It’s interesting to me how people who screamed bloody murder whenever George W. Bush used a phrase that was even vaguely religious have no problem with religious ceremonies, led by clergy, wearing clerical robes, using the traditional forms of the Christian liturgy, to pray to Barack Obama. When I talk about personality cults and politicalidolatry and the messianic temptation of the Obama campaign, this is the kind of thing I’m thinking of—except a lot worse than anything I’ve thought of to this point.
The great political temptation from which Judaism and Christianity delivered us was the worship of human beings; during the medieval period, whoever came up with the idea of the “divine right of kings” brought that partway back, but never all the way. Now, in their reaction against Christian faith and their denial of their need for a divine Messiah, folks on the Left are trying to turn a Chicago machine politician into a secular messiah. It will never work. Put not your trust in princes.
One of the things I missed last week was the creepy little story of New Jersey elementary-school kids being taught songs in praise of Barack Obama. I’m sorry, that’s just un-American; in this country, we don’t venerate our leaders until they’re safely off the stage, and usually dead. This sort of engineered adulation belongs in places like North Korea, not here. I’m with Tyler Dawn—I’d find this just as creepy and just as nauseating if it had been for President Bush, or President Reagan, or anybody else.
Incidentally, for all the folks who were having hysterics and mocking conservatives for their reaction to the President’s school speech—granted that that reaction was in many instances excessive—stuff like this is the reason for it. It wasn’t that the President was speaking to our kids, it was the suspicion that he wanted to politicize them and turn them into Obamabots—and that the public-school system would, in large part, gladly go along with that agenda—that sent so many people up in flames; and garbage like this only reinforces and aggravates those concerns.
Now, obviously, it’s not likely that this was directly orchestrated by the White House; but it’s all of a piece with the politics-by-personality-cult approach Barack Obama and his campaign have taken all along. It’s the sort of thing that prompted even a liberal like Doug Hagler to complain about the messianic tone of the Obama campaign, which went along with the candidate’s apparent messianic view of his own leadership. This isn’t even the first creepy video this has produced—not by a long shot.
Thanks to a commenter on the previous post for tipping me off: Livgren suffered a major stroke three weeks ago. It was bad enough that he had surgery that morning to remove a clot from the language centers of his brain; the surgery went well, and the reports on his recovery (posted on Kansas’ official band website; click on “Kerry L. update”) are positive. Please be praying.Since I’ve been on a Kerry Livgren kick anyway, I thought I’d post a few more videos—this time from the AD phase of his career.
It’s way too early in the morning to be up, especially after a long and draining weekend; but up I am, watching Kansas videos on YouTube and working my way towards doing something productive with the time. For the moment, though, I’m just happy to have found these:
courtesy of that consistently brilliant parodist, John Cleese—who truly is, as my wife says, at the top of his form with this one. (Scientism, if anyone is wondering, is the dogmatic faith in science which folks like Richard Dawkins use to replace faith in God.)
The great thing about Cleese, evident here, is his unflagging willingness to skewer everybody, including himself and those with whom he agrees. For an instructive comparison, check out Christopher Hitchens’ biting critique in the latest Atlantic of folks like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Al Franken, who (though they consider themselves satirists) are unwilling to do so.
I was thinking about this this morning and realized I’d never gotten around to posting it; this is wonderful. It is indeed, as Bobby McFerrin says, the power of the pentatonic scale—and of music in general, I think; it’s also a remarkable illustration of the beauty of the order of God’s creation, and of the ways in which we’re made for, and made to respond to, that order, even in our fallen state.
I guess this video has been bouncing around a bit, and has generated some opprobrium for the officer featured here. For my part, I’m troubled by the fact that this officer appears to be forcing this protestor to take down his sign with no justification but the threat of force—this is not how we want our police to behave—but in all honesty, I can’t say I like the protestor’s attitude much, either. I do, however, appreciateAlan W.’s reflections on this:
God has been doing a number on me with how many times what I want, believe, think and feel are simply reflections of the fall in Genesis 3 and trying to be “like God.” . . .
I feel for Officer Cheeks much as I do about Joe the plumber. They are folks caught up in the moment and demonstrated the fact that they are humans. And Americans will make them pay the price for that too.
Here are two prophetic words for the Body of Christ. Treat people withGRACE and of courseMatthew 7. I have a second word for the People of God, don’t be a butt about things. If we don’t like something fine but don’t confuse what we like with what God likes.
My thanks to Jared Wilson for posting this. I love the Chieftains (and like the Corrs quite well too, for that matter), and this was just a lovely thing to see.
For those who doubt that the purpose of the Democratic health care “reform” is a government takeover of our health-care system—and that the only unsettled issue in their minds is the best way to get there as quickly as possible—watch this:
On the campaign trail, Obama told Planned Parenthood that the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eliminate state restrictions on abortion and repeal the Hyde Amendment ban on federal funding for it, would be his first legislative priority. ObamaCare allows him to pass FOCA without the head-on fight. If the public option remains in the bill and it covers abortion, that will have the de facto effect of repealing the Hyde Amendment. The interstate nature of ObamaCare and the public plan may also allow the Department of Justice to fight state abortion restrictions, such as parental notification, on the grounds that the regulations interfere with interstate commerce. It’s FOCA by other means.
For those still dubious about Sarah Palin’s invocation of “death panels,” ponder this from Nat Hentoff (no fundamentalist Republican):
I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama’s desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model)—as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill—decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It’s already in the stimulus bill signed into law. . . .
No matter what Congress does when it returns from its recess, rationing is a basic part of Obama’s eventual master health care plan. Here is what Obama said in an April 28 New York Times interview (quoted in Washington Times July 9 editorial) in which he describes a government end-of-life services guide for the citizenry as we get to a certain age, or are in a certain grave condition. Our government will undertake, he says, a “very difficult democratic conversation” about how “the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care” costs.
And if anyone is wondering why all the fuss—is this really that big a deal?—let Andy McCarthy explain:
These last seven months ought to tell us that the usual political rules don’t apply when predicting this president’s behavior. His purpose is revolutionary change in an American society he grew up understanding to be fundamentally unjust, racist, materialist, imperialist, and the agent of global misery. He is in Washington to transform the nation from the top down. Nationalized health care is key for him. If he gets it, sovereignty shifts from the citizen to the state. By law, government will be empowered to manage minute details of our lives. Over time—when, as the American Thinker’s Joseph Ashby observes, a “1,000-page health-care law explodes into many thousands of pages of regulatory codes”—that is precisely what government will do.
Obama is not a normal politician. He’s a visionary, and using health care to radically expand the scope of government happens to be central to his vision. For my money (if I have any left), achieving it is more important to him than is getting reelected. His poll numbers and those of congressional Democrats may keep plunging (for the latter, there must come a point where that is statistically impossible), but they have the votes to Rahm this thing through.
And if it comes to that, they will most certainly try, unless enough Democrats in Congress get cold feet. Sure, that wouldn’t be what the president promised to get elected, but so far, that hasn’t stopped him yet:
