posted
I didn't think a lot of his Dad's positioning when he was running. But, I do think even George would have been put off by Mitt's pandering to the least responsible groups within his party.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Well there's a few more nails in his coffin. To be fair, McCain is going to take the biggest hits when it comes to campaign finance. He's going to ignore public financing, and suck PACs dry like a herd of elephants at an African water hole.
Somewhere in there everyone will remember his name on the McCain-Feingold Finance Reform bill, and he'll take a lot of heat for it, assuming he can't hide it better, which I'd doubt. These things always come out. Romney might be able to squeek by if he foists the pressure off on McCain.
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That website seemed to be bitter and mean towards him without actually explaining upfront why they have the attitude.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Puppy: That website seemed to be bitter and mean towards him without actually explaining upfront why they have the attitude.
Really? It seemed pretty clear why they don't like him -- flip-flops and being too beholden to special interest groups, especially coupled with hypocrisy in that he has supposedly tried to paint himself as a foe of PACs.
Anyway, that's what I got from their site.
What should they do to be more clear?
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I'm going to agree with Puppy. It was far too mean-spirited for me to take seriously.
With the exception of campaign finance, they don't really state anything of substance that would dissuade me from voting for Romney.
If I was going to vote for him anyway, I mean.
And there's a LOT of scripture wrestling in the Jan 31 2007 post. It's there that I start to become suspicious of the motives of this website-- not because they are CLEARLY anti-war, but because they mangle D&C 134 and D&C 98 AND the history of the Iraqi war in order to show why Good Mo's should be opposed to the war.
quote:Originally posted by Lord Of All Fools: And there's a LOT of scripture wrestling in the Jan 31 2007 post. It's there that I start to become suspicious of the motives of this website-- not because they are CLEARLY anti-war, but because they mangle D&C 134 and D&C 98 AND the history of the Iraqi war in order to show why Good Mo's should be opposed to the war.
I'm curious why you see this as wrestling the scriptures. I read those scriptures exactly as the author of the post does. Nothing he says goes beyond the plain meaning of the scriptures and nothing contradicts the established history of the Iraq war.
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I too, agree with Puppy. Hmm--maybe we should run him for president.
I also wonder who is really behind this "Mormons against Romney" organization. Most Mormons would probably be inclined to vote for one of their own, and this kind of caviling is unlikely to have much effect on them. Evidently this website is aimed at non-Mormons, to try to give the impression that Mormons do not support Romney. Thus I would dismiss it as propaganda, nothing more.
As for John McCain, I think any possibility of him taking hits over finance reform is remote, since he can claim that at least he did try to do something with the McCain-Feingold Act. What can any other candidate claim they have done?
McCain is the only candidate whose campaign I ever contributed money to (for the 2000 election), so I am inclined to regard him favorably even now. My main objection is his age. If elected, he will begin serving in office at the age of 72. But Ronald Reagan turned out OK, and McCain seems to be in good health. This will probably be a subject of recurring interest though, his health. He suffered a lot of physical damage being tortured as a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five years. So his health will be something I will continue to keep in mind.
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quote:Originally posted by Puppy: That website seemed to be bitter and mean towards him without actually explaining upfront why they have the attitude.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't like the site - it is mean-spirited and snipey.
Compared to most Blog's that oppose a particular political candidate, I thought it was pretty polite and even handed. Perhaps you see it as mean-spirited because you are biased in Romney's favor and so you feel their criticisms are unjustified? Or maybe you hold these bloggers to a higher standard because they identify themselves as members of your faith.
I can see why people would disagree with these bloggers but I have yet to see anything I would call "mean-spirited" or bitter.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Rabbit, maybe you could respect my opinion without inventing motivations in order to discount it. I don't have any particular attachment to Romney as a candidate. I do dislike snarky, self-righteous bloggers.
There was lots there. *shrug* I'm not going to go to town on the attack against them.
For one example, check out there list of links in an attempt to be fair and balanced. Three links, and one of them is to a thong. They can't stop themselves from snickering as they link to it. Whatever.
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Can't take the site seriously when it doesn't mention the embarassment of having greenJello served at PresidentialStateDinners. Or whymissionaries are sent out in pairs to recruit converts.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Rabbit, maybe you could respect my opinion without inventing motivations in order to discount it. I don't have any particular attachment to Romney as a candidate. I do dislike snarky, self-righteous bloggers.
Kat, I did not mean to be disrespectful of your opinion, I was simply trying to get a better idea of where you were coming from. I read through alot of the site and can't identify what you and others are seeing as snarking and self-righteous, particularly not in comparison to typical anti-someone blogs.
I recognize that the political blogosphere is hardly a model of respect and manners which is why I thought you might be judging the tone of this site against what you expect from LDS people rather than what you expect from political blogs.
If you do think that this site is mean spirited in comparison with other political blogs, perhaps you could point out some examples of what you find offensive. Not that I think you need to defend your opinion, I simply don't understand where your coming from and I would like to.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:I also wonder who is really behind this "Mormons against Romney" organization. Most Mormons would probably be inclined to vote for one of their own, and this kind of caviling is unlikely to have much effect on them. Evidently this website is aimed at non-Mormons, to try to give the impression that Mormons do not support Romney. Thus I would dismiss it as propaganda, nothing more.
You are seeing conspiracies where none exist. The web-site describes it's own target audience.
quote:3. Who is your intended audience and why?
We have two groups of people we are trying to reach for the following reasons:
1. The portion of our LDS friends who would be tempted to vote for Romney simply because he is LDS, without looking at what kind of president he would be.
2. Our non-LDS friends to help dispense of the false stereotype that LDS folks are mindless automatons when it comes to politics.
I'm not associated with this group but completely sympathize with their motivation. Within the Mormon church, particularly in Utah, far too many people assume all active Mormons are republicans and probably very right wing republicans. There are even classic jokes about it.
quote:Two Mormon friends:
Mormon 1: I heard Joe joined the democratic party? Mormon 2: No, that can't be. I saw him in the Temple just last week.
This attitude is deeply offensive to faithful Mormons who honestly feel they are (as Hugh Nibley put it) "Democrats not despite their religion but because of it". As a result, there are several left wing Mormon groups I'm familiar with whose goal is to explain their political positions using scripture and teachings of church leaders. A key motivation for these groups is that they feel marginalized by the mainstream of Mormon culture.
You may disagree with their political positions, but its unfair to occuse them of insincerity or ulterior motives.
Unfortunately, the Mitt Romney campaign presumes that most Mormons are going to rally behind him because he's a Mormon republican and his campaign has thus far target people for support who are Mormons. I'm an known leftist and yet somehow I've made the Romney campaign mailing lists and get requests for money and support fairly regularly. Perhaps my LDS faith has no connection to why I made his lists but I can't honestly think of any other reason an avowd leftist, environmentalist, and pacivists could have made his mailing list. None of my non-Mormon friends get his mailings. Because he targets Mormons for support, its not at all suprising that leftist Mormons who are already POd by the stereotype that all good Mormons are republicans would form an organization against Romney.
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I wouldn't call them mean, but I would call them nitpicky and creating as many "mormon misconceptions" as they claim to be working against.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I watched the YouTube video they had. They seemed to think it was pretty damning that he said fundraising had become a huge issue in campaigning (which it has), and said that was bad, without ceasing to raise funds himself. Surely they have something worse than that?
They didn't. They did point out in an earlier post that he admitted in a speech that he threw rocks at a girl when he was little. (No word on Santa's response.)
He is of Mexican descent. (Oh, no?)
He said he should "do better" (whatever that means) than E Kennedy on gay issues.
He is too friendly to illegal immigrants, and too unfriendly.
If it's lip service for that issue, what about the other issues? Of course, the other candidates may all be worse, but it is a concern.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I read through alot of the site and can't identify what you and others are seeing as snarking and self-righteous, particularly not in comparison to typical anti-someone blogs.
You don't consider a link to a "humorous" thong as part of the site's "equal time" links to be a sign of just that attitude?
I myself quite reading it right there. I'm interested in facts, not pointless, juvenile pranks.
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posted
From the number of people who leave comments, it doesn't appear too many are paying attention anyway. It got some press for about a couple weeks, but then dropped completely off the radar.
Here are a few things I found to be, well, reaching for ANYTHING bad to say.
"Turns out the announcement was simply that he was establishing a committee to investigate whether he should run for President."
Simply? It is the first step that almost all Presidential hopefuls take. Hardly an insignificant move.
