Christian Fundamentalism

Finally, the Republican Party must address the issue as to how to deal with those members who subscribe to the belief that to be president of the United States one must adhere to the tenets of Christian Fundamentalism.

Last week at a gathering of social conservatives Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church in Texas told a group of reporters that Mormonism was a “cult” and definitely “not Christian.” This was a veiled reference to the GOP front-runner former Gov. Mitt Romney. More importantly it was also a signal to those Christian Fundamentalists that social conservatives should have no place for anyone other than a Christian when it came to running for the president of the United States.

Modern day Republicanism, starting with Barry Goldwater in the 1960’s and ultimately coalescing with the advent of Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s, contains three active centers of support: those who adhere to social conservative beliefs, usually Christian Fundamentalists, and those who are concerned with national security and free markets. Pastor Jeffress represents a small but outspoken minority within the social conservative group which ignores Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust in the United States.”

According to Pastor Jeffress therefore Jews, Muslims or non-believers are to be denied their constitutional right to run for public office. It should be no surprise therefore Republican Party elders vehemently objected to this statement, including many social conservatives. It is time that those bigoted, intolerant and narrow minded Republicans who hold beliefs inconsistent with our beloved Constitution, even at the risk to losing their support, are censured and castigated. For this the Republican Party will be more than compensated in votes for whatever loss in support it may experience by doing so.

Joker’s Wild

In a recent interview with Shawn Hannity, Donald Trump informed viewers that if the Republican Party doesn’t nominate someone to his liking he will run as a third party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. The ultimate spoiled brat now becomes a spoiler.

Donald Trump, aka “The Donald” is a person with whom New Yorkers are quite familiar. For heaven’s sake his name in New York City is emblazoned on every building he has either built (very few) or to whom he has sold his name (a great many). He has never hidden the fact that, in effect, The Donald, is up for sale.

So let’s follow how this spoiler threat from The Donald will actually unfold. The first thing we must take into account is that one of The Donald’s modus operandi is that he will do everything and anything to avoid spending his own money. And there is a reason for this: In the universe of people who have lots of money The Donald is a piker, protestations to the contrary. As we all know running for the office of the President of the United States requires lots of money. President Obama says he needs a 1 billion for starters. If the The Donald is going to run for President as a third party candidate he’s not going to get his money from any Republicans, that’s for sure. Independents aren’t known to make campaign contributions unless they are committed. And I don’t see Independents committed to the likes of the The Donald. So the only viable place for The Donald to find lots of money is among Democrats who see in the The Donald the true spoiler that he is. “Hello, George Soros speaking. Yes Donald how are you.”

Stay At Home Democrats

The Democratic Party is experiencing today a similar implosion that it experienced in the 1960’s when both its southern wing and its Cold War Warriors moved over to the Republican Party.

The 1960’s were not kind to Democrats. The American people blamed them for starting a war in Indochina that was both unpopular and costly. By the end of the 60’s they were perceived as incompetent in dealing with our Cold War enemy the Soviet Union and uncommitted to winning it. Finally they were viewed by many Americans as morally profligate and holding values that were inconsistent with those in which most Americans held dear.

Today the leadership of the Democratic Party has adopted the alien philosophy of Socialism. And through a quirk in our political system whereby for a short period of 2 years, between 2008 and 2010, when the Executive and Legislative branches of our government were controlled by the Democratic Party it foisted upon the American people legislation and policies that can only be described as totalitarian. Today our government controls the delivery of health care from cradle to grave, the financial industry from banking to home ownership, owns and controls large portions of our auto industry and is limiting the production of fossil fuels for the unproven theory of what can only be described anthropomorphic global warming.
As in the 1960’s Democrats are leaving the party in droves. Voting Republican in 2012 may be too much to ask ….but stay home they will.

