Missing the Point

The flap over the GOP YouTube debate continues and expands, as many of the video questions chosen by CNN have been found to be Democrat activists. Aside from the obvious dishonesty of the questioners presenting themselves as "undecided voter" or "Log Cabin Republican", CNN and their leftist supporters are missing (or mis-reporting) the point.

That point being it's not that the candidates are afraid of answering "tough" questions. It's about the double standard. It's about the predisposition of the CNN folks who chose the questions that Republicans are redneck war-mongering mean bigoted homophobes. They chose questions in an attempt to "expose" the candidates as such.

Even more to the point is the double standard. If you want to put on these left agenda-driven questioners in the GOP debate, where were the questions from Republican party activists at the Democrat YouTube debate?

Let's talk equivalency.

If it's fair game to bring Dem gay activists on the GOP debate asking their questions, why not have a Republican activist asking the Democrat candidates where they stand on Gay Marriage, and whether businesses and religious organizations should have the right to discriminate based on moral behavior standards?

How about a questioner asking the Dems to explain when exactly abortion crosses the line and becomes infanticide? Or whether they would counsel a young pregnant woman to get an abortion or enter an adoption program?

Maybe a question about whether they would support police raids on private residences to confiscate handguns, a la Washington DC?

Even a similar question as asked by the guy waving the Bible. Where do you Dems stand on religion and morality, and what place (if any) does religion play in American society?

The point is simple, but somehow the media seems to miss it.

What else is new?

Debaters

I caught the entire debate last night. CNN learned at least one lesson on the You-Tube format and cut out the stupid and outrageous stuff from the Democrat version. But apparently they couldn't help themselves in the sense of putting on some rather poor choices I suspect mirror their own attitudes.

They got caught on the gay general who hammered the candidates on "don't ask, don't tell". It turns out he's from Hillary's campaign. They compounded the dishonest presentation by letting the general expound further after the candidates gave what I thought were reasonable responses. Except Romney, who was so afraid of saying the wrong thing that he came off as an insincere buffoon.

The guy with the guns was funny, but I suspect may have been a set-up designed to suggest Republicans are a bunch of stupid rednecks. And the guy waving the Bible was simply insulting. Actually, I thought as many as half of the questions CNN chose were very questionable, possible put-up jobs. It's hard to believe they chose the one with the question about the stars & bars. In general, there were too many non-serious obnoxious questions from obvious enemies of the party.

My personal opinion is that Romney didn't do so well. He seemed insincere and calculating to me.

Rudy was his usual self, promising to do for the country what he did for New York City. Problem is, New York City is hardly a place most Americans (including me) would consider a reasonable model for the rest of the country. For me, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles are as close to being their own separate countries as they can be. I don't especially want the rest of America to look like New York City.

I thought the strongest performances came from McCain and Huckabee. They were earnest and seemed honest and passionate about their beliefs. McCain did a great job of projecting a confidence in his ability to win in Iraq and deal with the threats of terrorism. Huckabee was very personable and affable, and was terrific on the WWJD question.

Ron Paul must have gotten the message, toning it down a bit so he didn't come across quite so crazy. I was finally able to see what makes him attractive to his enthusiastic base of supporters.

I still really want to like Fred, and can't say he did badly. He seemed fairly comfortable and plain-spoken, but still doesn't really show much passion for the race. He's a guy I'd be happy to vote for in the general election, but he doesn't seem to give people a lot of reason to support him enthusiastically in the primary.

Hunter and Tancredo were all but ignored. They could be the greatest candidates in the field, but CNN seemed determined to keep them in the shadows. Tancredo still seems the one-trick pony, all about the immigration issue. Maybe he's served his purpose in highlighting the issue and can go ahead and retire from the race. Hunter seems like a good guy, but we get far to few chances to learn much about him.

I've got to think that the race is not between Rudi and Romney, but maybe between McCain and Huckabee. It will be interesting to find out whether I'm right.

Sports Fans Mistreated

The two examples this season of spiraling greed of sports executives is in the NFL and the Big 10. Both have launched their own cable networks which are mostly unavailable to the public. Indiana University basketball fans can't watch their beloved Hoosiers, who are now on the Big 10 Network. The second biggest game of the NFL season tonight can't be seen by most fans of the Packers and Cowboys, because it's only shown on the NFL Network.

