I may be in the minority here, but this folksy crap from Huckabee really just rubs me the wrong way.
You aren't. What I find distasteful about Huckabee is that he is far too religious where I am concerned. I find nothing at all distasteful about religion per se, but rather individuals who use their faith as some sort of shield or immunity from answering things more honestly. God and Jesus Christ are their "goto" for questions they cannot or will not answer honestly for themselves. Also, christians who use their statement of faith as some sort of indicator that they know what is right better than people can choose for themselves, the "holier than thou" attitude.
You cannot profess to believe so strongly in Christian values while on the other hand wanting to force those values on everyone else! As the good doctor often says, "We should lead by example!" (One of my favorite essays on the subject is
Persuasion vs. Force by Skousen, as a side note the President of the Mormon Church wrote to Skousen very positively about this particular article, Romney should look at it sometime if he ever had a real desire to understand why Ron Paul supporters are so passionate). For professing to believe in the teachings of Christ but wishing to use Government as the vehicle for forcing all people of this country into "behaving" accordingly, he reeks of hypocrisy!
IMHO Christianity, is about choices. It is about an earthly journey wherein man is tasked with a learning experience. As such, God has given each of us the rights to live our lives and make our own choices. I FIRMLY believe in freedom of choice and "nature's fierce discipline". In fact, it is probably the root of my own belief system. Someone like Huckabee, however, would use the power of government to FORCE individuals into making the decisions deemed by him to be the proper "Christian" decisions. Though I realize there are a great many sins against God, I would consider the use of FORCE by far one of the worst and especially when such FORCE is claimed to be justified in some moral or sympathetic manner. You cannot always allow your heart to lead you and that to me is one of the ultimate tests parents have to face each and every day!
Mitt Romney was quite right (if only for political show) to smack Huckabee down for his position on giving taxpayer money to the children of illegal aliens. Huckabee was decidedly WRONG to attempt to sway people to accept forced robbery by playing on their sympathies. THAT to me is FAR worse than any murderer or thief. At least their intentions, if cruel, are not a sympathetic painted lie.
If he REALLY felt that strongly (and this goes for ALL politicians who want to use taxpayer money for supposed "humanitarian" causes) about helping those kids get into school he could use his political clout to help form a non-profit organization for getting those kids their citizenship FIRST and then helping them find ways to get through college. I get so damn sick of the "status quo" playing on the heart strings of all Americans in order to justify taking more and more money from us the easy way, via force by the federal government. If they are THAT interested in getting "universal health care", providing for the poor, and so on, then they need to go out and work at building not for profit foundations to accomplish these things.
I can really get riled up about this subject but it is one that I believe is something mankind needs to start facing with a great deal more honesty and a whole lot less sympathy.
