Category Archives: Weird

The DNC Got All Biblical Yesterday

…and didn’t even know it.

That’s what happens when you substitute a political ideology for religion.

Ah, well. As the Anchoress says, Peter got in, so maybe there’s hope for them yet.

[Update a few minutes later]

God runs deep:

…it’s not a matter of one word more or less, one or more mentions of God. The real heart of the issue is that most of the people in that hall, in the Democratic convention, really don’t accept the understanding of rights contained in the Declaration of Independence: The Declaration appealed first to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as the very ground of our natural rights. The drafters declared that “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal,” and then immediately: that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” George Bush was not embarrassed to insist that these are “God-given rights,” as opposed to rights that we had merely given to ourselves. For if we had given them to ourselves, we could as readily take them back or remove them. Newt Gingrich made this point during the primaries; it’s not as though the point were so esoteric as to seem mystical or somehow remote from the understanding of ordinary folks. And Paul Ryan touched on this understanding of natural rights during his own speech at the convention. He could surely respond even now by putting the question to Obama and the Democrats, and putting it in the terms of a dare and wager: If we took a survey on this matter, we bet that about 70–80 percent or more of the delegates at the Democratic convention would be too embarrassed to say that these rights were given to us by our Creator, the Author of those Laws of Nature. And we could bet that, in contrast, about 80 percent of the delegates at the Republican convention would assent to that proposition without a trace of hesitation. Why not put the question so that the heart of the matter does not fade?

I would say that I do believe in natural rights, but I don’t need to believe in God for that, any more than I need a god to provide gravity. But when people like Touré Neblett deny natural rights, they might want to consider this:

…his is not an isolated view; it is/was shared by a number of world figures: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Amin — just to name a few. So take heart, Touré, you’re not alone.

Sadly true.