Trick or Treat

Recycled from 10/28/08

With all the talk about “spreading the wealth around” this Halloween cartoon seems particularly appropriate!

 

A Truly Sad Day

I don’t know what disturbs me most, Mark Sanford’s infidelity or the public response to it.

I’m a South Carolinian.  I’ve been a very vocal supporter of Mark Sanford and I worked as a volunteer in his first campaign for governor.  I was at his victory party when he won the first time.  I and a friend prayed with him at that party.  It was an incredible moment!  From then until now, I’ve stood with Mark Sanford.

Mark Sanford is that rare person who actually lives what he believes regardless of the consequences.  That is until now.  And that is what makes this so troubling.  This affair was so totally out of character for Sanford that his supporters would never have seen it coming.  When I heard the news today I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.  I went through the afternoon is sort of a fog.

I had high hopes for a Sanford run for the White House in 2012.  I believed he was the absolute best man for the job.  Indeed, if not for this, he would have been.  He was becoming the standard bearer for principled conservatism.  He was the real deal.

All that is history now.  Sanford’s political career is over.  Any presidential aspiration he may have had are now beyond reach.  He’ll be lucky if he manages to stay in the governor’s mansion for the duration of his term.

I’ve wrestled with this all afternoon.  How do I feel?  I feel betrayed but what else?  What do I think should happen?  Reaching a rational conclusion has been complicated by the reactions of others.  I’ve been bewildered by much of what I’ve heard and read.  Twitter has been awash with attacks under the #sanford hashtag.  There has been sheer glee on the part of many on both the right and the left!  I found it simply disgusting and had to stop following the stream.

Many conservative whom I’ve come to respect and follow were piling on Sanford in an apparent attempt to outdo the vitriol of the left.  Sanford might have been Satan himself, or worse.  In the face of all that I found it difficult to even think straight about the whole situation.

Then I ran across a post from, of all places, Slate, that gave me some perspective.  In that piece John Dickerson says:

The minute Sanford started speaking, the reviews poured in via e-mail and Twitter. He was rambling, confused. He didn’t tear up enough when talking about his wife. He favored his mistress. He answered the questions too thoroughly. All these judgments seemed absurd. A man standing in front of a bank of cameras in the middle of a complete collapse is going to say a lot of things poorly.

A little farther on Dickerson says:

I’m not offering Sanford’s humanity as an excuse. I’m just marveling at how few people stopped for a moment to even nod to it. My thoughtful colleague William Saletan and Andrew Sullivan were exceptions. Maybe there are others. Maybe people expressed these views in private conversations. But in the e-mails and Twitter entries and blog posts I read in the aftermath, Sanford’s human ruin was greeted with what felt like antiseptic glee. The pain he’s caused, the hypocrisies he’s engaged in, seemed like license to deny him any humanity at all.

Read the piece.  I’m fighting the temptation to quote the whole thing.  It’s really worth your time.

Sanford is not Bill Clinton.  I don’t believe he ever felt entitled to whatever he wanted, including women.  He messed up.  He allowed a relationship to develop that was inappropriate.  In my view, it is always inappropriate for a married person to allow a deep, personal relationship to develop with a member of the opposite sex not their spouse.  It is dangerous and very often leads to an affair, as it did in this case.  The truth is, there’s not a person alive who couldn’t fall into the same trap given the right circumstances.  It requires some diligence on each person’s part to guard against that sort of thing getting started int he first place.

Sanford didn’t guard himself.  He didn’t guard his heart.  I’m sure he never considered that he needed to because he never believed he would be the guy having an affair.  His principles just wouldn’t allow it.  Except principles are no match for feelings when feelings are allow to develop unchecked.  I know that unless I take precautions to prevent the beginning of something, I could do what Sanford did.  And so could you!  If you don’t think so, you’re fooling yourself and you could be in for a fall, just like Mark Sanford.

I understand how Sanford ended up where he is.  He’s human and subject to human failings.  But understanding is not excusing and actions have consequences.  I’ve come to the conclusion that Sanford should resign for a couple of reasons.  First, he needs to focus all his attention on his family.  He doesn’t need the responsibilites of the state house in the way of that.  If his marriage is to survive, he has to make sacrifices and that should start with the governorship.

Second, I don’t think he can govern now.  Maybe, if he’d only had the affair, he could.  But the strange disappearance, the trip to Argentina, not letting anyone know where he was and all the unanswered questions make it impossible for him to stay.  He should have resigned today.  I think he will resign within the next week.

In the face of all this, fortunate isn’t a word most people would apply to Mark Sanford today, yet I submit he is fortunate indeed.  He has a wife who is willing to put the effort into restoring their marriage so long as she believes he’s willing to put in the same effort.  Jenny Sanford’s statement, released this afternoon, is sheer class and it’s much more than Mark Sanford deserves at this point.  She is no doormat as some would portray her.  She is clearly a strong woman who values her children and he marriage.  Her statement is all over the internet but I’ll include it below because I think it is a model for all Christian women who face similar circumstances.

The Sanford’s are in a precarious situation.  In spite of my deep disappointment with Mark Sanford, I am praying him, for Jenny and for the boys.  I pray that their marriage will be restored and that the boys will recover from the hurt they must feel.  And I pray that someone will rise up to replace Mark Sanford as the standard bearer of true conservatism.

Jenny Sanford’s statement:

I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.
I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.

I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.

Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.

This is a very painful time for us and I would humbly request now that members of the media respect the privacy of my boys and me as we struggle together to continue on with our lives and as I seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family.

A Bittersweet Father’s Day

I’ve always looked forward to father’s day.  It’s not that I expect presents.  Father’s day means I usually get to see both my kids.  Today was no different in that regard but it was significantly different in another respect.  You see, my daughter, who is married to an airman in the Air Force, left this morning heading to California to be with her husband.  They will both leave from there in five weeks headed to Japan for four years.  So I, along with my wife, son and mother in law, took her to the airport early this morning.  We saw my daughter for the last time in perhaps a year.  Thankfully my son came in late last night so he could go with us.  I’m sure it meant a lot to my daughter.  I know it meant a lot to me.

My daughter and I have had something of a stormy relationship over the years.  She was not an easy child.  But in the last few years we’ve mended some fences and I feel so close to her today.  Indeed, she probably leaned a little too much on me.  I thank God for healing our relationship.  I’m so proud of how much she’s grown up and matured.  And I’m thankful that she has married a great guy.  I trust her husband to take care of her and treat her right.

Her husband went to C5 school at Travis AFB a couple of weeks ago.  We took him to the airport on a Sunday morning as well.  I’ve grown quite close to him and it was difficult to say goodbye to him.  But saying goodbye to my little girl today was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.  And I think that says something about our relationship and how big a deal father’s day is.  Even though it was difficult to say goodbye, that fact speaks to what a great relationship I have with my daughter and that makes it all worthwhile.

I don’t want to minimize how much my son means to me.  We’ve pretty much always had a great relationship.  He’s a great kid with a great wife and I’m so very proud of him!  I talk to him almost every day even though we live three hours apart.  I know I can go see him next week if I want to.  He’ll probably be back down here in the next couple of months.

My daugher, on the other hand, has gone beyond my reach.  There will be no spontaneous weekend vistis.  She won’t be around on her birthday or mine.  Just sitting here writing this is difficult but at the same time I’m filled with pride at just how far she has come and I’m filled with confidence that she will continue to grow and mature.  I’m convinced that she will not just be okay, she’ll blossom more and more and she’ll have experiences that most people can only dream of.  As much as I’d like to keep her here, I wouldn’t keep her future from her for anything in the world.

