(2007-09-10) — As Congressional Democrats and several public opinion polls had predicted, Gen. David H. Petraeus will bow to White House pressure and exaggerate progress in Iraq this week when he testifies before Congress.
The U.S. Army commander in Iraq is prepared to report that the formerly war-torn nation is now “the safest democracy on the planet.”
“The surge has destroyed every last terrorist in the country,” Gen. Petraeus will say, according to a leaked transcript. “Casualties from terror strikes are now so low we’ve had to lay off the local folks we used to employ to count the graves and body parts.”
According the the general’s planned testimony, “Baghdad is now so safe that Iraqi parents let their infants play in the street without supervision. The toughest challenge our troops face is steering a HumVee around all the babies crawling in the road.”
Despite the stunning progress, Gen. Petraeus will reportedly call for maintaining the military surge through the end of 2008, “because our troops are enjoying the relaxing vacation so much they don’t want to come home.”
51 responses so far ↓
1 Maggie // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:30 am
Numero Uno.Sometimes I lapse into my native tongue.
2 boberinyetagain // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:48 am
“steering around the babies”
You are “the man” as usual Scott.
And, again, I’ll admit that something, somehow seems to be improving and again, cut and run (now, never having gone still the best idea) is a lousy idea of course but…again I ask, where do we hope this goes and, prehaps more importantly, what do we do if it doesn’t go there? (if they “freely choose” something that we don’t like a bit?)
3 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:58 am
Drats, when we had a grade A dairy goat farm in Minnesota we looked for a Surge milking system for our needs with no luck. Now Surge has one.
“Milking Systems for Sheep and Goats
Specialists for sheep and goats: Surge has professional milking equipment for small and large herds.”
That is what we are talking about, right?
4 gafisher // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:08 am
Good question, Bober, to the extent it hasn’t been made clear yet to at least a vocal minority of people here. Of course, the Iraqi people have chosen — remember those purple fingers? — and it’s pretty obvious their choice was not satisfactory to the majority in Congress. Nevertheless, it was their choice and so far our Military has been there to support them.
While there’s a lot of disagreement, at least outside the Administration, about where “we the people” want this to go, I hope we’re all agreed we don’t want it coming here, as it will if we abandon the Iraqi people.
5 gafisher // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:10 am
God Bless America!
6 mig // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:28 am
Democrats and liberals won’t believe any positive news from the front. They already have thier press releases ready to denounce the Bush Administration, since that is what this is about. It isn’t about Iraq or the money spent. If it were a core belief that we should not be waging war, there would have been an outcry, or a whimper at best against the Clintons invading Kosovo.
7 mig // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:37 am
Dhimwhitties: “MIAMI (AFP) — In a dramatic sign of the fast-changing US society, the US Democratic presidential hopefuls late Sunday held a debate in Spanish that was broadcast on the main US Spanish-language television network.”
Maybe if the general spoke arabic someone would agree to listen.
8 boberinyetagain // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:47 am
Mig, there are actually some folks that are a tad more reasonable. If I’m their voice here (not sure why I would be but hey) then we wanted a clear idea going in where we were hoping to get. We did not have that. In fact it took 4 years to come up with what seems a 1/2 way reasonable plan for something but we still aren’t sure what.
So, 4 years of foundering, actually making things worse for quite some time has led us to this, a partly workable plan with no clear cut goal and, even if we had that, no assurance that things will go as we want.
Well, speaking for myself, if the above description sounds like the description of a good plan, then I must think of the term incorrectly.
Please stop with the “follow us home” nonsense. It makes a shaky argument a laughable one. They will attack us every chance they get, war in Iraq or no war in Iraq. If we ever do leave Iraq no one involved will suddenly decide to visit America because they now have nothing to do there. If they aren’t trying to kill us (and they aren’t so much anymore) then they are more than content to kill other Iraqis and/or other residents nearby. They have been doing this for thousands of years, my bet it that they will continue with or without us there.
Anyone want to be $1 on that?
9 nylecoj // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:51 am
Kosovo hmmm…. can anyone say civil war?
10 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:13 am
boberin: Do you really think that FDR had a “clear idea and where we were hoping to get” other than, “defeat the Germans and Japanese”? Do you really think that when we entered WWII that we had “a workable plan with a clear cut goal and an assurance that things would go the way we wanted”? Seriously think about what you just wrote. This is war. This is not a movie script where the writers lay out the sequence of action and the white hats receive “only a flesh wound” and all live to see their grandchildren while the black hats are left hanging from the nearest tree. Go read your history of the German and Japanese reconstruction and see how many years it took. Read Life magazines from that time frame and see how much our GI’s were adored - NOT. My mother graduated from high school in Germany in 1948 and I grew up with stories from that time. It amazes me how people today base every view they have on their own personal immediate history and in ignorance of past history. If they see a car wreck, it’s the worst car wreck that has ever happened because they have never seen a car wreck before. Maybe that’s the problem…we are a Hollywood society that can’t distinguish reality from a box office hit.
11 its-just-me // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:29 am
Well said, c-a-t.
Some people think life is like a soap opera.
Nobody can claim to be in the right, because everyone is cheating/stealing/just plain crazy.
Everything is a major tragedy. Having a cough lands you in the hospital.
12 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:38 am
Just look at Japan. During WWII they were building airplanes and ships out of our scrap steel because they didn’t have steel mills like ours. Now they build cars that outscore everything we try to build. They even have cars in NASCAR.
Just think, with no plans (who needs a steeenkin’ plan) Iraq will likely be making all of our TV’s, toys, and cars in, oh let’s say, fifteen years.
13 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:47 am
Ms Rightwing, Ink and I-J-M:
I seriously wonder how liberals can sit and watch a close football game of their home team. I can imagine them screaming at their team, when it is only 1 point ahead, “You might as well give up! You don’t have a plan! You are supposed to be winning with no problems! Why aren’t you making this come out the way I want it to??? Just go hit the locker room and forfeit.”
14 Hawkeye // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:50 am
Hey Scott, If it were only so.
15 Fred Sinclair // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I’ve read that there are more Americans killed here than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. America cannot be considered in the safest democracy list since America isn’t a democracy. The theory of evolution is successfully working here.
We began, as I understand it, as a Republic (”….and to the Republic for which it stands….”) - we evolved into a Democracy and are now wrapping up our evolving into a Socialist country.
Agressiveness on the part of liberal devotees of Marx, Lennin and Stalin have worked tirelessly with their long range plans. They have infiltrated our government with a virtual total takover of the once grand Democratic Party. They have teamed up with the athiest to remove God and Christ from ever venue possible see; “The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States” by Benjamin F. Morris (Now available from NewsMax) They’ve taken over most of our schools, the entertainment industry, the news media, etc. all without firing very many shots.
This country was founded as a Christian country, by Christians, for Christians. To look at the major “Ivy League” Universities today, one would be hard pressed to realize that they were founded as Christian Schools.
We should have learned from the Native Americans what happens when you have weak and loose border security.
We’ve come a long way, baby!
Heirborn Ranger
16 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Fred:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”
attributed to Arnold Toynbee and Alexander Tyler
17 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:54 pm
conserve-a-tips
Liberals don’t watch football, they watch sissy boys play soccer
Boy do I get slammed every time I say that one.
18 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Headline on my news homepage:
“House Panel Grills Iraq Commander”
I hope they brought lots of Heinz Ketchup. Hand me a little shoulder meat please.
19 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:59 pm
ahhh. Soccer, you say. I would have thought that you were going to say tennis (a girly non-contact sport). I can say that because my grandfather was a champion tennis player (but he was a real man!)
20 Fred Sinclair // Sep 10, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Hi conserv-a-tips! You go girl! You, Toynbee & Tyler couldn’t be more correct. In the words of the late, great Robert A. Heinlin, in his novel “Time Enough For Love”.
“When the people learn that they can vote themselves champagne and cake and force you to pay for it……they will.”
The people refered to in his comment are most often called “Members of the Democrat Party” or “Republicans In Name Only (RINOS)”
Heirborn Ranger
21 mig // Sep 10, 2007 at 1:08 pm
heh heh Boberin, a reasonable voice. Gawk!
22 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Ms Rightwing, Ink:
Ketchup??? Aaacckkk. That would be A-1 Steak sauce because that 4 star gen’ral is ‘A number 1 Prime Stakeout’. Hoping he just lays them low.
23 antodav // Sep 10, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Fred,
“We began, as I understand it, as a Republic (”….and to the Republic for which it stands….”) - we evolved into a Democracy and are now wrapping up our evolving into a Socialist country.”
You mean devolving, don’t you?
Ms. RW,
Soccer RULES!
24 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Petraeus to call Iraq “Safest Democracy on Earth”
Excuse the Phrench, but Iraq’s democracy is probably a damn sight safer than the kind of “democracy” I’m seeing from the Democratic-controlled Congress this morning! What a pathetic spectacle with seditious Democratic Senators spewing their lying filth as they attempt to undermine General Petraeus’ report BEFORE THEY’VE EVEN HEARD IT!
A firing squad would be too good for them.
25 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 3:36 pm
BTW, I’m growing increasingly weary of listening to the utter filth of Demoncrats who are quite literally to the left of Stalin. The emerging axis of evil consisting of Islamofascists, international communists and the Demoncrap Party is becoming increasingly apparent with each passing day. I can’t tell their anti-American/hate-Bush rhetoric apart any more … seriously. Osama bin Chomsky’s last video message was torn right from the playbook of the DNC!
26 MargeinMI // Sep 10, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Roger Federer ain’t no girlie man-he’s a freaking machine! (My poor, poor, sweet Rafa had boo-boo knees and got knocked out in the quarter finals. sob.)
Thus ends the U.S. Open report.
On Topic: I was going to comment on the last thread about numbers: The numbers I’m looking for are how many insurgents (people shooting at us, civilian or not) are we capturing and killing compared to how many we loose?????? Weapons caches raided? Folks coming across from Syria and Iran by stealth who are caught? It’s like having a business report that only tells of costs, but never mentions that there’s any profit being made. Arghhh!
But, now with this new thread, I see the number is stated: “every last terrorist in the country.” That works for me! And babies in the street to boot!
Thanks Scott for this uplifting news. I’m so glad I get my news at Scrappleface!
27 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Darthmeister ~ tell me if my memory is fading, because for some reason the Reagan years are a blank to me (my husband had left me with two young children and I was a shell of a human being at that point), but I do remember the Democrats going after him with a vengeance, but I don’t remember this amount of vitriol and hate. I don’t remember feeling as if they hoped and wanted for the country to go down the tubes just for the sake of saying, “See?” To me, this treasonous behavior is different today.
28 Maggie // Sep 10, 2007 at 4:32 pm
CAT…..re#13…..great analogy.
BTW….I watched just a little of Gen Petraeus crucifiction on Capitol Hill and had to turn it off. Maybe I can stomach the sound-bites later.
Fred hit the nail on the head a few threads back when he said “if Schumer didn’t commit treason,then there’s no such thing as treason”.
29 Beerme // Sep 10, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Bober,
Maybe it’s just them durn Iraqis that can’t seem to get along. They must be some kinda subhuman creatures who can’t seem to wrap their ignorant Arab minds around that Democracy-thingie, eh? Been a’doin this for three thousand years, they has!
I’ll bet you a dollar that if the US stays the course and the Iraqis quell their unrest, the entire region’s progress towards freedom and stability will have been accelerated by ten years over where it would have been.
Yup!
30 Effeminem // Sep 10, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Hey Marge,
http://terroristdeathwatch.com has casualty figures. I think the site is reliable, but the problem is it only counts combat deaths. There have also been a lot of executions and prison sentences handed out. Not to mention suicide bombers.
31 gafisher // Sep 10, 2007 at 6:15 pm
C-A-T Re #27: The Democrats certainly did attack Ronald Reagan with a sincere and terrible vengeance, but it was from what they perceived as a position of power; after all, they’d controlled the Congress for half a century and thought they were quite invincible. They acted as playground bullies, but still believed they were dealing with a temporary inconvenience.
After the Republican Party gained the minds and hearts of the people in 1994, though, the Democrats turned from playground bullies to cornered rats, convinced they’d lost unfairly and determined to regain their power at any expense — ANY expense, including the ties which they began forming with avowed enemies of Democracy such as Communist China.
