whose uber-Catholicism leads him to oppose not just abortion but birth control)."

Source: Rob Benson of Americans United.

The Corrupt Practice of Marrying the Church to the State, as has been the thrust of the Rad Religious Right now for well over 30 years. Doing so has made a mockery of many of its own various doctrines, standards, and moral edicts. This "marriage" has made a circus out of the political ethical high ground to which these advocates publically and loudly aspire.

The Economists' term "Public Choice" is "Politics without romance"
Wishful thinking...presumes that participants in the political 'Public Choice' act in a beneficial manner.

"As (economist) James Buchanan has so artfully defined it, 'PUBLIC CHOICE' IS 'POLITICS WITHOUT ROMANCE.' The wishful thinking it displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good. In the conventional 'public interest' view, public officials are portrayed as benevolent 'public servants' who faithfully carry out the "will of the people." IN TENDING TO THE PUBLIC'S BUSINESS, VOTERS, POLITICIANS, AND POLICYMAKERS ARE SUPPOSED SOMEHOW TO RISE ABOVE THEIR OWN PAROCHIAL CONCERNS."

Source: "Public Choice" by William F. Shughart II.

HOWEVER: Politicians are not glowing angles of virtue-Not even former Senator Santorum

"'Public choice' is the application of economic models of self-interest to political science. The central assumption is that politicians are not glowing angels of virtue but prone to the same self-interested behavior as we might expect from anyone else. Basically public choice is, in the words of James Buchanan, "politics without romance".

"Studying 'public choice' is vital because people are susceptible to misconceptions. The moment economists admit that the market is imperfect due to problems such as public goods provision or externalities there is mass zeal for corrective interventions such as subsidies and taxes. Yet, this may not always be a good idea. The more legitimate question to ask is not whether the market is perfect; but, whether the political process is better."

Source: "Wise as serpents" posted February 2, 2011.

In the quest for constructive economic answers, the so-called "values voters"-blind followers of Right Wing Religious leaders, such as the Texas 150-are lost sheep.

Religion as a motivation for running secular government, a very bad idea
The concept of the use of taxes to punish by withholding the revenues from things this group does not support, or by taxing things that this select group wishes to undermine or limit is an antique idea that still holds promise for some who believe themselves to be morally superior to American society.

The debate over Taxes serves many purposes - including ignorance

"Alfred Cecil Pigou was the father of the idea that taxes could be used to correct negative externalities. An idea that Bruce Yandle (Senior Fellow Bruce Yandle, Clemson Alumni Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus and Interim Dean of Clemson's College of Business & Behavioral Science) points out is gaining significant popularity in a myriad of arenas: taxes on soda (to curb obesity) and taxes on large banks (to curb risky behavior). But, EVEN PIGOU DID NOT BELIEVE THAT POLICY HAPPENED IN A VACUUM. He offered this valuable insight:

"[W]e cannot expect that any public authority will attain, or will even wholeheartedly seek, that ideal. Such authorities are liable alike to ignorance, to sectional pressure and to personal corruption by private interest. A loud-voice part of their constituents, if organized for votes, may easily outweigh the whole."

"In short, 'public choice' is worth studying because we need to understand: VOTES ARE TO POLITICIANS WHAT PROFITS ARE TO BUSINESSES.

"Sometimes policies are adopted, not because they generate more benefit for the body politic, but because they benefit an important set of people. Finally ---and this speaks to Pigou's statement that "authorities are liable alike to ignorance"--- even if politicians were well-intentioned, there is no single Great Mind that could calculate the social costs or benefits needed to arrive at a corresponding tax or subsidy."

Source: Economic and Compassion - Wise as Serpents February 2, 2011.

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The American people, if allowed to think for themselves outside the intense media and propaganda world of "spin," care intensely about themselves and their families. They even care about local community and their nation. However, if their emotions and personal sense of ethics can be sidetracked by promoters of single issues and raw emotional religious fervor and are counseled against raising taxes, then they won't "vote their pocketbooks" and the benefits to themselves and the nation will be dashed.

This the situation we face in the 2012 elections-during a time when not nearly enough attention is being placed on a satisfactory national recovery, all the while Congress acts in TeaPartisan gridlock. To suggest and recommend to the large block of "values voters" that Rick Santorum represents the best "values" choice for the American presidency masks the clear threat that Santorum's Opus Dei devotion to expanding Roman Catholic influence over the United States (Santorum's highest goal) remains a very serious threat to the nation's basic secular freedoms.

Voting the Texas 150's "values" and ignoring everyday economic reality spells disaster. Voting "values" and ignoring the threat that Santorum represents to the preservation of Jeffersonian separation of church and state is unconscionable.

