president

He’s changed my mind. Why Mitt Romney should be king.

/ Christopher Cudworth / Leave a comment

Yes, Mitt Romney has finally changed my mind. After campaigning for what, 4 long years, or maybe 8, he has convinced me that he wants and deserves to be King. Of somewhere at least. We’ll talk about that later.

Clearly, he has all the qualities that the great kings in history have exhibited. He is clear about his convictions, despite the fact that they are prone to change at the drop of a hat.

The red hats of Bartholomew Cubbins vexed the King

In fact, do you remember that Dr. Seuss story Bartholomew Cubbins and the 500 Hats? Bartholomew was a humble kid who showed up at the court of the king and was instructed to remove his hat. But when poor Bartholomew tried to do so, another hat popped up in its place. This happened over and over again.

The king thought Bartholomew was being disrespectful in not removing his hat in the king’s presence. So the king ordered Bartholomew to be taken away and have his hats removed while the scribes kept track of all the hats that came off the head of Bartholomew.

If you think carefully about the core of this story, it is all about the perceived value of social rank and class. After all, does it really matter if one person takes their hat of in the presence of another? Only if we allow social rank to rule our conscience. Yes, in many circles, removing our hat it is a sign of respect. We all take our hats off at church, or when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited or the National Anthem is played. But it’s not that common anymore to remove our hats in the presence of another person. Unless they want to be considered royalty.

But poor Bartholomew had no control over the circumstances of his supposed show of disrespect. He tried desperately to remove his hat(s) before the king, but to no avail.

The king showed little compassion for poor Bartholomew. Rather than take an interest in the process by which the hats kept appearing, as would a scientist, for example, want to know how it works, the king simply grew impatient with Bartholomew and had him hauled off for disobedience and insubordination.

I won’t spoil the ending of the story for you. It’s always fun to dig up and read a little Dr. Seuss on your own. And while you’re at it, give The Lorax a try too.

Was Dr. Seuss a bleeding heart liberal?

But perhaps some people might label Dr. Seuss a liberal for writing a story about the apparent lack of respect Bartholomew Cubbins showed for tradition and authority. Yet that seems to be a common theme in America today. So maybe Dr. Seuss is just out of touch with today’s more sophisticated partisan politics.

But just for fun (in the spirit of Dr. Suess) let’s flip the tale of Bartholomew Cubbins around for a moment, and consider the behavior of the king from a metaphorical perspective. The king, after all, already had all the authority he could ever want on his side. He could do anything he wanted with Bartholomew the moment he saw that the young man could not, or would not, remove his hat before the king. In fact the king could order the executioner to cut off the head of Bartholomew Cubbins if he wanted. Kings have been known to do just that. Or have people tortured in an attempt to get at the truth. The king could have put little Bartholomew on the royal rack and had him stretched like a rope until his bones cracked and his joints popped like water balloons. Kings have done that as well to people over the ages. They have done so in full compliance with the church, in fact. And the church itself with its inquisitions and witch hunts has behaved in royally brutal fashion.

Romney does his angry King impression

Authority when tested gets testy. Hence the angry looks given by certain political personalities when their authority and worldview has been challenged. King Romney cast just such a look during the political debates.

Interestingly, King Romney in a strange, reverse twist seems to have much in common with a certain Bartholomew Cubbins, who could not remove his hats before the king. King Romney, by comparison, seems to take great delight in donning hats for a moment to please his subjects, then casts them off without a thought. He seems to care not whether the hats he dons represent the true nature of his beliefs. They are hats of convenience, suitable for a moment’s impression before his partisan and loyal subjects, or those he seeks to make into peasants for his policies, then thrown away without a thought. These hats are often the products of lies about King Romney’s true intentions. But appears not to care about that. King Romney has one mission and one mission only: That is to attain the status  King, when he can no longer be questions or held accountable to anyone.

His own campaign refuses to allow facts to get in the way of his efforts to be King of America. That is a clear sign of a lack of confidence in the King to be truthful with his targeted subjects. Romney has developed the art of laughing off his critics and fact-checkers to a royal degree. His self-proclaimed attitude toward 47% of America is that they are lazy, unmotivated slackers who have no place in his kingdom.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

That is the language of a man who wants to be king, the man who literally states that there are 5% or 10% of the population with which he concerns himself, not the 47%.

