Capital Punishment and Conservative Politics

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-reyeschow/applauding-executions-christian_b_953324.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62950.html

I didn’t watch much of the GOP debate a week ago (I stumbled onto Rick Santorum castigating the welfare state and quickly ducked out), but I don’t know if I would’ve had the patience to listen to a group of people that focus more on getting votes and less on American values that are shared across party lines. Rick Perry in particular, got troubling applause during the question, and following his answer, about the death penalty in Texas. It was noted that in his now 5 terms as governor in Texas, over 200 people have been executed. I don’t know if that’s ever something to be proud of, but even more appalling is that people associated with the GOP applauded at this (twice) while simultaneously supporting anti abortion rights practices, calling that murder. Do any of those people try to be consistent in this idea that people who commit that crime should be executed and extend that to abortion recipients or practitioners? I doubt it and that reflects a discontinuity that exists with many modern members of the Republican Party.

The GOP touts itself as a very pro life party, though closer observation reveals they are only pro life in the colloquial expression that actually is phrased much better as anti abortion rights. Illegalizing abortion, sometimes a goal of anti abortion advocates, is ironically a point to bridge the debate into support by Republicans of the death penalty. Capital or corporal punishment, call it what you will, but it amounts to a state spending a great deal more money to kill someone than to incarcerate them for life or rehabilitate them. I’m not absolutely certain of the economics involved, but the argument has some basis allegedly with the costs of lethal injection, one of the more common methods. In fact, there are only 6 states, including Tennessee, that even allow the electric chair to be used at the prisoner’s request. If nothing else, Texas apparently realized that lethal injection was more humane.

A question is brought up with illegalizing abortion: “Do you advocate the death penalty for people found guilty of the crime of abortion, since, according to most anti abortion activists, it is murder? Or do you claim there is some significant difference between someone killing an unborn child and a person already born? Where does infanticide fit into this? Are these people deserving of the death penalty or do you have some other punishment in mind for people who kill the unborn and/or recently born?” As you can see, the question branches out pretty quickly, but if we focus on the issue of consistent justice, many Republicans fail to consider or speak about what would happen in their ideal world if abortion was made criminal again. There may be a sector amongst them that would actually support lumping abortionists alongside serial killers, though I wonder what they would do to people who merely had the abortion performed on them; would they consider them just as culpable as the doctor; or less so because they were directly connected to the person (fetus/etc) that was killed? Maybe just manslaughter charges?

The very idea of trying to discuss jurisprudence as related to killing what only moderately possesses personhood at the 5th month of gestation is mind boggling, but it only gets worse when you consider that people will cheer about this sort of thing when they likely have no connection to any execution by fewer than 4 degrees of separation. The idea of being so proudly pro life and yet mobilizing to kill people that killed others as some twisted deterrent to future criminals is beyond counterintuitive, it’s borderline contradictory. If you were consistently pro life, you wouldn’t advocate protecting life at one stage and then, for every other situation, push death as a solution: soldiers for wars that rarely seem to be just or have the state play God and dispense so called “ultimate justice” (Rick Perry’s words, not mine)

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Even if this position of selective pro life politics wasn’t completely backwards and could be defended logically, there is no reason to applaud for the death of any human being, no matter how terrible they may be. Death is a part of life and should not be further encouraged by a faulty system of justice that thinks it’s doing God a favor when God is said even in the Bible to be the final and ultimate judge, not humans. Not to mention the idea of taking revenge or returning death with more death is also not something the Bible advocates by human hands, especially in New Testament thought. Jesus said to forgive your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and such, correct? So why, like so many Republicans these days, do you only use faith in Jesus to draw people in with heartfelt prayers and then ignore his sayings when faced with ethical issues of life and death caliber? Sure, you can say you’re protecting all the unborn, but when it comes to flawed people already born, you don’t ever think to advocate the love and forgiveness Jesus spoke of. As much as he spoke of proper judgment in the Gospels, he also emphasized that the use of violence should not be your impulse, but a last resort. He noted at one point, those who live by the sword die by the sword, indicating in part that we shouldn’t use lex talionis (eye for an eye styled) justice when we can just as easily practice forgiveness, however more difficult that is. When a person takes another person’s life, they have indeed committed a crime, but that crime; no crime of any magnitude; demands that we eliminate that person from the face of the earth as if it will reduce crime. In fact it might just encourage more killing by the precedent you set that it solves problems. And it won’t deter truly evil people, since they wouldn’t be swayed by threats of violence when they use those same threats to get what they want.

