If Democrats had any brains…

Posted on November 28, 2007 at 11:59 am by Jerad Hill 7 Comments

If Democrats had any brains they'd be republicans I just started reading this book 2 days ago and am already half way done with it. I have not followed Ann Coulter much. I have heard of her before and know she has strong opinions but the title is what got me. I have several friends who have opinions about politics but have no grounds or reasoning for why they are for or against something other then naming a few people by name that most upset them. My friend Andy can only justify his hate for republicans by comparing them all to Rush Limbaugh. I rarely argue back because I just don’t feel like wasting the energy but after reading this book I do not think I will keep my mouth shut. Before I get any further keep in mind I am not professing to the right or wrongness of the Republican and/or the Democratic party; or any other party for that matter.

It’s time that people educate themselves with the facts and pay attention to the reality of things. I am not going to or suggest anyone become an activist over this or go hold signs in front of clinics but come on, we at least need to know and understand what is going on around us. I know I need to start paying attention to what is going on in the world, not because I think I can do anything to change it or make it better, but so I know what is going on. Should someone bring something up in conversation, I need to be able to share my perspective as a Christian on the subject. For some time now I have used the excuse that I don’t have time to watch tv or pay attention to the news. Well I don’t, but I need to make some time. If I am going to ever be able to discuss a Christian’s perspective, I need to keep up with things and I suggest everybody else do as well. The Lord does not call us to be ignorant, we are called to hate sin. In order to hate something you have to know that it has happened.

Our airport security is wrong, abortion is wrong, our school system is wrong, this nations moral on many subjects is wrong, the media is wrong and we are all just adapting to it. There is correctness and sin in everything. We have to be able to differentiate between right and wrong. I know this world and it’s issues can be depressing but I would rather know the issues of this world and be prepared then live in the dark ignoring reality.

! — Added 4 hours later — !

Regardless of what you believe, what side you take, if any does not make you any less or more of a person. After writing this blog I thought that maybe I left out the fact that it is not about taking a side. It’s about deciding what is best for the country at the time with respect to the future of our nation as well and in order to do this we must be wise in who we elect to run our country. I do find everything that Ann Coulter says relevant, I do think that she has found her niche and it is keeping her popular, she is not the first to do it and won’t be the last. I have some issues with how she has presented herself in the book and the way she has attacked people. Nobody is perfect, I am not lifting her up at all. I’m just making a reading suggestion and stating a few of my beliefs. If you do not believe the same things I believe, that is ok. I respect you and your thoughts. You deserve the right to believe what you want to believe just as I do, I will always respect that. I will also always respect any comments people leave me, even if they do not agree with what I say.

Buffer

http://www.violentpillow.com Gabe

interesting. I honestly am not one to judge. Think whatever you want to think I say, but let me think whatever I want to as well. While you may not understand how some people think a certain way, it also works vice-versa. I really don’t classify myself as anything, I don’t hate republicans, or liberals, or democrats or even American Idol losers, but I do hate Ann Coulter.
http://www.ijerad.com Jerad

Very true my friend. And i am not one to judge either. I just think that people need to be informed and a well informed person knows what is going on from both angles. I think for someone to just pay attention to one side of the story is wrong. The Republican and Democratic parties are both corrupted in their own ways. I used to like politics, now I can’t stand politics. There are certain issues that I feel deeply concerned about but at the same time there are many issues out there that are a waste of time.

I am not pushing my personal policies on anybody nor am I instructing them to do or act a certain way. I just think that people need to come out of the dark and at least understand what is going on around them.

Thanks for your comment Gabe, I appreciate your (online) friendship.
http://matthew-andrews.com Matt

For the sake of internet conversation, I am going to respond to a few of the things you said in your blog.

The main thing I do not like about people like Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh, or any of those sensationalist my-party-is-right-and-yours-is-stupid “political commentators” is that they promote divisiveness and foster stereotypes. They lead people to believe that another person is less valuable because of what party is on their voter registration, or how they think the economy should be handled, and that’s nothing more than propaganda. Like you said, no party is right on everything, but to disregard a whole party also means disregarding any right opinions they may have.

But that’s beside the point. The main thing I wanted to respond to was this passage:

“If I am going to ever be able to argue my side in this world as a Christian, I need to keep up with things and I suggest everybody else do as well. Our airport security is wrong, abortion is wrong, communism is wrong, our school system is wrong, this nations moral on many subjects is wrong, the media is wrong and we are all just adapting to it. ”

Let me preface my comments by saying that I grew up in a starkly Republican home, and I was raised to believe that if I wanted to be a good Christian, I had to vote Republican. And for a long time I did. I’ve even got the old “Bush 2004″ sticker still stuck on my Taurus so that people would know I was part of the moral majority. It is only recently that a close study of scripture and much reflection that I have started steering more towards the middle and, dare I say, to the left of the spectrum. Let me tell you why.

I have recently blogged on this subject, but I think one of the great lies in American Christianity is that faith in Christ also requires a faith in a certain political system. The Bible reminds us time and time again that we are first and foremost citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and secondly citizens of an earthly government. However, I have seen very little of that in my experience with the Republican party, and, to be honest, I see it a little bit in your blog. In your list that follows your desire to “argue your side as a Christian,” you list airport security and communism, two things that I can promise you mean very little to Jesus, and have nothing to do with whether or not you are a follower of Christ. The Republican party has this nasty habit of taking civil liberties that we are very fortunate to have, and making them spiritual mandates, as if they are expected.

But that’s just one side of the coin. The other side is that I see a general lack of biblically-mandated compassion, as well as some hypocrisy, in the policies of the Republican party. The Republicans oppose abortion because it is is murder (I will always side with the Republicans on this one), but have no problem executing prisoners despite Jesus stark opposition to the death penalty with the woman being stoned. They will picket abortion clinics and hold signs of dead fetuses, but don’t think twice when it comes to killing scores of foreign military and civilians in order to promote democracy and seek retribution for attacks on our soil (which constitute numerous violations of every part of the Sermon on the Mount), especially when many of the people we are killing are Muslim and therefore do not know Christ (a flagrant violation of the Great Commission). They generally oppose welfare and other social aid programs, despite Christ’s repeated emphasis on caring for the poor and needy, and then there’s the whole “failure to condemn torture” thing, which is obviously not a tactic Jesus would use to fight terrorism.

I know I just threw a lot into that last paragraph, and honestly I could spend an hour expanding each one of those points, but for a party that claims to be the moral, Christian majority, I don’t see a lot of Christ-like action. That doesn’t mean the Democrats are any better. I think abortion is something that needs to be eliminated, and I don’t support gay marriage, so like you said, no one’s perfect. I just have a passionate belief that Christians in America need to detach themselves from the political system a little bit and look at what Christ commands from us first, and then prioritize. I realize that my views are probably also a bit “radical,” but so was Jesus, and that radical difference in attitude is what should set us apart.

In this upcoming election, I will probably end up voting Democrat because, considering the current world situation, I think there is more of a priority in repairing foreign policy. Our aggressive military actions in a predominantly Muslim Middle East by a “God-fearing” President is killing people who don’t know Christ and creating a negative stigma for Christianity throughout the region, and the cause for Christ is more important to me than partisan politics about gun control and the like.

So, thus concluded the longest response I have ever written to a blog! I apologize for the rambling; you just happened to touch on something I feel pretty passionate about. Thank you for the opportunity to dialogue and exchange views, and I would be more than happy to carry on this conversation anytime.

Take care!

Matt
http://www.ijerad.com Jerad

Matt, I agree with what you have to say. I do not agree with everything that is going on in this world, especially over in Iraq. I honestly believe there are some deeper reasons behind some of it that we have yet to realize or be told. All sin comes from the flesh of some man. People keep asking why they would do this to us, our only response for lack of a better description is that they hate Christianity or are jealous of what we have. We are called Infidels by the Muslims which means one with out faith. To them we are infidels but to us by definition, they are infidels. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidel

Second, if I created confusion by placing a few things in the same paragraph I am sorry. I do not have a BA in writing nor do I have anything over a high school education when it comes to writing, I guess that should have been put in a separate paragraph. I was not stating that something is wrong according to what society thinks or even what I think. According to our rights as American citizens many of our rights have been tampered with if not flat out squashed when really there is only one thing the attack on 9/11 told us and that is that Muslim people did this. No other religion group or race has been associated with what happened. I understand your turn our cheeks mentality because it does speak of that in the Bible but it also does say a lot about war and if it is just or not. The fact that they are not Christian and people are dying is not the issue. I’m sure there were non Christians in the twin towers when that went down. I am going to paraphrase a sermon that John McAurthur spoke back in 1991, keep in mind I have changed anything that has to do with the Gulf War, to the War on Terror:

A good insight into this evil aggression cause of war is found in James 4. In the first two verses, I think the principle that James gives here is directly applicable. In James 4:1, James writes profoundly, “What is the source of,” and the Greek words, “wars and battles among you?” What is the source of them? Where do they come from? And then he answers the question, most interestingly, “Is not the source your pleasures, your lusts, your desires?” That word there is the word hedone (Gr), from which the word hedonism comes, which is a word that means self-gratification. The word, actually, means the yearnings of self-gratification, to fulfill your own hedonistic desire for personal gratification. That is where war comes from. Is not the source, your hedonistic self-gratifying passions that wage war in your members?

There’s a second component that creates war, second element, and that is what we call “Just Protection.” There are wars and elements within war caused by the desire to defend, protect, liberate, and free the victim of the evil aggressor. Paul spoke about this look at Romans 13. No one can understand how to view war without understanding Romans 13. It is one of many New Testament Scriptures. Romans 13:1 and following, “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”

Government is a God given mercy. Did you hear that? Government is a God given “mercy.” Government is given its primary task–to protect innocent people from evil aggressors. That is the primary role of government. Government has overstepped the bounds of its Biblical responsibilities, its God given responsibilities in many, many ways. But this is it, initially and substantially. Therefore, verse 2, says, “He who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”

God puts government in place to control sinful man. Otherwise sinful man will run amuck. It is government and the institutions of government, law, police, the courts, jails, the right of Capital Punishment; all of that restrains man and gives conscience some help in winning the war. That’s God given or sinful men would run amuck in the world, to the destruction of everyone. And so if you resist the authority, you are resisting the God who gave the authority for the preservation of society.

Certainly we are a grossly materialistic culture and there might be some people along the path whose only compulsions in life are financial gain, but if the United States of America was a nation motivated by those things we would simply destroy all the Middle East nations and claim all the oil for ourselves. Plunder all the oil and control the world. Then we could drive the market down as far down as we wanted. We don’t attack: we never have. We have never been the evil aggressor in a war. You see down below the footings of this country, as far away from God as it has become, there are the notions of nobility, in terms of what government is all about. It showed up in our Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Another component that we have to put into war is more mysterious, less discernible, just as real. That is that war is divine judgment. War is divine judgment. The reality is, that the “Wages of sin is?” “Death.” That is a divine principle. All war–I believe all war–to some degree or another, expresses God’s wrath on man’s sin, directly or indirectly. What do I mean by that? Some wars in history have been commanded by God. In other words, there were times in the Old Testament when God said to Israel, “Go to war! Go over here and wipe that people out.” God also said, “Not only do I want you to go, I’m going to lead you.”

In Exodus 15:3 God Himself is called a “Man of War.” There were times when God said, “You fight against wickedness.” Numbers 31:7, “You go against that nation and remove them because they are a cancer, and while they may not attacking you militarily, they are destroying you, through the cancer of the ideology and idolatry.” And God told Joshua, “When you go to the land of Canaan,” Joshua, chapter 1, and again in chapter 6, “Take that land by military force.” You say, “Isn’t Joshua and the people of God the Evil Aggressor?” No, again they are the Just Protectors. You say, “Why?” Because the life, behavior, conduct of the Canaanites was a cancer on human society, and God says they must be removed.