Purposeful blindness to the condition of the economy
This is the situation we face in the up-coming 2012 elections. And that is exactly what a "pledged vote" and endorsement from the Religious Right delivered in year 2000, a disastrous outcome: A "right wing religious" block vote (based on its leadership's vetting and endorsement process) resulted in electing a clearly under-qualified, mentally confused and burned-out George W. Bush. This man endorsed by the "Christian" Religious Right as a "bornaganiner" brought down the nation: Bush's lack of proper presidential attention to known terrorist threats (as indicated in CIA presidential daily briefings) led directly to 9/11, failure to curb federal spending (scant vetoes of run-away deficits), a war of 'choice' not paid by foreign debit, also Bush's complete inability to sense and prevent widespread corruption (WorldCom, Enron, Abramhof/Reed) and catastrophic Wall Street, mortgage, and banking collapses.

Normal citizens consistently "vote their pocketbooks"-favor of their own "best interests"

"In modeling the behavior of individuals as driven by the goal of utility maximization-economics jargon for a personal sense of well-being-economists do not deny that people care about their families, friends, and community. But public choice, like the economic model of rational behavior on which it rests, assumes that people are guided chiefly by their own self-interests and, more important, that the motivations of people in the political process are no different from those of people in the steak, housing, or car market. They are the same human beings, after all. As such, voters "vote their pocketbooks," supporting candidates and ballot propositions they think will make them personally better off; bureaucrats strive to advance their own careers; and politicians seek election or reelection to office. Public choice, in other words, simply transfers the rational actor model of economic theory to the realm of politics." 

Source: Presentation on Decision Making: Theories & Concepts.


The problem of church rule over and against state secular sovereignty
The injection of religious sectarianism, proscribed human moral behaviors or acts, strict prohibitions on drug substances and alcohol, and advantage given to certain fundamentalist ideology moves the "rational actor model" of politics in a very particular direction: Religionist hoping to run or rule the public square and legislate intend to coerce (by government police powers under their control) certain "values" or "defined moral behaviors" in ways that skew and distort the public realm in many ways not in the greater public's present or future best interests, especially, economic well-being.

Seeing the huge advantage and loop hole created by this Evangelical/Pentecostal/Fundamentalistic/Opus Dei power grab; corporations and internationalists have moved in to logically and systematically work against the "economic and social well being" of these true believers and glean huge profits and relief from their release from onerous regulations and rules corporations constantly complain are the overreach of government; deregulation has become a basic goal (value) for the far right religious coalition.

If it were that the "true believers" were the only part of the population effected by this distortion, so be it. But such is not the case.

Why must the entire nation be forced, by a powerful and hell-fearing faction, to vote and work against their "own best interests"?

Again...Ask the secret Texas Religious Rightist 150.


Original.

"We Always Need a JESUS CANDIDATE"? - Just Who Will be God's People's Choice for President in 2012

WHO WILL THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT'S TEXAS CONCLAVE "CORONATE" AS THEIR CHOSEN CANDIDATE? IF ANYONE?

A pre-caucus Iowan called in to Rick Santorum:
"We don't need a Jesus candidate. We need an economic candidate..."

Rick Santorum:
"And my answer to that was, 'WE ALWAYS NEED A JESUS CANDIDATE, right?'"

-----

Let's explore. First from Bryan Fischer at the American Family Association:

"There is no perfect candidate," says Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis at the American Family Association. "JESUS CHRIST IS NOT ON THE BALLOT IN ANY OF THE PRIMARY ELECTIONS, SO THAT MEANS SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES HAVE TO DO TRIAGE."

"The mission of this 'emergency meeting' is to unite behind one true-blue religious conservative for the Republican nomination. Fischer says evangelicals are desperate to defeat President Obama. But he does not believe former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney - whom they distrust on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage - can generate the passion to do that."

(Break)

"It (GOP placing Romney on the ballot) probably won't be that bad, says Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. Polls suggest that given the choice between Romney and President Obama in a general election contest, 9 out of 10 evangelicals would vote for Romney."

Excerpted from "Evangelical Leaders Struggle To Crown A Candidate" by Barbara Hagerty from NPR.

"NOT THAT BAD" - WHO'S KIDDING WHO?
The only reason Richard Land would make this statement is out of sheer lust for political power and national influence. No way will Fundamentalist Southern Baptists vote for George Romney, a Mormon, unless Richard Land sends a dog whistle to them indicating; despite the stance of the denomination- the very critical and serious questions about Mormonism that have long been bone and sinew of that literal believing denomination- they are now to assume such a anti-Mormon stance is no longer valid, or more to the point; those doctrinaire principles were theologically wrong in their opposition to Mormonism as a non-Christian cult all along.

What is most clear is; race is still a major factor in the Southern Baptist mind. While Land's harsh condemnation of President Obama is spoken as in opposition to his stances and record on a long series of grievances and religiously biased assumptions, the most obvious point known to everyone in the predominately white southern denomination is that President Obama is Black. Dr. Land will strongly object to this assessment. Abortion is the key issue, Land would affirm. So how be it? Mitt Romney is a total chameleon on this issue. Romney's record and public statements and actions as regard so-called "Right-to-Life" is dubious and unreliable. How can that be acceptable? What Richard Land is saying essentially is: We Southern Baptists prefer a white Mormon Bishop over a Black Christian. This Land would do, knowing a sizable percentage of his denomination are birthers, who also believe Obama is a secret Muslim.

