Primary Election Comments
State House:
Ron Forster won his primary election against LC Cripps. Not too much of shocker there (just a little, though). In hindsight, the people had already voted LC out of office once. I suspect they remembered why they didn't like him.
What I don't understand though, is this:
Why is Ron celebrating with "YMCA" from the Village People? That's a very festive tie, too, by the way.
County Commission:
Ron Gracy lost his primary reelection bid to Dewayne Hill, who I know almost nothing about. So, I'll just say "Thanks Ron for your service to the county; best of luck." Ron was a big target from the NeoClarkes; although I'm not terribly sure why, other than just for the purpose of a power grab. Good luck against Chris Scott... Rather, good luck to Chris Scott (D).
Bobby Winters won his primary bid again. To his credit, during his first term, he didn't do anything offensive. It's just that he didn't do anything remarkable either... Advice: Strive to lead. We'll have to see in what light the county remembers Pat Page during the general election.
State Offices: Lt. Gov.
Good bye, Golden Boy Ralph Reed! Thankfully the state citizens have enough common sense to cast aside a corrupt, facing indictment, hypocritical, power-grabbing political ladder-climber.
State Offices: Governor
I'm surprised that Sonny's challenger (what's his name again?) got 15%+ of the vote. That's a lot of racist flag voters against Sonny.
I'm not surprised that Cathy Cox lost to Mark Taylor. For weeks, I've said that I thought Cathy had a good chance to beat Sonny Perdue, but that I didn't think she could get past Mark Taylor. Now that Taylor has won, I don't think he can beat Sonny. Mark has way too many skeletons in his closet and has made way too many enemies over his career in this state.
Good try, Cathy. Don't give up!
OK. That's all for now... I'll sign off thinking of "YMCA... It's fun to stay in the YMCA!"
Kinda creepy...
Shuffle Up and Deal!
The Catoosa News article, "Catoosa GOP Shuffle," (
here's the link) says that the local GOP kicked out two people (Levi and Tomanio) and voted back in Brad Scott as Chairman and Winford Long as First Vice Chairman.
All I have to say is... well, probably not all... anyway... all I have to say is this: Didn't Brad resign citing something about working on the Reed campaign? Wanting to devote all his time to that, and not wanting to create any potential conflicts with the local party?
Guess that's not an issue anymore...
Religion + Politics = ???
Recall that the last time that we mixed religion and politics in America, we ended up
burning people at the stake...
Just a thought (or reminder).
Religion and Politics
On this blog, I typically avoid any broader, national-scale discussion of politics. However, given the down-home evangelical nature of our local GOP, I thought I'd mention something I read earlier this morning.
Randall Balmer, a professor of religious history at Barnhard College and an avowed evangelical, recently wrote an essay about the current state of Republicanism and Religion in America. Specifically, he talks about what has the religious right -- in control of all three branches of government -- done with their power? Here's just one excerpt:
And what has the religious right done with its political influence? Judging by the platform and the policies of the Republican Party — and I'm aware of no way to disentangle the agenda of the Republican Party from the goals of the religious right — the purpose of all this grasping for power looks something like this: an expansion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the continued prosecution of a war in the Middle East that enraged our longtime allies and would not meet even the barest of just-war criteria, and a rejiggering of Social Security, the effect of which, most observers agree, would be to fray the social-safety net for the poorest among us. Public education is very much imperiled by Republican policies, to the evident satisfaction of the religious right, and it seeks to replace science curricula with theology, thereby transforming students into catechumens.
Here's a link to the full essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education.Here's more...
If evangelicals believe that God cares about the fate of a fetus, it shouldn't require a huge leap in logic to surmise that God also cares about people of color or prisoners or immigrants or people with an orientation other than heterosexual.
Finally, an evangelical social and political ethic would take into account the pluralistic context of American society and recognize the genius of the First Amendment. That requires respect for the canons of democracy and for the importance of public education to ensure its future. It acknowledges, for example, that the proper venue for the teaching of creationism or intelligent design is the home or the Sunday-school classroom, not the science curriculum. It means refusing to identify the symbols of the faith — the Bible, prayer, the Decalogue with the political order. In short, our best hope for the recovery of an evangelical social and political ethic lies with recognizing that the faith functions best independent of the political order. (emphasis added)
I could not have said it any better. I highly recommend reading the entire essay. I'm pleasantly surprised to hear such rational thought from an evangelical conservative christian.
How rare, and how refreshing. Maybe there is hope in our society.
Ballot Battle
Finally, the Catoosa County News picked up the scent of a story here...
They ran an article today online citing an apparent attempt to have the ballot questions removed and the entire ballot replaced. There's a possibility that local attorney Renzo Wiggans (sp?) (Boy, that would earn a lot in Scrabble!) has either filed or threatened to file (on behalf of whom?) a suit demanding that the ballot be pulled and changed.
Apparently, the ballot questions were added without the express approval of the (R) Party Executive Committee. Boy Wonde(R) Brad Scott, who has since resigned from the party leadership, said that he emailed everyone on the Executive Committee and didn't get any responses.
How Gen-Y.
Any-hoo... We'll have to wait to see how it plays out. I agree that it doesn't matter that there are partisan, non-binding questions on the ballot. I, like others apparently, simply object to the
manner in which the questions were added to the ballot -- done from behind closed doors (or, at best via email to a select few), originated/written by who knows whom (but most certainly including the Puppet Master himself)... we are left to wonder just who the (R) party is trying to represent?
Good Knight, Mr. Scott
In perhaps the first demonstration of sanity in years, the Catoosa Republican Party's top two officials "stepped down," citing differing reasons -- but, both of which are related to party in-fighting, bickering, dissention, whatever...
Here's the link...Electing Brad Scott as Party Puppet... I mean, Chairman was just insane. (Or perfectly sane, if you buy the widely-held "puppet" theory.)