Obama’s Socialism

Last week on my daily live show one of my callers took strong exception to the fact that I referred to President Obama as a Socialist. What the caller failed to appreciate is that by me referring to President Obama as a Socialist I was referring to him as something less sinister.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

As I do not love humanity without knowing its vises, I do not love the truth without fearing it. If I were certain that President Obama was a Socialist I would breathe a lot easier. Allow me the drug of self-delusion. Allow me to believe that President Obama is a Socialist or a Statist; one who believes government is the panacea against alleged corporate greed or corporate villainy. Allow me to dream that President Obama is a Socialist rather than awake and know that behind that soaring rhetoric lay something a lot more menacing.

If the American people did not rise up last November and remove one chamber of Congress from the support of President Obama, namely the House of Representatives, do Americans, Republican or Democrat, actually believe that President Obama in his State of the Union speech would have been as contrite, willing to compromise with Republicans, speak about American exceptionalism with admiration or refer to the beauty of democracy? Would he have inferred in that speech that his craven desire for government control had been satiated? Not on your life.

And it’s not President Obama of whom I am concerned , who in truth may be only nothing more than a benign Socialist, but the groups and institutions with which he has been associated ever since his early days at Columbia University such as the Marxist Midwest Academy, Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ or the Marxist front group the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, otherwise known as ACORN. These are not benign institutions but rather anti-American, anti-capitalist and yes even perhaps anti-Semitic.

Over the next 2 years leading into the 2012 presidential election, as these associations become more widely known by the American people and known to be linked to President Obama he will have to do more than provide soaring and elegant rhetoric to persuade the American people that he is nothing more than a garden variety, benign, European Socialist.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Progressives, Humbug! Live By Your True Name.. Socialists.

This Tuesday evening at his State of the Union speech President Obama provided the nation a far clearer picture of what he intends to do as president for the next 2 years and the next 6 if he is re-elected. The rhetoric was elevated and mellifluous but the meaning was unrepentant.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

From the first moment that President Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office on that chilly January day in 2009 there was little doubt that the most liberal U.S. Senator was going to be the most statist, anti-capitalist president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The litany of Federal sponsored programs has been unrelenting: the takeover of the student loan program, a stimulus program of 850 billion dollars, regulating energy through cap and trade, regulating the financial industry, the takeover of the largest insurance company of America, providing billions for banks, undeservedly I might add, taking over 2/3rds of the American automobile industry and finally the government takeover of health care the result of which will lead to the destruction of the health insurance industry that took 200 years to develop and which will result in government control of an additional 16% of our GDP.

With soaring rhetoric President Obama, undaunted, revealed to the American people the final chapter in American free-enterprise and individual liberty by speaking about government investment in education, transportation and new energy development. Under President Obama’s reign our debt has more than doubled with no clear plan from his administration as to how it is to be reduced. Just yesterday the Congressional Budget Office reports an additional 1.5 trillion dollars in deficient spending.

The presidential election in 2012 will be a crossroads in American history. Socialists no longer hide behind the term progressive. They now bear that name with honor and with 46% of the electorate on some kind of governmental benefit they feel confident that a clear and unambiguous conflict between the ideology of statism and individual liberty will result in their permanent victory.

Policy wonks such as Congressman Paul Ryan or gentlemen politicians such as Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee are unprepared for this historic confrontation. What Republicans require now for the 2012 presidential election are street fighting, take no prisoners, moma bear candidates who are able to articulate the challenge and willing to tell the American people the awful sacrifices that must be made.. Got any ideas?

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

The Free Speech Debate

Fifty years ago I lived in a country where politicians carried side arms and had their political opponents killed more often than any American would find acceptable. However in that country martial political rhetoric, similar to what we use here in the United States, or any rhetoric for that matter which alluded to violence was completely absent from the vernacular.

This Roger Madon and this is what I think.

