The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Friday, December 21, 2007
UPDATED Huckabee (you know, that "Man of God"...) plays the Victim
UPDATE: I have edited, appended, and cleaned this up a bit for clarity. Also bumped.
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Subliminal crosses appearing in his ads, that gee-whiz Christmas message (whose real message is/was: 'we are too good of a people to be criticizing each other over this holiday--i.e. now that my polls are up, the other candidates would be positively 'non-Christian' were they to criticize me. Merry Christmas! ...')
Sorry, but I'm not buying.
I am all for a person of faith and conviction, but I do not trust a man who uses the Cross he's wearing on his sleeve as the prima facia evidence why we should chose him over the others. I want to know what the man will do, not how he prays or his religious dogma.
When it comes to real issues--and even what I suspect to be his psyche--Huckabee seems to stands for almost nothing else beyond his undefined faux (or at least overblown) morality. We don't like it when zealots in Iran run their country based on the literal interpretation of Quaranic scripture; why in the world would we want to put as big of a question mark as Huckabee in the position to do something similar here in America? What does the Bible say about:
The UK became a kingdom where you could be persecuted if you did not adhere to either the Pope's or Martin Luther's version of theology (depending on the timeframe). If the King was Protestant and you were Catholic, well--things did not go so well for you. And vice-versa. Which is probably, by the way, a cause-and-effect reason why I am here today writing this. But it is nevertheless true, and it is also the primary reason why the United States came into being in the first place.
The men who wrote our Constitution and fought the bitter war against the most powerful country on Earth of that time, went out of their way to try and prevent a similar form of Government here. And yet this seems to me to be exactly what Mike Huckabee's commercials (and his campaign in general)--seem to be gunning for.
I understand that a great majority of American "believers" (regardless of religion) make their home in the Republican Party. And I am glad this is the case, because the Judeo-Christian underpinning means that the Republicans are more likely to have a civilized moral and ethical basis to their policy decisions. But with that said, I do not think that one should use their specific religious affiliation as a "campaign issue" (nor religious dogma of one belief against another candidate(s)). To do so is to project ourselves backwards in every sense of the word. We are not the Tudors of England nor do we want to be. That we are not is America's raison d'etre in the first place; (well that and our disdain for taxation, which the Republicans also have in their favor...)
Huckabee is a "false prophet" from where I sit. I don't not like him because he is a Christian; I don't like him because I believe he is using his religion to support his own blind ambition. Hell, Romney is doing everything he can to not discuss Mormonism--yet I buy it that Romney really is a man of morality and conviction, who would not be blown about by every wind.
Huckabee on the other hand seems to be courting the "David Duke demographic" of the party--or that portion thereof not supporting Ron Paul--while simultaneously trying to emulate the "I lusted in my heart" phenomenon of Jimmy Carter. Worse, he seems to have a frighteningly similar ideology and campaign style to Carter.
And now this charlatan is playing the victim--this man who is trying to become the most powerful man on earth. I don't want someone with victim mentality as my President. Nor to I want someone that has to be popular to feel good about himself. We tried that with Jimmy Carter. It was a disaster, to put it lightly.
When I hear the word "populist" it means to me someone who always wants to do the popular thing. That is great if the country happens to be behind standing up for the Constitution. But if half the country is wanting to tear it up and start over again, electing a "populist" is not the best prescription for fulfilling the Oath of Office. Why did we all love Reagan so much? Because he was a man of principle--and because we knew what those principles were. With Huckabee all we know is that as Governor he did not govern like a Conservative--and that he prays every night. That's it. He did not govern like a Reagan on Kennedy, he governed like Carter.
America does not need a President who is blown about by every wind and who caves to the forces who want to destroy us.
For that job, we can do better than Mike Huckabee.
Give me Fred, or short of that Mitt, or Rudy.
UPDATE: I also heard a scintillating rumor about negotiations between the Rudy and John McCain camps, discussing the two of them running as President and Vice President. But who would be at the top of that ticket? I can easily see Fred and Romney making a similar deal if it came to that.
*********************************************************************************
Subliminal crosses appearing in his ads, that gee-whiz Christmas message (whose real message is/was: 'we are too good of a people to be criticizing each other over this holiday--i.e. now that my polls are up, the other candidates would be positively 'non-Christian' were they to criticize me. Merry Christmas! ...')
Sorry, but I'm not buying.
I am all for a person of faith and conviction, but I do not trust a man who uses the Cross he's wearing on his sleeve as the prima facia evidence why we should chose him over the others. I want to know what the man will do, not how he prays or his religious dogma.
When it comes to real issues--and even what I suspect to be his psyche--Huckabee seems to stands for almost nothing else beyond his undefined faux (or at least overblown) morality. We don't like it when zealots in Iran run their country based on the literal interpretation of Quaranic scripture; why in the world would we want to put as big of a question mark as Huckabee in the position to do something similar here in America? What does the Bible say about:
- History of tax increase after tax increase after tax increase (I don't recall anything about rendering everything unto Ceasar, nor do I recall Christ wanting to become Ceasar...)
- A career of acting like some Norman Rockwell painting entitled "Piety and Cunning" (I think they called it something like Phariseeism back then...)
- Pardoning murderers in the double-digits, child rapists, monsters... who went on to rape kill children again. I don't think molesting children and brutal sociopathic murder is a place where our society ought to be "turning the other cheek".
- Stating that he wants to bring our troops home and end the war. Excuse me, but allowing a sectarian bloodbath where there is now a real chance for peace does not exactly seem to me to be the moral thing to do. Not to mention giving our Islamist enemies a great victory in this Long War.
- A record of providing sanctuary to illegal aliens and making it public policy to ignore the laws of the State and also Federal Laws. Huck didn't provide a sanctuary city; he provided a sanctuary state. A person who swears to Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution is swearing to also protect the part that document determines who can vote and who can be considered a citizen. And the laws that are legally enacted under that Document's authority. That includes enforcing our borders and protecting our citizens from fraud at the election box.
The UK became a kingdom where you could be persecuted if you did not adhere to either the Pope's or Martin Luther's version of theology (depending on the timeframe). If the King was Protestant and you were Catholic, well--things did not go so well for you. And vice-versa. Which is probably, by the way, a cause-and-effect reason why I am here today writing this. But it is nevertheless true, and it is also the primary reason why the United States came into being in the first place.
The men who wrote our Constitution and fought the bitter war against the most powerful country on Earth of that time, went out of their way to try and prevent a similar form of Government here. And yet this seems to me to be exactly what Mike Huckabee's commercials (and his campaign in general)--seem to be gunning for.
I understand that a great majority of American "believers" (regardless of religion) make their home in the Republican Party. And I am glad this is the case, because the Judeo-Christian underpinning means that the Republicans are more likely to have a civilized moral and ethical basis to their policy decisions. But with that said, I do not think that one should use their specific religious affiliation as a "campaign issue" (nor religious dogma of one belief against another candidate(s)). To do so is to project ourselves backwards in every sense of the word. We are not the Tudors of England nor do we want to be. That we are not is America's raison d'etre in the first place; (well that and our disdain for taxation, which the Republicans also have in their favor...)
Huckabee is a "false prophet" from where I sit. I don't not like him because he is a Christian; I don't like him because I believe he is using his religion to support his own blind ambition. Hell, Romney is doing everything he can to not discuss Mormonism--yet I buy it that Romney really is a man of morality and conviction, who would not be blown about by every wind.
Huckabee on the other hand seems to be courting the "David Duke demographic" of the party--or that portion thereof not supporting Ron Paul--while simultaneously trying to emulate the "I lusted in my heart" phenomenon of Jimmy Carter. Worse, he seems to have a frighteningly similar ideology and campaign style to Carter.
And now this charlatan is playing the victim--this man who is trying to become the most powerful man on earth. I don't want someone with victim mentality as my President. Nor to I want someone that has to be popular to feel good about himself. We tried that with Jimmy Carter. It was a disaster, to put it lightly.
When I hear the word "populist" it means to me someone who always wants to do the popular thing. That is great if the country happens to be behind standing up for the Constitution. But if half the country is wanting to tear it up and start over again, electing a "populist" is not the best prescription for fulfilling the Oath of Office. Why did we all love Reagan so much? Because he was a man of principle--and because we knew what those principles were. With Huckabee all we know is that as Governor he did not govern like a Conservative--and that he prays every night. That's it. He did not govern like a Reagan on Kennedy, he governed like Carter.
America does not need a President who is blown about by every wind and who caves to the forces who want to destroy us.
For that job, we can do better than Mike Huckabee.
Give me Fred, or short of that Mitt, or Rudy.
UPDATE: I also heard a scintillating rumor about negotiations between the Rudy and John McCain camps, discussing the two of them running as President and Vice President. But who would be at the top of that ticket? I can easily see Fred and Romney making a similar deal if it came to that.
