Palin, "the new Ronald Reagan?"

[Taco John]

Aides to George W.Bush, former Reagan White House staff and friends of John McCain have all told The Sunday Telegraph that they not only expect to lose on November 4, but also believe that Mr Obama is poised to win a crushing mandate.

They believe he will be powerful enough to remake the American political landscape with even more ease than Ronald Reagan did in 1980.

The prospect of an electoral rout has unleashed a bitter bout of recriminations both within the McCain campaign and the wider conservative movement, over who is to blame and what should be done to salvage the party's future.

Mr McCain is now facing calls for him to sacrifice his own dwindling White House hopes and focus on saving vulnerable Republican Senate seats which are up for grabs on the same day.

Their fear is that Democrat candidates riding on Mr Obama's popularity may win the nine extra seats they need in the Senate to give them unfettered power in Congress.

If the Democrat majority in the Senate is big enough - at least 60 seats to 40 - the Republicans will be unable to block legislation by use of a traditional filibuster - talking until legislation runs out of time. No president has had the support of such a majority since Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election. President Reagan achieved his political transformation partly through the power of his personality.

David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, told The Sunday Telegraph that Republicans should now concentrate all their fire on "the need for balanced government".

"It's hard to see a turnaround in the White House race," he said. "This could look like an ideological as well as a party victory if we're not careful. It could be 1980 in reverse.

"With this huge new role for federal government in the economy, the possibility for mischief making is very, very great. One man should not have a monopoly of political and financial power. That's very dangerous."

In North Carolina, where Senator Elizabeth Dole seems set to loose, Republicans are running adverts that appear to take an Obama victory for granted, warning that the Democrat will have a "blank cheque" if her rival Kay Hagen wins. "These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis," the narrator says. "All branches of Government. No checks and balances."

Democrats lead in eight of the 12 competitive Senate races and need just nine gains to reach their target of 60. Even Mitch McConnell, the leader of Senate Republicans, is at risk in Kentucky, normally a rock solid red state.

A private memo on the likely result of the congressional elections, leaked to Politico, has the Republicans losing 37 seats.

Ed Rollins, who masterminded Ronald Reagan's second victory in 1984, said the election is already over and predicted: "This is going to turn into a landslide."

A former White House official who still advises President Bush told The Sunday Telegraph: "McCain hasn't won independents, nor has he inspired the base. It's the worst of all worlds. He is dragging everyone else down with him. He needs to deploy people and money to salvage what we can in Congress."

The prospect of defeat has unleashed what insiders describe as an "every man for himself" culture within the McCain campaign, with aides in a "circular firing squad" as blame is assigned.

More profoundly, it sparked the first salvoes in a Republican civil war with echoes of Tory infighting during their years in the political wilderness.

One wing believes the party has to emulate David Cameron, by adapting the issues to fight on and the positions they hold, while the other believes that a back to basics approach will reconnect with heartland voters and ensure success. Modernisers fear that would leave Republicans marginalised, like the Tories were during the Iain Duncan Smith years, condemning them to opposition for a decade.

Mr Frum argues that just as America is changing, so the Republican Party must adapt its economic message and find more to say about healthcare and the environment if it is to survive.

He said: "I don't know that there's a lot of realism in the Republican Party. We have an economic message that is largely irrelevant to most people.

"Cutting personal tax rates is not the answer to everything. The Bush years were largely prosperous but while national income was up the numbers for most individuals were not. Republicans find that a hard fact to process."

Other Republicans have jumped ship completely. Ken Adelman, a Pentagon adviser on the Iraq war, Matthew Dowd, who was Mr Bush's chief re-election strategist, and Scott McClellan, Mr Bush's former press secretary, have all endorsed Mr Obama.

But the real bile has been saved for those conservatives who have balked at the selection of Sarah Palin.

In addition to Mr Frum, who thinks her not ready to be president, Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's greatest speechwriter and a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, condemned Mr McCain's running mate as a "symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation of American politics." Conservative columnist David Brooks called her a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party".

The backlash that ensued last week revealed the fault lines of the coming civil war.

Rush Limbaugh, the doyen of right wing talk radio hosts, denounced Noonan, Brooks and Frum. Neconservative writer Charles Krauthammer condemned "the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama", while fellow columnist Tony Blankley said that instead of collaborating in heralding Mr Obama's arrival they should be fighting "in a struggle to the political death for the soul of the country".

During the primaries the Democratic Party was bitterly divided between Barack Obama's "latte liberals" and Hillary Clinton's heartland supporters, but now the same cultural division threatens to tear the Republican Party apart.

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

Mr Frum thinks that Mrs Palin's brand of cultural conservatism appeals only to a dwindling number of voters.

He said: "She emerges from this election as the probable frontrunner for the 2012 nomination. Her supporters vastly outnumber her critics. But it will be extremely difficult for her to win the presidency."

Mr Nuzzo, who believes this election is not a re-run of the 1980 Reagan revolution but of 1976, when an ageing Gerald Ford lost a close contest and then ceded the leadership of the Republican Party to Mr Reagan.

He said: "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan." On the accuracy of that judgment, perhaps, rests the future of the Republican Party.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...the-party.html

[KCJohnny]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

I am aware. Do you believe the Catholic Church thinks God institutes governments? If the government can do no wrong, because they are following in God's path - then why would we ever fight abortion?

Convenient that you don't highlight the rest of that sentence. How can you rip that quote out of its context like that?

Polygenism - fine. Evolution - "evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences" That's not saying you can't believe in evolution. I feel you are adding your own thoughts into this Encyclical, effectively twisting it to say what you want it to, KCJohnny.

Sir: you are interjection your thoughts. I never a said a Catholic wasn't allowed to believe in the [unproven] theory of evolution. But you said:

Evolution is also reality. ...evolution is real; and you can believe that God has a part in evolution, as so many do now.

You are asserting evolution is 'real' - I notice you do not use the word 'true'.

God has nothing to do with darwinistic, macro-evolution. The Church does not now and never has taught such a thing. The Church Fathers rejected the Greek conception of an old earth and St. Thomas Aquinas rejected the theory of complex beings coming from simpler ones.

And your sarcasm about St. Paul's teaching for the Roman Christians of the 1st century is disappointing.

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by KCJohnny

Sir: you are interjection your thoughts. I never a said a Catholic wasn't allowed to believe in the [unproven] theory of evolution. But you said:

You are asserting evolution is 'real' - I notice you do not use the word 'true'.

Then why the hostility for teaching what scienctific inquiry tells us is true and real?

God has nothing to do with darwinistic, macro-evolution. The Church does not now and never has taught such a thing. The Church Fathers rejected the Greek conception of an old earth and St. Thomas Aquinas rejected the theory of complex beings coming from simpler ones.

Yikes. I hope you are not a.) getting your scientific understanding strictly from what the Church Fathers believed to be true about natural philosophy 1700 years ago (if this is indeed true) and b.) attempting to correlate St. Thomas' theories on epistemology with our understanding of evolution.

And your sarcasm about St. Paul's teaching for the Roman Christians of the 1st century is disappointing.

There was no sarcasm.

[Taco John]

I think we've found our "Republican Rift."

Christians who believe in creationism vs. Christians who believe that God works much more subtly than that.

Or, in the parlance of our times, the Pro-God Christians vs. the Anti-God Christians.

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Thanks Hamas, but I stand for no movement but Catholicism in religion, which I view as neither Right nor Left.

KCJohnny seems to think there is a battle between faith and reason. Catholics should really have no problem with this.

There most certainly is a battle between faith and reason. As you point out, however, especially with respect to evolution, there shouldn't be.

[KCJohnny]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Then why the hostility for teaching what scienctific inquiry tells us is true and real?

Yikes. I hope you are not a.) getting your scientific understanding strictly from what the Church Fathers believed to be true about natural philosophy 1700 years ago (if this is indeed true) and b.) attempting to correlate St. Thomas' theories on epistemology with our understanding of evolution.

There was no sarcasm.

Mr. jensen71:
I am pro-science. You are conflating science and evolution which are not the same thing. Science draws conclusions from nature based on observable data. Evolution is a bald theory with zero evidence from the observable data.

The Church Fathers support natural science as natural science. evolution is a cosmogony and is asserted as fact - a 'fact' that changes divine revelation.

I ask you simply and unambiguously: can you produce one Papal Encyclical, one article in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one statement from the Church Doctors and Fathers, or one citation of Holy Scripture that positively asserts evolution as truth binding upon Catholic consciences?

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by KCJohnny

Mr. jensen71:
I am pro-science. You are conflating science and evolution which are not the same thing. Science draws conclusions from nature based on observable data. Evolution is a bald theory with zero evidence from the observable data.

The Church Fathers support natural science as natural science. evolution is a cosmogony and is asserted as fact - a 'fact' that changes divine revelation.

I ask you simply and unambiguously: can you produce one Papal Encyclical, one article in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one statement from the Church Doctors and Fathers, or one citation of Holy Scripture that positively asserts evolution as truth binding upon Catholic consciences?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Thanks Hamas, but I stand for no movement but Catholicism in religion, which I view as neither Right nor Left.

KCJohnny seems to think there is a battle between faith and reason. Catholics should really have no problem with this.

I'm not even associating you with a political movement. My conception of the religious Left is a much more philosophical than politically-oriented. It's one of the reasons why your responses are thoughtful rather than reactionary and prescripted.

[whoman69]

I find all the vitrol against evolution to be perplexing. I don't find anything in science that puts any doubt into what I think as a Christian. I simply don't put stock in a literal interpretation of the bible. Big Bang doesn't make me question let there be light. I don't see God created man in his own image against evolution because it doesn't literally mean that we look like God, its talking about the human soul. The wacky right was way out there in trying to explain gravity as God trying to keep you down to Earth. Why doesn't God stop airplanes from flying then? Its more like superstition.

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by KCJohnny

Mr. jensen71:
I am pro-science. You are conflating science and evolution which are not the same thing. Science draws conclusions from nature based on observable data. Evolution is a bald theory with zero evidence from the observable data.

That's not true. Evolution, like all scientific theories, is based firmly on evidence and is consistent with other established scientific princples.

We see evolution in the understandings of astronomy, geology, biology, anthropology, physics, biochemistry, etc. Actually evolution is fundamental to these bodies of knowledge. You can't complete the picture we have of them without evolution.

Scientists, those who find the data and theories based on the evidence, all accept that evolution is reality. There are just some debates on how evolution takes place, and other aspects. For instance, the selfish gene that Dawkins wrote of is debated by scientists. But what is not debated is that evolution happens.

Science has showed us the earth is about 4 billion years old thanks to accumlation rates, cooling rates, fossil records, but mostly radiometric dating. In those 4 billion years, we have found many fossils that show the similarities between organisms. Look at Pierre Belon's drawings from as early as 1555. Actually, we have classified organisms since as early as Aristotle. Now we are just forming a far clearer understanding of these similarities and differences, thanks to Darwin and other scientists in the 19th century. For instance, the fossil record shows that the earlier we go, the more humans looked like the earliest chimps. The similarities build up the farther we go back. This is because we had a common ancestor. After we diverged, we developed unique characteristics of our own species. Of course, fossil records aren't the only way to know about evolution, there is also genetics. Gregor Mendel, who was a Catholic monk, was one of the greatest scientists of all time. He understood dominant and recessive traits that help explain variation. Variation, mutation, selection - these are all observable facets of evolution. Evolution makes biogeography, the study of distrubtion of living things over the earth, make more sense. Same with comparative anatomy and biochemistry of amino acids and nucelotides.

Most of that stuff is pretty complex. Something that is easier to recognize though, is just observing the differences between an eskimo and a Nigerian. What are the differences, the variations between those two, though they are both human? A Nigerian is tall and skinny and black, which is what is needed to live in that area. An eskimo is short and thick and less dark. They have adapted to the conditions needed for better survival.

I ask you simply and unambiguously: can you produce one Papal Encyclical, one article in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one statement from the Church Doctors and Fathers, or one citation of Holy Scripture that positively asserts evolution as truth binding upon Catholic consciences?

