Mike's Noise

We Don't Like Ike

Hurricane Ike, a massive 600 mile wide storm at the upper limit of Category 2 (max. sustained winds near 110 mph) that had already carved a path of destruction through the Carabbean, made landfall around 2am today near Galveston Island.  Hurricane conditions have been reported from Freeport all the way to Sabine Pass.

My hometown of Port Arthur lies just north of Sabine Pass.  As of this morning, the seawall along Proctor Street held, although there was some topping of levees reported.  Jefferson County (where Port Arthur is located) and Orange County (just to the east) were under mandatory evacuation orders.  Drainage District 7 officials decided yesterday that it was too dangerous to leave the levee pumps manned during the night, which means that any spillover water would flood streets and low-lying areas rather than being pumped back into the outlet system.

The expected storm surge at Galveston was 20 feet or greater, at least five feet above the Seawall.  The surge also brought Eagle Point (in Galveston Bay), Port Arthur, and Calcasieu Pass (in western Louisiana) all 10 to 12 feet above normal.  Major flooding is expected in Galveston and Houston.  High winds are buffeting Houston, damaging its skyscrapers and other tall structures.  Many fires are also burning in Galveston and Houston, since emergency crews can't get to them.  (Yes, a hot fire can burn in the presence of strong winds and driving rain.  9/11 conspiracy kooks might have trouble wrapping their heads around that, but it does happen, particularly if the fires are fed by broken gas mains.)

Now consider this -- hundreds of thousands of Southeast Texans evacuated the area a few weeks ago ahead of Hurricane Gustav, which missed the area entirely.  Apparently, residents are suffering from "evacuation fatigue" brought on by Gustav, and Rita three years ago.  As a result, tens of thousands (maybe more) failed to evacuate Jefferson County. Tens of thousands also remained in Galveston and Houston, so the possibility of fatalities from the storm could be frighteningly high.

Another concern is the massive concentration of oil refineries stretching from Houston to Port Arthur.  These facilities produce over half of the gasoline and diesel fuel sold in America.  Motiva's Port Arthur refinery is the sixth largest in Texas and 12th largest in the United States; an expansion now under way would make Motiva Port Arthur the largest refinery in the United States.  According to this Wikipedia entry, the largest refinery in Texas is ExxonMobil's Baytown facility, which is located -- you guessed it -- on Galveston Bay.  Depending on the damage inflicted by the storm, the region's refining capacity could take months to recover, pushing gasoline over $4.00 a gallon.  Diesel fuel may go as high as $6.00.

Please keep the residents of Southeast Texas in your prayers, and myself as well, since I still have many friends and family who live there.

Brendan Loy, the "Weather Nerd" is providing excellent coverage with meteorological commentary.  He also has a page with live storm surge graphs.

As usual, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds are providing good link roundups.  KFDM.com has a considerable amount of information about the Beaumont-Port Arthur area.

Seven years ago today

Here's a link to my 2996 Project piece in remembrance of Luis Morales, an employee of Windows on The World restaurant, located in the WTC North Tower.

Old wine, new skins, or something like that

So Barack Obama flubbed big-time yesterday when he egged on his crowd with a reminder that pigs in lipstick are still pigs, and that rotten fish in a new wrapper will still stink.  That blunder might cost him dearly, since "pit bull in lipstick" is now Sarah Palin's signature line.

The Palin nomination is a gift that keeps on giving for a number of good reasons, and at the top of that list is the fact that Palin has caused voters to question Obama's plans for "change."  To the skeptics like myself, Obama's "change" is nothing more than simply giving more power and money to the Democrat majority in Congress.  Perhaps I should remind Barack Obama:

(h/t to Michelle Malkin and others who are blogging this)

Boinnngggg!

Here are the numbers for the McCain-Palin post-convention "bounce", via Drudge:

ZOGBY: MCCAIN-PALIN UP 4%...

GALLUP: McCain Moves Ahead, 48% to 45%...

GALLUP: McCain's Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead...

CBSNYTIMES: McCain Up 2%...