So this is a bittersweet father’s day for me.  I wish every father was as blessed as I am.  I have two of the most wonderful children in the world.  They both make me proud.  Maybe I didn’t do such a bad job.

Happy father’s day.

Charleston Tea Party

My wife and I just got home from the Charleston Tea Party and what a Tea Party it was!  Our CONSERVATIVE governor, Mark Sanford was there and spoke for about six minutes.  I don’t have an official count but I estimate we had a couple thousand people gathered at the Customs House at Market and East Bay and it was awesome.

I took a lot of photos, particularly of signs and I tried to show some idea of the size of the crowd.  That turned out to be difficult because I was never able to get into an elevated position.  Hopefully you’ll get some idea from the various views.

All in all it was an inspiring event and I was impressed at how well behaved the crowd was.  Mary Katherine Hamm sent a tweet while we were there saying “I was ready to report craziness if I saw it.  There was NONE.  Not one rude sticker or t-shirt or errant word.”  That’s exactly what I observed in Charleston.  There was a strong spirit of patriotism, of love for this country and fear that we are on the road to losing it all.

There were a lot of speakers, mostly local people that most of the crowd didn’t know.  They were speaking because they care about this country.  Most all were inspiring.  We heard from a trucker, a builder, a 17 year old student and many more, all there with a common purpose, to let our elected officials know we are very unhappy with the direction this country is going.

It will be interesting to see if the liberals continue to try to marginalize what took place today.  I’ve heard numerous pundits on the left saying this all amounts to nothing but from what I can determine, perhaps more than a million people went to Tea Parties today.  As much as the left would like to portray otherwise, they are hard pressed to mount anything like this.

Of note was the number of FairTax supporters at the Tea Party.  My wife and I had on our FairTax shirts and hats and we were in good company.  The FairTax presence was large enough to merit a mention from the organizers at the Tea Party.

Much as I liked all the speeches, I particularly enjoyed Governor Sanford’s remarks.  They say that brevity is the soul of wit and Sanford captured that today.  He spoke for just over six minutes and he was, as usual, inspiring to all who hold to conservative principles.  His video is below.

I’ll place more photos below the video but mark this.  This movement is not a flash in the pan as some would have you believe.  This is a real grass roots movement and it is here to stay.  Congress had better be listening because we are certainly paying attention to what they’re doing and their careers could be in serious jeopardy if they don’t change their ways.

(Note: The video is shaky because it was shot with a still camera using 12x zoom.  It’s pretty difficult to avoid some shake without a tripod.  Also, sound quality isn’t great because I wa a long way from the speakers.  Still, you can hear what the governor had to say.)

embedded by Embedded Video

Tea Party Shuffle

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you are at least aware of Tea Parties.  Several rounds have already occured and hundreds are scheduled for tomorrow.  Initially the coverage was spotty but the Tea Parties have taken on a life of their own.

I think the primary reason is they are truely a grass roots effort.  Someone had an idea and it took off across the country.  Now, of course, everyone wants in on the action, including national organizations like the GOP.  A tweet from @DLoesch today included the following url, teaparty.gop.com.  They want to send post cards to the Democrat leadership.

I find that disturbing at best considering the GOP has been nearly as responsible as Democrats for the growth of government.  I don’t believe for a minute that the RNC wants in on this because it supports the philosophy behind it.  The GOP wants to glom onto what appears to be a solid movement because they see a political benefit, not because they’re behind us.

On the other side, Democrats are painting Tea Party goers as either morons or potential domestic terrorists.  On the moron side see the video below.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct

Whether we’re painted as morons or terrorists, we’ll be heard tomorrow.  I plan to attend a local Tea Party along with my wife.  I have no idea how many people will be there but i expect a good turn out.  I hope that is true across the country.  If you aren’t already planning on going to a Tea Party, I encourage you to do so.

