Right Ring | Bullright | © 2021
In a recent interview, Victor Davis Hanson made a profound comment. He simply said you have to believe America is better than any alternative. If we don’t believe that, we cannot be….. probably won’t be and possibly don’t deserve to be. (I added that last part)
Because if you believe that other countries are just as good, which is moral relativism, you have already ceded the debate and battle. And if you think, in the sense of governing, that other countries are better than us, then you have forfeited the entire paradigm.
“But any fair critic can see the [1776] report’s unifying message is that we are a people blessed with a singular government and history, that self-critique and moral improvement are innate to the American founding and spirit, and that America never had to be perfect to be both good and far better than the alternatives.” — VDH on the 1776 Commission’s Report
Well, is that our objective just to be equal to alternatives to America? I don’t think so. Other countries don’t look at themselves that way. We always hear Bernie Sanders say other counties have a more advanced healthcare system than ours, that European countries are better on economics with better economic systems, on and on.
How could any sitting US Senator say and, worse still, believe those things? Notice how the Bern is always comparing us and asserting that others are better than us. We just need to be more like them. That sort of gives away his argument.
Imagine for a moment how one of their old, central arguments frames Socialism and Marxism as a struggle. (it sets the tone of the movement) But in reality he’s already agreed they are better than us. What was the point of America again?
We simply must believe we are better than alternatives, if you do want a struggle at all.
I mean if you don’t believe we are the better than any alternative in the world, then what is the whole point? Why bother doing what we are doing, and what is the purpose of it?
Sadly that is the problem with the left today, they forfeited that principle and lost their belief in this country and in our system. They have already accepted that proposition. Contrary to that principle, they actually reject the idea America is exceptional.
Through all the years writing in my spare time, the one thing that always kept me going is that there are so many great titles out there just waiting to be used. So I’ll try to make this one worth it. And pardon my French when I error on the side of simplicity.
The Fourth of July is coming again and poses the same quandary to me as last year. That is having barbecues and celebrating it with pomp and circumstance, the way we could not really do last year, is great for everyone to do. We all do it our own way.
What bugs me most is how some people can celebrate Independence Day of the greatest country on earth and the very next day be back tearing apart the foundations that made it all possible. Do those two things go together? They don’t seem to.
Another thing gnawing at my intestines at the moment is Biden scheming a 6 trillion dollar budget. It’s a killer in ways only economists can articulate but it is a disaster. Except Democrats frame it, as they do all their huge spending, as a plan to save the country. Well, save it from what? How can both be so? If you do something that will destroy the country, how can you claim to be saving it? But it is that way with all their plans.
Really, their ideas are consistent at least but consistently wrong. Their instincts are always bad. Some people can make rotten out of something good. That appears to be what they are doing to this country. I hope I am not oversimplifying that.
Taking advantage of crises is what they always say, then no wonder they have to create a crisis first. Look at the border. It is hard to celebrate the Fourth of July with the border wide open. No one seems to care in the White House. Oh, the left would find some way to make even the open border sound like a good or positive thing. They would defy the idea of independence insinuating the independence of people coming here. Isn’t that what they always do, redefine the problem? Or they claim it is not really a problem. How about creating another to keep that one company?
But we have heard it all before. The border is only a crisis to us because it is no problem to them. They want it this way. They want it to get so rotten and overrun we are forced into doing anything to stop it. So they could claim amnesty for millions of illegals. So they could expand the country’s welfare and safety net to the breaking point in order to accomplish their objectives. Take it to the limit used to be a good Eagles song but has become the mantra of the Left. This is radicalism’s dirty little secret that is not too secret anymore. Cloward-Piven Strategy strikes again. How many times can you employ that strategy?
Back before the election and soon after I was hearing self-avowed socialists on the air telling comrade Democrats that deficits don’t matter. They said the new doctrine is deficits don’t matter and they should not hear any complaints about deficits or the debt.
You know what that gets. They want and need to spend with no worry or threat of consequences. Now’s the time, deficits don’t matter. How do you compute that? It only works if you can put the country into such a chaotic state no one can think of deficits.
It is radicalism pure and simple. How can you claim to be saving the country by destroying it? That would seem a tough sell anywhere.
