But do you believe there’s a human role in climate change?
There may be. But whether there is or there isn’t, it doesn’t release us from the responsibility to be good stewards of the environment. It’s the old boy scout rule: you leave your campsite in as good or better shape than how you found it. It’s a spiritual issue. [The earth] belongs to God. I have no right to destroy it. I think we work toward alternative energy sources. [We need to make it] like the Manhattan Project or going to the moon. We need to accelerate our energy independence.
Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
There’s one issue I want to touch on. A key element of education is music and art education. It’s not expendable, extracurricular or extraneous. The future economy of America is going to be a creative economy. I am very passionate about it. Math, science and language scores improve dramatically when the student has music skills. Spatial reasoning is enhanced by music instructions. It is who we are. It defines us as a culture and a civilization. Very few people my age are still playing tackle football, but I’m still playing bass guitar in a rock-and-roll band.
Huckabee and thee
Tuesday March 6, 2007
A reader at Wheaton sends this link to a Newsweek interview with GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The interviewer wonders why somebody with such strong social conservative credentials -- he is an ordained Baptist minister, after all -- isn't catching on with social conservatives. Here are a couple of interesting questions:
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Everything IS electable about this guy compared to the other clowns in the race.
There is no marital wreckage like the guy from NY who seems stuck in the girls-gone-wild stage of his life.
He belongs to no goofy, kooky religious cult in which he wears secret pink underwear.
He is a mainstream evangelical Christian, a loyal Republican, and a popular and successful governor. Unlike McCain, Hagel and Brownback, he also has the added appeal of having not been involved in any of the unpopular actions of this administration nor of any of its difficult political battles.
For the uncommitted independents (and especially women voters) he has the great personal story of having overcome a serious weight problem. Imagine sitting down on Oprah and telling that compelling story!
For the skeptics out there, re-think this, PLEASE. And no, I don't work for Mike Huckabee's campaign.
JG, I agree with all your points in favor of Huckabee. But each of them is a reason why he would be an attractive candidate if people ever got to hear about him. But with the current direct primary nominating system, hardly anyone will, because the simple fact is he won't have anything close to the cash that McCain, Romney or Guiliani will have. FWIW, I can't stand McCain, Romney or Giuliani, and can't conceive of any circumstance in which I'd vote for any of them in a general election. But barring death or some sort of dramatic meltdown by ALL 3 of them, one of them will be the Republican nominee. On the Dem. side, Joe Biden (windbag though he is) is far and away the most experienced and intelligent candidate running. His candidacy is a joke, because he has neither Clinton's massive financial advantage nor Obama's uncritically adoring press.
It's a broken, corrupt system in which each party's nominee is chosen by a herd of wealthy donors and political insiders. Then the farcical primaries are held as window dressing to ratify the decision that's already been made.
No one in this country aspires to any kind of "Christian theocracy". To believe in such paranoid fantasies suggests a profound ignorance of Christian attitudes toward the state (and especially those of the evangelical tradition), as well as of American history. That said, you easily win the award for funniest line on this thread: "Boss Hogg with a diet book."
Cheers.
Kim, These aren't disqualifications. The bridal registry thing was used in lieu of the fact that these stores didn't have housewarming or other types of gift registries. There was no effort on the part of Mike and his wife to deceive or fool people into thinking they were getting married again -- that's ridiculous! As for the charges posted elsewhere that he raised taxes, two things:
1) Governors labor under balanced budget requirements that governors do not. So they cannot run up huge deficits like presidents can.
2) Arkansas in the '90s had the worst road system in the nation. Some of this spending went into investment in the state's infrastructure, a means of improving the state's economy. Ordinarily, this is not considered a bad use of taxpayer's money. Finally, on the creationism issue, I think it's entirely debateable whether his position on this matter is such a mistake. I don't think we should take evolution out of high school science texts, but I don't think we should teach it as if it is flawless truth, either.
Bottom line: You can scour the record of any of the candidates and find a few wrong turns or foibles -- for some, more than a few.
Question is, Whose foibles can we best live with?
Even if the wedding registry thing was a way to evade campaign finance laws, I give him big kuddo's for thinking of it first. Get government out of the campaign finance business. Besides, campaign finance reform doesn't even register in the polls. Not even the top 25.
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