On Politics and Christianity

Brit Hume, senior political analyst for Fox News and former anchor of Special Report With Brit Hume candidly opened up about the ongoing Tiger Woods scandal while a guest on Fox’s Sunday political talk show.

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

It should come as no surprise that speaking the words of Christianity on such a large platform would immediately generate every kind of outrage and vitriol from the American left. After all, the American left has evolved into a secular-humanist cult forcefully pronouncing its belief system on every facet of American life. From schools to media/entertainment outlets to so-called public service positions at every level of American government, generic platitudes of tolerance for all religions and moral relativism have seeped into our culture.

These ostensible practitioners of tolerance and equality are nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing. Something my Christian God warned me about many, many years ago. (Did I just write that? You betcha.)

Prestigious commentators such as MSNBC’s David Shuster supported his creed’s Ten Commandments of Tolerance by stating, “This isn’t church, this isn’t some sort of holy setting, this is a political talk show. Doesn’t that minimize the significance of Christianity, when you bring a discussion of Christianity into a conversation about politics? I do think it diminishes the discussion of Christianity … when you have a conversation out-of-the-blue on a political talk show. This wasn’t the ‘700 Club,’ this wasn’t ‘Theocracy Today.’” He further insinuated that the “separation of church and television” was grossly violated by Hume’s out-of-the-blue comments.

His charming co-anchor, Tamron Hall, felt it necessary to further explain her personal obedience to all-things-tolerant by saying, “[D]o we need to run down the list, just in the past year, of so-called Christian politicians who’ve been accused, or in many case[s] flat-out admit because they were backed up against the wall, that they had affairs and other discretions? I mean, to the heart of what David is saying, if this is just about religion, all are flawed. Isn’t that what the Christian Bible says?”

Like freshly-bloomed lilacs on the first day of spring, I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that our liberal left still holds a view of Christianity edified by their Harvard professors and Washington D.C. beltway buddies. I smell tolerance in the air. Besides Shuster and Hall’s gross factual misrepresentations, the heart of what they say is an all-too-common philosophy in American society. Christianity must stay out of politics. And since politics encompasses every aspect of our daily lives, Christianity must stay out of our daily lives. Go find a closet, Christ, and lock yourself inside for all eternity.

I think the ACLU needs to make that last statement their new epigram. No reason to be ambiguous with lawsuits against high schools that hold graduation ceremonies inside churches or crosses displayed on public property all in the name of “separation of church and state.” Christianity and the name of Jesus Christ play no role in our spoken society. But feel free to think thoughts of Christianity. Or, wait…

“It takes a religious zealot to strap explosives around his or her waist and, murmuring prayers, blow up a CIA facility in Afghanistan, or take down an airplane over Detroit, or steer a jet into the World Trade Center. Or, for that matter, to treat the world to Crusades and Inquisitions and the kind of faith-based savagery we've seen in places like Belfast, Bosnia, Beirut, and Jerusalem. That is what made Brit's comments so creepy: the self-certainty that ‘my god is better than yours.’ Hume has the right to yak. People get paid to say all sorts of provocative things these days. I have no doubt that some of his best friends are Jewish, or Buddhist, or of a different Christian denomination. I am sure he loves all wogs, in his way. But, jeez, what a stupid thing to think.”

John Aloysius Farrell, the “award-winning Washington reporter” and US News and World Report contributing editor believes that Christian principles are not something to think proudly. Apparently you are in company with terrorists who blow up airplanes and kill thousands of innocent Americans when you believe that your God may be better than someone else’s. Maybe I should subject myself to a full-body scan the next time I want to get on a plane. I could be the next one…

To sum up, Christianity doesn’t play any part in politics, should not be pronounced to another on television, or even in held as an intellectual thought. And if by chance you slip up and spew forth such bigoted beliefs, there is only one resolve: apologize. In the Washington Post, Tom Shales explains this resolution thoroughly. “In a way that many others had spoken of this particular faith, Hume seemed so bolstered by Christianity that he just had to go tell it on the mountain. And the golf course. And Fox news-talk shows. First off, apologize. You gotta. Just say you are a man who is comfortable with his faith, so comfortable that sometimes he gets a wee bit carried away with it.”

