Why Romney’s Religion Won’t Matter

Folks, we’ve been through this all before, almost 100 years ago. In the end, any religion is considered crazy and cultish by those outside of it, and in the end, the American people really don’t care. (link)

There is one blaring error in the article above:

Although Mr. Smith refused to show the plates to anyone else, the Book of Mormon is regarded by Mormons as authoritative as the Old and New Testaments.

This doesn’t correlate with the Testimony of the Three Witnesses and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses, reprinted here in case you have a hard time finding the first few pages of any copy of the Book of Mormon:

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

Oliver Cowdery
David Whitmer
Martin Harris

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

Christian Whitmer
Jacob Whitmer
Peter Whitmer, Jun
John Whitmer
Hiram Page
Joseph Smith, Sen
Hyrum Smith
Samuel H. Smith

Now, with 12 witnesses, all who have seen the plates, and with none recanting, even those who became bitter enemies of the church, you don’t need to wonder whether the plates existed. We believe truths that have had far fewer and less reliable witnesses, so this should be easy enough to accept.

Frank Rich: The Devil Made O’Donnell do it!

Frank Rich (yeah, that Frank Rich) is now claiming that Larry O’Donnell, certified idiot, was forced to rant bigotry against mormons by his peers. (link)

Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”

No, Frank Rich, Larry O’Donnell is a bigot, and uneducated, ill-informed, hard-hearted bigot. That’s why he said those things, you see.

Mike Huckabee: Not Even a Theology Degree

Apparently, Huckabee doesn’t have a theology degree. (link)

Also, folks, don’t resort to bigotry to attack Mike Huckabee (link) See, there is plenty that is in Huckabee’s positions and past that can be used as a reason why he shouldn’t get the republican nomination. We don’t have to insinuate that he is deficient because he is from the South or because he is deeply religious.

Now, anyone willing to tell me why we should support Huckabee over someone else?

Sen. Lieberman Endorses Sen. McCain

So Sen. McCain earns the endorsement of (once) democrat Sen. Lieberman. Who is surprised?

After spending his entire senate career trying to earn the spotlight by saying nasty things about his colleagues, Sen. McCain has earned the endorsement of someone across the aisle.

Sen. McCain, until Sen. Lieberman is willing to carry the Republican flag on any issue, his endorsement is a net negative for your campaign.

Everybody else, please remember that the biggest difference between Lieberman and McCain is that Lieberman doesn’t lie about which party he caucuses with.

This is Getting Interesting

In response to Wise Golden Retriever’s post My Turn (which is a response to my response), let me make the comment that I enjoy this debate tremendously. Thank you for taking the time to carefully explain your positions and thoughts without trying to call me names.

I too am no expert in these matters. It is apparent, though, that our experts have even done a good job in all this, nor that as American citizens we should trust these experts to do anything but advise us. Let’s use our God-given gifts of speech and thought and reason together to find the best solution.

Your comparison of Puerto Rico and Cuba is interesting. I don’t know enough about the history of these island nations to make a comment. I am pretty sure that we did more than flood Puerto Rico with cash. I am pretty sure we showed up with muscle as well, both to protect our investment and to keep those who were up to no good in check. I don’t know one way or the other, though.

About our economic might being a powerful tool, I want to emphasize that in my experience living in South Korea, the Korean people (the vast majority of them) don’t recognize the huge benefit the US has brought to the Korean people. Their economic roadmap was built on the assumption that they could make things Americans would buy. Well, they did and we did, and so they had the critical foreign currency to build up their country into an economic powerhouse.

But the Korean people don’t see it that way. (The business leaders and political leaders do, however, and are quite careful not to do anything to hurt that critical relationship.) They aren’t making a choice between socialism and capitalism based on how much benefit the US has been–they are making the choices for purely selfish reasons.

What the US does do, and did do, however, was to put down communist revolutions. When people decided to abandon the ballot box and the soap box and turn to the ammo box, the US sent in Korean troops, backed by US might, to put down the insurgencies with excessive force.

That’s the real, bloody reason why communism never took hold in South Korea. Communism propagates by force, and since the Americans used force to keep it suppressed, it never succeeded.

It’s a bloody history, one which communists use to hurt America’s image even today. (That’s why we’re called baby killers by the North Koreans–many children were killed in the purges because the communists hid in the villages.) But it’s the truth, and it was absolutely necessary. We won South Korea with blood and bullets, not dollars and nice words.

Notice that after so many years of carrots and sticks, North Korea is still communist, still our worst enemy, and still starving to death. Words and money don’t convince anyone to give up their homicidal intentions. Only bullets do.

Now, turning to Iraq, we were literally throwing cash around after we easily crushed the Iraqi military. You could walk up to a GI, ask for money for a school or a mosque or a factory, and get it, with little strings attached. But this wasn’t turning the hearts and minds of the people towards the US. They were still wavering between Al Qaeda and Muqtada and other terrorists groups.

In comes the surge, and a new doctrine, the Petreaus strategy. The doctrine was something akin to “take and hold”. We move into a town, we stay. We develop close relationships with the locals, giving them the impression that we will never leave them with our actions. The locals, when they realized we were serious and were serious about dealing death as well as cash, they turned to our sides. Not because they were scared of us, but because they were scared of them, and now they were no longer a threat because G. I. Joe is camped in your backyard with patrols running 24 hours a day with air support. And no number of suicide bombers or road-side bombs were making G. I. Joe go home.

When and only when we have completely seized the hearts and minds of the locals, and driven out every terrorist, and returned life to completely normal, then we turn over the keys to the locals and move the frontlines to some other neighboring town. And if there was ever a resurgence, then we moved back in town to do it all over again, this time more carefully.

