Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.Posted on 02/14/2013 2:18:12 PM PST by Kaslin
Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.
Liberals are apoplectic over remarks by Dr. Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson, a prominent pediatric surgeon from Johns Hopkins University, dared to weigh in on healthcare—something he knows something about. In the liberal mind, Carson committed a grave transgression; he disagreed with President Obama on healthcare at a faith venue, and in Obama’s presence.
In discussing Carson’s moral effrontery, Candy Crowley, host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” asked panelists if they were offended by Carson’s comments. “He [Carson] was talking about the idea of, you know, weaving the Bible into some objections he appears to have with the president’s approach,” said Crowley. Count Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky among the offended. She told Crowley: “I think it’s … not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech and to invoke God as his [Carson’s] support for that kind of point of view.”
In truth, what the likes of Crowley and Schakowsky object to is the mere fact that Carson publicly disagreed with Obama on healthcare, especially in the context of faith. For liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans should never use their faith to disagree; only liberal Democrats enjoy such freedoms. I could give a thousand examples illustrating the point; I’ve written entire books doing so. For now, however, here are some particularly salient examples involving Obama, liberals, and healthcare reform:
From the first year of Obama’s presidency, the religious left (Obama included) incessantly claimed God’s support for their vision of healthcare reform.
In August 2009, Obama addressed a “virtual gathering” of 140,000 religious left individuals—a huge conference call to liberal Christians, Jews, and other people of faith. Obama told them he was “going to need your help” in passing healthcare. Obama penitently invoked a period of “40 days,” a trial of deliverance from conservative evildoers. He lifted up the brethren, assuring them, “We are God’s partner in matters of life and death.”
Like a great commissioning, in the 40 days that followed the religious left was filled with the spirit. A group called the Religious Institute—led by Rev. Debra Hafner and representing 4,800 clergy—went wild stumping for Obamacare. Other religious left faithful joined the crusade.
A group of 59 leftist nuns sent Congress a letter urging passage of Obamacare. This was in direct defiance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which insisted the bill “must be opposed” because of its refusal to explicitly ban abortion funding. The liberal media cheered on the nuns, gleefully exaggerating their influence. In a breathtaking display, the Los Angeles Times beamed, “Nuns’ support for health-care bill shows [Catholic] Church split.” Amazingly, the Times reported that the nuns’ letter represented not 59 nuns—but 59,000! Like Jesus with the loaves, the Times (normally militantly secular) had demonstrated miraculous powers of multiplication.
The nuns’ brazenness was matched by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, who, in March 2010, invoked the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph on behalf of Obamacare. She urged American Catholics to “pray to St. Joseph” for Obamacare.
That was prelude to what happened March 21, 2010, A.D., a rare vote not merely on a Sunday—God’s day—but the final Sunday in Lent, the week before Palm Sunday that initiates the Lord’s Passion. Obama’s healthcare bill was passed by his Democratic Congress. To Obama, Pelosi, and the religious left faithful, Jesus had gotten his healthcare package, and they had been his loyal handmaidens.
If all of that seems hypocritical enough from liberals, in light of their castigation of Dr. Ben Carson, consider this glaring double standard:
At the National Prayer Breakfast two years ago, February 3, 2011, Obama stated: “Sometimes what I can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to help deal with the healthcare system—sometimes it seems so distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the enormity of the need. And it is my faith, then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed.”
Yes, Barack Obama, at the National Prayer Breakfast, invoked his faith and the Bible on behalf of healthcare reform—much like he has done on behalf of gay marriage and other liberal agenda items.
Question for Ms. Crowley and Rep. Schakowsky and liberals everywhere: Was this appropriate? Are you offended?
But now, here comes one Ben Carson, pediatric surgeon with more than 50 honorary doctorates, named one of America’s 20 foremost physicians by CNN and TIME, and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor. He disagreed with Obama and the liberal faithful. His price: political excommunication. In Alinsky fashion, he will now be isolated and demonized. How dare he bring up healthcare at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Communists invoking God against those who are doing God’s will.
Crowley simply misunderstands what a prayer breakfast is.
She thinks everyone is there to pray to Obama. Honest mistake for a liberal really.
Carson tells the truth. Obama lies like a rug in the STOTU show. Guess who gets blasted?
LOL. Very good.
I’m rather surprised myself that so far the attacks on Carson are based on beliefs rather than personal destruction, the normal route for the MSM.
Either this guy is clean as snow, or he’s got “mutually assured destruction” with the Baraqqi regime.
Either way, God bless him.
In this case, they malign an humble scholar, a physician, a brilliant man who understands the inherent nature of liberty, and believes in the fundamental principles of America's founding--freedom of conscience, of expression, and of Creator-endowed, therefore unalienable, rights.
Government "masters," on the other hand, buy votes in exchange for retaining their "master redistributionist" status, while their "voters" yield up freedom for themselves and future generations by buying into their appeals of "we'll help you."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis
All who doubt the wisdom of Lewis might watch the video of the President's Year 2012 remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. There, Obama arrogantly misappropriated Jesus's spiritual challenge to individuals, claiming those words as validating and authorizing abusive use of coercive power by himself and his cronies to "take" from some in order to buy votes and accumulate more power to themselves--all in the name of "helping" the beneficiaries of such unconstitutional "takings."
Hear Samuel Adams:
"Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams
And:
“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.” - Samuel Adams
Dr. Carson's true humility in speaking on behalf of liberty before a national audience may not please or soothe the "progressives" who have worked so hard to censor and eliminate the ideas which give meaning to the Bill of Rights and Constitution, but his words need to penetrate the fog of the semantic war which is being waged against liberty.
"All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON
From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), originally published in 1891,
It was their error in having him speak.
They expected platitudes and instead got a taste of reality.
They violated their own Alinsky “Rules for Radicals “:
#2) “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat.
#3) “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
They invited an independant critical thinker , who knows from professional expierience of the ObamaCare disaster.
He used Alinsky as well, and drove them to argue ethics ,rather than deal with the real problem :
Alinsky Rule #11) “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
It is time that we start to familarize ourselves with The Alinsky Rules .
Once we understand them , we can employ these same tactics and be more effective in getting our message out.
Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals
<< http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals >>
1) “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people.
2) “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3) “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4) “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters.
You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5) “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating.
It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6) “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
7) “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
8) “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance.
9) “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10) “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
11) “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
12) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.
Go after people and not institutions...
During the debate Romney kept saying obama waited 14 days before he called Benghazi a terrorist attack. obama looked at Crowley and said “Candy?” as if saying “You’re up.” Then she dipped Romney in the grease.
Weak republican that he is, he simply looked like a deer caught in the headlights. What he should have done was ask her “What’s that paper you have in your hand and why do you have it?”
Would you like a drink of water?
NEVER defend against their scurrious attacks.
Ignore and attack right back!
Elsie ~ :” Would you like a drink of water? “
EXACTLY !!
The Rubio drink got how many plays on enemedia ?
That’s exactly how the Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” gets applied by the media.
RULE #12) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.
Go after PEOPLE (!) and not institutions...
Bump.....
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