Elections 2016 (and 2014)

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Taming the Black Swan

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Selling Out vs Sticking to Principles

Back to Politics

Despite the fact that this blog was originally established for the purpose of discussing and defending traditional ethics and morality in our modern culture, we keep digressing into politics.

This may be fitting, since what is politics, after all, if not the interaction of human beings on an organized group level; an interaction that certainly ought to be subject to the same rules of morality and decency that apply to individual human interactions?

And since what goes around comes around applies to our personal lives, guess what?  What goes around comes around applies to politics as well.  (The expression means that bad things you do come back to bite you later, and the good things you do come back to reward you later.)

Readers Demand Political Philosophy

Readers seem to know this, and as elections approach, they keep returning to those old articles here which discuss political philosophy, which explore the crucial interconnection between morality and the State (i.e., interconnection between Church and State).

Such discussions are not commonly available in the public arena in the present political atmosphere, which is so often controlled by fear of political bullies like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and their ilk, who attempt to eradicate all mention of right and wrong from the public forum. These bullies who attack religion are effectively advocating the absence of all morality from government, from law, and from public life.

So after a hiatus following the ethically dubious 2012 Presidential election in which Barack Obama purchased votes by bribery with Obama-phones and other lollipops, and in which conservatives tossed the vote by staying home in disgust, this blogger returns again to discussion of politics, of coming elections, and of election strategies for Elections 2016.

Why the Hiatus?

The results of the 2012 Presidential election made clear several important facts, which required some time to resolve:

• The people had spoken, and the Obama administration now had four more years to deliver on its campaign promises.  The United States is, after all, a democracy.  The fair loser steps aside gracefully and lets the wheels of democracy turn.
• Those people who were foolish enough to vote for Obama needed to experience more Obama consequences, to experience a rise in personal misery index, before they could be persuaded to vote for someone more responsible who does not promise lollipops and who does not lie.  And 2013/14 certainly provided ample rise in personal misery index generated by government; now even Democrats are calling Obama incompetent and are distancing themselves from him before the 2014 elections.  Meanwhile, we conservatives take an imposed rest and simply watch the inevitable  and painful implosion. We don’t enjoy it any more than parents enjoy watching their teens making painful mistakes.
  What goes around comes around. But it takes time.  We all hurt, we all suffer, but nothing can be done to circumvent some suffering in this life.
• The Republican establishment, which was foolish enough to cheat in order to change Republican convention rules so they could nominate their favorite Compromise Candidate, Mitt Romney, needed to figure out that there is a limit to the degree of compromise their conservative supporters will tolerate before they rebel.  There was great surprise and shock in November 2012, when 4 million registered Republicans failed to come to the polls, handing the election to Barack Obama.

So now two years have passed, and we have experienced some of the consequences of the 2012 election.  We have experienced more of Obama’s administration, ObamaCare failures, VA scandals, IRS scandals, implosion of Iraq, border crises, and numerous other debacles.  Establishment Republicans have experienced 4 million registered Republicans staying home from the polls, and losing the election.
During all of which, Nero fiddled as Rome burned.
Political puzzle pieces have been falling into place.
We need to redefine how we approach politics. 

So now it’s time to end the hiatus and time to address the future.
Back into politics!

Confusion Reigns

First observation on returning to politics in 2014: confusion reigns.

Democrats are suffering from the deluge of scandals befalling President Obama as the fruits of his erroneous policies and his lies mature. Today, 58% of Americans, including 30% of Democrats, say that the Obama administration is incompetent at managing the government.  Now, even New York Times correspondents are saying that the Obama administration’s ebola response is another example of Obama not running a competent government.  Liberals have begun to acknowledge Obama’s incompetence.  

Republicans are suffering from highly disfunctional infighting, seemingly incapable of choosing between continuing moral compromise with the opposition, and their fear of unpopularity if they choose responsible conservative policy.

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Support is at an all-time low for both parties, and nobody seems to know how to attract the independent voters from the middle.
Only 24% of American voters identify as Republicans, 31% as Democrats, and a whopping 43% identify as Independents.

This bears repeating: a whopping 43% of Americans identify as Independents!
There are way more independents than Democrats.
There are way more independents than Republicans.

THE LEADING POLITICAL FACTION IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY IS INDEPENDENT.

What does it mean to be Independent?
Being Independent means that nobody tells these voters what to think; they think for themselves, and they owe allegiance to neither party.
If Independents could only agree on a candidate, there would be a landslide election and an Independent victory!

Potential Strategies

How can the two major parties recruit from the 43% of  uncommitted electorate in the middle?
With more lollipops and promises?
With an offer of responsible tough government appealing to those who have suffered enough in this economy?
Will a third party succeed in stealing the election?
Is the time ripe, with broadening disgust with both major parties, for the introduction of a third party?

