Thoughts to Ponder

Republicans don’t want to reduce military spending, and are more willing to go to war, but can we afford it?

Courtesy: opposingviews.com

(PASO ROBLES, CA) - The seed of the Evangelical Movement in America is the Puritan Sect of old. The title, Puritan, is seldom mentioned today, but the Republican Party is infused with Puritan emotionalism and denunciations of Democratic principles it considers inconsistent with Republican values of the Party of God.

Protestants won their freedom from Catholicism in the 18th Century, the same century in which Pilgrims and Puritans killed their last witch in America, and in which our Declaration of Independence was declared, followed by the approval of the Constitution which separated Church from State. Evangelists’ renounce much of what was written by the Founders as being contrary to their beliefs and by insisting that its own interpretation is correct. Pure nonsense of course, except to those who believe what they are told is true, the people who form the base of the Republican Party. `

Pilgrims emigrated from Rotterdam, a Lutheran country, to which they fled to escape English religious tyranny. After twelve years, the Dutch encouraged them to emigrate giving them the Mayflower in which the Pilgrims sailed and landed in Massachusetts near Plymouth Rock in 1621. The Colony succeeded with the help of Indians, then moved inland where Puritans of the Calvinist faith joined them.

Puritans and their Pilgrim cousins followed the European example set by the Catholic Inquisitions prior to the Schism to prevent dissidents from fleeing the Catholic faith. Both believed in witches, persons whose natures differed from, and disturbed the tranquility of, their community. The Colony killed its last so-called witch in America in 1720. The last European witch was killed some fifty years later.

The Colony was everything to the Pilgrims and became the seed for the Congregational Church in America; while the Puritans, being supreme in their fundamentalist belief in the Bible and Jesus as Christ, and all that pertains to such belief, became the seed for the Evangelical Movement in America. Unlike the Pilgrim’s community approach to order, Puritans recognized the value of government per se, and used its evangelical influence to work themselves into the level of leadership in Protestant hierarchies. Their absolute philosophy also elevated Evangelicals to the level of Holy See of the Republican Party of God where members seldom waver from what they are taught. Republicans and Evangelists together seem determined someday to use the Party to impose its will on the people of the United States, just as the Catholic Church once did; where every tactic is geared to achieving its goal. War against women is its latest.

Geo. W. Bush was a born again Christian who was guided by the Holy See to believe virtually everything he was told and was expected to support. Fellow Travelers were assigned to judgeships and positions of authority in government with which we all must still contend.

During the Bush Administrations, Rev. Parsley of Cincinnati fame preached that it was God’s will that American-Christians should destroy Islam, and America invaded Iraq, preemptively, and inappropriately. The President claimed to talk with Jesus daily and believed that “When God is in His Heaven, all’s right with the world.” He believed in this emphatically, until Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, when he realized the truth.

Israel might be pleased if President Obama and the Democratic Party was defeated in November, because Israel would then have better luck getting the War Hawks of a Republican Administration to agree to a pre-emptive strike against Iran. I am hopeful President Obama will not cave in to the Israeli desire to force America into war against Iran. And I am hopeful that by re-electing Barack Obama to a second term such a war can be avoided, at least for the time being, but I also have my doubts.

Consider this; The war with Iraq is over, but we have a monolithic embassy in Iraq, occupied by thousands of non-fighting troops. The embassy works with Iraqi’s to re-establish the viability of its oil production, as well as its government. In Afghanistan, talks are already going on to determine how many American bases should be built, and where, on Afghan territory, as Sen. John McCain and Senator Lesley Graham of So. Carolina want and apparently will receive.

All presidents seem committed to maintaining a foothold in countries where American troops have fought. Vietnam is an exception, but Iran is sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan, which may explain why the Government is keeping pressure on Iran. Nothing like three in a row to satisfy the desire for greater influence than the U.S. now enjoys Worldwide.

Republicans don’t want to reduce military spending, and are more willing to go to war, but can we afford it? The greater expense to maintain the military; et-al., would necessarily require reducing Entitlement Funds at the expense of the lower classes. Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal proves it!

The essential difference between the two parties is that Democrats prefer to protect citizens who need it while helping them to help themselves to rise within our society. The GOP is tied to the Evangelical See’s one-way philosophy which denounces President Obama as not being a Christian in the only sense Evangelists are capable of recognizing Truth. Rev. Jeffrees’ comment about Mitt Romney not being Christian enough to be the nominee of the Republican Party comes to mind: remember? It looks as if Mitt Romney will prevail to become the nominee after all.

The Republicans have declared war on women who they would like to control by dragging them back to the Middle Ages. It’s not going to happen! Women are knocking on the door of Augusta’s men-only Golf Club in Georgia for membership, a move contradictory to the attempt to turn back history’s clock and to subject women again to their misery of the past.

War’s victories are seldom quick, and never easy, as we have learned; But success to Republicans and their Evangelical Holy See, begins with the establishment of a foothold from which to spread the Gospel according to Evangelical lights. Every little tangent of the Religious Right is another attempt to dent the armor of our defensives. Propositions on ballots is one such tactic, as if God’s decisions depend on majority rule. Nonsense! Still we cannot afford to let our guard down, ever,

200 Marines have been landed in Northern Australia as the first of what will become an outpost from which to protect American interests in South Asia. Australia is cooperating because, I suspect, it harbors a sizeable number of evangelicals of its own, and the Islands of SE Asia contain the largest number of Islamic in the world. Together they and the Evangelical Holy See of our Christian Republican Party will be poised to expand and obtain another footprint of Christianity into another region of the World.

For all these reason, the Far Right is not interested in catering to the lower classes, and is using every opportunity to hold it down. Women are denounced because they want to live as equals in a world where they can decide, as individuals, what is in their own best interest. It is a religious and Party thing, in which Republicans, Catholics - think Rich Santorum - and the Holy See of Evangelists seek to decide what is in the best interest of all.

The United States is not meant to be a Theocracy under the control of Church or Evangelical discipline. No man, and that includes those of faith, can speak for God whose manner is inscrutable and impossible to interpret. God is what we are taught to believe is true by the voices of men, or women, including parents who teach us to believe as they always have.

Evangelists attribute Natural Disasters to Acts of God based on what they have decided is what they prefer to believe. It is they who want to bend our will to theirs any way they can for the power it gives them.

Pat Robertson - Evangel - has said he believes the trade of Tim Tebow from Denver to the NY Giants football team is contrary to God’s will, for reasons too obvious to mention, and expects to see Denver suffer as a result. But Pat, God has bigger and better things to do than to become involved in such platitudes. Que sera, será - whatever will be, will be; and you ought to know this better than anyone, Pat.

Kenneth G. Ramey, Salem-News.com's Religion and Philosophy Writer, confronts the hard issues of politics and religion from a logical point of view that combines interesting insight with history into the truth, or lack thereof, that underlies the strengths and weaknesses of the Religious Right’s determination to use American politics for its own misguided, or selfish, interest. It’s rare for a writer to balance his writing between religious values and the secular guarantees of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with the knowledge that Ken possesses, and to do it so effectively.

Ken was born in Minnesota but was raised in California since 1932. He is the youngest of four boys raised by his mother alone during the dark years of the Great Depression. He Graduated from SFSU in the 1970s when in his mid-forties, majoring in Spanish North American History, and added three years of post-graduate study, much of it in Philosophy and Religion. We live at a critical time in history and believe Ken's views represent the view of many who are tired of the commercialism and false interpretations about religion today. Watch for Ken's articles on religion, philosophy, politics and history. View articles written by Kenneth G. Ramey You can email Ken at: darken1@sbcglobal.net