"The First Mormon in the White House . . . may not be who you think. Senator Christopher Dodd announced today that he is running for President. As mentioned here before, his wife Jackie Clegg is LDS."
That doesn't make her part of the White House as an elected official. She wouldn't have any Constitutional powers.
"The LDS Word of Wisdom, the health code that many people immediately associate with Mormonism, admonishes members of the faith not to drink alcohol. We are certain that Romney didn't drink alcohol at this event, but we are also certain that many LDS people who donate to the Romney campaign would be uncomfortable with the fact that their money was being used to buy alcohol (something they themselves would not purchase), or that Romney felt the need to ply Iowans with alcohol to win their votes."
This only shows they don't know their own LDS History. I wonder what they would say knowing that Joseph Smith served alcohol at his hotel in Nauvoo. If anything it shows Romney NOT shoving his religion down other's throats.
I actually found their discussion of War and the Scriptures very good and perhaps the most convincing against the the Iraq War. However, taking it to the logical conclusion they have made - almost all wars fought by the United States are unacceptable. That certainly applies to WWI and for the most part WWII.
"The selection of U.S. Sens. Bob Bennett of Utah and Larry Craig of Idaho shows what a painfully narrow subset of Americans will actually support a Romney candidacy. Reports say that the two senators will lead Romney's efforts to reach out to senators.
For a candidate who is trying to style himself as a conservative worthy of the support of southern evangelicals, his choice of senate liasons could not be weaker."
I guess they forgot about all the other people involved in Mitt's team. As was pointed out, one isn't even LDS - although coming from a highly LDS state. It would only be natural to include like individuals to help out. If I remember correctly, a few are even evangelicals.
" Terry Moran asserts that Mormons believe that "God has a wife". That is not a teaching of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
umm, yes it is. The development of that doctrine as more than isoteria, however, is not. The whole Romney on Nightline is nothing more than double speak. They sound more like judgemental conservatives here than they do liberals. Of course, it is the Orthodox Mormons they are trying to make not want to vote for Mitt and not liberals. It isn't the first or the last time they have made arguments that are decidedly not liberal in a place that supposedly is about how Mormons don't lock step politically.
"Haha, Mitt threw stones at his wife-to-be. That isn't so bad, we all have done stuff along those lines . . . Did he mean that it is something all little boys do? If so, why not just say that?"
He did. It was strongly implied. It was a joke because everyone knows what little boys (even Cub Scouts) do at that age. Finding nothing bad to say about the speech, they hung on to a nearly meaningless snippet as if of political importance.
They say:
"The quote by President Lee is a favorite in LDS circles and is widely used in LDS meetings and writings. Romney's use of it with only very slight variation is disturbing to us because it could be interpreted by some outsiders as "Mormon code". To say nothing of potential plagiarism issues"
and then:
"The theme is a very common one in the LDS world, and the wording Romney used is as well. The sentiment is an admirable one, but it would be nice if he gave credit where credit is due."
So, They say it is a plagiarism issue and in the same article say maybe it isn't. They say it could be seen as too LDS and then imply that maybe he should have made it more explicitly LDS. If anything they should have stated he shouldn't have said it at all. Of course, saying that would distance them from their true goal: Convince Conservative Mormons not to vote for Mitt.
"Oddly enough, you could not watch it live on his web site or now see an archived version of it without registering on his web site! We would have loved to discuss it here."
Depends. In order to register do you have to pay a monetary price? If not, it isn't uncommon for a request to register at large and privately run websites. It isn't Orwellian. It is common sense when dealing with possibly high traffic situtation. They missed the LARGEST "Orwellian" ISSUE of all - that almost no national news covered the event other than as a side-note that had to mention yet again his "Mormon problem." Talk about controlling the message.
"Well, all indications are that Romney is going to make his official announcement today. Since Chinese New Year is right around the corner, we thought we would look-up and post Mitt's Chinese Horoscope (Courtesy of msn.com). Dude, it's kind of creepy."
What the Heck does that have to do with anything? What is the point? To the untrained ear it even sounds like they take this seriously. Talk about creating a misconception of Mormons as spiritually gullable. Guess it was a slow day indeed.
"The AP is reporting that Mitt Romney's choice of a museum honoring auto pioneer Henry Ford as the site of his presidential announcement has been strongly criticized by The National Jewish Democratic Council. Romney has made religion one of the central themes of his campaign as he courts evangelical Christians. This is yet another in a stream of missteps that point to the fact that Romney and his team do not have what it takes to lead the nation."