-----

Supporting Article "Ethicist Beware, Baptist birthers" August 25, 2009:

"Baptist ethicist Robert Parham has weighed in on the 'birthers' movement that continues to question whether President Obama was born in the U.S., warning Baptists should avoid getting caught in the fray. He points to a story in the Mohave Daily News, which reports that Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said at a town hall meeting he was considering suing Obama over the birth certificate issue.

"Parham notes that Franks, a member of a Southern Baptist megachurch, joins fellow Baptist and former House Majority Speaker Tom DeLay in questioning the place of the president's birth. DeLay called for Obama to produce his birth certificate on MSNBC's 'Hardball.'

"Says Parham: 'If Baptist Republicans walk and talk like birthers, does that make them racists? No. But as every Southern momma knows and warns her children, one is known by the company they keep. Let's hope our Baptist family starts keeping distance between themselves and the birthers.'''

Mormonism as a Cult: Mormonism as "non-Christian" - the Internal Southern Baptist Convention Problem

The Christian Post in "Different Understandings Confuse the Debate on Mormonism" on Oct. 12, 2011
reported:

"Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress made some controversial remarks over the weekend (as reported 10.12.11) when he described the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a 'cult.' The Southern Baptist understanding of the word 'cult' is different than popularly held notions, which confused the debate.

"[Richard] Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, explained what Jeffress meant in his remarks, in a Tuesday interview on CNN.

"'When we use the word 'cult,' that's a theological definition of a movement that claims to be within the confines of the Christian faith and clearly is not within the confines of the Christian faith. IT IS A NEW RELIGION,'" Land explained.

"The 'cult' comment was made by Jeffress in an interview with a reporter during the Values Voter Summit last week. Jeffress said that the LDS church is a 'cult' and Mormons are not Christians, as they claim."

(Break)

"The remarks caused a media firestorm. Many have denounced Jeffress' words. Huntsman called Jeffress a 'moron.' Presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said on 'Face the Nation,' that the remarks were 'very unwise and very inappropriate.'"

And then there is this segment from "Your Morning Jolt: Mormonism is more like Islam say South Baptist President" - Mormonism is more like Islam, says Southern Baptist president: Rev. Bryant Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta and President of the Southern Baptist Convention, with 16 million-members, the nation's largest Protestant denomination:

QUESTION: Why not just call Latter Day Saints (Mormons) part of a larger Christian tent?

REV. WRIGHT:

"They're not a part of the big tent if you look at the founders. When you look at the life of Joseph Smith, he really had more in common with Mohammad than he did with Jesus Christ. Both men saw themselves as bringing a purification to what had been distorted in Judaism and Christianity [--a heretical position, Wright later declared]....

"Both of them were polygamists and taught polygamy and practiced polygamy. There's some really radical differences. Both brought into existence new books of authority " the Book of Mormon, the Koran, versus the Bible being our authority."

Who Can Dr. Land and the Southern Baptists Support?
In a coquettish, double entendre manner Dr. Land makes his marriage analogy to prove his stance on choosing a preferred Far Right Christian as the Southern Baptist choice, one that tickles the mind with a gay marriage twinge. Land says:

"Before we marry the guy next door, don't you think we ought to have a fling with a tall dark stranger and see if he can support us in the manner to which WE'D LIKE TO BE ACCUSTOMED? And if he can't, we can always marry the steady beau who lives next door." 

"WE'D LIKE TO BE ACCUSTOMED" that phrase encapsulates the real thrust of this weekend's Texas Meeting; Dobson, Bauer, Perkins, Land, Graham, Robertson and all those who may be in the cabal meeting there, love and cherish their direct access to the Presidency and the levels of Federal government which can be of both ideological and economic value to themselves.

-----

How many multi-million dollar religious operations (even billion dollar) empires, publishing houses, music and broadcast networks are under the Religio-Conservatives' control. They aggressively seek and/or enjoy federal government support and/or taxpayer funding. THINK: How many hundreds of millions of dollars were ladled out by George W. Bush to appease and reward his religious rightists under the guise of Faith-Based initiatives?

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These are, by in large the same principals (meeting in Texas currently) who blessed the placement of Sarah Palin on the John McCain ticket. This they did with Dr. James Dobson's approval, subsequent to Dobson's fit of obstinacy toward John McCain, whom (prior to McCain's acquiesce and acceptance of Palin on the McCain/Palin ticket) Dobson swore he would not vote for McCain or support in the 2008 election.

Summary Notes:

"Scores of politically influential evangelicals plan to attend the meeting, but the original dream of coalescing around one candidate of the religious right - Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum or Rick Perry - is unrealistic for now, several leaders said in interviews this week. If one of those candidates surges in South Carolina, or in the Florida primary on Jan. 31, pressure will grow on the others to step back, the leaders said.

