McCain Is the Only Hope of the GOP & America

[Aquila]

I think God commanded Israel to do so but we are not part of that covenant. God would have us preach the gospel and reach a gay person's heart with the power and love of Christ...not a death sentence. It's no wonder they're afraid of Christians and that so many are afraid of conservative Christians in politics when we say things like this.

There is another thing, Dave, while you say it's the role of civil government, to you that's just a theological statement relating to what you see as a biblical political philosophy. To you it's just a statement embodying your feelings against gays (makes me wonder brother) and what you think should be in your idea of an "ideal" Christian society.

But there are others out there who read statements like what you're making and they feel that our government isn't executing or punishing gays....so they take matters into their own hands. Many hate groups feed off of this kind of stuff. I'm not saying that you intend this with your words but your words offer them the inspiration and sense of moral mission. This is why some gays have been beaten to death in violent crimes of nothing but pure hate. The people beating them to death feel that they are fulfilling a moral mission that the government is failing to perform and so they feel morally justified. We as Christians shouldn't feel free to just rattle off anything like this...and not expect to be held to an account for the repercussions of our words. What if some angry, abused, hurting Apostolic reads your words and feels like taking all his angst out on some gay man in a dark alley on the seedy side of town? That gay man is someone's son, maybe someone's dad, and he's a soul Jesus died on the cross for. Dave words have power. Words can bring life or words can kill. We should be "Christian" with our words. The other thing that bothers me about this is that only two brothers here have actually called you to an account for what you're saying and supporting. I'm surprised the forum administrators haven't stepped in. Dave, this is just a hair short of advocating violence against people on Apostolic Friends Forum. It's not right and I'm shocked that this line of thought is even remotely tolerated here. Maybe I'm in the minority but I love sinners. I want to see them saved not killed. And even if you're joking your words can be fuel to a fire that could cost someone their lives. Back in the day Christians used to support slavery and say many awful things about black people. There were lynchings and hangings of escaped slaves and the Bible was often invoked as a justification for the action. This really frightens me.

It might not matter to many of us...but to those with gay loved ones that we're praying for it's very upsetting. I think the word "offensive" is too soft for what these words help to feed. I don't think Jesus is glorified by us saying that the government should kill gay people. I think it does violence to our mission and causes a lost world to fear us and hold us with contempt as opposed to realizing that we actually care for them as people. No wonder liberals and gays think we're dangerous to society. If I didn't know you were in the fringe minority I'd wonder if they were right. But what you're saying does make the rest of us look bad. It makes us look like Christians who want to wage Jihad against gay people. I'm real upset with the whole thing Dave.

Let's also consider that some of here WERE once bound by that spirit. Some here WERE once in that lifestyle before Jesus found us and cleansed us. Some here WERE once resisting the truth and fighting God's convicting Spirit in our lives. Some here WERE once dead set against becoming a Christian...but God finally broke the ice and set the sinner free through the power of the Holy Ghost. Your words cause the blood to run cold. Why? Because at one point....you would have executed some of us long before God was finished dealing with us.

I commend Praxeus and Chris for standing up against what I've read here. I think they used strong words but nothing close to saying someone should be killed.

I don't want Apostolic Friends Forum to be known as a harbor for this kind of thing. I'm bothered as to why this hasn't been addressed.

For our hardened brothers I pray that they might lean on their mercy and preach the gospel.

For our defenders of the sinner, I see your love for the lost and pray you continue on in grace preaching the Gospel of Jesus.

And for our sinner friends who may have read this, the vast majority of us wouldn't stand by and allow a government as proposed here harm you in any way. We want to see you saved not harmed.

God bless you all.

Amen.

[Aquila]

Now back to McCain, I think he's too old. He might beat Hillary but it would be an uphill battle to beat Obama.

[justasaint]

Mcain Was a part of but not convicted in the savings and loan scandal.

His wife has had problems with prescription drugs.

His father in law owns the budwiser distributorship in Phoenix AZ and at least another small town in AZ

He is divorced.

Food for thought
point was no one lines up with our convictions completely.

Obama?
I am leaning towards Rommney

[Pressing-On]

A few insights remaining on McCain, for the pot:

• Pundits on both the left and right declared he was sunk if he aligned himself with Bush on Iraq. "Get away from the war. Give up on Bush." He didn't and look at him now.
  
• Now that Bush's Iraq policy is working, the media pundits are proclaiming Iraq a "secondary issue." Now they want to talk about the stock market and the housing crisis. But the American people aren't dumb.
  
• His campaign finance ideas are terrible and he does seem to pander to the liberals. But, If Bush is a conservative, then McCain is a conservative. He’s very strong on defense, he’s fiscally conservative, and he’s pro-life. He may be too old and he may be too conciliatory. If there’s a problem with McCain it’s not that he’s a liberal in disguise.
  
• Electability remains a valid issue. Politics is a choice among the options that are actually on the table.
  
• Republicans are seeking a candidate who has enough broad-based support to prevent a Hillary or Obama presidency, but who still defends conservative principles, say, 82 percent of the time, according to the American Conservative Union.
  
• On the Democratic side - Obama, naively, continues to attack the crafty Hillary for voting for the Iraq war, and Hillary continues to duck and weave in the distinctively Clinton fashion. These two are both hoping and staking their candidacy on an American loss in Iraq. If America wins in Baghdad, their chances to recapture the Oval Office are sorely diminished. It's hard for me to see how Americans can sympathize with such partisans of defeat. Compared to these two, McCain cannot help but stand tall.

[Pressing-On]

This is an exceptionally well written article!!!



Come to the Aid of the Party
By Burt Prelutsky
Monday, February 4, 2008

If he had thrown his hat in the ring, my first choice for president would have been Newt Gingrich, probably the smartest guy in politics. I still hope that whoever gets elected this November will make Gingrich his secretary of state.

But we don’t live in a perfect world so, several months ago, I came out in favor of Rudy Giuliani. My main reason for doing so was that I trusted him to deal in a serious way with our Islamic enemies. Unlike, say, George Bush, who couldn’t say enough nice things about Muhammad’s religion, Rudy didn’t seem to think he had to pussyfoot around the subject for fear of being politically incorrect. In other words, Giuliani made it clear that he was running to become president of the United States, and not the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. Perhaps he made it too clear.

I would have voted for him if he hadn’t bowed out, but that doesn’t mean that if Romney, Huckabee or even John McCain, gets the nomination, I plan to stay home and sulk on election day.

I happen to think that people who support Clinton or Obama have a screw loose, but they strike me as being far more rational than my fellow Republicans who are threatening to boycott the election if their favorite candidate doesn’t head up the ticket. I can’t tell you how many people have written to me insisting that they’re sick and tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. I understand that they’re trying to convey their frustration, but I can’t help sniffing the undeniable stench of self-righteousness.

It’s as if they’re unaware that politicians are human beings, and not God. They’re people just like the rest of us, I point out, comprised in part of ambition, greed, arrogance and vanity, not to mention, on occasion, integrity, courage and even altruism. Let’s face the facts, ladies and gentlemen -- even those politicians we agree with also want to ride in well-guarded limousines and fly on Air Force One, have everybody stand up when they enter a room, be able to give tongue-lashings to senators and congressmen, have “Hail to the Chief” as their theme song, and never ever have to press one for English.

If there’s a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it’s that none of the current candidates possess the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn’t exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Governor Reagan gave Governor Jerry Brown a run for his money -- or should I say our money? -- when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large part for the streets of our cities being turned into public latrines by the unwashed, the unwanted and the insane when, to save a few bucks, he oversaw the closing of California’s mental hospitals. He also signed the nation’s most liberal abortion bill. Although he had a change of heart a scant six months later, one never hears him condemned for flip-flopping on the issue.

And, lest we forget, as president, he opened the floodgates to illegal aliens by signing an amnesty bill in the mid-80s, and, for good measure, appointed Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, neither of whom was the answer to a conservative’s prayer. Frankly, as admirable as Reagan was in so many ways, I suspect that if he were seeking the GOP nomination this year, he’d be dismissed as a RINO by many of the party’s zealots.

None of this is intended to tarnish the man’s image, but simply to point out that the common perception of his conservative purity sometimes owed more to his charm and his ability as an actor to read a script and deliver a funny line, than to his politics.

What truly confounds me are those cuckoos who would prefer to see such Socialists as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama win the election than to sully themselves by voting for a Republican who was only their second or third or even fourth choice. To them I say, before proving that you place your own ego gratification above what’s best for America, keep in mind that most of the Supreme Court justices are in their 70s or even, in the case of John Paul Stewart, fast approaching 90. Do you really want one of those two Democrats stacking the Court for the foreseeable future? Presidents come and go, but justices go on seemingly forever. Kennedy and Scalia have been on the bench since Reagan put them there. Stevens, for heaven’s sake, was appointed during the Ice Age.

These are the nine men and women who have the final word on everything from abortion to eminent domain, and you’re going to let some left-winger make the call because you don’t like Mitt Romney as much as you do John McCain, or Mike Huckabee as much as Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul or Duncan Hunter? If so, you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

The way I see it, before writing off any of the Republican frontrunners, you owe it to your country to just suit up, play your heart out, and win this one for the Gipper.

W. Burt Prelutsky is an accomplished, well-rounded writer and author of Conservatives Are from Mars (Liberals Are from San Francisco): 101 Reasons I'm Happy I Left the Left.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/B...d_of_the_party

[Michael The Disciple]

I have not read much in this thread so this may have been addressed. Anyway I find it interesting that Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are saying they will not vote rather than vote for him.

Yet when CHRISTIANS throw out the same possibility they are criticized. Hey they say if they stay home they would be electing (whatever Liberal is running)!

But when the shoe is on the other foot will THEY stick with their fellow "Christian Conservatives"?

It is becoming so clear friends. All the Republicans ever wanted from the Christians WAS THEIR VOTE. Our issues such as Abortion and Gay adgenda are nothing to them. They are willing to sit the election out

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

I have not read much in this thread so this may have been addressed. Anyway I find it interesting that Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are saying they will not vote rather than vote for him.

Yet when CHRISTIANS throw out the same possibility they are criticized. Hey they say if they stay home they would be electing (whatever Liberal is running)!

But when the shoe is on the other foot will THEY stick with their fellow "Christian Conservatives"?

It is becoming so clear friends. All the Republicans ever wanted from the Christians WAS THEIR VOTE. Our issues such as Abortion and Gay adgenda are nothing to them. They are willing to sit the election out

Well, I think they are both ridiculous! Ann and Rush!

[DividedThigh]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Well, I think they are both ridiculous! Ann and Rush!

i usually like them but i think that is ridiculous also, dt

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by DividedThigh

i usually like them but i think that is ridiculous also, dt

Totally and they should be more responsible then that. If you read the article, above, on Reagan you will see why I say that.

[DividedThigh]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Totally and they should be more responsible then that. If you read the article, above, on Reagan you will see why I say that.

i agree with you totally sis, they are just rabid against mccain, now i dont like some of the things he has done, but he is 10 times better than billary or hussein, lol,dt