I, and many other well-intentioned Americans, have a lot to be sorry for. To think of all the countless times I got a wee bit carried away and professed myself a Christian to anyone, which by the very act diminutives all other religions and surely thrusts judgment upon their souls. So long as our politicians don’t jump to conclusions and characterize the radical Islamists as anything other than poor, lost souls engaging in man-made disasters I suppose all is not yet lost.

David Shuster also said, “ Why go there? Why – I mean, look, we all respect Brit’s view, the faith works for him, it work’s for you, my faith works for me. But why go on a political show and anoint yourself the adviser to a celebrity in trouble and say ‘my faith is the right one, his is a failure for him’?” Along with the Ten Commandments of Tolerance, the American left hold tightly to the golden rule of moral relativism. What’s right for you is right for you and what’s right for me is what’s right for me. We live in a gray world, not a black and white world. Brit Hume can believe in Christianity but that doesn’t mean he has any right to say so. But what is missing is the right side of that equation. If Christians should not be allowed to spread the good news of Jesus Christ as the one and only way, then Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Islamists and atheists cannot share their answer to the world’s ails either. But when was the last time a public display of Buddhism or atheism was shunned? I will not wait for an answer.

The problem the left has with Hume’s comments do not stem from a desire to level the playing field of all the world’s religions. It comes from a place of fear. Fear of what they don’t understand, fear of what they don’t want to hear, and fear of our own country’s Christian heritage. And fear that America’s first principles such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the right to bear arms actually come from a religion that they so desperately want to deny and silence.

To which I say, good luck. Since you have no faith you wish to speak of, you will need that rabbit's foot. A battle of unprecedented proportions is on the forefront and all hell will break loose.

Congress Needs an Allowance

I received an allowance as a kid. It was a reasonable weekly wage equivalent to the amount of chores I completed. Like clockwork, my dad handed me crisp bills every Friday night, usually after dinner, and I felt such satisfaction. I could do whatever I wanted with the money because I earned it.

When I went to the store and found a toy or a new bracelet I wanted to buy, I pulled open my wallet to see what I had. Too often a wave of disappointment came over me when I realized I didn't have enough. Back to the shelf that gold bracelet went. Even if I tried to pull the old "puhhlleeaassee!" with my parents, their response always included a certain four-letter word: save. You can't spend what you don't have. As much as I hated to hear it back then, I appreciate that lesson today.

It's unfortunate our members of congress didn't have parents who gave them an allowance to manage.

This week, the House approved a short-term $290 billion extension in the nation's debt ceiling, postponing a decision until February about a larger increase in the borrowing cap. Once the House realized that a larger increase may not pass the Senate because of a lack of support, they decided to pass a smaller increase for now. In February they will address a "need" for a larger increase, possibly the $1.8 Trillion increase in the ceiling House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) wants.

This increase in the debt limit raises the total debt the federal government can hold to $12.394 billion from $12.104 billion. Okay, let's go back. Steny Hoyer wants to raise the debt ceiling by $1.8 Trillion ... $1.8 TRILLION. How can any country survive if it is trillions of dollars in debt? How does any average Joe survive if he is billions of dollars in debt? He doesn't. Average Joe knows he can't increase the limit on his credit card to buy a new plasma TV. If his credit card is maxed out, he must deal with that issue first before making a new purchase.

Anyone who has debt understands that you become a slave to those you owe money to. Someone will come after you if you don't pay. Not only is America in debt slightly over $12 trillion dollars, but our interest just on our debt alone is $367 billion. Whose coming after us, and when? The Wall Street Journal writes, "[i]ncreasing the debt ceiling is largely symbolic as the public debt is the accumulation of past deficits, or money already spent. But were the U.S. to breach its debt limit, it would default on its obligations, potentially lose its prized top-shelf credit rating and have to pay significantly higher interest to its creditors. Such a scenario, albeit an extremely unlikely one, would have tremendous ramifications for the wider financial markets."