Birth of the Republican Party

Looking at history, the founding of the present Republican party occurred under similar conditions, and resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency.

The Whigs seemed incapable of coping with national crisis over slavery, so the Republican Party was established (in Wisconsin!) with the primary goal of opposing slavery. (Yes, contrary to what today’s progressives want you to think, the Republican Party was the first to oppose slavery!) The Whigs lost power, and Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was elected.

So there is historical precedent for the birth of a third party; provided the nation is sufficiently disgusted with the two existing parties.

Are we sufficiently disgusted with the two existing parties today?

Can a third party rise to the occasion in present divided times and succeed in election 2016?

Or would a third party simply divide the conservative vote and hand victory to Democrats?

The Republican Split Today

The Conservative Dilemma

With four factions advocating four different approaches, the solution to this conservative dilemma is not obvious.
The above four approaches are mutually exclusive, and getting conservatives to agree on one approach would pose quite the obstacle.

• Those favoring the Buckley Rule would nominate someone like Mitt Romney or Chris Christie again.
• Those favoring the Limbaugh Rule would nominate someone like Scott Walker or Ben Carson.
• Those favoring the Third Party Option would replace the Republican Party by a group like the Tea Party.
• Article V supporters, if successful, would provide an opportunity for radical change and decentralization of government, returning much power to the states and reducing the power of the federal government.

The first option (Buckley Rule) has already been tried and failed in Election 2012.

Many conservatives favor the second option (Limbaugh Rule) right now. Stick to your principles an nominate the most conservative candidate in the primaries.

But as discontent with Washington continues to grow, it becomes more and more likely that some Americans may abandon business as usual and may opt for the more startling last two options- third party or even overriding Washington DC via Article V.

One thing is certain- the 4 million disgusted registered Republicans who stayed home in November of 2012 are not likely to change their minds and get back on board with John Boehner and the Buckley Rule.

It is much more likely that an additional 4 million will join the first 4 million in boycotting the Republican establishment’s cowardly and ever-compromising path towards defeat.  Yet staying home OR voting for a third party can hand the election to Democrats, even if they do not have majority support.

So What’s a Conservative to Do in 2014/2016 ?

There will be much discussion, much angst, and

much disagreement among conservatives over which of the above four approaches should be followed in 2016.
There will be even more anxiety over whether the guaranteed lack of unity will defeat us, handing victory to progressives.

But an examination of history, an examination of the forces that determine the fate of nations and of elections, reveals that perhaps we need not worry.
There is a simple and practical approach that may reassure those so very worried about the future.
Hint: it involves simply sticking to your principles and not selling out.
-The approach the Almighty might suggest if anybody bothered to ask Him.

The Determinants of History

What determines history?
What determines the fate of a nation or the fate of an election?

It may surprise some to hear that the determinants of history, the elements that identify or determine the nature of events or that fix their outcome, are not usually voters, nor are they politicians.

Many historians acknowledge that much of history is determined not by careful planning and strategy, but by fluke events called Black Swans.

Black Swan theory is taught at universities, and Black Swan theory was discussed by the New York Times in connection with the  9/11 Commission, which sought “to provide a ‘full and complete accounting’ of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and recommendations as to how to prevent such attacks in the future.”

Black Swan theory is not a joke; it’s a sobering and probable reality.

So when we talk about the 2016 election, it is wise to consider whether a Black Swan event will be the determinant of the election, and to ask whether it is possible for us or for our politicians to influence that Black Swan event.

What IS a Black Swan?

How do we define a Black Swan?

The Cambridge Japanese Journal of Political Science refers to these unpredictable big events that shape human history, or Black Swans (emphasis mine):

The nonlinear dynamical process of self-organized criticality provides a new ‘theory of history’ that explains a number of unresolved anomalies: Why are the really big events in human history usually unpredictable? Why is it impossible to anticipate sudden political, economic, and social changes? Why do distributions of historical data almost always contain a few extreme events that seem to have had a different cause from all the rest? Why do so many of our ‘lessons of history’ fail to predict important future events? As people, organizations, and nations become increasingly sensitive to each other’s behavior, trivial occurrences sometimes propagate into sudden changes. Such events are unpredictable because in the self-organized criticality environment that characterizes human history, the magnitude of a cause often is unrelated to the magnitude of its effect.

Nassim Taleb is a Black Swan specialist.  He is a scientist, essayist, businessman, mathematical trader and scientist-philosopher who studies the epistemology of randomness and the multidisciplinary problems of uncertainty and knowledge, particularly in the large-impact hard-to-predict rare events called “Black Swans”.

Taleb seeks to create a “platform for a new scientific-minded public intellectual dealing with social and historical events — in replacement to the ‘fooled by randomness’ historian and the babbling journalistic public intellectual.”

