Will Anita Perry Please Quit Dishonoring God!

Wherever Anita Perry goes to church this morning, I hope the text is Matthew 5:11-12.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

According to the Charloette Observer, Mrs. Perry is a bit less than joyful when she asserts that her husband has been "been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press" along with other Republicans "because of his faith."

Speaking in Tigerville, S.C., Anita Perry acknowledged that "it's been a rough month."

"We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press to where I need this today," she told the audience at North Greenville University, which is affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

"We still feel called. We are being brutalized by our opponents and our own party. So much of that is - I think they look at him - because of his faith."

Texas's First Lady then took aim at some of her husband's opponents.

"He is the only true conservative," she said. "Well, there are some true conservatives. And they're there for good reasons. And they may feel like God called them, too. But I truly feel like we are here for that purpose."

In an emotional recounting of the Texas governor's decision to run for president, she said the Lord spoke to her before convincing her husband to run.

"God was already speaking to me, but he (Rick) didn't want to hear it," Anita Perry told the sympathetic audience." I said you may not see that burning bush, but there are people seeing that burning bush for you."

If I'm parsing what she's saying correctly, people are supposed to vote for her husband because he's the true Christian blessed with a wife who can see a burning bush.  Given that wildfires raged across Texas while Perry was considering making this presidential run, I'm guessing that many Texans saw a lot of bushes burn. 

Cheap snark aside, the pastor ministering to Mrs. Perry this week could also consider I Corinthians 3:3-9.

You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?  For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.  I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

In short, Rick Perry, with or without the vision to see a burning bush, is just a human being who is not more essential to God's plan than fellow evangelicals Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann, Mormons Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman, or atheists Cory Heidelberger and Christopher Hitchens; the latter two both communicate far more effectively than any of the candidates.

I would also like someone to explain to Mrs. Perry that the Republic survived Thomas Jefferson editing all of the miracles out of the gospels.  I'm less sanguine about its ability to survive the presidency of another Texas Republican governor.

Someone needs to explain to me how Republican economic and foreign policy positions square with biblical Christianity.  I'm sort of old school, so I'll need chapter and verse instead of party talking points.

Wisdom, Fools, And Cliches: Quotations, Photo, And Minor Musing

Alan Jacobs quotes George Orwell,

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In short, political cliches and hacks have existed for a long time.  It's odd that they haven't updated their catch phrases much since 1946, but changing eliminating buzz words would demand original thought.

Of course, some may wish to become walking cliches.  David Frum posts this slide of Rick Perry.

Given the nature of political cliches, I'm certain the base is now solidified.

Is Voting With One's Feet Really Voting

Andrew Ferguson profiles Rick Perry in The Weekly Standard, a publication not known for liberal bias.  Ferguson quotes the following nugget from Fed Up, Perry's recently published book.

“Crucial to understanding federalism in modern-day America is the concept of mobility, or ‘the ability to vote with your feet,’ ” he writes. “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas. If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.”

In short, Perry seems to believe that people vote with their feet and move to places with values and politics that they share.  Perry conveniently ignores that Texas has benefited from energy booms for some of the state's growth. He also ignores the fact that many localities seem to have economic development policies that can best be described as "pay them enough to live but too poor to leave."

Ferguson develops another problem with Perry's view of federalism.

Perry’s idea of federalism, boiled down, becomes a kind of crude majoritarianism. What if you favor both medicinal marijuana and the death penalty? What if you’re a guy who takes comfort living in a state where citizens pack hand guns but you still want to marry your boyfriend? You’re out of luck. You’ll have to live in a state where the majority​—​gun-packing homophobes or potheads with a distaste for capital punishment​—​perpetuates itself by disgorging people like you. “If you don’t like how they live there, don’t move there” is a principle with a corollary: “If you don’t like how we live here, leave.” You and your partner might have to secede.

Ferguson makes big point here.  Many people have views that differ from the majority of those in their locale.  They can't all move to regions where people share their idiosyncratic views.  As one who is "displaced" because of idiosyncratic ideas, I'm not sure how many places I can move to that share my views.

Further, and I admit to committing history, sociology, and philosophy without a license, but it strikes me that the United States is the only nation on earth that is not united by geography, religion, or language.  Instead the country is united by the idea that being an American is unique and wonderful.  "Love it or leave it" or "vote with your feet" will create a mindset where some regions are "American" while others our not.

Besides, it seems that we have acted on this idea once before.  One region had a "peculiar institution"; another did not.  Those offended by this institution could leave.  Eventually, one region seceded and the US engaged in the Civil War,

Whether "love it or leave it" comes from the right or the left, it's wrong. It may also be dangerous.

Rick Perry As A Caricature

At Madville Times, Troy Jones posted the following comment at 8:57 am on August 15.

I sense fear in the liberal extremist wing and they are lashing out.

Look, there are conservatives who are as you describe hyperbolicly above but Rick Perry isn’t one of them. And, there might be legitimate “attacks” against Perry you can make from your liberal perspective.

But, what you are doing is attacking a caricature you have created to embody those you most disagree with little accurate description of Perry.

Less than 12 hours later, Rick Perry said the following about the Federal Reserve Chairperson Ben Bernanke:

“Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous in my opinion,”

 Article III Section 3 says,

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Perry also said,

“If this guy prints more money between now and the election,” Perry said Monday at a campaign function in Iowa, “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."

"Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous, in my opinion," he added.

Is it a caricature to say that Perry considers monetary policy he opposes equates to waging war against the United States and that he apparently wants to do physical harm to a man doing a job that George W. Bush appointed him to do?

Ron Paul doesn't like the Fed either, but he suggests that the United States

dismiss the $1.6 trillion payment owed by the Treasury to the Federal Reserve. The American government (and citizens) incurred this “debt” through a crafty bit of sleight of hand on the part of the Federal Reserve, a cabal of men determined to make our freedom disappear. Paul justifies this seemingly radical response by reminding Americans that the debt owed to the Federal Reserve isn’t real and that it was created by that organization “out of thin air.”

Two weeks ago, Paul's statement seemed a bit extreme.  Now it seems tame compared to Perry's statement.

The most frightening part about Perry's statement is the fact that he stands by the statement.

“Look, I’m just passionate about the issue,” Mr. Perry said, as aides hustled him away from a lunch with business leaders in Dubuque. “We stand by what we said.

I don't think it's caricature to call Perry stubborn and to wonder if the country should give the powers of the Patriot Act to a person who makes statements like these and refuses to back down .

Further, I worry about the attributing criminal behavior to political acts.  Last week Politico reported that a Texas Congressman wants to impeach President Obama.

Impeaching President Barack Obama “needs to happen,” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) told a local tea party group, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Tuesday.

Burgess spoke, the paper said, in response to an attendee’s suggestion that the GOP-controlled House use impeachment to stop Obama from “pushing his agenda.”

“It needs to happen, and I agree with you it would tie things up,” Burgess reportedly responded. “No question about that.”

When the Star-Telegram’s reporter asked Burgess about the comment, he said the House needs to do what it can to stop the president.

“We need to tie things up,” Burgess said. “The longer we allow the damage to continue unchecked, the worse things are going to be for us.”

Again, it doesn't seem to be a caricature to point out that Perry is using the same tactics as some of the more vocal and extreme members of the Tea Party.

I will admit that caricatures of Perry exist.  Jon Stewart does a good one.

                       

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Being President Is Like An Item On A Bucket List?

Governor Rick Perry will announce that he's running for President.  Unlike George W. Bush who infamously claimed he didn't seek help from the previous Republican to hold the office, Perry sought out advice.

In an interview with Time magazine, Perry, who's set to make an announcement about entering the race this weekend in South Carolina, said he has decided he wants to be president. And he said his predecessor in Texas governor prodded him toward running.

" 'You’ll do what’s right,' " Perry said Bush had told him when Perry called the former president on his birthday. "He said you don’t want to wake up when you’re 70 and go, 'I wish I had tried that. I wish I had done that.' "

So, the best reason to run for President is "you don’t want to wake up when you’re 70 and go, 'I wish I had tried that. I wish I had done that.' "  I thought doing something big to avoid regret was the reason for a Bucket List.

What happened to skydiving, bungee jumping, winning the Coney Island hot dog eating contest, going to a baseball fantasy weekend, visiting every Starbucks in the world, eating at every restaurant that Guy Fieri profiles, following what remains of the Grateful Dead for a summer, designing the next Mt. Rushmore, attending the Sturgis rally, climbing Mt. Everest, backpacking through Europe, walking the Great Wall of China, or memorizing every name in Iceland's phone book?

I would prefer Governor Perry seek the presidency because he has a plan to create jobs, reduce the debt, preserve the social safety net, and extricate the country from interminable wars that can't be won.
(HT @coralhei)