This isn’t a partisan event, as much as some would like to make it out that way.  People of all political persuasions are agreeing that our government is out of control.  Democrats, Republicans, Independents and others have shown up for earlier Tea Parties and I expect that will be true tomorrow so add your voice.

Oh, and watch and see if some paid lackeys show up to disrupt any of the Tea Parties.  There are rumors, of course, but no one knows for sure.  If they do show up, they’ll be wasting their time.

To find a Tea Party in your area go to Tax Day Tea Party and choose your state in the upper right hand side.

What the A.P. is Missing

I was just reading an article at Tech Crunch asking the question, Does Google  Really Control the News?  While the story was not directly related to my thesis, it pointed out something that I had missed in the whole A.P. content controversy.  We’ve argued that the A.P. benefits when bloggers quote and link to them because we send them more traffic.  That’s certainly true as far as it goes but it’s not the end of the story.

Search engine rankings are based in large part on how many inbound links exist to your site, article, story, etc.  Every link boosts your ranking even if only minimally.  Links from larger sites with more traffic are more beneficial but all links help you.  So every time a blogger links to an A.P. story, not only does that directly drive some traffic from the link, it also helps improve the search engine ranking for that story at the A.P.

If all of us stopped linking to any A.P. stories, the result would be significantly lower search engine ranking for the A.P., resulting in much lower total traffic for them.  My particular site might be small but my impact is larger than just the traffic sent directly from my site because I also impact search engine rankings.

We hold more power than any of us generally believes but only if we act in concert.  Individually we can do very little.  I’d be willing to bet, however, that the loss of all blog links would do significant damage to traffic to the A.P. and they’d be forced to rethink their position.

Also see:

• Once Again: The A.P. Says It’s Going To Sue Aggregators
• Boycott the A.P.!
• The Washington Times Copies the AP – Starts Charging Bloggers to Quote Them

 

Once Again: The A.P. Says It’s Going To Sue Aggregators

From TechDirt.com:

from the this-ought-to-be-fun… dept

Given some of the Associated Press’s recent actions, this won’t come as a surprise, but the AP has now announced that it will start suing any news aggregator that doesn’t share its profits with the AP:

“We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”

I’m a bit curious what those “misguided theories” are… because copyright law and rules concerning fair use seem pretty clear, and search engines aggregating info and sending people to your site has been ruled fair use before. So, perhaps the AP chairman is talking about some other “misguided” legal theory? Another AP person claims: “This is not about defining fair use. There’s a bigger economic issue at stake here that we’re trying to tackle.” But she neglects to say what that is, other than our old business model sucks, and we’ve got no freaking clue how to adapt to the changing market place, so this is the best we’ve got…

That said, I’m not sure how this is any different than how the AP has acted in the past…Continue reading on TechDirt.com >>

Also see: Boycott the A.P.!

Guide for Bloggers and Non-Profit Organizations About Writing With Libel in Mind

From the Public Citizen’s Litigation Group:

This is a guide for bloggers and non-profit organizations about writing with libel considerations in mind. The guide discusses the elementary principles of libel law and explains how to prepare for and conduct a pre-publication libel review. It is particularly important to have a third party, not otherwise involved in the preparation of a report or blog post that criticizes individuals or organizations, compare all possibly-defamatory statements with the sources for those statements…(more)

Get the five-part .pdf version of this helpful resource HERE.

 

FOX News Promotes Stripping

I just saw an interview on FOX News that was unbelievable. A young woman who was a former financial analyst was being interviewed about her new career as a stripper. What was particularly emphasized was how much money she was making and how well she was treated. The clear message was that stripping is a viable option for young women. I was appalled.

 

Twitterphobic to Twitter Addict

When Twitter first came out I didn’t really see the point.  I signed up early but just didn’t get it.  I lost interest pretty quickly.  But then I saw how the Obama campaign used Twitter, among other things, to organize and respond quickly.  And Jenn kept promoting the platform.  So I bit the bullet and dove in.

I’m glad I did.