I never said you had to believe in evolution. I'm not saying you have to believe in gravity either. Why would the Church make bind evolution on the Catholic? I'm not arguing that it should be made doctrine. I don't think gravity or earth's age should be made doctrine.

I can tell you that Pope John Paul II wrote this in 1996:

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points.
...

It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences
....

4. Taking into account the state of scientific research at the time as well as of the requirements of theology, the encyclical Humani Generis considered the doctrine of "evolutionism" a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study equal to that of the opposing hypothesis. Pius XII added two methodological conditions: that this opinion should not be adopted as though it were a certain, proven doctrine and as though one could totally prescind from revelation with regard to the questions it raises. He also spelled out the condition on which this opinion would be compatible with the Christian faith, a point to which I will return. Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis.

Do you advocate for creationism/intelligent design or teaching the controversy?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Still no response to my query about Romans 13??

[KCJohnny]

1. Thanks for the detailed argument; I appreciate the time and effort you put into that.

2. Radiometric dating methods are unreliable. The user must begin with a hypothesis, then apply a model based on an extremely small sample and then extrapolate extravagant amounts of time/space based on unobservable conditions. This calculation then forms the basis for a theory, and is at best an article of faith. Radiocarbon methods have been contested with viable arguments that demonstrate their massive assumptions and weaknesses in the models.

3. Your quoting of the antichristian Dawkins and the support of antichristian Hamas Jenkins should be cause for concern. Your assumption that early ‘man’ resembles chimps is unsupportable in real science and anathema to Catholic Christianity. Your assertion that ‘all scientists accept evolution’ is patently false. There are thousands of tenured scientists who reject Darwinian evolution. Ben Stein’s excellent documentary “No Intelligence Allowed” covers the intolerance and irrational treatment dissenters receive when they point out the inconsistencies of evolutionary theory.

4. The evolution century brought about more wars, more genocide, and more enslavement than any previous century. The utopian experiments of Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il Sun all owe their political theory to eugenics – the natural result of applying Darwinism to the social sciences. That is not a Christian position.

5. I do not wish to engage on the issue of what science purports to be fact/reality (your word, and existential, not a scientific one), but what the Church proclaims as truth, binding on the consciences of all men. In the Church’s proclamation, you will find nothing of ape-men, carbon dating or myths about transmutation of species. We believe and confess that God made all things ex nihilo in 6 days.

6. JP II’s comments are not ex cathedra, are not an encyclical, are merely his private speculations, and do not assert anything firm. Pius XII’s words have been twisted and wrangled as you come close to doing here. JP II stops short of pronouncing evolutionary theory as anything more than a theory and ‘more than a hypothesis’. The Church recognizes nothing from evolutionary theory that is binding on consciences and requires all such theories that impact the faith (as evolution deeply distorts Genesis 1-11) to be subject to Divine Revelation.

7.

Like Jesus, who taught that the Scripture “cannot be broken,” all the Apostles and Fathers of the Church taught and believed that Scripture was “God-breathed” and free from all error, and that the Holy Spirit moved the sacred authors to write exactly what He wanted them to say. Later, at several ecumenical councils, the Church recognized the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers as a certain rule of Scriptural interpretation. Without exception, the Apostles and Fathers believed and proclaimed the literal historical truth of Genesis 1-11, including all of the particular ideas mentioned above. Consequently, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, backed by the authority of an ecumenical council, authoritatively taught this interpretation of Genesis and interpreted the words of the Apostles Creed and the Fourth Lateran Council on creation in accord with that interpretation.
It follows that if theistic evolutionism is true then God permitted his one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church to teach authoritatively—if not in every instance dogmatically—a completely erroneous account of the creation and early history of the universe. Moreover, He willed that the correction of this error come not “from the contemplation and study of believers” and the teaching of the bishops—as Dei Verbum says that it should—but from the speculations of non-believers whose theories eventually fomented a revolution in the conventional wisdom within the Catholic Church. If this is true, who would trust such an incompetent, self-contradictory “god”?

The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation

>>

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by irishjayhawk

Very rude. You need to grow up!

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Very rude. You need to grow up!

There's something worth not outright laughing at in KCJ's post about science and how evolution is a bald theory?

