Tag Archives: Republican

Mentoring

I can’t believe my best friend is a Republican

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This article is from the ultra-left-wing Salon.com. (H/T Mary)

Basically, it’s written by a crazy left-wing liberal Democrat woman, and she explains what she thinks about her conservative Republican friend, and why. I think that conservatives (and Christians) can learn a lot from this article. Aside from the obvious point about how conservatives should make friends with liberals, here are four points I want to emphasize. Point one: liberals respect study, intelligence and academic credentials. Point two: Liberals remember when conservatives treat them nicely. Point three: liberals think that you don’t believe what you say you believe unless they see you professing what you believe openly and confidently in front of liberals. Point four: talking to liberals intelligently and explaining why you believe what you believe with the authority of public square knowledge creates tolerance and respect for conservative ideas.

Point one:

In the beginning, it didn’t matter. We were more concerned with our own mutual war on body fat. And we soon found on the periphery of weight loss the other things we had in common: a love of books and science, a hatred of hysterics.

[…]She believes what she’s telling me, and she’s studied the issues. That might be what is so difficult: She has the same education as I have, and yet she has made different decisions, decisions that are so counter to what I believe. Decisions I find abhorrent.

[…]Janet’s willingness to associate with so many liberal friends — though I know she seeks refuge in chat rooms and magazines that share her beliefs — makes her a better and more interesting person. She has her beliefs challenged constantly. She is more well-read and educated in her politics than most of the liberals I know. Too many liberals I know are lazy, they have a belief system that consists of making fun of Glenn Beck and watching “The Daily Show.”

Point two:

Then I remember the things that don’t get discussed in our debates — how she held my hand through a recent surgical procedure, rubbing it and distracting me the way a mother would, how she calms my fears about parenting, how she has been a family to me in a town where I have none. How that right-wing, gun-loving, flag-wearing, union-busting Republican still thinks, after all this time, and with so much information to the contrary, that I can lose and keep off weight.

Point three:

Her daughters’ names are Liberty, Honor and Victory, the latter named at the time we invaded Iraq. (Her son’s name, inexplicably, is Bernard.) She owns a bust of Ronald Reagan and cried when he died, proving that she, perhaps alone with Nancy, had remembered that he was still alive. There is a bumper sticker on her very, very large SUV that says “REPEAL,” and I believe it refers to the healthcare bill.

Point four:

…I think having a Republican friend is making me a better liberal. We need friends who differ from us. It’s easy to watch Republican extremism and think, “Wow, they’re crazy.” But when someone is sitting face to face with us, when someone we admire and respect is telling us they believe differently, it is at this fine point that we find nuance, and we begin to understand exactly how we got to this point in history. We lose something critical when we surround ourselves with people who agree with us all the time. We lose out on the wisdom of seeing the other side.

I recommend you read the whole thing. It’s really encouraging to hear the liberal valuing the differences of her conservative friend, and recognizing how having sincere, intelligent people on the other side makes her more articulate and informed about the liberal views that she believes.

And when I tell you all to emphasize raising children who will be intelligent, effective and influential, this is why. Leftists respect intelligence and conviction. The reason why they try to suppress us is because they think we are stupid, that we don’t really have reasons for what we believe – but just inherited it from our parents. It’s up to us to study these issues and debate with skill when the opportunity arises.

News

Supreme Court narrowly sides with private schools against government

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From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

The Supreme Court’s big school choice decision yesterday is notable mainly for its insight into the progressive mind. To wit, no fewer than four Justices seem to believe that all wealth belongs to the government, and then government allows citizens to keep some of it by declining to tax it.

At issue in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn was a state tax credit for donations to organizations that offer scholarships for private schools, including (but not exclusively) religious schools. A group of taxpayers sued, claiming that religion was being subsidized on their dime, in violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The district court tossed out this novel church-state theory, only to have it revived by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday’s 5-4 decision was another well-deserved rebuke to the nation’s leading judicial activists who dominate that appellate court.

[…]And what do you know, four Justices assume precisely that. Both of President Obama’s nominees joined the four dissenters, and newcomer Elena Kagan delivered a fiery 24-page apologia for that position, claiming that “the distinction” between appropriations and tax credits “is one in search of a difference.” There’s a good debate to be had about tax credits (see below), but one question for Justice Kagan: Is the government also establishing religion by not imposing a 100% tax rate on churches, mosques and synagogues?With one more vote, the current Court’s liberal minority would surely ban school choice involving any religious schools. The Arizona decision shows again that the Court is only a single vote away from many decisions not all that far removed from those of the Ninth Circuit.

You can also listen to a 5-minute podcast on the decision from the Hugh Hewitt show right here.

Note that Obama’s two new appointees sided against Christian schools and private schools. Yet some brain-damaged Christians actually vote for Democrats, and claim to be Christians. (And they claim to want to get married and to raise children who will presumably be Christians, too!). School choice is as central an issue to informed Christians as is opposition to no-fault divorce, same-sex marriage and abortion.

Must-see videos on education policy

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News

Republican Paul Ryan proposes over 6 trillion in spending cuts

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Rep. Paul Ryan
Rep. Paul Ryan

Finally. From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

[Tuesday] morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions.

[…]The president’s recent budget proposal would accelerate America’s descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president’s budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage’s analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Read the whole article for the details of the budget, which include:

  • Reducing spending
  • Welfare reform
  • Retirement program reform
  • Health care program reform
  • Budget enforcement
  • Tax reform

Here’s the official video:

Here’s the official page for Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget proposal.

Here’s a little more motivation from the grown-ups at Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

By the Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ own estimates, we are running headlong into a fiscal tsunami. All told, the government’s entitlement accountants say, we have roughly $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities — $340,836 and change for every American alive today.

Even if you’re generous and reduce that by the amount of assets the government has, the future red ink at the end of the 2010 fiscal year was still about $57 trillion — $7 trillion for federal pensions, $17 trillion for Social Security, $22 trillion for Medicare, and about $11 trillion or so in debt. That’s $481,000 for every U.S. household.

I am sad because children being born today will have a lower standard of living tomorrow. We are spending away their future and it has got to stop! Why fuss about “saving the planet” when we are saddling the young with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt?

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