The LA Times is also reporting that "Palinmania" has caused a run on Kawasaki 704 eyeglasses frames and a renewed interest in retro upswept hairstyles, a la Audrey Hepburn.  Personally I find this hard to believe, particularly since there was no apparent surge of interest in the Hair Club after Joe Biden's nomination.

Over at WizBang, DJ Drummond examined the "bounce" and notes that the underdog candidate usually receives the biggest convention bounce, but still goes on to lose the general election.  Interesting.

Finally, am I alone in sensing a major shift in the Democratic party's expectations for this year's election? It seems like team Obama is still trying to find their berings after last week's triumphant Republican convention.  I wonder if the Clintons have been waiting for some miraculous moment like this to arrive, so they can begin to put pressure on the Obama campaign from the left.  I'm not saying that they are aiding McCain in any way; I'm just saying that McCain has damaged Obama to an extent that no one predicted, and the Clintons are taking that advantage and possibly working to weaken Obama even more.

Here's why they would do that -- an Obama win would put Obama in the race again in 2012.  Hillary would have a better chance winning the Democrat nomination in 2016 than hijacking the nomination from Obama in 2012 (which could only happen if Obama turned out to be the worst president in history -- even Jimmy Carter was nominated again in 1980).  So that leaves Hillary out in the cold until 2016.  By that time she will be 69 years old, hardly a "new leader" or an agent of "change."  But a McCain victory in 2008 changes that, because everyone assumes that 72 year old McCain will only serve one term, thus leaving the Republican ticket open for Sarah Palin in 2012.  I believe that the Clintons feel that Hillary can win the nomination in 2012 (since Obama will be tainted as a "loser") and then defeat the much younger, "inexperienced" Sarah Palin in the 2012 general election.

I only see one problem with this theory.  Hillary's supporters are pitting the Hillary of today with the Sarah Palin of today, but in a race that will take place four years from now.  By that time, if MaCain and Palin win in November, she will have had four years experience as Vice President.  She will be a far different -- and much tougher -- opponent then.

Ratings for Obama "pale in" comparison to McCain/Palin

Well, all the numbers are finally in.  The 2008 RNC Convention was the most watched political convention in history, with nearly 80 million Americans total tuning in Wednesday and Thursday night, to watch Sarah Palin and John McCain.  The Republican convention was carried by ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN, and PBS.  The Democrat convention was carried by all these networks plus BET, Telemundo, Univision, and TV One. The AP estmiates that both Obama and McCain drew TV audiences of 42.4 million viewers for their acceptance speeches.

Think about this for a minute.  Conventions are considered to be nothing more than carefully stage-managed political theater.  They are also assumed to be ratings disasters, which is why the Big 3 networks devoted only one scheduled hour per night to the Republican convention.  No one watches, because no one cares.

There was also a painful lack of excitement within the ranks of Republicans.  Conservative bloggers and pundits seemed to support everyone but John McCain.  The party talking heads said, without reservation, that the Republicans had "sold out" and had abandoned their conservatism when they nominated McCain.  "None of the Above '08" was a popular joke among Republican loyalists.

But the Palin nomination changed all of that.  The initial surprise and confusion of the Democrats quickly turned into one of the most vicious negative dogpiles on a political candidate in recent memory.  The hatred of Clinton and Bush 43 took time to build; sure, there was partisan grumbling from the start, but the onslaught against Clinton didn't really begin until his second term, likewise, the onslaught against Bush didn't really start until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Palin is so electrifying that Oprah Winfree, who is unabashedly in the tank for Obama, will not invite Palin to be a guest on her show until after the election.

Perhaps the Obama campaign and their acolytes in the mainstream media and at Daily Kos failed to remember a simple characteristic of Americans -- we always pull for the underdog.  What, in fact, was Obama's narrative based on, except the triumph of the underdog?