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by KCJohnny

1. Thanks for the detailed argument; I appreciate the time and effort you put into that.

2. Radiometric dating methods are unreliable. The user must begin with a hypothesis, then apply a model based on an extremely small sample and then extrapolate extravagant amounts of time/space based on unobservable conditions. This calculation then forms the basis for a theory, and is at best an article of faith. Radiocarbon methods have been contested with viable arguments that demonstrate their massive assumptions and weaknesses in the models.

Will this line never cease? Seriously, it's tiresome.

3. Your quoting of the antichristian Dawkins and the support of antichristian Hamas Jenkins should be cause for concern. Your assumption that early ‘man’ resembles chimps is unsupportable in real science and anathema to Catholic Christianity. Your assertion that ‘all scientists accept evolution’ is patently false. There are thousands of tenured scientists who reject Darwinian evolution. Ben Stein’s excellent documentary “No Intelligence Allowed” covers the intolerance and irrational treatment dissenters receive when they point out the inconsistencies of evolutionary theory.

Oh, the irony! The definition of ad hominem in his signature and then he goes and does two in one sentence.

And on top of that he cites Ben Stein's "Expelled".

4. The evolution century brought about more wars, more genocide, and more enslavement than any previous century. The utopian experiments of Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il Sun all owe their political theory to eugenics – the natural result of applying Darwinism to the social sciences. That is not a Christian position.

Godwin's law. And then we've got another tired line about eugenics and how that's evolution. And then we have the ignoring of political influences and -gasp - Christian influences on at least Hitler.

Social Darwinism is not evolution, by the way.

5. I do not wish to engage on the issue of what science purports to be fact/reality (your word, and existential, not a scientific one), but what the Church proclaims as truth, binding on the consciences of all men. In the Church’s proclamation, you will find nothing of ape-men, carbon dating or myths about transmutation of species. We believe and confess that God made all things ex nihilo in 6 days.

And that's why you're retarded.

6. JP II’s comments are not ex cathedra, are not an encyclical, are merely his private speculations, and do not assert anything firm. Pius XII’s words have been twisted and wrangled as you come close to doing here. JP II stops short of pronouncing evolutionary theory as anything more than a theory and ‘more than a hypothesis’. The Church recognizes nothing from evolutionary theory that is binding on consciences and requires all such theories that impact the faith (as evolution deeply distorts Genesis 1-11) to be subject to Divine Revelation.

7. [/size][/font]
The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation

>>

It's sad because even I as an atheist can see an easy route for religious people to take when incorporating evolution into their teaching. Of course, it relies on not taking the Bible literally. This is what Johnny does, however.

[Mr. Flopnuts]

Originally Posted by Taco John

I think that there will be a faction of Palin-ites who will be in so much denial of reality that they'll give it a shot. And there are enough Republicans out there who are well practiced at denying reality, that she could end up a front-runner. But only if McCain manages to make it close. If the McCain camp loses by an electoral landslide, the stink of loss on her will be too much to overcome. She'd have to break a too well constructed cultural caricature that will be set like carbonite in the minds of the American people.

Win or lose, though, the combination of the Palin pick and the entire Barack Obama phenomenon is going to cause a great evolution in the Republican party. Between the two of them, they've blown open doors of opportunity and ambition that could lead to the rebirth of the Republican party. I think we're going to see a fractured party for a long time, and a civil war that will effectively be The Establishment Republican vs. New Era Conservatives. It's likely that the Establishment Republicans will win out in 2012, and we see something similar to a race between Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin (or insert Fred Thompson, or Huckleberry, or any other establishment Republican who don't understand conservative economics and are just hoping to be the pretty head on top of the establishment machine). After the establishment Republicans lose again in another electoral landslide, I predict that there will be enough Internet-mobilized New Era Conservatives who actually understand conservative economics ready to make a difference for the 2016 election -- where they're going to face off with a very well positioned Hillary Clinton. (I have a hunch that Obama might make her the seceratary of state - a move that has the potential to make her invincible in 2016).

From the looks of things, this is the guy that the New Era Conservatives are trying to put into position to run against Hillary in 2016. I'm more interested in this race than the presidential election at this point.

You wanna talk about nailing it. Wow.