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Questions
for my Republican Christian friends:

Can you be a true follower of the Christ who commanded us to look out for the poor and weak of society and remain a survival-of-the-fittest capitalist, and a trickle-down economics Republican?

How does Republican economic philosophy fit in with the Christian doctrine of helping the poor, caring for the widow, and supporting the weak in all areas of society (which, according to the Sheep and the Goats parable of Matthew 25, will form the basis on which we will be judged worthy of heaven)?

Republican economics looks more like social Darwinism than the social gospel. Less (or no) regulation of corporations unleashes upon society’s weakest ones a business muscle which the individual voter/consumer/employee will always be powerless to resist. How is that Christian?

But the GOP Believer looks the other way, it seems; or perhaps more accurately is blinded to economic issues by the two-issue blinders: homosexuality, and perhaps even more firmly entrenched in the Christian political mindset, abortion.

Abortion is a controversial issue, a complicated question, an often avoidable tragedy. But what about the living children, the children of the ever-shrinking middle class, or the ever-growing poorer class? Why does it seem like the lives of the unborn are more important to Christians than the lives of the already-born?

What about living children, and their right to a good education (even if their parents aren’t wealthy)?

What about the right of living poor children to the same great health care enjoyed by those lucky enough to have great health insurance?

Then there is the issue of war.

Isn’t the only true Christian view of war an abhorrence of it, an absolute rejection of its use as anything but a last, last resort; an extremely temporary emergency solution?

Diplomacy is difficult, but much more to be desired than bombs and death. Isn’t this a better way to “support our troops”?: be careful to let our government only send them to fight wars when all other options have been completely exhausted, and the purpose of the war is completely just and justifiable? And if there is any doubt about the war’s purpose, or victorious outcome, to support our troops by bringing them home from unjust, unwinnable wars?

Certainly, states have sovereign territory, loyal citizens, and an obligation to protect both of them for the good of all. But isn’t this true: the Christian residing within any state which chooses war before it becomes absolutely necessary (which would be a subjective, individual opinion, in most cases) must protest that war, and work to prevent it?

How else could he or she retain a clear conscience, considering all the potential suffering which could be unleashed on generations of innocent people should war occur? Compare how the present administration is using war with this philosophy, and it is found wanting.

And how is it Christian, or American, or even human, to shout down and obstruct and insult those who promote peace by protesting war? Yet Christians, and Republicans, and Republican Christians have done this to war protesters.

Just a few questions for my Christian Republican friends.
(origionally posted elsewhere on March 11, 2005)

Follow up post: (April 20, 2005)

I am not a Democrat, neither am I a Republican. I am an Independent, which to me means I vote my conscience regardless of political parties. I have, in the past, voted for Democratic presidents (Bill Clinton, for example). I have also voted Republican in the past (George Bush, in 2000).

I do have my issues with the Democratic party, and I plan on a closer evaluation of those in a future essay.

But on the issues I raised in the essay above, the Democrats seem to get it right more than the Republicans. Democrats have historically been more supportive of policies which are friendlier to the poor and the helpless (FDR’s social security system, LBJ’s war on poverty), compared to the Republican dedication to the well-being of corporate America and the wealthiest among us. Both World wars were entered, reluctantly, by Democratic presidents, and diplomacy was rigorously pursued in both cases, holding back on war until there were no other options.

More recently, Republican administrations seem to pursue war with economic motives. These motives are usually cloaked in patriotic rhetoric, but just a little research exposes the reasons behind many modern wars.

The Republican administration declared a reason to enter the Iraq war: Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and were preparing to use them against Americans.

As that WMD reason began to be exposed as a lie, the administration changed the reason we were now there, and should continue fighting: regime change. Saddam Hussein was bad for Iraq, and therefore we should liberate Iraq from their dictator.

That wasn’t the original reason we went to war. Would we have gone if we had only this reason in the first place? Hard to know, but probably not.

An outright lie was thrown into the rhetoric for this change in reasons: they claimed a direct link between 9/11’s Al Qaida and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. (This has since been exposed as completely false, even though polls indicate that a high percentage of Americans still believe this one).

Now the reasons seem to have evolved from the above into a mix of the second one above, combined with the fact that we’re already there, and we don’t want to leave a mess behind when we pull out, so let’s leave them with a democratic form of government. (Did anyone ask if they wanted one?)