This is nothing new.  Read this excerpt from a New York Times editorial:

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified? Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? That didn’t stop Richard Nixon from picking Spiro Agnew, a suburban politician who became Governor of Maryland. Remember the main foreign affairs credential of Georgia’s Governor Carter: He was a member of the Trilateral Commission. Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. On occasion, Americans find it necessary to rationalize this rough-and-ready process. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. This rationale may even be right, but then let it also be fair. Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow? We may even be gradually elevating our standards for choosing Vice Presidential candidates. But that should be done fairly, also. Meanwhile, the indispensable credential for a Woman Who is the same as for a Man Who - one who helps the ticket.

Now for the sucker punch -- what you just read was a slightly redacted version of an editorial written in 1984 in support of Geraldine Ferraro, a young congresswoman, the mother of three children, who was chosen as the vice presidential running mate of Walter Mondale.  What does this prove, other than the obvious fact that the current Times editors consistently fail to read their own editorial page?

Well, for one thing it proves that most Americans are willing to give an unknown, yet appealing, candidate a chance.  Innocent until proven guilty, remember?  Most Americans are not obsessed with the little (D) or (R) behind candidate's names, and so they don't exhibit the blind partisanship that leads to the ridiculous hypocrisy and bias that we have witnessed in the mainstream press and liberal blogs during the past week.

We also know that Americans don't like to see seemingly everyday people subjected to cruel and unusual handling by the media.  The recent Rasmussen polls have been a fascinating source of information about how Americans are viewing the role of the press in this year's election.  According to Rasmussen, 55% of Americans view media bias as a more serious problem than campaign financing, 49% believe that the press will overtly favor Obama in their election coverage, and 51% believe that reporters are deliberately trying to damage Sarah Palin.

McCain and Palin seem to have rediscovered the key to the success of Ronald Reagan: he took his message directly to the people and never tried to make friends with the press or request that they treat him nicely.  The media's scourging of Sarah Palin motivated over 40 million Americans to tune in for themselves and see what the big deal was all about.  More and more, conservatives are wondering if the 2008 election cycle will finally destroy the hallowed image of the mainstream news media as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased information.  I think the answer to that is becoming clearer day by day.

The Promises of John McCain

Lat night Sen. John McCain delivered his formal Presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. In contrast to Barack Obama's speech, McCain's was strong on salesmanship and patriotism, but rather short on promises.  The tone was also very different.  Obama stressed the potential greatness that America has to offer, and essentially pledged to finally turn that potential into reality.  John McCain stressed over and over again how much he loves his country, how his country saved him, and that he will continue to fight to keep his country strong.

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can ... I will open new markets to our goods and services ... I will cut government spending.

This is good news to me, because I believe that now is a very bad time for the country to embark on an epic taxation and spending spree.  McCain has promised not to sign any tax increases, but I would like to know what he wants to cut, because that will be a real hard-sell, especially to a Democrat-controlled congress.

My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

Okay, there's the contrast, but what is the plan?  I told my wife the other day that some kind of government health care involvement is inevitable.  I only hope that is kept as minimal as necessary.

And here is a list of promises culled from more sales pitches:

Cutting the second highest business tax rate in the world
Doubling the child tax exemption from $3500 to $7000
Parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them.

Ah, there's a tax cut.  Tax exemptions are also good, and it's nice to have a number.  It also looks like McCain will be pushing some kind of voucher system, although he doesn't explicitly call it that.  Vouchers are a good idea, I believe, but critics like to point out that choices still remain limited for those with limited resources (such as not being able to transport kids across town to charter schools, which is difficult if you don't have a car or can't drive).  We'll have to see how McCain addresses this.

Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That’s going to change on my watch ... We will use our community colleges to help train people for new opportunities in their communities. For workers in industries that have been hard hit, we'll help make up part of the difference in wages between their old job and a temporary, lower paid one while they receive retraining that will help them find secure new employment at a decent wage.

Now this sounds ambitious ... and expensive.  But I think he is going to tie it into his energy objectives.  Let's see ...

My fellow Americans, when I’m President, we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we’ll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles ... This great national cause will create millions of new jobs, many in industries that will be the engine of our future prosperity; jobs that will be there when your children enter the workforce.