Oh, sure, he backpedaled that comment later on, in full view of the public. But by then he was an Emperor With No Clothes. Because people saw how the king actually regards his intended subjects, with disregard for their humanity.

Yes, it is possible for a religious man like Romney to lose sight of his own core convictions when tempted with the potential to be king. He may have done great things in his life; rescued a fiscally trouble Olympics, crafted a health care policy based on practicality and compassion, and raised a family with full love and care.

But he has also disowned those very accomplishments, traveling overseas to criticize the London Olympics organizers, while also disowning the very structure of the health care policy that he helped draft in Massachusetts that provided a foundation for Obamacare. As noted, King Romney has also criticized millions of good citizens and family leaders with his disparaging statements about the “47” percent.

For Mitt Romney is a king who would rather knock the hats off people with whom he disagrees rather than consider the reasons they might need or choose to wear a hat in the first place.

King Mitt has clearly labeled the hat of Social Security an “entitlement” when in fact it is an investment-based insurance program. But King Mitt wants to hand over all that government-managed money (in other words: safe) to risky Wall Street Dukes who frittered away half of America’s wealth in the last great financial crash.

Or should we say financial crass? Because that is the plan behind the plan of Mitt Romney. Crass strategies hidden behind smiling facades of royal promise. American Recovery indeed. King Mitt has nothing but plunder and riches on his mind, the same manner of governance he applied at Bain Capital, that pillar of Social Darwinism and capitalistic gluttony. Steal the wealth. Dump the workers. Sell off the assets for a profit. Then claim you did it all for the good of the company.

He’ll take the same approach to running the nation as he did to running Bain Capital. Prince Ryan is is hopeful heir to the kingdom. They’re lining themselves up and even cheating the election process by buying voting machines, stifling votes among the poor and elderly. Anyone who stands in the way of the King and his murderous soldiers; men like Karl Rove, John Bolton, the whole lot of them.

We are all Bartholomew before King Romney. Our liberal hopes of social justice and economic parity are just so many hats the king wants to see knocked off our heads. And when the hats do not satisfy him because our mouths keep on talking, King Romney will let the executioner do his work. Cut programs. Slash budgets for Medicare and the EPA,

King Romney has already threatened Big Bird

public radio and the post office. Mitt hates hats. You can see the red glare in his eyes. He wants to be King. And that’s that.So let’s let him be king somewhere. He likes to store his money offshore, so let’s let him be King of his own little island somewhere. It can be a pretty place. He can have all the toys he wants. Ann Romney can play with her precious horses and Mitt can give his kids all the funny names he likes.

Just don’t elect him President. He’d rather chop off all our heads than listen to what Americans have to say about social justice and equity. And went he’s done he’ll pillage the countryside looking for the last person who thinks they’re entitled to hoe their own garden and sell their produce at a roadside market. Because we all know vegetables are too well-loved by liberals. Real Americans keat red meat and live in red states. The King says so. Long live King Romney. He sure acts the part.

A short letter to Billy Graham on his endorsement of Mitt Romney for President of the United States

/ Christopher Cudworth / 5 Comments

The inscrutable Mitt Romney meets the intractable Billy Graham

Let’s deconstruct what Billy Graham has to say about endorsing Mitt Romney:

“It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney—for his family and our country. I will turn 94 the day after the upcoming election, and I believe America is at a crossroads. I hope millions of Americans will join me in praying for our nation and to vote for candidates who will support the biblical definition of marriage, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms.”

Well, Mr. Graham. You left out a lot, didn’t you? No mention of protecting the poor, a favorite topic of Jesus. NO mention of holding the wealthy accountable for exploitation of the country and its resources. No mention of protecting the earth as God’s creation. No mention of holding our former President and VP accountable for unbudgeted, illegal wars and torture.

Especially no mention of the inscrutable lack of accountability by Mitt Romney, who has changed his stated positions on every single position he claims to advocate, and obscured facts about his personal business and finances that more accurately reflect his cutthroat disregard for his fellow human beings. These acts make him either an untrustworthy leader or an outright liar. Or both. The recovery Mr. Romney needs to focus on is his credibility.

