Ask The Pastor

Over at Bayly Blog Tim Bayly asked,

What made the black community embrace Obama as their own?

His promise to enrich them at the expense of the middle class. This is what has prompted the Black community to vote in the 90% plus realm for Democrats for time immemorial. The black community remain slaves … only their slave owners are no longer Plantation owners but the Democratic party. The black community is not going to bite the hand that feeds them. In Obama they were able to put one of their own in charge of the machine that funds their dysfunctional communities.

The Republican Problem In A Nutshell

The civil war among conservatives will be between an enraged rump of die-hard knotheads and a disparate group of reformers. The knotheads believe that Obama’s victory came thanks to the treason of some conservative intellectual elites and McCain’s failure to be more like Reagan, whatever that means 20 years after the Gipper left the White House. Sarah Palin is the standard-bearer for the talk-radio faction within knotheadism, and Mitt Romney will emerge as the GOP establishment’s last stand.

Rod Dreher
Columnist & online editorial page editor –Dallas Morning News

Dreher is supposed to be some kind of Republican guru but the fact that he can say that which is in bold indicates how messed up the Republican party is. The Democratic Party is now 75 years past Franklin Roosevelt and yet it knows what Rooseveltian policies means 75 yeas after Roosevelt left the White House. Indeed, the election of Barak Obama finds a man who will try to re-Roosevelt the American electorate.

How can a Republican guru not know what Reagan means 20 years after he’s left the White House? McCain’s failure in not being enough like Reagan means that McCain was more like Bush 41 & 43 in that McCain was a Big Government welfare / warfare moderate. McCain was not like Reagan because McCain did not believe government was the problem. McCain was not like Reagan because Reagan would never have voted for the government to bail out the mortgage industry to the tune of 2.3 trillion dollars. McCain was not like Reagan because Reagan never would have supported legislation attacking the 1st amendment as McCain did.

The fact that Republican guru’s like Dreher can’t figure out the Reagan means genuine pro free-market, genuine liberty and genuine disgust of big government means the Republican party will be continue to wander in the wasteland until they figure it out.

Post Election 2008 Thoughts

In light of the election results I think there are some things that we need to be realistic about.

1.) First, the pollsters were not correct. Except for the IBD-Tipp poll which called the final total at 2.9% the pollsters were overwhelmingly wrong. Remember that the RCP average ended with a 7.4% spread between Obama and McCain. Without all the votes fully counted the spread between McCain and Obama stands at 3%. (edit Morning 05 November — Looks like it ended up 52%-47%)

2.) I think we have to admit that the country may stay as left as it went tonight for quite some time. I say this for three reasons.

(a.) Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Obama and Democrats. This is significant because given the amnesty for illegal aliens that Democrats will shove through this will anchor the country in its newly minted left tilt as more and more Hispanics will become voting citizens.

(b.) We must remember that one way FDR established 36 years of overwhelming Democratic control (1932-1968) was to make large enough constituencies beholden to the Federal government through his and (its) sundry socialist give away programs. Obama and the Democrats will certainly try to recreate that kind of program and that kind of legislation that will, in effect, create financial incentive for people to vote Democrat.

(c.) Look for a resurgence of Unions and unionism. Unions have traditionally been Democratic voting constituencies and the talk of creating laws that will make it substantially easier to unionize will build a Democratic constituency in the middle class.

The implication of all this is that the Republican party will have to move left in order to avoid oblivion. The movement of the Republican party to the left will be similar to Republican dime store new dealism that arose in the context of the success of the New Deal.

3.) We need to realize that though Obama won convincingly in electoral terms that we can not call this a landslide due the tightness of the popular vote. This is important in order to deflect the inevitable mandate language that we are bound to hear.

4.) The neo-cons destroyed the Republican party. Their influence in the Bush administration produced the compassionate conservatism that grew the size of the state in ways that Lyndon Johnson could have only dreamed of. Their influence in the Bush administration set America on Empire building that alienated millions of Americans.

5.) A silver lining in this may be that Obama will bear the guilt for the serious economic downturn that is 6 months to a year out. The downturn will be sooner and more intense if he insists on pursuing protectionist policies combined with policies of tax increases that burden small businesses.

6.) Obama and the Democrats will not rule from the center. This Democratic President elect and the Democratic leadership in the US House and Senate may be as far left as Henry Wallace and Alger Hiss were in the Roosevelt administration. There is already talk of censoring the radio airwaves, creating a Federalized police force, cutting defense spending by 25%, serious cap and trade policies that will have the effect of wealth flowing out of America to the rest of the world, and a clear pursuit of wealth redistribution here in the states.

7.) The Democratic party will pursue globalism. Look for the Democrats to become very cozy with the United Nations.

8.)With a overwhelming Democratic victory the National Education Association as well as all unions will be greatly empowered again. Look for legislation that will make homeschooling more difficult.

9.) There will be absolutely no advance on any pro-life issues for the next four years. Obama is more pro-murder then any candidate that could have been elected. Indeed, look for pro-life issues to suffer significant losses.

It is possible that what we have witnessed this evening is a political realignment that may not change for a generation. The last realignment of this nature was in 1968 with the election of Richard Nixon and which rose to its nadir in the Reagan years.

I am not without hope this evening but I am very saddened. I believe resistance will be difficult and may even have consequences that are not pleasant to consider.

God is sovereign.

A Post Election Prayer

Oh God of all mercy and grace.

Your judgments are altogether just and thy ways beyond searching.

We ask tonight that you would be with our President elect Obama.
Grant him a wisdom, and discernment that would further your ways.
Where his need is repentance we pray that you would grant it.
Deliver him from his previous sins and give him a heart for life and freedom.
Remind him to “Kiss the Son, lest the Son be angry.”

Grant the loyal opposition to dissent faithfully.
Fill them with courage and boldness.
Help them not to despair.
Grant them grace, to be faithful to you, to forestall the wickedness that some might seek.

Most especially what we ask of you as a result of this election is that your elect would be more inclined to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and turn to King Jesus and live. Send forth thy Spirit to convict the world of guilt and righteousness and judgment and of the pardoning nature of the Lord Jesus for sensible sinners.

O magnificent and just God, in wrath remember mercy.

In the name of thy beloved King Jesus

AMEN

Cornelius Van Til Pages R2Kt Virus Theologians

“If the scholastics, with all their fine distinctions, had been careful…they would not have fallen into the error of giving as much credit to natural and to rational theology as they did. Natural and rational theology were never meant to function, even in paradise, apart from theology proper.”

Cornelius Van Til
An Introduction To Systematic Theology — pg. 74