First they came for Barney the dinosaur…
by David Benzion · 03/09/2006 10:49 amThe Houston Chronicle editorial board’s secular fundamentalism is on vibrant display this morning with a bewildering analysis that attributes the GOP primary election wins this week of both Tom DeLay and Dan Patrick to… their unashamedly conservative Christianity.
What is most bizarre is that the writer actually starts off their piece getting things right, via the time-honored intellectual tradition known as "stating the obvious":
In two of the most closely watched primary races Tuesday, Republicans chose a powerful politician, battling for his liberty and honor, and a brash newcomer… [m]any of DeLay’s supporters remember the federal funds he has been able to bring to the district, in part because he gained the respect of his Republican colleagues in Congress… Patrick has promised supporters he will represent the grass roots and take back the Capitol in Austin from special interests and their lobbyists.
Exactly.
DeLay won because…
- GOP primary voters believed he was the target of illegitimate legal attacks and unfair political smears by partisan outsiders ("battling for his liberty and honor"), as well as his proven ability to deliver "constituent services" ("remembered the federal funds he has been able to bring to the district");
Patrick won because…
- GOP primary voters believed he would shake up business as usual in the legislature and wouldn’t lose his backbone once elected ("represent the grass roots and take back the Capitol in Austin from special interests and their lobbyists").
The End. No more analysis is needed. You’ve already stumbled upon the simplest explanation of reality.
Instead, we get this:
Their divergent lives make for pronounced differences in the candidates, but shared values and beliefs perhaps account for their simultaneous popularity with different sets of GOP voters… [b]oth make a point of projecting a set of values that appeals to the suburban, churchgoing, family-minded voters who pick the winners in Republican primary races, particularly in Texas.
After the mass murders at Columbine High School in Colorado, DeLay placed blame on the teaching of evolution in the schools. Patrick recently told the Chronicle editorial board that he believed the creation story in the Bible and thought it should be taught in the public schools.
Both candidates oppose a woman’s right to choose abortion — an issue that is no longer entirely moot due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.
In a talk to a conservative group, DeLay recently said Congress was mistaken to allow the separation of church and state. He and Patrick both have indicated that government at all levels in the United States could stand to be more overtly Christian in its trappings and doctrine.
All of that may be true… but so what? Where is the proof that any of this is why they won?
Admittedly, I followed the Patrick campaign more closely than that of DeLay, but looking at his "Patrick Pact with Texas", I see the following six issues:
1. Reduce the appraisal cap to 3% per year on all residential property
Texans are being taxed out of their homes. We must end the stealth 8–10% annual tax increase on homeowners. If local governments feel a need to raise revenue, they should do so by raising the tax rate; not by hiding behind an automatic appraisal increase. Voters can then determine if the increase was necessary and if those elected officials are worthy of re-election.
4. Responsible education funding
School budgets and administrative positions have increased faster than student enrollment and classroom teacher positions. The legislature should require that 65% of school spending be dedicated to the classroom. We must focus education resources on the classroom instruction of our children.
2. Illegal immigration – secure our borders now
The Federal Government has failed to protect our borders as they are constitutionally required. It is time we use Texas taxpayers’ resources to protect our borders instead of providing services to those that entered this state illegally. It is time for Texans to protect the Texas border.
5. Legislators should put tax cuts before their own pension increases
Legislators found the votes to increase their own pensions in the last legislative session, but after two special sessions could not find the votes to reduce your property taxes or lower the appraisal cap. We should focus first on cutting taxes before we increase legislator’s benefits.
3. Reduce government spending now
We elected Republican majorities in the Texas House and Senate and expected them to be fiscally conservative. Our legislature has let us down. The most recent state budget includes a 20% increase in spending. We should focus on needs-based-budgeting, rather than revenue-based-budgeting.
6. We are the majority party and we should govern as suchI have called for an end to the so called "blocker bill" in the Senate. For years, this Senate tradition helped ensure civility in the upper house, but recently Democrats have used the practice to block meaningful legislation from being approved. We should end the practice of requiring 2/3 of the Senate to agree before a measure can be considered in the Senate.
Please note you will not find a single mention of the words "God", "Jesus", "prayer", "Inquisition", or "so-called ‘dinosaurs’" in the above text.
Which isn’t to deny that both Patrick and DeLay are very vocal traditionalist Christians, or that their publicly advocated faith is a large part of their political appeal to GOP primary votes.
I just find it interesting that the Chronicle’s editorial writers choose to highlight the importance of the candidate’s religious beliefs, while discounting the significance of the actual issues and positions they promoted during their campaigns.
So please, sleep easy Jeff Cohen– if I’m wrong, I promise that when the hordes of CLOUT Cossacks go rampaging across Meyerland next Easter, you are welcome to take refuge in my home.
Filed Under Uncategorized ·
Comments
14 Responses to “First they came for Barney the dinosaur…”Search
Our Sponsors
Poll
Loading ...LST Book Club
-
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
by Natan Sharansky -
Fear No Evil
by Natan Sharansky -
The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
by Anatoly Shcharansky -
The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul
by Yoram Hazony -
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
by David Brooks -
Snobbery: The American Version
by Joseph Epstein -
A Conflict of Visions: Idealogical Origins of Political Struggles
by Thomas Sowell
I just want to know when it was that being a Christian became BAD??
