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A Further Perspective
A Most Momentous Election
Fifty-five hours of work, prayer, and anticipation.
My parish in northern Virginia has commenced 55 hours of continuous Eucharistic Adoration and Prayer-including Benediction — “in anticipation of the General Election,” which started Sunday, November 4, ending Election Day about the time the polls will close. Catholics never, never endorse any candidate from the pulpit as happens in some Protestant churches. Yet, over 2000 years, other more subtle and more efficacious modes of communication have been developed that respect the proprieties.
Some bishops are issuing letters and pronouncements instructing the faithful on a Christian’s duty to vote without mentioning whom to vote for or against. The fact that the Obama administration may be the single most anti-Catholic administration since the era of the Know-Nothings is left unsaid but goes without saying. On religious liberty, life, and marriage the current crowd in the White House is committed, outright, to offending faithful Catholic Christians on every single important question of ethics and morality imaginable. Even Notre Dame, which awarded President Obama an honorary degree and now appreciates the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished, has sued him over the abuse of its religious liberties.
This weekend, at home, we received a ton of mailers calling hellfire down upon President Obama and former Governor Kaine who is running against former Senator George Allen for our open Senate seat, a race just about as close as the presidential contest.
Of course, we are also experiencing a barrage of TV and radio ads featuring women who are apparently living in tremendous fear of losing their access to birth control. Does anyone really take these claims seriously?
We also received robo calls on Saturday from Senator McCain, Governor McDonnell, Pat Boone and several more from the Republican National Committee and the state GOP. The Boone call stung a bit since it was on behalf of some group targeting the over 60 crowd. How come we aren’t hearing from the young, the beautiful, and the hip for Romney?
We live in a generally Democratic neighborhood in Fairfax County, but there seems to be parity in terms of Obama and Romney lawn signs, something we have not seen in an election since moving here eleven years ago. Twice volunteers for Romney have knocked on our doors enquiring of our support for their man. For some reason they keep missing the three yard signs my wife has planted on our lawn. God love ‘em, we applaud their dedication and thoroughness in service to the cause.
I am pleased to read that Michael Barone is calling the election for Governor Romney, and I enjoyed Karl Rove’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal making a great case for a solid win on Tuesday. Larry Kudlow, following Daniel Henninger in the WSJ, highlighted the expected surge in Evangelical voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and even Pennsylvania. News reports indicate that early and absentee voting by Democrats is falling behind 2008 levels which sound encouraging.
But it is still a very close election. Moreover, whether or not our side wins on November 6, it has been a very unedifying campaign, one that has aggravated the already deep divide in America between Red and Blue, Republican and Democratic, Believers and Non-believers, Wealthy and Working Class.
The Republican campaign was not bean bag; but the Obama campaign, starting in the summer, had to be one of the most mendacious of all time. Not only was it mendacious and dishonest, it was personal, nasty and vicious in its vilification of a successful, productive man whose professional and personal life were exceptional in all respects.
Charles Krauthammer was exactly right when he said that the entire Obama and Democratic message seemed to come down to Big Bird and Sandra Fluke. Even more disturbing is that these totems of the Blue political model actually resonated with so many Americans who seem to have no tolerance for any restraint on governmental spending and interventionism, damn the consequences to the fiscal health of the nation or religious liberty.
Just a few days ago I read a short news item indicating that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says we have reached a point at which 40 percent of all births in this country are out-of-wedlock or born to unmarried women. This is a long-term trend that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was crucified for highlighting forty years ago. It is now systemic, cutting across racial and geographic categories as experts such as Patrick Fagan, Brad Wilcox, and Charles Murray have noted in their writings.
Aside from the personal tragedies — women without husbands, children without fathers or adequate love, support and economic and educational opportunities — this is a significant political milestone that points to a growing constituency dependent on government for more and more financial and material support without limit. This is not a population that may be temporarily taken aback by recession or hard economic times, but a permanent social block for which government, not their own labor and enterprise, will be the basis of their survival. Demography is destiny. It will also drive political choices over time. It already is driving them.
I have no illusion that government can fundamentally change the behavior of so many people who have forsaken marriage, fidelity, and “bourgeois” morality. That is a social, cultural, and, yes, religious matter which must be addressed in those contexts. Yet, the first principle in life, and government, should be “Do no wrong.” So this is still the most momentous election in my life, maybe even more so than 1980, in terms of our one last chance to preserve a democratic republic that can still reconcile liberty and virtue.
Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.