I know, you think I’m being sardonic. Well, I’m not. I did live in such a country. And from my perspective, since I was an American even then, I preferred this system of government and politics to the one I just described. You see, here in America, we’re free to say most anything we want to say. But we do have to be careful. For example, if we say something which borders on a physical threat and the target of that threat winds up dead, you can pretty much bet that you are going to get a knock on the door by a police officer who would like to have a conversation with you, downtown.

So where am I going with this? Well the fundamental flaw with those pinheads such as Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman of the New York Times or Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Tucson, Arizona who seem to blame martial and vitriolic rhetoric for the violent attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords this weekend fail to appreciate the palliative effect that bearing arms has upon the population.

My point is that when it comes to the First Amendment, as we Americans understand it, we can’t have both ways. Either we have free speech or not. There is no middle ground. Under our system of government there is no such thing is prior restraint. That means that the government can’t shut somebody up even if it contends that that person is about to say something that the government thinks is unlawful. And then once having said it the government can’t do much about it. So the likes of Paul Krugman and Sheriff Dupnik and all those other Socialist/Democrats who are howling their heads off about the heated rhetoric of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glen Bleck are probably suggesting that limiting speech will control the fruit cakes who populate our country, one of whom will be languishing in a Federal prison for the rest of his life. However the vast majority of Americans aren’t prepared to give up their right to free speech upon the sheer speculation that the psychotics will give up their violence or the surety that those who will be restrained from speaking will use other means of expression.

This Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Hard Times Ahead For Socialist Left

As Republicans take over the House of Representatives in Washington and many of the state capitals and legislatures throughout the country the American people will be witnessing fundamental changes in government policy on a scale that they haven’t experienced since the 1930’s. But are the American people prepared to for the resulting pushback of the Socialist/Democrat minority?

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

Already there is talk of a government shutdown when the issue of expanding the debt ceiling soon comes before this Congressional session. The last time this threat of a government shutdown occurred was in 1994. But then the American people abandoned the Republicans and blamed them for being unnecessarily obstinate and churlish. President Clinton at the time was thought to be a one term president, especially after a similar Republican takeover of Congress. But the American people blinked, Republicans failed to meet the budget challenge and President Clinton was re-elected in 1996. Will this time be any different? I think it will.

This time Socialist/Democrats will be fighting not only against Republicans but against an American people who believe they have been hoodwinked. In 2008 the American people thought they were voting against the unwillingness of the ruling party, the Republicans, to address some very serious issues facing the country: health care, social security and an ever mounting overpowering debt. To top it off the American people were furious with a government mortgage policy, which they blamed on the incumbent party that literally brought our economy to a standstill. The policies and legislation of the 111th Congress, totally controlled by the Socialist wing of the Democratic Party along and a Socialist and inexperienced president expanded the countries debt trillions of dollars and with no plan to reduce it. Deficits are now predicted as far as the eye can see. This time Republicans will have, as Sarah Palin would say, “Momma Grisly” on their side.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Dream Act Conservatives Question Republicans

What is clear is that today, January 3, 2011, Republicans take control of the House of Representatives. What is unclear is whether conservatives will continue to support Republicans.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

There is a certain uneasiness among conservatives that those Congressional representatives who identify themselves as Republicans do not necessarily share conservative principles. Moreover it is becoming more and more apparent that quite a number of Republicans express a “nativist” view of the country which conservatives find distressing. A recent example of this was the failure of Republicans to support the recently defeated “Dream Act” which would have permitted children of illegal aliens who received their primary and high school education in the United States to attend state schools of higher education or join the armed forces and thereby become American citizens. The argument raised by those Republicans who did not support the Act was that these children came here illegally and therefore should not be provided any special privileges ignoring, of course, that these children came to this country innocently having been brought here by their illegal alien parents.

Conservatives view the “Dream Act” as an opportunity to bring these children, who by all standards of measure are Americans, and who right now have no means to work legally, or improve themselves economically without carrying out activities outside the mainstream. The passage of the “Dream Act” would allow these children to improve their education, stabilize their lives, work legally, pay taxes and participate in the American dream. Those Republicans who insist that these children must be punished for the sins of their fathers and mothers are holding to a position which is fundamentally inconsistent with conservative values.

