Posted on 03/11/2012 9:33:07 PM PDT by stolinsky
Fanatics Building Nukes? Economy Shaky? $5 Gas?
We’re Worried About Romney’s Underwear
David C. Stolinsky
Mar. 12, 2012
Years ago, a colleague told me about an incident he’d observed. A group of interns and residents had been swamped with admitting acutely ill patients. They’d gotten no sleep all night, and were unshaven and bedraggled next morning. The chief arrived to make rounds. But instead of helping the bleary-eyed staff care for the patients, he spent time arranging their black bags neatly at the nurses’ station, then yelled at the young doctors for not looking spiffy and wearing neckties.
In addition to demonstrating his bad temper and small-mindedness, the chief did so in the presence of nurses and patients, thus violating a basic principle of leadership: Don’t undermine your subordinates’ authority.
My colleague concluded with bitter irony, “You’ve got to know what’s important.”
We’ve all seen people like that, obsessed with irrelevant trivia while ignoring what is truly significant. In an ordinary office, this is annoying. But it’s really dangerous when human lives and well-being are at stake. This is obviously true in a hospital or in the military. It is equally true, though perhaps less obvious, in politics.
This November we will decide the fate of our republic, and perhaps that of the free world. Choosing who will lead us at this critical time is a heavy responsibility, among the heaviest we will face in our lifetimes. But what are we arguing about? Yes, there are serious commentators like Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Hewitt, and Dennis Prager. But what are the airwaves, the Internet, and the newspapers filled with? What are so many people squandering their time and energy discussing?
“Romney underwear” yields 2,970,000 hits on Google, while “magic underwear” yields 42,500,000 hits. Liberals from the New York Times on down − or on up, depending on your point of view − have ridiculed Mitt Romney for wearing “magic underwear.”
This is pure religious bigotry. Devout Mormons wear underwear of a special design, to remind them that they are always subject to God’s commandments. This is in no way different from wearing a cross or a Star of David around the neck, or a bracelet commemorating an active-duty or fallen warrior around the wrist. It is a reminder of an obligation, a word that is little used today. We speak incessantly about our rights, but rarely about our obligations. We have forgotten that we can’t keep one without keeping the other.
I am especially sensitive to this issue, because my grandfathers were Orthodox Jews. Although they died before I was born, I believe they both wore the fringed garments under their shirts that are mentioned by the Bible in Numbers 15:38-39 and Deuteronomy 22:12. Perhaps you have seen Orthodox men with fringes hanging from under their shirts. Or perhaps you haven’t.
But in either case, they are not “magic underwear.” They are reminders that God’s commandments are binding upon us wherever we go. What was true for my grandfathers is equally true for observant members of the LDS Church. So perhaps you can understand why I take personal offense at sarcastic, belittling remarks about “magic underwear.”
I have no statistical proof, but it seems that most of the derisive comments about Mormons’ “magic underwear” come not from devout Christians, who have legitimate questions about Mormon theology, but from secular leftists, who look down on all religion. No, that isn’t quite right. Secular leftists look down on all religion, but they save their vitriol for Christianity, especially Evangelical Protestants, practicing Catholics, and now Mormons − that is, people who take their religion seriously and tend to be conservative.
Secular leftists may look down on radical Islam as well, but to a major extent, they maintain a cautious silence on the subject − thus demonstrating that in addition to being anti-religious bigots, they are also cowards. Bigotry plus cowardice make a really unappetizing combination plate.
But I’m not letting devout Christians off the hook here. With some notable exceptions, they too say little about the persecution of fellow Christians in Muslim countries. This persecution has reached homicidal proportions. Yet many Christian leaders seem oddly unconcerned. Instead, they obsess about LDS theology, which is clearly in conflict with orthodox Christianity, but which has nothing − repeat, nothing − to do with a candidate’s ability to carry out the duties of president.
As leading Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress declared:
I’d rather a non-Christian like Romney who accepts biblical positions than a professing Christian like Barack Obama who accepts non-biblical views.
But instead of taking this common-sense approach, many Christians − and many secular leftists − gloss over the crucial issues that will be decided on Election Day:
● They gloss over an ever-larger government usurping the rights of our citizens. Isn’t this a moral as well as a political issue?
● They gloss over the expanding nanny state that controls everything from light bulbs and toilets to dishwasher detergent to what our kids eat for lunch. Yes, this is a moral issue. It means the demotion of the individual human being created in God’s image to a mere servant of the state.
● They gloss over a government that spends money it doesn’t have, and never will have, by heaping debt on our children and grandchildren. Talk about taxation without representation. And this too is a moral issue.
● They gloss over plans to gut our national defense in an increasingly dangerous world, where fanatics scream “death to America!” while building nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. That is a matter of life and death.
There are serious questions about selecting Mitt Romney to be our president. He has shifted his positions on important issues like government-run health care, abortion, and gun control. These shifting positions leave us in doubt about his core beliefs. Let us discuss these important issues.
But instead, like my colleague’s medical chief who argued about neckties instead of caring for patients, some people ignore the important while wasting their time and energy on the trivial. There is no perfect candidate. And if there were a perfect candidate, he would want perfect voters, which surely leaves me out.
Like all of us, Mitt Romney has problems. But his underwear is not among them. As my colleague said, you’ve got to know what’s important.
Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. You are welcome to publish or post these articles, provided that you cite the author and website.
I will not vote the enemy into our camp. I will never vote Obama, but I will never vote Romney.
Nice try. I will not vote for the GOP Obama.
Third Party or write in. Just saying “he’s not Obama” doesn’t mean a whole lot to me.
Thing is, a cheap nuke wouldn’t be all that hard. The first bomb over Japan was the “bullet” type. The basic idea is about the same as pushing a donut hole back into the donut to get critical mass. No fancy timers, switches, hi tech explosives needed.
