So the election is over. Does anyone know when the Ascension to the right hand of the Father is scheduled?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
So what now? We ask. We have the most pro-abortion president in history coming into the White House. At least Clinton was an opportunist who tried to govern according to the shifting political winds. In Barack Obama we have a true believer.
Nevertheless, there are some bright spots. Barring unforeseen tragedies he will appoint maybe one or two Supreme court justices, replacing members of the liberal wing of the court and maintaining the current balance. It is also my belief that in 2016, Hilary will be too old to run for president. In 2012, Sarah Palin could be hitting her stride. And let’s not forget Proposition 8 passed in California.
I will ask my conservative friends to avoid descending into Obama Derangement Syndrome. I’ve seen the ugly effects the parallel condition of Bush Derangement Syndrome has had on liberals over the past eight years. It’s not pretty.
So let’s just make it clear from the outset that Obama was elected by a majority of Americans and that he has won the electoral college, fair and square. While I disagree nearly diametrically with many of his policies, I do not hate the man. Nor am I racist for disagreeing with him. That disagreement has nothing to do with the color of his skin, but with the content of his ideology.
Hey, here’s more bright spots I just thought of: John Kerry and Deval Patrick will probably be leaving their respective positions representing the people of Massachusetts for an Obama administration.
On the whole, though, the sun rose this morning, the Lord is still sovereign, and I have a minivan to get fixed ($800 in repairs, by the way) and a house to unpack. Life goes on.
Photo credit: Flickr.com user bloom-hussein-gal. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Chris Smith for president in 2012.
Well said. I was watching the Facebook messages roll by last night, and I couldn’t believe the apocalyptic (and occasionally just crass) things my conservative friends were putting up. I just wanted to say, “Hey, guys, remember when the liberals said stuff like that, and you couldn’t stand it?” A little class and decorum, please.
Secondly, I thought we were the ones who weren’t putting our hope in a political messiah. City of God, City of Man, people…
Who is Chris Smith?
I agree. I’ll probably avoid all live contact with this administration, just like I did when Clinton was in office, but I don’t hate Obama either. In fact, when I contemplate the state of souls, I have deep pity for him. He has made choices that could put him in a very deep hole in that category. As a person trying to dig out of her own hole of past mistakes, I can’t imagine how difficult a change of conscience could be on him. Yes, we are forgiven by God once we request it, but forgiving ourselves is so often so very difficult.
I had fun avoiding politics today (funny how quickly that becomes a habit), cleaning, baking, and savoring the smells of autumn. God is in control, and those who have thought the world to be ending soon have a very bad track record.
Yes Prop 8 did pass here in CA, and I am a bit surprised about it. I thought the “winds of change” had impacted the collective outlook here.
Well, it looks like we are heading to court now over Prop 8, but even so a loud and pleasant statement has been made.
Who is Chris Smith?
This election has taught me a powerful lesson. I lived in California and I know why Prop 8 passed in one of the most liberal state in the union. Great organization, good ground game and hard work. These people at SaveMarriage were ahead of the game. I had received a packet to collect signitures to put this on the ballot a few weeks before the Supreme Court overturned marriage in California.
These people saw this coming and were prepared. They had been watching the case and saw where it was going so they were prepared. Once it was on the ballot he Mormon Church got into the fray right away and many Christian and Catholic churches followed. In my town, not only did my Catholic Church push Yes on 8 but we had signs for everyone to put in their yards. Also extra signs to put them back in their yards when they were torn down.(Which happened frequently.)
A lot of people got involved in a phone bank and I wouldn’t surprised if most people on the voter list in this area got a phone call about Yes on 8. As the election approached people in my area often stood in groups on the street corners waving Yes on 8 signs. And on the day before the election many street corners were manned by 25 or more people waving Yes on 8 signs. The Yes on 8 also had a bus tour which had rallies all through California. I attended one that was in a town close to my own. I don’t know what it was like in the rest of California but I suspect something similar happened elsewhere.
Yes, on 8 passed and it taught me a lesson too. Next Presidential election we have to be as organized as the Democrats were. The Yes on 8 were as organized as the Democrats were this year and they won.
Michele, I agree with your observations about how organized the campaign was and how well it was run. I heard a Democrat politician note that Prop 8 won because of good ‘ol fashion, door-to-door type neighborhood campaigning.
Leading up to the election, I had a gut feel though that the “winds of progressive change” would result in a different outcome. Actually, those changes are well in place and will keep coming and coming.
In my son’s Jr. High here in Silicon Valley, they held a mock vote and the No on 8 votes won overwhelmingly.
I am afraid the younger generation has been raised to believe anything goes, and that there are no Black/White views on issues.
Time will tell. thanks
I don’t consider myself a racist, nor do I hate Obama.
Actually, when I first saw and heard him, he impressed me greatly.
I have to disagree, however, about him being elected fairly.
There is no doubt in my mind that the election was stolen.
In 19 states, lawsuits were taking place against ACORN regarding fraudulent votes and registrations.
I knew the election had been stolen before most of us even went to the polls on Tuesday.
I find it very difficult to accept this man as our elected president.
Sorry.
I hate to say it, but I believe many of our presidential elections involve fraud.
For those above who have asked –
Chris Smith is a congressman from N.J.
He is very pro-life and has lead this cause for several years.
