Speed Debating
Timothy Birdnow
I'll admit it; I generally don't watch the primary debates.
To my way of thinking, these things really don't give any useful information, and are primarily useful for judging how the candidates LOOK and how fast they can spin an elegant soundbyte. It's like speed dating, or a peep show. The contestants have certain stock answers memorized, too, and are waiting for the opening to apply them. Rarely do we get a glimpse of the true nature of the candidates.
And they are always run by liberal media types. Why, in the name of all that is holy, do Republicans allow mainstream media personalities to run their debates?
My wife taped the last debate from New Hampshire, and I just got around to watching it.
First, George Stephanopoulis was a Democrat operative and FOB (Friend of Bill) and had absolutely no business moderating this debate. He was horrible, I might add; interrupting the contestants, speaking over the candidates, asking ridiculous hypotheticals (like "would you support a state ban on contraception"), asking loaded and presumptive questions, and generally being a pain in the posterior. And the little firecracker lighter (he really is a punk) was no worse than Diane Sawyer or that other guy.
The questions, too, were fascinating, intended to sew discourse and avoid slapping at Barack Obama's weaknesses. There weren't that many addressing the economic disaster - the story of our time and the primary motivating factor in the coming elections. There were limited questions on foreign affairs, too; another Obama weakness. There WERE questions about social issues that are at best back burner. They took ONE, count them, ONE (1) question from some schlub off Yahoo. Why only one question, and why this particular question? It was about gay marriage, to get the contestants to fall over each-other in an orgy of sympathy for those who seek to redefine marriage and vandalize our most ancient and venerable institution. Gingrich is the only one who really came out strongly here, and I remember why I've always liked him (although he's as apt to come out in favor of it next week). Gingrich argued that while we should make certain things like hospital visitation more open, we should not redefine marriage to mean any sort of relationship. It mirrors my own argument; homosexuals are free to covenant any way they wish, up to and including holding a non-legally binding wedding ceremony. But they should not expect legal recognition because marriage means a certain thing and this formalizing of a relationship does not meet that definition. Neither does Polygamy, which has a much longer and more venerable pedigree. Neither does brother and sister marriages. Neither does Man and Pet, Man and farmyard animal, Man and automobile, Man and corpse, nor Man and blow-up doll. Just because a couple of organs may fit together in some fashion it does not follow that a state of marriage may be officially recognized. It's about more than sex, more even than love. Which is why the complementary question that Stephanopoulis asked about gay adoption should have been smacked hard by the contestants - but they all tiptoed around it. Gay adoption should be one of our last options, for it is an unwholeseome environment for the child. I am not saying that gay people are bad people, or that gay people won't love and care for a child, but I am saying that they are giving bad example, and we should understand that we are not doing the kid any favors. The homosexual lifestyle is a hard one, with suicide a major cause of death. The lifespan is generally short, and mental problems, alcoholism, and drug abuse are fairly common. Disease is rampant. These are verifiable facts, not opinions. Read a rundown on them here. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html
You can blame societal disapproval all you want (and there is a point there) but the reality is that much of the hardship of gay life stems from violating Natural Law, from violating the Law of God, from rebelling against a society that says you shouldn't do that. There is a reason why homosexual behavior has always been frowned upon. The liberal would have us believe it's some irrational hillbilly prejudice, but it comes from centuries of experience. Ours isn't the first gay generation, after all. And what is being asked is that gay people not be treated like everyone else but that they be given special priviledges. Adoption by single parents isn't a good choice, either. I really wouldn't want a child adopted by someone into sado-masochism, or group marriages. Why should homosexual couples be somehow exempted?
But the purpose was to give Obama soundbytes to use against the inevitable nominee. Obama needs to move this fight into social issues, away from foreign affairs and away from economics. Social issues divide America and even divide Republicans, and Obama's best hope is to make this upcoming election about his opponent's social conservatism.
Newt Gingrich recognized what Stephi was up to and called him on it. As Richard Viguerie points out in an article at his website:
"After Gingrich and the other candidates endured something on the order of 20 minutes of questions (most of them hypotheticals bordering on the absurd -- like whether or not states have the right to outlaw contraception), Newt finally tried to call a halt to the nonsense.
Gingrich pointed out that, “…since we’ve spent this much time on these issues -- I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”
Even former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose primary constituency IS the establishment media, agreed with Gingrich.