I quit taking the Chronicle LOOONG ago.. And almost NEVER watch local news…. I don’t want to hear the opinion of someone that has been educated beyond their capabilities trying to change my opinion, disguising their opinion as news.
Patrick is shaking up “business as usual”, and DeLay epitomizes “business as usual”.
Pretty ironic, isn’t it?
You wonder why I shake my head™
HS, in a way I agree with you. If Delay had a “D” after his name the Repubs would be calling for his head. But he is on our side so the sleeze is ok. Just keep the money coming into Sugarland and everything is ok.
gregg
Just keep the money coming into Sugarland and everything is ok.
————————————-
In Delays defense drive through the great state of Senator Byrd errrr ummmm West Virginia. You cannot go into very many towns that you do not see the Robert K Byrd memorial something or another. That is the sign of a good politician. He brngs the money back to his state or district which should have never made it to Washington in the first place.
#4 Amen squawk…too much money goes to Washington to feed the bureaucracy. Anytime Delay can bring the money back, well, that’s a good thing!
JD
Of course you will not see the real issues that Dan ran on in the Chron because there are way to many people who get their news only from the paper. If the issues where to be printed they might see them and get to wondering. I know people who are Republicans and get all their news from the Chron and television and tend to parrot some of the things they hear.
Left wing Comical writers like Mack and Casey like to print things like “self proclaimed Christian”. Well, isn’t the Pope a self proclaimed Catholic? Aren’t the terrorists self proclaimed Muslims? Isn’t the Dalai Llama a self proclaimed Buddhist?
It’s difficult to be anything unless you proclaim it. So the statement itself is unnecessary, and only included to mock Christianity in general, and Dan Patrick as a Christian in particular. It goes back to the core problem of Christians holding a set of values and ideals on which they may fall short on, but at least they are aware of them. Liberals despise those same values themselves because it calls for them to admit there is something more important than their own egos.
The religion of the left is the same as Hollyweird….self proclaimed hedonism.
The Christphobes at the Chronicle simply reside in a paralell universe of complete ignorance.
Squawk - a REALLY good politician would keep the excessive money from going to Washington in the first place. Now if DeLay could pull that one off, I’ll be impressed.
Everyone,
I agree with everything on Dan’s list except.
>>4. Responsible education funding
>>School budgets and administrative positions have >>increased faster than student enrollment and >>classroom teacher positions. The legislature >>should require that 65% of school spending be >>dedicated to the classroom. We must focus >>education resources on the classroom instruction >>of our children.
there is one fundamental problem with setting a predetermined percentage of funds going to the class room. We need to force districts to spend their money in a responsable manner. The other thing is to get rid of all of the testing that has invaded Education. Teachers need to teach their subject and children need to pass or fail based upon their ability to learn that subject. Self Esteem be damned, if you do not learn how to deal with failure at an early age then you will never learn. I learned as many life lessons because my teachers let me succeed or fail on my own and not pass me on, just to not hurt my feelings!!!!! I failed many tests, and assignments, however I learned what it took to get good grades. This article about the Katrina students and what they are having to deal with here versus New Orleans.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3708300.html
The mind set of one of the teachers who has been transplanted here compares the public education in HISD of all districts vs New Orleans and says that if the kids need to be held back so that they can learn things correctly then that must be done for the best intrest of the children.
jimb
#9
Get’s no argument from me. I have voted I do not know how many times for candidates (old and new) that swear they are going to cut taxes and keep our money here in the state. Sigh the best I can hope for is that they bring the bacon home.
A West Texas cowboy was herding his herd in a remote pasture when
suddenly A brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban
sunglasses and YSL tie, Leans out the window and asks the cowboy,
“If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your
herd, will You give me a calf?”
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,
connects it To his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the
Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get
an exact fix on his Location which he then feeds to another NASA
satellite that scans the area In an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and
exports It to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the
image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a
MS-SQL database through an ODBC Connected Excel spreadsheet with
email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech,
Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and
says, “You have exactly 1586 cows and calves.”
“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says
the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and
looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you
exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”
“You’re a consultant for the National Democratic Party.” says the cowboy.
“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”
“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here
even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer
I already Knew, to a question I never asked; and you don’t know
anything about my Business…….. Now give me back my dog.”
So please, sleep easy Jeff Cohen– if I’m wrong, I promise that when the hordes of CLOUT Cossacks go rampaging across Meyerland next Easter, you are welcome to take refuge in my home.
Ouch! Nice conclusion!
Left wing Comical writers like Mack and Casey like to print things like “self proclaimed Christian”.
Casey is clearly a left-leaning opinion columnist.
I think you’re unfairly lumping in Kristen Mack with him.
My search of Chron.com didn’t turn up a single instance of Kristen Mack using the term “self-proclaimed Christian.” Do you have an example of Mack using that term derisively that I’m not finding?