Here's what I find fascinating though... I dont' believe in coincidences, especially when related events so conveniently align themselves, to wit:
I've been questioning (even to some elected Republicans, and Party officials) how the heck did those questions get placed on the Republican primary ballot without any public discourse? I mean, everyone I've talked to just say "Well, it's Bill, Brad and Don. Yep. That's 'bout it." Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with partisan ballots with partisan questions.
But Dudes! Come on... The questions are written SO POORLY, making them so obviously transparent. Let me go ahead and tell you what's going to happen:
After the primary, the results from the "non-binding" questions will be tallied. Even if only 5 people answer the questions (or make that three people; see above), certain elected officials (Bill Clark) will be making statements about "You Good People have spoken! You want _______," where one or more of the various issues so clumsily questioned will be inserted. These "straw poll" interrogatories will be used as political kindling to fuel the Anti-Anything Attitude Those Who Are In Power maintain.
Some of the issues on the ballot are (excuse me for not having the ballot handy; it's on my desk at the office):
- Sole Commissioner (I mean, why not just go ahead and state the question "Do you think the current five member Board of Commissioners should be reduced to a Sole Commissioner selected by Bill Clark and Co.?")
- Colonnade (Of those who would consider voting to remove funding to the Colonnade need to pay attention to the amount of positive publicity and attention generated by the Colonnade, as well as the myriad PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE -- read: not private Country Club -- events are held there.)
By the way, about Ann Knight, based on the comments in the article, it appears that she left because of problems within the Party. Good for you, Ann! I respect your integrity and courage to walk away from a fractious party that is quickly becoming a joke among mainstream (i.e. sane, decent) Catoosa Republicans.
*Sigh* OK. I'm going to log off and write more next week. I just had to get this off my chest after reading the Catoosa County News article.
Immigration Reform
This morning, Congressman Nathan Deal (R-10, soon to be 9 again) spoke to a breakfast meeting hosted by Fuller Rehabilitation and the Catoosa Chamber of Commerce. Cong. Deal highlighted three subjects as "most important" at present:
1. Immigration Reform
2. Terrorism / Iraq
3. Budget Reform
I have some thoughts on the first topic. In Georgia, this week Governor Perdue signed a fairly tough piece of legislation that will deal strongly with illegal immigration, while not saddling businesses with the unreasonable burden of doing the job of INS or Homeland Security. It's a balanced bill, phases in over time, and involved bi-partisan input.
Congressman Deal said that at the Federal level, they're looking at (and he supports) an approach based on an "enforce the laws first" concept. This would be different from the "give amnesty" or guest-worker approaches. "Control the border first," he says, "else why would an immigrant bother to register?" (paraphrase) Now, I agree in concept. Where I disagree is that all of the currently-debated approaches deal with the symptoms, and not the causes.
The current focus on immigration reform stems mainly from our xenophobic fear of terrorists coming in unchecked across our very porous borders. Since 9/11, we've been afraid (trained to be afraid by the current administration) of similar attacks, preventable apparently only by locking down the borders -- isolationism a la Pat Robertson. However, what we're conveniently forgetting is that for decades, nay generations before 9/11 we had the same basically open borders and didn't have any significant terrorism issues.
We are a country of immigrants, first and foremost. Granted, we are also a country of laws, as Congressman Deal stated. But immigration has never been a problem for America. In fact, it's been just the opposite -- our ability to accept and assimilate the different cultural, personal and professional experiences of immigrants has made us the great nation that we enjoy today. It makes me think that the problem of terrorism (the symptom), especially evidenced by the 9/11 attacks, stems not from porous borders, but from some other cause.
Plain and simple, we were attacked because some people "out there" didn't like us. They didn't like the way we lorded over parts of the world. They didn't like they way we exported, and arguably imposed our culture and values onto other parts of the world. They didn't like being told that their cultural and social choices were bad or wrong. They didn't like us judging them. As a result, they finally said "enough is enough."
Sure, I think everyone out there should be democratic and with mutually-respectful social values that incorporate TOLERANCE for our intrinsic and unavoidable differences. But if other populations accept to live in a society that is different than ours, what right do we have to force them to change?
Imagine this: China has significant financial investment in US assets -- T-bills, real estate, loan portfolios, commodities, etc. China's economic future (current and the sustainable future) RELIES on an uninterrupted supply of raw materials, finished goods and services they receive from the US. China then decides that our current isolationist-leaning policies, not to mention governmental budgetary incompetence, threatens their access to mission-critical resources. China decides to do something about it. China decides to "invade" California and take control of one or two major port cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.) while creating military bases to protect their interests -- all in the name of "national security."
Does any of this sound familiar?
I suspect that we, as a nation, would react fairly strongly and probably violently.
So, where am I going with this? What does this have to do with the current discussion about immigration reform? I think the true cause of the problems, again, is not access across our borders. The true cause of current terrorism threats is our world policy -- the image we display to (and sometimes impose on) the rest of the world. The terrorists reacted to our "policy" of defending "our right" to protect "national interests" by taking or securing
their natural resources. Perhaps if we started treating others with the soverign respect they're due (we don't have to like or even agree with them), they might not hate us so much. Perhaps if we didn't judge them so publicly, they might not hate us so much. Perhaps if we weren't so hypocritcal, they might not hate us so much.
Immigration is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, we have to take some bad people in with the good, but all in all, it's been a good thing for our society. Immigration is not the problem, and severely limiting it is not the solution. The solution lies in our public policy. We have an image problem that needs to be corrected in the world. There have been people in the world who have not liked us and what they deemed as "excessive and decadent freedoms." But something finally pushed them over the edge of dislike to active terrorism. Immigration had nothing to do with that change.
State House:
