Thursday, October 11, 2007

Compromising on Rudy

There was a reported meeting of pro-life leaders, including Dr, James Dobson, where the leaders expressed their willingness to vote for a third party candidate rather than support a so-called compromise anti-life/anti traditional family candidate who would promise to do some pro-life/pro-family things - i.e. nominate strict constructionist Supreme Court justices, etc. In the pro-life community, there is debate among honest and sincere people as to whether this is a reasonable Christ-honoring course of action. 

The debate basically breaks down along 2 paths. One group supports Dr. Dobson et al's approach which is in effect a shot across the Republican Party's bow to try to force them to walk the walk , not just talk the talk. The other group, it seems to me, basically argues that fewer unborn babies would die under a compromise candidate who presumably could win against Hillary. To me, this is a lesser evil approach.

Below is something I posted to the blog at Stand to Reason on this subject. This is certainly not an exhaustive treatise on the above options - that may come in time.

One thing I would add is that if the Republican Party nominates a compromise candidate for president, I will immediately change my voter registration from Republican to Independent.

In my opinion there are 2 absolutely non-negotiable moral issues - 1) the sanctity of life, and 2) support for traditional one man one woman marriage for life. 

I will not support a candidate who is not whole heartedly behind these issues. A president has the bully pulpit, national and local speaking opportunities, cabinet appointments, and the veto to help persuade and advance these moral issues. 

The promise to appoint strict constructionist judges, without the heart and will to be aggressively pro-life/pro-family is simply inadequate. 

 Compromise in legislation may be acceptable when it is a case of saving no unborn lives vs saving a few, but compromising on electing a president and the support that gives to his party's apparatus, does not seem to me to be analogous to compromising on legislation. 

I don't care which party it is, but we currently have only one party with planks that support our positions. 

The election of a compromise candidate will all but ensure the pro-life/pro-family voice will be totally ignored in future elections. If the Republican party is made to believe that pro-life and pro-family voters will not vote for a compromise candidate on these issues, then it can make the decision to commit suicide and have a new party rise from the ashes or embrace the strength of these positions.

Only God knows if Hillary Clinton has a chance to win against Mike Huckabee (just using him as an example). I would almost go so far as to say if Huckabee is given a chance to promote his positions, pro-life/pro-family voters get solidly and aggressively behind him, and then he loses, America deserves what it gets and the blame will be on us -- the Christians and their pastors who woke up way too late to the poison we allowed to flourish in our nation. 

We ignored Francis Schaeffer until it was too late. I expect moral leadership on these foundations from a president and I will not vote for one who cannot provide that. 


 God help us.

3 comments:

Scott W said...

"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psalm 11:3 Trust that all is perfect in God's world and stop worrying about who marries whom.

Harold said...

Scott - thanks for posting your comment. I hope you will find my response reasonable and worth thinking about, but please keep in mind the potential for misunderstanding inherent in this type of communication. My attempt at overcoming these pitfalls is to assume the sincerity of the poster - that they are interested in having a reasonable discussion with give and take and to first clarify the intent of posts where there could be uncertainty and not waste time making false assumptions.

Your comment is a very good one and one I want to respond to on the blog rather than burying it here in the comments. As you may tell from the sporadic nature (timewise) of my posts, I tend to be a rather lazy writer, but your comment (even as brief as it is) has spurred me to action. :-)

By the way, I visited your blog and looked at some of your art. My taste in art runs more to the impressionists like Renoir, but I also like art, like yours, that has a message and makes you think.

A parting thought - in art like yours, how important is the title of the piece? Is the title part of the artwork that is necessary to the correct interpretation? Maybe the more abstract the art is from real world things (trees, houses, etc) the more essential the grounding of words to provide meaning? What if words become ungrounded? What then?

Harold

Harold said...

Scott - in keeping with my comment above on seeking clarification, I am going to rephrase your comment into a more common form of logic. Please comment if this rephrasing is fair: All is perfect and according to God in this world; therefore, if nothing is wrong, there's no need to be concerned about ___________ (fill in the blank).