Merry Christmas and a Defense of the Catholic Faith (by ContraSuggest)

Merry Christmas to all. 

Writing a blog on socio-political issues (or any other subject for that matter) is tough, especially when you’ve never had any training as a writer.  As anyone who follows this blog will attest, the actual writing is somewhat tenuous from a grammatical standpoint, but despite my limitations, I always manage to get my point across.  Never being completely satisfied with my own writing, every now and then I churn out something of which I’m particularly proud.  Posted here is one such piece.  What started out as a letter expressing my concerns about a homily (sermon) delivered at church (at Mass; I am a practicing Catholic), in the end became a somewhat eloquent defense of Christian religion generally, and the Catholic faith specifically.  In the spirit of Christmas, I thought I would share my unedited letter below (with the sole exception that the name and location of my church have been taken out). 

An Open Letter to Deacon Norm Carroll

On March 14, 2010 at the **** AM Mass at ****** ****** Church in **** *********, NY, the homily was delivered by a gentleman who was introduced as Deacon Norm Carroll.  Mr. Carroll, a visiting Deacon, whom I had not heard of before that morning, used this opportunity to promote a presentation that he would be delivering at the parish center over the course of four consecutive evenings the following week.  In previewing his subject matter, he said some things that seemed suspect coming from a Catholic Deacon.  Although curious to learn more about him, I knew that my schedule would not permit me to attend any of his presentations.  When Mass was over, I discovered that a book authored by Deacon Carroll was being offered for sale in the church vestibule.  I purchased a copy of Miracles, Messages and Metaphors- Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible, and read it through.  The “wisdom” therein moved me to write the following letter.

Deacon Carroll,

I have just finished reading your book, Miracles, Messages and Metaphors- Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible, and am stunned and disappointed at some of the statements therein, that run counter to our Catholic faith as I have come to understand it.  For the sake of brevity, I will call attention to only a few of the most notable points. 

In the space of a 3-4 page introduction, you several times refer to our savior Jesus Christ, as a biblical “character.”  What a curious choice of words.  Is the Bible now to be considered a mere novel and our Lord a mere character in that narrative?  One may refer to Christ in many ways, perhaps as a biblical “figure;” but for a Catholic Deacon to refer to Him as a mere “character” (however important a character) is disrespectful, and is, at least, an expression of doubt as to both the provable historical existence of Jesus Christ (a fact), and the belief in the reality of the miracles that are attributed to Him (which lies at the root of our faith as Catholics).

I was taken aback when you cited the musician Elton John, as a critic of “organized religion.”  People like Elton John cite many hackneyed reasons why they do not care for so-called organized religion.  Despite those stated reasons, the true reason should be clear.  Organized religion, particularly in the Catholic framework, calls upon the faithful to exercise discipline in their lives.  When sinners love their sins more than they love and appreciate God, they reach a point where they reject God in order to justify, and continue partaking in sin.  The “hateful” teachings that Elton speaks of are not so at all; they are the legacy of Christ carried through the last 2,000 years by His Church.  I am a sinner as surely as Elton John, but I can understand why a drug-addled homosexual would have issues with the Church that holds all sinners to a higher standard than our permissive, destructive secular culture.  Christ’s message is a dual one- it at once expects much from us in resisting sin as we cope with temptation and the other vicissitudes of life (the part that Elton doesn’t like); yet if we commit sin and are truly contrite for having done so, we may be forgiven through the sacrament of confession.  This is loving and life-supporting, not hateful.   

You also point out that many people who consider themselves to be “spiritual” have also rejected organized religion.  The term spirituality, as used in modern, common parlance, is a fuzzy, indescript, New Age concept; since it really means nothing, claims to possess it are largely meaningless.  I can make claims to being spiritual all day long; yet, if I’m being unfaithful to my wife, stealing from my employer, not attending Mass on Sundays, and taking advice provided to me by psychic mediums in living my life, I am following an objectively destructive path.  It is organized religion, specifically the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church, which provides the structural template that all God’s children require in order to live fulfilling lives and to have the best chance of everlasting life in heaven.  People need and require structure in their spiritual lives; without this structure that the Church faithfully provides, man’s moral straying would take an irrevocable turn for the worse.                  

In your book you pay much lip service to the importance of interpretation of scripture that is consistent with Catholic tradition, but continually praise non-Catholic beliefs that are at odds with both scripture and Catholic tradition (the two being inseparable).  You claim that un-Catholic modes of interpreting scripture, such as “feminist criticism,” and “liberation theology” “have value,” although you don’t state what that value is.

For instance, you extol the virtues of early catholic priests being able to marry, and imply that the Church should allow it once again.  It’s unclear why you believe this to be a boon.  A priest cannot be married to the Church and responsible for his flock, while at the same time being married to a woman and responsible for his biological children.  The conflict is clear to all except the minions of permissive, religious pluralism.  The prospect of the Church allowing priests to marry is fraught with disastrous unintended consequences.  The Church cares for its priests by providing them with housing and living expenses; if priests were to marry, would the Church then be responsible for housing and living expenses of their wives and children?  In the event of divorce, will the Church pay alimony and child-support?  This notion that priests should be able to marry is absurd on multiple levels.

You lump three very different things together when criticizing some Christians’ support of war, capital punishment, and greed, insisting that Jesus stands against these things.  Let’s briefly consider each of them.  In the case of war, there are times when unprovoked international aggression on the part of belligerent nations may not always be ameliorated with even the finest diplomatic entreaties.  The military defeat of mass-murdering totalitarian despots may save the lives of more of God’s children in the long-run than leaving said aggressors to their ruthless pogroms.  This is the essence of the Church’s “just war” doctrine (see the Catholic Catechism- section 2309).  As for the death penalty- Catholic doctrine says that capital punishment is a legitimate means of the state to protect itself, to protect its citizens, against the cold-blooded murderers of innocents.  It’s true, for instance that Pope John Paul II didn't feel that the death penalty was necessary any longer because we, in the modern world, have the ability to incarcerate people for life.  But don’t mistake the pontiff’s view for doctrine; that was merely his theological opinion, not to be confused with a dogmatic/doctrinal change in Church law.  You claim that greed is defended by some Christians to justify capitalism.  First off, no good Catholic would ever embrace the evils of greed (one of the ancient, seven deadly sins).  If you truly believe that the basic tenets of capitalism are rooted in greed, you are mistaken.  Capitalism and the free market are governed by what Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, called enlightened self-interest.  This concept held that the larger social good is best served by individuals pursuing private interests.  There is no other country in the world where this principle has been allowed to thrive to a greater extent than in the United States; and, as a result, no other country which is wealthy enough to so compassionately care for it’s poor and downtrodden.     

