ISSUES: CHRISTIANS AND THE WORLD

When Obama quotes Scriptures:
'A contest between hope and fear'?
by Victor Davis Hanson

August 21, 2009


There is something creepy about the sudden invocation of Christian morality by the President to galvanize support for his state-run health care plan, as if his opponents are suddenly to be seen as somehow selfish or even un-Christian. This is an unfortunate, counter-productive tactic for at least four reasons:

1) The moral argument comes at the eleventh hour, rather than the first, of public debate, as if it is a desperate fall-back position intended to shame opponents who happen to think that massive state intervention will make health care worse rather than better;

2) Ironically, the religious trope would argue against the entrance of the state that would relieve citizens of their own moral responsibilities to help out family and friends in times of illness.

It is no accident that secularism, agnosticism, and atheism are strongest in socialist Europe, where the government has relieved citizens of traditional moral responsibilities emphasized by religion;

3) This contrived use of religiosity (e.g., “There are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness”) has a Reverend Wright flavor of mixing politics and religion in cynical fashion to bolster Obama's fides as an authentic moral figure.

But isn't the use of religion as a political tool precisely what Obama and others have objected to in the Christian Right?;

4) Rather than demonize opponents as callous and disingenuous, all the President has to do to refute their supposed scare tactics is to explicitly assure the public that abortion receives no state funds in his program, that illegal aliens are not included in his proposed new blanket coverage, and that autonomous government panels will not withhold federal health-care coverage, in the case of the elderly, on the basis of perceived cost-benefit considerations.

I think we are seeing a sort of presidential meltdown. As Obama's polls free-fall, and threaten wider political damage, it causes him a certain novel exasperation that for the first time in his life soaring hope-and-change rhetoric* for some strange reason no longer substitutes for a detailed, logical, and honest agenda.

*[I could never understand how many people I otherwise hold in high respect for their intelligence, common sense and good judgment, continue to maintain that they find Obama's rhetoric 'soaring' or 'inspiring' - never mind his obvious 'collapse' when his teleprompter fails, or there is no teleprompter because he has to answer off the cuff! It never sounded other than phony and opportunistic to me, like words said because the speaker enjoys more than anything else the ringing sound of his baritone 'oratory', which reminds me more of the declamation contests we had when I was at school, trying to outdo each other in emoting "O Captain, my Captain!" or "The Wreck of the Hesperus".]

The problem right now is not with un-Christian opponents, but dozens of congressional Democrats who simply do not wish to run on state-run medical care (as well as higher taxes, larger deficits, cap-and-trade, etc.), and no longer sense the president's popularity trumps the unpopularity of his agenda and gives them cover with the voters.



Obama plays the God card
by Andrea Tantaros

August 21, 2009


With support for his mission rapidly fleeting, President Obama is now the one with open arms asserting that if you believe in God you should believe in his policies.

It's been said that when people are experiencing trials and tribulations, they often seek a higher power. Apparently, the President is one of them.

Yesterday, in perhaps the most overtly religious move of his tenure thus far, the selectively faithful Obama preached his health care message to more than 1,000 leaders of different faiths in two conference calls, hoping they will see the light with regard to his overhaul. -- No word if Reverend Wright was on the line.

According to The LA Times:

"The effort, known as '40 Days for Health Reform,' features a national television ad, prayer rallies, meetings in congressional districts where lawmakers are waffling and a nationwide 'sermon weekend' at the end of August. The push also aims to influence leaders in the Jewish faith before the fall religious holidays."

I suppose grassroots organizing isn't so bad when you have the guy upstairs on your side. Take that, town hall evildoers!

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said during the call with Jewish leaders, according to Washington Rabbi Jack Moline via Twitter.

Translation: Seeee, America?? It's just you and the man upstairs. No death panels!

Further, Pastor Obama said that many were "bearing false witness" and took a shot at his opposition calling the pushback to date: "fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation: that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. In the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.

If Obama wants to be his brother's keeper, shouldn't he start with his own family?

So much has been made over Obama's religion it's an interesting turn of events that he has strategically decided to channel biblical references in hopes of turning believers into believing in his plan.

But will this theme of holy health care stick? When it comes to messages on universal health reform, Obama has been all over the map.

He initially argued it was a moral imperative, then quickly shifted to an economic imperative that reform would save costs.

