Three Christian principles call for Americans to give Barack Obama four more years.
1. Principle: spirit over technology.
This election presents a clear choice. It's the choice between technology and spirit.
The technocratic candidate is Mitt Romney. He’s the candidate of managerial competence. He proved his managerial competence by making his fortune at Bain Capital, and he promises to bring that same skill-set to the White House. He sloughs off demands for detail and explanation. His answer is: trust me; I know how to do this.
Romney’s history illustrates the triumph of technocratic solutions over spiritual solutions. Here’s a technocratic solution: when you travel to Canada with the family dog, put the dog in a cage on the roof of your station wagon. If distress gives the dog diarrhea, drive into a service station, hose off the dog, and put him back on the roof, still in the wind but now wet.
Barack Obama is the candidate of compassion. Compassion is spiritual. Compassion is passing a law so that sick people don’t die because they are poor, and so that sickness doesn’t send middle-class people to bankruptcy because they couldn’t get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Compassion is pushing to extend unemployment insurance for the out-of-work. Compassion is making sure that women get equal pay for equal work. Compassion is spending money to educate Americans for high-skill, high-pay jobs. Compassion is risking money to save the American auto industry, to save the livelihoods of many.
2. Truth over lies.
All campaigns step on the truth. But one of the presidential campaigns builds upon a core of falsehood.
The Republican National Convention dedicated a day of its three-day convention to the exploitation of Obama’s statement "If you have a business – you didn’t build that."
I’ve listened to Obama's speech. I’ve read transcripts of that comment and the words that surround it. And so has the Romney campaign. I know and they know that the "that" in that statement was infrastructure and other benefits that businesses get from government. These benefits permit businesses to thrive. These benefits include roads to make shipping easy and efficient. They include public schools that make an educated workforce.
Anyone who listens to any significant chunk of Obama’s speech instead of the famous sliver of it knows what the president really said. The Romney campaign trusted that most people had heard only the exacto-knifed sliver of that speech. The Romney campaign showed the emptiness at its core when it built a day of the RNC convention upon a lie.
3. Principle: the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
Everyone should want a president who has known hardship. Everyone should be suspicious of a candidate who has led a gilded life. With a candidate who has known hardship, we know that when we go through hard times, he will understand. We can trust that from that understanding action will come.
So it’s a plus that Barack Obama’s father abandoned his family when Obama was a toddler. It’s a plus that his mother was on food stamps for a time. It’s a plus that he made his own way through college. It makes his climb to heights more impressive, but it also gives us reassurance that he knows not only the view from the top down, but the view from the bottom up.
To Barack Obama, hardship is not something he grudgingly studied in an assigned Charles Dickens novel, which he then put back on the shelf.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t see problems the same way as someone who has known hardship. If masses of people are losing their homes, that might be alright with you, as it was to Romney. His "solution": let the market bottom out, and have investors buy up homes at a bargain. The people who used to have the dignity of their own homes could pay rent to the investors who raked in their homes at bargain prices.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t risk taxpayer money to save the auto industry and to save jobs, as Obama did.
If you haven’t known hardship, you don’t commit money to making educational opportunities for people so that Americans can take the high-skill, high-pay jobs of the future, like Obama did. Your education model is Texas, where the guiding principle is thrift, and the result is a population prepared for low-skill labor.
4. Christians: vote your values!
If you believe in the spiritual over the technocratic, this election should be easy for you. If you believe in truth over lies, your decision is made. If you believe that a leader is stronger for having lived through both good times and bad, you have a candidate.
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Mitt Romney and the Bully Pulpit
This is Mitt Romney at the October 3rd debate, moderated by PBS Newshour executive-editor Jim Lehrer:
This was the moment that Romney affirmed every rich-schmuck idea about him. It was the debate’s one genuine he-shoulda'-stepped-around-that-poop gaff.
And, so far as I know, nobody has named it a blunder. But it is. In so many ways.
Let me explain.
1. Mitt the betting man.
America has an idea of Mitt Romney. It is of his own making, but Barack Obama’s campaign has pushed it. Mitt Romney is the guy who proposed a bet in a debate. He proposed to bet Governor Rick Perry about something that Perry claimed that Romney had said in his book. The amount of the bet was ten-thousand dollars.
