By Bob Ellis
Dakota Voice
Fears that values voters will walk away from the GOP if a pro-abortion candidate is nominated for president continues to animate election discussions. And it should: if the Republican Party's base of conservative voters isn't with the party during the campaign, America will definitely elect a Democrat president in 2008.
With the stakes so high, and with the negative numbers for Democrat front runner Hillary Clinton so high why is there so much controversy on the Right? (Full Article)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Values Voters: The Sleeper Awakens?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
There will be no convincing Hannity that he is wrong about the mayor. But he will never convince me that he is right.
Huckabee, Hunter, Keyes, and Brownback need to wait out early voting states and stay in the hunt. Especially since states are jockeying for early positions, which could prove to be advantageous to emerging and real top tier candidates.
Bruce Whalen -
When did religious conservatives establish exclusive claim to the title 'values voter' ? Just because we don't all embrace the wholly un-American practice of imposing our will on somebody else under the flimsy veil of religious justification, please don't suggest that we lack values. Some of us value our civil liberties, the protection of our constitutional rights, the equal recognition of all families under the law, and the separation of church and state - and vote accordingly. We even value the right of religious conservatives to practice their beliefs and pass them along to their children ... as much as we value anyone else's right not to.
You're right, SearchCz, that everyone has values, not just Christian conservatives. However, when we talk of values, especially "values voters," the meaning is usually clear that this represents those who ascribe to the traditional values upon which this country was founded, the values that made this a great nation.
I don't think any Christians want to impose their values on anyone per se. But we have a duty to advocate Christian values for the country (it was founded by Christians on Christian principles, after all). Everyone advocates for their values; if Christians don't seek to promote theirs, other value groups will impose their values. And since our freedoms in the US are intertwined with the Judeo-Christian understanding that our rights and freedoms come from our Creator, the preservation of those freedoms depends on the continuation of the Christian perspective in U.S. public policy.
Areligious pragmatism, as represented by Mr. Giuliani, is insufficient to the task of leading the American people, particularly at this time in history. Secular governance can cite no authority by which men should rightly conduct themselves beyond what another man thinks. Or, as James Madison wrote wrote:
"We’ve staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us . . . to Govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.”
Ben Franklin put it more succinctly:
"Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants."
Post a Comment