Twitter has turned me on to some great conservatives I wouldn’t otherwise know about.  In order to find them, however, I had to understand #hashtags.  Once I started paying attention to certain hashtags, like #tcot, #teaparty, #rush and others, I started finding others who hold beliefs similar to my own.  And some of those people are great conservative bloggers.

A case in point is Dana Loesh, a conservative blogger and radio talk host in St Louis.  One of her blogs, motherofallconservatives.com (hashtag #moac), is a wonderful read.  And last night I logged into her radio station and listened to her show on the internet.  She’s great!

Without Twitter I would not know who Dana Loesh is.  I wouldn’t know about her blog or her radio show.  And that would be my loss.

Of course, Twitter is also a great tool for promoting your own blog or position.  As a result of my Twittering I have a number of people following me.  I try to be mindful of that and not post sill tweets about what I’m having for a snack today.

Many conservatives have shied away from Twitter and other social media like Facebook.  I heard Laura Ingraham say she hates Twitter.  That’s really too bad because until conservatives as a whole embrace social media we are going to lag far behind the liberals out there.  There is no other platform that can be used to rapidly organize and mobilize a movement like Twitter can.  So if you’re a conservative and reading this, get with the program and take the plunge!

What Now?

The election is a week behind us and once again Republicans have been whipped soundly.  So what does a good conservative do now?

What we do now is consistently apply pressure across the board.  We, as grassroots conservatives have to apply pressure first to our members of Congress to replace the inept leadership at the top.  That means I’m contacting Congressman Henry Brown and telling him NOT to support Minority Leader Boehner.

We’ve had two disastrous elections in a row and yet it appears the House it poised to retain the leadership that handed us those losses.  We have a GOP that is still in denial.  They continue to make excuses, apparently having learned nothing from the ‘06 and ‘08 elections.  If the GOP has any hope at all of retaking anything in 2010, it depends on replacing the current leadership in both the House and Senate with solid ideological conservatives.  It makes no sense to continue rewarding failure yet the GOP has a strong tendency to do just that.

We grassroots conservatives have successfully flexed our muscles before.  When President Bush tried to pass Harriet Meyers off on use we rose up en mass and put a stop to it.  We have the power to do the same kind of thing now.  If members of Congress are overwhelmed with phone calls, emails and faxes from their constituents demanding new leadership, they will listen.

The question is, do grassroots conservatives care enough to take action?

Squandered Opportunities

Listening to the Sean Hannity radio show today, I found it humorous to listen to a caller who said McCain deserved to and should win.  If only Hannity had argued with that statement.  Alas, I guess Hannity is to much of a partisan to see reality.

I really don’t see how anyone can argue that McCain deserved to win.  Aside from the fact that he’s not and never was a conservative, he’s run a dismal campaign!  Until the last week or ten days, he wasn’t even really fighting.  Coming on strong late in the game was simply too little, too late.

The fact is, though, McCain didn’t lose this by himself.  The roots of this loss go back to 1994 and the Republican take over under Newt Gingrich.  In ‘94 the Republicans ran on a very specific platform that was completely grounded in conservatism.  Four decades of Democrat control of Congress had demonstrated the folly of liberal big government.  So too had Ronald Reagan the 80s. To bad those Republicans who swept in to Congress in ‘94 didn’t hold to the conservative principles that got them elected.  Instead, they abandoned conservatism in favor of big government and the nanny state.

Republicans in Congress weren’t alone, however, in squandering power.  The top of the party, none other than the President, really took us down.  Together the President and the Republican controlled Congress lead us to the largest expansion of government since LBJ’s Great Society.  We got the new Medicaid Prescription Drug Benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act, both enormous spending bills that dramatically increased the federal bureaucracy.  We got the Department of Homeland Security, a cabinet level agency that dwarfs its predecessors both in bureaucratic bloat and inefficiency.  We got “compassionate conservatism” which is just a euphemism for Republican liberalism that bears no resemblance to actual conservatism.  From a big government perspective and from a spending perspective, Republicans had become as bad as or perhaps worse than Democrats!  And that cost Republicans control of Congress in 2006.

In the two years since the ‘06 election, not much has changed among Republicans.  With few exceptions, Republican leadership blamed the ‘06 losses on the Iraq war instead of their big government, big spending habits.  While the war didn’t help, it was by no means the primary reason for the overwhelming losses.  Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of Democrat gains in Congress were attained by running candidates who ran as conservatives.

We all know, of course, that those “conservative” Democrats turned out not to be so conservative.  Indeed, with the abysmal single digit approval ratings for the current Congress, it should have been possible for Republicans to retake some of those lost seats.  But alas, hardly a conservative was in sight.  There are notable exceptions to be sure but by and large, the term conservative Republican has become a virtual oxymoron.

So here we are in 2008.  Obama has won the White House and, in spite of their horrible ratings, Democrats have substantially increased their leads in the House and Senate.  Even though they have not achieved their hoped for 60 vote margin in the Senate, the reality is, with RINOs like Snow and Collins they won’t have much trouble stopping any principled conservative filibuster.  Republicans are now basically bystanders with no hope of stopping anything Democrats want to do.

For most Republicans this is a bleak picture indeed but I see a bright silver lining.  I said several months ago that this was the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party.  A McCain win would have set conservatism back a generation both because McCain would do all he could to rid the party of conservatives and because Republicans would get the blame for all the harm McCain would do as President.

As it is the Democrats have taken full responsibility for everything going forward.  If the economy is bad in 2010, it’ll be the Democrats fault.  If we have major foreign policy problems, Democrats get the blame.  Pretty much everything that goes wrong will be their fault.  And who doesn’t believe the Democrats will screw it up?

As well, the complete and utter failure of liberalism in the Republican Party has been fully unmasked.  I’ll be surprised if the Republicans in the House and Senate don’t replace their inept leadership with some real conservatives.  From there it will be possible to rebuild the party from the ground up.  It would then, perhaps, be possible to get some national support for real conservatives as opposed to the tendancy the RNC has had to support moderates (read RINOs).

None of this is a sure thing of course.  Democrats could do a decent job.  Republicans could continue to embrace the strategy that has been such a failure.  Pigs could learn to fly.  Who knows?  One thing that will certainly be required is for grass roots conservatives to become involved and work to make the needed changes.  We need to recruit and field solid conservative candidates for 2010.  We need to put extreme pressure on the Republicans left in Congress to be conservative.  We need to let them know their political futures depend on it.  If we won’t do that we deserve the party we’ve got.

Long Lines at Polls

I’ve been voting since 1976 and I’ve never missed an election in that time.  I’ve also never experienced lines like I did this morning.  The attached photos are from my cell phone so the quality isn’t that good but you can clearly see the line is long.

My wife and I arrived at the polls around 6:40 this morning.  Already there was maybe 200 people in line and by the time the polls opened the line was up to 300.  We finally finished at 8:10 and by then the line was at least 400 people.  It stretched all the way around the building!

While I was in line I was contemplating what such long lines might mean.  The pundits are pretty much agreed that all the early voting has benefited Barack Obama.  Does heavy turnout on election day help McCain or Obama?  I confess I have no idea!

One thing seems clear.  This looks like the highest voter turnout in my lifetime!  I’ve heard predictions as high as 70% which would be unprecedented.  Many will say this is a good thing.  They reason that the most important thing is that citizens participate.  The more participation the better.

I’m all for participation but I’m concerned about people who vote without having much or any knowledge of the issues or candidates.  Howard Stern’s bit where he sent someone out to talk to Obama supporters is a case in point.  They claimed McCain’s views were Obama’s and these people were fully supportive of every McCain position so long as they believed it was Obama’s positions.  Clearly these people are not voting on issues and appear to have no idea what the issues even are!  Perhaps that is inevitable but that doesn’t make it good.

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Also see: Michelle Malkin – Election Day: America votes

Much Needed Perspective

Two days until election day and both liberals and conservatives alike are worried.  Tuesday has the potential to be another razor close election, though some liberals are predicting an Obama landslide.  On the other side, Tammy Bruce, filling in on the Laura Ingraham show Friday predicted a McCain win. I don’t know about you but these nail biters are taking their toll on me.

As someone with strong political views and a solid conservative ideology, it has been pretty standard for me to place a great deal of confidence in my political philosophy.  That’s true both in the capacity of that philosophy to win the day in the arena of ideas and in its ability as a governing philosophy to create sound government.  I assume the other side feels pretty much the same way about their political philosophy and ideals.  For both, Wednesday will either be a day of celebration or a day of mourning.

Following the ‘06 elections I was fairly depressed for several weeks.  I wondered how we’d survive as a nation with liberals in control again.  Certainly the results of that election haven’t exactly produced or inspired a lot of confidence in the American people.  The current Congress has the lowest approval ratings since congressional approval ratings have been taken.  But America is still here.  We haven’t disappeared into the abyss.

Lately I’ve been ruminating on the wisdom of placing so much faith in a political philosophy.  While I’m not prepared to jetison sound political thinking, I recognize that the basic problems in this country are not the result of politics, cries to the contrary not withstanding.  While a political party or philosophy may encourage right behavior or wrong behavior, it is what is in people’s hearts that dictate the choices they make, not what party is in power.

I recognize that not all readers at Ft Hard Knox, nor necessarily even all the authors are Christians but I am.  And what has been on my mind lately is the fact that, as far as I’m concerned, God is still in control.  Some will find that a difficult statement to swallow.  For you I am truly sorry.

I’ve always said that my Christian faith informs and directs my political philosophy.  I still believe that but I’ve come to realize that I’ve managed to get the cart before the horse.  I’ve elevated the political philosophy above the Christian faith without ever realizing I’ve done so.  And that is a problem.

It is my sincere belief that no matter who wins the presidential election on Tuesday, God will still be in control.  If the Democrats achieve a 60 vote fillibuster proof majority in the Senate and make substantial gains in the House so that Republicans can’t do a thing to stop them, God will still be in control!

With such a perspective I expect to wake up Wednesday morning with a smile on my face regardless of the election results because God is in control.  I’ve found that He does a much better job of running things than I do and for that I am eternally grateful.  I really don’t know how anyone survives in this world apart from faith in God.  I think I’d place all my faith in political philosophy and I’d be eternally disappointed, disillusioned and depressed.  I don’t want to live that way and I’m resolving not to.

I still hold the same ideological beliefs, the same political philosophy I did.  I still believe conservatism is superior to liberalism.  But I recognize that neither philosophy is going to change people’s hearts.  Only God can do that!

Business Fighting Back

It seems the American businesses are finally fighting back.  The US Chamber of Commerce, apparently fearing a filibuster proof Democrat majority in the Senate, is involved in several races, some where they are the only help under funded GOP candidates have.

An article by Kimberly Strassel in today’s Wall Street Journal gives the details.  Strassel says:

The business community is back in politics. After years of contented political gridlock, American companies are now officially horrified at what an all-Democratic Washington intends to inflict on the U.S. economy. The Chamber is throwing its extensive resources at denying the left a filibuster-proof Senate. In doing so, it has stuck its finger in the Democratic leadership’s beehive, and is facing retribution.

One example of where the Chamber has a problem with Democrat plans is the card check legislation.  That plan allows unions to strong arm workers into signing cards to bring in the union, bypass the secret ballot process.  Here’s an example of what the Chamber is doing.

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Also see: Michelle Malkin – I am changing my name to Fannie Mae; plus: the blind leading the blind

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