The current level of vitriol arises from several sources, most notably their conviction that it is their Manifest Destiny to rule, er, govern this country and that any loss they incur, the two recent Presidential losses being the most infuriating, must have resulted from some sort of cheating by those who have no right to lead. A second major reason for the current level of Democrat Party acid is the knowledge that their dreams from the 60s will die with the current generation unless they can get them tightly woven into the fabric of Government. With the country so evenly divided they know their opportunity is fading fast.
IMHO …
32 conserve-a-tips // Sep 10, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Gafisher: Thanks. I’m not crazy then. It has been my theory for quite some time, that in 1994, the parties switched places in more ways then one. The Republican party took on the mantle of the old Democrat party, gaining many conservative Democrats, and the Demcrats slid further left, gaining snobbish big monied Republicans and leaving a hole where the snobbish, big money Republicans had once controlled the party.
All of a sudden, the Republican party, instead of the Democrat party, became the party of the ‘regular man’ and faced the opportunity to hold the country for many years. But they forgot their whole reason for being there and they panicked - thinking that they had to have those snobbish, big monied Republicans instead of recognizing their job as representative of conservative Americans and of what is best for the country.
The last several years has been a lesson in Republicans trying to woo corporate America (in more ways than one), i.e. the immigration issue, the Mexican trucking fiasco, the superhighway, the outsourcing, etc. and completely turning their backs on their most valuable voters. The Democrats have absolutely nothing to offer those voters and now there is a vacuum for the normal, everyday, average conservative American. The Republicans will get beaten over and over again, simply from nonvoters. Perhaps they will figure it out after they hit the mat a few more times.
33 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Beerme, make that ten year acceleration a one hundred year acceleration and you’d be closer to the truth.
c.a.t. , I remember the Reagan years with great clarity. The Demoncraps were lying filth even back then, but they weren’t seditious. Back then there was such a thing as our politics stopping at the ocean’s edge. But that clearly ain’t true anymore when you have Demoncraps agreeing more with the hate-Bush/anti-American political rhetoric of the likes of Hugo Chavez, Osama bin Laden, and the rest of the global thugs who all accuse America of being imperialistic and evil.
I hear increasingly frustrated leftists whining about the need for a “revolution” since their Democratic pansies in Congress won’t kowtow to their hissy fits. I say BRING IT ON, LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH. The question is, who will these panty-waisted leftists get to fight their revolution … al Qaeda? Putin? The United Nations?
I’m sick on tired of these pretend patriots who savage our Commander in Chief, our generals, and patronize our fighting men and women with their pussilanimous sophistry of “We Support the Troops.” Already some anti-war liberals in our community are abandoning even that lie and I compliment those folks for at least that bit of honesty!
34 camojack // Sep 10, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Looks like he said we’ll hopefully be reducing our presence there by this time next year.
We shall see…
35 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Effeminem and c.a.t.,
I’ve been seeing some interviews of the people who put out the fraudulent John Hopkins “Civilian” Casualty Study that claimed supposedly 625,000 Iraqis have died since March 2003. The dirty little secret about the study is if there is any legitimacy to it it is a measure of how many radical insurgent MAMMs (military-aged Muslim males) were killed! That is, the study didn’t account for the fact or had questions which attempted to filter out those deaths of military-aged Iraqi males who were offed fighting their little jihad against Coalition Forces.
Richard Miniter interviewed Gilbert Burnham, a guiding force behind the John Hopkins “survey”. Here’s the defining moment of the interview:
Miniter: One of your findings in the Lancet article: “Across Iraq, deaths and injuries from violent causes were concentrated in adolescent to middle age men.” That is, males of combat age. Does this suggest that collateral damage is unlikely to be the cause of death?
Burnham: It may will be that some or even many of the males could have been combatants. It is not possible to judge the motives of the dead through surveys. We could record only what households told us.
Clearly Burnham’s answer was a clever way to obscure the very real possibility that the vast majority of those Iraqi “civilians” were actually military-aged Iraq males who belong to Sunni or Shia militias or who attached themselves to al Qaeda in Iraq. Elsewhere in the interview Burnham admits the survey didn’t make distinctions between Iraqi males (who comprised the vast majority of “casualties” in the survey) who died while fighting their jihad as opposed to truly innocent civilians who were being murdered by their own Muslim brothers, or on those rare occasions were being killed by American forces when used as human shields by “insurgents” and al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.