Billy Graham has endorsed an ideological chimera in Mitt Romney, and as such has sided with powerful special interests and a brand of prejudiced thinking that impinges on real American rights including freedom FROM religion as guaranteed by the US Constitution. Graham completely ignores that fact of law. His assumptions speak volumes about his anachronistic brand of religion and its lack of scriptural substance in an age of rational faith and Constitutional interpretation based on human equality, not religious prejudices.

Graham proves through his endorsement that a vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket is a vote to misappropriate American rights and freedoms in favor of a stilted worldview that sadly is also a misunderstanding of the very faith Mr. Graham and his ilk have long claimed to represent. The best illustration of this desperate grab for power and respect is the scrubbing of his own website to remove the claim that Mormonism is a ‘cult.’ Like Joe Paterno, we might be seeing another hero embracing power over principle.

It is possible to lose perspective in life when your legacy is bigger than your ability to sort out your priorities. Perhaps the influence of his now infamous son Franklin Graham has jaded the Rev. Billy Graham’s once famously wise counsel. Of course, fame ultimately has a way of corrupting judgment. Position has a way of undermining the will to discern what is truly right and wrong. And time has a way of destroying the patience for change.

All in all, Mr. Graham, you have gotten it wrong, made a spectacle of yourself and the presidential race, and intimated that our current President is not a moral and considerate man. That may be the most damning of all references in your endorsement of Romney.

Supposedly, Billy Graham, you have provided wise counsel to many Presidents. Perhaps you’ve even spoken with Barack Obama at some point in time. But what you have done now is reveal the sad political prejudice of this age, which is disturbingly ill-informed single issue voting as the premise for political loyalty. One would think a man of your stature would see beyond the narrow-minded views you express. But having heard what you now have to say, we can write you off as the product of a different age. One that never really aligned with the true path of faith, forgiveness and fruition outlined in the Bible. Perhaps you should read it again.

It really doesn’t say some of the things you apparently think it does. Or have you only read it in the presence of those who agree with you, and therefore have much to gain by doing so?

Jesus didn’t like those types of religious leaders. It says so in the Bible.

Is Newt Gingrich a latter-day King David in our midst? Maybe so. But not how you think.

/ Christopher Cudworth / 2 Comments

Whether Christian believers like to admit it or not, the Judeo-Christian tradition is both a religious and political story. Jesus Christ was willing to challenge both the religious and political leaders of his day, calling them to guide their actions with truth, justice and morality. In the process he stood up to some politically powerful people, and we know the earthly results of those efforts. But if the moral of the story stopped there, Christianity would not be much of a religion. Instead the courage of Christ in standing up to the forces of earthly power and poor religious judgment is the ultimate model for Christians to hold leaders accountable for their words, deeds and actions.

Truly, as Christians we need to draw on the example of Jesus to guide us in not sacrificing the spiritual purpose of faith in pursuit of power. Jesus set a clear example for us all. It is not okay to rationalize our faith to try to win favor with the rich and powerful. We are supposed to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that.

But many Christians find that a tough example to follow.

You would expect that Christian leaders would demand basic patterns of moral behavior from political candidates who come to them for support. These include of course reasonable respect for marital fidelity, embracing financial ethics and legislating on behalf of the the poor and needy, whose welfare Jesus most consciously favored.

Yet a certain breed of politically motivated evangelical Christian leaders seems willing and even eager to ignore basic moral principles whenever political power comes within their reach. Thus we find evangelical Christian leaders dispensing forgiveness like Pez candy to front-running political candidates who have nasty personal and professional records.

We all know forgiveness is a powerful and wonderful thing. Some would argue it is the heart of faith itself. But let us be honest: it is not true forgiveness if our primary motive is power-brokering. That is nothing more than an ugly rationalization. Christian evangelicals who claim to have their finger on the pulse of faith yet lend their support through rubber-stamped forgiveness for corrupt leaders should be called to account for giving away the authority of faith for cheap political promises.

By example we have the 2012 election cycle, in which we find Christian evangelicals bending over backwards to support none other than Newt Gingrich, the serial wife-dumper and man of apparently confused moral character who recently blamed his propensity for dalliances and faithlessness on an overabiding love of country. Talk about a cynical argument for patriotism and a poor damn excuse for a husband! Why would any Christian evangelical support such a lout?

