Pastor Gary wrote:It is more than abortion, Tim; the whole redistributionist, Socialism-lite, issue is huge for many people.
Is graded taxation socialism? We've had it for what, 95 years? He wants to increase the tax on the top 5 percent of income earners. There's a case to be made against that, but there is also a case to be made for remaining solvent at the expense of someone besides people who are scraping by. That's a huge and complex issue, but socialism? Socialism is the government ownership of the means of production and distribution. Raising the tax rate is not socialism.
Gary wrote:As for character, he hasn't shown much yet to judge.
My former Executive Director at the American Theological Library Association Dennis Norlin has an adult daughter who is wheel-chair bound, due to, if I remember, MS. When Obama was a new, junior senator in Illinois Dennis and his daughter were out in the corridor of the convention center resting at a conference, and Barack Obama came walking through. As Dennis tells it, Obama was walking on the opposite side of what is a rather large corridor. When Obama saw Dennis's daughter, he made a 90 degree turn and came over to say hello. There were no camera's around, and Obama was alone. Obama put his hand on the daughter's shoulder and made small talk with her and Dennis. That story is not the end-all, be-all of who Obama is, but there's nothing I've seen about him that would suggest that it was anything other than an act of kindness. Dennis was touched by it.
Are we to judge his lackluster younger years when he admits he used recreational drugs? That signals a flawed character to many people.
My best friend is an evangelical pastor who was convicted of dealing drugs when he was nineteen. The Lutheran church held it against him later in life and forbade him to be a pastor, and eventually in his fifties he finally started to pastor in the EPC.
After graduating from Harvard Obama chose to become a community organizer in south-side Chicago instead of take a high-paying legal position. He was doing that about the time that I was galavanting around the Pacific Northwest and western Canada holding revivals. I understand what passion and dedication are, and I respect what Obama did. That speaks highly of his character to me.
How about his support for his rather controversial Pastor/mentor, and then his throwing him under the bus for political expediency? Should we applaud his character for his support of Wright or for his political savvy in distancing himself?
I understood what Wright was saying. I heard COGOP preachers damn America in different words all my life. I can sympathize with that black community and understand their anger. And I don't give a rat's tail what the righteous around here think of me for it. I don't think Obama threw Wright under the bus. Americans did. And Wright showed that he had no respect for Obama's political situation, so Obama distanced himself from him. I understand that. And anyone who declaimed Obama for Wright's comments is in no ethical position to criticize him for distancing himself, in my opinion.
Gary wrote:The "his-birth-certificate-was-faked" email whisper campaign was idiotic i my view, but Obama fed it with the shroud of mystery and secrecy he enforced... his life, and his Thesis, should be open to examination. It has not been.
When you first stood against making that a scandal was the first I'd heard of it. I did my own snooping and at first thought there might be something to it. I even wrote a friend (mentioned above) and said something was fishy in Denmark. I later found a better display of Obama's Certificate of Live Birth, which he made available to quell the suspicion, and, regardless of whether he was born on Krypton or Mars, the certificate was legitimate and clearly indicated that it was authoritative regarding the facts of Obama's birth, from a legal perspective. I see no shroud of mystery in that.
What bothers me about Obama is that he strikes me as a regular politician. His largest doner client, along with McCain and both Democratic and Republican senators, was the finance industry. He has Robert Rubin for a top financial advisor, and Rubin was a top-ten culprit in eliminating the laws that led to our current financial crisis. I am also deeply disturbed by Obama's record on abortion and voting against legislation that would have protected children who survive abortion. Not only can I not fathom that, but I am terribly angered by it. My Democratic friends have gotten an earful from me over that.
But, as you know, I am as deeply disturbed about Obama's position on abortion as I am about Bush's policy on torture and the administration's strategically motivated war in Iraq. Abortion, torture, and strategically motivated war all fall on the same moral level to me. I am disturbed by Bush and even more so by Cheney. I believe that Cheney should be tried and convicted of crimes. I say that as a man who voted for him in 2000, for Alan Keyes in 1996, and for the Constitution Party candidates for president in 2004 and 2008. Okay, I'll admit it: I think Cheney's character is despicable. I am not too keen on Bush, either.
I guess I just talked myself into understanding why people think Obama is so despicable. Okay, I understand you now. I think Obama has more redeeming qualities than Bush, and especially more than Cheney, but I think I understand you now. If I can despise Cheney for what I consider to be callous crimes and corruption, I can understand you for despising Obama for what you consider to be callous moral and/or legal crimes. I don't share your opinion, but I think I understand.
We survived Clinton; we survived Bush/Cheney; I suspect we'll survive Obama/Reid/Pelosi. Had I known in 2000 that we'd have doubled our national debt, tortured legally unprotected detainees, committed extraordinary rendition, betrayed CIA agents for political expediency, be spending $10 billion a month on a contrived, unnecessary war that has jeopardized our national security for the foreseeable future and weakened our ability to defeat al-Qaida, and built castles for billionaires at every little-guy American's expense, I would not have thought we'd survive it. Part of my rejoicing in Obama's victory is the defeat of the corrupt, morally bankrupt Republican party leadership that trashed the conservative legacy for the last eight years, and my fleshly feeling of spite for rank and file Republican partisan support for the egregious behavior of their party. Why Republicans who are loathing the Obama victory but not equally despising their Republican leaders' betrayal of America's best values is beyond me and is as distrubing to me as Obama's victory apprently is to my malcontent fellow Americans here on Jude2.
"And just when you think you've got me figured out, remember, No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man." --Heraclitus
![[amer-ribbon90.gif]](/images/amer-ribbon90.gif "Remember our veterans and troops currently serving today.")