American flags had been hung from the white colonial houses that line the main drag of tiny Warren, Vermont, and the color guard, the marching units and the floats that would participate in the community’s fifty-seventh annual Fourth of July parade had lined up just beyond the covered bridge. At the appointed hour, the local fife and drum corps played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” an ancient cannon was fired and the parade stepped off–fire trucks sounding their sirens and children in bib overalls dancing with hoes. In the thick of it, behind the World War II jeep and ahead of the Rotarians, was a white-haired, 63-year-old native New Yorker who is the most prominent democratic socialist in America. Dressed in khaki pants and a button-down shirt, Bernie Sanders, now in his eighth term in Congress, marched without a cadre of aides handing out literature, without any signs to draw attention his way, without so much as a campaign pin or a bumper sticker identifying him as a candidate for the state’s open Senate seat in 2006. The “minority of one” member of Congress who sits in the House as neither a Democrat nor a Republican did not require any introduction. As he came into view, waving his arm and calling out hellos, spontaneous and sustained applause erupted from Vermonters, who shouted, “Give ’em hell, Bernie!” and, again and again, “Senator Sanders!”
“It’s mind-boggling how popular Bernie is. And it’s not just progressives. People who tell you they have no interest in politics, who tell you they don’t trust any politicians, are the ones who love Bernie the most,” says Margrete Strand, who several years ago watched Sanders up close while she was running a campaign for a Democratic Senate candidate who lost (Sanders won his House seat by a landslide). Polls consistently identify Sanders as the most popular politician in the state, and election results confirm the survey research: He was re-elected in 2004 with more than two-thirds of the vote against a well-funded Republican challenger, sweeping not just his traditional base in Burlington but the vast majority of the state’s 251 rural towns. Now, with the decision of Republican-turned-independent Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords to step down, Sanders is the clear front-runner to win one of the few US Senate seats next year where no incumbent is running. True, he will still have to deal with the multimillion-dollar GOP attack campaign that is certain to target him, but with top Republicans backing away from the race, Democrats getting in line behind his candidacy–sometimes grudgingly, sometimes not–and polls showing him running 2 to 1 ahead of likely foes, he seems well positioned to make those calls of “Senator Sanders” official.
Even if he were not a socialist, and even if he were not an independent who eschews most of the trappings of contemporary partisan politics–including those of a Democratic Party he sees as dramatically too centrist, too cautious and too unfocused to counter the country’s drift to the right–the enthusiasm Sanders inspires would be remarkable. That he attracts the support he does with what are generally portrayed as career-crushing liabilities in American politics has made his Senate campaign the subject of a good deal of fascination among progressives looking for a successful model in an era when too many Democrats seem to think the only way to win is by trimming their sails. When the question of the moment is, What’s the matter with Kansas? it’s no surprise that Democrats want to know how Sanders wins tough races in an overwhelmingly rural state by drawing the enthusiastic support of precisely the sort of white working-class voters Democrats have had such a hard time hanging on to in recent elections.
Unfortunately, Sanders is not peddling easy fixes. What he has to teach is not a new scheme for organizing a campaign or raising money. There’s no Bernie Sanders gimmick. Rather, Sanders offers confirmation of a fundamental reality that too many progressive pols have forgotten: An ideologically muscular message delivered in a manner that crosses lines of class, region and partisanship is still the best strategy. “Bernie earned people’s trust over a long period of time by taking strong stands and sticking to them,” says Peter Freyne, a columnist for Burlington’s weekly newspaper, Seven Days. “There’s a connection between what the politician says and what the politician does. And it’s always there. The consistency of where he’s coming from and who he’s looking out for has been there since I started covering him in 1981.”
There is nothing cautious about Sanders’s politics: He opposes the war in Iraq, he is an outspoken critic of the Patriot Act, he condemns corporations and he maintains a lonely faith that government really can do a lot of things–like guarantee healthcare for all–better than the private sector. Nor is there anything smooth or prepackaged or focus-group tested about the way he communicates. After almost thirty-five years of close to constant campaigning, first as the gadfly candidate of the left-wing Liberty Union Party for senator and governor in the 1970s, then as the radical mayor of “The People’s Republic of Burlington” in the 1980s and, since 1990, as the only independent in modern history to repeatedly win a US House seat, Sanders has forged relationships with generations of Vermont voters, many of whom echo the sentiments of Warren attorney Mark Grosby, who says, “I used to be a diehard Republican. Now, I’m a diehard for Bernie.”