(Nassim Saleb feels morally bound as a professional philosopher and historian to acknowledge that history is driven by Black Swan events.)

In his book Learning to Expect the Unexpected, Taleb defines the Black Swan like this:

A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. Nevertheless, people tend to concoct explanations for them after the fact, which makes them appear more predictable, and less random, than they are. Our minds are designed to retain, for efficient storage, past information that fits into a compressed narrative. This distortion, called the hindsight bias, prevents us from adequately learning from the past.

“Much of what happens in history”, he notes, “comes from ‘Black Swan dynamics’, very large, sudden, and totally unpredictable ‘outliers’, while much of what we usually talk about is almost pure noise. Our track record in predicting those events is dismal; yet by some mechanism called the hindsight bias we think that we understand them. We have a bad habit of finding ‘laws’ in history (by fitting stories to events and detecting false patterns); we are drivers looking through the rear view mirror while convinced we are looking ahead.”

So when it comes to elections, whether they be 2014, 2016, or any other election, it would be wise to remind ourselves that Black Swans are often determinants of the outcome.

That’s why nobody can predict election results.

By definition, a Black Swan is an unexpected and surprising historical event that plays a giant role in altering the course of history, yet could not have been predicted, and is not pre-planned by politicians or governments.

Role of the Black Swan in History

Historians and economists both acknowledge the role of Black Swans in human history.

There are many examples of Black Swan events in history, recent and ancient.
Remember the definition: nobody saw it coming, nobody could have seen it coming, it could not be planned for.

Some examples of Black Swan events:

• Terrorist attacks of 9/11
• Victory of American colonists against Imperial England in the Revolutionary War
• Outbreak of World War I (as a result of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria’s driver taking a wrong turn)
• Unexpected rise of Hitler
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union without a single battle in 1991
• Recent spread of Islamic fundamentalism
• Internet bubble
• Housing bubble
• Stock market crashes
• Arab spring
• Surprising defusing of the Syria situation in 2013
• Christianization of Europe by Constantine
• Battle of Lepanto victory (which prevented the conquering of Europe by Muslims against terrific odds)
• Attack on Pearl Harbor

Biblical examples of Black Swan events:

• Moses
• The Exodus
• Crossing of the Red Sea,
• David’s victory over Goliath
• Conversion of Nineveh
• Conversion of Nebuchadnezzar (see also)
• Life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ
• Conversion of St. Paul

Aside: The Bible is a valuable source of political instruction for those who realize the wisdom contained in it.

The above examples of Black Swan events occurred against all odds, were so unlikely that they could not previously be imagined, and they changed the course of human history dramatically.

Black Swans- Good or Bad?

Black Swans can be either good or bad.
To qualify as a Black Swan, an event simply has to lie beyond the realm of normal expectations.
The Christianization of Europe was good.
The terror attacks of 9/11 were bad.
Both were Black Swan events.

Black Swan events can occur not only in politics and in global events, but in our personal lives as well.  One unexpected event frequently steers the subsequent course of a person’s entire lifetime.

Taming the Black Swan

Once one accepts the existence and powerful role of Black Swan events in human history, the next logical question becomes- can we possibly prepare for these events and/or influence these events?

By human reason, no.
By definition we cannot expect and prepare for the unexpected.

However, in a nation like ours, in which 80% of citizens believe in God, 80% of citizens pray daily and believe that God answers their prayers, in a nation whose government has been founded on the inalienable rights given to man by God, in a nation structured after Christian morality, it is not unreasonable to bring into this discussion the interaction between God and History, and the interconnection between Church and State.
And this changes the picture dramatically.

In fact, when we acknowledge the interconnection between God and the world, Black Swan events become more easily understood as the intervention of God and of Satan in human affairs.

This view does not refuse to discuss the battle between of Good and Evil battle in our world.  In times of history like the present one, while ISIS mercilessly terrorizes Europe without intervention,  events becomes less mystifying when viewed in their proper light.

Back to Who Is In Charge?

Does this mean that we are helpless pawns at the mercy of warring supernatural forces of Good and Evil, much like the ancient Greeks who believed they were subject to the capricious whims of their warring and jealous gods?

No!
Unlike the ancient Greeks, we have the ability to steer supernatural events indirectly through our personal choices of good and evil and through our prayers.  We have a direct line to God via saintly lives and prayer, through which we can access the most powerful forces in the universe.  This is the power God has given to human beings. A power, incidentally, resented tremendously by Satan.

Unfortunately, some of us also choose to have a direct line to Satan. The Enemy is unleashed and empowered whenever we shun God’s directives and defy God, particularly when we try to be little gods ourselves.

And so, through moral choices and through prayer, we humans do have great influence on the war between Good and Evil.
Why do you think that Pope Francis’s reaction to the crisis in Syria was to call for global Adoration?
The holy man kwows how to fight spiritual warfare.

