Monday, November 30, 2009

Sarah Palin-Personally pro-life, but...?

As I expected, my last post disturbed many who are desperately looking for some reason for hope among the Republicans being built up in the propaganda media as supposed representatives of the intense conservative disaffection that promises to be the decisive force in the 2010 midterm elections.  I suspect that the propagandist are hyping these personalities to serve as "heat sinks" for the vehement tide of anger and dismay against the betrayal of America's moral heart and its constitutional liberty; a betrayal sponsored or tolerated by the leadership in both branches of the sham "two party" system.

Here follows a comment on the article I came across on my Facebook profile page.  I think it typifies the reaction of many goodhearted people who are reluctant to look past the propaganda about her personal views and history to think clearly about Sarah Palin's official actions and public statements on the issue of justice, law and public policy involved in the fight to secure the unalienable right to life of our posterity.     

Anthony Davar Finding enemies in our prolife camp and splitting among strong prolife leaders will only cost us the most important fact: the life of another child. How many abortions were there in United States prior to 1973 vs after? One abortion is too many obviously. Sarah Palin is obviously a strong prolife leader, and with her own life example, has shown without a doubt, where she stands for life! However, as a matter of practical steps to victory, she is smart to go for one step at a time.If the country was on its knees repenting of the evil of abortion, she would be there with us praying for God to turn our hearts to the defense of our children. 

Alan Keyes Anthony Davar: On what grounds do you hold that Sarah Palin is "a strong pro-life leader"? I review both her statements and her actions, and find them in contradiction with the necessary moral logic without which the pro-life position is simply a matter of emotional feeling. Based on this review I conclude that she is not in fact espousing the pro-life public policy position. Without at all addressing the facts and moral reasoning I present, you assert that she is pro-life. Beyond emotional conviction, on what do you base your assertion?
It is obviously not right by law to impose our personal feelings on others, however strongly we feel. This is especially so when dealing with a decision that has deeply personal emotional and other consequences for the individual concerned. So if we reduce the pro-life cause to reliance on personal emotional conviction, we surrender the rational basis for the fight to achieve legal protection for the unalienable right to life of the unborn child.
Sarah Palin's statements and actions are rationally inconsistent with the moral logic of unalienable right which, if true, binds all levels of government and all US public officials to the goal of securing the unalienable rights with which God has endowed our humanity. If we accept her as a pro-life leader we abandon the rational moral basis for the pro-life position. I cannot do this without betraying the principles of liberty, and the will of the Creator God whose authority establishes them as the basis for human justice.
Your rhetoric simply fails to address the facts and reasoning I present. It amounts to saying that she is personally against abortion (about which I have no doubt). But many pro-"abortion rights" politicians say that. The issue before the nation is about law and justice, not personal conviction. Nothing Sarah Palin has said or done supports the view that she is pro-life as a matter of justice, law and public policy. So far as I can tell, she is just a pro-choice politician who turned a laudable personal choice into a seductive, but false pro-life public image. All the choices and statements she has made in her public capacity support this conclusion. If I'm wrong, show me the facts and statements that indicate something beyond the "I'm personally pro-life" position so common among the so-called "pro-choice" promoters of "abortion rights".


Unless Sarah Palin fundamentally alters the views she has enunciated and acted on up to now, I predict that she will disappoint the hope so many sincerely pro-life people are mistakenly investing in her supposed pro-life stand.  I am sure I will pay a price for saying now what others will only realize when it may be too late. I was excoriated starting in 2004 for calling Obama a hard line Marxist bent on destroying America.  That view is not at all so contemned today as it was when facts and reasoning first convinced me of its truth.  Similarly on account of facts and reasoning I and others insist that Obama cease to withhold evidence bearing on whether or not he satisfies the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Office of President of the United States.  For this we are vilified and ridiculed, though many of our fellow Americans now join in this demand.

My view of Sarah Palin's supposed pro-life stance, and the danger involved in following her leadership,  is similarly based on facts and reasoning.  I will hold to it until one or the other clearly compels me to do otherwise.  Experience has taught me that even among those whose pro-life hearts espouse the self-evident truths that make us free, when it  comes to politics the factual standard of truth often gives way to personal feelings and expedient calculation.  Given the crisis we are in, I can only pray that at some point they will realize that this neglect of the requirements of truth is the very reason America's liberty has reached the crisis point.  Before a people finds leaders willing to act in truth, they must become a people willing to submit their own judgments and decisions to its demands.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Obama's Real Bow

Obama apparently doesn't realize that the occupant of the office he lays claim to is supposed to represent the sovereign people of the United States.  At newsmax.com the following picture accompanied a story reporting his clearly deliberate bow to the Japanese Emperor Akihito.


Given the decidedly outraged reaction to his bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, there's no way this new affront is anything but a deliberate repudiation of respect for the republican form of government (of, by and for the people) established by the Constitution of the United States.  Given the cult of personality Obama worshippers have tried to promote since he won the 2008 election, we can be forgiven for suspecting that the Narcissist in Chief shows such respect for monarchs because he aspires to be what George Washington wisely refused to become- King of the United States.  Unlike Washington, of course, he has done nothing that remotely suggests he is worthy of such preferment.  But also unlike Washington he appears to believe that ambition for power is the only qualification required.  In this he resembles both Caesar and Napoleon, two historical figures who succeeded at the task Obama has undertaken- the destruction of a republican form of government in their respective countries.

