Obama earmarked money for Pfleger

What the television folks forget to mention is that Pfleger has long been a joke in Chicago and no one takes him seriously but himself.

What are your thoughts on Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" Michele?

"What are your thoughts on Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" Michele?"

OK...let me see if I can answer my own question here, and save you the trouble of trotting out a canned answer. If I read Kuyper's Lectures correctly, this would probably be seen as an area where the state is infringing on the sovereignty of the church. The strings attached to the money would be seen as putting inappropriate controls on the church within its sphere of influence. Therefore, from a Reformed perspective, I'm guessing that the faith based initiative as put forward by Bush would be viewed as a bad thing.

Close?

"What are your thoughts on Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" Michele?"

I'm against it because I believe that the church should support it's own missions. I think that it's corrupting for a church to take money from the government because they have to dance to the tune of the one giving them money, plus it absolves the congregants of their responsibility to support the missions of the church.

BTW, I knew that someone would bring this up that's why I said this:

"Is it because they only care when Republicans do it?"

If the church and state people have a problem with Bush, they should have a problem with Obama. Have they raised this issue?

"Has McCain had a decades old relationship with them the way that Obama has had with this guy? Has he gotten them pork the way that Obama has done with this guy? Hmmmmmm?"

Funny you should ask that, Michele.

Does the name Richard Quinn mean anything to you? If not, you might want to read up on him. I would bet that you will be hearing his name a lot in the coming months.

www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14301

"It's good to know where the Senator stands on this issue (at least today). In my book, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't, I recount McCain' questionable past on issues of race his entire career. From the many years he rejected a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday (pretty much the entire 70s and 80s) to his serial flip-flops on the Confederate Flag in 2000 (which he admits he did for political reasons--no way, not you Johnny!) to his close association with a white supremacist named Richard Quinn, who found himself hired as a political advisor by McCain in 2000 (and still is from what I can tell) after openly praising David Duke (he called him a "maverick") selling t-shirts praising the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and writing/editing for a magazine (Southern Partisan) that reminded us that slave masters just really weren't all that bad."

www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7604.html

"Adam Fogle, who is also editor of the blog The Palmetto Scoop, is described in his Newsweek bio as an “account representative for Mail Marketing Strategies in Columbia, S.C., ... owned by former House Majority Leader Rick Quinn, whose father Richard Quinn serves as an unpaid adviser to Sen. John McCain in South Carolina.”

But that disclosure from Newsweek's blog, which was launched in conjuction with the Media Bloggers Association, fails to mention thousands of dollars in printing and postage fees paid by McCain to Mail Marketing Strategies as late as September 2007.

In addition, the McCain campaign has paid $184,000 this year to two companies registered to the elder Quinn: Richard Quinn and Associates (for survey research and GoTV consulting) and Capitol Investments (for rent)."

This Richard Quinn, in 1990, endorsed one of David Duke's runs for office.

Why would a GOP candidate have on his staff someone with the connections of Richard Quinn? Why would he have paid Quinn's companies over $184,000 for "survey research, GoTV consulting and rent"? And why would McCain call such a person "a respected and fine man?"

Indeed, Michele...why would a person of good judgment continue an association with such a man...an association that goes back at least 10 years?

"Yes, there is, both a method and a madness."

Cheap shot! I somehow expected more from you, I guess I won't make that mistake twice :-)

Was this:

"By the way, has McCain denounced the KKK for supporting him?

www.236.com/feed/2008/05/22/kkk_supports_john_mccainsort_o_6707.php"

You're attempt to set me up for this:
"Funny you should ask that, Michele.

Does the name Richard Quinn mean anything to you? If not, you might want to read up on him. I would bet that you will be hearing his name a lot in the coming months.

www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14301"

Nice but no cigar. Let me ask you this, are you accusing McCain of being a racist? Or are you using this as a tit for tat argument (McCain is no different from Obama -- they both support racists)? If that's the case, then you really can't have much of an argument against my post, huh? Obama supports racists with his and our money and there must be a reason for it. Maybe he agrees with them?

Michele: "Was this:

"By the way, has McCain denounced the KKK for supporting him?

www.236.com/feed/2008/05/22/kkk_supports_john_mccainsort_o_6707.php"

You're attempt to set me up for this:
"Funny you should ask that, Michele."

Actually no, in spite of all appearances to the contrary. When you came back at me with:

"Has McCain had a decades old relationship with them the way that Obama has had with this guy? Has he gotten them pork the way that Obama has done with this guy? Hmmmmmm?"

I simply Googled "McCain racist" and came up with a number of hits regarding this person. Purely coincidental, and yet not. I remember when McCain voted against the MLK holiday, and suspected that there would be someone like this in his circle of people. But I honestly did not know about this before you made your taunting response. Believe that or not, the choice is yours.

HOWEVER, given the nature of your response, I took great pain in making sure mine was framed to get maximum bang for the buck. And it is in true Reformed tradition since, as you pointed out the other day, Calvin and other writers of the Reformed tradition took pleasure in occasionally sticking it to their opponents.

You called my response to "method and madness" a cheap shot. I did not include the obligatory :-) in that, and that is my mistake, for I intended it as a good natured poke, not a cheap insult. But you need to remember something, Michele. Implied in the Golden Rule is an inverse corollary.

Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.

Can also be read as...

How you do unto others indicates how you would have them do unto you.

You have set the tone of this blog Michele. That tone is pretty rough and tumble, and you do not pull a lot of punches when you go after the more liberal people and policies that are so frequently your targets here. That's fine...it's your blog, your rules. But please, do not complain when someone gets one over on you with a similar tone playing by your rules. It makes you sound so...Clintonian.

"Why in the world don't the separation of church and state people have a cow when a lefty uses federal money to fund a youth center at a church? Is it because they only care when Republicans do it? And why in the world would the Catholic church need money? They have billions, let them pay for their own youth center."

Isn't that a tad anti-Catholic? Don't other religions have a lot of money too?

And, why are you complaining that Obama is doing it? You support faith-based initiatives, no? So, you are only against them if a Democrat does it? Or is it that they didn't choose someone you like?

And why, while we're at it, are you complaining about Fr. Pfleger? I will apologize in advance if you have railed against Hagee for saying that God wants to kill gays because they wanted to have a parade, or that he said the Catholic church was a great whore, or that women with PMS are worse than terrorists. Did you?

Now, I don't think that Obama or McCain are racists. Nor, do I think that Obama and McCain agree with everything that every nutball on either side says. Maybe they're both more open to people with different points of view than you are.

As for her remarks about the Catholic church not needing money

I'm trying to find a way to contribute here ... it could be that Father Pfleger can't get church money because his boss doesn't like/agree with him.

I have to admit that I was pretty scandalized to find out how much money American churches accept from the government because one naturally assumes that strings are attached. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

But I don't think it's prudent to refuse public money on principle without considering it carefully. And American churches have done quite well in considering it. If weekly attendance is down, the social concerns wing of the church is rarely to blame.

$100,000 is a pittance towards a youth center on the South Side of Chicago.

(and yes, I enjoyed that snippet of Fr. Pfleger's "address" - it wasn't preaching, in a strict sense)

My question is, how could Obama belong to this church for 20 years. The congregation, in their response to Father Phleger as well as to Jeremiah Wright, remind me of the audience for the Jerry Springer show. Is it something in the Chicago water?

I'm almost ready to wash my hands of both Obama and McCain, because I don't believe either candidate is qualified to be President.

Should Chicagoans be denied their idiom?

I don't know if the tone of Trinity UCC is meaningfully characteristic of "Chicago speech," but I believe that any supporter of Barack Obama possessing the political sense God gave gravel should have recognized that was exactly the least effective idiom at exactly the worst time for Barack Obama.

Does Trinity UCC have a right to host and applaud this idiom?

My first inclination is to support freedom of speech, but I think I'll part company with Dr. Land on separation of church and state on this one. It would be fine with me for my tax dollars to be spent on razing the church for something of greater spiritual value to the community, like a new sewage treatment plant. And I am writing as someone who voted for Barack Obama.

so the language of hate is the Chicago idiom

My comment was limited to Fr. Pfleger and, by implication, Chicago Catholic clergy (think Greeley, think Bernardin, think Loyola) whom I find to be (delightfully) idiomatic, relative to my Northeast Catholic temperament.

"Has McCain had a decades old relationship with them the way that Obama has had with this guy?"

so you're ok with mccain's new-found relationship?

"Touchy today, Michele? A little good natured humor tossed back at you and you call it a cheap shot?"

I guess I could say the same about you :-)

"You have set the tone of this blog Michele. That tone is pretty rough and tumble, and you do not pull a lot of punches when you go after the more liberal people and policies that are so frequently your targets here. That's fine...it's your blog, your rules. But please, do not complain when someone gets one over on you with a similar tone playing by your rules. It makes you sound so...Clintonian."

I have no problem with your response, you read more into it than was there. I just thought it was a trap but will take your word for it that it wasn't.

"I'm trying to find a way to contribute here ... it could be that Father Pfleger can't get church money because his boss doesn't like/agree with him."

You know, I thought about and wondered about how local contributions worked. I remember a friend telling me about it a number of years ago but can't remember the details. Do they keep it or is part of it given to the Church?

Do they keep it or is part of it given to the Church?

You know, I can't remember. I've seen a balance sheet on occasion. Special drives go wholly to that cause. Otherwise, it's likely they turn in a percentage.

In general, I can't imagine they bring in much above operating expenses.

"How you do unto others indicates how you would have them do unto you."

Actually, I don't think that corollary is biblical.

Right, however this might fit with the idea that we love ... because God loved us. (1 John 4:10-11)

We love others in the same way: not so they'll love us back ... but so they'll learn how to love at all.

Modeling love, learning love. But not for our own interests (AMDG, if you'd rather).

Theologians call it "disinterested love." (1 Cor. 13:5).