Satan always baits us with promises and with lies, but ultimately he delivers misery to all human beings, particularly to those who fell for his ploys.  But God limits Satan’s power, and teaches us how to chain the Evil one, by following the guidelines left to us first by the Ten Commandments, and then by Jesus Christ.

And so the mysterious struggles of Good and Evil are played out in our world, while many of us are unaware that victory is really within our grasp and that we have much more power over world events than we realize.

The Solution

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Taming the Black Swan

The solution is simple;

• Stay close to God through prayer
• Trust God with patience
• Play by God’s rules, even in the face of impossible odds (God does the rest)

Simple formula for Elections

The formula for victory is simple- vote for the wisest and most moral candidate, whether you are voting in elections or in primaries, and forget about arguments on capturing independents in the middle by making moral compromises.

Follow the Limbaugh rule, not only when voters are fed up with liberalism, but ALL the time.
It worked for Abe Lincoln, it worked  for Ronald Reagan, and it worked for Saint John Paul II in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Most of America (Independents) needs to reclaim a political party and make it our own.
Both existing parties have failed us abysmally.
Democrats have completely sold out Christian values by promoting abortion and redefining marriage.

In 2014, Independents should go to the polls and vote for Republicans, because they oppose abortion (killing over a million citizens each year), and represent fiscal responsibility as well.
Perhaps the Republican party might be willing to shift to the right.

Do your homework; use a neutral source like BALLOTPEDIA.

In 2016, if the Republican establishment resists a shift to conservative values and if the field is littered with numerous conservative candidates who split the vote up as they did in 2012, conservatives should not fear a brokered convention in which many conservatives are pared down to a few with numerous rounds of ballots.
We should not let the Republican establishment force the Buckley Rule, as they did in 2012, forcing the nomination of Mitt Romney against the majority of their party, who supported conservatives.

A message to the Republican establishment: don’t sell out your base and your ethics in some misguided attempt to capture some Independent votes from the middle.
Most Independents want a shift towards conservatism, reality and responsible behavior.

In 2016, if the Republican establishment tries to force liberalism and the “Buckley rule” as they have in the past, we move to a third, more moral and more conservative party.

Independents think, they admire justice, and they rally behind upstanding candidates.
Independents come in riding on black swans.

Reporting History

Most historians separate history and philosophy/theology into distinct and separate compartments, and only rarely do they acknowledge that human beliefs exert a powerful influence on human behavior and on human history.

It is even more rare for an historian to acknowledge that those humans actions which stem from religious belief (such as prayer or such as heroic action) can actually be effective in dealing with a global or political problem.
The political correctness of today does not permit the inclusion of God, moral choices, or prayer in any analysis.

But those who take their heads out of the sand and realize that this nation was founded on Christian principles and that this is still a nation of God-fearing and freedom-loving people in both parties, will realize that this nation’s history has been and will continue to be be steered by ethics, by prayer, and by God.
Unless the minority, the radical progressives who want to eradicate any mention of God from our lives and from our history, are allowed to intimidate the rest of us into inaction and into silence.

The reading of history cannot be partial and biased to exclude the fact that this nations was shaped by Christians, still consists of Christians, and that it’s history has been guided and protected by a very good God.
The role of the supernatural must be acknowledged, if Truth is to be known.
The secularization of human history neglects to consider man’s strongest motivations, denies his noble struggle between the Truth and the Father of Lies, and dismisses his most powerful ally – the Almighty.

Col 2:8 See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ.

Interconnection Between Church and State

The interconnection suggested here between Church and State is not the top-down dictation of moral values by Executive Order that is being attempted by President Obama, dictating what newly invented progressive morality the citizens of the United States must follow.  Nor is it a government-imposed State Religion imposed from above.

The interconnection is a democratic one.

When it comes to refining the relationship between government and religion, or between Church and State, the key is for ethical values to flow from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Nobody wants a specific government-imposed religion. But people clearly do want a code of morality and ethics on which most reasonable citizens can agree.

Instead of eliminating morality altogether from public life, and instead of government (King Obama) dictating his own brand of morality, citizens need to vote their personal religious moral beliefs into law.
The Constitution provides the mechanism by which this fundamentally Christian nation, still identifying itself as 80% Christian, can choose representatives in government who reflect their ethical beliefs.

An Optimistic Future

When the interconnection between Church and State is implemented, not from the top down, but  from the grass roots up,
when we all pray and go to the polls and vote for what is right and what is moral, our nation will heal and will get back on the right track.

David will slay Goliath, and Red Sea will part.

That power is in our hands.
We can marshal powerful forces into play that could never be predicted or imagined on a human level alone.

We can steer the Black Swans- provided we don’t throw away the reins.

Related Posts:

The Missing Link – Redefining How We Approach Politics

Pope Francis Takes On Obama

Political Puzzle Pieces Falling into Place

Enjoying the Progress? Join the Prayer

Global Adoration- Say What?

The Missing Link–

Redefining How We Approach Politics

People are Flocking to Old Articles

This website, originally established to present a Catholic/conservative perspective to those who might be interested, seems to have recently become popular as an historical/political information resource.
Not my choice, but that of visitors, who are targeting very specific articles.

Visitors are flocking to articles written as long as two years ago, on topics such as the 2011 Madison Capitol Teacher’s protests, the 2012 Presidential election, the old Catholic Church abuse scandals, and articles on the subject of freedom OF religion versus freedom FROM religion. (Most visited articles listed below.)

Traffic continues to visit my website even during my attempted vacation (now), despite the noticeable reduction in new articles posted.

The website is also getting significant negative attention in the form of hacking attempts.  We just survived a sophisticated Denial of Service (DoS) attack launched from computers in Europe.
(DoS attacks are usually reserved for much bigger potatoes than me, and they usually target large corporations and businesses.  They are highly illegal,  carry penalties of 10 years imprisonment, and are strictly forbidden by most nations.)  So somebody seems to be pretty motivated to take this website down.

The Question

So the question becomes– in a world with no shortage of political pundits or religion experts, why are people reading articles written by me, Mrs. small potato, with no political or religious credentials, for information on politics and on religion?  And why are those who disagree with me prepared to risk 10 years imprisonment to take me down?

Common Denominator

The common denominator among the most visited articles seems to be analysis of current political and cultural events from a religious and ethical perspective.

Yes, this blog violates the modern mandate of Separation of Church  and State.

Here, the interconnection between God and the events of this modern world are analyzed and examined in a matter-of-fact and straightforward way.  Our focus includes some common sense and some outside-the-box thinking– not surprising, because God always makes sense and God is always outside the box.

Apparently some readers are hungry for this approach.
Other readers want to shut the approach down.

In fact, the world makes much more sense when you add its Creator into the analysis.
And if including the Creator in political analysis makes sense, it makes even more sense to include the Creator in formulating political strategy.

How To Redefine Conservative Political Strategy after the November 2012 Fiasco?

There is little doubt that in 2013 conservative political strategy needs redefining; the Republican party seems on the verge of splitting, a split which could prove lethal to Republicans in the next election, and a split which did contribute to the Republican defeat in November 2012.

The Republican split is between the Party establishment, which has drifted increasingly over time toward compromise with the left and toward courting the “moderate” vote, and true conservatives, who adhere to conservative Judeo-Christian principles and to conservative fiscal strategy.  True conservatives are pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-balanced budget, and pro-lots of common sense.  The Establishment fears that such “extreme” (i.e., common sense) views may cause the party to lose votes.

Which way to go?  How can we avoid a split?  These are the questions being asked and this is why some seem to be returning to my brand of political analysis, which predicted, before November 2012, the chaos that would result from too much compromise with the left.

The Missing Link in Political Analysis and Strategy

Political strategists who steer local, national and global power games typically vie for support from every possible source.  They court money, fame, popular culture, the support of organizations, churches, business and media, Hollywood, and the favor of groups, of women, of minorities, and of immigrants.

Rarely does it occur to politicians, and even to some religious politicians, to court the support of the Almighty.

Politicians Courting the Almighty

Therein lies the key to political success- courting assistance from the Almighty.  Dubious as some may be about God’s involvement in human history, His involvement is quite apparent to those who remain open-minded.

When history is viewed from a perspective  that does not automatically exclude the existence of God, God’s action in human history becomes obvious.  The hand of God in human events is most obvious in those events which defy the laws of probability, in those events which accomplish far-reaching, perhaps even global results, where human effort seems to play little or small part in accomplishing the result, and in those events where politicians and battles play no significant role.  Nobody anticipates the result, everyone is surprised by the result, the result is truly remarkable, and no fingerprints are left behind.
That is God’s style and His trademark.

Examples of such significant events which have shaped the course of human history, yet were not orchestrated by politicians, armies, or missionaries, include the Christianization (actually Catholicization) of  Europe at the time of Constantine, the dismantling of the Soviet Union without battle at the time of President Regan and Pope John Paul the Great, and most recently, the commencement of the the self-destruction of what has sometimes been called the Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama.  In recent months, in the absence of any action on the part of Barack Obama’s political opponents, scandal upon scandal has broken, and President Obama’s reputation and popularity are collapsing swiftly.

Including God in the Plan

There is, indeed, a God Who watches over us and participates in human activity, usually in very surprising and unexpected ways.  So ignoring God, failing to court His support and ignoring His wishes should constitute a pretty big tactical error for political strategists, if God does exist.  It would also be a pretty big tactical error for the 80% of America that prays not to pray for God’s help in restoring justice to our nation and to our world.

People can be so illogical.
90% of Americans believe in God, and they believe daily what CNN reporters report in the news, yet they forget that by definition the God they believe in would be powerful, good and involved with the world, and that it makes little sense to believe Anderson Cooper’s reports on events in Benghazi, while denying historical reports in a chronicle of God’s interaction with humanity, the Bible.  So the lessons to be learned from biblical stories like the parting of the Red Sea, or David’s slaying of Goliath, are illustrations of God’s power and of the assistance He provides to those who, like Moses, or like David, have faith in God’s promises and act with great confidence on that faith.  The same God, wielding the same power, is available to us today.  If we were to act with the faith of Moses or of David (or of Constantine, Pope John Paul the Great and Ronald Regan), we can expect monumental results that defy all odds.

We might note that God’s mind rarely works the way ours do. In all the cases cited above, Moses, Goliath, the Christianization of Europe, the defeat of the Soviet Union, and the demise of Barack Obama’s reputation, human expectations did not line up at all with the surprises God provided.

So the missing key to dealing with politics includes remembering to put God into the plan, and then having the faith and the patience to watch Him work in His own time.

Planning Without God

In the absence of a God, if we were reliant solely on our own devices, it would become tempting to fight adversaries with their own tools.  It would become tempting to sling mud back at our opponents, to court voters with promises of lollipops, to court moderate votes with continual compromise of our moral standards, and even to consider introducing a few lying and cheating Alinsky tactics of our own, when dealing with modern “progressive” opponents such as the Obama administration.  How else can we win against the tactics presently being used against us?

Quite a few modern conservatives have fallen into this temptation, and have started compromising with the opposition.  They fall for the fallacious argument that says compromising values will attract moderate voters.  They fall for the fallacious argument that hand-outs will buy votes.  They begin to walk away from their values, they compromise more-and-more, and they foolishly shift never-endingly toward the left.

The nomination of Mitt Romney was an example of such compromise, in which the Republican party split became very apparent, and in which frightened old school Republicans even violated their own convention rules.  They forced through the nomination of Mitt Romney, instead of playing by the rules, instead of negotiating their way through a brokered convention, and instead of considering more than one nominee at the Republican Convention.  They failed to realize that some greats like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Regan were chosen under similar conditions, and that these conservative but previously unknown candidates had principles that were better able to defeat the incumbent Democrat President.

What does including God in politics look like?

When you remember to include God in the plan, you follow His rules, even in the face of overwhelming opposition and of Alinsky tactics, you pray, and you wait.
It takes a lot of faith, but it works.
God always comes through.

Your opposition would LOVE you to divorce politics from principled faith.
Divorcing politics from faith would have paralyzed Moses, David, Constantine, John Paul the Great, Regan, and now in 2013, divorcing politics from faith will paralyze us if we go in that direction.
Why do  you think Lenin worked hard to exterminate religion and why do you think Obama is working so hard to paralyze the Catholic Church through the HHS Mandate?

Because that is how they paralyze their opposition.

Dumping Judeo-Christian Values (or Adopting Alinsky Tactics) Will Boomerang on You

When we succumb to the threats progressives make and we fall for their demands to violate God’s law, we compromise our values.  To fight the devil with his own tools doesn’t work anyway, it boomerangs on us.

In nominating Mitt Romney, conservative and pro-life values were compromised, and Republican Convention rules were broken.  Mitt Romney may be a very nice man.  But he was not elected democratically at the Republican convention, and he does not personify the values of conservative America. Mitt Romney was a compromise with the left, a compromise some claimed was very similar to Barack Obama.   The result was the alienation of true conservatives, and the alienation of numerous Tea Party activists.  This alienation among conservatives was so pronounced that 3 million REGISTERED REPUBLICANS did not go to the polls in November of 2012.

Three million registered Republicans stayed home rather than vote for Mitt Romney, the man who refused to sign the Susan B. Anthony pro-life pledge, who had supported abortion and embryonic stem cell research in the past, and who now supports gay boy scout leaders and gay adoption.  The man who created the blueprint for ObamaCare. The man whose nomination was pushed through by brute force at the Republican convention by the Party Establishment, against the wishes of numerous true conservatives. The man who did not represent the wishes of the people, and so 3 million people did not go to the polls in protest.

Three million votes added to the November 2012 totals would have won the election for Republicans.  If the REGISTERED Republican voters whom the Republican establishment aliented with it’s shenanigans had gone to the polls on November 6, 2012, Barack Obama would no longer be President!

Selling out our values sure does boomerang on us.

What About Those of Us Who Prayed, Who Worked, Who Participated in Freedom of Religion rallies?

