{"id":294,"date":"2003-05-08T20:28:22","date_gmt":"2003-05-09T01:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=294"},"modified":"2007-04-06T19:35:26","modified_gmt":"2007-04-07T02:35:26","slug":"some-clarifications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Some Clarifications"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given the fact that I have been called a far left site<\/a> and the author of that comment<\/a> twisted my words to make it sound like I supported his argument (and hadn’t just spent the entire post calling him a moron in more polite terms), I thought that there might be the need to get a few things straight:<\/p>\n

  • Criticizing the puppet in the White House does not put me on the far left.<\/strong> I’m actually on the BIG spectrum more center to right in my views. Labels are subjective and I despise the assumption that I must be an extreme leftist because I find your slobbering affirmation of Bush to be repugnant.<\/li>\n
  • My criticism of the war does not mean I don’t support the troops and pray for their safe return home.<\/strong> I may think that the premise of this war (Iraq hoarding weapons of mass destruction) was false and I may think that this was Bush’s little pet war (the man has been campaigning for it for the last 3-4 years); but I *STILL* support the troops and I still offer prayers for their safe return. I mean, they’re following orders and doing what they’re told. Saddam *needed* to go and human rights abuses were being perpetrated. (Of course… *that* would be a real premise for the war, which didn’t seem to be at the forefront of our president’s mind. Are we surprised?)<\/li>\n
  • I am not devaluing my freedom by protesting the war.<\/strong> If I hear one more person criticize the peace protesters (including me), I will break my pacifist vow over their heads. So you served your country in the military. That’s very nice. So did my grandpa, my father, and many of my male family members and they all think this war is stupid.<\/li>\n
  • My criticism of the president and the government does not make me un-American.<\/strong> Refer to the Teddy Roosevelt quote<\/a>. I didn’t tell y’all who hated Clinton that you were un-American and un-patriotic (and a few other terms I’ll refrain from using). I would gladly move to Canada to finish out my theological education if I wasn’t paying off student loans for Jon and myself. Unless you want to contribute to the “Pay Jen’s Student Loans Off” fund, let me complain and rant and rave. Be thankful that I am being a pro-active citizen and exercising all my rights to petition and vote instead of sitting on my butt and whining like some people of my generation do.<\/li>\n
  • Our country was founded on DEIST<\/em> and Enlightenment values.<\/strong> The Founding Fathers were nominal Christians at best and at the time of the Revolution, only 1\/15 of the country was churched. Our Constitution was founded on Enlightenment values such as the Social Contract. Read John Locke. Democracy has *NEVER* been a Christian value — if it had, Israel would have been smoten for choosing Baal. (Can you really vote on the God you worship without consequences?) Our Puritan fathers wanted a theocracy, not a democracy. We are a democratic repuiblic. Yes, our law code has a bit of a Judeo-Christian influence but it also has other sources. If we were a Christian nation, adultery would be against the penal lawcode.<\/li>\n

    Are clear on this?<\/p>\n

    **Addendum**<\/strong><\/p>\n

  • Bush is not the greatest president we ever had just because he happens to be Christian.<\/strong> Not only does his faith not make Bush special, it actually annoys me that he claims to be Methodist and does not follow the teachings of his church. He refused to meet with Methodist bishops here in Ohio on one of his last trips, and that says volumes about the ethics of his so-called faith<\/a> than anything else. (Seriously… if he wants to act like a non-denom evangelical or a Southern Baptist, why doesn’t he jump ship from the Methodists<\/a> and go to a church that is more in line with what he is claiming to be????) Anyone can write a speech and quote hymns and Scripture — it’s not all that hard and the president has a staff of speech writers who are *paid* to do this. Clinton was also a Christian — he was a Southern Baptist. (Read Phillip Yancey’s discussion on this in What’s So Amazing About grace_<\/u> if you don’t believe me.) Bush Sr. was Episcopalian. Reagan was Disciples of Christ. Carter was Southern Baptist. Probably 90% of our presidents have been at least nominally Christian — it doesn’t mean that they would be any better or worse than a Jewish president or a Muslim president.<\/li>\n
  • Bush’s speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln<\/a> was a publicity stunt — nothing more and nothing less.<\/a><\/strong> (The story is #7 on the first link. Props to Candira<\/a> for it.) He could have used a helicopter instead of posing as a soldier. It just infuriates me when people talk about how wonderful it was for him as a “true soldier” to do it. Yeah… he was in the National Guard (which is perfectly acceptable) in his youth… and went AWOL much of the time. The *DEMOCRATS* running against him next year *ALL* have military service records. Kerry has a Bronze Star and Clark was a *real* general. As Rush Limbaugh put it, Bush looked good — and that was all that mattered. And *OF COURSE* we will see these pictures next year during the campaign, and I hope that the person who gets the Democratic nomination has the wisdom to run a counter ad talking about Bush’s “real” record. My grandfathers, father, uncles, and cousins all served this country legitimately and it irritates me when people in power try to fake military service to look cool. At least Clinton was honest about his lack of a military record.<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Given the fact that I have been called a far left site and the author of that comment twisted my words to make it sound like I supported his argument (and hadn’t just spent the entire post calling him a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p38xoO-4K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}