He is a hero to us pro-lifers.
Delle
With respect to Obama’s Pro-choice politics, we can’t criminalize abortion, so perhaps the best thing to do is work hard to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies. Decreasing the number of unwanted preganancies should decrease the number of abortions in this country. No?
Yeah that’s the same baloney we’ve been fed for months by pro-Obama Catholics. The fact is that Obama is co-sponsor in the Senate of the Freedom of Choice Act which would remove all restrictions on abortion in both federal and state law and overturn all partial-birth abortion laws.
The fact is that Roe did allow the “criminalization”, i.e. restriction, of some abortion, just not all abortion. But Obama would extend abortion far beyond what even the Clintons pushed for.
He’s also the opponent of even the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, a law that would have protected children that miraculously survived abortion and are now living and breathing outside their mother’s bodies from being left to die from neglect or actively snuffed out.
There is nothing in Obama’s past or present rhetoric that could lead any honest person to believe that he’s somehow going to manage to magically reduce abortions or even that he cares to do so.
And talk of reducing “unwanted pregnancies” inevitably means contraception, a concept that should be abhorrent to Catholics too, and part of the very mindset that leads to abortion in the first place. Not buying it Rick.
You can continue to delude yourself, but in 4 years we’ll see how history judges the decision to vote for Obama.
Delle, they can get more info if they follow the link I posted.
“So let’s just make it clear from the outset that Obama was elected by a majority of Americans and that he has won the electoral college, fair and square.”
Not yet. He will not be president-elect until Dec 10th, when the electoral college meets.
Not as widely known, is that Justice Souter has required Obama to produce his birth certificate prior to Dec 1st in response to the Berg suit. Should he fail to do so, a Writ of Certoriari will issue, and the case will be reviewed by the entire Court, as Souter has three other justice concurring.
While I don’t really believe that anything will come from this, it is good to remember that these things are happening, and that surprises can still occur.
Dom,
Your last post suggests to me that it is your position that the only way to significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country is by enacting more criminal laws and enforcing those laws through the criminal courts. Is that correct? Is just seems to me that there should always be more than one way to skin a cat, and if another way avoids more laws and the use of the judicial system, I’m usually interested in listening.
You are incorrect in your assessment of my position. Criminalization is not the “only way”. However, it is the most effective means to reduce most abortions immediately.
Of course, we need to change the culture and evangelize people, but you don’t stand around discussing fire prevention methods while the house is burning. Put the fire out first and THEN figure out how it started and how to keep another one from starting.
Or to use an analogy I find more apt: First, you defeat the Nazis on the battlefield and shut down the camps, THEN you change people’s minds about their Nazi ideology and hatred of Jews.
p>Or another apt analogy: In this country we outlawed slavery first and then it took a century to change people’s minds about the inferiority of black people. We didn’t seek to set up welfare systems and government programs to convince slaveowners that enslaving human beings was wrong before freeing the slaves.
I honestly can’t understand why this is so hard for people to understand. Babies are being murdered. We need to stop that. Now.
Here’s what we know Rick. When restrictions are placed on abortions – e.g. parental notification or consent, a waiting period, informed consent, etc. – abortions go down. All the protective laws that have been placed on the books since the Webster case will be wiped out by the stroke of a pen when President Obama signs the FOCA on his first day in office.
I would also like to clarify a point Dom made about Roe allowing some restrictions on abortion. I believe Roe allowed the state some interest in the fetus in the third trimester but the practical problem was the health of the mother (including emotional or financial) took precedence over the state’s interest in the fetus. That means that until 1989 abortion for any reason was legal in every state in the union right up until the moment of birth.
I would like to know what pro-active social policies a government could put in place that would reduce abortions? I know in my own state (Pennsylvania) a family currently can basically have all food, health care, and daycare provided by the state while earning a total household income up to $40,000 a year. It’s mindboggling to me that some folks believe abortions can be reduced by expanding government beneficence to the point that expanded social programs could play a bigger role in reducing abortions than notifying a 15 year old girl’s parents of her decision.
Dom,
Your clarification regarding the most effective means to reduce the number of abortions is very helpful in understanding your position. And you must have more faith than I that the laws with respect to abortion will soon be changed. I don’t expect the laws to change anytime soon and so am interested in exploring other ways to bring down the number of abortions, but respect your certainty that legislative and judicial action would be the best way to go.
This is not a zero-sum game, as the pro-abortion politicians would have us believe. You can work to change laws at the same time you work to change hearts and minds and systems. However, what I see from the other side is neither attempts to change nor attempts to change anything. Watch Obama and Kerry and Clinton parade before NARAL and express their devotion to abortion and you see no discussion of ways to reduce abortion.
In addition, the only reason people think the law will not change is because we have been told this is so by those who don’t want it to. With God all things are possible. Roe became “law” because a court said it was so. It could cease being law by a decision of another court.
In the time of Augustine, 80% of the Church was Arian and most could not imagine that changing. A few centuries later, Arianism was effectively gone.
<I>And you must have more faith than I that the laws with respect to abortion will soon be changed.<I>
Well, the laws will change beginning in January when abortion once again becomes a federal right thanks to the FOCA. So now those 14 year olds in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts who right now would have to tell their parents they were going to abort will once again be able to have life altering surgery performed on them and their babies without their parents’ knowledge or consent.