During God’s particular time of setting Israel in the land as His people, and preserving the righteous seed, He sent them to war. There are times when God is a Man of War. By the way, the rest of the chapter, chapter 20 of Deuteronomy, gives the rules for war. What to do with captives; what to do to the people; what to do with the spoils; what to do with the trees and shrubbery; who should and who should not serve. God laid out some very clear directions for war.

It also needs to be said, that when Israel forgot God, and when they became wicked, they lost the wars. And there were many of those wars. In fact, you could say, perhaps in all of those wars, judgment was a two-edged sword, because many of the Jewish people died as well. And God was continually reminding them of their own wickedness and sometimes they were slaughtered greatly, as God turned the wicked nation on them to be the executioner of His judgment to them.

The ethics of war do not include blanket approval for all wars and all methods. Many wars and many methods are forbidden and receive harsh rebuke. For example, in Habakkuk 2:6-19, there is a harsh rebuke of cruelty in war. It is a marvelous chapter. Amos for example; in chapter 1, verses 3-13, and then right at the beginning of chapter 2, Amos strongly protested and forbid a war of evil aggression, and forbid ruthless, pitiless war. And Psalm 68:30 says, “He has scattered the people who delight in war.” God has no pleasure in that. But as you look at the war now, the War on Terror, you see these components don’t you?

Why is there war? There is war because man is sinful, lustful; he is desirous of sinful gratification; he becomes an evil aggressor. There is war because some governments are noble enough to understand what they are to do. The United States is one and so are our allies, to stand against that kind of evil aggression and provide just protection for innocent people. And in it all the inexorable judgment of God is at work mysteriously, as God is doing His perfect purpose.

Use your mind with me for a moment. The pacifists and what we use to call the “Peaceniks” deny all war. They say there is no just war: “No war! Never have war!” We saw all of that during Vietnam. We all agree that war is tragic, reflects the worse of man’s wretchedness, but not all warring actions in themselves are evil. War is tragic, but it is not always evil, and it is often necessary as government does what God instituted government to do. Not all war can be avoided. To let violence, murder, slaughter of innocence, to go on unchecked is not noble. It is not right. It doesn’t eliminate evil, it perpetuates, tolerates, and honors the evil.

If a rapist is attacking a young girl, attempting to rape that girl with a gun to her head, and he kills her after the rape, goes along the rest of the day, finds another young girl–there’s a bulletin out on him, the police are looking for him, they find him in the process of rape, with the gun in his hand, and in the milieu that occurs in that moment, they take his life, is that immoral? Is it immoral to protect that girl from the plundering, raping, murdering intent of this individual? Would we stay back and say, “Stop the war, stop, don’t invade, don’t step in.” It’s ludicrous. Is it immoral if you find a man murdering his fifteenth victim, and the only way you can deal with the man is in some kind of combat, and you have to take his life? Is that immoral?

The complete transcription of his message is located at this address: http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/90-48.htm

Now back to my thoughts. I understand completely that there is a point that a war can be taken to far. There is a point when we have redeemed the evil that was done to us. Have we reached that point yet? I don’t know, and I believe that many of us do not know. The people behind 9/11 could be comfortable in their own homes, dead already or so far in hiding that they will never come out. Who knows at this point.

However, what I do know is that in the Bible there was war, even though most of God’s direct hand in the war is old testament, Jesus does not denounce the words of the old testament in the sermon on the mount or out of any other words he spoke. He honors the Word of God because he is the Word of God. So the same feelings in the old testament run through the blood of Jesus. The same actions to rebuke evil in the old testament are referenced to in the new testament.

I would love to continue this discussion if you have anything to add. Your response lead me to spend the last hour reading old notes I have taken and searching the internet for more answers. Please feel free to respond.
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http://matthew-andrews.com Matt

You’re right! Your response was longer than mine! I’ll try and be a little more concise.