 

No good Catholic would dispute that many biblical stories have several strata of meaning.  But our very faith is based upon the literalness of certain biblical events, including the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension.  However, I was hard-pressed to find a single passage in your book where you acknowledge the literal meaning of just one Old or New Testament biblical account.  According to you, every single word of scripture is symbolic of something else, never to be taken at face value.           

You continually mention the “real” messages of the Bible, implying that the orthodox explanation of scripture offered to Catholics has been wrong all along, and that your non-literal interpretation of scripture will show us the true meaning.  You repeatedly refer to biblical “myth.”  It’s quite clear which stories in the Bible you consider to be myths, but unclear as to which ones you consider to be literal.  Suffice to say, that each Biblical story that you choose to mention, is treated as non-literal myth.  Almost as if to fend off criticism of these odd notions, you cite the existence of various bogeymen, such as fundamentalists and fundamentalism.  Most Catholics already understand that Catholic interpretation of scripture is antithetical to fundamentalist interpretation; I get the impression that you feel that you’ll gain followers by attacking these straw men; after all, they are easy targets, and, let’s face it, red herrings.  In chapter four of your book, you basically define a fundamentalist as one who believes that Bible stories are word-for-word true.  Aside from the mandates of our Catholic faith, which calls us to literal belief in many of these events; science, reason and scholarship are often not at odds with that faith.  You don’t even mention the sometimes overwhelming evidence, based upon science and reason, which point to the strong possibility that at least some of these tales are literal.

Let’s take the story of the flood in the book of Genesis as an example of something that may very well be a historical mention, as opposed to a strictly mythological lesson.  The finding by archeologists of a snake fossil with legs in a limestone quarry in Israel; oil drillers on the bottom of the Black Sea discovering plant life that normally only grows in freshwater, along with the remains of a village, are powerful evidence that point to the literal reality of a great flood.  The mention of a great flood in the stories of other cultures around that time period, including the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, looks as if they were more historical mentions rather than mythological ones.  The world experienced the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago, close to the circa in which these stories were written.  Any scriptural calculus that leaves out these considerations is necessarily flawed.  Rather than acknowledge this, you instead dismiss those who believe it by calling them fundamentalists.  Is this the kind of counter-intuitive reasoning that Catholics should be applying to scripture?

Much closer to the hearts of Catholics is the literalness of key events chronicled in the New Testament Gospels.  You cleverly cast doubt in the minds of unsuspecting readers regarding the veracity of the narratives by reminding us that the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contradict one another.  You conveniently ignore the other side of the argument.  Perhaps the most important event in the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for if Jesus did not rise (literally) the whole of our faith is built on nothing more than a big lie.  The story of the resurrection cannot be dismissed as fictional or mythological, based on the application of the historical method, and when looking at the root independent sources of that portion of the gospel narrative.  As biblical scholar Dr. William Lane Craig has pointed out, when you have a very early source, one that comes from records that are almost as old as the event/events they chronicle, agreeing with a later independent source (one that does not draw from the early source); then the biblical event is more likely to be historical.  In the case of the story of the resurrection we have multiple, independent attestations to the same events from Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.

Another example of this is the story of Jesus’ entombment by Joseph of Arimathea.  This is affirmed in the very old information handed on by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians and has been dated to within five years of the actual event.  The burial story in the Book of Mark (the oldest of the gospels) is even closer to the events of Jesus’ life than the source material used by Paul.  But make no mistake; these are two independent sources that bear witness to the same thing.  Mark’s account is absent of the hallmarks of legendary embellishment, it is written in a simple, straight forward style; unlike the forged, apocryphal gospels of the 2^nd century and after, which feature accounts that are colored by apologetical and theological motifs that are completely absent from the account in Mark.      

   

Finally, another historical criterion to be applied has to do with identifying elements in the gospel narrative that were embarrassing to the early church or contrary to the antediluvian cultural sensibilities of the writers.  For instance, the testimony of women was considered to be worthless in early 1^st century Palestine; women were considered unreliable and poor sources of useful information.  If the resurrection narrative is a myth, or worse, a contrivance, then why would the writers have women discovering Jesus’ empty tomb?  It simply violates logical, rational applications to say that these writers would have cited the testimony of women to strengthen their case.  Rational thinkers ought not to dismiss orthodox Christian interpretation by abandoning their own reason and criteria for establishing historical validity. 

   

I naively believed that the bane of Gnosticism was something relegated to the distant past, or to the pernicious anti-Catholic drivel peddled by novelist Dan Brown, or believed by modern pagans in order to shore up the glittering generalities that they call spirituality.  Historian Paul Johnson defines Gnosticism as, “…the lore of secret knowledge-systems” and “…an extremely insidious parasitic growth, which attaches itself like poisonous ivy to the trunk of a major religion.  In Christianity, the early church fathers had to fight desperately to prevent it from smothering the faith.”  Gnostic thinking is the sort of trash that corrupted the otherwise brilliant Carl Jung (who is quoted several times in your book) and leads at least, to the destructive belief in religious pluralism.  I do not accuse you of being a Gnostic; nor do I necessarily accuse you of harboring overt Gnostic beliefs.  Yet there is an unsettling pseudo-Gnostic tinge in much of what you write in your book. 

I alluded above to religious pluralism, a concept that you mentioned favorably in both your homily and in your book.  Although there are elements of truth in all religions, we as Catholics believe that the truth is fully and decisively revealed in Jesus.  This is what He claimed; and you can’t, for instance, hold that Buddha’s and Jesus’ teachings are both true, because they are radically different, and even contradictory to one another.  Religious pluralism has a nice, inclusive, politically correct ring to it, Deacon, but it’s logically impossible; all religions cannot be true, because they’re mutually contradictory.  The Buddhist concept of God is radically different from the Islamic concept of God, which is radically different from the Judaic concept of God.  The religious pluralist truly does a disservice to the world’s religions, because he holds that they all really believe the same thing, and so, denies their distinctiveness.  The religions of the world reject religious pluralism because it deals in cloudy generalities, and holds a myopic view of their clear and irreconcilable differences, in order to draw dubious and ultimately irrelevant similarities.

We Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is the savior of the entire human race, not just our coreligionists.  Should Catholics continue to pray for people of other faiths?  Of course we should.  Should people of different faiths reach out to one another in an effort towards good will in a civil society?  They certainly should.  Should we, as Catholics, water-down our deeply held beliefs in order to draw non-existent parallels with other faiths?  Absolutely not!

  

In closing, I think it’s safe to say that I disagree with almost everything you wrote in your book and spoke about in your address to us at Mass.  Personally, I resent being held hostage during the sacred Mass and being made to listen to a presentation that was so clearly at odds with traditional, orthodox Catholic teaching. Many of my fellow parishioners, friends and family feel the same way.

While I wish you well, I sincerely hope that you avail yourself of the teachings of the Magisterium, that they may guide you when you speak to parishioners in the future.

Hating Gingrich: A Bipartisan Pastime (by ContraSuggest)

It is a foregone conclusion that people on the left end of the political spectrum (aka, morons) categorically despise Newt Gingrich.  It’s easy to understand why, since Mr. Gingrich stands firmly against their statist worldview and made a career of tearing down and offering viable alternatives to their leftist shibboleths.  But Newt has raised more than just the ire of statists; he’s also regularly savaged by those on the political right.  Veteran writer and columnist Peggy Noonan, befuddled and dismayed over Gingrich’s lead in the polls, professed that’s she’s never met a Gingrich supporter.  John Derbyshire refers to Newt as a “gasbag.”  Mona Charen, in so many words, called him a tofu conservative.  Dr. Thomas Sowell characterized Newt’s debate comments on immigration as “amnesty.”  Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who worked in the U.S. House under Speaker Newt back in the 1990s, couldn’t find a kind word to say about him.  One of the premiere conservative news sources, National Review Online, featured a condescending slide-show spoofing Newt.  Glen Beck says he’s a big-government progressive.  The list of negative comments seems to go on and on, some of which have been addressed in previous posts.  Some of the people denigrating Newt are partisan political hacks and blowhards; some are well-respected conservative political analysts (many that we personally revere).  Could they all be wrong?  For the most part, yes.  Let’s get something straight, the Office of The President-Elect is not about marching in lockstep with any conventional wisdom.  We’re unabashed, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives here, but our analyses are independent and fact-based; if we disagree, even with the views of conservative luminaries, you can bet your ass we’re going to forcefully state our case with reason and facts.  We have enthusiastically endorsed Newt Gingrich for president and stand by that endorsement.  There will doubtlessly be innumerable future attacks on the former Speaker.  Naturally, any baseless or tenuous criticisms will be challenged here for the duration of the primary process.

          

Will the Real Conservative Please Stand Up?

Various organizations, both liberal and conservative, provide statistical ratings based upon legislators’ congressional voting records.  Here’s a list of eleven such organizations and how they ranked Newt Gingrich for the year 1994, a time when he was still in Congress.  Note that the organizations are grouped in ideological order, beginning with the extremely liberal; conservative groups at the end:

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)- 5%

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)- 14%

Committee on Political Action of the AFL-CIO (COPE)- 13%

Consumer Federation of America (CFA)- 10%

League of Conservation Voters (LVC)- 0%

Concord Coalition (CON)- 74%

National Security Index of the American Security Council (NSI)- 100%

Chamber of Commerce of the United States (COC)- 91%

American Conservative Union (ACU)- 100%

National Tax Limitation Committee (NTLC)- 96%

Christian Coalition (CHC)- 100%

This, of course, is not the report card of a closet liberal (or any other kind of liberal for that matter).  Yet Newt’s conservative enemies continue to make baseless criticisms about his lack of conservatism.  As stated in an earlier post, Newt has on some occasions strayed from conservative orthodoxy.  However, much of the criticism coming from the right makes him out to be an incoherent, unpredictable, and thus dangerous, conservative iconoclast.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  I get that Newt is an egoist, sometimes a curmudgeon, and perhaps a generally abrasive personality who hasn’t always worked well with others.  He has tended to piss people off.  Fine.  If that’s the criticism, then his detractors should go ahead and say so, but they must stop pretending that he’s not a conservative simply because he pisses them off.  They’re entitled to their opinions but they’re not entitled to make up stuff.  This puerile idiocy is damaging our chances of knocking-off Oblabla.

Gingrich or Romney?

Democrats recently ran an attack add against Mitt Romney, accurately stating (for a change) that the Governor, as recently as 2002, avowed that he would “protect and defend a woman’s right to choose.”  In the next clip from 2007 Romney declares “The right next step is to see Roe v. Wade overturned.”  Should Roe be overturned, individual states could place serious curtailments on, or outlaw abortion altogether.  This would hardly amount to protecting and defending a woman’s right to choose.  This is one of the reasons why Mitt has a credibility problem concerning his consistency on critically important issues.  We’re not talking about changing one’s opinion on the number of loan guarantees to be extended to Micronesia.  We’re talking about a major core issue for conservatives; opposition to abortion is non-negotiable, yet in the space of 5 years’ time Mr. Romney changed from pro-choice to wanting to see Roe overturned.  This transition, while welcomed, conveniently took place at the same time he transitioned from governor of uber-liberal Taxachussetts, to full-time Republican presidential candidate.  Hmm.  I rhetorically ask, has Newt Gingrich in the course of his 35-year public career ever been pro-choice?  I can find no record of it.  If anyone can, please post it here for all of us to see.

Versus Obama

Gingrich-loathing media boobs gleefully point out that Obama fears a Romney candidacy, while hoping against hope that Gingrich will be the candidate, because they believe defeating him would be a simple matter.  Let’s remember that President Carter’s strategists (and Carter himself!) badly wanted Reagan as an opponent in 1980 because they deemed him an amiable dunce, and loose cannon, that they could easily dispatch.  Reagan cleaned Carter’s clock and went on to win a landslide victory.  Team Obama had better be careful what they wish for.  I positively guarantee that Gingrich will obliterate Oblabla in every one of their debate encounters; there can be no other outcome.  That’s not to say that President Vapid is incapable of landing blows on Newt, employing distortions and demagoguery, but that he would ultimately be overmatched.  The brilliant conservative history professor would systematically dismantle and shred the propaganda-spewing leftist “law professor.”  No contest.

Bottom line here: conservative pundits should stick to the facts when criticizing Gingrich.  I’m all for hyperbole and sarcasm, but some of these people have drifted into the land of make-believe; a place usually reserved for liberals.

Defending Newt’s Conservative Street Cred (by ContraSuggest)

Imagine suddenly waking in the middle of yet another Republican presidential debate to witness the truly surreal event of Mitt Romney criticizing Newt Gingrich for not being conservative enough on the issue of illegal immigration.  The thought of Mitt criticizing Newt for not being conservative enough on anything should be enough to convince anyone that they were still asleep and dreaming.  Well to be fair, Mitt didn’t actually use the words not conservative enough, but that was certainly the implication, when he and Michelle Bachmann objected to Gingrich’s comments regarding work visas for some current, long-time illegal aliens.  Sadly the conservative news media jumped all over it as a chance to expose Newt as the conservative pretender many of them apparently believe him to be. 

Let’s break it down, shall we?  Gingrich is a life-long movement-conservative who, admittedly, has gone astray on several issues over the span of a 40-year career.  I’m disappointed that many respected figures in the conservative news media have blown this out of proportion in an attempt to diminish the former Speaker.  I think it’s counterproductive, pathetic, and embarrassing when conservatives start eating their own. 

Gingrich has been in the public eye since the mid 1970s; in that time he has been a back-bencher in the House of Representatives, Republican Minority Whip, a conservative revolutionary who led Republicans to their stunning 1994 victory in the House, a lecturer, a small business owner, and a political consultant.  Over 15 year’s worth of his comments on a panoply of subjects are a part of the House congressional record, he has done thousands of television and print media interviews, he has authored over 30 in-depth books on a wide range of socio-economic and historical topics, many hundreds of articles and white papers, and has delivered thousands of speeches.  Does anyone imagine that a man who has boldly put himself out there on the field of public discourse, in and out of public office, to such a degree would not have hit a few sour notes along the way?  Mr. Romney, by contrast, has had great private sector accomplishments, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate, was then governor of Massachusetts for only four years (he chose not to seek reelection), and has been a professional presidential candidate since then.  He doesn’t have much of a record in office to compare and contrast with what he says.  Let’s grow up conservatives; unless we can secure the candidacy of the Savior himself, we’re never going to find someone with whom we agree on all things. 

Gingrich is too willing to “compromise” with the Left, you say?  Those who use compromise as a pejorative are equating compromise with surrender.  With tough negotiation, compromise can mean victory.  In the 1990s, Gingrich’s so-called compromises brought us meaningful welfare reform, tax cuts, and the first balanced federal budget in many decades.  There were many conservative victories during those years because a center-left president was willing to make deals with a conservative Speaker of the House.  If Gingrich is victorious in 2012, this time the conservative will be in the White House, exercising constitutional executive powers and using the bully pulpit of the presidency to bring the federal leviathan to heel.      

Now, let’s briefly summarize Newt’s illegal immigration policy:

·        Secure the Southern border in one year’s time by building a fence and deploying thousands more to police it

·        Bring sanctuary cities into line by withholding federal funding

·        Pursue the unconditional deportation of illegal criminals

·        Legally declare English as the official language of the USA

·        Provide work visas to illegals who’ve been here for many years, working and obeying all of our other laws 

I would remind Newt’s naysayers (who accuse him of changing his positions) that he has consistently argued for the first four of these provisions for many years, there’s no phony “conversion on the road to Iowa” here.  The final provision is what’s causing all the flap, and Newt has to explain it more clearly; however, anyone who would call this an amnesty plan has got to have a screw loose.  By stopping the hemorrhaging at the border, we will prevent another 12 million illegals from entering the country over the course of the next 20 years, and another 12 million in the 20 years after that.  Any illegal who breaks the law gets their ass booted out; if we catch them back here again, they don’t pass go, they don’t collect $200; they go directly to jail.  The last bullet point doesn’t exist in a vacuum; treating it that way has brought ridiculous charges of “amnesty,” and a “magnet” that will lure more illegals to America.  I can understand Romney and Bachmann leveling these charges during the debate.  What I can’t understand is why some well-respected conservative writers, such as National Review Online’s Mona Charen and Thomas Sowell, chose to go after Newt, while failing to present a fact-based analysis of this episode.

ContraSuggest Endorses Newt Gingrich for President!

The following is usually spoken by a teleprompter-reading media zombie in a dopey, robotic, whiny monotone that cuts through you like Fran Dresher doing an impression of the robot from Lost in Space:  “His negatives are too high,” “he has too much baggage,” “he can’t possibly win!”

Absolute, unadulterated poppycock.

For the better part of the last seventeen years the leftist practitioners of meatball journalism in the media, who pass themselves off as legitimate sources of political news, have engaged in foul slander and malicious libel in their reportage of Newt Gingrich.  Thanks to the handiwork of these agenda-driven, hateful liars, the at-large public has been led to believe that the former Speaker of the House is the locus of existential evil in the modern world.  So complete was their saturation of anti-Newt stories that even many Republicans have bought into them.  Gingrich has appeared on news magazine covers as Scrooge, or as the Grinch, he wants tax cuts for the rich, he wants to take food and medicine away from the poor, the elderly and young children, blah, blah, blah.  Let’s not forget that the dinosaur media that gleefully cheerleads for Obama will be trumpeting these types of demagogic attacks against any Republican presidential nominee.  What shameless headline can we expect next, "Republican presidential nominee sacrifices Down’s syndrome infant to Satan at Black Mass; film at 11:00?"  Fortunately, people are not buying into this kind of devious, puerile horseshit in the numbers that they used to.  And despite all of it, Newt’s presidential campaign is going very well, largely because he has been able to do an end run around the media boobs who despise him, by delivering his message and recounting his record directly to voters via televised debates, interviews on Fox News, and his excellent website (please visit newt.org!).

This endorsement was foreshadowed about a month ago in these pages when I wrote the following of Speaker Gingrich:

“…he is the most brilliant conservative to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan.  At any debate attended by the former Speaker, it is abundantly clear that he’s the smartest guy in the room.  Personally, I agree with Newt on 99% of his policy positions.  When speaking, he seems to be channeling from an encyclopedic data bank in his head; extemporaneous responses to questions are delivered in a folksy, relaxed, articulate manner as if they were scripted by a team of professional, conservative speechwriters and researchers.  His strategy of pitting himself and his fellow candidates against the press, instead of against one another, is well founded.  Unlike his fellow candidates, he has resisted temptations to attack the front-runners, instead delivering scathing critiques of the president and declaring that every Republican should support the eventual nominee, no matter who it may be, to ensure Oblabla’s defeat.”

Equally adept at tearing down Obama’s imaginary socialist Nirvana or eloquently explaining conservative alternatives to it, Gingrich’s superlative communications skills are one of his greatest assets.  As the result of several stellar debate performances, and in the course of mere weeks, he revived what seemed to be a doomed campaign; now polling in the double digits, some national polls put his standing in the race as third, ahead of the ill-equipped Governor Perry.  Not to be dismissed as just a smooth talker; Newt is also the greatest conservative thinker on the contemporary political scene.  His extensive knowledge of policy and U.S. history, and how not to repeat the mistakes of the past, is a powerful weapon in his arsenal.  The unveiling of his 21^st Century Contract with America was the deciding factor in this endorsement.  Consider just some of the key planks that would constitute the partial blueprint of a Gingrich presidency:  

• Immediate signing of multiple executive orders, the first of which will abolish all White House “Czars”
• A full court press to repeal the disastrous Obamacare and Dodd-Frank economic depressants
• Creation of a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our workforce
• Release the U.S. economy from Socialism’s dungeon by reforming entitlements and federal regulations, implementing an optional flat tax alternative to the federal income tax, and a Lean Six Sigma program to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in federal programs  
• Seal America’s southern border and deport illegal criminals while reforming the legal visa system so that law abiding visitors can more easily come to the U.S.
• Enforce the 10^th Amendment (any reduction in federal authority that follows must see a corresponding empowerment of the states or the people)
• Conduct a full audit of the chicanery that passes for monetary policy at the Federal Reserve
• Exercise constitutionally granted congressional and presidential powers to hold federal judges responsible for rendering unconstitutional, un-American decisions.
• Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients. Encourage research spending towards urgent national priorities, like brain science, with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson's, mental health and other conditions that knowledge of the brain will help solve       

As the principle author of the original Contract with America in 1994, Gingrich led House Republicans to their first victory over Democrats in nearly 40 years. As Speaker of the House, Gingrich made sure that the campaign promises made in the Contract were kept.  The Contract consisted of a dozen or so legislative planks that signatories pledged to introduce as legislation, send through committee, and bring to the floor for debate and a general vote within the first 100 days of a Republican controlled House.  Once sworn in, Gingrich and the freshman Republicans worked at the speed of light to keep their campaign promises, and succeeded in doing exactly that.  House votes during the 1995, 104^th congressional session represented the Contract with America translated into legislation.  Every bullet point was introduced, debated, and voted on in precisely 98 days.  This was one of those rare instances in which a political campaign promise was kept in all its detail.

Newt has consistently shown that he possesses a firm understanding of the challenges that face the country, what policies to pursue in order to solve them, and that he’s more than capable of tenaciously and effectively arguing for them.  As an astute historian, he understands better than any other candidate the motivational detail behind the decisions made by our greatest presidents, and their mistakes.  But there’s another essential difference between him and any of the other candidates:  Newt openly acknowledges that he cannot implement the necessary solutions to solve the nation’s manifold problems alone; he asks us not to be for him, but with him.  This is the most refreshing thing to issue forth from the lips of a presidential candidate in the last 30 years; and it also happens to be true.  If we conservatives continue to support arrogant intellectual elites, who claim to better know how we should live our lives than we ourselves do, then we are little better than the dimwit leftists we claim to oppose.  A President Gingrich would work with the Tea Party, not against it.

I urge all my readers and colleagues to throw their support behind Newt Gingrich for President!

ContraSuggest Critiques the 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

I’m sure that my loyal readers have been waiting with baited breath to read my take on the candidates.  With President Oblabla extremely vulnerable due to the abject failure of his ham-handed leftist policies, and the country lying in near economic ruin as a result, one would think that the nomination of a viable Republican candidate to defeat him would be nothing more than a formality.  Unfortunately things don’t always go as planned.  This group of contenders leaves a lot to be desired.  After closely watching about eight hours worth of candidate debates, I’m now prepared to offer my thoughts, having dedicated a paragraph or so to each candidate.  Read on True Believers, and let me know your thoughts!          

Texas Governor Rick Perry

How could this guy be the front-runner for anything?  I just don’t get it.  His policies as Texas governor have come under legitimate fire as often as they’ve been praised.  At some point we have to look at the way this guy presents himself, and how that affects his electability.  Just look at the way he stands up at the podium, like someone poured quick dry cement into his suit jacket.  Devoid of charisma, he’s also a woefully inarticulate, monotone spokesman for the conservative cause, often tripping over his words, sounding unmeasured, unpracticed, and clumsy.  After being attacked by his opponents in one of the Fox News debates for saying that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme, he was given no less than three opportunities to defend that statement.  Each time he failed to do so.  In the course of a 60 second rebuttal, an articulate candidate could have easily demonstrated why the Social Security system is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, and what we may do in order to fix it.  At least that statement was theoretically defendable; his other policies that were criticized were not and, quite frankly, his attempted defense of them didn’t inspire confidence.  One of the keys to winning this election will be garnering the votes of independents.  If Perry wins the nomination he will get sliced to pieces by the demagogue-in-Chief and his slanderous attack dogs in and out of the lib media, thus losing the independent vote and the election.  As abysmal as Obama’s policies have been, as deleterious to the state of the nation, the Republican nominee can’t expect to win the election by default.  He or she will aggressively have to take the fight to Obama; Perry’s bumbling efforts will amount to nothing more than the slap of a velvet glove.  If this cardboard cutout seizes the nomination, it’ll be “four more years” for our comrade president.                    

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Romney, more articulate than Perry (which doesn’t really say much), is a spirited fighter who would most certainly go after President Pinko with great vigor.  The only problem is that he’s a liberal closet queen.  I believe him only to a point, when he says he understands the free market; his policies as governor of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts say otherwise.  Let’s not forget that he is a relatively recent convert to conservative positions on several core social issues.  Sorry, but I just don’t trust him.  Although he may have the best chance of beating Oblabla in the general election, he still has to get past the current front-runner Perry to do it, which, God knows why, may be difficult.  Even if he can win, it may be bitter-sweet, for I suspect that underneath those custom tailored dark suits lies a pair of frilled pink panties, sporting a label that reads “Kiss me, I’m a Moderate” (aka, a libtard).        

Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman

I have been an admirer of Representative Bachman for many years.  She’s conservative through and through, well-versed on the issues, has fought in the trenches for years against the statist Matrix, has performed consistently well in the debates, and is absolutely adorable (no one in the press will point that last one out, so I will).  The well-versed Mrs. Bachman filled the vacuum created when Sara Palin went of the deep end a few years back, when her weirdness and lack of detailed knowledge of the issues precluded her from becoming a viable conservative Republican presidential candidate.  Unfortunately for Mrs. Bachman, and for good reason, the American voting public has very rarely entrusted the presidency to U.S. House members.  Due to the lack of requisite executive experience, and because being a House member is overall considered too small-time an affair compared to leading the free world, Mrs. Bachman’s chances of seizing the nomination are nil.  However, she has positioned herself well for a potential vice presidential nomination.  Even if that doesn’t come to pass, Bachman will attain future high office in her home state of Minnesota (the offices of either senator or governor) which will set her up for an even stronger presidential candidacy in the future.  Keep your eye on her; one way or the other, she’s a force to be reckoned with.   

Texas Representative Ron Paul

Where does one begin with this peculiar little man?  Alternatively brilliant and off-the-wall whacky (sometimes in the course of the same sentence), Rep. Paul is somewhat of an ideological enigma.  When critiquing the out-of-control Federal Reserve, the enactment of the latest federal economic “stimulus,” or the bane of America’s welfare state, one cannot help but cheer loudly for the good doctor.  More a libertarian than a conservative, however, he in turn advocates such lunacy as the legalization of prostitution, and hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.  His extreme isolationist foreign policy views are incomprehensible and dangerous.  He would counter, as would his legions of supporters (which include notable academics), that I’m simply wrong and insufficiently versed in the Constitution.  They say that the Founders, being opponents of foreign entanglements, would support Paul’s position.  Well I’m here to tell you that the Paulbots do not hold a monopoly on Constitutional interpretation and what the Founders intended.  When the likes of Washington and Jefferson wrote on the subject of “entangling alliances with none,” they did not intend that the U.S. become an isolationist nation, or never engage in foreign military operations, nor even a complete refusal to engage in alliances.  Paul and his supporters mistakenly think that enemy aircraft need to be flying sorties over Montana in order to justify U.S. military action.  Not so.    

Every time Paul gets into trouble over making some crazy statement, like when he said that the U.S. should just let the totalitarian cutthroat mullocracy in Iran build nuclear weapons, he always uses the Constitution as a shield to defend himself.  This is sort of like a criminal using an innocent bystander as a shield in a shootout with police.  Mind you, not only does he not support the potential use of preemptive military force to prevent the Iranians’ nuclear aspirations (which, if done without the consent of congress, would be a constitutionally dubious action); he doesn’t even support the use of diplomatic pressures or embargoes to deter them (there’s nothing in the constitution that prevents that).  Finally, Mr. Paul claims that the reason for the 9/11 attacks was that “we bombed Iraq for 10 years.”  Oh, the pain!  In the end Ron Paul is nothing more than a fringe candidate that has no chance of capturing the Republican nomination.

PS I like really like his son, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)                            

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich

Newt suffers from occasional lapses in tactical political judgment.  This has cost him dearly in the polls, a setback that he will not recover from.  This is colossally tragic because he is the most brilliant conservative to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan.  At any debate attended by the former Speaker, it is abundantly clear that he’s the smartest guy in the room.  Personally, I agree with Newt on 99% of his policy positions.  When speaking, he seems to be channeling from an encyclopedic data bank in his head; extemporaneous responses to questions are delivered in a folksy, relaxed, articulate manner as if they were scripted by a team of professional, conservative speechwriters and researchers.  His strategy of pitting himself and his fellow candidates against the press, instead of against one another, is well founded.  Unlike his fellow candidates, he has resisted temptations to attack the front-runners, instead delivering scathing critiques of the president and declaring that every Republican should support the eventual nominee, no matter who it may be, to ensure Oblabla’s defeat.  The greatest theatrical casualty of Newt’s failed candidacy is that we will never get to see him crush Barry O., mano-a-mano, in a debate.  Sad indeed; that beat-down would have really been something to see!                   

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum

I love Rick Santorum.  I love his honesty; I love his unflagging defense of social conservatism; I love his courage in bluntly stating who America’s enemies are; I love his Senate voting record (enough of it, anyhow); and I love his ability to articulately defend it all.  Rick Santorum doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.    

  

Former Utah Governor John Huntsman (former U.S. Ambassador to China)

I hate John Huntsman.  I hate his shameless pandering to the “middle” (read, “left”); I hate his wishy-washy internationalist view of America’s enemies; I hate his phony, tofu conservatism; and I hate the way he uses weasel words to defend it all.  John Huntsman doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.

Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain

I wanted to be able to support Herman Cain; really I did.  But I just can’t.  On too many occasions he has been short on specifics when it comes to answering questions regarding pivotal issues.  This man was a successful CEO of large corporations, after which he hosted a popular radio show.  I figured that these resume bullets would have given him the range to speak articulately on a number of issues, but they did not.  For example, it was revealed in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Mr. Cain was unacquainted with the so called “Arab Right of Return” (the Palestinian belief that they have a right to return and lay claim to lands that they “temporarily” abandoned in 1947 when an army of Arabs/Muslims unsuccessfully attacked the fledgling state of Israel with the goal of slaughtering all the Jews therein).  Now look, I don’t expect that everybody should be a history bookworm like me, but if you’re going to run for freaking president you damn well better educate yourself on issues as fundamental as the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Sorry Herman, but the nomination will not be yours.

Sad Conclusion:

Beam me up Scotty, and execute General Order 24!

Strategies for a Republican Victory in 2012 (and beyond) (by ContraSuggest)

One of the enduring legacies of America’s much celebrated junk culture is the continual support for liberals in public office; more people get their political notions from the left-wing entertainment industry than at any other time in American history.  Add to this mix the influence of far-left TV comedians, web board administrators, news commentators, educators, elected officials, priests, rabbis, scout leaders, judges, and government bureaucrats, and it fast becomes obvious why the mental disorder known as liberalism cannot be eradicated from our governmental institutions.  This constant brainwashing of the politically ignorant and largely apathetic segment of the public has produced an atmosphere in which the precepts of conservatism have taken on the character of social leprosy.  In this shallow, hedonistic atmosphere, conservatives are doomed before they open their mouths to speak.  Notions such as exercising personal responsibility, spending only as much as you earn, and observing the golden rule, are bloody casualties of America’s morally and ethically corrupt Lady Gaga culture.  Those immersed in it, but uninterested in the details of public affairs, invariably develop a default setting which basically says: Bush was a fascist idiot, but Obama is mad cool!        

For decades, conservatives’ attempts to convince a puerile, junk culture-informed public to change its direction have fallen on deaf ears.  Despite the magnificent efforts of the Tea Party, the U.S. population has become more politically Balkanized than ever before.  Although the movement is strong and effective, the troglodyte media has successfully portrayed Tea Partiers as a bunch of toothless, bigoted, out-of-touch, neo-Nazi hicks.  Not to Tea Party supporters, of course (which I count myself among), who could never be fooled by so crass and ridiculous a characterization, but to the junk culture automatons referenced above.  Conservatives might be tempted to say “to hell with them, who needs them anyway?”  Sadly, we do, if we’re ever going to assemble a winning electoral majority and potentially save our exceptional American traditions from winding up on the slag heap of history.  The Tea Party must make political inroads in liberal geographic strongholds like the extreme East and West Coasts of the country, their virtual strongholds in cyberspace, and cultural institutions like universities and the old school media.  What is required is an aggressive, multi-pronged offensive.  Many of these individuals, primarily secular and unengaged in anything political, do vote, and we’re going to need converts from this group.  Keep in mind that even if these people do not vote, they greatly contribute to an atmosphere conducive to the achievement of leftist goals; the zeitgeist’s acceptance of leftist policy is just as much a factor in the passage of bad laws, as actual voters who pull the lever for leftist politicians.  Convincing these people to swim against the currents of leftism created by the drive-by media is problematic to say the least.  So how will conservatives get their messages out, and what will prevent them from being dead on arrival?           

The Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan famously remarked that “the medium is the message,” which implied that the characteristics of a particular medium, rather than the information it disseminates, is what influences and controls society.  Regardless of the speed and efficiency of current communications technology, it makes little difference whether young people are passing notes to one another on slips of paper in English class, or whether they’re texting each other on $500 iPhones, either way the content of the messages remain the same.  McLuhan has been vindicated to some degree as evidenced in the public’s obsession with technological communications gadgets.  This ubiquitous technology, with which potential voters are so enamored, represents a preexisting conduit through which the conservative message can flow.  The medium may well be the message, but if information carried by the medium is targeted and contains consistent themes, it will start to change perceptions.  These technological mediums must be fully exploited if we’re going to have a chance of deprogramming the people who use them of their leftist knee-jerk emotionalism, and fill that void with reason and facts.  We must use the public’s fascination with e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, mobile texting, Skype and all the various hardware gadgets that enable them, in order to get our message out.  Quite frankly, we need more conservatives to get involved in the entertainment industry, writing and producing TV programs and movies; like any other money making venture, if a conservative themed TV program is well-written it will resonate with viewers, and if it garners high ratings, it will make money and be successful (remember “24?”).  Over time the content of the messages will start to sink in.  The Republican Party needs a leader, and or presidential candidate who is tough, articulate, charismatic, conservative and adept at organizing and leading a high-tech multimedia assault on our far-left, corrupt social institutions; while at the same time aggressively taking on his or her Democratic opponent.   

A tall order to be sure, but the only way we can win is to understand that deft use of information technology, greater control of various traditional media and understanding junk culture trends, are necessary components in reaching the public in any kind of effective way in the 21^st century.  This process needs to start far in advance of an election; the culture wasn’t lost overnight, it can’t be taken back overnight either.  One thing is for certain, the next Republican candidate can no more hope to be elected president with our compromised cultural institutions actively supporting his or her opponent, than a boxer can hope to win his next fight, with the referee, timekeeper, and judges all in his opponent’s corner.  No one person can do this alone, the standard bearer will have to coordinate and lead an orchestrated effort that must include the aid of all conservatives, currently in the minority in most American cultural institutions.  We must strongly reaffirm that conservatives are in the minority not because their worldview is wrong.  They’re in the minority because going down the road of liberalism is easy, hedonistic, seductive, and emotionally satisfying.  All individuals are flawed, but since left-wing junk culture celebrates flaws and wears them as a badge of honor, many voters buy into that thinking, hoping that their own flaws will be excused instead of being held to a higher standard.  It’s time for conservatives to repackage their brand ID and make thorough use of both traditional communications mediums and the popular newer mediums of the third-wave information age to take back the mindset of the American public.