And, invariably, the connection was forged in a conversation about economics. To a greater extent, arguably, than any other progressive politician in the country, Sanders is identified with pocketbook issues. Spending a day with him in the small towns of Vermont is the equivalent of signing up for a walking seminar on the real-life struggles of working Americans–as played out on issues ranging from protecting Social Security, retirement plans and Medicare to expanding access to healthcare, lowering drug prices, raising the minimum wage, helping small businesses get started and keeping family farmers on the land. The conversations are a mix of personal anecdotes and broad-sweep policies, always pulled back by the Congressman to a discussion of the perils of corporate power and lobbying. To be sure, Sanders takes questions about the war in Iraq and other issues, but the breadth and depth of the discussions he gets into regarding the kitchen-table concerns of working Vermonters is remarkable.
At a picnic on the village green in Rochester, a central Vermont community of 1,200, 84-year-old Ethel Kingsbury, whose family has owned the same farm since 1794, responds to a question about whether she likes Sanders by narrowing her eyes and exclaiming, “Like him? I love him! I’m worried about these prescription prices. This drug bit is just out of control. Bernie’s the only one on our side in this whole mess.” That sense that “Bernie’s on our side” on the economic issues has provided the Congressman with a following even among Vermonters not so comfortable with his opposition to the war or his ardent support of reproductive freedom and gay rights.
“Democrats are not as engaged as they should be on the economic issues that face tens and tens of millions of people,” says Sanders. “That’s what the Republicans have been playing off. The Republicans jump in and say, ‘OK, look. Democrats are not talking about your economic issues. We’re not either, but at least we’re telling you about the Ten Commandments, we’re telling you about abortion, we’re telling you about gay rights.’ The biggest mistake Democrats make is to take economics off the table.”
Sanders keeps issues of economics and corporate power on the table by using his Congressional franking privileges to send out newsletters that, rather than featuring self-serving photos and pronouncements, offer easily accessible tutorials on the damage done to workers, farmers and the environment by free-trade policies, the threat to democracy posed by media consolidation and the workings of a single-payer healthcare system. Every year, Sanders holds single-issue town hall meetings in some of the smallest communities in the state, where he brings in experts on poverty, healthcare reform and other issues for discussions that can run deep into the evening. The crowds are big, often packing the halls. People get to complain. But they also get something else–an alternative view on how the economy of the country and the world might be organized to favor their interests. This long-term, intensive education process is the closest thing to the “secret” of Sanders’s success. Vermonters associate their Congressman with serious discussions about complicated issues, and they understand where he’s coming from–and that allows Sanders to go places most politicians fear to tread.
Indeed, it is when Sanders edges toward the middle that he feels the most heat. When Sanders backed President Clinton’s decision to order the bombing of the former Yugoslavia, antiwar activists occupied the Congressman’s Burlington office, and one of his aides resigned. Most of those tensions died down a few years later, when Sanders emerged as one of the House’s most outspoken critics of the Bush Administration’s rush to war in Iraq. But there is still some complaining on this score from his old Liberty Union Party allies, just as some social liberals quietly grumble that Sanders maintains too rigid a focus on economic issues. “Sometimes, Bernie’s biggest critics are on the left,” explains Liz Blum, an activist with the Vermont Progressive Party and a former member of the Select Board of the town of Norwich. “Some people are uncomfortable when they see a yard where there are signs for the Republicans and for Bernie, but I see that as evidence that he has figured out how to talk to people that the Democrats just have not been able to reach.”
At his best, Sanders succeeds in separating policy from politics and getting to those deeper discussions about the role government can and should play in solving real-life problems– discussions that are usually obscured by partisan maneuvering. That’s the genius of Sanders’s independent status. But it is also a source of frustration. While Sanders backers formed the Vermont Progressive Party, a third-party grouping that holds six seats in the State Legislature, he has never joined the party and has sometimes been slow to embrace its statewide campaigns. While the sense that Sanders is a genuinely free agent serves him well, it raises questions about whether Sanders will ever create not just an alternative candidacy but an alternative politics in his state. “He will not leave a party behind him. So what will be his legacy?” asks Freyne of Seven Days. “I don’t see a next Bernie on the horizon. I don’t see what comes after him. There’s a lot wrapped up in one man, and I don’t know where that gets you in the long run.”
But Sanders makes no apologies for refusing to be a party man. Yes, of course, he’d like the Democratic Party to be more progressive and for third parties to develop the capacity to pull the political process to the left. But Sanders is not going to wait for the right political moment to arrive. What he’s done is create a model for how an individual candidate can push beyond the narrow boundaries of contemporary politics and connect with voters in the same sense that Progressives and Populists of a century ago–operating within the shells of the Democratic and Republican parties and sometimes outside them–did so successfully.
This willingness to play with whatever political cards he is dealt has made Sanders an unexpectedly effective Congressman. In June he successfully forged a left-right coalition in the House to deal the Bush Administration a significant setback–attaching an amendment to a Justice Department appropriations bill that zeroed out funding for the use of the Patriot Act to spy on library and bookstore records. The vote, which saw most Democrats and dozens of conservative Republicans break with the White House, inspired a rare threat by George W. Bush to veto the entire appropriations bill. A few weeks later, when the House voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, rules committee Republicans blocked a Sanders amendment on the issue from coming to a vote–knowing that it would pass–but a bipartisan group of senators may yet attach it to the act.
It is not only on civil liberties that Sanders is a master at forging unlikely coalitions. Right-wingers like North Carolina Republican Walter Jones are regular Sanders allies on issues as diverse as trade policy, foreign investment and, recently, setting a timetable for getting US troops out of Iraq. “I suppose some people think it’s strange that I work so well with a liberal,” Jones said on a recent afternoon, wrapping his arm around Sanders’s shoulders as the two men shared a seat on the underground train that connects the Rayburn Office Building with the Capitol. (Informed that Sanders identifies himself as a “socialist,” Jones smiled. “I know. I was trying to be polite.”) “You can disagree with someone 98 percent of the time, but if you can find the 2 percent where you agree and get together, that’s what matters,” Jones explained. “Bernie understands that better than some of the Democrats do.”
I love this guy. I predict he wins the Senate seat with no problem. We need more politicians like Bernie Sanders.
Ahh socialists, the true democrats…
In the thick of it, behind the World War II jeep and ahead of the Rotarians, was a white-haired, 63-year-old native New Yorker who is the most prominent democratic socialist in America. Dressed in khaki pants and a button-down shirt, Bernie Sanders, now in his eighth term in Congress,
Are you sure this isn’t Fidel Castro? Sounds like a dead ringer for the Cuban Dictator.
Sounds like he has a lock on the seat but will be largely ineffective. Too old, too few contacts and completely out of touch with mainstream America. Socialism is going to fall the way of communism for economic reasons (unless the rapture happens or some other cataclysmic, extintion level event happens) so I’m not too worried.
When the DNC falls I am going to have a tough time deciding between the Republicans and the Libertarians because I am about 7/16 of each and only 1/8 liberal. I just can’t stand how poorly Democrats treat minorities.
Again with the moderation!!!!
When it comes to pocket book issues the guy sounds more conservative than George Bush, when it comes to milatary issues the guy sounds more conservative than George Bush, when it comes to privacy issues the guy sounds more conservative than Geaorge Bush, when it comes to big government handouts to insurance companies the guy is more conservative than George Bush.
Bush really is not so much a conservative as the business party candidate, and that is the problem.
On the moderation issue….eh, technology…..BOOGEDY BOOGEDY BOOGEDY
I watered the computer and it appears to be working correctly now…it just needed a drink. Sometimes with this extreme summer heat it’s easy to forget that your PC can become dehydrated quite easily. After the story of all those boy scouts having to go to the hospital, I should have been on top of this.
…I have no idea why those two were hung up. I don’t get it at all…but the lab is working overtime to figure it out, and I’ve deprived them of food until I get some answers!
