Posted on 08/18/2005 8:39:28 AM PDT by against_kerry
The Democrats turn their lonely eyes to Hillary: Give us a message. Lead us home.
Even for the Wonder Woman of the Party of JFK, this is no easy task. How to decry the excesses of the Bush administration and the GOP Congress without validating the label "The Party of No"?
How to lure enough GOP votes to win elections at a time when Democrat means liberal and liberal is a term of derision?
A Web site set up by a minister and his daughter (www.liveliberal.com) has an answer you can wear on a T-shirt: "Liberal is not a dirty word."
Retired Lutheran minister Daniel Bruch of Live Liberal gets right to the point: "I don't know if Jesus was the first liberal, but he was an important one."
Jesus taught love, tolerance, forgiveness, charity and humility. Don't take my word for it. Read the New Testament. It's not that long. And it's not about fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism, judging one another or dominating the Earth. It outlines a philosophy based on a really radical idea: Love your creator, love yourself, love your neighbor as yourself.
When it comes to following this lesson, the current administration "is walking 180 degrees opposite of the person they call their savior," Bruch said in a phone interview.
On their Web site, Bruch and daughter Sarah offer quotes and essays on liberalism that Hillary Rodham Clinton should work into her speeches. For example, "liberals support changes that increase personal freedom and tolerance, and exercise the liberty to empower government to the extent necessary to achieve those ends."
Instead of trying to make their best candidate, Clinton, into a vanilla-flavored, inoffensive centrist, Democrats ought to boldly point out that liberals provided the impetus to move society toward acceptance of civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, consumers' rights, etc.
Liberals also deserve "family values" mantle because the 40-hour workweek, laws against child labor and other protections for workingmen and women were liberal ideas of old. High-quality childcare is a liberal idea for today's working families.
They should be "for" better wages.
They should be "for" national health care.
They should be "for" being liberals. They should point out that Jesus was a liberal, too.
Somehow, Democrats let others define them as elitist snobs. That label, not the liberal label, is the one Democrats have to shake.
Can Hillary help them do it?
She has the charisma and the intelligence -- and she has infinite patience, or Bill would be toast. She needs the guts to take a proud left turn and loudly proclaim that the United States is not a "Christian nation" in any pinched or exclusionary way. It's a nation that honors the individual rights of pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others, as well as Christians.
It is also nation that acts for the common good in ways that were meticulously outlined by a radical liberal named Jesus.
Three words nullify everything this crackpot bimbo says -- abortion on demand.
"Liberals also deserve "family values" mantle "
The writer MUST be kidding. The Democrats stand against every traditional family value. The only way you could say they support family values is to redefine "family", which is exactly what they have been trying to do for the past 40 years.
Endorse, no, but that doesn't mean Jesus wanted government to BAN him either.
Profound....profoundly stupid.
Ya see,
it's all about looks...
he had long hair and wore sandals
(OK, granted that this was what everyone ELSE wore during the time is overlooked).
First, the entire pattern of the Bible, of God's plan, is for wealth to be transferred from the OLDER to the YOUNGER, from grandparents to parents to children. It is NEVER to be from the younger to the older. Therefore, Jesus would opposed Social Security and the New Deal.
Second, the Law, which Jesus Himself said He came to fulfill, is chocked full of references to property rights, to the point that it is an "abomination" to even falsely set scales so as to cheat someone out of his profits or out of the fruit of his labor. Jesus would not support any party that thumbed its nose at property rights.