"'Any talk of winnowing out the field is premature until after South Carolina,'" said Richard Land, the president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. "'The best thing that can happen for social conservatives is for one candidate to get a very clear mandate from South Carolina voters. If that happens, you might be able to get a consensus that makes a difference.'"

"Mr. Land, heeding the request of the meeting's conveners, said he would 'neither confirm nor deny' his plans to attend. The meeting, billed as a private discussion, has drawn intense national attention as Mr. Romney tries to sew up the Republican nomination. He (Romney) is opposed by many evangelicals who question the depth of his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and his fidelity to fiscal conservatism.

"The gathering of religious leaders and their spouses is to convene Friday (1.13.12) afternoon at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler, west of Houston, and is scheduled to end on Saturday afternoon. MR. PRESSLER, A RETIRED JUDGE, HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVE IN EVANGELICAL CAUSES AND HELPED ENGINEER THE CONSERVATIVE TAKEOVER OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION FROM THE LATE 1970S INTO THE 1990' s."
(emphasis added)

Source: The New York Times in "Evangelicals Hope South Carolina or Florida Winnows Republican Field" Jan 13, 2012.

Original.

Diehard Fundamentalist Evangelicals & Pentecostals have essentially a no-choice “choice” for GOP Candidate for President

1.) How do the Religious Rightist choose to endorse a passionate, if not fanatical, Knight of Malta and papist, supporter of Opus Dei, who pushes every Catholic doctorate limitation on human behavior based on sexual behavior?

- Rick Santorum's pro-Rome agenda threatens the intrusion of European Catholic control into the U.S. Presidency in direct opposition to the stance taken by John F. Kennedy America's first Catholic President?

- Santorum accused John F. Kennedy of "great religious harm" saying: "that the distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility, espoused by President John F. Kennedy, had caused "great harm in America." Santorum, Wikipedia "Rick Santorum, along with Karen and their children, regularly attend the weekly Solemn Mass in Latin at their local Catholic church, St Catherine of Siena, Great Falls VA - at which it seems that Gregorian chant is the norm. Santorum is also an active Knight of Malta. He was also present in Rome to mark the 100th anniversary of St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer's birth at a special Opus Dei celebration. At that event nearly 10-years ago to the day, he told the well-known Catholic journalist, John Allen, that President Kennedy's distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility had caused "great harm in America". He went on to add: "All of us have heard people say, 'I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it's not right for somebody else?' It sounds good, but it is the corruption of freedom of conscience." Now, there's a man who believes what he says, and says what he believes - a very rare politician indeed!"

See Related Source: Rick Santorum for President A Man of Faith and Conviction.


2.) How do the Religious Rightists choose to endorse between two Mormons whose religion is fantastic and non-Judeo/Christian; is said to be based in mythical claims of a contemporary/continuing, specific, ongoing revelation from God? Among the Religious Right there is no consensus on the question: Are Mormons Christians? If Mormons are indeed "Christian"; Can it be said in the reciprocal mode: Therefore, all Christians are likewise qualified as Mormons?

Franklin Graham in his article Mitt Romney's Mormonism Doesn't Bother Me:

"Evangelical minster Franklin Graham said voters should look past a candidate's personal religion when considering whom they should support for office. Graham offered his advice in a recent interview with The Christian Broadcasting Network when asked if Christians could vote for someone who is a Mormon."

South Carolina Pastor Reverend Brad Atkins, President of the South Carolina Baptist Convention: Mitt Romney's Mormonism More Troubling Than Gingrich's Infidelity. This Southern Baptist leader said that he believes Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will lose the South Carolina primary to Newt Gingrich simply because Romney is a Mormon.

Pastor Mark Driscoll, from the Seattle Mars Hill Mega-Church : Mormonism Is 'Antithetical to Christianity'; "by the theological definition, Mormonism is a cult."

- Bill Keller, the founder of LivePrayer.com, with over 2.4 million subscribers, says Joel Osteen and Franklin Graham have a duty to expose Mormonism as a cult; "They are looked up to as prominent Christian leaders," Keller said in an interview with The Christian Post:

"When you have someone like Franklin Graham going on CNN and saying he has no problem voting for a Mormon like Mitt Romney and Osteen saying Mormons are Christian, it is clear that politics are being put before the eternal soul of man."

3.) How do the Religious Rightists decide to choose to endorse a moral reprobate who has a long and sordid sexual history as a philanderer and adulator, albeit cleaned up by his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism and his suing for an annulment of his second marriage? See: The Three Marriages of Newt Gingrich.

4.) How do the Religious Right endorse a radical Libertarian who wants secular freedom to act and do, in a private manner as does not injury other humans, would limit drug war, does not support the national Civil Rights Act, and wants "just to be left alone" by government?

Ron Paul's 2004 floor speech about the Civil Rights Act, in which he explains why he voted against a House resolution honoring the 40th anniversary of the law:

"The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife."

"[T]he forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."

