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"Race"ing to the White House in 2008

The most deeply ingrained human flaw is racism, and it is on full display this week in the Democrat Party. The intramural race war that has been brewing in the left wing of American politics is finally an open conflagration exposing the hypocrisy of the liberal mindset.

As white liberals were trying to assuage their guilt by seeking absolution from the new messiah of the left, Barack Obama, the masters of the Democrat plantation were busy changing the locks on the doors of the mansion.

The timing of Geraldine Ferraro's remarks on Obama's lack of substance and being the recipient of political affirmative action nicely coincided with the surfacing of videos in which Obama's pastor goes into a series of anti-American rants complete with the paranoid conspiracy theories that pass as left-wing intellectualism. As Ferraro fell on her political sword, handily provided by Hillary herself, Obama was forced to "denounce", in relative terms, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama's effort to heal the racial divide in America started out with an attack on the founding fathers, the Constitution, the conservatives, and even a dead guy who couldn't speak up for himself, Ronald Reagan. He explained the anger smoldering under the brush in the black community, a rage that white America doesn't see because it manifests itself in the barber shops and churches of the black community.

He used the classical liberal ploys of generalizing groups of people as victims instead of seeing them as individuals, speaking of the "black experience", saying that the white guys will vote for McCain, and drumming up class envy among his followers by attacking corporate America.

Saying that there is a black experience is like saying that there is a white experience. Is the white experience defined by the experience of a boy raised in the Appalachians, or is it the experience of a girl raised in southern California? Maybe it's the experience of a Pearl Harbor survivor, or a lobster fishermen in Maine, or a steel worker in New Orleans.

And I can guarantee you that I am one white guy who won't be voting for McCain.

Corporate America has done more for lower to middle class Americans than any liberal Democrat entitlement program ever has. By providing jobs and low-cost goods, Walmart has raised the standard of living for millions of people despite the sabotage of liberals in government. Drug companies have developed life-saving medications, extending the lives of even the poorest; computer giants have made education more accessible than ever; and car companies have made cars that last longer, are more reliable and made financing them easier than ever. Mortgage companies made credit easier to attain and gave millions of high-risk individuals a chance to build equity and wealth through home ownership and break the cycle of poverty that they grew up in.

Obama wasn't building bridges in his speech Tuesday, he was rallying his liberal base by digging an even deeper and wider gulf between the two Americas. By poking at the raw nerve of racial tension, he elevated himself into the pantheon of black leaders in America, but did not make himself an American leader.

Obama's speech will remind his supporters that liberals judge them not by the "content of their character", but by the color of their skin. Prejudices lying dormant in the hysteria of Obama-mania will surface once again, which gives the Democrats the perpetual victims they need to prop up as evidence that America is still stuck in the 20th century.

And Hillary will be laughing all the way to the White House.

Christianity, the Constitution, and Capitalism

As our nation stands at the political crossroads of the 2008 election and a looming economic crisis, it is a good time to examine the bedrock principles upon which our country was founded and gather from them guidance for the future.

The three pillars which have supported our country from the beginning are Christianity, capitalism, and the Constitution, with Christianity being the center pillar that strengthened the other two.

In order to govern men (we'll use "men" in the Biblical sense of "all mankind") the political structure must be based on an understanding of the true nature of man and govern accordingly. Only the Christian faith declares the true nature of man to be fallen in sin and in need of salvation.

The structure of society, primarily the family and government, was ordained by God to curb that fallen nature through the discipline, education, and the threat and imposition of punishment, ranging from the rebuke of a loving parent to the deadly force of lawful authority.

The founding fathers were devout men of different denominations who held in common the basic precepts of the Christian faith. In declaring our independence from Britain and in the writing of our Constitution, they incorporated the truths found in Christianity to form the more perfect union. They recognized that the natural rights of all men, regardless of race or creed, were granted by God and that it was the obligation and duty of government to protect those rights.

Understanding that the government is as weak and imperfect as the men who run it, they incorporated into the Constitution the means of restraining and dividing federal power, protected the citizenry by empowering them to choose and replace their elected officials, and ensured through the Bill of Rights that they would have the means to expose and overthrow the government if it became tyrannical and broke faith with the people it governed.

Our capitalistic free-market system of economics also owes it's success to the Christian world-view.

All men inherently try to get the most they can with the least expenditure of work possible. Capitalism takes advantage of these two weaknesses, greed and sloth, to create a competition based economy that rewards hard work and diligence and punishes laziness.

People who want more "stuff" and discipline themselves to work hard and provide more or better products and services are rewarded with capital, while persons who have less or no ambition and are not willing to expend themselves in hard labor are punished with lower wages and a lower standard of living. Since a free-market capitalistic economy is not a zero-sum game, there is ample economic opportunity for everyone who is willing to do the hard work necessary to succeed. This opportunity has encouraged millions of people to leave their homeland and emigrate to the United States, bringing with them their desire to work and flourish as individuals and families.

In short, capitalism is the perfect economic system for imperfect men.

As time has gone on, however, all three pillars of our nation have been attacked and eroded by liberalism and secularism.

The family, which has been the stabilizing force throughout human history, is being attacked by the nanny-state Federal government, abortionists, and gay rights activists. As "separation of church and state" and Marxism maliciously found it's way into our government structure, the government began infringing on our God-given rights and replaced individualism and industriousness with entitlement programs and restrictions on freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bear arms.

Government regulation, excessive taxation, and environmental socialism has burdened our free-market capitalism to the point that we now are a quasi-fascist state. Hard work, diligence and achievement are punished while over half our population (that either can't or won't provide for themselves), is now supported by the minority through government hand-outs.

A society that ignores and impugns truth cannot survive indefinitely. As communist Russia collapsed of it's own immorality, so too will America collapse as it continues to replace God with State and disregard the values that made this country the greatest enterprise in freedom and liberty known to man.