Biden went overseas under the rubric that they were selling democracy. How so? Should you have to sell it? It turns out what they are selling at home is not republican democracy but a socialism mobocracy. So why would they go overseas to sell something they are fleeing from at home? Make any sense? Again, this is radicalism.
We are in a dangerous point I never thought I would see. It is crazy If you have to sell something here at home. Well, we now have to sell people in this country on America. When we have to do that we might be losing. I never thought we would actually have to convince a big chunk of the country on American freedom.
I always thought it was something we could agree on and did, even through the political battles. When it came down to it, we could all agree on the idea of America. Now that idea is in danger, being replaced by ideas foreign to what the founders envisioned. They warned us against those. They warned about mobocracy, too. But here we are drawing short straws for freedom and the chances are not looking real great at the moment.
So the Left will celebrate a holiday that, promptly after, they will defy by working to destroy the country. Independence from what? We cherish our independence though it is being discarded.
Back to the point, why should we have to sell anyone on the ideas of America? Can’t we all at least still agree on that? Apparently not. They want us to subsidize our demise.
Right Ring | Bullright | © 2021
Does it seem to anyone else that since January 20th, everything that could go wrong has? Indeed it is how I feel. No lists are necessary from national security to economic, to schools to culture galore.
It could take your breath away. Some people probably just “sit back and,” as Tom Snyder used to say, “watch the pictures as they fly through the air.” So “fire up a colortini,” as he referred to them.
I explained to a good friend, who is a centenarian, a while ago: if we see a resurgence or revival now, one thing we can be sure of is that it must be God because it can’t be anything we did to cause it. There will be no doubt about it. (but there are always naysayers.)
This person has been a reliable Christian consultant over the years, who fears for what is ahead for the US now. It says a lot about the times we are in. There comes a point when it is up to God.
Right Ring | Bullright | © 2021
Here is sort of a tribute to Charlie Daniels by Charlie Daniels, in an interview with Pastor Allen Jackson. He did a bunch of interviews out there but I think this is one of his best.
So this is a smattering of Charlie.
“Never Look At The Empty Seats” by Charlie Daniels.
But there is an interesting thing. A few weeks before he passed, he wrote a piece on his Soap Box with a timely message on the state of things in our country. Here is a primer and the link. Check this one out. Now it seems even more pertinent.
Posted on 06.26.2020 by Charlie Daniels
The time is swiftly coming in America when everybody who cares about having a future is going to have to pick a side.
When you get past the very thin patina of “peaceful” protest and look beyond the fallacy that violence and destruction brings about racial equality, you have to come to the conclusion that there is a radical fringe of people who would literally burn this country down, given the opportunity.
You’ll never hear it in the media, but if you’re willing to scratch the surface and dig a little bit, it will dawn on you that this is not a simple protest against the unjust killing of a black man, but a revolutionary street battle against America and everything we stand for and it IS funded and lead by socialist factions, and it’s not just in the US but in many democratic nations around the world.
In other words, an all-out socialist attack on our Republic.
I don’t remember a time in my 83 years when the cowardice, incompetence, indifference and downright impotence of governors, mayors and others responsible for the protection of citizens and their property have been more evident, disappointing and disgusting.
What’s going on in our nation is not a “Block Party” or a “Summer Of Love”…../
Read more> Soap Box
At the time, I thought he had put it all in perfect terms. Time to pick a side.
Well, the country is going to miss you, Charlie. Heaven must have called you home because you wouldn’t have left it any other way. RIP
Right Ring | Bullright
One pf the most famous post-founding speeches, delivered on a battlefield by Abraham Lincoln, declared the world will not long remember “what we say here,” but it “can never forget what they did here.”
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” — Gettysburg Address, 1863.
Wait a minute there, are you telling me that was all a big lie and, at least until recently contested by Black Lives Mater anyway, is still a lie?
Again, I ask, I just wonder when and at what cause would the Left be proud of America? It’s a really simple question. What would it take, since they are not currently proud of America?
Price or cost of that anyone?
Lincoln went on to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
A new birth of freedom? But Leftists have criticized even the motivation for our country. Why would they believe Lincoln? That’s just more rhetoric propaganda to them.
How much different that speech would have been if it were a concession speech on a Confederate victory: “Sorry, boys, it was all in vain but I can assure you we tried.” But no, Lincoln referred to the birth of the country and this “new birth” – as a further consecration of that original dedication and purpose.
Now then, about this current state of our cultural affairs.
Oh, Lincoln waited for Black Lives Matter to come along to call him out by correcting it all. He knew they would. Of course Lincoln was wrong and just did not do it the right way. The poor soldiers who fought the war, then, were highly misguided of the entire purpose.
So what do we have some 150 years later? The BLM movement. It has attracted a crowd of attention. People have allied with it and their perception. Just call them “the minders”.
Now what I see on the streets is a whole lot of people who signed on to BLM and have made a choice for which there is no recovery. Without hesitation, they’ve all gone lockstep with something that many probably don’t even understand. Mob rule is not pretty. They would rather have that than even democracy.
They have lent themselves to a revolution to rip this country apart. And they are about to reap the fruits of it. On one hand, the BLM dismisses what was done in the Civil War, while calling forth their own counter-revolution to undo the first revolution. Without giving much thought to the consequences of their action. On the other hand, they misinterpret the original conception of the country.
But Lincoln should have clarified that, to anyone hearing or reading it, both the intent of this nation and the civil war itself. One would think.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.”
What he admitted there is that this was a test for the survival of that consecration. It was bloody. Now 150 years later, Leftists and the BLM are ripping away at it, asking if we can endure their mobocracy of disdain for it? Or will it too be cancelled in the end?
But then I think Lincoln knew something about the Cancel Culture.
Right Ring | Bullright | © 2020
Christians are at the center of Coronavirus controversy for holding services defying gathering orders and social distancing policies.
In Arkansas, many cases were connected back to the same church service. Now the pastor issues a strong warning to others to take this virus seriously.
In Louisiana, a pastor of Life Tabernacle church outside Baton Rouge has continued to have large gatherings even busing in people from other areas. He’s had multiple weekly services with nearly a thousand attending.
In Florida, a pastor has been arrested for holding services despite being told by authorities to stop, He held two services this past Sunday.
“I know that they’re trying to beat me up, you know, having the church operational, but we are not a non-essential service,” he told the congregation.
“Not only the right of free speech but the right to peaceful assembly and to practice what we believe,” he added. “Suddenly we are demonized because we believe God heals, that the Lord sets people free, and they make us out to be some sort of kooks.” (UPI)
While in NY, a Bishop’s wife has died of COVID-19 and 3 area pastors have tested positive for the virus. Two of them are hospitalized. Some congregations were reluctant to close doors. Clergy have issued strict cancellation orders.
I’ve read internet newsletters of pastors taking a stand of resistance against cancelling their services. Some of them are based on political and religious liberty stands.
Last week I posted the Ron Paul column on the the liberty aspects of the shutdown and bans, teasing the hoax theory. I see a libertarian strain to much of it — although some liberal-leaning churches were also reluctant to follow cancelling directives.
Here’s the thing: the traditional libertarian view was always for personal freedom as long as you are not hurting others. This freedom stand seems to fly in the face of that.
I listened to a libertarian-framed sermon on the internet arguing the resistance theme of following any orders. The pastor seemed to get cheers for taking a stand of defiance.
So my personal view is we should comply with the directives. The state or federal government is not asking churches to do anything they are not asking of others on numbers of gatherings.(Weddings etc)
Maybe I am missing some salient point why these churches want to risk the health of others in the community? It does not only affect their members but countless others. Why endanger and put all those people at risk?
Right Ring | Bullright
Never forget 9/11 2001
Never forget Benghazi 9/11 2012
Those who forget history………….
The steel that won’t bend. God bless America.
Prayers out for Florida and Georgia.
May the Lord protect the people and preserve Florida and surrounding area.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
By Charlie Daniels | August 7, 2017 — CNS News
Politics is no longer public service. It is a jaded, high stakes game, played by power drunk career politicians who have only two priorities in their lives, and the prosperity and security of the United States is not one of them. Reelection and power have taken the place of patriotism and honor in an atmosphere where betrayal is acceptable and common sense is as scarce as unicorns.