The prayers, the work, the Freedom of Religion rallies of 2011 and 2012 in which many true conservatives participated were not wasted.  Americans have been wakng up in recent years both politically and religiously, and are fighting back against the Imperial Obama administration.
God did not ignore those prayers or those efforts.

Mitt Romney would not have been the answer to those prayers.
A true conservative would have been the answer to those prayers, but the Republican establishment made sure, compromising even the rules of the Republican Convention,  that a true conservative was not nominated.

If the Republican Party establishment was prepared to sell out our values and to (undemocratically) ram through  their favored “presumptive nominee,”  we might actually be better off with 4 more years of Barack Obama, rather than with an unknown, opportunistic Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney would have, at best, treaded water for us.  Conservative policy was not likely to be implemented any time soon.

But, four more years of Obama Administration offers the potential for Americans to experience  firsthand the results of the disastrous Obama policy.

Pain and economic hardship can have a sobering effect on people, forcing them to realize that liberalism is a luxury they can no longer afford.  The poor, by definition, cannot be liberal with money and must conserve.  Goodby liberalism, hello conservatism!  God’s balance beam at work!

This principle holds true not only for economic liberalism, but for moral liberalism and for all forms of liberalism.  Society, like individuals, makes mistakes, learns from them, and frequently make corrections, when truth becomes obvious.

Back to the Most Popular Articles

The articles to which my readers have been flocking include those analyzing the Alinsky tactics in use by teacher’s unions in Madison, by progressives in the Democrat party, and by the Obama administration.  They include comparisons between Alinsky tactics and the Ten Commandments.  They include quoting Alinsky’s  dedication of his book to Lucifer, or to Satan.  They also include warnings to Republicans on surrendering moral ground in the face of Alinsky tactics.  They include pointing out that a conservative candidate, contrary to some opinions, would have made a much stronger candidate in the 2012 Presidential election.  They include reminders that America is not a Godless country, that the Constitution is not a Godless constitution, and that it is worth our while to stick to Judeo-Christian morality and to the Constitution of the United States, despite the fear of many that elections can only be won by continual compromise and by erosion of moral ground.

What Insurmountable Problems Do We Face Today?

How, in a nation that appears to be divided 50/50 on moral, cultural and political issues,  do you defeat a Santa Claus administration which is handing out lollipops and favors in exchange for votes, while demonizing hard working Americans with Alinsky tactic lies and with smear tactics?

Does the solution lie in joining the Santa Claus band wagon, and compromising moral absolutes such as abortion, in order to win over a percentage of the “moderate votes,” in an attempt to tip the balance in our favor?

The Solution

Or does the solution lie in bold moral leadership inspired by devotion to God, such as that provided by Presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Regan, who took strong moral stances and inspired voters to support good men and to follow their lead?

When we give up speaking of God, we fail to use our most powerful resource.

Modern political correctness insists that we deny the truth, that we pretend the Emperor (e.g. Obama) is wearing clothes, and that we admire his fabulous non-existent clothes.
When, in actual fact, he is quite naked. The Emperor has no clothes.

Church and State – The Intimate Connection

It is presumed by most, particularly in the United States, that our laws are based on morality. And that law is based on what is right and not wrong, and on what is just and not unjust.

It is a given fact that morality is reasoned out and embodied in religious belief that there is a God, and that He has set down some inviolable laws that even governments cannot violate.
History shows that without limits, in the absence of a higher authority, governments, like individuals, tend toward becoming tyrannical.

It is therefore logical, particularly in a nation that is religious (as is the United States), that at least on some level, there must be a connection between Church and State.  And that government is accountable to God, the maker of the universe.

Christian Principles Fundamental in the Constitution of the United States

The Declaration of Independence of 1776 referred to US citizens being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and the Founders of this nation included Christian principles in the Constitution.  Even the First Amendment, which forbade any law establishing an official national religion, also forbade prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

The religious intent of the First Amendment was further clarified by a 1799 court ruling, which indicated that the Founders intended the US to follow Christian principles, without allowing one religious group to control government:

Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people.  By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing. 1799 – Runkel vs. Winemiller

To this day, the vast majority of the population of the United States (80%) are still Christian.  These Christians vote, and these Christians contribute towards shaping the law.

Further history describing the role of religion in US government and on the origin of “Separation of Church and State” can be found at   Separation of Church and State, NOT SEPARATION OF GOD FROM STATE, by Fr. Bill McCarthy, MSA.

Keeping Your Beliefs Under Your Hat

In the present culture, we are told to keep our religion under our hats, and not to discuss it publicly.
This has been hammered into us so effectively, that most conservatives are intimidated into silence regarding their beliefs.  The likes of the Freedom From Religion Foundation ardently and publicly attack anyone who dares to demonstrate their belief in God visibly.