Will Obama’s Failures Destroy his Presidency before they Destroy the U.S. Economy? (by ContraSuggest)

Libtards are fond of having it both ways.  Whenever I say that Obama has deeply worsened our economic problems since implementing his socialistic policies, they claim that the facts say otherwise.  When I present the facts in any kind of cogent detail, their eyes glaze over and they start calling me a racist, or say that I’m “for the rich,” or that I want to push grandma over the cliff in a wheelchair, or some other such incoherent, ridiculous nonsense.  While the last thing I want to do is bore people with a lot of cold, sterile facts and statistics, there really is no alternative if one is to rebuke the roaring liars that defend the president’s benumbed economic policies.  Let me also remind people; pointing out the fact that Republicans are occasionally retarded does not absolve the president of guilt for trashing America’s economy.  So, for the benefit of the Obama youth movement, the willfully ignorant, and the rest of you benighted libtards, here’s a recap of the comrade president’s inept bungling regarding the economy:

• For 2 straight years, against the objections of conservatives in and out of government, the president and the Democrats passed into law every single economic program that they said was necessary for recovering the economy.  The litany is nearly endless- Stimulus program after stimulus program, bailout after bailout, truckloads of additional federal monies going to cities and states, the passage of deficit ridden, pork-laden budgets, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and on and on, ad nauseum
• Since he took office, there’s been a net loss of 2.5 million jobs, unemployment has gone from around 7% to around 9%, and in June of 2011 there were only 18,000 jobs created in a nation of 300 million people, not enough job creation to even keep pace with population growth!  GDP growth is currently hovering at about 1%.  These anemic numbers might be good news in Sri Lanka, but they’re incapable of lifting the U.S. economy out of, what can now fairly be called, the Obama Depression
• There is not one single economic initiative that the president or his party has put forth since Bush left office that has had a positive effect on the depressed economy (and no, I do not believe that the various stimuli (Bush’s or Obama’s) saved the world, they instead hurt it immeasurably)
• President Obama himself is on the record as saying the following- 1.  that if he did not bring about an economic recovery in three year’s time, he would be a one term president.  2.  That if Congress passed his 2009 stimulus package, unemployment would not go above 8% (it peaked, we hope, at 10.2% since then, and is now hovering at 9%).  By his own criteria he has clearly failed     

Just in the last eight months (2011):

• In January, Obama’s own commission (Bowles/Simpson), recognizing the gravity of the nation’s debt problem, called for $ 4 trillion in budget cuts.  Comrade Obama ignored those recommendations
• Later that month in his state of the union address to Congress, we know that he placed diminished priority on the nation’s economic situation because he spoke for 35 minutes before even mentioning the economy (way to think it through, genius!)
• In February he proposed a budget that called for $400 billion in spending cuts (over many years, and most of which weren’t specific).  Just to put this into perspective for you Obama worshiping dim-wits, the federal government’s yearly budget deficit for 2011 is in the $1.6 trillion range; our ten year cumulative debt is in the $15 trillion range).  Mr. Obama is trying to pay our bills with the loose change he found in the couch pillows.  So harebrained was this budget proposal, that the Democratic controlled Senate voted it down 98 to 0
• In April, the comrade president put forth an economic proposal (of sorts) that was so fuzzy and short on specifics, that the head of the Congressional Budget Office commented, “… we don’t estimate speeches.”  In other words, the plan was so vague that the CBO couldn’t even score it
• During the so-called debt-crisis, the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed two responsible budgets, “The Ryan Plan,” and “Cut, Cap, and Balance.”  The Senate refused to consider them and Obama vowed to veto them
• John Chambers, managing director and chairman of Standard & Poor’s sovereign ratings committee (that recently downgraded America’s debt rating from AAA to AA+) publically stated that the downgrade would not have happened if the $4 trillion worth of spending cuts, recommended by Bowles/Simpson and supported by Congressman Paul Ryan, had been enacted. 
• After the inadequate budget deal brokered with the Senate and the president by Speaker Boehner, S&P proceeded with the aforementioned downgrade.  The administration and the rest of the Democratic Party phonies are blaming the Tea Party!  The Tea Partiers didn’t want the Boehner deal, but did express support for the Ryan Plan, CC&B and deep budget cuts.  So the Democrats are trying to blame the downgrade on the only people in the country who wake up every morning, open their eyes, and don’t see their intestines  

Any serious discussion about the plight of the U.S. economy must include reform of entitlement programs.  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid collectively represent over half of the federal budget.  These programs have been so badly constructed and managed, that they’re consuming an ever-larger portion of the government’s budget each year.  In 30 years’ time, if allowed to grow, underfunded, at their current exponential rate, they will consume 100% of the federal budget, leaving all other federal programs without funding.  Only the Ryan Plan proposed a workable solution for the problems with Medicare; no one on Capitol Hill is talking seriously about the financial black hole that is Social Security.  This has to change now if we’re to have any hope of waking up from our fiscal nightmare.   

For the better part of the past 2 ½ years, as previously expressed in these pages, I have felt, that despite Obama’s incompetence, he would be reelected in 2012.  For the first time I am beginning to have doubts about that.  His contributions to the wholesale trashing of this country’s economy are so pervasive, and run so deep that I’m beginning to think his presidency is in jeopardy.  As history has repeatedly shown, a single day can be an eternity in electoral politics, the election is over a year away, and the worm can turn many times between now and then.  Not to mention the fact that Republicans are more than capable of screwing up a wet dream; so Oblabla’s defeat is by no means a certainty.  We’ll just have to continue to actively fight in every way we can, and hope that the right candidate emerges in the Republican field who is capable of taking the false prophet out of the game.  (See today’s second blog post on the subject of successful strategies for a Republican victory).  In the meantime, keep the faith, and stay tuned.