Here’s an interesting, though too generous analysis of the John Hopkin’s study.
36 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Shocking headline of the century:
Minnesota Democrats not impressed with plans for troop withdrawal
37 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:34 pm
No Sense of Decency: Moveon’s McCarthyism Moment.
Embed Michael Yon says General Petraeus’ report is completely accurate and verifiable.
38 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Ms RightWing, Minnesota Democrats can just go back to eating their cheese … oh wait, that’s Wisconsin. That’s okay, Democrats are the same everywhere - stuck on stupid.
39 Darthmeister // Sep 10, 2007 at 10:49 pm
This incredibly perceptive analysis will make you despise the Democratic leadership and its shameless pandering to its whacko base even more.
40 mig // Sep 11, 2007 at 4:57 am
There is a pop quiz for Americans on the Anti-war movementfrom American Thinker. Here’s just a couple of the questions.
True or False? The protesters you see on television are just ordinary Americans, making huge, personal sacrifices of time and money just to let the Country know how much discontent there is over the Iraq War.
True or False? “Americans Against Escalation in Iraq” is in reality a “multi-faceted, multi-million dollar effort,” designed specifically to “target” more than 60 members of the American Congress who are blocking end-the-War-NOW legislation. They are essentially paid lobbyists.
41 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 11, 2007 at 7:12 am
Today, six years hence liberals are still arguing about the war. How many of us have forgotten. I haven’t. I still cry and as I am putting this up once again I weep. So we never forget I shall repost the woman I was picked to honor
http://shellyscafe.blogspot.com/
42 Ms RightWing, Ink // Sep 11, 2007 at 7:13 am
PUSH
43 mig // Sep 11, 2007 at 7:18 am
Feeeling 1/2 mast myself…
44 Libby Gone // Sep 11, 2007 at 7:51 am
Yea I see CNN is asking how much 9/11 is enough. I believe there will never be enough to remind us of the brutal hatred expressed in those acts. Sheeple in this country and others are so insulated in their ivory towers they cannot comprehend basic values. Evil was perpetuated and needs to be addressed and dealt with. Our generation needs to provide an example to the future, like it or not. Where there is evil, the righteous must rise to the occasion.
45 Darthmeister // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:04 am
Iran’s Proxy War With America
46 Darthmeister // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:14 am
Before the announcement, new evidence surfaced that the Clinton camp had dismissed allegations about Hsu made by a Southern California businessman. In an e-mail obtained by The Times, a Clinton campaign staffer told a California Democratic Party official in June that the businessman’s concerns were unwarranted.
“I can tell you with 100 certainty that Norman Hsu is NOT involved in a ponzi scheme,” wrote Samantha Wolf, who was a campaign finance director for the Western states.”He is COMPLETELY legit.”
In fact, Hsu was a fugitive wanted on a 15-year-old bench warrant stemming from an early 1990s investment fraud case.
And liberal dimbulbs want to trust this country to sHrillary Clinton who surrounds herself with people like this?
It’s also fascinating how the lamestream media has refused to go after Hillary’s campaign despite the fact between $700,000 to $900,000 of dirty money found its way into her campaign coffers. Her campaign still refuses to release the names of those who were used as cash conduits by Norman Hsu. So much for “transparency”.
47 mig // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:37 am
Bumper thought for the day:
“If you don’t provide for yourself, somebody else is going to provide for you, and you might not like it.” -Robert Frost
48 Fred Sinclair // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:58 am
They walk among us.
In WWII there were traitors here in America who applauded Hitler. Henry Ford was one, in part because he hated Jews. In addition there were many Nazis who (mostly in private) gave each other the upraised arm salute, including a hearty “Heil Hitler!”.