Getting past the notion that the U.S. has a "top-shelf credit rating," I can't help but wonder why our government believes it is a good idea to spend more money we don't have. Average Joe can't do that, so why does the federal government? I understand I am taking a complex situation and simplifying it to compare with one person's financial lifestyle. But that's why I simplify it. Because it is that simple. Behind every decision lies a principle.

Don't spend what you don't have.
Don't borrow what you can't pay back. In fact, don't borrow more than you can pay back with your next paycheck.
Waste not, want not.

Congress is operating under an entirely different set of principles. Dangerous, frivolous, and destructive. One of my favorite principles is this: he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. I would vote for Average Joe who balanced his checkbook and successfully managed his personal finances to handle the national budget over such characters as Hoyer, Pelosi and Reid. Just because they are "congressmen" and "senators" does not make them smarter than you or I. They have no right to run up our debt, borrow more than we can pay back and throw our children into financial bondage. We demonstrate daily in our personal finances that we are smarter than that.

Let congress prove they can one run program --one-- successfully, within budget, before we allow them to fiddle with health reform or any other massive program. Let's give them an allowance and see if they can be faithful in little before we give them much-- if at all.

Don't stare too long at this website, it will make you nauseous:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126099939736594429.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news

I took my dog to the dog park recently. As I threw his soggy tennis ball and watched him slide through the muddy grass to scoop it up, I overheard a fascinating conversation taking place between two college students.

A young man stood against the fence and introduced himself to a young woman sitting on the wood bench watching her poodle bounce around. After a few minutes of general conversation, they quickly found a mutual topic to discuss: politics.

Their intellectual prattling intrigued me.

"I don't know why all these people are freaking out about what Obama is doing. At least he's actually doing something, unlike Bush who only wanted to fight a pointless war." The young man shook his head in disapproval.

"Oh, I know. Like hello! There were no weapons-of-mass-whatever. Like we totally wasted all that money and all those people died for nothing." (I forced myself to not count how many times she would use the word 'like.')

"And then there's Fox News out there acting like a reputable news source, when everyone knows it's made up all those conservative whack jobs. Does anyone actually listen to them?" Okay, I thought to myself, he's completely unaware of the size audience Fox News has. He's never watched it. "What news do you watch?"

"Oh, me? I don't know. I don't watch much news. It's so depressing."

"Me too. I pretty much get all my news from 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.'" Did he just say he gets all his news from a show on Comedy Central???

"Oh, yea, that's a good one. Did you see last night when he was making fun of Sarah Palin and the whole 'death panel' thing?" She chuckles, obviously replaying the skit- I mean script- in her head.

"No, I missed it."

"Oh, it was soooo good! Sarah's so stupid. Like, you can tell she has no education like whatsoever, because 'death panel' isn't even in the bill. How scary would it have been if she were like in the White House."

"Everyone who is against the health care bill should just...die. That'll save us lots of money!" He grabs his beer belly and laughs.

"I totally agree! Like, seriously, and everyone who says we want to pull the plug on grandma. Well...maybe we should. I mean, old people don't exactly help us out that much anyways. The only people who should get health care are those who actually contribute to society, ya know?"

"I know. It's the same thing as socialism. Everyone freaks out when you say it's actually a good idea, but that's just because they don't understand it."

"Oh my god, totally! Like, I totally support socialism. Everyone would have a job, and money, and health care- so why is that bad?" The woman calls her poodle and stands to her feet.

"I support it also. It's the only fair way for everyone to have a chance. And just because it didn't work well for other countries doesn't mean we can't do it good here." They shake hands, leash up their dogs, and walk to their cars.

Biting my lips and debating whether I should chase them down and unleash upon them any and all common sense they apparently lack, I remind myself that it would do no good. Years of liberal education cannot be undone in a two-minute rant by some crazy woman at the dog park. (Common sense...okay, I would need way more than two minutes.)