First, I wasn’t trying to be condescending when I referenced the passage in your post. I was just sharing how my understanding of that passage seemed to fit what I already understand as a pitfall of the Religious Right, If I came across that way, I apologize.

Secondly, I believe many of the points you made our valid, but I think saying that war is OK because there was war in the Old Testament isn’t quite hitting the nail on the head. The war against the Canaanites was an ordinance by God for that specific time and place. God had promised a land to Abraham and his descendants and he was going to deliver that land to them and make it holy. The Canaanites were not the only godless people on the earth, and I doubt that they were the worst; God ordered the war against them because they were polluting his holy land. Joshua’s charge was to take a specific section of land that belonged to him, and nothing more. The reason that there are wars throughout the Old Testament is because the Israelites did not have full possession of their God-given land until the time of David, and after David, there borders of Israel fluctuate because of enemy attacks. If you read through the Old Testament, you’ll find that God does not charge the Israelites to attack anywhere outside of their territory, nor does he support them any time they do. So technically God has supported one conflict for his holy land, and that’s it.

Now on to Romans 13. Paul says that God puts governments on the earth to “bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” This is not a new idea in the Bible. But you have to remember the context of the passage: 1)It is written to Christian who are not in power, but are actually living under an oppressive government, and 2)God has traditionally used governments that do not follow him to enact judgment on his people. Like I said earlier, God charged Joshua and the Israelites to take his Holy Land and claim it, but beyond on that, God never uses Israel to go and punish other nations. He delivers them from wicked nations when they are following him, but when Israel dishonored him, he used other nations to punish Israel. Likewise in the Books of the Prophets when he announces numerous times his judgment on the evil nations around Israel, he never uses Israel to enact that judgment. He uses Babylon, Assyria, the Persians, and the Greeks, but never his people.

Back to the first point I made about context. This is a passage written to Christians who are not in power. It makes no sense to interpret the passage as “be an agent of wrath and bring punishment on other people.” Christians had no power with which to do this, and they still wouldn’t for several hundred years. It has to be read with the idea in mind that Jesus called us to be citizens of the Kingdom on Heaven. We are aliens and foreigners in this world, and like foreigners in another country, we still have to respect and follow the laws of whatever government we’re under. I have to follow the laws of America, because I am an alien that still resides here. It is a call to obey earthly laws, not to judge and punish others. Jesus made it very clear in his ethical teachings that we are to turn the other cheek and love our enemies, and Paul is very much in tune with Jesus words. Too often people use this passage as a blank check to punish whatever nations we think are wrong, and that is not what Paul intended.

I can still understand why Christians would think war would be beneficial in certain situations. Islamic extremism is a dangerous enemy in the world today, but here’s the problem with our wars in the Middle East – how many extremists are we killing in comparison with other people? How many people have to suffer because we don’t like the policies of one dictator. When we go to warm we fight the soldiers of another country. War propaganda tends to demonize a whole country as thinking one way, but they problem is we don’t know the hearts and minds of the soldiers we kill. It’s easy to think of war as a corporate thing, but we are making a decision to end the lives of tons of individual human beings with souls who are loved by God instead of telling them about Jesus, because we assume they are our “enemy.” And then there are the civilians. In Iraq alone, there are over 80,000 confirmed civilian deaths, and estimates of the number of unconfirmed deaths range from 100,000 to 500,000. That’s a lot of predominantly Muslim people that have nothing to do with this war, and, like I said, are dying without knowing Christ. The fact that that many people are dying, that so many families are being broken, and that many people are being condemned to an eternity without God because of the actions of Christians should make all followers of Christ sad, especially since they’re the people Jesus commanded we preach to. We tend to think of war as something noble because we are defending life, but to do so we have to end life, and who are we to decide which lives are worth destroying and which are worth saving? That’s a judgment that was never reserved for followers of Christ, but for Christ himself.