Ten-thousand dollars is a rich man’s bet. An ordinary Joe wouldn’t make a bet like that. It is a sum that said, "America, I am not like you. I build a car-elevator in my beach house. I make ten-thousand dollar bets."
David Brooks is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. He pointed out that a ten-thousand dollar bet is large enough to remind Americans of Romney’s great wealth, but small enough so that it wasn’t obviously hyperbole, like, say, a million dollars.
And a ten-thousand dollar bet is a bully's bet. Romney could stake ten-thousand dollars on a bet, owing to his great wealth. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, could not. Romney used his wealth to push around a poorer man.
2. Mitt the rich job-killer.
Mitt Romney headed Bain Capital. Bain Capital bought up companies, loaded them with debt, took huge profits, and left people without jobs when the companies collapsed under their debt-load.
3. Mitt who likes to fire people.
People remember Bain Capital when they remember that Romney said, "I like to fire people." That statement fit well with people’s pre-existing ideas about Romney. Mike Huckabee was right: "Romney reminds you of the man who fired you, not the guy you worked next to."
Some things ought to be done soberly. Nobody should "like" to do some things. Glee in taking someone’s livelihood away doesn’t sit well with most Americans.
4. Mitt the guy who cuts the outsider’s hair.
Mitt Romney also famously held down a fellow-student at his prep school who was believed to be gay, and he cut his hair. This is bully behavior.
5. Mitt on October 3rd.
So this Mitt Romney tells Jim Lehrer to his face that he, Mitt Romney, is going to eliminate Lehrer’s livelihood.
Some observations about Mr. Romney’s debate comment.
It’s one thing to talk about a ending a program. It’s another thing to talk about it to a man who will lose his livelihood because of it. It’s still another thing to speak of it to him in front of an audience of millions. If you’re going to humiliate a man like that, there should be a good reason.
But it was unnecessary. The federal deficit for 2012 is about one-trillion dollars. The 2012 appropriation for PBS is half of one one-thousandth of that. So the PBS appropriation doesn’t stand out and it doesn’t stand alone among budget appropriations, such that Romney had to mention it, and no substitute would do.
And it wasn’t necessary to highlight that Jim Lehrer was employed by this program that Romney plans to demolish. Was Jim Lehrer less humiliated because of Mitt Romney’s assurances of personal affection? And for being put on the same footing, in that regard, as Big Bird – a comedic character in a children’s program? These questions answer themselves.
Maybe for some unknown reason, like it’s Romney’s only idea for cutting the budget, Romney could name only PBS as a specific program to be cut. But, if that were true, then it was still unnecessary to link Lehrer to that program, specifically pointing out to the millions of viewers that Lehrer’s livelihood would end.
And it was unnecessary for any reason having to do with Jim Lehrer’s character. Jim Lehrer is widely respected. He conducts himself with dignity and fairness. That’s why he’s chosen to moderate presidential debates. Jim Lehrer has done nothing to deserve humiliation.
Jim Lehrer no more deserved this than the probably-gay student that Mitt Romney, in his younger incarnation, held down to cut his hair.
6. A continuum.
There appears to be a continuum of Mitt Romeny’s character that runs from prep school to the debate on October 3rd. It is a continuum of disregard for other people. It is the continuum of a man who is a bully at heart and in his deeds.
7. The bully pulpit for a bully?
And this bully-at-heart wants to be the most powerful man in the world.
If Romney heard that the presidency is a "bully pulpit", he misunderstood. Teddy Roosevelt meant bully to mean good; the presidency is a bully pulpit in the sense that it is a good forum from which to proclaim good ideas. It is not a bully pulpit in the alternative sense of a place of glory for a person who gratuitously afflicts others because he can.
A president must be smart. A president must know things. Mitt Romeny is qualified in both of these. But when the weight of the world in on his shoulders and a decision must be made, the indispensable quality of a president is his good character.
I’m sorry Jim. I’m, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I like Big Bird. I like you too. But I’m not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilv3VLIGJzE
This was the moment that Romney affirmed every rich-schmuck idea about him. It was the debate’s one genuine he-shoulda'-stepped-around-that-poop gaff.
And, so far as I know, nobody has named it a blunder. But it is. In so many ways.
Let me explain.
1. Mitt the betting man.
America has an idea of Mitt Romney. It is of his own making, but Barack Obama’s campaign has pushed it. Mitt Romney is the guy who proposed a bet in a debate. He proposed to bet Governor Rick Perry about something that Perry claimed that Romney had said in his book. The amount of the bet was ten-thousand dollars.
Ten-thousand dollars is a rich man’s bet. An ordinary Joe wouldn’t make a bet like that. It is a sum that said, "America, I am not like you. I build a car-elevator in my beach house. I make ten-thousand dollar bets."
David Brooks is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. He pointed out that a ten-thousand dollar bet is large enough to remind Americans of Romney’s great wealth, but small enough so that it wasn’t obviously hyperbole, like, say, a million dollars.
And a ten-thousand dollar bet is a bully's bet. Romney could stake ten-thousand dollars on a bet, owing to his great wealth. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, could not. Romney used his wealth to push around a poorer man.
2. Mitt the rich job-killer.
Mitt Romney headed Bain Capital. Bain Capital bought up companies, loaded them with debt, took huge profits, and left people without jobs when the companies collapsed under their debt-load.
3. Mitt who likes to fire people.
People remember Bain Capital when they remember that Romney said, "I like to fire people." That statement fit well with people’s pre-existing ideas about Romney. Mike Huckabee was right: "Romney reminds you of the man who fired you, not the guy you worked next to."
Some things ought to be done soberly. Nobody should "like" to do some things. Glee in taking someone’s livelihood away doesn’t sit well with most Americans.
4. Mitt the guy who cuts the outsider’s hair.
Mitt Romney also famously held down a fellow-student at his prep school who was believed to be gay, and he cut his hair. This is bully behavior.
5. Mitt on October 3rd.
So this Mitt Romney tells Jim Lehrer to his face that he, Mitt Romney, is going to eliminate Lehrer’s livelihood.
Some observations about Mr. Romney’s debate comment.
It’s one thing to talk about a ending a program. It’s another thing to talk about it to a man who will lose his livelihood because of it. It’s still another thing to speak of it to him in front of an audience of millions. If you’re going to humiliate a man like that, there should be a good reason.
But it was unnecessary. The federal deficit for 2012 is about one-trillion dollars. The 2012 appropriation for PBS is half of one one-thousandth of that. So the PBS appropriation doesn’t stand out and it doesn’t stand alone among budget appropriations, such that Romney had to mention it, and no substitute would do.
And it wasn’t necessary to highlight that Jim Lehrer was employed by this program that Romney plans to demolish. Was Jim Lehrer less humiliated because of Mitt Romney’s assurances of personal affection? And for being put on the same footing, in that regard, as Big Bird – a comedic character in a children’s program? These questions answer themselves.
Maybe for some unknown reason, like it’s Romney’s only idea for cutting the budget, Romney could name only PBS as a specific program to be cut. But, if that were true, then it was still unnecessary to link Lehrer to that program, specifically pointing out to the millions of viewers that Lehrer’s livelihood would end.
And it was unnecessary for any reason having to do with Jim Lehrer’s character. Jim Lehrer is widely respected. He conducts himself with dignity and fairness. That’s why he’s chosen to moderate presidential debates. Jim Lehrer has done nothing to deserve humiliation.
Jim Lehrer no more deserved this than the probably-gay student that Mitt Romney, in his younger incarnation, held down to cut his hair.
6. A continuum.
There appears to be a continuum of Mitt Romeny’s character that runs from prep school to the debate on October 3rd. It is a continuum of disregard for other people. It is the continuum of a man who is a bully at heart and in his deeds.
7. The bully pulpit for a bully?
And this bully-at-heart wants to be the most powerful man in the world.
If Romney heard that the presidency is a "bully pulpit", he misunderstood. Teddy Roosevelt meant bully to mean good; the presidency is a bully pulpit in the sense that it is a good forum from which to proclaim good ideas. It is not a bully pulpit in the alternative sense of a place of glory for a person who gratuitously afflicts others because he can.