When the Congressional Budget Office debunked that theory saying the plan would actually raise costs, the White House pivoted yet again to a political imperative: demonizing the big insurance companies.

Now with his plan and poll numbers in peril, he's back to embracing the moral dimension to this discussion in the hopes of a political miracle.

But what exactly are Obama's morals? Defend the weakest or reward the dumbest? Obama paints a picture of an indigenous mass of nomads, but the Congressional Budget Office projects that among the uninsured in 2009, 17 percent have family income above 300 percent of the poverty level (about $65,000 for a family of four); 18 percent are eligible for (but not enrolled) in Medicaid; and 30 percent are offered (but decline) coverage from an employer.

Isn't it their moral duty to get coverage, rather than have others foot the bill for those who make bad decisions? And isn't our moral duty to try and cover them first before strapping future generations into massive debt? Can I get an amen for personal responsibility?

Not long ago Obama criticized those who "cling" to their religion as dthey do to their guns.

With support for his mission rapidly fleeting, he's now the one with open arms asserting that if you believe in God you should believe in his policies. I guess in times of adversity, it's acceptable to use a Hail Mary to get us to cling to him.



I must admit I had shivers down the spine when I saw a newscrawl - I still mute the TV automatically whenever it shows Obama actually speaking - saying Obama had denounced opponents of his over-reaching but still nebulous and amorphous (deliberately so, I think, to facilitate 'deniability' and a broad range of possible itnerpretations, much as some language in Vatican-II decrees) healthcare form proposal as 'bearing false witness'!

(One commentator even pointed out that the statement came on the heels of Cardinal Rigali's latest letter to Congress re-stating the Church's opposition to any attempt that would legislate abortion and euthanasia directly or indirectly!)

For calling attention to actual provisions found in various versions of the bill considered by the US House of representatives that provide, among other things, for federal funding of abortion programs and for government panels that will meet with people over 65 every five years to explain less costly alternatives to health care than keeping them alive, to put it in blunt terms.

For one, a House committee recently voted down an amendment that would have specifically prohibited mandated government funding of abortion on demand - the reason for the specific ban being that under the law, anything that is not specifically banned is considered to be allowed. In this case, Democrats and liberals understand the term 'health care' it to include 'reproductive health', which in their lexicon means contraception, abortion and all kinds of assisted reproduction.

As to the second item - what Sarah Palin has bluntly called 'death panels' - it appears to be a reasonable inference from the estreme rhetoric on record of Obama's principla health care advisers.

They have made no secret of their belief that in order to control health care costs, government should make decisions about how much to spend and on which patients, on the basis of what they call QARY for 'quality-adjusted remaining years' which, in effect, determine a person's 'functionality' or 'usefulness' in society based on his age and state of health.

This basically means that the older, disease- or disability-encumbered person is considered expendable in favor of younger, healthy citizens. It's but a step from that to the Nazi program of purging German society of all physical and mental incompetents along with the non-Aryans (Jews).

So who, Mr. Obama, is bearing false witness here?

The sad part is that although a few mainstream commentators are now less uninhibited in public by citing the many and obvious instances of Obama contradicting himself repeatedly and stating patent falsehoods with a straight face, people have yet to come out and say openly, "You, Mr. President, for all your high-flown rhetorical tricks, are nothing but a liar" - a case which his over-documented campaign and presidency makes it very easy to prove.

This emperor has no new clothes! He's dressed in the same tawdry robes of generations of politicians before him ,who have only known to say what is politiclaly expedient for the moment, and would not recognize the truth even if they stumbled against it all the time!

Fortunately, many Americans are realizing that now. Better late than never.



Obamacare: Are we really
God’s partners in life and death?
by Wesley Smith

Thursday, August 20, 2009


President Obama said something yesterday that, given the brouhaha over death panels and health care rationing, might not have been prudent.

A reader points out that President Obama’s call with the rabbis today — as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline’s and other clerics‘ Twitter feeds — freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last administration.

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin…), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided “who shall live and who shall die.”

That comes off as a bit hubristic to me and will bring back the jokes about our president’s messiah complex.

I’m not Jewish, but my understanding of that quote is that the Being doing the deciding is God, not us in partnership with the Almighty.

In any event, the worry is that Obama wants government to decide who lives and who dies through rationing boards. I am sure he didn’t intend to, but I think he just added a small log onto that particular fire.