As a matter of pure political calculation, however, one has to wonder at the outward appearance of stupidity involved in this latest insult to the people he's supposed to represent.  Even someone as blinded by his own self-image as Obama has to realize that his critics will pounce on this obviously deliberate reiteration of humiliated sovereignty. 

I think he not only realizes this, he means to provoke it.  Obama's bow to the Saudi King was a reflexive expression of homage to a figure he revered on account of deeply inculcated religious feeling.  It therefore  revealed Obama's allegiance to Islam.  From his insane waste of American lives in Afghanistan to his literally fishy reaction to the Ft. Hood episode; from his shutdown of Guantanamo to his decision to offer terrorists the propaganda platform of a civilian trial in the very city they assaulted; from his surrender of U.S. economic sovereignty to his determined and obvious efforts to drive the U.S. to utter bankruptcy; Obama's policies and actions are leading more and more Americans to question whether his true allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States and to the the people whose will and nationhood it represents.

This substantive issue of allegiance inevitably came to mind as people thought about the implications of his bow to the Saudi King.  Given Saudi Arabia's role in supporting the brand of Islamic fundamentalism that promotes the recruitment of Islamic terrorists like Major Hasan, these implications are intensely troubling.  The bow to the Japanese Emperor is a deliberate ploy intended to take the focus away from the issue of religious and political allegiance and put it on formalities instead.  The appearance of stupidity in the bow to Emperor Akihito covers the shrewdness of Obama's real bow, which is in fact to the requirements of the continuing deception that hides his deep betrayal of his oath and of America's trust.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

NY 23- Has the majority ruled?

Word in from NY 23 that Conservative Doug Hoffman now trails by just 3000 votes as the official  tabulation process continues. "The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed."  Among the absentee ballots that remain uncounted are "military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2)..."
But Bill Owens "was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives.  His support sealed his party's narrow victory on the health care legislation."
By what right does anyone declare and act on an election outcome before all the votes are counted?  Whatever candidates do to declare or concede victory, elections are decided by what the people do with their votes, not what the candidates do with their speeches.  Or at least that's the way its supposed to be when government of, by and for the people still functions.
Sad on this day after veterans day, to reflect on the fact that among the votes still uncounted when Owens was being sworn in are many cast by people who are right now risking their lives in service to their country.  Yet we let ambitious political parties hijack the electoral process in a fashion that sends the clear signal- your votes don't matter.
By such carelessness does a free people discard the respect for their sovereignty that is the essence of liberty.  I assume that if the vote turns out to favor Doug Hoffman, Owens will have to give up the seat he would thus prematurely have assumed.  But maybe not.  After all, once the candidates and the Parties agree to an election outcome,  why should the voters matter?
It's ironic that when it comes to ignoring the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Presidency, the politicos want us to accept the notion that all that matters is the electoral majority.  Now when it comes to deciding who's sworn in after an election, the people's votes remain uncounted, and all that matters is the candidates' declarations of victory or concession.  For those willing to understand, this little episode reveals the truth.  Once respect for the Constitution and its principles has been discarded, we'll quickly discover that the notion of majority rule has been thrown away as well.  The American people will find themselves cast down, to languish as other peoples have historically done, under the boot heel of arrogant elites who will resume their accustomed place as the dictators of human destiny.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

To honor veterans join the battle for liberty at cpnlive.com

This is a day for remembering the men and women through all the generations who answered the call to defend liberty.  If we respect their sense of duty, we must work to restore and preserve it.
Because the crisis of liberty has come to a head, it is today being assaulted up and down the line.  A pervasive element of the assault is the abuse of the news and information media as a propaganda weapon to deceive and manipulate people so that they surrender government of, by and for the people without a fight.
From 3 PM until 11 PM today I will be joining Stan Solomon and others at cpnlive.com to promote the new alternative media- of, by and for the people- through which they can develop and share accurate news and information that aids in the exercise of liberty, rather than being part of its destruction.
Please stop by.  Use the live call-in or chat room features to join in the discussion.  The Conservative Political Network is a place where people loyal to liberty can gather their strength for its defense on the battlegrounds of opinion and debate that are deciding its fate today as surely as ever it was decided on the battlefields of conventional war.  Will you volunteer for service?
I'll be among those recruiting folks to the cause today starting at 3 PM at cpnlive.com.  Come by to say hello and have your say.   

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Why Obama's Ft. Hood reaction seems so strange

There are times when even Obama's critics seem to have difficulty putting into words their reaction to his strange behavior. I think that's because they refuse to consider the simple premise that makes sense of it all: He feels no love for the USA. He seems in fact to feel himself to be no part of this country.

The occupant of the office he lays claim to is supposed to represent the body politic. People expect that his reactions will reflect its joys and pains i.e., the joys and pains of the American people as a whole. They expected him to react to the shocking events at Ft. Hood the way a person reacts to a grievous and unexpected wound to his body. Even a minor blow (like stubbing his toe) gets a pained reaction from the whole body. But the Ft. Hood attack is like a razor sharp knife that slips from its proper use to cut off a finger. It can only seem like a minor wound to someone whose gut isn't writhing with pain.