The Big 10 and NFL blame the cable companies, who they say have greedily refused to carry their new networks on their "basic" television packages. The cable companies say it's the Big 10 and NFL who are the greedy ones, demanding something like $.80 per subscriber while they demand the channels be added to the basic package.

Like every other sports fan, I grew up watching the NFL and College basketball on free network television. Advertisers paid the stations for the right to show me their wares during time-outs. Everybody made money, and the leagues built huge fan bases.

But they got greedy. Cable channels, notably ESPN, entered the picture, and suddenly you had to have a cable subscription to watch your favorite teams play sometimes. Fewer and fewer games play on the "free" network channels.

The result I expect is going to be a loss of the fan base that has been the golden goose for the NFL and Big 10 all these years. Having only seen part of 2 Hoosier basketball games so far this season, I find myself starting to lose interest in the team I've followed since I was a kid. Likewise, the NFL will see angry and disaffected fans begin to find other interests.

Anyone that's upset over the money grabs by the NFL and Big 10 should act in this simple way: Stop watching. Don't subscribe. Don't give in to their attempt to grab your wallet and just avoid these new networks. Send the message that you will not play the game, and your support for the teams and leagues is not for sale.

I think the NFL and Big 10 should be forced to back down. But are the fans strong enough?

We'll soon find out.

Why Hate?

Maybe it's just that I've been paying more attention now, or I just didn't recognize it in the past, but it seems that hatred is at an all-time high both in quantity and intensity.

It's hard for me to imagine, because I honestly don't hate anyone. At least using my own definition of hatred, which is despising an individual so thoroughly as to actually wish them ill.

Sure, there are a few people I've met in my life that I've disliked. Mainly because they were absolute jerks. My approach is very simple - I just make sure to stay as far away from them as possible. On one or two occasions the jerks have been co-workers, but even then I seemed able to distance myself from them except for when I was forced to interact. Then I refused to allow anything but brief conversations about the business at hand.

It's very strange to me that so many people seem to nurture a murderous hatred of George W. Bush. How can one hate so viciously someone they've never even met, and only know based on the image conjured of him by the news media?

Among public figures, I have to admit that I expect there's a special place in Hell reserved for one Bill Maher. He's one jerk I hope never to meet in person. But I do pray for him, because aside from being a jerk, I think he's just terribly misguided.

Those who hate the president accuse their conservative counterparts of hating his predecessor no less viscerally. I'd have to disagree - I never heard the most rabid of conservatives openly hope for Bill Clinton's assassination like the Bush haters do. Personally, I thought Clinton should have done the right thing after the Lewinsky mess and resigned. I was profoundly disappointed in what he did and how he demeaned the office, but never hated him.

Some people irritate me. They anger me, disappoint me, exasperate me. But I don't hate them for it. At most, they just make me sad; more for them than for myself.

Instead of hating each other, why can't we just disagree? I think we can disagree with each other strongly and vigorously without coming the the H word. Maybe now and then we can learn a little about each other.

Some of us will never like each other, but that beats hating each other.

Projection

A little psychological term I picked up in college, projection is a defense mechanism whereby someone accuses another of a negative attribute or behavior she actually exhibits.

There seems to be a lot of projection in our modern political dialogue.

Let's examine a few:

Conservatives who support capital punishment are heartless barbarians.

I'm still waiting for an explanation about why the most strident voices against capital punishment are equally as strident in their defense of a "woman's right to choose", even to the point of where a fully-developed human infant's brains are sucked out just before delivery so the mother doesn't have to raise the child. How does it work - "Save the murderers, kill the babies"? How about "Save the environment, abort a fetus".

Conservatives "steal" elections by "disenfranchising" Democrat voters.

I've been trying to figure out what that means, and the closest I can get is this: Laws like the one passed here in Indiana that require voters to produce a valid identification before voting disenfranchise Democrat voters who are filling in for people who have moved away, are dead, or never existed in the first place. Then of course there are the illegal immigrant and convicted felon disenfranchised Democrat voters. Who exactly is "stealing" elections?

Conservatives, especially talk radio, are responsible for the divisiveness and uncivil discourse in American politics today. It's conservatives who have no tolerance for other points of view. Rush Limbaugh is the poster child for this argument.