My how times have changed! Back then the traitors kept a very low profile. Today they openly boast and brag about how much they hate America and how happy they are to gleefully assist in the victory of our enemy in this war. They rejoice at the death of every American who is killed in combat. They weep bitter tears at the death of every Muslim Terrorist (except of course the death of every successful suicide bomber, whose death they celebrate)
I suspect that since our Revolutionary War there has not been such a united effort to overthrow the government as our current crop of liberals who have already taken over the Democrat Party. If they had control of the military forces, I do not doubt but what they would bring about a coup d’etat and install their Socialist/Communist form of government.
I hope and pray to God that Americans are never allowed to forget Sept. 11, 2001.
On TV just now some idiot named Bloomberg just said he was grateful that we’ve been so lucky with no more horrible incidents in the last six years.
Hello….Mr. Bloomberg, “incidents”? - “so lucky”? would it gag you to admit that Lucky’s name is George W. Bush? And his nom-de-plume is “The Patriot Act”?
Heirborn Ranger
49 Darthmeister // Sep 11, 2007 at 9:01 am
From TigerHawk blog:
“MoveOn uses language that subverts the Army as an institution for purposes that go beyond the next vote in Congress. It not only wants us to think General Petraeus is lying today, but that any soldier who argues that Iraq is anything other than a defeat is lying. Not disagreeing, but lying. There was a time when even the Democrats understood how terrible it was to subvert the Army as an institution.”
Yes, and that time is long gone as the Demoncrappers slide further and further to the dark side of the force, revelling in their kool-aid induced suicidal insanity.
50 conserve-a-tips // Sep 11, 2007 at 9:13 am
Good morning on this somber day.
Darthmeister, I read your link in #39 and I don’t feel sorry for them at all. The issue isn’t that they have to pander to their base. The issue is that they think they have to pander to their base. They created the bed in which they think they are forced to lie.
And is that really their base? I know too many people in the Democrat party who are disgusted with their leadership’s stand on things. Their base is the average American worker, not these liberal, left-wing kookburgers who happen to be the squeakier wheel with the money from George Soros with which to lobby. If Democrats - and Republicans too - stood up for what is right, rather than what is politically expedient, not concerned with power but with right, this nation would be turned upside down.
The sad thing is that the average American worker has put into the Democrat seats, individuals who have neither a backbone, nor a code of ethics. They stopped seeking Godly men and, instead, sought men with money and power. The Republicans are fast going the same path.
I am reading through the Bible in one year and one of yesterday’s verses jumped out at me with full force:
When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing. Proverbs 11:7
The Republicans did not lose the election because of the war. They lost the election because keeping power at all costs became more important then standing up for conservative values and so they lost both. They operated out of fear rather than strength in right. These leaders have got to realize that power is nothing. Man has no lasting power. Only God has lasting power. And that is why, if my party does not give me a Godly man for whom to vote for president, I will not be voting. The Republicans will lose, not because of the Democrats, but because of their own grab for power.
51 gafisher // Sep 14, 2007 at 4:33 am
C-A-T Re#50: See John 19:11 — neither Republicans nor Democrats have any power unless God grants it, but remember that your vote is power He has granted you. To refuse to vote very effectively lends your tacit approval — your God-given political power — to whoever wins, which is almost certain to be the candidate you and other non-voters want least.
Wittholding one’s vote as “punishment” is really neither sensible nor Christian. It is not sensible because it does not so much punish the intended “victim” as reward the opponent; the real punishment winds up on your own head and that of your children. It is not Christian because “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” [Hebrews 10:30] It’s not our job to punish bad officials for non-criminal behavior; Christians know the Lord will take care of that, and far more effectively than we can do it ourselves.
In America today, what was once a political spectrum has become a virtual dichotomy, with the real choice controlled not so much by the voters as by those who refuse to vote and thus hand victory to the side least likely to have received those withheld votes. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23] Unless Jesus Himself shows up on the ballot, our choices will always be limited to those who are imperfect.
Our duty as Christian voters is not to “choose the lesser of two evils,” but neither is it to give evil free reign (quite literally in the political context). Since all our choices will fall short of the glory of God, we must support the candidate (or position) most likely to lead us toward holiness, or least likely to lead us away. With power (authority) comes responsibility; the power of the vote is one of the most awesome yet least appreciated that God has endowed to us. To waste that gift would be worse than foolish; it would be sinful.
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