A president must be smart. A president must know things. Mitt Romeny is qualified in both of these. But when the weight of the world in on his shoulders and a decision must be made, the indispensable quality of a president is his good character.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Top 5 reasons why Mitt Romney won’t say what tax loopholes he would close as president
Mitt Romney has promised to cut taxes for everybody, from billionaires to shoe-buffers, by 20 percent. But he promises that that won't increase the deficit, because he'll make the revenue up by closing loopholes.
Non-partisan tax analysists say that to make up the revenue, he'll have to close middle-class loopholes, and the net effect would be that the rich will pay less in taxes and the middle-class will pay more.
So far, Romney hasn't proved that this ain't so by saying what tax loopholes he would close. Here are possible reasons.
1. The list is so brilliant that it would create an impossibly high level of expectation for his presidency.
2. National security is the issue: all of the loopholes he would close are secret loopholes for extra-terrestrials.
3. His secret plan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by having TSA steal cameras and computers from the luggage of foreigners coming into the country.
4. His secret pan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by selling the 47% to Chinese electronics-assembly factories. He’s already said he doesn’t care about those people.
5. "The truth? You can’t handle the truth!".
Non-partisan tax analysists say that to make up the revenue, he'll have to close middle-class loopholes, and the net effect would be that the rich will pay less in taxes and the middle-class will pay more.
So far, Romney hasn't proved that this ain't so by saying what tax loopholes he would close. Here are possible reasons.
1. The list is so brilliant that it would create an impossibly high level of expectation for his presidency.
2. National security is the issue: all of the loopholes he would close are secret loopholes for extra-terrestrials.
3. His secret plan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by having TSA steal cameras and computers from the luggage of foreigners coming into the country.
4. His secret pan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by selling the 47% to Chinese electronics-assembly factories. He’s already said he doesn’t care about those people.
5. "The truth? You can’t handle the truth!".
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Crimes of the Imagination
The recent Republican nominating convention had both too much imagination and too little.
1. Too much imagination
There was too much imagination in this sense: the whole convention responded to an imaginary Barack Obama sitting in a chair, an imaginary Obama that holds opinions and does things that the real Obama doesn’t.
For example, a major theme of the convention was that Obama is against small businesses. A fifty-dollar bill with the face of Draco Mulfoy has as much verity as that claim. It ignores Obama’s support for small businesses – like his administration’s loan program for small businesses. This canopy of a theme of the Republican convention came from X-Acto knifing certain words in a certain Obama speech. These words were picked away from the words that came before and after. The claim was not honest.
2. Too little imagination.
But there was also a lack of imagination.
I didn’t see most of the convention, but I trust conservative columnist David Brooks when he says that testimonies there about the compassion of Mitt Romney were moving. So let’s accept that Romney is a compassionate man.
Then how can he link himself by his selection of his running mate to the extreme part of his party that wants to cut away the social safety net? How can he in that way link himself to the members of his party who, as Bill Maher says, want poor people to find their food in the woods?
Mr. Romeny appears to have compassion for persons who stand in front of him, persons he knows. If someone he knew were hungry, he would probably feed that person. If they were sick, he might try to find a way to get them cured.
But if that person is not in front of him, if he doesn’t know them, then he seems unable to imagine the harm he would do by, say, stopping the government food-stamp program. And he can’t imagine the death or bankruptcy that would come with the end of Obamacare.
Make no mistake: without food stamps, people will go hungry. In fact, even with that program, people live in America who are, in sterile social-science speak, "food insecure". Without that program, children will be stunted in their growth. Without that program, adults will die. Particularly the elderly. Particularly the sick.
People will steal to survive. People will pilfer to fill their children’s mouths. Some of them will get caught, get prosecuted, get convicted. With the stigma of a criminal conviction, their ability to feed themselves and their children will be more dire than it was before.
If Obamacare is repealed, people who give birth to children with birth defects will go bankrupt saving their children. That’s because insurance companies won’t sell health insurance for a baby born with a "preexisting condition." The baby’s parents will have to choose between going bankrupt paying for medical care or buying their baby’s coffin. And they might both go bankrupt and bury their baby.