Sorry Right, Michael – – – – getting to the bottom of this. I may have to adjust the ‘liberal media’ function…
What is up with the boyscouts? Theo ne who got lost and hid from searchers, the one who drowned while playing near a swollen river, the guys who electrocuted themselves and the 300 or so who forgot to take a drink. Maybe the boyscouts should spend less time on homophobia and more time on outdoor survival skills.
I know I will probably burn in hell for this post.
I think your Concerv-O-Meter is set too sensitive. It’s going off at the drop of a hat.
Word – – – If it was a coalition of kids from fat camps who ended up dehydrated and in the hospital…that would make sence. But these are BOY SCOUTS!!! The kids who study up on survival techniques and earn badges for their uniforms…
The leaders who decided the kids could stay out in the sun for that long without water need to turn in their shorts!
Right – do you remember which one was held up specifically? I think it was becuase a flagged word was in it, but I have to check it against the list…before they were getting held up because there were too many links, but I upped the limit to five…so all I can think of is that a flagged word was used in the comment.
But my guess is it’s a bug, because one of Michael’s comments got sent there too, and the odds of two comments being flagged at the same time are slim.
Maybe the boyscouts should spend less time on homophobia and more time on outdoor survival skills.
I never did understand the need to force gay sex on children and then punish the organization for not going along. Apparantly sex with boys is bad when it’s a church official but ok with a boyscout, what’s the deal?
How about a blanket policy of no sex with children where ever or who ever you are?
RT:
Thier are numerous laws against sex with children, unless you live in Utah.
The boyscouts really should ban sex with children instead of discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
The boyscouts also ban atheists, which leads me to beleive that the reason that the quality of boyscout instruction has gone down is that they are spending to much time on religion and not enough time on outdoor survival skill.
Kind of reminds me of the air farse academy, they seem to be spending a lot of time on religious instruction and not enough time on flying. Evangilicals are like a cancer that takes over good and useful orginizations and turns them into assembly lines for brain-dead religous fanatics.
Right, you weren’t an eagle scout or anything were you?
The boyscouts really should ban sex with children instead of discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
They are children, gay sex, any sex for that matter, shouldn’t even be an issue. There is no excuse for forcing sexual isues on children.
The boyscouts also ban atheists, which leads me to beleive that the reason that the quality of boyscout instruction has gone down is that they are spending to much time on religion and not enough time on outdoor survival skill.
It’s difficult to lead a moral life without any morals and the boyscouts is more than starting fires and camping. It’a about leading a life or morality, citizenship and leadership. There is no mention of gay sex or lesbian sex or bestiality or hetero sex or masturbation at all in the boyscout codes so I don’t see why were forcing it on them now after all these years.
They kick the boyscouts off of miltary bases who also happens to not be everly joyous about gay sex themselves.
Right, you weren’t an eagle scout or anything were you?
No, I grew up on Nintendo. No gay themes there either….well, there were those Mario Brothers….
RT:
I saw an add for a video game called the parkers, looked very disturbing.
The boyscouts should be asexual and areligous. First it is wrong to force sexual issues on children, most these kids are what, 9 ten years old? They may still think girls have cooties but the boyscouts ban these kids.
Second, you don’t need religion to have morals, in fact if the only reason you are doing the “right thing” is because you are afraid of the big fairy in the sky, then you really are not morall at all.
The boyscouts should spend more telling people not to pitch tents under power lines, and to stay away from swollen streams and less time worrying about what 10 year olds think about the opposite sex.
Although maybe they could create a merit badge for bagging your first fat chick.
I saw an add for a video game called the parkers, looked very disturbing.
Haven’t heard of it, what’s the premise?
The boyscouts should be asexual and areligous.
What do you have against freedom of religion? Kinda tough since it is the first ammendment.
They may still think girls have cooties but the boyscouts ban these kids.
That’s why they call it the boyscouts, it’s for boys. Girlscouts are for girls. I don’t see the problem.
and less time worrying about what 10 year olds think about the opposite sex.
This is actually what the ACLU and gay activists need to do, stop forceing sexual issues on kids who just want to camp and swim. What does homosexuality have to do with building a campfire or canoeing? I can’t think of a time where appreciating the sexual relationship between two men got me out of a precarious situation.
Maybe the ACLU should start protecting people’s civil liberties instead of forcing minority views on them.