I would also imagine there is a generational gap here based on a tradition that execution is just a part of life and shouldn’t be done away with. Though for people in older generations who go through a process of hatred against a person who murdered a loved one and then realize that forgiveness is the first step to real healing, I think we could see eye to eye. I can’t be certain that I wouldn’t initially react with some amount of negativity towards someone who took any number of people I find important to me. If it was an accident, it’d be another thing, but willful actions might provoke even me to initially think I should avenge that person. I can only hope that would be tempered and held back by my studies in Christianity and Buddhism both that have taught me that hatred feeds a proverbial fire that can burn you with enough fuel. Forgiveness and love, tools of peace and not war, will not only change you, but may even change the murderer if they are so disposed.

Bottom line, if conservatives want to be taken seriously by educated people who can see between the lines drawn in the political sands, they need to change their tone to be more consistent overall and oppose the death penalty and excessive military spending that both clash with their alleged pro life stance; actually appearing more pro fear, as I’ve noted elsewhere in “Pro Life and Politics” Or they could be consistent in being pro fear and apply the death penalty equally in prosecuting abortion crimes, assuming they have the goal of illegalizing abortion, which isn’t always the case with GOP, but can stop short and instead seek to obstruct abortion rights as a whole. Either way, it would suggest a vast change in the party that would nonetheless create a chasm that would eventually be filled by some party. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Conservatives Clamoring For Christianity

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/10/wolraich.perry.christian/index.html

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/16/my-take-5-biblical-passages-for-bachmann-and-perry/

Since the Iowa straw poll recently finished, the popularity of Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul in the eyes of many Republicans cannot be denied. Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman and newcomer Rick Perry all placed relatively low in comparison, though Gov. Perry was less enthusiastic than Paul or Bachmann in campaigning prior to this Republican popularity contest of sorts. I’m not surprised at the standings, such as 3^rd place’s Tim Pawlenty, from the same state as Bachmann (Missouri) and apparently nearly as insistent with his religious fervor. The most important theme for the various conservatives clamoring for a nomination, excluding the more reserved Mormon candidates Romney and Huntsman, was the strong Christian convictions of the candidates. Everyone from Ron Paul, generally not speaking much about his personal beliefs, to Michelle Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty, in the vein of Rick Perry, who all spoke strongly about changing the country back to its Christian roots (imaginary as they might be). The importance of the religious beliefs of these various Republican candidates can’t be stressed enough, but is it possible they’re trying too hard?

Rick Perry is the most obvious candidate that missed the forest for the trees. Trying to look like a devout believer in Jesus and God by organizing a “private” prayer rally for Christians (mostly evangelicals) to try to solve the nation’s woes doesn’t get around what more politically minded people observe about his poor track record in Texas. His reelections may have been due merely to appealing to evangelicals in his state more than trying to solve real issues. He apparently doesn’t have much of a solution to droughts or economic issues in this country; he just thinks praying to God or bringing together a group of Christians in a stadium will make things better; like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. It’s no wonder he got in the bottom percentile of the 

Ames Straw Poll, since he had to write himself in.

Michele Bachmann, on the other hand, is a sort of balance between Rick Perry and Ron Paul (hey, same initials, too, lol). She does speak openly in part about her Christian beliefs, but she also tries to focus on policy issues and advocate change towards her own political goals, ideology and agenda. What that agenda is I’m not certain of, but I am not comfortable in the slightest with having her as a Republican nominee, since she seems to base these political ideas on her Christianity almost primarily. Unfortunately, at this rate, she’s neck and neck with Ron Paul, who’s commonly a black sheep amongst the Republican Party. Bachmann may yet get the nomination, which means Ron Paul, assuming he gets a nomination from the Libertarian Party, which I believe he did last election cycle, would be a third party to balance what appears to be a future conflict of Obama and Bachmann. Though if the race for Democratic nomination before 2008 was any indication of America’s trust in female candidates, Bachmann may only barely have enough popularity to get nominated by the GOP, but then lose to America’s inevitable sexism and resilient intelligence in the face of the bigotry Bachmann has espoused before, particularly towards gay people. Of course, she’s hardly a step away from Sarah Palin, so that won’t help either, since she might’ve been partly why McCain lost.

Ron Paul is a nice conservative in every sense of the term. He’s for small government, fiscal responsibility, pro life (I didn’t say I agreed with everything he espouses, did I?) and he’s clearly more moderated in his expression of religious beliefs. He’s been very consistent in not speaking about his Christianity, but he has felt compelled in rare incidents to speak about his Christianity. I can respect the man for being truthful and up front about his religion when he sees it as a prudent decision. He also sees that, for the most part, there’s little reason to use your Christian beliefs to pull in votes, since those votes might be less than sincere in terms of policy agreement and the like. Just voting for someone because they share your beliefs or worldview in one sense is indicates that you don’t take politics seriously in any form. It’d be no different than me looking for an atheist presidential candidate and putting all my money into their campaign. It’d be a lost cause from the beginning because of America’s persistent discrimination and stigma against atheism in general. Not to mention the candidate could be a more centrist and populist sort of politician, so I’d be wasting my money all the more on a candidate that wouldn’t be as effective, in my opinion. So I’d rather go with a Christian man who I disagree with in terms of spiritual convictions, but I can agree with in principle about political convictions.

All in all, these candidates all seem to be relatively certain in their Christian beliefs, though there is an obvious age gap between Perry and Bachmann on the one hand and Paul on the other of about 20 odd years, but John McCain ran for president and got the GOP nomination and he was in his early 70s, so age is rarely a factor, though people allegedly would still trust a Mormon over a septuagenarian. This doesn’t necessarily boost any chances Romney or Huntsman have of being nominated, since policy wise they’re either flip flopping in the case of Romney or more controversial than even Ron Paul in Huntsman’s case, since it’s usually Democrats who support civil unions. My prediction is still Bachmann just for sheer popularity she’s had, plus the precedent Ron Paul has set of not gaining enough prestige in the GOP to warrant their nomination. But at least he’s consistent, so I’d rather vote for him and swing things towards a Democrat who has a bit more sense or willingness to negotiate (Obama) than ever vote for a Republican who I cannot agree with in any conceivable sense on basic policies and would be so stubborn she’d choose to destroy any hopes of bipartisanship before even compromising slightly. It’s choosing the lesser of two evils; voting for a minority candidate and hoping to change percentiles slightly or voting for someone you think is preferable to what you think is a better political practice of sorts. People will vote however they will, though, so it’s a matter of motivation to enter the fray as opposed to willingness to tow the party line your parents have. So until next time Namaste and aloha.

The GOP-Generally Odd Party

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/16/my-take-gop-presidential-field-jars-with-americans-self-image/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/16/huckabee-announcement-puts-evangelical-votes-up-for-grabs/

Neither Mike Huckabee nor Donald Trump are running for President of the U.S. in 2012. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and others are in the stages of either forming an exploratory committee or working on campaigns across the country. But I wonder whether some of these candidates can stay relevant to their constituents. Newt Gingrich has been divorced three times, and Mitt Romney has become even more controversial than before by suggesting a form of healthcare many have claimed is similar to “Obamacare”, even terming it “Romneycare”. The Mormon Republican could have my vote, though there’s a stronger appeal from Ron Paul, who announced his plans to run this cycle. With these two problems alone, let alone pitfalls with other potential nominees, such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, the GOP seems to be falling behind with the times.

