May 19, 2007 [LINK / comment]
In response to Arianism and other heretical movements that threatened to tear Christianity apart, in 325 A.D. bishops from throughout Christendom convened at the Council of Nicaea, and drew up the Nicene Creed to clarify the essential elements of Christian theology. Based on all the talk about "RINOs" and other epithets over the past few years, I think the Republican Party needs to engage in such a large-scale soul-searching exercise.
I bring this up because Chris Green, of "Spank That Donkey," committed a major doctrinal gaffe during a podcast interview with The New Dominion on May 7. He was talking about his colleagues on Bloggers 4 Sayre, and elaborated (at 23:45 into the podcast):
They're just all good, pretty solid kind of conservatives on when you get down to taxes, the issue of taxes, which is a plank in the Republican Party Plan, or the Republican Party Creed I should say...
Wrong. The RPV Creed says nothing at all about taxes. Indeed, the only pertinent section of it reads as follows:
That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government. (SOURCE: rpv.org)
Fiscal responsibility -- i.e., making sure you've got enough money to pay the bills -- does not mean cutting taxes, the fad which Scott Sayre and many on the Right espouse these days. Indeed, it could be construed as justifying tax increases when necessary. Sadly, there are probably many people who are led astray by such misinformation about basic Republican Party principles. Ironically, it is the doctrinal "apostates" who are bemoaning the "Republicans In Name Only," their term for political leaders such as Sen. Hanger who actually live up to the party's core principles. What kind of Orwellian double-speak is this?
I recently commented on STD in hopes of correcting the false statements about who holds the office of secretary of the Staunton Republican Party. All I got in response was juvenile taunts, which is par for that course, I guess. If you're a "true believer" in the religion of tax cuts, it seems, facts just don't matter.
I knew I wasn't the only one! In response to the fabulously influential (or totally discredited, depending on whom you ask) Bloggers 4 Sayre blog, some clever guy has come up with Bloggers 4 Hanger, with five contributors listed: "Alex," "Lynn," "Chris," "Kurt," and "Truthserum." Well, most of the "contributors" are not anonymous, at least!
"Republitarian" (Myron, from the Harrisonburg area) recently solicited questions to be asked of Sen. Emmett Hanger, who has now answered all of them. He is still waiting to hear from Scott Sayre...
I got a nice plug last week from local Democratic blogger Clifford Garstang. He wrote that Clem "eschews the shrillness of those other bloggers. And of course they [the other SWAC-GOP bloggers] attack him for that." Did Waldo put him up to this? Actually, I happened to meet Clifford at the Bookstack in downtown Staunton a couple months ago, and even though I take sharp exception to his letters to the editor on the war, etc., he seems like a nice fellow. It says a lot about the state of conservatism today that someone like me gets treated with more courtesy from a Democrat than from people in his own party.