Although maybe they could create a merit badge for bagging your first fat chick.
Would this be under community service or physical fitness such as weight lifting?
DI: Second, you don’t need religion to have morals, in fact if the only reason you are doing the “right thing” is because you are afraid of the big fairy in the sky, then you really are not morall at all.
Religion, no, but something to model your morals after, yes, you need that. You don’t do the “right thing” out of fear, you do it out of joy. You do it because you found the way to live a rewarding life and detest immorality. Whether you believe in karma, Jesus, or Buddha, doing the right thing isn’t ever about fear, its about joy.
dang it, that was a Karl post that time
Micheal:
Religion corrupts morality, for example, if you see someone who has broken down on the side of the road and you offer to help them, you are doing the right thing. If it makes you feel good to do that, great. If you stop to help because you think it earns you points with the giant sky fairy then you really are not a great person you are just an opportunist.
RT:
The boyscouts are the ones excluding homosexuals and forcing children to choose. If you want to join the boyscouts you have to say that you are hetrosexual and believe in god. Thses are things that most kids probably don’t understand and just go along with so that they can go to scout jamboree and suffer heat stroke.
I agree with you that the scouts have a right to exclude whomever they want, it is a private club, my point is that their fixation on sex and religion has weakened the orginization; just like it is weakening the milatary.
BTW Micheal:
If a post is punctuated correctly it is probably not me.
dang it, that was a Karl post that time
He’s a sneaky one, that Karl.
The boyscouts are the ones excluding homosexuals and forcing children to choose.
It’s only a choice if you have options and the ACLU/activists are forcing options on the children and it’s despicable. How do you explain the decades of boyscout history where there was no problems until the ACLU forced the issue?
No, activists are forcing the gay lifestyle on children who all they want to do is camp and swim and do fun kid things. Gay sex isn’t a fun kid thing.
If you want to join the boyscouts you have to say that you are hetrosexual and believe in god.
So what, if I join the Chamber of Commerce I have to believe that business is the backbone of america and taxes are bad. If I follow Islam I have to believe that killing indescriminatelyh in the name of Allah will get me 72 virgins. If I join the military I have to serve my country even itf it costs me my life. If your for homosexuality and don’t believe in God then don’t join the boyscouts.
Thses are things that most kids probably don’t understand and just go along with so that they can go to scout jamboree and suffer heat stroke.
It is passing the culture onto the next generation. I’d like my kid to go to the college I went to but if it isn’t in the cards then so be it. But, while my child is minor I will direct their lives how I see fit, it’s my right as a parent. When they grow up they can follow their own belief system.
my point is that their fixation on sex and religion has weakened the orginization;
Again, they had a system for decades, it’s the activists and ACLU that is trying to destroy the boyscouts.
just like it is weakening the milatary.
The military is just fine without openly gay sex in the barracks. Again, the issue was brought up by others, in the military’s mind the issue was settled back in 1780-something.
For all the noise the right makes about the ACLU – when Rush Limbaugh needed an advocate, they were there for him. We might not agree with every stance they take, but the fact that there is an organization out there ensuring the Constitution is upheld is a good thing.
This is one case where I wish the ACLU wouldn’t make a beef, but that’s what they’re there for. The boy scout thing is a 14th ammendment issue. Now, with the Catholic Church sex scandal…I read the Boston Globe book (as much as I could stomach) documenting the reporting from the start, and it’s clear that a good number of those priests were homosexuals who were repressing their sexual desires. The bottling up of these kinds of feelings can come out in disasterous ways.
Have any of you ever seen ‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar’? An old movie with Diane Keaton…that one has stuck in my head, but I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I’ve got twin boys now, and they’re never spending a night out in the woods with anyone but me. Knowing the Boy Scouts exclude gays does’t make a difference to me, they’re not doing that even without the gays…but for the kids that aren’t mine, I’d feel better if the scout leaders weren’t in the midst of an internal struggle about their sexuality.
The heterosexual or homosexual man who knows 100% who he is and is comfortable in his own skin is the ideal candidate for scout leader…in a perfect world. The Michael Jackson thing, church scandal, scout sex of the past…just don’t let your kids spend the night with men you don’t know well enough. Or in my case…no men at all but this one right here!