What is even more important is that by taking this “nativist” position these Republicans are alienating one of the largest growing block of voters which even today represents nearly 15% of the electorate, the Latino community.

Nativism is inconsistent with conservative principles and if the leaders of the Republican Party refuse to address this schism among its followers it will be providing the Socialist/Democrats such a substantial portion of the electorate that Republicans will find them to be unbeatable.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

Get Out And Vote!

Tomorrow is Election Day and probably the most important day for America since 1945 the end of the Second World War. Tomorrow Americans decide whether their country will devolve into a socialist society or remain what it has always been from the day of its founding a country based upon free enterprise and individual liberty.

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

In their recently published book “America’s Four Gods” Paul Froese and Christopher Bader divide religious Americans into 4 categories: The belief in a benevolent God, who is both loving and engaged in the world; an authoritative God, judgmental and engaged; a critical God, apart but watchful; and finally a distant God, more like a cosmic force, removed from the world and therefore forgiving. But the more interesting question which this book addresses is how belief in God affects one’s political point of view.

On April 15, 2009 Americans experienced the beginning of a phenomenon that hasn’t occurred in this country since the abolition movement that expressed itself in the nascent beginnings of the Republican Party in 1856. It was various and disparate groups of Americans throughout the country protesting the increase in taxes and spending that Congress placed upon the shoulders of working Americans. This movement was labeled the Tea Party not as a name of a political party but as tribute to the those revolutionaries in 1773 who threw barrels of tea overboard in Boston Harbor as a protest to what they believed was an unfair tax by the British. But the Tea Party of 2009 became something even more powerful in 2010. Tea Party candidates began challenging the establishment Republicans in their primaries for Federal and State offices and winning.

The criticism of the Left is that these Tea Partiers are nothing more than God believers, not part of the mainstream political movement. Even some establishment Republicans have been saying that. I say it’s probably true and thank God.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

The Groucho Marx Tea Party Movement

When the husband barges into his bedroom and finds Groucho Marx in bed with his wife there is little to explain even as Groucho protests vehemently. Finally, knowing that his life may be at stake Groucho blurts out, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes!”

This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.

When the Tea Party came exploding on to the American political scene in April last year pundits from the left immediately marginalized it as a kooky, racist bunch of red necks with a large space between their 2 front teeth and with not an ounce of political sophistication. Fast forward today and what we have are numerous Tea Party candidates, having won positions on Republican tickets throughout the country running against Democrats, in some cases entrenched Democrats, either leading or neck and neck in campaigns in which incumbent Democrats can’t even get above 50% in the polls.

On January 3, 2011 President Obama will be running into the brick wall of the United States Constitution, the very Constitution about which he has expressed derision, accusing it of being defective by failing to include a provision which requires the distribution of wealth. During this fall campaign the President has been going around the country claiming that the Republican Party is the party of “No” and it was the “No” of the Republican congressional representatives that stopped the necessary legislation to cure the ailing American economy by spreading the family wealth to those poor Americans who have been adversely affected by capitalism. The American people haven’t been listening and will going to the polling booths throughout the country to express their idea of the Constitution that they love and wish to preserve.

This is the Constitution that Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institute recently said contains enumerated powers; a separation, balance, and blending of these powers among branches of the federal government; and a distribution of powers between the federal and state governments which operate to leave substantial authority to the states while both preventing abuses by the federal government and providing it with the energy needed to defend liberty. That may be a mouthful but that’s what the Tea Party movement is all about. And what’s so apparent is that it doesn’t take a pinheaded law school professor to figure it out.

So who are you going to believe the President of the United States or Groucho Marx? This is the one time I’ll pick Marx.

This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.

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