So that's it.  Expanding our energy infrastructure is the key to creating new, lasting jobs.  Again, very ambitious, and something that will take a lot longer than four years to accomplish.  Still the idea is good, and it's refreshing to see McCain tell us what kind of industries he thinks will have the best potential for providing good future employment prospects.  Remember, Obama only generically mentioned "start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow."  I think McCain should use job creation as a major selling point for his "all of the above" energy plan, explaining that domestic energy production -- and the technology required to make that production efficient and environmentally safe -- is a realistic way to create jobs.  This is an effective, specific link that Obama's jobs and energy plans lack. I'll also add that the success of this kind of plan depends on economic growth, not just expanded government programs fueled by tax increases.  Government programs can guarantee a limited number of low paying jobs in the short run, but little else.

As President, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War. But we can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.

Here is another stark contrast to Obama, which was glaringly apparent at the Saddleback Forum.  McCain has no problem identifying evil and facing it.  Obama seems to believe that to a varying degree, we're all evil, and no nation really has enough moral authority to point the evils committed by other nations without first confessing its sins and promising reparations to those it has wronged.  That seems to be the basis for Obama's "meet without preconditions" rhetoric on diplomacy.

Again and again, I’ve worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That’s how I will govern as President. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not.

Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn’t think of them first, let’s use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let’s try sharing it. This amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.

And yet again, McCain outlines a fundamental difference between himself and Obama.  It bears repeating -- Obama is a brilliant guy, a good writer, and an inspiring orator.  But he has never challenged the establishment of his party.  Not once.  As an Illinois state representative and senator, he either voted party line, or "present."  The hard Left of the Democratic party is not expecting Obama to be "post-partisan" if he becomes President.  If they actually thought that he would seek common ground with conservatives and offer non-partisan solutions, they would be scared to death of him.

It seems that McCain/Palin has a record of change, while Obama is simply hoping for it.

Out-Of-Touchiness, thy name is Gloria Steinem

74 year old Gloria Steinem, a has-been if there ever was one, a bitter woman whose chance to be a national leader went down the drain thirty years ago with the defeat of the ERA, is smarting from John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate.  Poor Gloria Steinem.  Her generation of 1960's bra-burning, radical-worshiping, empowered women was poised at one time to take over the world.  She just can't imagine a 45 year old blue collar beauty queen who probably doesn't know the first thing about properly igniting a brassiere being a heartbeat away from the Presidency.  Read it and snicker.

And while you're in a jovial mood, make yourself positively giddy by relishing this complete smackdown of smarmy US magazine editor Bradley Jacobs by righteous Fox newsbabe Megyn Kelly:

Then put yourself completely over the edge into guffaw territory by watching Mr. Newt render a clueless MSDNC reporter completely speechless:

I love the smell of victory in the morning ...

In defense of community organizing

In light of my recent blogging streak in support of Gov. Sarah Palin, it might come as a surprise to readers that I would write something about community organizing.  Here is why I am doing it; it's very simple really -- no one on the Right seems to know anything about community organizing.  So I thought I'd offer my two cents.

Wikipedia gives a nice, concise definition:  Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest.  Community organizing is a process that works to identify common needs and common dreams within a community (generally a city neighborhood), and then strives to build a structured organization within that community in order to help its members fulfill their needs and realize their dreams.  It is a lengthy, complicated endeavor, and the process of turning a community around can take decades. 

Community organizing is also unique because it does not depend on a command or hierarchical structure.  Community organizations have directors and board members, but they generally do not have executives.  In other words, the success or failure of a community organizing project usually does not rest on the shoulders of one person.  This is deliberate, so that power continues to reside within the community rather than in the hands of a few elite individuals.

The word most often associated with community organizing is empowerment.  A common maxim is,  a lone person is a troublemaker; one hundred people is power.  Community organizing has been most successful in poor communities, where the usual tools of power (money and political clout) do not exist.  Without some type of organization among their residents, these communities often receive little consideration from city governments, which translates into poor police protection, poor schools, poor public services like trash cleanup and street repairs, and little incentive for urban renewal except for imminent domain seizures and total demolition of existing neighborhoods.  Community organizing teaches residents how to cultivate a new type of power -- the power of voices united for a common cause -- and then use this power in a positive and influential way.

