Yep. We were there. My hubby, two sons and I were part of the estimated 12,000 people who braved the heat and humidity in downtown Orlando this morning to support the Fair Tax. Just imagine...not having to deal with the IRS...
I still cannot get enough water in me. I hate the heat.
If you don't know what I am talking about, click on the link and learn all about it!
---Katie
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Did NBC miss a story?
I find it interesting that a video clip on NBC from the financial district in Sidon in southern Lebanon briefly showed sheets of uncut US $100 bills. That be an interesting story to investigate, especially since some terrorist groups attempt to destabilize our economy by flooding it with "funny money."
Click on the title to read more!
----Katie
Click on the title to read more!
----Katie
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Tragedy of the Religous Left
You have to base your beliefs on something. Why is the religious left so opposed to the Bible?
This article is the precursor to my previous post....
Worshipping the Goddess of Tolerance
by Chuck Colson
What do you get when you hold a conference with 1,200 people who are all afraid of offending one another? I’ll tell you what you don’t get. You don’t get unity, and you don’t get agreement on anything.
That’s what happened when the Spiritual Activism Conference took place recently in Washington, D.C. According to the New York Times, this group of religious liberals came together to discuss “taking back religion from the conservative Christians.” But the conference members had trouble getting anything specific done.
The Times hit it right on the nose when it explained, “Turnout at the Spiritual Activism Conference was high, but if the gathering is any indication, the biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone’s priorities rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement.” Never mind even setting policy goals; some conference members were afraid that singing hymns might be enough to upset some members. Instead of coming away with a clear set of objectives, the conference members mostly came away frustrated.
Ironically for a group that prides itself on tolerance, it seems the only thing the conference could agree on was its opposition to the “religious right.” But frustrating as it was for them, the group had to concede that the “religious right” is a lot better at getting things done. Beliefnet suggests this was because “religious conservatives are willing to argue there is one correct view on policy issues.”
You see, that’s the crux of the liberals’ problem. This conflict is not about political or social divisions. It’s about authority—specifically, whether or not Christians are willing to acknowledge that the Bible is our authority.
Tony Campolo certainly recognized this. Though Tony and I disagree on lots of things, I really like Tony. He’s honest, and he loves the Bible. He tried to explain at this conference the necessity of following Scripture. But one participant retorted, “I thought this was a spiritual progressives’ conference. I don’t want to play the game of ‘the Bible says this or that,’ or that we get validation from something other than ourselves.”
There you have it. Validation from ourselves simply means you make up your own god. We Christians may interpret the Bible differently; we may apply it to life differently; we may have arguments over exegesis. But the Bible has to be the ultimate authority. Otherwise we end up worshiping the goddess of tolerance and believing that tolerance takes precedence over truth.
Dorothy Sayers, the great English writer, said it best: “In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
This kind of so-called “tolerance” can never bring people together, but only as we saw in Washington, pull them farther apart.
----------------
---Katie
This article is the precursor to my previous post....
Worshipping the Goddess of Tolerance
by Chuck Colson
What do you get when you hold a conference with 1,200 people who are all afraid of offending one another? I’ll tell you what you don’t get. You don’t get unity, and you don’t get agreement on anything.
That’s what happened when the Spiritual Activism Conference took place recently in Washington, D.C. According to the New York Times, this group of religious liberals came together to discuss “taking back religion from the conservative Christians.” But the conference members had trouble getting anything specific done.
The Times hit it right on the nose when it explained, “Turnout at the Spiritual Activism Conference was high, but if the gathering is any indication, the biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone’s priorities rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement.” Never mind even setting policy goals; some conference members were afraid that singing hymns might be enough to upset some members. Instead of coming away with a clear set of objectives, the conference members mostly came away frustrated.
Ironically for a group that prides itself on tolerance, it seems the only thing the conference could agree on was its opposition to the “religious right.” But frustrating as it was for them, the group had to concede that the “religious right” is a lot better at getting things done. Beliefnet suggests this was because “religious conservatives are willing to argue there is one correct view on policy issues.”
You see, that’s the crux of the liberals’ problem. This conflict is not about political or social divisions. It’s about authority—specifically, whether or not Christians are willing to acknowledge that the Bible is our authority.
Tony Campolo certainly recognized this. Though Tony and I disagree on lots of things, I really like Tony. He’s honest, and he loves the Bible. He tried to explain at this conference the necessity of following Scripture. But one participant retorted, “I thought this was a spiritual progressives’ conference. I don’t want to play the game of ‘the Bible says this or that,’ or that we get validation from something other than ourselves.”
There you have it. Validation from ourselves simply means you make up your own god. We Christians may interpret the Bible differently; we may apply it to life differently; we may have arguments over exegesis. But the Bible has to be the ultimate authority. Otherwise we end up worshiping the goddess of tolerance and believing that tolerance takes precedence over truth.
Dorothy Sayers, the great English writer, said it best: “In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
This kind of so-called “tolerance” can never bring people together, but only as we saw in Washington, pull them farther apart.
----------------
---Katie
The Thrill of Orthodoxy
The liberals want to go for the religious vote by saying "me too!" on the issue of who is spiritual...yet they don't have anything to base their sprituality on because the reject the authority of scripture.
The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Truth That is Ageless and New
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ 7/19/2006 Chuck Colson
Yesterday I talked about the Spiritual Activism Conference in Washington, D.C., and the trouble its participants had coming up with any meaningful objectives. The problem, I suggested, was that the majority of the religious left cannot tolerate the idea of the authority of Scripture. In fact, in the effort to be “progressive,” they seem committed to putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bible.
Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for liberals. Some evangelicals these days are saying that truth is only knowable if you experience it. But if you believe that, it throws the Bible out, which is, after all, revealed propositional truth. Liberal or conservative, if you weaken the Bible as your authority, you give up more than just some ancient set of dogmas and rules. You give up joy, excitement, the very heart of the Christian faith. You lose what I call the thrill of orthodoxy—the exhilaration of experiencing and living out eternal truth that has been lived through the ages.
Let me give you a little example of what I mean by that. My wife, Patty, and I once visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most beautiful churches in England. We walked into the church, which today seems to be more like a massive museum than a church. People were milling about everywhere. Patty and I both felt impressed that we should go and sit in a pew and pray. We sat down and listened to the liturgy, which was then being broadcast on a loudspeaker.
We looked around and realized that, yes, this church had become a museum, and yes, the public was here just to see its beauty, but they were also hearing the liturgy and the Gospel. Then we were struck by the realization that the Gospel is always going to be preached and heard and lived—in tiny enclaves or vast churches.
Both Patty and I got goose bumps as we realized that we were sitting in a place where that same Gospel has been preached for hundreds of years (actually, fourteen hundred years if you count the churches that were on that spot before the present cathedral). It made us realize afresh that the Gospel provides a connection with all the Christians who have come before us, all the way back to the time of Jesus. And it is still transforming hearts and lives today every time it is preached or read. God and His Word are, as Augustine said, “beauty so ancient and so new.”
Watered-down “progressive” Christianity has nothing that can compare with this. Refusing to accept the authority of Scripture and cutting off all ties with our heritage leaves us rootless and drifting, ready to latch onto any fad. By contrast, as G. K. Chesterton explained about the timeless quality of God’s truth: “The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer.” He even wrote of the truth of the Gospel as “the heavenly chariot [that] flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
God’s truth has always shown that it can survive heresy, persecution, and any fad that the human mind can dream up. It will continue on, long after the last progressive has come up with the last resolution on tolerance.
-------------------
---Katie
The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Truth That is Ageless and New
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ 7/19/2006 Chuck Colson
Yesterday I talked about the Spiritual Activism Conference in Washington, D.C., and the trouble its participants had coming up with any meaningful objectives. The problem, I suggested, was that the majority of the religious left cannot tolerate the idea of the authority of Scripture. In fact, in the effort to be “progressive,” they seem committed to putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bible.
Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for liberals. Some evangelicals these days are saying that truth is only knowable if you experience it. But if you believe that, it throws the Bible out, which is, after all, revealed propositional truth. Liberal or conservative, if you weaken the Bible as your authority, you give up more than just some ancient set of dogmas and rules. You give up joy, excitement, the very heart of the Christian faith. You lose what I call the thrill of orthodoxy—the exhilaration of experiencing and living out eternal truth that has been lived through the ages.
Let me give you a little example of what I mean by that. My wife, Patty, and I once visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most beautiful churches in England. We walked into the church, which today seems to be more like a massive museum than a church. People were milling about everywhere. Patty and I both felt impressed that we should go and sit in a pew and pray. We sat down and listened to the liturgy, which was then being broadcast on a loudspeaker.
We looked around and realized that, yes, this church had become a museum, and yes, the public was here just to see its beauty, but they were also hearing the liturgy and the Gospel. Then we were struck by the realization that the Gospel is always going to be preached and heard and lived—in tiny enclaves or vast churches.
Both Patty and I got goose bumps as we realized that we were sitting in a place where that same Gospel has been preached for hundreds of years (actually, fourteen hundred years if you count the churches that were on that spot before the present cathedral). It made us realize afresh that the Gospel provides a connection with all the Christians who have come before us, all the way back to the time of Jesus. And it is still transforming hearts and lives today every time it is preached or read. God and His Word are, as Augustine said, “beauty so ancient and so new.”
Watered-down “progressive” Christianity has nothing that can compare with this. Refusing to accept the authority of Scripture and cutting off all ties with our heritage leaves us rootless and drifting, ready to latch onto any fad. By contrast, as G. K. Chesterton explained about the timeless quality of God’s truth: “The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer.” He even wrote of the truth of the Gospel as “the heavenly chariot [that] flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
God’s truth has always shown that it can survive heresy, persecution, and any fad that the human mind can dream up. It will continue on, long after the last progressive has come up with the last resolution on tolerance.
-------------------
---Katie
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Even the liberals get it.....
I was kind of surprised to find this in the LA Times....
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins
Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.
By Charlotte Allen, CHARLOTTE ALLEN is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."July 9, 2006
The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.
snip-----
When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.
When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.
snip----
So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.
-----------------------
You would think that the leadership could look at what is happening and turn the ship around, but they are too certain that they are right and the rest of us are just intolerant, mean-spiritied, bigots who should just leave if we don't like what they are doing. The sad thing is that many of us are leaving. Some of the members of my ELCA church have become Baptists, for goodness sake! (Nothing against Baptists, but there are some serious differences in theology between Lutherans and Baptists, particularly in the theology of baptism.) Many more have jumped to the LCMS, a denomination much clearer on their view of the authority of scripture.
It is sad to see that the liberals in these denominations are willing to see their churches die rather than to resist their agenda.
---Katie
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins
Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.
By Charlotte Allen, CHARLOTTE ALLEN is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."July 9, 2006
The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.
snip-----
When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.
When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.
snip----
So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.
-----------------------
You would think that the leadership could look at what is happening and turn the ship around, but they are too certain that they are right and the rest of us are just intolerant, mean-spiritied, bigots who should just leave if we don't like what they are doing. The sad thing is that many of us are leaving. Some of the members of my ELCA church have become Baptists, for goodness sake! (Nothing against Baptists, but there are some serious differences in theology between Lutherans and Baptists, particularly in the theology of baptism.) Many more have jumped to the LCMS, a denomination much clearer on their view of the authority of scripture.
It is sad to see that the liberals in these denominations are willing to see their churches die rather than to resist their agenda.
---Katie
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Share this with your liberal friends
Why I Left The Left
Seth Swirsky
I used to be a liberal.
I was in one of the first “open” classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War.
My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to “understand” the “root causes” of the “despair” he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis.
I wasn’t an overtly political person – I just never veered from the liberal zeitgeist of the community in which I was raised.
But when I was about 27, in the late 1980s, cracks in my liberal worldview began to appear. It started with an uproar from the Left when Tipper Gore had the audacity to suggest a label on certain CDs to warn parents of lyrics that were clearly inappropriate for young people. Her suggestion was simple common sense and I was surprised by the furor it caused from the likes of Frank Zappa (and others) who felt their freedoms were being encroached upon. It was my first introduction into the entitled, selfish and irresponsible thinking I now associate with the Left.
In 1989, I remember questioning whether Democrat David Dinkins was the best choice for Mayor of New York City (where I lived) over Rudy Giuliani. After all, Dinkins hadn’t distinguished himself as Manhattan Borough President while Giuliani, as a United States District Attorney, had just de-fanged the mob.
But, racial “healing” was the issue of the day, Dinkins won, and the city went straight downhill. When Giuliani beat Dinkins in a rematch four years later – Surprise! – the crime rate plummeted, tourism boomed, Times Square came alive not with pimps but with commerce. Since 1993, the overwhelmingly liberal electorate in New York City has voted for Republicans for Mayor. Yet, to this day, many of my liberal friends refer to the decisive and effective Giuliani as a Nazi, even as they stroll their children through neighborhoods he cleaned up.
"What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the ‘80s hadn’t, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda seriously damaging and disrupting their networks."
After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn’t hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city’s streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of “no justice, no peace.” And it was impossible not to notice the hypocrisy when prominent Hollywood liberals, who had hosted anti-NRA fundraisers at their homes a week before the riots were standing in line at shooting ranges the week after it.
I watched carefully as Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing, claiming Thomas – once head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – sexually harassed her after she rebuffed his invitations to date him. At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I’m ashamed that I was ever on the “side” of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not. Condoleezza Rice, during eligibility hearings for Secretary of State, also had to deal with rude people like Barbara Boxer, who seemed not to be able to fathom that a black American could embrace conservatism.
I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been “stolen” even though three other elections in the American history had been won by the candidate who had not won the popular vote (John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888). The rush to judgment by the now conspiracy consumed Left put me off. Where, I asked, were all the “disenfranchised” black voters who would have given Gore a victory in Florida? No one could produce a single name. And how exactly were the voting machines in Ohio “rigged” in 2004? I now refer to the Democrats as the Grassy Knoll party.
Still, I approached the 2004 primaries with an open mind. I was still a Democrat, still hoping that leaders like Sam Nunn and Scoop Jackson would emerge, still fantasizing that Democrats could constitute a party of truly progressive social thinkers with tough backbones who would reappear after 9/11.
I was wrong. The Left got nuttier, more extreme, less contributory to the public debate, more obsessed with their nemesis Bush – and it drove me further away. What Democrat could support Al Gore’s ‘04 choice for President, Howard Dean, when Dean didn’t dismiss the suggestion that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or when the second most powerful Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, thought our behavior at the detention center in Guantanamo was equivalent to Bergen Belsen and the Soviet gulags? Or when Senator Kennedy equated the unfortunate but small incident at Abu Ghraib with Saddam’s 40-year record of mass murder, rape rooms, and mass graves saying, “Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management"? What Democrat could not applaud the fact that the President had, in fact, kept us safe for what’s going on 5 years? What Democrat – even those who opposed the decision to go into Iraq – wouldn’t applaud the fact that tens of millions of previously brutalized people had the hope of freedom before them?
What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the ‘80s hadn’t, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda seriously damaging and disrupting their networks. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.
I supported President Bush’s hard line against the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, remembering that Bush’s predecessor hosted Arafat at the White House 13 times, more often than any other world leader. I applauded Bush’s unequivocal support for Israel, which every day faced (and faces) suicide attacks against its people. But I was most disappointed with liberal Jews who don’t understand that their very existence is rooted in Israel’s existence and that George W. Bush has been the best friend that Israel has ever had. But because they are less Jewish than they are liberal, they didn’t reward Bush with their vote in 2004.
Finally, I supported President Bush’s decision to oust Saddam and make possible the only democracy (other than Israel) in this crucial region of the Middle East. Post 9/11, we had to figure out a way to lessen the chances of more 9/11s. Democracy is a weapon in that war. If people are free to build businesses, buy homes, send their children to schools, pursue upward mobility, live their lives without fear, read newspapers of every opinion, vote for their leaders, resolve differences with debate and not bombs, they will have no reason to want to harm us.
In response, the Left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the U.N. and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services affirmed that Saddam’s WMD were a vital threat – a threat, that post- 9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war – but now the Left says they were “scared” into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the “dummy” they think Bush is can scare them so easily?
Iraq is the “Normandy” of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: “Why do these people get to enjoy the fruits of freedom and we don’t?” – and then topple their Mullah’s dictatorial regime. The President understands the big picture -- that if the U.S. doesn’t help to remake that volatile region, we will face a nuclear version of 9/11 within the next two or five or 10 years. He is simply being realistic in his outlook and responsible in his actions. Iraq is succeeding, slowly but surely, but that’s not a sexy enough story to lead the news with: the relatively small amount of casualities are. Don’t forget, we occupied Germany and Japan for seven years and we still have troops there, more than 60 years after World War II ended.
And what have the Democrats contributed to the war effort since 9/11? Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold has suggested censuring our president; Former President and Vice President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, while visiting foreign countries, have blasted President Bush – acts of unconscionable irresponsibility; Democrat Sen. John Murtha, has invoked a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, supported by Democrat Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and Democrat House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Do they think the Middle East and the World would be safer if we had cut and run, as Murtha’s plan wanted us to do? Under that plan, our troops would have been out of Iraq by May 18th and al-Zarqawi wouldn’t be dead, but pulling the strings in an Iraqi civil war. With these kinds of ideas and behaviors, I just don’t trust Democrats when it comes to our national security.