Why did members of Congress try to make their voters believe that they felt the pain caused by Obamacare? Why did they lead us to believe it was “We’re all in this together,” knowing full well that 70 percent of their cost was subsidized, so they could buy the very best coverage with the lowest deductibles at a fraction of the cost that an ordinary citizen would pay for a high deductible, low coverage plan?
Folks, the reason is simple, those folks, with very few exceptions, don’t give a d— about us or the country. All they care about is winning, and they’d sell your whole generation down the drain if it meant they could keep their ivory towers for another season.
In fact, they’ve already done it. /…….
Despite all the talk from the critters in the swamp — breathing swamp gas — the last thing on earth they ever want is “a level playing field” with the people. Nope, they need the deck staked in every way against us: from campaign financing to legislating over not by the people. As Ted Poe of Texas always says, “and that’s just the way it is.”
The problem is not only that self-serving estabos of Swampland declared war on the people; but the greater problem is that, until Trump, no one was really fighting back. We weren’t getting anywhere in the battle. It always came up with the gains to them. Funny.
Now they are mad that we went a different way in 2016, against their severe protests and everything they could throw in our way. They’re expert obstructionists of the Swamp.
After the latest Senate failure, Mitch McConnell informs voters it is only our perception things are moving too slowly and aren’t getting done. We don’t understand the ebb and flow in the swamp ecosystem. Then he blames it on Trump’s inexperience. Where is his experience and what’s it worth? What happened to his “one-term” goal in ’09?
Let’s get this straight: the guy who lied about Bengazi, lied about Obamacare — just to get it passed — who promised Putin and Russia more flexibility after his last election, (when he’d no longer be accountable to voters), who rejected accountability, the guy who voted present in Illinois on all the tough votes — Obama.
That guy deserves a Profiles in Courage award?
“It is my fervent hope, and the hope of millions, that regardless of Party such courage is still possible. That today’s members of Congress regardless of party are willing to look at the facts and speak the truth, even when it contradicts party positions.
I hope current members of Congress recall that it actually doesn’t take a lot of courage to aid those who are already powerful, already comfortable, already influential; but it does require some courage to champion the vulnerable.”
The “vulnerable” – unless, of course, it is babies or life in the womb who deserve abortion. And call that “social justice.” too. You channel that courage so well, Obama.
Was it for courageously meddling and intervening in Israel’s election, in Egypt’s election, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, refusing to call it Radical Islamic Terrorism?
Obama, the guy who lacked a strategy to deal with ISIS, who called them a JV team. The guy who drew a red line and ran away from it. The guy who wore the race card on his lapel to provide immunity from criticism. The guy who only wanted positive reports back from our military operations. Courage, expedience… he lectures Congress?
Those courageous feats, and more, earn him the Profiles in Courage Award from the JFK Library. The words Obama and courage do not belong in the same paragraph.
H/T to the Guardian
One thousand chapters strong across America with 400 thousand members, ACT has been speaking out on the issues of Islamic Radicalism within our borders and beyond.
So it is only natural they had a curious eye on the inaugural events. Guess what they found at one of the services?
(ACT)On January 21st, the noble occasion of Interfaith National Prayer Service at the Washington National cathedral was poisoned by the presence of a radical Islamic cleric named Mohamed Magid.
The attendance of Magid at this occasion to honor President Trump and Vice President Pence, clarifies with absolute precision, how close the tentacles of radical Islam can stretch towards those with the very task of eradicating them.
Magid serves as the executive director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center and is the former executive director of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which according to declassified FBI memos, acted as a Muslim Brotherhood front group as early as 1987.
Magid has endorsed sharia governance, and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. To advance his dream of a caliphate, Magid believes in incremental infiltration of both government, and the media.
A 1991 document from ISNA’s mothership, the Muslim Brotherhood, stated “its work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”
The Muslim Brotherhood also considered Magid’s ISNA as “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”
Given these facts, a man as dangerous and radical as Magid should not be allowed anywhere near the President of the United States.