It was obvious to all that Obama's gut wasn't writhing. He spoke like a spectator taking notice of a scuffle on the sidelines. 'We shouldn't react until we know all the facts,' he says, as if the gut waits for a doctor's report rather than twisting with pain as a part of the body falls away.
With due regard to Bill Clinton, the simple fact is this. Obama doesn't feel our pain. To be sure, once it becomes clear that appearing to do so will serve his agenda of power, he will study the part and summon the right appearance when the script calls for it. But only fools will forget that this aspect of the role doesn't come naturally for him. His instinct isn't to feel for the country. It is to protect our assailants from any overreaction by Americans. He apparently assumes that we are prone to spiteful nastiness.

Nothing about this nation's reaction after the gut wrenching events of 9-11 justifies his fearful and insulting instincts. In many other countries (including the Islamic nations whose praises he sings so readily) there would have been violent street riots that claimed the lives of scores of innocent people, victimized because they professed the same religion as the terrorist assailants. In America we cried out in grief and anger, but we acted out first of all by falling to our knees in prayer to Almighty God. We rose again to seek justice, but even then we didn't lash out in prejudiced anger. We aimed our first blows at the beast that struck us, not even at others who, like some of the Palestinians, danced in their streets for joy as we mourned our dead.

Obama's reaction did not represent the American people. It came from years of associating with, studying, and even worshiping with people who hate us and everything we stand for in the world. In his heart of hearts I wager he even despises the decent motivation of many who voted for him. Many did so precisely because they naively believed that their action would lay to rest once and for all the stigma of institutionalized bigotry and hatred that mars all too many pages of our history as a nation. But there is a kind of relentless hating that sees in repentance only the admission of guilt. Though such people thought Obama's victory would stand for hope, every day it becomes more apparent that he brings only judgment.

What manner of man is this who now claims to preside over the affairs of the nation?

"The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail." (Deuteronomy 28:31, cf. Lamentations 5:8, Ezekiel 11:9)

Better they had sought for hope following God's example and looking "for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it..." (Ezekiel 22:30).

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The moral-political nexus

I'm still working on my next post, but this morning a friend sent me the following quote in an email that I think is well worth pondering. Fulton Sheen succinctly summarizes the connection between moral understanding and politics that is pretty much the basis for everything I do in public life. He is also right about the consequences of neglecting it, as we are proving all too clearly these days.

"What men do not see is that the fracturing of the spiritual community means the loss of inclusive and unifying moral sanctions over the whole of man's activities... The modern world has no cement to bind together personal morals and the morals of political and economic life.' If a time ever comes when the religious Jews, Protestants and Catholics have to suffer under a totalitarian state denying them the right to worship God according to the light of their conscience, it will be because for years they thought it made no difference what kind of people represented them in Congress, and because they never opposed the spiritual truth to the materialist lie'." [pg 125]

Fulton Sheen Communism and the Conscience of the West

Monday, November 2, 2009

NY 23- Orgy of self-seeking reveals GOP void of statesmanship

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.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Congress Denying People's Right to Petition?



There was a time when what the people in this video experienced would have had liberty loving Americans manning the ramparts. Have the Congressional leaders of the Obama faction decided to deny "the right of the people...to petition the government for a redress of grievances"? Obama promised "change", and as I predicted what we are getting is a regime change- from a free society to a totalitarian government dictatorship. The Constitution is being systematically shredded. At first it took a bit of thinking and discernment to notice it. Now they are openly behaving like the apparatchiks of a totalitarian government. Apparently they expect the people of this country to sit back and take it, as folks elsewhere have done.

On November 11 we will once again commemorate the brave souls who fought, risking and giving their lives, so that some hope for liberty would survive in Europe and elsewhere in the world. I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather die as they did than live in a country that has shamed and degraded their sacrifice by surrendering Constitutional liberty here at home. Are we really that anxious to be slaves on the national socialist plantation? Are we so pathetically desperate for the illusory benefits to be derived from government dictated lives? If so, I guess there are already no real Americans left?

[In my posting on September 15 I suggested making November 11 a day for declaring our freedom from the deceitful manipulators in the so-called main stream media. My friend Stan Solomon suggested that I spend Veterans Day with him on a web streamed program talking to people about the information crisis, and the new media that is developing in response to it.

But the crisis is clearly about more than how we inform our minds. It's quickly becoming a question of where we have put our American hearts, with the courage required to keep our nation truly free. With thoughts of the veterans who fought and died for it on our hearts, we must look for and find the resolve to imitate their courage now, in all that we do as citizens.

That's what I'll be talking about with Stan and other folks who visit with us on November 11. Join us at teapartylive.tv. And please help spread the word using your network of contacts. Programming will go from 9am to 10pm. We'll invite your participation through chat rooms and live call-ins.] I visit with Stan at teapartylive.tv every Tuesday at 7:30 pm. Tune in this week as we discuss the details of this special event.]