I agree with this. If my kids have friends heading out into the woods with men I don’t know and want to go too – I’m going to defer to my own better judgement on that score. IF they were to be molested by a strange man in the woods, their mental stability for life could be tragically altered in a negative way.
There are 18 year old kids who enlist…so I’d have to assume that a lot of them don’t even know they’re gay until they get there. Not sure what this has to do with this…but Sam is crying and I’ve got to post this as is.
You know who you are: Religion corrupts morality, for example, if you see someone who has broken down on the side of the road and you offer to help them, you are doing the right thing.
Religion doesn’t corrupt anything, people do. Religion isn’t a stain on spirituality unless you make it such. You can be perfectly moral, in your religion or outside of it. Thats why I said: Religion, no, but something to model your morals after, yes, you need that.
In response to:
Karl: Second, you don’t need religion to have morals, in fact if the only reason you are doing the “right thing” is because you are afraid of the big fairy in the sky, then you really are not morall at all.
In order to be morally grounded, as I like to say, you must have something firm to be grounded too. It has to be a solid “foundation” or model, to hold you accountable for you moral imperfections. Its not about earning points. Its about struggling to be as close to your moral model as possible, while realizing you aren’t going to become perfect.
Religion as a catalyst for personal improvement is not the problem with it’s role in the world – – – it’s when religion is used to force other people’s ideas on others, that’s when it’s used on the wrong way. In the Middle East, leaders allow Islam to dictate public law. In America, evangelicals raise tons of money to influence the political system. That’s where religion goes wrong.
I have no problem with people voting for candidates who agree with their points of view, but with religion being used as a catalyst, the effect it has on those of us who do not believe is extremely negative.
DI: In the Middle East, leaders allow Islam to dictate public law. In America, evangelicals raise tons of money to influence the political system. That’s where religion goes wrong.
In the case of Islam dictating public law, is the result of the dictatorships and theocracies in those countries, and is hardly comparable the the democratic influence utilized by the ‘evangelicals’ in the U.S. So…by that reasoning religion goes wrong by being involved in politics, does that mean unions are wrong for being involved in politics, what about the NRA, NARAL, PETA or any other number of groups who wish to have their view considered and if accepted by the majority inacted? You may want religion out of politics, you may really hope it stays out, but it, like all other ‘special interestes’ isn’t going to disappear.
DI:I have no problem with people voting for candidates who agree with their points of view, but with religion being used as a catalyst, the effect it has on those of us who do not believe is extremely negative.
“I have no problem with people voting for candidates who agree with their points of view”
You know, the precursors to “BUTS” don’t mean a damn thing….
The effect it has on those who do not believe is extremely overstated. My best friend is an athiest…were his panties in a wad over the Ten Commandments, Prayer in school, or ‘God’ in the Pledge? NO, athiest, who don’t turn athiesm into a religion, could careless whats outside the court rooms. If you believe that nothingness exists outside the life you have now, then you could care less if you make the government endorse this view. You don’t have to prove anything, unless you are unsure in your own belief. Thats why pro-choice people have tried soo hard to get people to believe abortion is ‘morally right’, because they need affirmation, whereas pro-life people such as myself, have no need to affirm the moral ground in which we stand, because the position puts our hearts at peace. Often Pro-Abortion groups hide behind distance from the issue…”its not something I would do, but how can I impose my will on someone else.” But in that case, the actual thought of a dead fetus in the garbage, causes moral twitches at the least, that are usually just not explored. If its not your opinion that abortions are morally wrong, visit an abortion clinic, and ask to see the discarded fetuses, then look at your child, and see if you can find a difference. If your stomach can handle it, then you have the right to remain Pro-Choice.
The tax-exempt status bothers me considering how evangelicals have become like the NRA – that difference aside – the whole idea behind lobbying is selling influence, and the NRA represents gun manufacturers. Legislation passed either hurts or benefits their profit margin. Legislation doesn’t pass that infringes upon anyone’s freedom to practice religion. Instead, the influence bought is used instead to enlist the government in recruiting.
The Air Force Academy provided all of us a good example of what happens when this concept gets out of control. People are pressured into joining a religion by threats of eternity in hell. Now they’re pressuring people to frown upon contraceptives. Their ideology is damaging the country. This stand against embryonic stem cell research is another example of the damage they’re causing.
