Yesssss...she's getting exposure!  Good or bad right?  Heh...anyhoo...if you want to read an interesting dialogue on this check this out:  http://thereadyroom.blogspot.com/2008/09/palin-post-i-no-longer-need-to-write.html#comments

I know Brandon from CFNI (Christ for the Nations, he's the founder's nephew) and Peter Chattaway from another board I participate on from time to time.  Both do movie reviews for CT Magazine.  As far as this infighting family feud goes (which ALWAYS makes for juicy politics doesn't it?) I tend to side with Peter on this, though I think "Reacher" makes some poignant remarks about Chattaway's  rhetorical style.

Similitude-Jeff or whoever you are now: How would you argue against libertarians who argue that if the government didn't waste kazillions of dollars on utterly inefficient beauracracies (spelling?), the economy would boom in comparison to what it does with all the over-taxation, regulation, and sheer waste for votes? I have a hard time disagreeing with them on that. And when the economy does better, so does VOLUNTARY charity. Why not at least TRY the voluntary, free route? I think the answer is obvious. It deprives the state of the power it literally lives for. It's ALL about power, not charity, as far as I can tell.

Brandon:  We DO in fact do the voluntary thing all the time.  No one is saying NOT to do this.  If a charity desires not to have governmental funding, they can opt out of it. The larger question however, is a how one views reality. The basic assumptions here.  My problem with a "strictly voluntary charity" via laws we make is that there is nothing neutral about a view that insists on privatizating the religious and disconnecting it from a supposedly religion-free "saeculum."   Indeed, one cannot even speak of "religious" and "secular."  Religion tends to exert itself in public life, not only in private matters.  To force (speak of coercion) a private, "sectarian" confinement on religious ways of life is ITSELF a form of religious imperialism.  The Constitution in the U.S. does not call for a public secularity and the privatization of religion.  It doesn't grant to a religious majority, disguised as a nonsectarian guardian of the public square, the right to define certain confessional view points as sectarian and thus ineligible for equal treatment.  And what these libertarians do is fall into this sacred/secular dichotomy.  Pluralism should hold an equal treatment of all religious faiths with none having the right, through government control to monopolize public policy funding for its point of view.

Recently, I heard a pundit, on a cable news station, state that the current GOP looks a lot like the old Democrat party of the past.   Later, I stumbled on to Gerald Ford’s 1976 Republican Convention speech and found one profound similarity with the old GOP party of the past with the new Democrat party of today. 

Check out the following similarities:

Ford: As I try in my imagination to look into the homes where families are watching the end of this great convention, I can't tell which faces are Republicans, which are Democrats, and which are Independents. I cannot see their color or their creed. I see only Americans. I see Americans who love their husbands, their wives, and their children. I see Americans who love their country for what it has been and what it must become. I see Americans who work hard, but who are willing to sacrifice all they have worked for to keep their children and their country free. I see Americans who in their own quiet way pray for peace among nations and peace among themselves. We do love our neighbors, and we do forgive those who have trespassed against us.   -1976 National Convention

Obama: If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.  If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.  It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.  Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. –2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3394

Post Edited (Truth Aficionado) : 9/2/2008 2:05:47 PM (GMT-5)

In an interview with Alaska Business Monthly shortly after she took office in 2007, Palin was asked about the upcoming surge. She said she hadn't thought about it. "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq," she said. "I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe."

Seven months into the surge, she still either had not formed any opinion on the surge or the war or just wasn't sharing. "I'm not here to judge the idea of withdrawing, or the timeline," she said in a teleconference interview with reporters during a July 2007 visit with Alaska National Guard troops stationed in Kuwait. "I'm not going to judge even the surge. I'm here to find out what Alaskans need of me as their governor."

That's a little weird, since Fort Richardson, near Anchorage, has dispatched countless soldiers to Iraq, including many who did not make it back. And Palin's own son, Track, is an infantry soldier who could go there any time.

Rest here.

Something interesting...check the video...ouch...

Prominent Clinton supporter slams Palin, says she's not qualified

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/2/2008 2:44:29 PM (GMT-5)

I should respond a little more on your question Jeff.  Think about it.  Is it really realistic to believe that we NEVER will need government to help the needy among us?  Can we really imagine a time when we will be sooo economically well off that we will be so charitable as to lift people out of their poverty?  Don't we make so much money that we spend it, thus we are not always generous?  Don't economic conditions get to the point that they restrict private charity?  I remember a number of years ago that charitable organizations were depleted of resources when it came to a particular natural disaster.  They needed governmental assistance badly.  And that's the thing.  These were organizations that were private.  And it was THEY who were seeking governmental funding!  Is that a bad thing?  I think one will find that arguing for a complete cessation of governmental involvement is inconsistent.

I understand your frustration though.  In the eyes of many it seems that anything the government funds or touches is ipso facto an extension of the government and it's purposes.  Thus, if government is secular then an organization that chooses to cooperate with government becomes a secular extension of government.

But not only does government have no constitutional right to define it's terrain as "secular" and to outlaw religion from public expression which would be a discriminatory imposition of secularism, government ought not to obliterate that which legitimately nongovernmental--families, business, churches, etc.  Whenever the government cooperates with nongovernmental institutions it ought to recognize and protect the independent integrity of those organizations including their confessional freedom.  So the relationship should be one of partnership, not TAKEOVER (your "government holding onto power idea) and this happens ALL THE TIME on many fronts.

"While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions."

I think the Republicans have good cause to be worried that McCain’s judgment will be called into question. 

Watching the RNC now...

One of the things that I despise about state philosophy is that they speak as if giving is not an act of mercy in any sense, but only a duty (that's why they compel it at the point of a sword). This is thoroughly un-biblical as far as I can tell. Christ says to shew mercy to RECEIVE mercy. He doesn't deny that there is a kind of justice that renders certain giving true mercy. Socialists, Communists, and all collectivist thinkers deny this, in principle. But amazingly, these same politicians are in no hurry to part with their wealth. No, they want to prey upon the relatively small disposable incomes of middle class folks to deceive the poor and enrich the wealthy who, in turn, pay for their campaigns and otherwise consolidate their power. If seeing this makes me a "reductionist," then so be it.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/2/2008 9:28:43 PM (GMT-5)

another...

one more...

Post Edited (One Love) : 9/2/2008 10:10:00 PM (GMT-5)

(as of Sept 1, 2008)

"He became aware last week in a private conversation."