The answer is that Christian evangelicals are still achingly desperate for political power. Frankly it may be that because their attempts to convert society to a theocracy through religious means have failed, they hope to leverage political influence to impose a virtual theocracy that would fulfill the motives of an often warped, anachronistic interpretation of scripture. In fact the consistent policy failures of conservatives in general, all who seem set on turning back the clock through an agenda of regressive, repressive doctrines is driving the movement to new extremes. They really have nowhere else to go. So they push back even harder. And that is why social and religious conservatives are willing to dismiss all sorts of sins in political candidates. It is rather like the Old Testament stories where people in the desert beseeched God to deliver them from exile. But this time round they are not justified. Quite far from.

For example, many of today’s Republican evangelical leaders are attempting to forgive the politically front-running Newt Gingrich his many sins. Gingrich recently converted to Catholicism and that would seem to give evangelicals grounds to forgive. As if he were a changed man. Despite his very long track record of questionable ethics and a calculatingly harsh demeanor toward his enemies. In fact he does not even seem to have all that much patience or compassion for his supposed friends. Or anyone. Given his strange act of endorsing child labor to teach them the value of work, one wonders if Gingrich’s next act will be protecting child-abusing priests because it will teach children the merits of obedience.

Gingrich is a living, breathing hypocrite as well as misanthrope. We can all recall how Gingrich and the entire GOP castigated Bill Clinton for his extramarital affairs. Yet we now know that Gingrich was engaged in behavior as bad or worse than Clinton’s while the whole political takedown took place. That makes Gingrich a hypocrite and a liar.

Jesus really did not like hypocrites most of all, especially in political and religious quarters. He saved a particularly harsh brand of invective for anyone leveraging religious influence to gain power, calling the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” for turning scripture into literal law. So why does anyone think Jesus would favor a hypocrite like Newt Gingrich for president? It’s frankly ludicrous. And yet so-called Christian evangelicals seem to be lining up to endorse him.

In a November 2011 Newsweek article, writer Michelle Goldberg documented just how far Christian evangelicals will go to partner up with politicians approaching the nation’s key seat of power. When asked why evangelicals were suddenly willing to embrace Gingrich as a candidate when his serial affairs indicate a man of poor moral character, prominent evangelical Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Center, brushed away concerns about Gingrich by saying, “Under normal circumstance, Gingrich would have some real problems with the social conservative community. But these aren’t normal circumstances.”

That is moral relativism, plain and simple.

Consider also the moral gyrations of influential conservative radio host Steve Deace, a conservative talk show host who outlined the evangelical moral quandary over Gingrich this way; “Maybe the guy in the race that would make the best president is on this third marriage. How do we reconcile that?”

Deace goes on to answer his own question by drawing on examples from the Bible: (Deace says) “I see a lot of parallels between King David and Newt Gingrich, two extraordinary men gifted by God, whose lives include very high highs and very low lows.”

But let’s follow that comparison of Newt Gingrich to King David to its true conclusion.

The supposed parallel is that both King David and Newt Gingrich lived less than exemplary lives. Both committed adultery, and in David’s case he conspired to have the husband of his desired mistress sent to a war front, so that he would essentially be killed so that David could then claim the man’s wife.

The Bible also tells us that David committed multiple counts of genocide, including crimes against his own people.  So bad was David’s behavior in life that when he asked God if he could be allowed to build a temple to his Name, God responded: “You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.” You see, even God has his limits when it comes to accepting rationalizations of bad behavior.

The Christian evangelical community conveniently forgets to mention this sordid little episode toward the end of the life of King David. That is because it does not seem to fit the conservative narrative of the triumphant leader who wins the permanent favor of God, and who is rewarded for everything he has done.

Instead the honor of building a house for God must be passed to David’s son Solomon, who asked God not for wealth, nor riches or honor, nor the death of his enemies, not even for a long life. Solomon instead asked for wisdom and knowledge, a decidedly liberal engagement of the Almighty, you see. And God granted Solomon that request. And Solomon built a great temple to God.

Solomon went on to educate himself on matters of the natural world and became known for his great capacity for equity in judgment and justice for all. But even Solomon had his failures of character, proving that it’s altogether dangerous to use religion to justify placing our hopes on our political leaders, both flawed and virtuous, because they are virtually guaranteed to place their own priorities and motives over those of the people they are elected or appointed to serve.