Third, Jesus supported national defense. As a young man---a carpenter in Nazareth---Jesus and his father Joseph worked for the leading employer in that GARRISON TOWN, namely the ROMAN ARMY. Do you really think that He made coffee tables all day? No! Jesus, when not doing civilian work, like all carpenters worked for the military building forts, siege equipment, and (I betcha) a few crosses. (Indeed, God works in perfect cycles, and I would not be at all surprised if the crossbar to which Jesus was nailed at age 33 was one He Himself built back in Nazareth as a younger man). Paul, further, explained the reason that it is written, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, VENGEANCE IS MINE saith the Lord," yet we soon see numerous instructions by God for the conditions of capital punishment. This whole verse is constantly misunderstood: God does not want vendettas. He wants the government, "God's ministers," as Paul calls leaders, to carry out policies, not individuals. When society does it, it is just, and orderly. That's why Paul says "the state does not wield the sword in vain, but to . . . execute wrath." Governments must defend societies SO THAT INDIVIDUALS DON'T HAVE TO engage in vendettas! No one ran off to Afghanistan to kill Muslims after 9/11 because we knew our government would respond. Notice that Paul says that the government's job is not even to "execute JUSTICE," but to "execute wrath." In other words, to get even so that individuals feel like they have been avenged.
Fourth, Jesus did not oppose legally-acquired wealth. The Bible says that "GOD gives you the power to acquire wealth." Well, why would He give you the power if He didn't expect you to use it? Jesus had a "trust fund" from the time He was a young child (the wise men's gold); He spent little of His wages for some 17 years; and many of His disciples (John, James, Peter, Matthew) were quite well off. (Matthew's house was so big the Bible says he invited the whole city to his party for Jesus.
Finally, Jesus would never vote for a party that condones the killing of babies or which encourages men to lie with men. That's a no-brainer.
I thought liberals didn't believe in God?
Tolerance of sin? He loved sinners but he said "Go forth and sin no more".
Democrats celebrate their sins with Gay Pride parades. Perversity on display.
Jesus loved His enemies. Democrats demonize their domestic political opponents in the most off color and violent fanged language.
How does aborting a baby represent anything Jesus said or did? The "right" to abortion is of utmost importance to the left.
It isn't charity when the government takes your money under penalty of law. When you freely give with no pressure to do so, that is charity.
Is the criminal serving his community service time a better citizen than the straight arrow citizen who goes to his job, earns his paycheck, pays his taxes, and raises his family?
Is this a Liberal or a Conservative message? "There is such a thing as Sin. You're sinning, so knock it off. Hit the road, and don't repeat your sinning ways."
You decide.
Following the logic, then, Jesus was for Homosexuality, Abortion, Caring for those who choose not to care for themselves, promiscuity, unfetterd divorce, and religion. A careful reading of his sayings will refute these.
A better question to ask, or questions to answer, is "Why was Jesus born?" or "What was the purpose of His ministry?" or "Why the cross?"
Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am chief. He did not come to show the way, or to teach religion, or to start a newfangled belief system. He came to rescue us from God's (his own) wrath! HE IS THE WAY!
These silly essays are for others, like themselves who neither read nor understand the principal message of the New Testament! For quai-Christians (CINO?) who are not born again, and worship another jesus, one of their own imagination. He fits in nicely with their world view of tolerance.
If God were tolerant, why did Jesus die?
AMEN my thoughts exactly!
Jesus taught love, tolerance, forgiveness, charity and humility...
Except when he made a whip and got Medieval on the money chagers...
The antiChrist (individual or in body of multiples) seeks to lead Christ's followers away from His teachings down a false path.
It doesn't surprise me that the left would hijack His name and pervert His message.
And WHY would anyone believe anything like this?
Who are you trying to convince?
Preaching to the choir. ;-)
In a sense Jesus was liberal in his time. But once the changes he brought about were implemented and his Church well-established (after His death of course), there's no doubt he would be conservative in preserving the very changes he brought about.
But to say which party Jesus would vote for in today's world is a stupid argument. He is above politics of our sort. Of course he would be against abortion, gay marriage, and censorship of religion, but there are quite a few "conservative values" that he would be against I am sure. As I said, He is above all that.
Sometimes I wish He would drop by (not for the last time!) and slap a few people around, make some of those deep intelligent thoughts He's so loved for, and set things right again.
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