If Romney could imagine this, maybe his compassion would not permit him to allow it. But he can’t or won’t imagine it. So he has embraced the social-Darwinists of his party. He has (literally) embraced the Paul Ryans who claim they want to "free" poor people from dependence on government. This is the freedom to starve. This is the freedom to die. Imagine it, if you can.
So far as I know, no soldier in American history has chosen to put himself in harm's way for the freedom to go hungry. It isn’t much of a freedom. There’s got to be a balance that permits essential freedoms, but which doesn’t convert us to some kind of Dickensian dystopia.
3. Failure of imagination: it couldn’t happen here.
There’s another potential failure of imagination. That’s the failure of the imagination of the electorate. That’s the electorate that might select Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in November.
We human beings typically have a hard time imagining a radical change from what is. I suspect that that’s one reason that a prophet like Jeremiah could prophecy that his countrymen would be reduced to literally eating their own sons and daughters, but the reaction of those countrymen was something like, Yeah, whatever.
This lack of imagination affects us today. There is not now mass starvation. So we can’t imagine mass starvation among us through the policies of a major American political party. The image and idea of mass starvation in America seem incredible, the product of a severe fever, not careful thought.
We often can’t imagine a future without a social safety net, even though it is a marquee idea of the Republican Party. And even if we imagine the dynamiting of our dams that hold back hunger, we can’t imagine the flood of suffering that will flow from that policy.
The practices of our compassionate government rose from the suffering of The Great Depression. The potential repeal of those practices comes at a time when few men and women live who remember the time that gave birth to them. This is probably not coincidental. Perhaps the practices will die with living memory of their reasons.
4. Imagining a worse possibility.
Or it might be worse than that. It might be that small-government conservatism is so appealing that it makes mass suffering tolerable to many people.
Ayn Rand has many disciples, and she despised compassion. In a time before he chameleoned himself to blend with compassionate stage-scenery in Tampa, Paul Ryan compelled new employees to read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand would have kicked into the gutter poor Lazarus, the beggar who Jesus spoke of. The only thing that might have stopped her is if he were already in the gutter. Certainly, she would not have lifted him out of the gutter. She would not have bound up his sores. She would not have given him bread.
(The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is at Luke 16:19-31.)
5. This election.
Imagine a parable of a man beset, not by bandits, but by hunger. Or ill health. Or lack of education. Imagine a priest and a Levite and a small-government conservative who cross the road to avoid that helpless man. (Luke 10:30-37.) Who will be the good Samaritan to help him?
This election is a choice between the candidates who want to cross the road and the candidates who want to help. Imagine the difference that the election of one side versus the other will make. Literally: please imagine it. Because elections have consequences, and this election will make a difference in hunger and in health and in education and in prosperity.
Prayer: Lord, your word says that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Let it be so in this debate. And if anyone’s imagination is stimulated by this piece, perhaps their prayers will be, too – including their prayers for me, which I covet, to make my own imagination pleasing to you.
1. Too much imagination
There was too much imagination in this sense: the whole convention responded to an imaginary Barack Obama sitting in a chair, an imaginary Obama that holds opinions and does things that the real Obama doesn’t.
For example, a major theme of the convention was that Obama is against small businesses. A fifty-dollar bill with the face of Draco Mulfoy has as much verity as that claim. It ignores Obama’s support for small businesses – like his administration’s loan program for small businesses. This canopy of a theme of the Republican convention came from X-Acto knifing certain words in a certain Obama speech. These words were picked away from the words that came before and after. The claim was not honest.
2. Too little imagination.
But there was also a lack of imagination.
I didn’t see most of the convention, but I trust conservative columnist David Brooks when he says that testimonies there about the compassion of Mitt Romney were moving. So let’s accept that Romney is a compassionate man.
Then how can he link himself by his selection of his running mate to the extreme part of his party that wants to cut away the social safety net? How can he in that way link himself to the members of his party who, as Bill Maher says, want poor people to find their food in the woods?
Mr. Romeny appears to have compassion for persons who stand in front of him, persons he knows. If someone he knew were hungry, he would probably feed that person. If they were sick, he might try to find a way to get them cured.
But if that person is not in front of him, if he doesn’t know them, then he seems unable to imagine the harm he would do by, say, stopping the government food-stamp program. And he can’t imagine the death or bankruptcy that would come with the end of Obamacare.
Make no mistake: without food stamps, people will go hungry. In fact, even with that program, people live in America who are, in sterile social-science speak, "food insecure". Without that program, children will be stunted in their growth. Without that program, adults will die. Particularly the elderly. Particularly the sick.
People will steal to survive. People will pilfer to fill their children’s mouths. Some of them will get caught, get prosecuted, get convicted. With the stigma of a criminal conviction, their ability to feed themselves and their children will be more dire than it was before.
If Obamacare is repealed, people who give birth to children with birth defects will go bankrupt saving their children. That’s because insurance companies won’t sell health insurance for a baby born with a "preexisting condition." The baby’s parents will have to choose between going bankrupt paying for medical care or buying their baby’s coffin. And they might both go bankrupt and bury their baby.
If Romney could imagine this, maybe his compassion would not permit him to allow it. But he can’t or won’t imagine it. So he has embraced the social-Darwinists of his party. He has (literally) embraced the Paul Ryans who claim they want to "free" poor people from dependence on government. This is the freedom to starve. This is the freedom to die. Imagine it, if you can.
So far as I know, no soldier in American history has chosen to put himself in harm's way for the freedom to go hungry. It isn’t much of a freedom. There’s got to be a balance that permits essential freedoms, but which doesn’t convert us to some kind of Dickensian dystopia.
3. Failure of imagination: it couldn’t happen here.
There’s another potential failure of imagination. That’s the failure of the imagination of the electorate. That’s the electorate that might select Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in November.
We human beings typically have a hard time imagining a radical change from what is. I suspect that that’s one reason that a prophet like Jeremiah could prophecy that his countrymen would be reduced to literally eating their own sons and daughters, but the reaction of those countrymen was something like, Yeah, whatever.
This lack of imagination affects us today. There is not now mass starvation. So we can’t imagine mass starvation among us through the policies of a major American political party. The image and idea of mass starvation in America seem incredible, the product of a severe fever, not careful thought.
We often can’t imagine a future without a social safety net, even though it is a marquee idea of the Republican Party. And even if we imagine the dynamiting of our dams that hold back hunger, we can’t imagine the flood of suffering that will flow from that policy.
The practices of our compassionate government rose from the suffering of The Great Depression. The potential repeal of those practices comes at a time when few men and women live who remember the time that gave birth to them. This is probably not coincidental. Perhaps the practices will die with living memory of their reasons.
4. Imagining a worse possibility.
Or it might be worse than that. It might be that small-government conservatism is so appealing that it makes mass suffering tolerable to many people.
Ayn Rand has many disciples, and she despised compassion. In a time before he chameleoned himself to blend with compassionate stage-scenery in Tampa, Paul Ryan compelled new employees to read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand would have kicked into the gutter poor Lazarus, the beggar who Jesus spoke of. The only thing that might have stopped her is if he were already in the gutter. Certainly, she would not have lifted him out of the gutter. She would not have bound up his sores. She would not have given him bread.
(The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is at Luke 16:19-31.)
5. This election.
Imagine a parable of a man beset, not by bandits, but by hunger. Or ill health. Or lack of education. Imagine a priest and a Levite and a small-government conservative who cross the road to avoid that helpless man. (Luke 10:30-37.) Who will be the good Samaritan to help him?
This election is a choice between the candidates who want to cross the road and the candidates who want to help. Imagine the difference that the election of one side versus the other will make. Literally: please imagine it. Because elections have consequences, and this election will make a difference in hunger and in health and in education and in prosperity.
Prayer: Lord, your word says that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Let it be so in this debate. And if anyone’s imagination is stimulated by this piece, perhaps their prayers will be, too – including their prayers for me, which I covet, to make my own imagination pleasing to you.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
What I Admire About Mitt Romney
Shallow thinking makes shallow minds. I think of this when I think of a lot of the criticism of Barack Obama. It is reflexedly negative. Obama literally can’t drink a Budweiser without being criticized because his beer is not American enough. (Budweiser is owned by a Belgian brewery).