I genuinely felt bad for them. Nothing is more oppressive than not knowing what you don't know.

And nothing is more liberating than knowing you're learning the truth.

Obama held his job summit last week. Or should I say, Professor Obama gave a lecture last week in his "Capitalism: Greed, Pollution and Poverty" course at the White House.

What Obama said: "I need everybody to bring their A-game here today. I'm going to be asking some tough questions, I will be listening for some good answers and I don't want to just brainstorm up at 30,000 feet. I want details in our discussion today. I'm looking for specific recommendations that can be implemented that will spur on job growth as quickly as possible. I want to be clear. We won't overcome our unemployment challenge in just a few hours this afternoon. I assure you there is extraordinary skepticism that any discussions like this can actually produce results. I'm well aware of that. I don't mind skepticism. If I listened to the skeptics I wouldn't be here, but I am confident that we'll make progress..."

What I heard: "Now, good students, do your work while I go the teacher's lounge to watch Sports Center. Union members, career politicians, Google management team and environmentalists, don't be afraid to help out your less fortunate classmates- yes, you guys in the back from Wall Street. Stop playing on your Blackberry's like spoiled rich kids (Wall Streeters apologize emphatically).

Bring me the best ideas on how I can fix this economic problem, and turn in your assignment by the end of the day. Does anyone have a red pen? And for those of you who need extra credit to pick up your grade before the end of the semester, ahem ... those in back, write an essay answering this question: (writing on the black board) 'If you spoke to the state-organized media, how would you spin our economic and environmental woes to place the blame solely on small business and the wealthy?' The amount of extra credit you earn will be based on how well your response makes me look." (He leaves the room)

What Obama said: "Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?"

What I heard: (Walking into the classroom) "Sorry it took me so long to come back. Michelle wanted to go shopping for a new cocktail dress before we go to dinner with the Jolie-Pitt's tonight. I see you all turned in your papers here on my desk, and I will be reading and grading them for the rest of the semester.

(Students groan). Now, now, it takes time to solve such severe problems that I didn't cause. Let me tell you a little story. (Students groan again and slump in their chairs) When I was a community organizer in the heart of Chicago, standing face-to-face with mothers who can't feed their babies because of their high cell phone bills, and young brothers who were given guns instead of a chance to succeed because we don't have a national gun ban, I saw how evil America is. That's why I decided to get into politics. I wanted to become your leader and to make America the darkened village on the backside of a hill.

And that's why I brought you here today. Americans everywhere are crying out for a job, but what we need to show them is that they don't need a job. No, they need me. They need my administration. They need their government to blame small business owners for making them slave away for $13/hour wages (cheers from the labor union students). Private business isn't the answer, because private business doesn't hire people (confused whispers amongst students). That may sound weird, but that's just because you haven't been in college long enough. Trust me, soon enough, it'll all make sense. Why do you think I'm a supporter of "W12" (womb-to-12) Schools?" (Winks)



http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=514131
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/jobs_summit_will_not_produce_j.html

"Another Failed Presidency" by Dr. Jeffrey P. Hunt

The following article was published in the American Thinker and written by Dr. Hunt. Enjoy:

Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China 20.

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.

But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.

Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist. He has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research. Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes on Health projects. He is also a writer for American Thinker.

Margaret Thatcher Said: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."

James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union Said: "When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both."

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." - Unknown

Education: The New Black For Liberals

University of Massachusetts will have Raymond Luc Levasseur, the former leader of the revolutionary group United Freedom Front, speak at its campus on November 12th. United Freedom Front is responsible for plotting a series of bombings and bank robberies along the East Coast between 1976 and 1984. Levasseur was the former leader of this group which also fatally shot a New Jersey state trooper and attempted to kill two Massachusetts state troopers.

Levasseur is one of three people scheduled to speak at the Amherst Libraries’ fifth annual Colloquium on Social Change. Citing "academic freedom," the school is allowing Levasseur to speak despite possible protests.

In 2007, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University. Despite protests, Ahmadinejad's speech spewed many of his traditional beliefs such as his claims that the Holocaust should be viewed as a "theory" rather than fact. He also defended his belief that Iran cannot recognize Israel "because it is based on ethnic discrimination, occupation and usurpation, and it consistently threatens its neighbors." Many of his statements were met with accelerated applause from a portion of the audience, the rest being anti-Ahmadinejad.

William Ayers is the unrepentant former SDS Weather Underground bomber of the 1960s. Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Department headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972. He is currently a Professor of Education at the University of Chicago at Illinois and an elementary education theorist.

At the University of Chicago, Ayers instructs future school teachers in the areas of social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues. He was elected by the American Education Research Association (AERA) as vice president and head of its division of curriculum studies in 2008. The AERA defines itself as "the most prominent international professional organization with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application."

Ward Churchill was a University of Colorado at Boulder professor from 1990 to 2007. He famously wrote an essay post- 9/11 called "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" in which he describes President Bush as the world's reigning terrorist, and those businessmen and women who lost their lives on September 11th as "Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews.

In that essay, Churchill wrote, "As to those in the World Trade Center ... true enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire." He also referred to President Bush saying, "He absolutely thumbs his nose at the rule of law. He's the head of a rogue state by definition, and it's a rogue state which dispenses carnage on people presumed to be inferior in some set of terms."

In May 2007, Churchill spoke at UC Irvine's Muslim Student Union (MSU) in which he characterized Israel as a terrorist state and then urged MSU students to go to the pro-Israel booth near the lecture hall, take a slice of cake, and eat Israel symbolically. Churchill was removed from his tenured teaching position citing academic misconduct and plagiarism in 2007. He later filed a First Amendment Lawsuit, seeking reinstatement and an unspecified amount of money.

Interestingly enough, 66% of young voters, ages 18-29, voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. With "social justice" and "academic freedom" reducing the patriotic standard of our educational elite to such a lowly position as to invite the president of a Holocaust-denying nation to speak and home-grown terrorists to hold tenured teaching positions at some of our "finest" educational institutions, it is no surprise that socialism, tolerance and anti-American propaganda is the new black.

As you educate the young, so goes their belief system, so goes their vote, and so goes our nation.

Orgy Of Self-Seeking Reveals GOP Void Of Statesmanship

Profound article recently written by Alan Keyes:

With the withdrawal of Dede Scozzafava from contention in the special election in NY's 23rd Congressional District, we see a clear result of implementing Michael Steele's infamous 80/20 approach to candidate selection. Grassroots conservatives still hampered by their allegiance to the Republican Party need to consider the lessons to be drawn from the Republican party's disappearance from that race. Scozzafava was a candidate typical of the predilections of GOP Party bosses and the majority of its big money fundraisers. They believe that the Party's formula for political victory requires people who oppose or just give lip service to conservative stands on the issues of moral principle, like respect for the unalienable right to life and defense of the natural family, but embrace conservative positions on other fronts, especially when it comes to money issues.

But the problem with candidates like Scozzafava is the priorities they represent. Her eager endorsement of the Obama faction Democrat in the race points to the truth. In principal, politicians like her are in tune with the moral and intellectual culture of the leftist Democrats. Their election stands on money issues are a matter of cynical political calculation. In this respect they are exactly what the left has always accused Republicans of being- people willing to sacrifice issues of human life and dignity to win power.

They put money ahead of every other consideration. Then in order to prove that they aren't just promoters of heartless greed and selfishness, they pander to politically correct notions of "tolerance" and "sensitivity" with their stands on issues that involve respect for human nature and moral responsibility. Newt Gingrich cited her stands on the money issues in the statement reported in an article at politico.com "warning conservative activists that their support for a third-party candidate in a key upcoming New York Special election is a "mistake." The former Georgia congressman then rattled off a list of Scozzafava's conservative credentials. "She has signed a no tax increase pledge. She is endorsed by the National Rifle Association. She has come out against cap and trade…She is opposed to the Obama health care plan. She will vote for John Boehner instead of Nancy Pelosi," Gingrich said. "All of those things together make her – it seems to me – a legitimate, authentic, Republican nominee.'"

Former U.S. House speaker Gingrich wants to make it crystal clear that conservative stands on issues of moral principle are not an essential part of the Republican identity. So long as a candidate is right on the issues of money and power, that's all that matters. In a CNN interview the present Minority Leader in the House, John Boehner, took pains to make a similar point. "Clearly she would be on the left side of our party," said Boehner, who had financially supported the campaign of the New York assemblywoman. "...We accept moderates in our party and we want moderates in our party." He then went on to reject the notion that Scozzafava's failure had anything to do with "pressure by the conservative "Tea Party" movement, citing his participation at rallies in Bakersfield, Calif., and Ohio…. I've work with these people, and what they're concerned about is the growing size of government. They want someone who's really going to actively reduce spending and reduce control here in Washington."

Even as their nominee falls prey to the revulsion caused by her denial of the moral principles of liberty, these GOP leaders want to pretend that the angry uprising caused by the Obama faction's betrayal of American values has nothing to do with moral concerns. They desperately want the votes and power that angry uprising may deliver. But they don't want to represent Americans who know in their hearts that the Obama threat isn't just about money or the usual Washington power grab. It represents a profound destruction of the whole American way of life, destruction rooted in Obama's rejection of the moral idea of God-given individual rights, and constitutional government based on the consent of the people.

The battle with the Obama faction is in the end a struggle to determine whether this moral concept of humanity will continue to be the basis for American government, or whether it will be replaced by a moral vision that discards the whole idea of a distinctive human nature so that human beings can be treated simply as objects for manipulation by an all powerful administrative state. At the grassroots many Americans, regardless of political labels, instinctively grasp what is at stake. They long for leaders who also understand, and will rise to defend the moral idea of America, from which so many have gained inspiration and hope, and for which so many have risked or given their lives.

An appreciation for this longing has been a hallmark of American statesmanship when leaders arose in response to the crises of the past. The Republican Party's founding President, Abraham Lincoln, understood and spoke to it as he represented and articulated the moral causes of the American Civil War. But GOP leaders today not only lack the depth for such statesmanship, they appear utterly devoid of any sense of the compassionate concern for humanity from which it arises.

Their preference for so-called "moderates" proves the point. What is moderate about rejecting the natural right of human family life in order to accept a paradigm of human sexuality freed from the responsible discipline of human procreation? What is moderate about rejecting the idea of natural, and therefore inherent, human rights in order to accept a so-called "right" to murder our offspring? This disregard for the natural obligation that binds one generation to the next is precisely what leads to the disgusting orgy of self-seeking that is piling a Mount Everest of debt onto the backs of our posterity with no regard for the national servitude it represents.

Why should we expect people who claim the right to avoid their present responsibilities by killing their living offspring to care about the harm they do to the generations yet unborn? Why should we expect people encouraged to justify such murder with arguments about the inferior "quality" of the life they destroy to stop at similarly discarding the elderly when age takes the shine from their physical existence? If the idea of humanity doesn't prevent murder in the womb, all the more reason it should not prevail against the murder of those whose life declines toward death.

The idea of "moderation" touted by the GOP leadership orphans the very idea of humanity, and with it the fellow feeling (compassion) that should stay the hand from murder and neglect, especially when the victims include our offspring or the parents who engendered our lives. It rejects the disciplined understanding of liberty that made successful constitutional self-government possible in the United States.

By accepting an idea of right that limited and disciplined our choice, we became a people capable of doing what the scoffing philosophers thought impossible- establishing a government of, by and for the people that promotes order and prosperous decency rather than licentious self-destruction. This is true moderation. Real moderates, therefore, will not support people like Scozzafava, or the covert Scozzafavas the cynical, self-seeking GOP leadership insists on foisting off as "conservatives." They will instead seek out representatives who work to conserve the American idea of right. This is the heart and soul of the conservative cause, which in the end is just the cause of lasting liberty.