Magid, and many others like him, are crafty characters who understand that by attending this noteworthy event, they can now claim innocence from radical ties since they were seen attending an interfaith prayer service with the President of the United States.
This is why eradicating the stealth jihad is one of the most critical aspects of the war on terror. While combatting ISIS is paramount, we must open our eyes to the infiltration taking place within our own borders.
Always trying to innoculate themselves against the boilerplate of radical Islam. If they wanted to try so hard not to represent themselves as radicals, then why are they engaged in proliferation of radicalism, as radicals? Of course truth and honesty are also their enemies, so it figures they would try to represent their real cause as harmless.
My friend, Pepp, recently reminded me of a scripture I think also apples here.
1 Peter 5:8
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
I thought ACT explained Islamists’ rationale very well. Just being seen at events is an attempt to normalize the very type of people who mean us harm.
This is all part of the greater problem I have tried, very hard, to write about. That is they are opportunists, in the same form of other radicals in our country. And they seek to extort every opportunity they can find. It is what they do.
Guess where?
By Todd Starnes Published July 01, 2016 | Fox News
The Star-Spangled Banner survived the rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air – only to face a modern-day threat – silly town ordinances and petty bureaucrats.
I’m not sure if it’s an epidemic of anti-American nincompoopery sweeping across the fruited plain or if it’s a general lack of common sense. Maybe it’s both. I’ll let you be the judge of that.
In Lexington, South Carolina Marine veteran Bob Michaelis was told to remove a patriotic display from his mattress company.
Mr. Michaelis lined the front of his store with American flags – to honor our troops.
“We got 10 flags up,” he told television station WIS. “I thought maybe it was about time we return the patriotism in America. There’s not enough of it. It seems to be lost.”
But instead of congratulating Bob’s patriotism, the town fathers dispatched the law. He was informed that the flags violated an ordinance.
“The town of Lexington says they got to come down because there’s an ordinance in place,” he said.
The town administrator told WIS they did not issue Bob a citation nor did they tell him to take down the flags. …/
Welcome to the 4th of July under ‘new and revised’ Amerika. Not on campus at Berkeley but on main street in South Carolina. The silence from Liberals will be deafening.
No, Libs, patriotism is not an “emotional thing.” But the new and revised America is driven by Emotionalism and P/C BS. Where are the lists of “most P/C places in the US?”
So LGBT pride is in — American pride is out of fashion. Didn’t know it had a shelf life.
For all the fallen, and their families: You made the difference.
Thank you.
A 3pm ET Memorial moment of silence, prayer.
What’s left to do but pray, for the damages inflicted on states and people in the coal region?
CHARLESTON, W.Va.—There’s little separation between church and the fossil fuel industry in West Virginia’s coal country. Still reeling from recent mine shutdowns, the state legislature has set aside Jan. 31 as a “day of prayer for coal miners.”
On Sunday, a congregation of pastors, businessmen, and lawmakers will seek divine intervention in one of the nation’s hardest-hit coal economies. Doubtless, though, many will ask for deliverance from what they consider a man-made crisis.
Even if the day is past, keep on praying. Well, this administration won’t be any relief to anyone. Obama is not going to stop. He’s done more damage than King George could have ever done to us.
So let me offend Muslims a little bit and say we should use a little psyops on them. (apply a little reverse psychology) It may sound provocative to some people.
We can start with one of the oldest books in the Old Testament. Joel has something to say about just such a situation as we are going through. People of Judah were down and things were bad. Joel felt judgement had come upon them.
Joel 1:2-4
2 Hear this, you elders;
listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your forefathers?
3 Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.
4 What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
Joel 2:6-7
6 At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
every face turns pale.
7 They charge like warriors;
they scale walls like soldiers.
They were depressed at the prospects all around them. They were no doubt wondering if God was with them? The answer came in the second half of chapter two.
Joel 2:25’I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten — the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you. (26) “You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. (27) Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.
(28)’And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
The point is we often debate the cause of bad things, but there is also judgment. Yet God is capable of restoring us to greater blessings for going through them. When we call on Him and pray, He hears. He can turn to good that which is done to us.