Good chance you’d end up glowing in the dark after trying to machine the materials, though!
IBTZ!!!
Devout Mormons wear underwear of a special design,
_________________________________________
Yeah with designs of FreeMasonry on their chest and knees..
designs which are ceremonially cut off and buried in secret when the undies wear out..
The magic underwear is to protect them from harm like bullets etc...
The founder of Mormonism Joey Smith also carried a Jupiter stone for luck and power and protection...it had pagan symbols on it..his family were heavily into the occult..
No the magic underwear are not intended to be like a cross or a Star of David..
and Mormons are not worried about remembering they might be subject to God’s Commandments...
They are not Christians or Jews...
They are Mormons
a whole other religion...
closer to Islam than Christianity...
The underwear is known as “magic” because the Mormons believe they have magic power to protect them...
They put their faith in the power of the undies and not in the power of God...
They first put them on after they are bathed and covered in oil by a “temple worker” in a Mormon ritual in the Mormon temple....
Its a requirement to wear them to keep their “temple recommend”
Once a year their bishop (a man asks them in private (enven the women) if they are wearing the magic undies all the time..
(I’d slap a guys face if he asked me about my undies)
Could you imagine your pastor getting your wife in a room alone and asking her if she is wearing a certain type of underwear ???
Do you not see something sinister and unrighteous in such a practice ???
and yet Mormon bishops do just that...
and dont ask me about the interviews they have with young children..
again alone...
http://www.thunderwear.com/images/comfort.jpg
It just doesn’t look comfortable.
When Obama took office, gas was about $1.85/gal.
Now, 3 1/2 years later, gas is about $3.70/gal.
Re-elect this Commie, fast forward 4 years and, voila, his dream - $8/gallon!
Do not send me any more underhanded stealth FReepMails
If you are man enough to say something say it to my face here in the thread...
Your credibility at present is ZERO
equal to the guy in the White House...
1. The primaries aren’t over yet. Criticizing Romney doesn’t mean that one doesn’t understand the importance of removing Obama. Most of those critical of Romney don’t care much about his underwear anyway. They care more about the fact that he is a liberal and also that he may not be the best candidate to face Obama, mainly because of his liberal record.
2. You’re just plain wrong about Mormon temple garments and Jewish fringed garments serving the same purpose. For Mormons, it’s not just a reminder, they are taught that the garment offers them some supernatural protection, which is why people deride them as “magic underwear”.
3. I don’t get the impression Christians are unconcerned about persecution at all, however, what would Christian leaders speaking out more about this accomplish? Christian leaders have less than zero influence over the governments of Muslim countries. At the moment, they have very little influence even over our own government, which has shown no interest in angering the Muslim world. Muslims persecute Christians because that is what Muslims do, and the persecution will continue until there are no more Muslim countries, or until there are no more Christians in those countries, absent some miraculous intervention.
“They gloss over an ever-larger government usurping the rights of our citizens.”
We don’t here on FR.
“They gloss over the expanding nanny state that controls everything from light bulbs and toilets to dishwasher detergent to what our kids eat for lunch. “
Not here on FR.
“They gloss over a government that spends money it doesn’t have,...”
We don’t gloss over that here.
“They gloss over plans to gut our national defense ...”
We don’t gloss over that either.
We don’t ignore Mitt and his magic underwear, nor do we ignore Mitts pro abortion history, his inventing and promoting Obama care, nor his anti 2nd Amendment activities, nor his flip flopping. Nor do we ignore his saying whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear instead of the truth, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
In a nutshell, Doc, we don’t gloss over much at all, but we DO NOT support Romney. Not those of us with Conservative principles and a spine.
Regardless of what you post up on that blog you are pimping, we are NOT going to support Romney.
Plutonium yes, but uranium is easy to work with.
Obama is a socialist. Romney is a socialist. Magic underwear makes zero difference to me whatsoever. I couldn’t care less he’s a Mormon. But he’s a socialist. He supported an “assault” weapons ban. He wrote socialist healthcare into law. That’s what matters. It’s just like Obama being black. His being black makes no difference to me - but his funding of green energy firms that he’s personally invested in, his running the Gunwalker effort through ATF, his non-prosecution of the criminals at MF Global, his apology tours for America - those are what matter to me. But many try to represent that the opposition to Obama is simply “racist” just as they try to represent that the opposition to Romney is just because he’s Mormon. Well, it’s not.
I read a book about the Manhattan Project years back. It was alot about Oppenheimer and the tech stuff and the testing, but there was an interesting aside.
Seems one of the professors (and this might have been at Chicago where the first running reactor was put together) liked to show his class the reaction that happened when two sub-critical masses of uranium were pushed closer. You know, it would heat up and start to emit alot of neutron radiation, I guess it can be pretty exciting.
Until one time when he pushed them too close.
Quite a clean up job ensued. He went to meet his maker.
Hairy Reid is a Mormon and runs the Senate.
Coincidentally, Harry Reid is also a MORON and runs the Senate.
Underwear aside, make the case for your guy.
No we’re not, dingus. We’re worried about making a liberal the standard-bearer for the supposedly conservative Republican Party. If that happens, I’ll consider myself an ex-Republican until Romney has lost the election.
Dang!
I’m not afraid of Romney’s underwear or religion. I’m afraid of the fact that when he was the most conservative candidate in the 2008 primary he folded way too soon. Now that he is the least conservative candidate in the 2012 primary he has suddenly found his will to fight. What happens when he defeats the conservatives? Will he be too tired to fight the liberal in the General Election? He doesn’t have a very good track against candidates who are more liberal than him. I’m taking wagers on whether he will drop out during the second debate or the third debate against Obama.
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