Notice that money had nothing to do with it–it was a display of force, superior, overwhelming force. Our men could fight and win every time, it was simply a matter of fighting. When we showed the people not only that we could fight and win, but that we would fight and win, then they knew they could trust us.

Now, my vision of what will happen in Iran is one of two things, and only two things. (I can’t imagine any other likely future.)
Scenario A is the least likely to work. We wag our finger at Iran, impose sanctions, and maybe bomb a few underground bunkers. We keep wagging our finger for the next five hundred years and never have a problem with the Iranians again.

This is unlikely, because this is what we did to Iraq and North Korea and pretty much everywhere else and they didn’t leave us alone. This policy of containment earned us the Cold War, a terrifying war that threatened world destruction at any moment. It simply doesn’t work the way people wish it did.

Scenario B is the most likely to work because it has worked everywhere it has been tried. We obliterate the government of Iran with overwhelming force. We strike hard and fast, like Iraq. Then we use General Petraeus’s counter-insurgency manual to slowly and deliberately destroy whatever insurgent network is left. Village by village, town by town, city by city, working closely with the locals, we drive them out or kill them. After 20 years of fighting, we see Iran has been completely purged of the radical Islam element bent on bringing nuclear holocaust to the world. Those that remain are sincerely pro-American, enjoying the blessings of liberty, and fully in control of their government. After 50 years of invited occupation, we see that Iran is fast becoming one of the world’s economic super-powers, along with our previously defeated enemies of Germany, Japan, Iraq, and Korea.

Either way, Iran is supporting terrorist elements worldwide with weapons, training, and funds. Iran must be stopped, and that is something we all agree with.

I understand that as peace-loving Americans (and believe me, I want peace as much as anyone else!) we really, really don’t like to go around killing people. It’s not nice, sometimes we get the wrong guys, and worst of all, sometimes we end up killing some children that were in the way. War is terribly, it is absolutely hellish, and I wonder why, sometimes, God created a world where war is an absolutely necessary part of life.

But when we ponder the alternative–at best, containment, at worst, Nazi Germany of the 30′s–then we see why we have to fight when people make threats and point their guns and missiles and nuclear arsenals at us. We simply cannot tolerate living in a world where there are guys out there trying to kill us and plotting our deaths, and we must be willing to kill them first or face the consequences of letting them live and conspire against us.

But most of all, we see that there really are people in these countries who would rather live and let live, and they need simply be freed from the threats of our mutual aggressors. We see the choice is between letting an aggressive government live and persecute her own people as well as threaten ours, or freeing the people to enjoy the same blessings of liberty that we enjoy in addition to neutralizing a threat. In that case, there is even more reason to meet threats with violence, because it brings peace and liberty and prosperity in the long term.

So that’s why Huckabee is wrong, wrong, wrong on this issue. If we were to adopt his touchy-feely-lovey-dovey approach, we would be worse off for it. We must remember that only superior strength and the willingness to use that strength righteously when necessary brings about peace and liberty and economic prosperity for all.

Mitt Romney: Your Future President

It was talked about, privately and publically, that Tim Russert’s interview of Mitt Romney on Meet the Press would make or break the campaign. If he came out looking good, then he would be able to take anything and win. If he came out looking bad, then his campaign would be over.

Mitt Romney came out looking good.

Here’s why: The most memorable moment was when he was asked about the 1978 revelation that ended the ban on priesthood ordinations for black males in the church.

I can remember when, when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio, and I pulled over and, and literally wept. Even at this day it’s emotional, and so it’s very deep and fundamental in my, in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that. My faith has also always told me that, in the eyes of God, every individual was, was merited the, the fullest degree of happiness in the hereafter, and I, and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.

Watch the video. Notice how even Tim Russert is emotional moved by his comments. (link)

Now, are the democrats going to be able to beat this guy when he can do this in response to the toughest questions? Not in a million years.

Huckabee’s Son

I don’t like Huckabee. I think he is a disgrace to our party. I think he would make a terrible president. I think he should be running as a pro-life dem than a liberal republican.

Nevertheless, I do not want anyone to not vote for him because of anything his son may or may not have done at a Boy Scout camp when he was 17, or because of anything a lone person has accused Governor Huckabee of doing in reaction to that.

Folks,  I really, really hate whisper campaigns. This stinks of it. Here’s what I think, so far:

1. It’s apparent that Huckabee’s son did something bad at a Boy Scout camp. That’s obvious because he was fired for it.
2. It’s apparent that the state police didn’t do much investigation. That’s obvious because it’s public information.
3. It’s not the case that parents should be held accountable for what their children do–especially if their parents don’t condone the behavior, which Huckabee doesn’t. Come on, the kid’s 17 and at scout camp. If anything, this reflects negatively on the scout leaders not Mike Huckabee.
4. It’s not apparent that Huckabee tried to get the state police to overlook this. There is one person–one–accusing Huckabee of this, and he doesn’t like the guy to begin with. Let’s wait until two witnesses step forward and are willing to bear testimony under oath before a grand jury.
5. If it were true that Huckabee tried to get the state to overlook his son’s crime, then by all means, that’s a bad thing. This would mean he is unfit for public office because he has abused his power and would do it again. But it is not apparent that this is the truth, so it is meaningless as of now.
6. It is apparent that someone is planting the story in the comments of various blog posts. I won’t point anyone anywhere near the posts. I would’ve never approved them on my site, but I am different because I moderate everything. What motivates this person is unknown, and it stinks.

This isn’t the kind of thing that affects a person’s ability to govern, at least not at this time. Heck, even if it were true, it wouldn’t concern me as much as Huckabee’s Carter-esque foreign policy approach.

Campaign Update

If you thought the generals would be Rudy Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton, think again. (link)