The main females with ambitions for presidency are appealing to Roy Moore’s methodology of pandering to the common people, aligning themselves with those values usually by design. Palin and Bachman are still popular with the Tea Party, notorious for comparisons and contrasts with the GOP, though even some Republicans running at present, such as Ron Paul, don’t necessarily agree with what might be called more neo-conservatives supporting the war in Iraq. The grassroots nature of how Palin and Bachman campaign, along with the popularity of their positions across a solid range of demographics means they might have a chance this time around, since Hilary Clinton had a decent run in 2008 for the Democratic party. Palin and Bachman share some common positions, such as opposing same sex marriage, advocating offshore drilling and general support of the war in Iraq. Any disagreements are slight, Palin opposing all abortion, while Bachman is willing to permit it in cases of rape or incest. Palin might have some conceivable difficulties due to her explicit association with the Tea Party she has, contrasting with Bachman’s incidental appeals to grassroots movements without severing her ties to the GOP. Palin also had the incident connected to Gabrielle Gifford’s shooting this year, so that’s not helping her chances. Ron Paul, ironically enough, also has some distinct connections with the Tea Party movement, though he still emulates a good deal of GOP positions, particularly the anti abortion one, though his strong opposition to the Federal Reserve System and more strict Constitutionalist leanings might clash more explicitly with the GOP’s move towards neo-conservative ideals.

Concerning Newt Gingrich, the most obvious critique is in his dissonance with the GOP focus on family values and marriage as a sacred institution. The man has been divorced three times, married twice, both times to the women he was cheating on the previous wife with; it doesn’t set the best example for fidelity. The flipside of his hypocrisy is his strong Catholic Christian background that creates a buffer against these criticisms by saying that he feels remorse and wants to set things right. I wonder if he said that the last two times he got in trouble for adultery, especially the first time when Bill Clinton was in Gingrich’s sights for the controversy of Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinski, hm? But with any incidents of infidelity, the Christian heritage and support within the Republican caucus means that as long as Newt or any other divorcee that’s remarried keeps apologizing, they’re not completely hopeless, though it doesn’t inspire confidence from a common voter as offenses pile up. It seems disingenuous to vote for people that clash with your values and think they’ll improve marriage when they can’t even maintain it themselves without letting their eyes and genitals wander from the one they betrothed themselves to. I’m not married myself, but I’d be hard pressed to screw up a relationship I put so much work into, especially since I’m so appealing to women as a provider (sarcasm much?), considering all I do is surf the net and type away various ramblings on my blog on a tri/bi/weekly basis.

And to conclude this range of candidates, we have Mitt Romney, who could have my votes if he does continue and I had to consider what Republican would be ideal if the Democratic ones all suck. Of course, I could just vote Independent, but let’s assume I go into the two-party system. Between Romney and Paul, however, the former’s too Mormon in his positions for me to take him seriously on GLBT issues, But Mormon support for Prop 8 should’ve tipped me off on that. He does have my support for his speaking against Islamaphobic discrimination, since they’re fast becoming the new group to hate in the 21st century. He has a general support for stem cell research, but is fiscally opposed to the government funding it, so there’s another strike against a plus. All in all, he’s hardly different from other candidates. The issue of trust he has with the American people and the Republican Party is no doubt due to his Mormon background, which Americans still have reservations about. Mormonism probably has tricky policies within their own church about one’s loyalty to the prophet and their proclamations, though since Romney is not himself a prophet or one of the 12 apostles right under him, it makes the situation less serious. Of course, people would still trust him more than they’d trust a candidate in his 70s or who was homosexual, even if he was celibate. It goes to show that people can ignore a great deal in politics as long as the person of interest squares with the overall party principles. It’s when they become the alleged RINO, Republican In Name Only, that people begin to accuse you of being a Democrat in disguise. Either way, the political field will always have uneven bumps on the horizon. A Mormon, a twice divorcee, at least 2 associates with the Tea Party and more to come in the future: this whole set of politicians and associated squabbles are why I try to stay out of political discussions for the most part. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Palin and Gingrich: Disinformation Duo