The last point I want to make is that fighting extremism with violence is counter-productive. These people hate America, so when America goes into a country, accidentally drops a bomb in a residential area and kills a few families that had nothing to do with the conflict, how easy is it for al-Quada to find some angry young men to recruit? Violence will always, always, always, always, always breed more violence. “Put your sword away. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” We forget that the earliest church, the ones formed my the apostles, were notoriously nonviolent. Just read through Acts and the Epistles to see the kind of punishment and persecution these guys received without offering any resistance. The church grew rapidly without using any kind of violence. It wasn’t until our first Christian Roman emperor that violence entered the lives of Christians, proving once again that power corrupts.

My final remark – “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Christians are to be known for their love, their compassion, and their mercy. We owe it to others, even if they don’t deserve it, because it was given to us when we didn’t deserve it.

Much love,

Matt
http://www.ijerad.com Jerad

I appreciate and respect your last statements but you have to look at it this way.
#1 Are you willing to stand and be passive. Let the enemy attack and continue to attack. We fight back by trying to sit them down and share the love of God with them. If it does not work, we get killed, we become martyrs thousands at a time as they attack again and again, until our country is overthrown by them. That is the idea behind terrorism. The group threatening a larger group using non-war like tactics as in 9/11 to try and break us down slowly. One attack after another until their little army has enough strength to overthrow out army. So are you willing to sit aside, be passive and possibly be killed? Are you willing to risk the safety of your children and their children because we decide as a country that fighting back is wrong?

#2 You can agree or disagree with what is going on over there. Over all I think we have been there to long. I think we would be better off protecting ourselves here then going over there trying to fix everything for them. I know we have to be there for some kind of financial gain. We fix the country, we get more oil, or something like that. I’m just speculating.

What I do believe is that we should just be strengthening ourselves here. Paying extra attention to those who have been known to be a security threat. Leave Grandma and Grandpa alone at the airport but pay extra close attention to anyone who fits the profile. We have became such a Liberalistic thinking nation that we would hate to offend anyone so we search and violate everybody. Who cares about their rights, it’s in the name of national security. I don’t buy that.

You are right to say that fighting extremism with violence is counter-productive, but at the same time we can not just walk our happy American selves over there and ask around… “Hey, you guys don’t happen to know who flew that plane into our building do you? You don’t know? Ok, well if you hear anything please let us know…”

I know there has been some stuff that has gone on that the US is not proud of but that is just man being man, making mistakes. If you and I were in charge, we would mess up some how also, we are human, inclined to sin and make mistakes. You also can not just expect to find those responsible for something like this and not have to deal with layers of others. If our entire Army was Christian God fearing Men, we probably would be in a different situation, but of course Man is inclined to sin thus we have some sad stories along the way. We are aliens to this world, yes but so are our families and children, people whom have yet to live and be loved. Unless the Lord comes back really soon we have to make sure that America is a safe place for our children. If not then why have children? Because we are called to multiply in number? That is old testament also? Maybe something not relevant anymore because it’s old testament. I know that you do not believe that all old testament is irrelevant because you attend the same church as I do, a church that believes all pages of scripture to be relevant no less today then the day it was written.

Anyhow, it is easy to sit back and say that this whole war is wrong, and its wrong when this or that happens but really… Are you going to do anything about it? This blog started out with me just wanting to keep up with what is going on in this world so that when someone talks to me about it I can give them a perspective from a Christians stand point, which I’m sure will never even reach the level that this conversation has reached, and not even as much on the topic of war as anything else for that matter… Would I do anything about the war? I would have no problem enlisting in the Army if I could. If we were called to enlist to go protect our country I would. RIght after 9/11 happened I had many friends enlist and I would have also if I could have, but I would not be able to get in, for reasons not worth discussing on my blog. But, I would fight if only to let the rest of the world know that we do not just sit around and take attacks against our own people and soil lightly. I will never sit passively. If I was on one of those planes, I would do everything in my power to stop what was happening, if I could not do that with out ending the responsible parties life then so be it.