It’s Mitt Romney versus John McCain using video on the web although Rudy Giuliani has a commanding lead.
This week, Republican presidential contender and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, slammed John McCain's campaign calling it dishonest for only posting part of a video on the McCain site.In turn, Romney who feels unfairly taken by McCain says it will post the entire video on its own site.The issue?Abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research
McCain is trying to portray Romney as a waffler on these domestic issues.He claims that Romney is in favor of lifting a President Bush imposed federal ban on embryonic stem-cell research which research President Bush opposed.
These are the hot button issues that have attracted many conservative voters in the past and helped President Bush win the White House in 2004.
Romney and McCain are seeking support of the Conservative vote, not knowing if Fred Thompson of Tennessee will enter the race next month.
Romney claims that he made a sudden conversion against abortion in 2004 after said a discussion with a researcher involving embryonic stem cell research made him feel that human life was not being valued.
Yet, Romney had said two years earlier said he would “preserve and protect a woman's right to choose", so therefore, the issue of waffling.
Romney is not the only candidate who has come under attack by Conservatives on the issue of life.Rudy Giullliani had initially explained he was for the women’s right to choose but could appoint a Judge who opposed Roe v. Wade.
The recent conflict between McCain and Romney is indicative of the active battles over the religious right’s view of the world in hoping to court their vote and to gain traction should Thompson decide to enter the race.
Reality Check
I have had enough. When will our elected officials stop pandering to the religious right and truly represent the constitution and the principels upon which we were founded. All of these politicians are more concerned with votes then standing up for the truth. I venture that most Americans are of the belief that we were founded as a Christian nation, what else could you think. Schools imply it, if not teach it, some Priests and Preachers would have you believe that Jesus called the roll at the Constitutional Convention. Politicians like the President and members of the House and Senate knowingly at the expense of reality invoke these untruths to get votes. Conservative talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity flat out say we were formed as a christian nation and wave it to stoke the flames of ignorance, all the while claiming that they are patriots. The old adage definitely applies, that if you tell a lie long enough it becomes true.
The Democrats and the "liberal media" are just as guilty, if not more so for not calling one another out on these issues. Why does the government keep trying to spread democracy around the world, when we can't even discuss it out loud and admit the true principles we were founded on. If we as Americans can not get together and nail down who we really are as a people and have our government state out loud it's fundamental principles because they fear a religious out cry, then we have grossly failed the test before us. I guarantee not one candidate would broach this subject out of fear of pissing off the zealots and not getting votes. One of the main things our enlightened Founding Fathers railed against was religion, this is a fact. Not the practice of religion, far from it, they would carefully protect every ones right to choose his or her religion what ever it might be. But of it's place in government, to them, it had none. Today we run rough shod over the CONSTITUTION and BILL OF RIGHTS like they were an advice column or list of helpful hints. How do we expect to help other countries with democracy when we are not honest enough to truly defend and represent our own as it was originally conceived. This is the true shame of our nation.
Time for a reality check, a large number of the most famous and involved members of the Founding Fathers were anything but Christian, frankly they had a great deal of disdain for it. I will reference some of the most relevant Founding Fathers, and ironically these are the ones religious groups frequently use to illustrate their point. (WASHINGTON, ADAMS, JEFFERSON, MADISON, FRANKLIN, THOMAS PAINE ETC) What's truly alarming is that only one of two things can be true in this case 1) that the standard bearers of the Constitution we elect and appoint to positions of authority today know the facts of history and still continue to pander to zealots and that's scary or 2) they truly don't know their history and actually believe we were formed as a Christian government. That is stunning.
How far we have fallen from the hopes of what the Founders created. The church and the involvement of religion in the government was exactly what they didn't want. Now religious leaders, conservatives and liberals alike have taken it and twisted to suit they're constituents beliefs and I wager not one of the candidates would have the integrity to discuss it publicly or defend the words of the Founding Fathers.
The bottom line is this. By ignoring and betraying the true nature and magnitude of what the Founders conceived and realized, we rob them of and hide from the world their true genius and vision and there just due. Even sadder we have robbed ourselves of the true democracy they envisioned. These great men studied the history of nations and the repression of the peoples of the world and realized the one common denominator was the involvement of the church and religion with government. It has been referenced in each of their writings on countless occasions, often with disgust.
The vision and insight possesed by these great free thinkers is as evident now as it ever was. Imagine if we had carried that enlightened standard of reason, intellect, cause and effect forward and truly nurtured it and carried to it's deserved place, there just might have been a lot less death and destruction in the world in the name of God. If we followed and respected that helpful hint list I mentioned earlier, things might be going a little smoother now. Had we actually let each other live and let live regardless of religious belief and stopped trying to convince each other that we each had the best invisible guy we would definitely be better off.
Before you react angrily and lash out with some inane emotional argument, count to ten and read a history book. Then find some documented facts and present a cogent and factual argument. If the gist of your argument is that I'm going to burn in hell or something along those lines, save it. I said fact based and cogent.
Let me stress that I am not anti-religion because that is the first argument i will get. I am however anti-lie. America is my country and I truly love it. I am angry because we are not defending what it stands for, we are cowering from the very thing they despised and risked there lives to defeat, intolerance, ignorance and repression. Here are some quotes to illustrate my point, say Amen, when somebody sounds like a christian .
God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.-- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ
The Treaty of TripoliSigned by John Adams
"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.... "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation." -- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams
The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography
The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor
The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson
Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the consciences of men from oppression, it certainly is the duty of Rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to their stations, to prevent it in others.-- George Washington, letter to the Religious Society called the Quakers, September 28,1789
"I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges, himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more."-- The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State.-- James Madison, 1819
Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.-- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him
Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813
Posted by Bob Leddy at 8:12 AM 1 comments
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Reality Check
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Written by Bob Leddy
on 10/14/2007
Fred Thompson is not so conservative. Google "conservatives against Fred Thompson." The truth is being ignored or glossed over. Buyer's beware. He is much too cozy with McCain and all the beltway boys.
Written by bryan
on 6/17/2007
Written by
on 6/16/2007
It will be interesting when and if Fred throws his hat in the ring. We (republicans) need a real conservative...and we need one now.
Written by LT
on 6/16/2007
Republicans cannot be a one issue party. I don't see Roe v Wade as much of an issue since there is no real hurry to overturn that bad law and send it back to the States where it belongs. Abortion should be a states rights issue. The Federal Government should never have gotten involved. I do believe both Rudy and Romney would vote moderate if not conservative judges. Surely none of the Democrats is likely to be pro life. I am anxious to hear what Thompson has to say. What I have heard so far is very positive. I think he has hinted that he will join this race because he has goals he wants this country to reach and none of the candidates are representing those goals. We'll just have to wait and see.
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