But the notion that there was media and institutional secular bigotry against Christians, particularly Catholics, seemed to completely befuddle the anti-Christian progressives on the ABC media panel.
Poll after poll shows that what the American people really want in their next President is someone who will encourage economic growth and rein-in the outrageous federal spending, deficit and debt that is destroying this country. Yet the media panel of the ABC/Yahoo debate invested little effort in parsing the candidates’ records, views and policies on those vital issues."
End excerpt.
Which is precisely the goal of gay marriage and many of the other social issues the Progressives and their media minions are aiming at. Make gay marriage legal and the Catholic Church, and any other religious organization that believes homosexuality is morally offensive, will be forced by law to comply. Ditto gay adoption; religious groups (and that would include Moslems) involved in adoptions would have to give children to gay couples.
And Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. Progressives want to force that down the Christian throats. From there it becomes a small matter to say that openly gay priests have to be endured, that churches must provide health benefits for gay spouses, that gay teachers must be employed by Catholic schools. It is a wedge to destroy Christianity - and people like Stephanopoulis have to know that (his father was an Orthodox Bishop, after all.)
Gingrich should not have been the only one to argue this case. I know; it's falling into the trap laid by Steph, but the bigger trap is keeping silent. THAT has been the secret to media power all along; fear of speaking the truth lest it be used against us has shut the mouths of many on our side. We're afraid to call the media out because we don't want to give them ammunition. That is why the GOP should never have agreed to let the Democrats run the debate in the first place. OF COURSE they were going to use tricks and deceptions, lies and innuendo against our people. But, like Charlie Brown, we are ever moronically confident we're going to kick that football yet!
I was also struck by Gingrich's answer to the Middle East question. After a bunch of jawing by Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, Gingrich made the point that we should have supported the uprising in Iran. FINALLY! I have been saying that for years now! The situation in the Middle East is hard only because we do not have the will to do what is needed. When George W. Bush invaded Iraq, he put a pincer move on Iran, which is the source of terrorism in the Middle East and the main problem we face. Invading Iran would have been very difficult, because it is much larger than Iraq, it has more rugged terrain, and it would have alarmed the dailights out of Russia. Oh, and there was no international support for such a move and we would have been accused of attempting to steal their oil. Instead Bush opted to go into Iraq, where the international support was ostensibly there (there had been numerous declarations from the U.N.) and Congress had already authorized Bill Clinton to use military force. Bush figured we could go in and establish a pro-American democracy, then squeeze Iran. Unfortunately we went in with too few troops and acted as if we were going to be considered liberators. We SAW Iranians pouring into Iraq to fight the Jihad and did nothing. WE should have been the ones doing the pouring. Yet despite the difficulties, Iranians almost revolted anyway. And Barack Obama turned his back at a critical time. We should have been sending guns, sending bombs, sending electronics, establishing intel operations, etc. in Iran. I call it the Contra solution; build a revolutionary movement. The Mullahs could have been toppled and all of the problems we face with international terrorism, with Palestinian militants, with the terrible danger of Iranian nukes, would have been ended.
Muammar Khadaffi gave up his nuclear program after Saddam Hussein was captured; he said he wasn't going to end in a spider hole like Saddam. (Of course, Obama then made that the case, thus guaranteeing that any future Islamic dictator will take everyone down with them.) Muslims understand strength. If you can be moved they will push. We have to be the pusher, and remain unmovable. Taking Iran down would have done wonders.
Another thing that we have failed is in defending religious liberties in the Middle East. Christians are being persecuted terribly in Iraq, in Egypt, in Libya, in many other countries where they used to be tolerated. Islamizing the Middle East is just asking for trouble. The Christian minorites (and Jewish, and B'hai, and Zoarastrian, etc.) acted to restrain the worse impulses of the Islamic majorities. We no longer believe in Christianity here in the West, and so we yawn as the Christians and other religious minorities are systematically purged. Long term this is terrible; we should be trying to convert the Moslems, not the other way around. Islam is like the Lord of the Flies of religions; without proper intervention it metastasizes into a killing monstrosity. Where it is triumphant the most oppresive conditions exist. Islam must be tempered by competition. Ideally Islam would be converted in toto by Christianity, or Judaism, or some other more good-natured faith, but that won't happen in the forseeable future. At least there should be a healthy presence of competitor religions. But we no longer see any value in any religion, and doubtless the ACLU would howl should we attempt to help Christian or Jewish (or Buddhist, or Hindu) missionaries convert the Moslems. Religion is important - especially to them. We are not serving the cause of peace by ignoring it.
Gingrich touched on that, although he did not really ram the point home. He should have; Obama is vulnerable there. So is Romney; talk of religion brings up questions about Romney's Mormonism (which I don't have a problem with, although there are people who do) and it would have hurt Romney to discuss this. The rest of the sheeple on that stage clearly had no clue as to how to deal with the Middle East. Newt also mentioned drilling for oil here, thus draining financial resources from the Islamists. Obama is clearly vulnerable. Mitt too. But then, Gingrich was on board with Cap and Trade, so perhaps he feared being called out. Which is precisely what Perry should have done. Or Ron Paul.
And completely ignored by the contestants was Russia. Russia is a large part of the Mideast problem, and always has been.. Iran is Russia's strategic partner in it's quest to dominate energy. Russia has been helping Iran to build nuclear weapons. There are things that can be done to minimize that, but again we don't want to take the necessary steps Deploy missile defense. Upgrade our nuclear arsenal. Help Europe develop it's own sources of gas and oil (which they have in the form of shale), end the stupidity of Kyoto. Drive oil and gas prices down and Russian foreign adventurism disappears like a bottle of Vodka on the Russian steppe.
Ditto China. China can be squashed like an ant if we stop borrowing money from them. Getting our fiscal house in order means the Chinese don't have the money to make trouble in the Mideast. Again, driving the prices of oil and gas down are critical; the Chinese need those resources, as well as trade with the U.S., and they will buy from US if we just allow our businesses to go get the resources we have.
But none of that was discussed. Why not?
Because, as always, we let the Progressive drive the discussion, let the media set the terms of discourse.
In the end, this debate will go down in history as " "? It will be forgotten, because there was nobody on that stage willing to call a spade a spade. Gingrich came closest, but Gingrich, as I mentioned prior, will likely have a whole new set of opinions next week. Romney did little to alleviate my fears. Neither did anyone else.
Even if we defeat Il Duce in Novemner we aren't going to have much to write home about. These are depressing times.
Ditto the Chinese.
I'll admit it; I generally don't watch the primary debates.
To my way of thinking, these things really don't give any useful information, and are primarily useful for judging how the candidates LOOK and how fast they can spin an elegant soundbyte. It's like speed dating, or a peep show. The contestants have certain stock answers memorized, too, and are waiting for the opening to apply them. Rarely do we get a glimpse of the true nature of the candidates.
And they are always run by liberal media types. Why, in the name of all that is holy, do Republicans allow mainstream media personalities to run their debates?
My wife taped the last debate from New Hampshire, and I just got around to watching it.
First, George Stephanopoulis was a Democrat operative and FOB (Friend of Bill) and had absolutely no business moderating this debate. He was horrible, I might add; interrupting the contestants, speaking over the candidates, asking ridiculous hypotheticals (like "would you support a state ban on contraception"), asking loaded and presumptive questions, and generally being a pain in the posterior. And the little firecracker lighter (he really is a punk) was no worse than Diane Sawyer or that other guy.