Tell you what: Listen to Rush Limbaugh just once, then turn on Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews. Then tell me who is more uncivil; who exhibits more raw hatred and disgust for the other side? Be honest.

Conservatives hail from the Flat Earth Society.

I guess the charge is that conservatives hate science, apparently because they're religious nutcases. Al Gore recently said that anyone who questions his highly touted "scientific facts" about global warming is no more worthy of media play than someone who believes the earth is flat. Interesting, given the fact that even the climate scientists on Al's side have admitted that he's vastly overblown many of his "facts", and completely made up several others.

Interestingly, the people who claim to put so much faith in science and reason rise up in righteous indignation if anybody in the scientific community releases a study that seems to prove one of their sacred liberal beliefs isn't true. The latest story on stem cells, for example. Darwinian evolution. That men and women are actually different in several measurable ways (*gasp*).

It's so interesting how science is only touted by these folks when it serves their agenda. Oh wait - I thought that was supposed to be the other side that does that!

Moving on to reason, that just may be the biggest joke. Those who profess to use reason and a dispassionate analysis of the factual evidence seem to be most likely to abandon reason for emotion. Those on the far left (Marxists, in case you don't know who the far left are) choose to ignore the abject failures of Marxist society, believing they will simply implement it better than the others.

Bush is spying on Americans.

Aside from the fact that there's no evidence any innocent American has been illegally wiretapped, it's another great example. Anybody remember the FBI Files scandal, euphemistically called "Filegate", from the Clinton era? By the way, it was Hillary that set up the illegal office where FBI files were obtained on all of the Clinton's political enemies to use against them. Plus there was the case of Newt Gingerich's cellphone conversations being tapped by Democrat party operatives and shared with Hillary to use against him.

Strange how everybody but Hillary got prosecuted for that stuff.

There are more, but here's the last one:

Bush has shredded the Constitution.

That's amazing, coming from those who would impose a big-brother socialist society on the rest of us, telling us what we are allowed to drive, eat, smoke, even think. Those who want a Supreme Court that disregards the constitution to implement anything they can't achieve through democratic means. Those who would erase all references to God and repeal the first and second amendments as quickly as possible.

Our word for today, children, is Projection.

Atheist Oppression

Lately I've been hearing and reading about prominent atheists and their crusade against Christianity. Just trying to understand the point of view, I have discovered their true agenda is the destruction of religion.

The basic ideas I'm hearing from them are these:

Christianity is the source of most of the violence today and throughout history.

Christianity is a fable, there is no God, and those who adhere to a Christian faith are akin to ignorant unenlightened closed-minded superstitious fools.

Christianity is about denying people a fulfilling life through silly and arbitrary behavioral rules. Christianity also attempts to refute and deny scientific facts, and tries to keep children ignorant and away from scientific education or discovery.

If Christianity could be eliminated, people would somehow become more enlightened and educated, the world would be a less violent place, and everyone would enjoy true equality.

Let's see if I can address these point-by-point:

Christians are violent? OK, keep pointing to the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition. Reading history, I seem to find much more violence by other than Christians than those two tired old examples. Check out the Inquisition, and despite the fact it was certainly not a bright spot for the Church, it was a very short-lived and isolated event that in fact killed a very small number of people.

Why is it so en vogue to attack Christians as violent, absent any actual examples of violence done in the name of Jesus Christ? Stranger still, the same people on that bandwagon don't seem to have a problem with Islamic terrorism, which is a real and observable phenomenon of our time.

How about atheists? How many people were killed by atheist states in the modern era? By communists in China, VietNam, Cambodia, the Soviet Union, and so on. The treatment of people when atheists take over the government would seem to suggest there's a great deal more to fear from atheists than any Christian.

The idea that Christianity is a fable is strange. There's more evidence of the existence and execution of Jesus than most other historical figures, both in biblical and Roman accounts. It's hard to deny the man existed, even if atheists insist on arguing the point of his resurrection and divinity.

The flat statement that God does not exist is never made from a place of logic, as the atheist spokespersons try to suggest. Just listening to them talk, their rhetoric is full of anger and invective. It suggests to me that they are not approaching their activist agenda out of a desire for reason and logic, but rather out of some terrible anger over some abuse or slight they must have experienced at the hand of someone claiming to be a Christian.