I don’t want to be like that. I aim for thinking that is deep, subtle, fair, fearless.
That means I can’t look at Mitt Romney the way that others look at Barack Obama. I must see him as a complex human being, one with good and bad qualities. That doesn’t mean I have to admire him on balance. But I have to be willing to see him as he is, and not as some cartoonish Snidely Whiplash, twirling the ends of a mustache that he doesn’t have, plotting evil for the sake of evil.
So I prove to myself that I have some capacity by nuance by looking for good qualities in a man that I otherwise don’t like. Here are ten things about Mitt Romney that I admire.
I don’t want to be like that. I aim for thinking that is deep, subtle, fair, fearless.
That means I can’t look at Mitt Romney the way that others look at Barack Obama. I must see him as a complex human being, one with good and bad qualities. That doesn’t mean I have to admire him on balance. But I have to be willing to see him as he is, and not as some cartoonish Snidely Whiplash, twirling the ends of a mustache that he doesn’t have, plotting evil for the sake of evil.
So I prove to myself that I have some capacity by nuance by looking for good qualities in a man that I otherwise don’t like. Here are ten things about Mitt Romney that I admire.
- Romney is smart. He won a law degree and a business degree from Harvard.
- He is brave. With his money, he could spend the rest of his life in luxurious retirement. But he enters the public forum to run for public office. Certainly, he knows the risks of that. But he does it anyway.
- He is energetic. Constantly campaigning can take a toll. He perseveres.
- He is faithful to his wife. There has never been any whiff of sexual scandal.
- I have heard that as a bishop in his church, he gave compassionate advice to some of his church-members who came to him for help.
- I have heard that one of his co-workers had a daughter who went missing. He deployed a team to the city where the daughter was missing, and he set up a command center. They found the girl.
- Romneycare really was a good idea. And it was path-making.
- He was successful in business. He occupied himself in a business in which he could use his considerable abilities to thrive, and he carried through and became a financial star.
- He rescued the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. They were successful.
- In a party in which many are anti-gay, he is not anti-gay. Until the man was driven out by the right-wing media, one of Romney’s top foreign-affairs advisers was openly gay. That seemed not to trouble Mr. Romney.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Prayers for Mitt Romney
I’m a sinner. I mean that sincerely. I won’t elaborate.
But a few days ago, I had a worthy thought. I decided to pray for a man I oppose: Mitt Romney. He’s a sinner, like me. It’s right that I pray for him.
I also pray for Barack Obama. What I said about Romney and me is also true of Obama.
I pray for Obama more than I pray for Romney. But I pray for both of them. And I pray for their families.
This is for my friends who are believers: will you join me in praying for these two men and their families? Maybe you already do. And, whoever wins in November, will you continue to pray for the winner (and the loser)?
No person has the wisdom and the knowledge and the humility that it takes to preside over America. Whoever occupies the White House needs our prayers.
1. The "why".
And maybe the prayers that we don’t want to pray are more fragrant to God than the prayers that we are eager to pray. Who knows? In praying for our enemies, maybe we are helping ourselves.
In this, we would follow a man greater than any of us, who suffered more from authorities than any of us ever will. Five times he was flogged with forty lashes less one. His back from neck to waist must have been all scar tissue. He was also beaten and imprisoned (often). But his is what he told his disciple Timothy (1 Tim 2:1-32 (NRSV)):
2. Suggestions for prayer.
I suggest praying for leaders the things that we ourselves need: wisdom, humility, strength. Especially wisdom. Wisdom is keenly needed.
Many remember that that was the quality that Solomon prayed for himself. God came to Solomon and told him to ask for what God should give to him. Solomon said:
How can we possibly do wrong by praying for wisdom for somebody? And godliness? Even for our enemies? (To be clear: I don’t think Romney is my "enemy". But I oppose him in this election.)
3. Imprecatory prayers (curses).
There is deep wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. I acknowledge that, and I admit that there are prayers of harm in it ("imprecatory" prayers). King David, for example, was pursued by his usurping son. He prayed that his son’s wise counselor would be confounded. He prayed: "O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness." (2 Samuel 15:31.)