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/09/2263037.aspx

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100409/ap_on_re_us/us_republicans_gingrich;_ylt=At7r5MxKnBUw_w5pWTEAMpis0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJrN29vY2NhBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA5L3VzX3JlcHVibGljYW5zX2dpbmdyaWNoBHBvcwM3BHNlYwN5bl9tb3N0X3BvcHVsYXIEc2xrA2dpbmdyaWNob2JhbQ--

Both Sarah Palin, new and bright face for conservatives, and Newt Gingrich, senior conservative even older than Rush Limbaugh, have taken stabs at President Obama recently. Although with Palin it's hardly surprising as she has apparently taken a deal for a reality TV series as well, so it's clear she enjoys the spotlight she's put herself in. Her criticisms started with Obama's passing a bill limiting nuclear armaments in both the U.S. and Russia, in the form of a sarcastic pronunciation of nuclear (dunno how that's supposed to be funny except to her ill educated supporters). She also parodied Obama's "Yes We Can" slogan noting “yes we can – spread the wealth around” as if doing so is bad (though she seemed oddly unspecific about that; how is spreading the wealth to those in dire poverty a bad thing in contrast to being excessively generous?) and “yes we can –spend money that we don’t have,” suggesting that Obama’s spending is somehow a surprise when the government has spent money it hasn't had to some extent since we've had a deficit. She also used her oft used slogan regarding changing health care with a nice gun quip, "Don't retreat, reload," which contrary to her insistence that it is not a call for violence, would probably only be seen as such to Tea Party activists. Or has Mrs. Palin never heard of retreat as a tactical solution? Guess she only thinks brash heroism will save the country (lot of good that'll do). The conclusion of her speech came in the form of another encouragement for her to run for President in 2012. Ironically people were chanting her name, which reminds me of the very thing that had people worried with Obama's campaign. Chanting of a name, first or last, suggests to me that she's become a cult figure. And contrary to her other claim that she is not seeking to be the leader of the Tea Party movement, her persistent presence and people's clinging to her as an authority figure is cementing her place within the upper echelon of the grassroots movement becoming a potential (potentially dangerous) third party.

Gingrich was more specific and generalizing in his critique of Obama, saying he was "radical", "socialist" and surprisingly "secularist". Radical change is something the U.S. adjusts to well enough in my limited observation. Not to mention said change comes through the electoral process he supports no doubt (so why complain?). The socialist accusation is nothing surprising, though I have to wonder what his alternative would be in solving problems of poverty if not through some use of money or distribution thereof. And his claim that the GOP is not afraid to speak on issues of faith in contrast to the Democrats seems misguided as well, unless Mr. Gingrich suggests that Obama hosting a Seder in the White House is not recognizing faith in the midst of politics. Unless Gingrich is an (gasp) anti-semite of some stripe. Not making any accusations, though Gingrich is retirement age (a couple of years past 65) so who knows if he is in touch with how religiosity or “Jewishness” is expressed in the 21st century. And from the article's observations, Gingrich seems to be with Palin in mobilizing intent for Republican presidential candidacy in 2012. Newt is more decidedly aligned with the GOP than Palin, though both of them are contenders for the future nomination that will take place in nigh 2 years. All things considered, this is a cause for concern to me at least. And who knows how John McCain will fare if he runs for Republican nomination as well? I’ve gotten the feeling through some conversations that many Republicans (particularly Tea Party supporters) don't like his policies very much. Anyway, that's my attempt at delving into political issues, so until next time, Namaste and Aloha.