These atheist activists are crusading to destroy the Christian faith because of a deeply held antipathy toward those who espouse the faith. It would seem to me that a dispassionate atheist would have more of a live-and-let-live attitude, or perhaps strongly support science education in schools. They run over the cliff when they extend their agenda to pushing for government denial of the First Amendment.

As for the arbitrary behavioral rules, I'd suggest they are not arbitrary at all. Christians know that the entire moral code set out by the faith is based on how we treat each other. Adultery isn't wrong because it's about sex; it's wrong because by definition the act is one of deceit that harms the adulterer's partner. Prohibitions against extramarital sex in general are based on very real outcomes, nearly all of which are devastating. Disease and pregnancy, for example.

Which leads to abortion. I've come to decide that the rage of atheists against Christianity's stand against abortion has at its heart a human reaction to having an evil act reflected back. If someone who has aborted a child comes to understand that the abortion is tantamount to infanticide can't live with herself. So one psychological response is rage against those who would suggest such an idea. They already know the truth, but like petulant children, scream loudly to drown out those who would state that truth.

The anti-science argument is another matter. I know that there are those in the evangelical community that hope to get something called "intelligent design" included in the curriculum of science classes that teach Darwinian evolution. I haven't read enough about "intelligent design" to know what it is for certain, but it seems to suggest that the questions of origins that aren't adequately described by science just might be found in the idea of a creator.

If there's an area I can agree with atheists, it's that science is science and should be taught as such. That said, I think Darwinian evolution should be taught with an honest airing of its many flaws and gaps. It seems to me that some atheists have an agenda as strong or stronger than those pushing the "intelligent design" idea, presenting Darwin as fact and purposely ignoring its gaps and flaws.

The Left is feeling empowered these days, confident that they will win control of the Federal Government next year. That seems to have led to many voices coming out to trumpet their agenda for the new liberal government. Those goals seem to include a deliberate suppression of Christianity, which has already been evidenced by the House's bill to designate homosexuals as a protected class, equivalent to racial minorities. It happens to be in direct conflict with the rights of religion to hold such behavior as immoral.

But the oppression doesn't stop with religion. Overweight? The new government will force you to exercise and eat better and lose weight, or you might lose your access to healthcare. Smoke? Better quit, or you will be denied access to healthcare. Drive an SUV? Not for long. Even more extreme - the China protocol is favored by many on the left; population control through government enforcement of one child per couple (but of course the couple can be of any gender pair).

Could it possibly be true that the majority of Americans will unwittingly vote for all this government intrusion on their lives? So it seems.

Rights and Wrongs

Apparently the US House passed a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. What a terrible idea.

No, I don't say it's a terrible idea because I think gays should be treated badly. I think it is a terrible idea because it infringes on rights and freedoms of everyone else.

Let me illustrate:

Giving gays the right to sue employers who chose not to hire them or promote them because they perceive a discriminatory bias will lead to harassment lawsuits against companies all over the country. It will become a popular tactic used to damage or bankrupt businesses the radical gay activists don't like.

The law will now force employers to provide all benefits they offer to married couples and children to gay partners. Which means discriminating against all their employees that cannot get benefits for dependent parents, brothers, sisters, or others.

Most importantly, small businesses owned by sincere Christians who believe homosexual behavior is immoral and disordered will be forced to hire open gays and provide them with benefits. It's the same to people of faith as being forced to hire and give special treatment to any person of low morals.

Then there are churches, parochial and Christian schools, Christian bookstores, and related businesses that have at their core a commitment to high moral standards. They'll be insulted by a callous government telling them they cannot make moral judgements in their hiring decisions.

It's no different than passing a law telling business owners they may not discriminate against openly promiscuous applicants. Employees who compromise on some moral issues are more likely to compromise on others. That is as true of a heterosexual man who has been married 4 times and continues with serial affairs in the office as an openly promiscuous gay man.

If the government can force employers to hire this special class, then why not protect other classes? How about overweight people, who are openly discriminated against in our society? Why not short people? Ugly people? Stupid people? I could go on and on ...

Common sense is dead. And morality died with it.

A Sour Mood Previewed

The local elections this week in Indianapolis may have some relevance as a micro-level demonstration of the sour mood among American voters in general.