A superb example of community organizing is the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, founded in 1984 in a blighted section of Boston that had become a haven for drug dealers, prostitution, and illegal urban dumping.  Over the span of 10 years, DSNI cleaned up the garbage (including a protest that culminated with garbage being moved from one of their vacant lots and dumped at City Hall), acquired land from absentee owners through imminent domain powers (a first for a neighborhood organization) and then built parks, renovated storefronts, drove out the drug dealers and prostitutes, and constructed a brand-new housing addition featuring homes priced for middle income families.  You can learn more about DSNI by visiting their website.

Now, here's the "so what" part of this post -- what does this have to do with Barack Obama?  I'd say the answer relates to simple commitment.  Obama was involved in community organizing in South Side Chicago for three years, beginning in 1985.  He has often told how meaningful those three years were to him, and how his experiences as a community organizer changed the direction of his life.  But apparently Obama was impatient with the slow and frustrating process of community organizing.  He left after three years with no real accomplishments to show for his service, save for persuading the City Council to test apartments in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood for asbestos contamination.  A colleague said, ""It wasn't end-all. He wanted to be part of the end-all, to get things done."

Barack Obama's experience with community organizing is only one chapter in his life-long saga of virtually immediate successes in a variety of vocations, no doubt spurred by abundant natural gifts, that seemed to rather quickly produce a frustrating type of ennui.  The only way, it seems, for Obama to stay interested in politics was to move quickly from one position to the next, or from one elected office to the next, without having ever stuck with any of them long enough to become a respected or tenured public servant.

I believe that this is a valid and important critique of Barack Obama, but it should not be used to denigrate the process of community organizing, which is a noble effort.

...

I'll conclude with a little disclosure.  As a result of my involvement with the JustFaith program, I have elected to join a team of Christian congregations working in partnership with the Industrial Areas Foundation to start a community organizing program here in Oklahoma City.  This has been an interesting experience, since the majority of the people involved with this project are very progressive politically, and are staunch Democrats.  Still, the things we plan to accomplish are very worthwhile, and I am honored to have the opportunity to work with so many fine people.

_______________________________________

As I suspected, conservative blogs have been writing negatively about community organizing.  Or perhaps I should say ignorantly.  Read what JayTea has to say over at WizBang, then read the comments.  Not surprisingly, names like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and ACORN turn up frequently.

And here's Rush Limbaugh today, "advising" the Obama campaign:

Keep bringing it up.  Keep trying to defend it. Keep trying to explain it. Keep saying, "Twenty years ago, working with people fired from a steel plant, Obama's qualified." What did he do for them?  Where are they now?  "Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out of touch politicians and their failed policies." (laughing)  Okay, so we got a great new definition of what community organizing is about: "Ordinary people respond to out of touch politicians and their failed policies."  Well, then who is the community organizer interfacing with?  If the out of work people talked to the community organizer, who does he then go to to fix the problem?  In Obama's case I'll guarantee you it's another lawyer or it was Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or maybe some state or national congressman. I mean, you talk about out of touch? Ordinary people run for city councils and become mayors! Ordinary people do not become community organizers!  That's why it's so rare! 

How many of you in your town, if you wanted to become a community organizer, where would you go to apply?  To whom would you give your resume?  What would be your qualifications if you sought to be a community organizer?  You gotta be a community organizer? Don't give me social programs. Don't give me Meals on Wheels.  Those are handled by other people.  Don't give me all this other stuff, homeless shelters. It's not community organizer.  What the hell is it?  How many of you people in your town know where to go to apply for that job?  How many of you in your town know a community organizer?  And how many of you have known a community organizer who went on to something big and great?  Not that they haven't, but how many of you know of one?  Well, yeah, okay. Al Sharpton organized the community with Tawana Brawley.  I mean, what are we talking about here?

Added 9-5-08:  Here's more community organizing skepticism from Michelle Malkin, who wastes no time tying Obama to ACORN, its financial shenannigans, and voter fraud. 