Just recently, my husband and I had dinner at a great Madison Middle Eastern Restaurant.  Seated at a table not far from us was a group of academics, a professor and graduate student hosting an invited speaker who had obviously just given a lecture at UW Madison on LGBT issues.  Their conversation was focused on LGBT issues, was loud and lively, and tended to dominate the small room we were in.  It was not an exceptional situation in Madison.

My thoughts drifted to the fact that my husband and I were NOT discussing our very conservative views, were NOT discussing them at high volume, and were NOT dominating the room.  I started wondering what would happen to us in Madison, WI, or in most American towns, if we did start doing that.  I realized that many of us have been shushed into silence.

Selective Silence Enables Minority Rule

The silence on morality and on religious beliefs demanded by modern political correctness is not an equitable mandate to which all are subject.  Liberals and progressives remain free push their values publicly and brazenly, and they clamor violation of rights when anyone tries to prevent them from doing so.

Yet conservatives have no such parallel rights, either to speech or to action. When conservatives follow legally prescribed channels and vote their values into law, progressive judges (not elected, but appointed) are found to cancel the democratic majority’s moral resolution.

One prime example of this the the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), voted into law in 1996, yet now challenged by progressives, who hope to use the Supreme Court of the United States to get their way when majority rule does not help them. A Supreme Court, incidentally, to which two progressive radicals have recently been appointed, by progressive President Obama, who does not stand with the American public on most major issues, including gay marriage, federal funding of abortion, and privacy and transparency issues. Recently, the Supreme Court struck down certain aspects of DOMA, ruling that now the federal government has to accept the redefinition of marriage when the states redefine marriage.

Separation of Church and State – Very Important to Define Separation

Separation of Church and State.
Yes, Church and State must be separate in government.
If I had the power to enforce my religious belief system on the United States, I would not do so.
No government can force any one religion, and citizens must be free to choose their beliefs (or non-beliefs).

But that is where the separation ends.
The individual must exercise their religious beliefs, their God-inspired knowledge of what is right and wrong, in the voting booth and in their public stance on issues.
How can any Christian shelve the morality of murder, of theft, or of any moral issue when delegating power to those who govern us?
Those who advocate any such notion are short-sighted; do they have no idea that our independence as a nation and our government  are based on certain inalienable rights?
That even the Imperial Obama administration cannot violate our rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?

Future Directions

The answers are pretty simple, and are available to anyone.

I view all of life, including American politics, from a educated religious perspective, and thus I refuse to separate Church and State.
Any shreds of wisdom that may find their way into my material are not my own.
I Quote from the Liturgy of the Hours, a set of daily prayers based on Holy Scripture and available to all:

If the Lord had not been on our side….
Then would the waters have engulfed us,
the torrent gone over us;
over our head would have swept
the raging waters.
……………………………………...-Psalm 123 (124)

It’s very simple: stick strictly to God’s law, pray, and wait.
So cool to watch as it works!

Related Post: What Happens When You Take Character Out of Politics

Appendix

Articles generating most interest include:

• Herman Cain: Guilty or Not Guilty and Why Does It Matter? – False Accusations Should Be Punishable by Law – in which I suggest in December 2011 that the Herman Cain Scandal could be an example of Obama administration’s use of Alinsky tactics against his opponents.
• Circus Madison Goes On, which summarizes political events in Madison, WI in 2011, during and following the Union Protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Aug 2011)
• The Presumptive Nominee, or the Secret Insurrection, an analysis (before Romney’s nomination) of why Romney might not be the most likely candidate to win. (Aug 2012)
• Update on Catholic Child Abuse Scandals, in which evidence restoring the moral authority of the Catholic Church is duscussed. (April 2013)
• Freedom From Religion Contracting Leprosy and Dissolving, in which evidence questioning the moral authority of the Freedom From Religion Foundation is discussed. (March 2013)
• A Tale of Two Presidents- The Drama Continues, in which the conflict between Obama and Cardinal Dolan (Obama’s challenge of religious freedom) is presented. (Feb 2012)
• Clashes Between Liberals and Conservatives, in which the morality of political tactics in analyzed with reference to the Ten Commandments. (April 2011)
• Reaching Out to God and Explaining Adoration, in which the effectiveness of prayer in modern life is discussed. (Oct 2012)
• The Wicked Said Among Themselves, in which the relevance of a Liturgy of the Hours reading from the Book of Wisdom to modern life is evaluated. (March 2013)
• The Contrast, in which Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers (in this case, Freedom From Religion Pro-Choicers) are compared. (June 2012)
• Today’s Catholic Nuns- The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, in which the accuracy of the media in portraying the Catholic Church (in this case, primarily Catholic Nuns) is analyzed. (March 2013)