I suppose if one is inclined to view his choice as a direct anti-Semite declaration. However, considering that Jews are perhaps as sensitive of their "persecuted" status as Mormons, only the most self-conscious will have noticed. If he did say anything anti-Jewish I assure you his fellow Mormons would have been equally disturbed. Among a large portion of U.S. society Henry Ford is considered Americana writ large, and his anti-semitism irrelavant if known at all.
"In his desperate attempts to be appeal to all people, Romney is systematically alieniating everyone."
In a society where politics and polemicism is more important than patriotism, how can anyone appeal to everyone without offending same? This statement sounds like a truism rather than political weakness.
"President Bush, in a post-Olympics celebration, said to Mitt Romney: Mitt, you did a fabulous job. Who else does Mr. Bush think does fabulous work?"
Not that I think personally any of the people mentioned did NOT do a fabulous job, but this is a horrible arugment. It is nothing more then guilt by association for a word that Pres. Bush brandies about as one of his speaking quirks. I wonder who they DIDN'T include in his "fabulous job" list? The whole list might be more telling. Besides, he was congratulating Mitt on his handling of the Olympics and not specifically political activity. Are they implying that Mitt didn't do a good job for the Olympics? I suppose that is a possibility, but such an opinion would be in a minority.
I thought this would be harder. They don't even have any strong arguments. It is clear they are trying to get Conservatives not to vote for Mitt more then make a coherent Mormon liberal argument against voting against him. The best ones were about the Iraq War and Scriptures. But, that is hardly a less then contentious debate within Mormonism. In fact, a pro-Iraq War position is probably a plus for Romney in LDS circles. As I had stated, their touching on this subject might make Mormons think a little more about the cost of War rather than if they should vote for Mitt.
In the end I don't think they are mean spirited. Instead, they are irrelavant and two faced.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Nothing he says goes beyond the plain meaning of the scriptures and nothing contradicts the established history of the Iraq war.
Yes, it plainly does.
Here is what the scripture says:
quote:D&C 134: 11 We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.
Here is what MAR says in justification to use this scripture for it's anti-war stand:
quote:It appears here that appealing to violence is "justified" in certain circumstances. Those circumstances are when an unlawful assault has occurred or is immediately going to occur (the "exigency test"), and the law cannot be appealed to (the "use the law" test.)
This verse seems to condone, say, the shooting down of an airplane that if not shot down would be purposefully crashed into a building. The exigency test is met – the plane is going to crash into a building, and "use the law" test is met – no law is going to prevent the plane from crashing into the building. The defensive use of force would be allowed in a case such as this.
It is not easy to stretch this verse to justify an invasion of Iraq by the United States. The exigency test is not met – Iraq had not attacked the US and seemed unlikely to do so in the near future. Flunking one test is enough, but the Iraq situation also flunked the second test – there was a legally governing body that could be appealed to, and that body was in the process of determining to what extent Iraq was a legitimate threat to the US.
1) Iraq FREQUENTLY attacked American planes enforcing the no fly zone.
2) The governing body enforcing international laws was unwilling to take action to enforce the laws they set. Later, we discovered that there were some very shady dealings going on between UN members and the sanctioned leaders of Iraq. (France, Russia...Kofi Anan's son)
3) The whole world at the time KNEW Saddam had chemical and biological weapons. They also knew he had a mad-on against the US.
Those three reasons would justify an attack on Iraq using the scripture-- if the scripture pertained to government action at all. But in context, it doesn't. It isn't speaking about nations. It is speaking about individual's rights to defend their own government.
That's the mangling, Rabbit. MAR attempts to remove a scripture from the context in which it was given to justify its anti war arguments.
quote:we will see in our next piece that in The Book of Mormon, some of the most highly regarded populations were those who chose to voluntarily be slaughtered by their enemies instead of hurting or killing another human being.
Here, MAR's talking about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, or the people of Ammon. From what is implied here, MAR expects us to believe that the ANLs were anti-war, just like they are. HOWEVER-- the ANLs were HARDLY anti-war. Indeed, they SUPPORTED the warfare of the Nephites with their own food and labor, and eventually their own sons. The only reason that the ANLs didn't go to war was that the prophet commanded them, specifically, not to. Not because he believed war was wrong-- but because the ANLs had made a convenant, and that covenant was the important thing. Not their pacifism.