The questions, too, were fascinating, intended to sew discourse and avoid slapping at Barack Obama's weaknesses. There weren't that many addressing the economic disaster - the story of our time and the primary motivating factor in the coming elections. There were limited questions on foreign affairs, too; another Obama weakness. There WERE questions about social issues that are at best back burner. They took ONE, count them, ONE (1) question from some schlub off Yahoo. Why only one question, and why this particular question? It was about gay marriage, to get the contestants to fall over each-other in an orgy of sympathy for those who seek to redefine marriage and vandalize our most ancient and venerable institution. Gingrich is the only one who really came out strongly here, and I remember why I've always liked him (although he's as apt to come out in favor of it next week). Gingrich argued that while we should make certain things like hospital visitation more open, we should not redefine marriage to mean any sort of relationship. It mirrors my own argument; homosexuals are free to covenant any way they wish, up to and including holding a non-legally binding wedding ceremony. But they should not expect legal recognition because marriage means a certain thing and this formalizing of a relationship does not meet that definition. Neither does Polygamy, which has a much longer and more venerable pedigree. Neither does brother and sister marriages. Neither does Man and Pet, Man and farmyard animal, Man and automobile, Man and corpse, nor Man and blow-up doll. Just because a couple of organs may fit together in some fashion it does not follow that a state of marriage may be officially recognized. It's about more than sex, more even than love. Which is why the complementary question that Stephanopoulis asked about gay adoption should have been smacked hard by the contestants - but they all tiptoed around it. Gay adoption should be one of our last options, for it is an unwholeseome environment for the child. I am not saying that gay people are bad people, or that gay people won't love and care for a child, but I am saying that they are giving bad example, and we should understand that we are not doing the kid any favors. The homosexual lifestyle is a hard one, with suicide a major cause of death. The lifespan is generally short, and mental problems, alcoholism, and drug abuse are fairly common. Disease is rampant. These are verifiable facts, not opinions. Read a rundown on them here. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html
You can blame societal disapproval all you want (and there is a point there) but the reality is that much of the hardship of gay life stems from violating Natural Law, from violating the Law of God, from rebelling against a society that says you shouldn't do that. There is a reason why homosexual behavior has always been frowned upon. The liberal would have us believe it's some irrational hillbilly prejudice, but it comes from centuries of experience. Ours isn't the first gay generation, after all. And what is being asked is that gay people not be treated like everyone else but that they be given special priviledges. Adoption by single parents isn't a good choice, either. I really wouldn't want a child adopted by someone into sado-masochism, or group marriages. Why should homosexual couples be somehow exempted?
But the purpose was to give Obama soundbytes to use against the inevitable nominee. Obama needs to move this fight into social issues, away from foreign affairs and away from economics. Social issues divide America and even divide Republicans, and Obama's best hope is to make this upcoming election about his opponent's social conservatism.
Newt Gingrich recognized what Stephi was up to and called him on it. As Richard Viguerie points out in an article at his website:
"After Gingrich and the other candidates endured something on the order of 20 minutes of questions (most of them hypotheticals bordering on the absurd -- like whether or not states have the right to outlaw contraception), Newt finally tried to call a halt to the nonsense.
Gingrich pointed out that, “…since we’ve spent this much time on these issues -- I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?”
Even former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose primary constituency IS the establishment media, agreed with Gingrich.
But the notion that there was media and institutional secular bigotry against Christians, particularly Catholics, seemed to completely befuddle the anti-Christian progressives on the ABC media panel.
Poll after poll shows that what the American people really want in their next President is someone who will encourage economic growth and rein-in the outrageous federal spending, deficit and debt that is destroying this country. Yet the media panel of the ABC/Yahoo debate invested little effort in parsing the candidates’ records, views and policies on those vital issues."
End excerpt.
Which is precisely the goal of gay marriage and many of the other social issues the Progressives and their media minions are aiming at. Make gay marriage legal and the Catholic Church, and any other religious organization that believes homosexuality is morally offensive, will be forced by law to comply. Ditto gay adoption; religious groups (and that would include Moslems) involved in adoptions would have to give children to gay couples.
And Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. Progressives want to force that down the Christian throats. From there it becomes a small matter to say that openly gay priests have to be endured, that churches must provide health benefits for gay spouses, that gay teachers must be employed by Catholic schools. It is a wedge to destroy Christianity - and people like Stephanopoulis have to know that (his father was an Orthodox Bishop, after all.)
Gingrich should not have been the only one to argue this case. I know; it's falling into the trap laid by Steph, but the bigger trap is keeping silent. THAT has been the secret to media power all along; fear of speaking the truth lest it be used against us has shut the mouths of many on our side. We're afraid to call the media out because we don't want to give them ammunition. That is why the GOP should never have agreed to let the Democrats run the debate in the first place. OF COURSE they were going to use tricks and deceptions, lies and innuendo against our people. But, like Charlie Brown, we are ever moronically confident we're going to kick that football yet!
