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The principles that rule this blog

Principles that will govern my thoughts as I express them here (from my opening statement):


  • Freedom of the individual should be as total as possible, limited only by the fact that nobody should be free to cause physical injury to another, or to deprive another person of his freedoms.
  • Government is necessary primarily to provide those services that private enterprise won't, or won't at a price that people can afford.
  • No person has a right to have his own beliefs on religious, moral, political, or other controversial issues imposed on others who do not share those beliefs.

I believe that Abraham Lincoln expressed it very well:

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot
so well do, for themselves — in their separate, individual capacities.”


Comments will be invited, and I will attempt to reply to any comments that are offered in a serious and non-abusive manner. However, I will not tolerate abusive or profane language (my reasoning is that this is my blog, and so I can control it; I wouldn't interfere with your using such language on your own!)

If anyone finds an opinion that I express to be contrary to my principles, they are welcome to point this out. I hope that I can make a rational case for my comments. Because, in fact, one label I'll happily accept is rationalist.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Michael Steele - the new Republican National Chairman

Michael Steele was just chosen to be the new Republican National Chairman. And I think it was a good choice.

Two years and some months ago, I voted for Steele to be the United States Senator for Maryland. And he was not elected, which was a disappointment, but not a great surprise, in a rather "blue" state. But I think he was qualified for the Senate then, and he is even more qualified for the RNC position now, since, among his past experiences, he has served as the state chairman of the GOP in Maryland.

In a country where 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Obama, the Republican Party (which was the party that freed the slaves!) is often alleged to be hostile to anyone that is not a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian. This is a fallacy; the GOP believes in equality, and has only been hostile to the idea of reserving certain government positions for specific ethnic/gender people. When African-Americans (or any other people) are good enough for a post, Republicans will endorse such people. They have shown that with such examples as former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and now once more with former Lieutenant Governor (and candidate for the Senate) Michael Steele. It is not true that the GOP is racist; only that it will not deliberately choose unqualified minority candidates without a reason. Michael Steele is clearly, like Condoleezza Rice, a well-qualified person, whose election will help the RNC.

Choosing someone just for his/her racial/ethnic/gender background is bad. But while I'm sure that Steele got some votes because the GOP was burned by Obama's victory and wanted to appeal to African-Americans, the difference between the parties was shown by the fact that he was chosen because he was qualified. It's not like Bill Clinton's choice of Janet Reno for Attorney General, where he was so eager to choose a woman that nothing else mattered, and as soon as one woman had problems he made sure to nominate another woman.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chairman Michael Steele is well qualified and will promote a Conservative Agenda that the GOP has pushed aside for several years. In effect, he will bring back true conservativism and the GOP will win back seats in 2010-2012. Our next Presidential Candidate, if a conservative, will beat Obama. Let me give you some statistics from en.wikipedia.org There were 208,323,000 Eligible voters in America for the 2008 Presidential Race. Only 131,257,328 actually voted, which means 77,065,672 refused to register even to vote for Obama. Only 64,456,897 voted for Obama (30.9%) of actual voters. In reality, 143,866,103 voters or 69.1% of Amercica DID NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA. If Chrm Steele can get our Conservative base supporting him and we can go out and get more of the uncommitted votes to vote in 2012, Obama will lose in a landslide because all he has is the Black Votes and his policies will return those other voters, to vote against him in 2012. Thank You Chrm Steele for taking this vital job and God will help you along the rough roads to success.

Anonymous said...

I didn't mean to post myself as anonymous, I'm proud to state I'm a Conservative and President of the Georgia Conservative Republican Voters Coalition.

Chuck Wells
www.4gcr.com

John Lofton, Recovering Republican said...

FYI, might want to listen to my exclusive interview with Michael Steele and comment. Thanks. JL.

http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=1205

And forget, please, "conservatism," please. It will not “save” us because it has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:

"[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth."

Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).

John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com

Opinionator said...

o show how fragmented the party has become, we have one person calling Michael Steele a "true conservative" and one calling him a RINO. I think we need to get away from labels like that. What is a "conservative"? Is it a Huckabee type who wants to make us into a Christian theocracy (and I think Lofton wants this too)? If so, I'm not going to accept that label.

Chuck Wells is right in saying that Michael Steele is the kind of conservative we need.

I don't know who Steve Deace is, but I do know who Michael Steele is; I live in Maryland, and I've observed him.

Well, I just found out who Steve Deace is: caught a blog that says:

Steve Deace, the 1040 WHO commentator, should be donning a "Religious Bigot" t-shirt soon. A few weeks ago, he said that someone should send him a shirt that says, "Religious Bigot" on it because that is what it means today to be a believing Christian.

Back in 2004, as a sports commentator, he argued that Shawn Green (who is Jewish) should convert to Christianity so that he could play baseball on Judaism's holiest day, Yom Kippur.
I don't know if he ever apologized for it. More recently, he has picked most prominently on homosexuals, referring to them crudely as people who "have anal sex."

I don't think Christianity makes anyone a religious bigot, but Deace has certainly shown that a self-described Christian certainly can be one. If Deace wants the moniker, who am I to disagree?

So, I designed and sent him a shirt with the words "Religious Bigot" emblazoned on the front and back in red with red sleeves. He says it "looks awesome." I think it looks embarrassing. If you know a religious bigot who needs one, follow the link below, and you can send them their own Steve Deace "Religious Bigot " T.


If this is who he is, I want nothing to do with Deace and evenb more, if he doesn't like Steele, I'm happier yet to back Steele!