Lori Byrd at WizBang notes that the new Left meme is "Jesus was a community organizer," which is the intellectual equivalent of "Mary and Joseph were 'homeless.'"  Please, just don't go there. Jim Treacher snarks, "Way to get rid of the "He thinks he's the Messiah" meme, geniuses."  Heh.

What, we're biased? -- And Christians Are Still the Haters, not "US"

From MichelleMalkin.com:

Two cover stories from the same magazine.  You be the judge.

Once again I must confess my utter amazement at the herculean effort launched by major media publications to completely suppress any news about a possible affair between John Edwards and Rielle Hunter (except for The National Enquirer, which broke the story), when compared to the gargantuan dogpile of rumors, speculation, gossip, half-truths, and personal attacks that was dumped on Sarah Palin and her family this past weekend.

Major news outlets and blogs have managed, I believe, to dredge up more dirt on Sarah Palin in four days than they have on Barack Obama in the past two years.

...

ADDED:  check out this fawning profile of Janet Napolitano and Sarah Palin published by Newsweek in October 2007.  Newsweek even used the hallowed word "post-partisan" to describe their new approaches to solving their state's problems.  (*sigh*)

...

Liberals smeared Sarah Palin as "Dan Quayle in a dress."  A more accurate comparison, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out yesterday, would be between Palin and Clarence Thomas, who was forced to endure what he described as an "electronic lynching" because he committed the grave, unpardonable sin of being black and conservative.

There's also this -- the Thomas nomination and the subsequent depths to which liberals sank in order to destroy him galvanized conservatives around him and elevated him to the position of cult leader within the ranks of conservatives.  The same thing seems to be happening now with Sarah Palin.  The McCain-Palin campaign is reporting that they received $10 million in contributions this weekend alone.  McCain is playing it smart and letting the Democrats and their acolytes in the press run wild with their Palin smears.  When they've had their fun, and the conservative base has solidly rallied in defense of Palin, then McCain will unleash a devastating attack on the character of liberals and on the leadership abilities of Barack Obama, who -- so far -- has been either unwilling or unable to stop the Palin smears.  Just you wait and see.

Finally, this incident is yet another in a long string of tell-tale episodes proving that feminism's professed support for strong, career-minded women, and the Democratic Party's perpetual lip service in support of those values, is nothing but an outright lie.  I don't regularly link to Michelle Malkin's syndicated columns (although I am a regular visitor and commenter on her blog) but this time she hits it out of the park, providing example after example of feminists and liberals smearing conservative women as bimbos, sock puppets, and bad mothers.

Oh -- here's one last thing to chew on:  Liberals regularly smear conservatives and Christians and accuse us of using the threat of sin and hell and guilt and scandal to repress and dominate and victimize our children, thus depriving them of a normal, happy, care-free experience of adult sexuality.  But now, when we stand by a family going through a pregnancy crisis and support them rather than offer condemnation -- we're the bad guys again!  Liberals should be congratulating us for finally seeing the light and accepting youthful sexuality as a wonderful thing.  Instead, they don't understand why we aren't joining them in smearing this family -- after all, they seem to be asking, isn't it the "Christian" thing to kick "sinners" when they are down?  They promote love and peace and accuse us of hate.  But when we choose grace and refuse to feed their hatred, we are liars and hypocrites. 

I give up.  We just can't win.

...

UPDATE: Snort!!!

"Palin Derangement Syndrome" illustrates the Left's poor comprehension of Christian ethics

(This post has been bumped and updated.  Make sure you read it all.)

A couple of days ago, I wrote about "the slime has already begun to ooze from the fever swamps of the left," with respect to Vice Presidential pick Gov. Sarah Palin.  It got worse over the weekend, with left-wing kooks deliriously celebrating the extraordinary "truth" they discovered -- Sarah Palin's baby boy Trig was actually the illegitimate son of her oldest daughter Bristol, and Palin wore a "pregnant suit" in public in order to pull off the ruse.

In response, the Anchoress pointedly asked,  "How much do you have to love your hate in order to surrender your reason, and your humanity, to it?"