That this administration did not plan this war well enough is obvious to all:

* More Americans protested our entry into this war than have ever protested before
* The so-called “coalition” of world nations never materialized, with massive protests occuring in the streets of all our closest allies
* Contrary to the President’s expectations, the Iraqi people did not greet US forces with joy and gratefulness, even after Saddam was captured
* Insurgents quickly have taken hold of the moral high ground in Iraq, and terrorists have flooded into this new hotspot created by this war
* The slow pace of reconstruction of Iraqs roads, schools, hospitals, and other basic services makes many Iraqis feel that they were better off with Saddam Hussein
* The torturing of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, makes some Iraqis think they still ARE under Saddam Hussein’s government
* Plummeting morale among US troops as deaths continue at a pace of about 1 soldier per day are causing Americans to lose interest in fighting this war

How many times do you get to change the reason you went to war, and still get away with continuing it? When those reasons are shown to be false, and yet keep sending soldiers to their deaths? Why do we let them get away with this?

The really amazing thing to me is how this Republican administration just gets away with this stuff. My Republican friends just go on defending the war, supporting this president. What’s left to support?

This administration took the greatest outpouring of world sympathy and support just after 9/11, and completely squandered it on a war for oil in Iraq. That sympathy is gone, and the rest of the world looks on in disgust, waiting for their friends, the Americans, to stop following the lead of this most un-diplomatic of US Presidents (the immaturity of Republicans in changing menus to read “Freedom Fries” instead of French Fries, as a way of punishing our old ally for not supporting the Iraq war, is just one of many embarrassing examples).

And the U.S. Treasury was overflowing with a huge surplus when George Bush entered the office. Now we have such serious budgetary shortfalls, they are seriously cutting back on essentials like Veterans benefits, education, and now they’re going after social security. And they get away with pretending to be the financially conservative party, while wasting taxpayers money getting taxpayers’ sons and daughters killed in unnecessary war!

So if my Republican Christian friends don’t support their administration for its war policies or for its economic policies, what’s left to support? Abortion and homosexuals, the twin blinders, as if those two issues were of as great importance as war and the economy.

Another follow-up post (May 5, 2005):

Okay, Jake, let’s look at some facts:
These countries were bullied and threatened in order to get their participation. They were not willing. And the participation of most is so marginal as to be meaningless. This is not a true coalition.

Calling this coalition “willing” ignores the fact that Bush had to coerce most of the participation he’s getting. In most nations, including those most closely allied to the United States, over 70 percent of the public opposes U.S. military action against Iraq, according to the report, ‘Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced: How the Bush Administration Influences Allies in its War on Iraq’.
Here is a detailed description of the coalition of the Bribed, Bullied, and Blind.

What counts as membership in the coalition? Depends who you ask. Jake counts “more than 50.” National Security Advisor Rice only managed “nearly 50″ in her press release last month.
According to a state department briefing March 18, 2003, there were 30 countries, but some of these countries are counted merely for giving permission for us to fly over their countries. Big deal. Others, including Japan, want no participation except for the post-war rebuilding contracts. No troops, just money later for construction teams from their countries.
And some of the countries on the list… Come on! The Marshall Islands?! Micronesia?! I’ve been to these countries, and it makes me laugh to see them on the coalition list. Who else swells the ranks of our mighty coalition? Tonga, and The Solomon Islands (there’s two more, kids). Mongolia and Rwanda and Palau are on the list (three more!). Singapore, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Costa Rica (four more very tiny nations!). Don’t forget Nicaragua and The Philippines, two other nations I have visited, and, well…
That list of coalition members, and the invoking of WWII, strikes me as a little more like propaganda than reality. The coalition is a mask Bush puts on a military action that is ALL his own to make it look legitimate. But we can peek behind the mask.

Who is dying on the ground in Iraq?
The Iraq Coalition Casualties website actually keeps careful track of that. There, you’ll see that as of Tuesday of this week, 1,594 people from the United States have been sacrificed to this war. Other countries? It’s almost shameful even to compare them to our sacrifices, though we mourn their losses, too: the UK fatalities are 88, Italy=22, Ukraine=18, Poland=17, Spain=11, Bulgaria=10, and nine other countries with fewer than 10 fatalities. That’s 180 deaths from other countries, 1594 from yours. Coalition of the [not] willing [to die], it seems.

This coalition is nothing like previous ones, in that this is becoming a wilting coalition. “Italy just announced it will withdraw its 3,000 troops from Iraq by the fall. The Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine are also in the process of pulling out or preparing to pull out an additional 4,750 troops.”

My Republican friends, please get your facts from reliable sources, not from your propaganda-prone wartime government, or from Fox-Limbaugh-O’Reilly. They will always mislead you.