We tend to personalize it seeing circumstances as punishment feeling judgment has come, that God has removed his protection. But He will restore even bless us.
2 Chronicles 7:13″If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, 14and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
So I have to wonder about the terrorism, as bad and evil as it all is? I’m thinking how God can restore us and greatly bless us for going through it. Then I wonder how great those blessings might be for what we are going through now?
Do hihadis and Islamists realize, with what they are doing, that God can and will bless us in the end? God will restore His people, and take them to greater heights. We can have faith in that. That’s the message I hear.
That should give Muslims, Islamists, and terrorists pause to know(or think) we will be restored. We will be blessed in spite of all they do. Now maybe that is the best message that could be sent to them. Just proclaim what is going to happen. That might be the best campaign we could have. It will also build a confidence among God’s people in anticipation of what is to come. Plus, it would be better than any propaganda we could employ. God repaid to his people what the locusts had eaten. God has a salvation plan, Christ.
RightRing | Bullright
I’ve heard people compare Obama and use the term King, pharaoh, tyrant and they are all accurate, but I think it goes deeper than that name. Obama is a modern pharaoh who has been given lots of opportunities yet hardened his heart. The opportunities present themselves, make their cases, and receive the back of his hand.
The final straw with the Pharaoh in the Old Testament was when God hardened his heart. Up until then he had been given the opportunity to release the people but he hardened his heart every time.
This is the way it is with Obama. He has been given many opportunities to remove his stranglehold over the people. We’ve pleaded with him. Every time he balked and even tightened his corrupted reins of power.
There will come a time and place when Obama will have to answer for his use/abuse of power. His usual arguments and blame games will not work their magic in that setting. It may not be on earth but he will have to account for his actions.
Prayer: Oh Great Lord, sovereign God of creation,
We give You thanks for Your wisdom and strength given to us. I pray that your people will be released from this stranglehold Obama has over them and this land . His power has been corrupted and misused, and he usurped powers not authorized to him.
Please, Lord I pray, oh God, that your people would be released from this bondage. Your people pray for deliverance from this abusive power. May their patient sufferance have been pleasing to You. May you have mercy on Obama and the agents who exacted that control on Your people and their resources. Only You, Lord, can break those chains of bondage. I ask that You would protect Your people from even more abuse from those sources.
Our battle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities of darkness in spiritual places, in heavenly realms. Grant us a willing spirit to receive Your deliverance. Lord have mercy on us. In Jesus Holy name, we ask.
Exodus 9:12 “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.”
John 12:40
“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn–and I would heal them.”
Romans 9:18
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
God Bless the Unite States of America
The Pope will arrive in US next week with the usual fanfare that entails a Papal visit. In view of expectations and his prior statements, he will probably stir the pot rather heavily. Then the joint session speech.
With those known factors, as well as his positions, I may write about it because it’s something I follow. However, I want to forewarn anyone that opposition and disagreement is not Pope bashing. I’ve been through that so many times my head would spin counting. Again, criticism is not Pope-bashing just as criticizing Obama is not racism.
Francis started this with his controversial statements. But I don’t expect to see anyone boycott his joint-session speech, or bar Obama from meeting the Pope because we are in political campaign season. (ala Bibi) Just the opposite, Obama is all about that. And since when did someone come here meddling in our policies? That kind of influence will be welcomed by the Democrats, though they are tied to the abortion industry as “law of the land”. But because they appreciate his socialist bent on economic and cultural matters, they encourage him all the more to make that case to the American people. (i.e. Ted Kennedy & Yuri Andropov)
So as a reminder, I am not a Catholic though I have no interest in bashing the Pope. I’ve also expressed my disagreement and disappointment with evangelicals and protestants in many areas. This was brought about by Pope Francis. As far as separating politics from religion, this Pope has erased many political boundaries. I’m not a separationist either and will not play those games, much less use that as fodder against the Pope of Rome.
On the outside chance he does not delve into controversial, political areas — and what haven’t the Dems politicized — it is still a matter that his people and Vatican have taken stands on these things, whether directly by Francis or his many evolving set of advisers. He may decide, as many politicians do, to let staffers and advisers make his case. But the case is his nonetheless, and he laid claim to it.