(Added: This much.  God help us.)

Today Sarah Palin publicly announced that Bristol is, in fact, unmarried and pregnant.  But she plans to marry the father, a young man who has been her high school sweetheart for over a year now, and the couple will keep their baby.  This is simply yet another example of the rugged ordinariness of the Palin family, and why they resonate so deeply with middle America.

Desperately looking for anything hypocritical that could drive a wedge between Sarah Palin and likely voters, liberal bloggers and MSM reporters were quick to note that Palin supports the teaching of abstinence in schools.  Unfortunately, the much-anticipated reaction from Dr. James Dobson was not the outburst of righteous indignation and disapproval that they certainly were expecting; nor was the reaction of the Evangelical community at large, and the left is currently going crazy.  Read the comments here.

Observing the continuous, glittering string of failures suffered by the Left as they attempt to attack Sarah Palin's character, one might ask, how can the Left be so mistaken about the core values of Sarah Palin's supporters?

Let me reintroduce you to this propitious quote from Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism:

[Margaret] Sanger's genius was to ... [argue] that motherhood itself was a socially imposed constraint on the liberty of women. It was a form of what Marxists called false consciousness to want a large family.

Sanger believed -- prophetically enough -- that if women conceived of sex as first and foremost a pleasurable experience rather than a procreative act, they would embrace birth control as a necessary tool for their own personal gratification. She brilliantly used the language of liberation to convince women they weren't going along with a collectivist scheme but were in fact "speaking truth to power" ... Sanger's analysis was surely correct, and led directly to the widespread feminist association of sex with political rebellion.

Margaret Sanger's anti-morality (further expanded by contemporary radical feminists) resulted in hard-core progressives completely losing touch with traditional teachings about sexuality, marriage, and child rearing. This is the reason for all of the incredibly crude and ignorant comments from hard-core Leftists.  They are totally out of touch with normalcy as the rest of us would define it and, as is typical for human beings, they react with fear and hatred toward things that they do not understand.

Here's the deal -- we traditionalists teach abstinence to our children primarily so that our sons and daughters won't end up being gigolos, whores and tramps. There, I said it. We understand that abstinence will not result in a 100% cessation of pregnancy. After all, God designed human beings with the desire to procreate. But it will teach our children to respect their bodies -- girls should not use sex as a tool to subordinate men, and men should not use sex as a tool to dominate women.

On the other hand, pills, condoms, and the like may prevent pregnancy if used correctly and consistently, but they cannot help a teen learn about self esteem, self control, and the sanctity of their own body. Ditto for abortion on demand. The loneliness, emptiness, and utter despair that plague sexually promiscuous men and women is well-documented (e.g. Looking for Mr. Goodbar).  And then there are the problems with STD's, particularly hepatitis and HIV.

None of the support for Sarah Palin and her daughter has anything to do with Evangelicals suddenly "approving of" or "ignoring" the promiscuity of a seventeen year old simply because her mother is a Republican.  Rather, it has everything to do with what the family has chosen to do next.

As human beings we all have the ability to make choices.  Sometimes we make choices -- bad ones --  without clearly thinking about the consequences.  But it is in dealing with those consequences (and more importantly, the consequences resulting from events that we cannot control) that we undergo true spiritual growth. The mark of Christianity is not the rabid observance of puritanical legalism, nor is it the brutal humiliation of transgressors; rather it is the ability to overcome difficult circumstances through love, hope, and grace.

Traditional Christian ethics teaches that even if the conditions surrounding its arrival are less than absolutely ideal -- even if they may be traced directly to an act of evil -- new life is always a holy event, a cause for thanksgiving, even if that life is not "perfect" in our eyes.  The imperfect arrival of life, or the arrival of imperfect life, both give ample opportunities for the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ to impart love, hope, and grace, each upon the other.  We do not seek out sin or imperfection so that God's grace may be celebrated; rather, we seek to better understand how to celebrate grace when we are faced with adverse circumstances.

Abstinence goes hand and hand with responsibility.  If two people make the decision to enter into a sexual relationship and then they make a baby, they are expected to be responsible for their actions. Initially, the grandparents-to-be may be shocked, angered, and disappointed. But through the work of the Holy Spirit, love and grace will eventually triumph over these emotions, and then the new life will be celebrated.  This seems to be the situation with Bristol Palin.

Unfortunately, too many teenage mothers come from broken homes or families void of any kind of real spiritual guidance. It is always a shame to see runaway sexuality in those situations -- those girls seem to have latched on to the "pleasurable experience" aspect of feminist sexuality, without bothering to trouble themselves with the birth control part. Understood in those terms, progressive sex education is certainly as much -- probably more -- of a failure than abstinence education.

Progressives claim to have the perfect solutions to the problem of teenage pregnancy  -- designating children and families as punishments or obstacles in the pursuit of an enriched life, then promoting guilt-free promiscuity balanced by medical birth control (including abortion).  Yet these are really nothing more than shallow appeals simply designed to satiate our most youthful desires for immediacy and personal satisfaction.  They are not designed to promote responsibility.  They are not designed to freely allow the propagation of grace from one individual to another, nor are they designed to allow the propagation of grace freely from the Holy Spirit to each of us.

We believe that depriving our children of such responsibilities and experiences will severely impede their spiritual growth.  This is why we teach our children abstinence, rather than promiscuity and birth control.

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Added 9-3-08:  Here's a lovely gem from feminist icon Sally Quinn (via RushLimbaugh.com):

I've been a working mother for 26 years and practically every friend I have is a working mother and works full time. So, uh, I think we are so far beyond that issue of whether women should work or not, in -- uh, certainly in your world and my world.  But in the world of evangelicals, that's not the case.  Women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands and they are meant to be stay-at-home moms.  And women, in fact, are not allowed to be pastors in the Southern Baptist church. (emphasis added)

Well goll-dang - we's all just a buncha redneck chauvinist pigs, us Eeeeeevangelicals, that is.  Here's a news flash -- the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches both disallow women from entering the priesthood too.  Sheesh.  Another glittering leftist/secularist jewel of colossal ignorance.

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Welcome Anchoress readers!  And thanks for the link, Elizabeth.
And welcome WizBang readers.  Thanks for the link, Lori.
Aw, what the heck - a hat tip to Mr. D Aristophanes from SadlyNo.com.  Welcome aboard.

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Post script:

I want to make two brief additional points.  First off, blaming only the Left for the misunderstandings of the Church that exist today would not be telling the whole truth.  Certainly, through political pressure, excommunication, inquisition, witch hunts, and other means of coercion, the Body of Christ has damaged itself by failing to deal gracefully with those who depart from its teachings.  We have only ourselves to blame for that, and we are still struggling with spiritual shortcomings.  Today, we seem to have no problem being gracious toward those who commit sexual sins -- unless those transgressions involve same-sex relationships.  Homosexuality is still a serious stumbling block for Christian grace.

Second, Christianity teaches that God's standard of perfection is not the same as ours.  We screw up this message as well, choosing to skip over the process of perfection (sanctification) that develops as the result of our spiritual formation through the work of the Holy Spirit, in favor of simply pillorying those who fail to live up to our human ideal of absolute sinlessness. 

No one is responsible for these distortions of the Gospel except Christians themselves.  This should give us pause whenever we see ourselves portrayed as rabid puritans who humiliate the imperfect.

The lineage of Jesus Christ himself shows us that God can use anyone, regardless of how "impure" we may think they are, as a vessel for His divine will.  Matthew's lineage of Jesus specifically includes four women -- Tamar (who disguised herself as a prostitute in order to become pregnant by Judah, thus ensuring the continuation of his lineage), Rahab (a prostitute and an ethnic Gentile), Ruth (an ethnic Gentile), and "Uriah's wife," Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon and the object of King David's greatest moral failing.  The commonality that links these women, besides their lack of moral and ethnic purity, is that each of them were involved in an open confession of sin and a public repentance, and afterward, they remained close to the LORD.  This is what He truly desires of us as well. (Updated at 12:35PM
9-2-08)