Monday, December 03, 2007

Around the World Wide Web 41

1. Huckabee credits God for his rise in Iowa polls.

Am I the only one who thinks it is absurd that a supernatural creature who has in his resume the creation of the universe would fiddle with a poll in Iowa? Oh, wait, I forgot -- the ways of God are mysterious. They certainly are.

2. George Reisman looks at the contradictions in the Republican candidates' position on abortion.

3. How about this quote from Woodrow Wilson?

A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.

And he was a Democrat!

4. Why Mike Huckabee will be the next president. If he is on the ticket at all, I will vote for the Democrat. Gridlock is preferable to a religious nanny-stater.

(HT: Born Again Redneck)

5. Marxism is at the heart of global warming?

Global warming is not a communist conspiracy, but environmentalists share the old left's premises of altruism, collectivism and statism, so they push for the same policies. Both Marxism and environmentalism are essentially anti-capitalist ideologies and nothing more. Any positive values they pretend to have are just window dressing to help pragmatists and useful idiots evade their nihilism.

6. Is Hillary Clinton less than inevitable?

(What would it mean if the candidates ended up being Obama and Huckabee? It would mean the Democrats are smart enough not to commit party suicide but the Republicans are not that smart.)

5 comments:

Joubert said...

I just did another post about Huckabee's "Christian Democracy." Shudder!

Myrhaf said...

You could call Huckabee a religious Democrat. What a concept!

madmax said...

Huckabee seems to be just like Bush but without the occasional free market rhetoric. If Huckabee is the Republican nominee, I too will vote for Clinton (Obama will not get the nomination). But I will also vote all Republican for Congress. If Clinton wins I want as many Republicans in Congress as possible that way we might get gridlock. If there is to be an explicit socialist in the White House let it be a Democrat.

Anonymous said...

Interesting post by Born Again Redneck on Christian Democracy. The Conservative movement is more interesting to me than the liberal one and more complex. I see three general camps under the conservative big tent:

1)Neo-conservativism / liberal Christianity - Examples would be Bush and Huckabee as well as Gulliani and Thompson. Pretty much all of today's major Republican candidates are from this camp. It consists of primarily pro-American welfare-statists (as opposed to the anti-American socialists of the left). Also all in this camp have a liberal interpretation of Christianity. They are not Augustinian Christians.

2) Traditionalist / Cultural Conservatives - I can't think of any big name Republican politician that is from this camp but I am sure there are some. This camp is essentially full of Paleo Conservatives. These are your Augustinian / Calvinist oriented Christians that do not agree with the universalism of Christianity that the liberal Christians do. They are the advocates of strict conformism to tradition and past institutions (ex. heterosexual exclusivity, conservative marriage norms, etc). They are also the worst of the anti-immigrationists. They also have a tendency to be racists and they are all anti-Darwin and anti-science (unless they think it helps to prove that non-whites are inferior). This camp of conservatism is not the dominant one IMO but I feel it is "waiting in the wings" so to speak. These are what I think of when Peikoff talks of M2 Christians.

3) Classical Liberalism - This is the smallest camp under the tent. Now it is true that many of the Neo-Cons will pay lip service to some of the precepts of Classical Liberalism but its actual influence on Republican politics is minimal. Incidentally, the Paleo-Cons hate classical liberalism and they also hate the Neo-Cons which they view as having stolen Conservatism.

As I say Conservatism is really fascinating as a political movement. The idea of Republican "Cristian Democrats" falls nicely in line with my understanding of the Neo-Con liberal Christian Right.

John Kim

EdMcGon said...

3. Democrats from the early 20th century were a different philosophical breed than modern Dems. For example, consider that every war the U.S. had in the 20th century prior to Reagan's presidency was started by a Democratic president. Frankly, the Democrats of the early 20th century were more conservative than today's Republicans.

4. Huckabee does have one thing going for him: He supports the FairTax. I will be interested to see if he still supports it when everyone is actually paying attention next year.

5. Amen brother.

6. At this point, NO ONE is inevitable. However, short of a major stumble, Hillary does look like a lock for the Democratic nomination. Obama is still cutting his teeth as a presidential candidate.