About the Author
G. Tracy Mehan, III served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the administrations of both Presidents Bush. He is a consultant in Arlington, Virginia, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
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VaMom| 11.5.12 @ 6:37AM
Liberty and virtue - precisely!
Beautiful summation of this election. We can hope the people in those long lines waiting to vote are thinking about these principles.
Portsmouth Compact| 11.5.12 @ 7:00AM
Government can indeed "fundamentally change" the incidence of unwed motherhood by ending our subsidies of it. If you can't pay for your kids "Julia", put them up for adoption; an added benefit, we won't have to scour China and Ethiopia for 'em.
Von Mises Jr| 11.5.12 @ 8:57AM
Jonah Goldberg recently gave a speech about the Lockean v. Rousseau worldview.
Conservatives believe in the tenets of John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government." All Rights come from God and we only surrender partial sovereignty for enumerated powers provided it promotes our interests. If not, it must be abolished.
Rousseau's view is that the state is primary and the individual only valuable in the overall picture. Statists look for the state for things that it cannot provide such as love and caring. It is quite sad that people would relegate themselves and pursue meaning from an abstract, human creation.
Gary B| 11.5.12 @ 2:29PM
Until it can openly rule with brute force, the ruling class panders to the worst aspects of human nature to retain and increase its power. Free this and free that... free stuff everywhere. The weakest among us walk away from personal responsibility and succumb to this temptation and, after the tipping point, we will all slip into tyranny. We're almost there now. If this election turns out to be a close one, then tyranny is just around the corner. Make no mistake; a re-elected Obama would be a tyrant of the first order. He has no morals and no conscience.
Occam's Tool| 11.5.12 @ 4:15PM
Indeed. If we defund a certain action, that action will cease to be profitable, and will cease.
Appleby| 11.5.12 @ 7:04AM
I have heard people making comments, both for and against, about the fact that Romney doesn't smoke, drink, do drugs or cuss -- and the wonder that there are still such people in the USA. Many people contrast this with the filth spewing out of the YouTube adverts threatening mayhem if anybody dares to vote No on Obama...not to mention Bill Mahr threatening us that if we vote Romney, Black people know where we live and WILL come after us. The people in my neighbourhood here in Kanukistan are from the former Soviet Bloc, and they are shocked at such rhetoric...stuff, as Rubio observes, that they came here to GET AWAY FROM. The one thing I wonder is "Why does the pundit crew still think Wisconsin is in play when Paul Ryan is routinely re-elected there?"
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.5.12 @ 9:30AM
Appleby.....TELL YOUR "NEIGHBORS THERE IS ONE FUNDAMENTAL DIFERENCE. hERE, THEY CAN BUY AN RIFLE AND USE IT!
hERE THEY CAN PROTECT THEIR FAMLIES AGANST THE TAKERS AND OTHER IDIOTS.
RCV| 11.5.12 @ 11:51AM
The Texas Ranger has his Walter Mitty wet dreams again.
Occam's Tool| 11.5.12 @ 4:18PM
RCV: get your Kleenex supply in. You will need it.
Here's a picture of another MA bruiser doin' the dirty to Jersey (Obama) Joe:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbowler78/4322252945/
realfactchecker | 11.5.12 @ 8:15AM
The most disturbing aspect of the election is that even after the past four years, almost half of the electorate is attracted to the coarseness and triteness of Obama and worse, think they support what he intends to do to us when he has "more flexibility."
Watching his audiences cheer his inane attacks against Romney is chilling.
They remind me of the Eastern Airlines union workers picketing at the Atlanta Airport when the news broke that Eastern had gone bankrupt.
From their picket lines, signs in hand, they cheered...and went home to no jobs, no insurance, and no pensions.
America, I hardly know you.
fmm| 11.5.12 @ 1:05PM
It is amazing that these people can be so against a company which hires and pays them enough so that they can pursue whatever interests they have outside of the workplace in complete freedom. At the same time they adore a government which reduces their worth, increases the cost of everything they do, and reduces their freedom to act on their own behalf.
Butch| 11.5.12 @ 5:08PM
Breaking news! This is no joke: just heard the latest ABC-WashPO poll on ABC Radio News. It seems Obama has vaulted into a three point lead, 50-47 percent nationwide, marking, for the first time I believe, any poll result showing Obama at 50 percent, much less above. All that last-minute movement to Obama!
I have always considered ABC the most liberal news still pretending to be objective (MSNBC, for example, does not even pretend).
