The World According to Oatney: 06/29/2008

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Washington Post

In honor of Independence Day weekend, some of my favorite martial music-John Phillip Sousa's Washington Post.

Labels: Music

Friday, July 04, 2008

Independence Forever

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Two hundred and thirty-three years have passed today since the founding of the United States-what would the founders say? Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, conservatism's ultimate true believer, went to his eternal reward this afternoon. Phyllis Schlafly and other social conservatives begin to look to a future that could include Mike Huckabee.

Labels: Presidential Election, Radio show, Republican Party

Champion of Conservatism and the Culture War Enters Eternal Life On 4th of July

Former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the great champion of conservatism and fighter of the Culture War long before the nation came to understand that we were in the midst of one, has entered the Glory of the Lord on the 4th of July:

"Today we lost a senator whose stature in Congress had few equals," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's Republican leader. "Sen. Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in."

"Helms helped broaden the party to include religious conservatives and people who drank not just Chablis but sweet tea, and who drove not just BMWs but pickup trucks," the paper wrote when he announced he was going to retire.
"In doing so, Helms played a pivotal role in moving the Republican Party to the right -- changing the GOP from the party of Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller to the party of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich."
When the GOP was the majority party in the Senate, Helms was chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, consistently moving U.S. policy toward the right, especially regarding the United Nations and Cuba.

Jesse Helms makes our so-called conservative "leaders" of today-you know, the ones who endorse pro-abortion former Massachusetts Governors-look cowardly and shameful. Helms was the one thing the conservative movement needs now more than ever-Jesse Helms was a true believer.

Jesse Helms didn't think we should be engaging in free trade with the Communist Chinese while that regime imprisoned and murdered Christians wholesale and destroyed Tibet. Helms was not afraid to call a spade a spade, he said that the federal government ought not make a practice of endorsing sodomy and those who practice it, and suffixed that notion by saying "if you want to call me a bigot, fine."

A large part of the reason that the Clinton Administration was able to do very little damage to our national judicial structure was because Jesse Helms personally saw to it that so many of Bill Clinton's judges were blocked. For standing so stalwart against every pet liberal cause known to man from gay rights to so-called "affirmative action," the Left called Jesse Helms "Senator No."

Praise the Lord for Jesse Helms and everything that he stood for. For all that the Left has done to destroy our Republic, we would likely be nearly unwound were it not for the reality that Jesse Helms was around for so long to stop it.

God grant us more like that man.

Labels: Congress, Conservatism, Federal politics

The Next President Should Remember These Words

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Labels: Conservatism, Faith, Federal Courts, Federal politics, Presidential Election

Thursday, July 03, 2008

The Crazies Are Splitting

Barack Obama has been to Colorado Springs this week, home to the Air Force Academy and a bastion of the social conservative movement. He went there to give a speech in which he managed to sound as Republican as I would imagine his party handlers would allow:

Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday showcased plans to encourage volunteerism by Americans, his latest push to woo conservative voters also sought by rival John McCain.

Obama said the quiet weekend following Friday's Fourth of July celebrations
would be a good time for every person to consider how they can contribute "to
our most pressing national challenges" — whether in the military, overseas or
just next door.

Meanwhile, Obama drew unexpected attention when he said Tuesday that he
would expand federal payments to religious groups that are tackling America's
social problems — a position that could alienate some in his Democratic base who
see the move as an abrogation of America's constitutional separation of church
and state.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church
and State, said Obama's plan would only expand programs that he said undermined
civil rights and civil liberties.

"I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to
continue a failed policy of the Bush administration," he said. "It ought to be
shut down, not continued."

Obama has also staked out other positions that may appeal more to
independent and centrist voters, recently criticizing a Supreme Court decision
that struck down a state death penalty law for child rapists and supporting the
high court's reversal of a gun law ban.

Based on Barack Obama's past record, I think we can safely say that this latest push to the Right on his part is less than genuine. It is extremely comical to watch the militant Left begin to turn on Obama as he begins to say what he must say to win in November. Some of these people are such lunatics that they are threatening now to stay home in November because Obama is no longer talking like he stepped out of a weed-smoking pit at Woodstock anymore (these morons believe their agenda actually wins national elections-Bill Clinton knew it did not, which is why during his General Election campaigns he tried to run far away from his own political formation).

From Barry Lynn to some of the people on the freak end of The Daily Kos, watch the Left turn on Obama now that Obama actually tries to belatedly connect with Middle America. That is how crazy some of these people are, and it is precisely why the American people have run away from the Democratic Party in presidential elections since the turn of the century. This is the so-called "base" of the Democratic Party-so far from the mainstream that they will bolt on the best chance they've had to win in years because he dared to say G-d.