They were against abortion, and that’s the political hook. That’s the issue they use to gain influence – – – so for political purposes they decide to be ‘against’ something else to gain more influence. Jesus healed people…just like this science may in the future as well. Remove the abortion argument, and at face value, most Christians would support the research. Attached to abortion though, it’s not about ideology or logic anymore, but instead it’s about political influence.
NRA lobbyists…lobbyists in general, are hoars. Evangelicals disgrace Christianity when they too become hoars. Remove the non-exempt status and they can do what they want I suppose. The reason they have that status though, contradicts the number one goal they have now…which is RECRUIT!
That visual of fetuses in the garbage…it was the visual of a woman dead from a back alley abortion that convinced me it wasn’t as simple as my religion had told me all those years. This argument, using the visual of fetuses in the garbage – – – do you also take an all or nothing approach to something like war if you happen to see a picture of dead bodies? I don’t think pro-lifers do – because there’s a rationale that allows one to believe that it’s an acceptable thing for reasons that provide depth to an issue that deserves it. Why then, doesn’t the issue of abortion deserve depth? How come it’s only about a vision of fetuses in the garbage?
On the issues I consider ‘fluff’, ie: pledge of allegence, prayers in public, etc…none of it matters in the least to me. ‘God’ was in all of these slogans, currency and pledges long before we showed up, and the removal of something that’s been there for so long only gets people riled up over something that’s of little importance. I’d only point out that it says, ‘in God we trust’ – not – ‘in Jesus we trust’.
The effect on nonbelievers is overstated on the ‘fluff’ issues, but as a whole it absolutely is not. Consider the fact that pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions and religious leaders are demonizing contraception – and rethink that assessment.
DI: NRA lobbyists…lobbyists in general, are hoars. Evangelicals disgrace Christianity when they too become hoars. Remove the non-exempt status and they can do what they want I suppose.
But especially the NRA and Evangelicals…huh? Lobbyists such as NARAL, PETA, and AFL-CIO, they are noble hoars, right? You can’t descriminate between groups fighting for influence, if you say one shouldn’t be allowed to have that influence, then none should.
DI: That visual of fetuses in the garbage…it was the visual of a woman dead from a back alley abortion that convinced me it wasn’t as simple as my religion had told me all those years.
Well, before the Roe v. Wade, a liberal estimate would put the deaths from backally abortions into the thousands. If this is your moral equivelance to the millions of discarded fetuses, then so be it. Its like Durbins equivelence theory about our soldiers in Gitmo, oh sure, Nazis killed millions, but they are equivelant to our soldiers now. If your heart is at peace with this rationalization, you truly have the right to be pro-abortion.
DI: do you also take an all or nothing approach to something like war if you happen to see a picture of dead bodies?
Oh, of course, I’m quite comfortable with how I justify wrong and right. I’ve seen pictures of mutilated bodies, and the pile of ashes in cars who caused the mutilation. I’ve seen the photos from the POW and Concentration camps in WWII. But I know who was on the right side of history, and know who continues to be on the right side morally. It is also a moral obligation for us to feed the starving in Niger, Somalia, and other Third world countries…seeing the deaths of children who’s only illness was malnurition is sickening. Morally, we were right to remove Saddaam. We are right to continue supporting the fledgling Iraqi goverment, and we are right to kill terrorists, before they kill more Iraqi’s.
No – I didn’t mean that to be the message at all. You read into it.
Put an innocent man into a room and unleash poison gas – Tie an innocent man’s hands over his head and beat his legs until he’s dead.
That’s beside the point though. I’m not going to put myself through the practice of deciding whether I value a fetus over a grown woman, it’s like playing God. Any of us who feels qualified to make these decisions can have at it, as we all have the ‘right’ to believe whatever we want.
OK, so you are comfortable with rationalizations when it comes to war, but a woman’s rationalization for having an abortion means nothing to you?
This has always been the reason why I stopped going to church and witnessing – – – the notion that my people were right in demonizing someone’s reasoning for doing something, yet accepting someone else’s. Funny thing is the rationale they now accept more often is whatever a Republican happens to do.