I was also struck by Gingrich's answer to the Middle East question. After a bunch of jawing by Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, Gingrich made the point that we should have supported the uprising in Iran. FINALLY! I have been saying that for years now! The situation in the Middle East is hard only because we do not have the will to do what is needed. When George W. Bush invaded Iraq, he put a pincer move on Iran, which is the source of terrorism in the Middle East and the main problem we face. Invading Iran would have been very difficult, because it is much larger than Iraq, it has more rugged terrain, and it would have alarmed the dailights out of Russia. Oh, and there was no international support for such a move and we would have been accused of attempting to steal their oil. Instead Bush opted to go into Iraq, where the international support was ostensibly there (there had been numerous declarations from the U.N.) and Congress had already authorized Bill Clinton to use military force. Bush figured we could go in and establish a pro-American democracy, then squeeze Iran. Unfortunately we went in with too few troops and acted as if we were going to be considered liberators. We SAW Iranians pouring into Iraq to fight the Jihad and did nothing. WE should have been the ones doing the pouring. Yet despite the difficulties, Iranians almost revolted anyway. And Barack Obama turned his back at a critical time. We should have been sending guns, sending bombs, sending electronics, establishing intel operations, etc. in Iran. I call it the Contra solution; build a revolutionary movement. The Mullahs could have been toppled and all of the problems we face with international terrorism, with Palestinian militants, with the terrible danger of Iranian nukes, would have been ended.
Muammar Khadaffi gave up his nuclear program after Saddam Hussein was captured; he said he wasn't going to end in a spider hole like Saddam. (Of course, Obama then made that the case, thus guaranteeing that any future Islamic dictator will take everyone down with them.) Muslims understand strength. If you can be moved they will push. We have to be the pusher, and remain unmovable. Taking Iran down would have done wonders.
Another thing that we have failed is in defending religious liberties in the Middle East. Christians are being persecuted terribly in Iraq, in Egypt, in Libya, in many other countries where they used to be tolerated. Islamizing the Middle East is just asking for trouble. The Christian minorites (and Jewish, and B'hai, and Zoarastrian, etc.) acted to restrain the worse impulses of the Islamic majorities. We no longer believe in Christianity here in the West, and so we yawn as the Christians and other religious minorities are systematically purged. Long term this is terrible; we should be trying to convert the Moslems, not the other way around. Islam is like the Lord of the Flies of religions; without proper intervention it metastasizes into a killing monstrosity. Where it is triumphant the most oppresive conditions exist. Islam must be tempered by competition. Ideally Islam would be converted in toto by Christianity, or Judaism, or some other more good-natured faith, but that won't happen in the forseeable future. At least there should be a healthy presence of competitor religions. But we no longer see any value in any religion, and doubtless the ACLU would howl should we attempt to help Christian or Jewish (or Buddhist, or Hindu) missionaries convert the Moslems. Religion is important - especially to them. We are not serving the cause of peace by ignoring it.
Gingrich touched on that, although he did not really ram the point home. He should have; Obama is vulnerable there. So is Romney; talk of religion brings up questions about Romney's Mormonism (which I don't have a problem with, although there are people who do) and it would have hurt Romney to discuss this. The rest of the sheeple on that stage clearly had no clue as to how to deal with the Middle East. Newt also mentioned drilling for oil here, thus draining financial resources from the Islamists. Obama is clearly vulnerable. Mitt too. But then, Gingrich was on board with Cap and Trade, so perhaps he feared being called out. Which is precisely what Perry should have done. Or Ron Paul.
And completely ignored by the contestants was Russia. Russia is a large part of the Mideast problem, and always has been.. Iran is Russia's strategic partner in it's quest to dominate energy. Russia has been helping Iran to build nuclear weapons. There are things that can be done to minimize that, but again we don't want to take the necessary steps Deploy missile defense. Upgrade our nuclear arsenal. Help Europe develop it's own sources of gas and oil (which they have in the form of shale), end the stupidity of Kyoto. Drive oil and gas prices down and Russian foreign adventurism disappears like a bottle of Vodka on the Russian steppe.
Ditto China. China can be squashed like an ant if we stop borrowing money from them. Getting our fiscal house in order means the Chinese don't have the money to make trouble in the Mideast. Again, driving the prices of oil and gas down are critical; the Chinese need those resources, as well as trade with the U.S., and they will buy from US if we just allow our businesses to go get the resources we have.
But none of that was discussed. Why not?
Because, as always, we let the Progressive drive the discussion, let the media set the terms of discourse.
In the end, this debate will go down in history as " "? It will be forgotten, because there was nobody on that stage willing to call a spade a spade. Gingrich came closest, but Gingrich, as I mentioned prior, will likely have a whole new set of opinions next week. Romney did little to alleviate my fears. Neither did anyone else.
Even if we defeat Il Duce in Novemner we aren't going to have much to write home about. These are depressing times.
Ditto the Chinese.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:00 AM
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