Ron Paul also occasionally appears at events sponsored by the John Birch Society, the segregationist right-wing organization that is closely aligned with the Christian Reconstructionist wing of the religious right.

4.) How do the Religious Right " resurrect" their prayerful "hands laid on" choice as per the much discussed spring Rick Perry prayer rally in Texas? Rick is a Texas-style "born again" of the same vein as George W. Bush-the Religious Right's vetted and fully supported faux-Christian "born again" candidate- choice for the 2000 presidential campaign?

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Some of the Religious Right Heavies at the Endorsement Decision Table in Texas

1.) Richard Land from the Southern Baptist Convention:

- "Mitch Daniels has suggested that Americans call a "truce" on divisive social issues until our precarious financial house is back in order. Many pundits have praised the idea, typically thrilled that a Republican leader seems willing to jettison, even temporarily, strong positions on abortion or gay marriage. But social conservatives are mad, and rightly so.

"THROUGHOUT THE 1980S AND '90S, SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES WERE THE FOOT SOLDIERS FOR REPUBLICAN VICTORIES-ONLY TO SEE THEIR ISSUES BARGAINED AWAY OR SHOVED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE GOP AGENDA, BENEATH ISSUES OF FISCAL AND FOREIGN POLICY. Reacting to Gov. Daniels, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently said: "For those of us who have labored long and hard in the fight to educate the Democrats, voters, the media and even some Republicans on the importance of strong families, traditional marriage and life to our society, this is absolutely heartbreaking."

Land Continues:

"Most social conservatives are also fiscal conservatives. They recognize that a federal government that borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends is committing generational theft, spending our grand children's money and impoverishing their future. Social conservatives also argue that government has such high costs partly because of the broken families, broken communities and broken ethics generated by moral relativism.

"The millions of social conservatives and tea party voters firmly believe that Congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. THEY EXPECT PRO-LIFE, PRO-FAMILY LEGISLATION AND THEY WANT DEEP CUTS IN FEDERAL SPENDING, INCLUDING AN END TO OBAMACARE AND ITS REPLACEMENT WITH PRO-LIFE, FREE-MARKET HEALTH-CARE REFORM. THEY EXPECT COMMITMENTS TO THIS EFFECT FROM THEIR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES."

Land:

"There is a deep longing in large segments of the American populace for a restoration of a morality that emphasizes personal obligations and responsibilities over rights and privileges. SUCH A SOCIETY WILL HAVE A RESTORED MORAL SYMMETRY IN WHICH EXEMPLARY PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOR IS REWARDED AND LESS EXEMPLARY BEHAVIOR IS NOT. As Jesus reminded us, 'Man shall not live on bread alone.'"

Source: Richard Land in "Americans Don't Want a 'Truce' on Social Issues" in the Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2011.

Just how Richard Land's vision of rewards and punishments in pursuit of "restored moral symmetry" is not lined out, leaving the inquiring wondering as to how such events will be meted out. Is this the rightful role of government, as envisioned by Dr. Land?

2.) James Dobson, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council: Equating stem cell researchers with Nazi criminals:

""In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind." "...And you remove ethics and morality, and you get what happened in Nazi Germany." "

Dobson: Called Senator Patrick Lehy an "enemy of God's people" for the senator's Far Right opposing stance on appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. How close is that to being an "enemy of God?" We all know what is allowed to happen to the "enemies of God", do we not?

Dick Armey on Dobson's intrusion into government: Former House Majority Leader Armey declared:

"The criteria of choice in just about every behavior you see in Congress today is politics. Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? There's not a conservative, Constitution-loving, separation-of-powers guy alive in the world that could have wanted that bill on the floor. That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson. That's all that was. It was silly, stupid, and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. BUT THE QUESTION WAS WILL THIS ENERGIZE OUR CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE BASE FOR THE NEXT ELECTION."

Armey added:

"To a large extent because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There's a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn't work unless it's dumb, shallowas water on a plate. These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic. These issues become bigger than life, largely because they're easy. There ain't no thinking."
(emphasis added)

3.) Don Wildmon, the former chairman of the American Family Association: Interview with Rev. Donald E. Wildmo on what is the evidence of anti-Christian attitudes by the networks?

Rev Wildmon:

"I could probably count on one hand, or certainly two hands, the number of programs in which a Christian depicted in a modern-day setting is shown in a positive manner. They're usually depicted as con men, rip-off artists, adulterers, murderers, rapists, thieves, liars. A person who is wearing a cross, carrying a Bible or standing behind a pulpit is usually mentally deranged, at best incompetent."

Source: Time article "Bringing Satan To Heel."

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Time is Running Out for the Religious Right to Make an Impactful Endorsement
From the Washtington Post:

"The tension is exacerbated by the deep divisions between two key GOP wings: tea party groups yearning for a pure small-government conservative, and evangelical Christians who want a loyal social conservative.

"In one sign of their desperation, some activists are holding out for what they acknowledge is a spectacular long shot: a late-entering savior who could still qualify for enough state ballots and win enough delegates to force a brokered GOP convention this summer.

"THE ROMNEY CONUNDRUM WILL BE ON THE AGENDA FRIDAY WHEN ABOUT 150 EVANGELICAL LEADERS HUDDLE AT A TEXAS RANCH TO DEBATE THEIR NEXT MOVE. Likewise, the subject of consolidating conservative opposition to the former Massachusetts governor is expected to be a major point of discussion among about 500 attendees at a tea party convention set for this weekend in Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the list of speakers includes two Romney rivals seeking the conservative mantle, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

"'We're aware that the vote is being split and how dangerous that is,' said Joe Dugan, a Gingrich supporter who is chairman of the Myrtle Beach Tea Party and coordinator of the convention.

"'We're trying to encourage coalescing around one candidate,' Dugan added. 'But tea party people are very independent-minded.'" 

(emphasis added)

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Playing Religious Right's Endorsement "Final Hand"/Game Plan Coming Out of Texas
The upshot, the long range game plan: Facilitate keeping as many challengers to Mitt Romney in the chase. Purpose: Keep Romney short of the desired/required number of delegates needed for the nomination and then, at the GOP National Convention at Tampa, draft former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as the Far Right Religionists' "hands-laid-on" candidate.


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A Preface to the Religious Right’s Revelation of Their ‘Righteous’ Royal Flush - GOP Endorsement

Where it all started: The Coalition formed by George Benson et al, Creating the New Religious Right
Though much has been penned about the American Religio-Political-Conservatism too little has been laid out about George Benson and his seminal work in pulling together Conservative Christian Values and Free Enterprise Economics.

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In 1964 semi-retired Ronald Reagan delivered a zinger of a speech for Barry Goldwater. That speech put Reagan on a path to 'sainthood' become the hero of the "stricken" Christian Conservatives of the American South. They were to find a new "media savvy" front man in Reagan - who became the "savior of conservative ideology" on into the 1980's.

The sudden shift of the Religious-Conservatives away from Jimmy Carter, who was too soft on race for the newly emerging Republicrats, created a giant opening for Ronald Reagan; he was to fill the gap and beyond for the South crushed and angry over the Civil Rights advances under Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson. This turning was the handiwork of Ronald Reagan, who found a way to substitute himself into national Republican politics and take advantage of the beginnings of the New Religious Right, the coalition that would propel Reagan into the presidency and mount what was then called THE REAGAN REVOLUTION - a spin off of the CULT OF REAGAN.

President Jimmy Carter, an active, genuine Southern Baptist "bornagainer," had activated the hope amongst religious conservatives and Old South diehards that there would be a "revival" of morality in the presidency following the moral debacle of the Richard Nixon Watergate and its cover-up disaster and resignation.

However, Carter failed to deliver on a long list of items of great interest and importance to the "New Religious Right." Carter quickly lost favor. The reaction of Fundamentalist on the ascendency in the Southern Baptist Convention and other aggressive politicos seeing real advantage in the 180 turn the south had taken following the Voting Rights and forced integration edits of the Federal government were aroused to a "white" heat. Nothing since the uptick of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920's could produce such a rapid and indelible political "loyalty reversal" as first against Lyndon Johnson, and then the final slippage coming under Jimmy Carter.

It was the residue and angst of Carter that helped gin up the social conservatives and the old Dixicrats now coming on board with support for the smooth talking radical, Ronald Reagan. Reagan did not fail. One giant and profound signal was sent immediately following the 1980 convention when Ronald Reagan went to the selfsame county in Mississippi where civil rights workers were notoriously murdered and made his carefully crafted states' rights statement (part of a insidious Southern Strategy begun under Dick Nixon). The switch-over was "set" with that event. The Dixicrats had found their new man!

Resentment festered around the fact that Carter did not strongly attack the critical problems facing the South such as establishing "segregation academies" and other "moral" issues facing the nation and especially the South. This angst "helped to break down the long-standing feeling among Evangelicals that electoral politics was not the proper realm for Christian activity." Prior to this time, scripture shibboleths were etched on the minds of the faithful: a.) "Avoid the very appearance of evil (politics)." b.) "Do not be unequally joined together with unbelievers." These biblical admonitions were enough to keep "real Christians" out of politics and partisanship.

Carter had failed to stack his administration and the federal system with enough evangelicals and Fundamentalists, Carter did not actively make a move to overturn Roe V. Wade, he did not stand sufficiently in the way of forced busing for the purposes of integration. Advocates for church academies were hell bent to receive tax exemption for church schools which sufficed as the neo-segregation academies. Jimmy Carter appeared unable or unwilling to stop the spread of "secular humanism" seen as running rife in the public schools and the nation.

The capstone seen as the key to moral disaster ignored the up-whelming cry to reinstate prayer in public schools.

---------

Concurrently, at one critical interval, three secular New Right operatives/strategists began a bold crusade. They were: 1.) Howard Phillips 2.) Richard Viguerie 3. Paul Weyrich. They named their non-denominational creation, "THE MORAL MAJORITY" a clever all-inclusive coalition that quickly became the hub of radical political actions.

An assemblage of notable religious right captions and generals included: 1.) D. James Kennedy 2.) Jerry Falwell 3.) "Pat" Robertson 4.) Ed McAteer 5.) James Robison

At a precisely opportune moment during the August 1980 Presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, speaking to a large gathering of like-minded religious far righters (over 15K), spoke these words:

"When I hear the First Amendment used as a reason to keep traditional moral values away from policy making, I am shocked...The First Amendment was written not to protect the people and their laws from religious values, but to protect those values from governmental tyranny." Reagan deserves credit for choosing a speech writer who could strike this once lost, then found, lost cord with the values voters gathered. And to cap off his remarks, Reagan added "I want you to know I endorse you and what you are doing." 

That was that, Reagan became their man of the hour, he went on with abundant help from the religio-political-economic Right to win the presidency. And as they say, "The rest is history."

George Benson, The Gipper's Far Right Mentor and Divine
For years in the unseen background, the little-known George Benson was building his National Education Program. He was there prior to 1980, with the Gipper, helping to present and hone a specific work, THE TRUTH ABOUT COMMUNISM, a film where Reagan and Benson had cooperated. Benson's lifelong cause was to be wed to that of the new leader, Ronald Reagan. As a later newspaper editorial put it:

"GEORGE BENSON WAS A MEMBER OF THE MORAL MAJORITY YEARS BEFORE THERE WAS ONE. In an era when most Fundamentalist clergymen would as soon be seen hoisting a highball with the local madam as become involved in something as worldly and tawdry as politics, Benson was laying the foundation for what become known as the Religious Right." 

(emphasis added)

Source: Mike Trimble Arkansas Times, July 1986.



And so "the Vote Values show" hits the road again this weekend. It's latest attempt to hornswoggle the nation, via the GOP and the U.S. Presidency, marches out of the minds of a crafty and deceitful group of religious leaders - still besmirched with the vetting and endorsement of the preemptive warmongering George W. Bush on their hands.


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How very peculiar - TeaPublicans hiding behind the shadow of FDR on collective bargaining for Public Employee Unions!

Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the rights of Federal Employees to collectively bargain versus the TeaPublican insidious lie; another case of the truth cleverly reshaped: "FDR opposed Public Employee Unions."

FDR definitively supported the advent of public employee unions, however FDR DID NOT SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO STRIKE FOR FEDERAL EMPOLYEES, which is a separate matter and distinction. To use FDR to support the usurpation of collective bargaining by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is in bold error; a purposeful dissimulation of the actual facts.

FDR's Support for Public Employee Unions:

"Reading your letter (Mr. Steward, Federation of Federal Employees) of July 14, 1937, I (FDR) was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades 'has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships.' Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs.

"The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. ORGANIZATION ON THEIR PART TO PRESENT THEIR VIEWS ON SUCH MATTERS IS BOTH NATURAL AND LOGICAL, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government."

(Break)

"I (FDR) congratulate the National Federation of Federal Employees (on) the twentieth anniversary of its founding and trust that the convention will, in every way, be successful."

(emphasis added)

Who were the National Federation of Federal Employees?

A union representing federal employees since 1917:

"NFFE was officially created at a labor convention in Washington, D.C. on September 17, 1917. It formed as an affiliate of the AFL and was at the time the federal employees union, representing several trades and industries. NFFE and other unions were able to form after 1912, when Congress passed the Lloyd-Lafollette Act to overturn Theodore Roosevelt's previous executive order. Roosevelt's mandate, frequently referred to as the 'gag rule' had previously prevented unionized activity."

Teddy Roosevelt "Gag Rule" Removed by Congress

To wit:

"Congress passed the Lloyd-La Follette Act (§6, 37 Stat. 555, 5 U.S.C. § 7511) on August 24, 1912, declaring that 'the right of persons employed in the civil service of the United States, either individually or collectively, to petition Congress or any member thereof or to furnish information to either House of Congress or to any committee thereof, shall not be denied or interfered with.'

"The Lloyd-La Follette Act provided a significant impetus to the formation federal employees' unions. In 1916, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) acted to bring the various local unions together to form a single national union. The National Federation of Federal Employees was founded in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 1917. In 1918, it became the first labor union to win the legal right to represent federal workers."

Source: Wikipedia on National Federation of Federal Employees

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Hard work will set you free! Or...

We can never have too many inspiring people like all of you. Multi-taskers at work on many projects in many places: home, family, office, church, neighborhood, school, clubs.

(Honors bestowed here today indicate) that you are intelligent or that you are hard-working; maybe that you are both.

What do intelligence and hard work have to do with this? Well, to tell the truth, I am not really sure about intelligence. All of those IQ studies we hear about seem to come to one conclusion: none of us really have much to do with our IQ. Even if we know what intelligence is, and even if we know how to measure it accurately, our intelligence is, according to these studies, not our own doing. Whose doing is it?

Here are eight possibilities:

• Our parents and their genes; and, above all, their refusal to let us watch TV for 10 hours a day; let's give that 20 points on the IQ scale.
• Our brothers and sisters, who argued with us about everything including the TV remote-another 20 points for winning the argument and 10 for crushing the remote.
• Our kindergarten teachers, who made us cooperate with kids we couldn't stand-40 points for learning to get along with others.
• Our high school chemistry teachers, who taught us the recipe for concocting that rotten egg smell (hydrogen sulfide). Ten points for nothing, really, unless you're a chemistry major.
• Then there's the daily two-hour commute or subway ride, which provides time for reading, thinking, i-Podding, and snoozing-20 points. But no text messaging or cell phones; that's minus 30 points and a ticket.
• The multi-vitamin you take every day, 10 points.
• - The fourth cup of coffee you have every morning that tightens your synapses for clearer thinking, 20 points.
• Watching The Daily Show with John Stewart to keep up with the news-30 points, or not watching The Daily Show-40 points.

When you add up the points, you see that all of us are like the kids in Lake Wobegon-a little above average, but not something we've achieved all by ourselves.

But there is one thing we do achieve by ourselves; there's one thing scientific reports can't take away from us: THAT'S HARD WORK-WORK THAT WE HAVE TO DO ON OUR OWN. AND IF YOUR LIFE IS ANYTHING LIKE MINE WAS WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE, THAT MEANS THERE'S A LOT OF HARD WORK, SOMETIMES MORE THAN WE CAN HANDLE. YET SOMEHOW, SOMEHOW IT GETS DONE.

Hard work-not just the idea-but actually doing it requires a form of moral excellence. WE PRACTICE THAT MORAL EXCELLENCE THROUGH VIRTUES THAT GUIDE US AND SUSTAIN US WHEN WE ARE CONSUMED BY HARD WORK-SO MUCH SO THAT WE CAN HARDLY THINK ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING, ONLY THAT WE HAVE THE STAMINA TO DO IT.

Three Virtues That Guide & Sustain 'Hard Work'

Virtue Number One: Patience, my American Heritage Dictionary defines it as: bearing or enduring difficulty with calmness; persevering; being constant; capable of calmly awaiting an outcome or result.

How are we patient? Just sitting requires patience and enduring the complexities of calculating a cost-benefit analysis for an economics class; or persevering through the difficulty of gathering our thoughts for a 10-page paper describing the impact of Trieste on the writings of James Joyce; or getting through, as I am trying to do, the 800 pages of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, and not just reading, but trying to really, really understand what he is talking about (and I'm not getting a grade at the end).

You are constant in showing up for classes, for turning work in on time, and working with other students on joint projects. That is hard work. We cannot do this (and everything else) without patience.

Virtue Number Two: Then, there is courage. Courage is a quality of mind and spirit that enables us to face vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence and resolution (American Heritage Dictionary). Courage is not simply a virtue for the battlefield or for undergoing surgery or for saving a child from a burning building. Courage underlies the everyday willingness to look at a to-do list with self-possession rather than panic, with confidence rather than doubt, with resolution rather than faint-heartedness. The word courage comes from the Latin word for heart. That gives a clue to how it works: courage is the virtue that allows us to throw ourselves with our whole heart into the tasks at hand. Courage helps us to fix on our goal and pursue it until we have achieved it.

Virtue Number Three: Finally, there is hope; it is a virtue with attitude, an attitude of confident expectation (American Heritage Dictionary), that we will achieve what we have patiently and courageously set out to do...we all join with you in hope, in confident expectation that with hard work, patience, and courage you will achieve what you have set out to do and that what you have set out to do is worthy of all your efforts.

Source: Thoughts by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, Co-Director, Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, excerpted from keynote remarks given at the Alpha Sigma Lambda Honor Society reception and induction ceremony at Fordham University.

Hard work is the key to success.
How much of the above laud and praise to 'hard work' really works? Is the fruit of 'hard work' available to the average school child born into the world of urban Detroit? A place where there are no 'real jobs', little opportunity, little or no optimism? How much of the above is available to a Latino youth hoeing a field of tomatoes-'hard work will set you free?' Or is successful outcome from a more direct route...that other route to fortune and success? Having a rich father and the momentum of class, social approval, a fraternity or sorority membership, a partnership in a hedge fund, a father who was an automotive giant or the founder of a MLM firm. Face up to it: these things will go much farther than "simple hard work."

Hard Work as a Means to an End?
It all comes down to access and politics. How does one gain access? How important is that access and the power of law contained in the momentum of politics and policy making?

"As long as the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting to gain access to the legislature as well as fighting within it."
-- Frederic Bastiat

Or as an anonymous blogger has stated:

"The virtue of hard work went out the door when the profits from increased productivity went to the stockholders before the workers. Thank you. Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution."

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