Labels: Democrats, Duh, Faith, Presidential Election

Heroes

Tomorrow is the 4th of July.

Today we ought to remember the people that all too many Americans are quick to berate.

(Hat Tip: Father John Putka, SM)

Labels: Conservatism, Faith, Foreign policy, Miscellany, War in Iraq

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

McCain and the Culture War

John McCain seems to be slowly getting the message that social conservatives as a constituency cannot be ignored if the Republican nominee is to have a chance in the fall. He is giving some social conservatives a chance to speak their minds to him in a more direct way, and they are telling him that he needs to more clearly articulate his social position:

McCain and his staff have been quietly reaching out to cultural
conservatives. In Cincinnati on Thursday, McCain sat down with a half-dozen
Christian leaders, many of whom were critical of him as a primary candidate.

Their message for him: Speak louder and longer about social issues and
your values.

"We made it very clear to him that if he doesn't start speaking on family
issues, he's going to lose Ohio," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for
Community Values. "He needs to make the issues he agrees with us on very clear."

The leaders McCain met with Thursday said his record is stronger than many
perceive, and several likened the gap between him and Obama to the Grand Canyon.
But, they said, he needs to do more to herald his support of their issues. "He's
not getting out what he stands for when it comes to conservatives," Burress
said. "The voters are definitely stagnant right now."

One of McCain's reassurances, they said, was that he would talk about his
opposition to abortion and support for state initiatives to ban same-sex
marriage. "He pledged to us we'd hear a lot more from him and that he'd be
speaking his voice on these issues," said Mike Gonidakis, executive director of
Ohio Right to Life.

John McCain may not have previously believed that social conservatives count for much in swing States, but he is quickly learning that they do and they could decide the election. Ohio Right to Life, for example, has an immense amount of political clout. Ohio is one of the few Northern States where a Democrat can not only run as unabashedly pro-life, but Democratic Party operatives openly recruit pro-life candidates who could be viewed as acceptable to Ohio Right to Life and could get their endorsement, because an ORTL endorsement often leads to victory-while a lack of one could mean defeat, particularly in German or other ethnic Catholic districts where attachment to the Church is still extremely high. The Ohio Democratic Party as a whole is not a pro-life party, but they have not shown a propensity to shun pro-lifers the way that other State Democratic organizations have done. For that reason, Ohio voters have often demonstrated a willingness to vote Republican at the top of the ticket while voting Democratic in down-ticket races. If John McCain isn't careful, a lot of these social conservatives could decide to leave their presidential ballots blank if they do not trust him-thus causing him to lose Ohio.

McCain could also lose the votes of traditional Catholics who might otherwise be inclined to support him in States he is counting on to do well in the fall such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania if he does not speak out with greater force about his official pro-life position.

I have taken a lot of criticism in some quarters for admitting that I was wrong about Mike Huckabee, that I probably should have endorsed him for President from the beginning, and that John McCain should choose Huckabee as his running mate. Perhaps the biggest reason that I believe these things is that this election cycle has caused me to have a real re-awakening-a "come to Jesus" experience, if you will, about the importance of social issues. The reality is not that issues like abortion or gay marriage are mere "wedge issues," they are a part of a larger conflict. Back in 1992, Pat Buchanan said we were in a "cultural war for the soul of America." I submit that we are at the high tide of that cultural war. What we have seen in the last two election cycles the waging of the culture war play out in the result, for it is the culture war that is the reason for the "division" that our friends on the Left so bemoan. While other conservatives are content to merely fight about taxes, spending, and immigration (yes, those issues are very important), some of us understand that those issues are but corollaries in a much larger culture war.

For many years, some in the GOP have known that the conservative movement is busy fighting the culture war and they have been content not to fight it with us, but to use our fight to benefit their political situation. I have long thought that the party brass at the national level merely views social conservatives as lemmings that can be toted along. This year, many social conservatives didn't like what was on offer and began to support someone who shared their values on a "first things" level. The reaction in the "official" conservative press was to try and make that person un-conservative. I regret that I initially participated in this dirt-throwing. In supporting an unreliable, pro-life-when-it-suits-me-and-for-the-Second-Amendment-this-week New England Governor, many of these so-called conservatives showed their true colors: They could care less about the culture war, they've just used it to advance themselves-but they won't fight. It was when I realized this that I understood why so many social conservatives were supporting Governor Huckabee.