Note that the same prophet who convinced them not to go to war, went to war himself.
Mangling.
quote: D&C 98: 16 Therefore,renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children;
quote:What more can be said about "renounce war and proclaim peace"? It doesn't get much clearer than that.
Like that's the final word. Renouncing war doesn't mean that you don't defend your country when you think it's at risk. Proclaiming peace doesn't mean being a pacifist.
quote:Perhaps you see it as mean-spirited because you are biased in Romney's favor and so you feel their criticisms are unjustified?
Nope. I'm probably not going to vote for Romney.
quote: Or maybe you hold these bloggers to a higher standard because they identify themselves as members of your faith.
posted
3) Nobody knew that Saddam had WoMDs, cuz he didn't have any. No governmental executive body, not even the DubyaAdministration believed that Iraq had any.
2) That a governing body is not taking the actions that one desires does not justify committing a crime. eg If a court rules that you owe me money, that you don't pay me immediately and in full in no way makes it okay for me to burglarize your property or to rob you at gun point. Such a ruling certainly doesn't give me the right to "take it outta your hide" or to "make you pay in blood."
1) US and British planes were routinely shooting at defensive radar and anti-aircraft missile emplacements. That such acts also resulted in occasional missile launches at the attack craft does not justify a war.
So what does Scripture say about bearing false witness?
quote:"President Bush, in a post-Olympics celebration, said to Mitt Romney: Mitt, you did a fabulous job. Who else does Mr. Bush think does fabulous work?"
...he was congratulating Mitt on his handling of the Olympics and not specifically political activity. Are they implying that Mitt didn't do a good job for the Olympics?
In the first place, the SaltLakeCity Olympics is primarily known for bribery and corruption of officials, both in the site selection committee and the judges. Secondarily, it is infamous for the degree in which federal taxpayers were looted to enrich already wealthy Utahans.
So what are the other memorable events which remain attached to the SLC Olympics?
Or better yet, tell me of a Dubya-praised politico who did a good job at anything. Rumsfeld?
quote:3) Nobody knew that Saddam had WoMDs, cuz he didn't have any.
On the contrary-- we KNEW he had them, we just didn't know what he had done with them. We still don't know what happened to them.
quote: No governmental executive body, not even the DubyaAdministration believed that Iraq had any.
No conclusive evidence has been found to this effect.
quote:
2) That a governing body is not taking the actions that one desires does not justify committing a crime. eg If a court rules that you owe me money, that you don't pay me immediately and in full in no way makes it okay for me to burglarize your property or to rob you at gun point. Such a ruling certainly doesn't give me the right to "take it outta your hide" or to "make you pay in blood."
Agreed. But your example doesn't exactly fit the context of the situation.
quote: 1) US and British planes were routinely shooting at defensive radar and anti-aircraft missile emplacements. That such acts also resulted in occasional missile launches at the attack craft does not justify a war.
The point was to simply refute the idea that Iraq had not attacked the US.
They did not attack US citizens; but they did aggressively breach the treaty they brokered with the UN/US after the first Gulf War.
quote: So what does Scripture say about bearing false witness?
I don't know why you ask-- who do think is guilty of this, and what's the proof?
Posts: 82 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The DubyaAdministration, the Congress, and the news media for misleading Americans in the run-up to the war. Most especially the news media because it's their job to both check the facts and to present a fair picture of what those facts mean.
Don't expect much outta politicos except spin and "playin' for the next election." Though I gotta say the minority/opposition party, the Democrats hit a new low outta fear of displeasing the already spooked electorate.
quote:The DubyaAdministration, the Congress, and the news media for misleading Americans in the run-up to the war. Most especially the news media because it's their job to both check the facts and to present a fair picture of what those facts mean.
To level this charge justly, you need to show that these three parties knew that the information that they were presenting to the public was false.
Has that deception been conclusively proven on the major points of the war?
Posts: 82 | Registered: Jul 2002
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In any case, I'm much less interested in proving that the Administration is free of suspicion than in stopping certain groups from abusing Mormon scripture in order to support their political beliefs.
Posts: 82 | Registered: Jul 2002
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