And so, as any reader of this article can well understand, it became impossible for me to relate to the modern Democrat Party which has tacked way too far to the left and is dominated by elites that don’t like or trust the real people that make up most of the country.
Although I haven’t always agreed with President Bush, I proudly voted for him in 2004 (the only one of the four presidents not elected by the popular vote to win re-election). And I now fully understand Ronald Reagan’s statement, when he described why he switched from being a liberal to a conservative: “I didn’t leave the party – It left me!”
(Seth Swirsky is a songwriter, author, recording artist and memorabilia collector. His hits include "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" for Al Green, "Tell It To My Heart" and "Prove Your Love" for Taylor Dayne, "Instant Pleasure" for Rufus Wainwright amongst others. His trilogy of bestselling books consisting of his correspondence with baseball players are called "Baseball Letters" (Crown, 1996), "Every Pitcher Tells A Story" (Times Books, 1999) and "Something to Write Home About" (Random House, 2003). His personal collection consists of the ball that went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series and the letter banning “Shoeless” Joe Jackson from Baseball. His own CD, "Instant Pleasure", won Best Pop Album at the 2005 L.A. Music Awards. Currently, he is making a bookumentary called Beatles Stories. His eclectic world can be seen and heard at his site, Seth.com.)
Seth Swirsky
I used to be a liberal.
I was in one of the first “open” classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War.
My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to “understand” the “root causes” of the “despair” he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis.
I wasn’t an overtly political person – I just never veered from the liberal zeitgeist of the community in which I was raised.
But when I was about 27, in the late 1980s, cracks in my liberal worldview began to appear. It started with an uproar from the Left when Tipper Gore had the audacity to suggest a label on certain CDs to warn parents of lyrics that were clearly inappropriate for young people. Her suggestion was simple common sense and I was surprised by the furor it caused from the likes of Frank Zappa (and others) who felt their freedoms were being encroached upon. It was my first introduction into the entitled, selfish and irresponsible thinking I now associate with the Left.
In 1989, I remember questioning whether Democrat David Dinkins was the best choice for Mayor of New York City (where I lived) over Rudy Giuliani. After all, Dinkins hadn’t distinguished himself as Manhattan Borough President while Giuliani, as a United States District Attorney, had just de-fanged the mob.
But, racial “healing” was the issue of the day, Dinkins won, and the city went straight downhill. When Giuliani beat Dinkins in a rematch four years later – Surprise! – the crime rate plummeted, tourism boomed, Times Square came alive not with pimps but with commerce. Since 1993, the overwhelmingly liberal electorate in New York City has voted for Republicans for Mayor. Yet, to this day, many of my liberal friends refer to the decisive and effective Giuliani as a Nazi, even as they stroll their children through neighborhoods he cleaned up.
"What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the ‘80s hadn’t, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda seriously damaging and disrupting their networks."
After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn’t hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city’s streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of “no justice, no peace.” And it was impossible not to notice the hypocrisy when prominent Hollywood liberals, who had hosted anti-NRA fundraisers at their homes a week before the riots were standing in line at shooting ranges the week after it.
I watched carefully as Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing, claiming Thomas – once head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – sexually harassed her after she rebuffed his invitations to date him. At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I’m ashamed that I was ever on the “side” of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not. Condoleezza Rice, during eligibility hearings for Secretary of State, also had to deal with rude people like Barbara Boxer, who seemed not to be able to fathom that a black American could embrace conservatism.
I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been “stolen” even though three other elections in the American history had been won by the candidate who had not won the popular vote (John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888). The rush to judgment by the now conspiracy consumed Left put me off. Where, I asked, were all the “disenfranchised” black voters who would have given Gore a victory in Florida? No one could produce a single name. And how exactly were the voting machines in Ohio “rigged” in 2004? I now refer to the Democrats as the Grassy Knoll party.
Still, I approached the 2004 primaries with an open mind. I was still a Democrat, still hoping that leaders like Sam Nunn and Scoop Jackson would emerge, still fantasizing that Democrats could constitute a party of truly progressive social thinkers with tough backbones who would reappear after 9/11.
I was wrong. The Left got nuttier, more extreme, less contributory to the public debate, more obsessed with their nemesis Bush – and it drove me further away. What Democrat could support Al Gore’s ‘04 choice for President, Howard Dean, when Dean didn’t dismiss the suggestion that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or when the second most powerful Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, thought our behavior at the detention center in Guantanamo was equivalent to Bergen Belsen and the Soviet gulags? Or when Senator Kennedy equated the unfortunate but small incident at Abu Ghraib with Saddam’s 40-year record of mass murder, rape rooms, and mass graves saying, “Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management"? What Democrat could not applaud the fact that the President had, in fact, kept us safe for what’s going on 5 years? What Democrat – even those who opposed the decision to go into Iraq – wouldn’t applaud the fact that tens of millions of previously brutalized people had the hope of freedom before them?
What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the ‘80s hadn’t, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda seriously damaging and disrupting their networks. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.
I supported President Bush’s hard line against the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, remembering that Bush’s predecessor hosted Arafat at the White House 13 times, more often than any other world leader. I applauded Bush’s unequivocal support for Israel, which every day faced (and faces) suicide attacks against its people. But I was most disappointed with liberal Jews who don’t understand that their very existence is rooted in Israel’s existence and that George W. Bush has been the best friend that Israel has ever had. But because they are less Jewish than they are liberal, they didn’t reward Bush with their vote in 2004.
Finally, I supported President Bush’s decision to oust Saddam and make possible the only democracy (other than Israel) in this crucial region of the Middle East. Post 9/11, we had to figure out a way to lessen the chances of more 9/11s. Democracy is a weapon in that war. If people are free to build businesses, buy homes, send their children to schools, pursue upward mobility, live their lives without fear, read newspapers of every opinion, vote for their leaders, resolve differences with debate and not bombs, they will have no reason to want to harm us.
In response, the Left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the U.N. and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services affirmed that Saddam’s WMD were a vital threat – a threat, that post- 9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war – but now the Left says they were “scared” into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the “dummy” they think Bush is can scare them so easily?
Iraq is the “Normandy” of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: “Why do these people get to enjoy the fruits of freedom and we don’t?” – and then topple their Mullah’s dictatorial regime. The President understands the big picture -- that if the U.S. doesn’t help to remake that volatile region, we will face a nuclear version of 9/11 within the next two or five or 10 years. He is simply being realistic in his outlook and responsible in his actions. Iraq is succeeding, slowly but surely, but that’s not a sexy enough story to lead the news with: the relatively small amount of casualities are. Don’t forget, we occupied Germany and Japan for seven years and we still have troops there, more than 60 years after World War II ended.
And what have the Democrats contributed to the war effort since 9/11? Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold has suggested censuring our president; Former President and Vice President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, while visiting foreign countries, have blasted President Bush – acts of unconscionable irresponsibility; Democrat Sen. John Murtha, has invoked a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, supported by Democrat Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and Democrat House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Do they think the Middle East and the World would be safer if we had cut and run, as Murtha’s plan wanted us to do? Under that plan, our troops would have been out of Iraq by May 18th and al-Zarqawi wouldn’t be dead, but pulling the strings in an Iraqi civil war. With these kinds of ideas and behaviors, I just don’t trust Democrats when it comes to our national security.
And so, as any reader of this article can well understand, it became impossible for me to relate to the modern Democrat Party which has tacked way too far to the left and is dominated by elites that don’t like or trust the real people that make up most of the country.
Although I haven’t always agreed with President Bush, I proudly voted for him in 2004 (the only one of the four presidents not elected by the popular vote to win re-election). And I now fully understand Ronald Reagan’s statement, when he described why he switched from being a liberal to a conservative: “I didn’t leave the party – It left me!”
(Seth Swirsky is a songwriter, author, recording artist and memorabilia collector. His hits include "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" for Al Green, "Tell It To My Heart" and "Prove Your Love" for Taylor Dayne, "Instant Pleasure" for Rufus Wainwright amongst others. His trilogy of bestselling books consisting of his correspondence with baseball players are called "Baseball Letters" (Crown, 1996), "Every Pitcher Tells A Story" (Times Books, 1999) and "Something to Write Home About" (Random House, 2003). His personal collection consists of the ball that went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series and the letter banning “Shoeless” Joe Jackson from Baseball. His own CD, "Instant Pleasure", won Best Pop Album at the 2005 L.A. Music Awards. Currently, he is making a bookumentary called Beatles Stories. His eclectic world can be seen and heard at his site, Seth.com.)
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