In a classic "throw the bums out" move, Indianapolis residents kicked out Bart Peterson and voted in a Republican majority to the City Council.

It's an angry city, to be sure. Property tax reassessment made many homeowners in greater Indianapolis exceedingly upset, with some claiming increases up to 200 and even 400 percent. That on top of a hike in their local income tax rate combined to produce an angry mob of voters prepared to force change.

It makes me think that on the national level, maybe change will drive next year's elections more than party affiliation. Could it be that the press is wrong, as they so often are, in predicting a landslide for Democrats next November? Maybe the landslide will be seen more in an anti-incumbent vote regardless of party affiliation.

I think people are sick of the parties, and are simply looking for candidates that give them straight talk and offer real solutions instead of the standard meaningless pablum the incumbents have so carefully cultivated over the years.

Got a Democrat in your district who supported amnesty for illegal immigrants, tax increases, and votes in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi? If challenged by an articulate, reasonably intelligent Republican, he or she might be surprised to find him(her)self unemployed next year.

Got a Republican in your district who participated or didn't visibly oppose the pork when his party owned the congress, aligned with the President on illegal immigration, or favored corporate interests over his constituents? Likewise, a Democrat could unseat even a seemingly entrenched lawmaker.

For President, I'm no longer assuming Hillary's a lock. Obama seems to be gaining on her, and the Republican candidate has yet to emerge.

When I hear someone say they will vote for Hillary, I try to just ask why. The reasons I hear are pretty simplistic: She's a woman (usually the reason given by women), and she's not George Bush. So let's suppose the GOP candidate gets out there head-to-head with Hillary and communicates clearly on common-sense solutions to issues, at the same time exposing Hillary as a poll-driven animal without any real principles (except, perhaps, getting and keeping power for herself). He could win.

Of course, the only candidate who has a chance to win is the one who has the best common-sense solutions to very difficult problems. Oil prices, Iraq and Iran, Terror, Illegal Immigration, Taxes and Spending, Healthcare, Social Security. Lots of incredibly tough problems out there for the next President, who I suspect will have to begin the term with the country in recession.

Is there somebody running who will be best to deal with so many large and difficult problems? I'm not sure there is, but I do think there's a tremendous opportunity from somebody to step up and prove it to the people.

Do I Ask too Much?

Spending a week in Canada was sort of frustrating, since the only news I could see was CNN. But I can't stand it for very long, because inevitably I begin hearing the talking points direct from the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Lou Dobbs is a notable exception. He's mad at both parties, and continues his quixotic crusade against outsourcing, offshoring, and illegal immigration. Issues where of course he has virtually no support from either political party.

Otherwise, the rest of the talking heads get tiresome as they spin each and every issue as somehow screwed up by George Bush, and only solvable by Queen Hillary and her Democrat comrades. I feel like I'm watching something from the old Soviet Pravda.

I don't care if all the reporters are socialists or communists. All I ask is that they at least make an attempt to tell the complete story and offer the opposing (definition: non-Democratic) point of view now and then.

Let's be honest. Next year's election is about deciding a few very simple principles for America:

Either we will find our healthcare provided by a federal government bureaucracy or the status quo. Nobody's going to fix the problems, so unfortunately those are the only two available options.

Either we will continue to keep terrorism on the run or they will begin bombing our cities. Maybe with nukes.

We'll either find ways to increase oil supplies and bring down prices or the problem will reach crisis proportions. The latter is about an 80% probability, as far as I can tell right now.

Either our taxes will go up a lot or just a little. A lot seems more likely.

We will probably be in recession. The only question is how long will it last, and how painful will it be. The parties will just blame each other. Democrats will pretend like increasing taxes will help. Republicans will propose reducing taxes but will be rebuffed.

The illegal alien problem won't be solved. Even though somewhere north of 70 percent of Americans are outraged about the lack of attention paid to the problem by elected officials. They still won't do anything to solve it, unless you call legalizing all the illegal aliens solving it.

Hillary as president will be controlled by the Chinese, Labor Unions, Trial Lawyers, illegal immigrants, gays, and socialist minorities.

The Republican president will most likely be controlled by big business, the drug companies, the insurance companies.

Nobody will represent us average working folks.

I'm angry. I'm cynical. I'm disappointed. I feel more like voting against every incumbent than electing anybody in particular.