KennesawJack| 11.5.12 @ 5:32PM
Anything to try to tamp down Republican enthusiasm. It won't work but you knew they were going to try it.
Neatsfoot| 11.5.12 @ 5:39PM
Funny, the state polls say the same thing .
http://election.princeton.edu/.....ren-olney/
That darn thing called science . . math, statistics . . . It just won't leave Romney alone . . . .
Butch| 11.5.12 @ 8:14PM
Just like "global warming;" those math-dodging, sociology-majoring liberals--always promoting that "science." Hey, you guys worship it--we practice it.
Neatsfoot| 11.5.12 @ 5:53PM
"WaPo-ABC tracking poll: final weekend tally is Obama 50, Romney 47, still a ‘margin of error’ contest"
Still a margin of error contest . . . did you miss that? It was in the headline. Not "Obama is going to win" . . Why didn't you finish the sentence?
Butch| 11.5.12 @ 8:16PM
I heard it three times. Y'now what they said, athlete's-foot-guy, that the margin of error was 2.5 percent and the three percent difference was "within the margin of error." Yessir, that's science, all right. You idiot.
Neatsfoot| 11.5.12 @ 5:29PM
"I have no illusion that government can fundamentally change the behavior of so many people who have forsaken marriage, fidelity, and "bourgeois" morality. That is a social, cultural, and, yes, religious matter which must be addressed in those contexts. "
Mr. Mehan, I live not far from you, in Arlington, Obama COuntry. Are you seriously suggesting that four more years of Obama is going to transform this country? SInce 1980, 20 of 32 years have been GOP presidents. None of them have reversed Roe. v. Wade or somehow convinced the American PUblic to stop using birth control. In fact, A GOP controlled Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992, and more recently, struck down the sodomy laws, leading to the gay Marriage revolution.
Your enemy is not Obama. It is the AMerican People and changing society. Your views, like the Railroads, and the fax machine, are gradually fading. Learn tot live with it.
KennesawJack| 11.5.12 @ 5:40PM
Sorry, Neatsfoot. The railroads and fax machines are still around (railroads, in fact, are bigger now than they've ever been) but that isn't the point. Both railroads and fax machines were challenged by a BETTER alternative. The culture that we are beginning to embrace is WORSE than that which we seem to be surrendering. It took Hitler less than three years to transform Germany, it took Lenin less than two years to transform Russia, it took Castro less than one. Do I believe that four more years of Obamarx will fundamentally transform my country? Yes, I do.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 11.5.12 @ 5:59PM
It is somewhat ironic to note, as well, regarding the railroads, that as their monopoly as the primary means of mass long distance travel eroded, a government subsidy developed and increased. In the event that Neatsfoot thinks it is somehow a thing of the past, the billions of dollars allocated for high speed or light rail in the 2009 "stimulus" bill laughingly labeled the Recovery Act seem to suggest otherwise.
Bob Grant| 11.5.12 @ 11:43PM
Foot-in-Mouth:
We say barack hussein obama will fundamentally transform America and give specifics to back up our claim, from social, economic, and foreign policy.
You say he won't and that we must "learn to live with it" but give no specifics as to what "it" IS.
Like a typical Liberal, you refuse to be specific about how obama has governed or will govern, G*d forbid, in his second term.
I don't know what in the h**l Roe v. Wade has anything to do with the present. Romney has no plans to reverse Roe V. Wade so what's your point?
Why don't you man up and tell us SPECIFICALLY how you think obama will govern in a second term. Then we can have that discussion whether he's fundamentally transforming America or not.
In the meantime keep your nothing posts to yourself!!
Neatsfoot| 11.5.12 @ 6:35PM
I know the government subsidizes the Railroads as mass transit - particularly in the red states. Amtrak is profitable in the Northeast - but attempt to shut down the unprofitable cross country lines meet with fierce GOP resistance.
I was more referring to the freight railroads as being in decline.
In any event. I promise, Obama will vacate the White House no later than January 20 2017.
KennesawJack| 11.5.12 @ 6:42PM
Check your "facts". Railroads are hauling more freight, more profitably, than ever.
Mister H| 11.5.12 @ 8:21PM
I believe many Americans would be surprised at the extent to which President Obama has advanced a pro-abortion agenda through a long list of “bill signings, speeches, appointments, and other actions” since his election in November, 2008.
His many pro-abortion actions are documented at the link below. The list is shockingly long and extensive.
The link:
http://www.lifenews.com/2010/1.....ionrecord/