If I’ve moved anyone to pray like that, I’ve done more harm than good. I will only say that if we want mercy from God, we should show mercy to others. Who among us doesn’t need mercy from God? A prayer of hatred is a somber thing, and nobody should undertake it with giddy pleasure. But that’s between every person who so prays and God.
4. Praying for ourselves and each other.
In praying for wisdom for our leaders, we might remember to pray for wisdom for ourselves and for each other. And for a spirit willing to submit to that wisdom.
The other thing that lately I have prayed for myself is humility. Pride, I now know, has been my lifelong adversary. And vanity. And conceit. They always tug at me.
So I try to think of the men that Jesus spoke of: one prayed thanks that he wasn’t like the sinner next to him. The sinner next to him prayed for mercy. The story is worth quoting:
5. Closing prayers.
God bless Mitt Romney with wisdom and godliness and a humble spirit. God bless him and protect him and also his family.
God bless Barack Obama with wisdom and godliness and a humble spirit. God bless him and protect him and also his family.
But a few days ago, I had a worthy thought. I decided to pray for a man I oppose: Mitt Romney. He’s a sinner, like me. It’s right that I pray for him.
I also pray for Barack Obama. What I said about Romney and me is also true of Obama.
I pray for Obama more than I pray for Romney. But I pray for both of them. And I pray for their families.
This is for my friends who are believers: will you join me in praying for these two men and their families? Maybe you already do. And, whoever wins in November, will you continue to pray for the winner (and the loser)?
No person has the wisdom and the knowledge and the humility that it takes to preside over America. Whoever occupies the White House needs our prayers.
1. The "why".
And maybe the prayers that we don’t want to pray are more fragrant to God than the prayers that we are eager to pray. Who knows? In praying for our enemies, maybe we are helping ourselves.
In this, we would follow a man greater than any of us, who suffered more from authorities than any of us ever will. Five times he was flogged with forty lashes less one. His back from neck to waist must have been all scar tissue. He was also beaten and imprisoned (often). But his is what he told his disciple Timothy (1 Tim 2:1-32 (NRSV)):
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.This, of course, was the apostle Paul.
2. Suggestions for prayer.
I suggest praying for leaders the things that we ourselves need: wisdom, humility, strength. Especially wisdom. Wisdom is keenly needed.
Many remember that that was the quality that Solomon prayed for himself. God came to Solomon and told him to ask for what God should give to him. Solomon said:
Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great? (2 Chron 1:10 (KJV).)God gave him that, and more.
How can we possibly do wrong by praying for wisdom for somebody? And godliness? Even for our enemies? (To be clear: I don’t think Romney is my "enemy". But I oppose him in this election.)
3. Imprecatory prayers (curses).
There is deep wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. I acknowledge that, and I admit that there are prayers of harm in it ("imprecatory" prayers). King David, for example, was pursued by his usurping son. He prayed that his son’s wise counselor would be confounded. He prayed: "O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness." (2 Samuel 15:31.)
If I’ve moved anyone to pray like that, I’ve done more harm than good. I will only say that if we want mercy from God, we should show mercy to others. Who among us doesn’t need mercy from God? A prayer of hatred is a somber thing, and nobody should undertake it with giddy pleasure. But that’s between every person who so prays and God.
4. Praying for ourselves and each other.
In praying for wisdom for our leaders, we might remember to pray for wisdom for ourselves and for each other. And for a spirit willing to submit to that wisdom.
The other thing that lately I have prayed for myself is humility. Pride, I now know, has been my lifelong adversary. And vanity. And conceit. They always tug at me.
So I try to think of the men that Jesus spoke of: one prayed thanks that he wasn’t like the sinner next to him. The sinner next to him prayed for mercy. The story is worth quoting:
And [Jesus] spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. [Luke 18:9-14 (KJV).]God save you and me from pride. God grant us the gift of a broken spirit.
5. Closing prayers.
God bless Mitt Romney with wisdom and godliness and a humble spirit. God bless him and protect him and also his family.
God bless Barack Obama with wisdom and godliness and a humble spirit. God bless him and protect him and also his family.
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