The culture war is not the only issue on which real conservatives should fight an election campaign, but it is by far the most important. A candidate who has all the right positions, but who fails to respect life in all its stages and will not support judges who believe in a culture of life and an understanding of the Divine roots of common law, that candidate is a hollow one.

The culture war must be waged because it is about whether this nation will be one that is under God, or one that is under Gog.

Only one side will win the culture war in this life, and the Left knows this. To paraphrase a certain 19th Century leader: The red and blue house will not remain divided culturally forever, but it will either become all one thing, or all the other.

Labels: Conservatism, Presidential Election, Republican Party

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Kim Jong-Il, Stalinist Regime Endorses Obama

In an edition of Oatney On the Air last week, I warned that President Bush made the worst diplomatic decision of his Presidency in deciding to abolish trade sanctions against North Korea. There really is no reason to trust the North Koreans when they say that they are abolishing their nuclear program, as credible rumors that the Pyongyang regime has a second and more hidden nuclear program, and that the recent destruction of a nuclear plant was all just a show.

Indeed, the North Koreans want no pressure from the outside world, and they certainly do not want to be held to account for their terrible human rights record, or for their regime to be pressured into collapse. Kim Jong-Il wants a leader in Washington that will do his bidding, perhaps even pull American troops off of the Korean Peninsula and leave the South and all of East Asia extremely vulnerable to the North Korean threat.

Kim Jong-Il and the North Korean Communist apparatus have a candidate in mind who will help them achieve their goals:

조선반도와의 관계에서 본다면 부쉬정권의 잘못을 엄하게 비판하고 조선의 지도자와 조건없이 만나겠다고 공언해온 오바마가 《부쉬의 아류》이자 네오콘의 허수아비나 다름없는 매케인보다 낫기는 낫다. [ Chosun Shinbo ]

English Translation:

We will see a better relationship between the U.S. and the Korean Peninsula with Obama, who sternly criticizes Bush and who would meet the leader of Chosun (NK name for the Korean peninsula) without pre-conditions, than with the “Bush clone” and scarecrow of the neocons McCain.

Isn't it great to know that some of the worst rogues in the world use the very same language as our liberals here at home?

Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Foreign policy, Presidential Election

Monday, June 30, 2008

Note to John Boehner: Fire Tom Cole Now

For some time now, I've been making the prediction that even as we may see a John McCain victory in November (or more accurately, a Barack Obama loss), we will see, in the very same election, Republicans lose even more seats in the U.S. House. The losses could be such that on a numbers scale, after November the GOP could be reduced to pre-1994 numbers or worse:

House Republicans lost three recent elections when customary campaign
themes failed to sway voters and their candidates could not overcome the
"negative perception of the national party," according to an internal review
that underscores the potential for widespread losses this fall.

While the review said the national political environment was largely to
blame for the losses, it also said Republican candidates themselves were less
than optimal and their campaigns were flawed.

It also said Democratic candidates accurately reflected the views of the
districts, including newly elected Reps. Don Cazayoux in Louisiana and Travis
Childers in Mississippi, both of whom stressed conservative views.

The Democratic Party may be many things, but the people who run its national campaign organization are not stupid. They know that to win in truly conservative districts they must run conservatives. Democrats cannot win in a Southern suburban or rural district with candidates who favor gun control, abortion on demand, gay marriage, and raising taxes through the roof. The result is that the candidates that Democrats run in these districts favor traditional marriage, are often pro-life, at least talk a good game on the Second Amendment, and tend to stress an economic platform that stays away from marked tax hikes and stresses spending controls.

In short, these folks get elected by running as Republicans without the "edge."

The Democrats know that in some of these districts Barack Obama doesn't have a prayer, but if Democratic Congressional candidates concentrate on local and regional issues, they can get elected even as Obama goes down in flames in their State.

Rep. Tom Cole is very likely the worst Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman in the history of the Republican Party. He recruits candidates to run who are out of touch with base Republican voters and his committee seems to eschew candidates that are most likely to win in the most likely places. John Boehner doesn't need to reign Cole in, he needs to replace him-now and not later.

Even as John McCain wins in November, Democrats will gain Congressional seats.

Labels: Congress, Elections, Presidential Election, Republican Party

Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Credo

On this Sunday, I want to share with everyone my favorite version of the Nicene Creed ever put to music.

The various movements of the Credo from Joseph Haydn's Missa in Angustiis-also known as the Lord Nelson Mass.