Santorum - Droopy in a Sweater Vest?

[_honorentheos]

Recent remarks by Rick Santorum compared Obama's values to a theology different than those found in the Bible.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/18/santorum-obama-leads-with-a-different-theology/?hpt=hp_t3

Here is a quote he gave to explain the underlying ideas of his early comment -

"You can call it a theology, you can call it a moral code, you can call it a world view,” he said. “They want to impose [that] on everybody else while they insist and complain that somehow or another people of Judeo Christian faith are intolerant of their new moral code.”

The question this raises, to me anyway, is what this moral code might actually be that Santorum is so opposed to? And more to the point, is he defining Christianity in a very narrow manner?

Specific to Obama, he is quoted in another news source as explaining the problem has to do with his environmental policies -

"I accept the fact that the president’s a Christian," he said. "I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man, and says that, you know, we can't take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, like for example that politicization of the whole global warming debate, this is just all an attempt to centralize power, to give more power to the government."

Interesting.

Where it leads me, as a non-Christian independent, is even further away from Santorum's political views. I would love, LOVE, to hear a conservative supporter of this type of thinking explain to me how empowering corporations and removing government oversight is less of a "centralizing of power" than the boogeyman Santorum portrays in his statement above to scare freedom-loving voters into the nets.

[_EAllusion]

This is pretty timid for Santorum. It's campaign season, after all. Here's him more stridently saying Obama in particular should not be considered Christian.

http://web.archive.org/web/201104100638 ... -christian

Yes, it is Droopy-esque.

[_EAllusion]

I would love, LOVE, to hear a conservative supporter of this type of thinking explain to me how empowering corporations and removing government oversight is less of a "centralizing of power" than the boogeyman Santorum portrays in his statement above to scare freedom-loving voters into the nets.

Decentralizing power is decentralizing power?Federal environmental regulations, for good or ill, are a centralization of power in the hands of one entity - the federal government.

[_honorentheos]

Interesting article, EA. This statement got to something I thought his current comments hinted at - a narrow definition of Chrisitanity:

From your link -

However, he questioned whether liberal Christianity was really, well, Christian. "You're a liberal something, but you're not a Christian." He continued, "When you take a salvation story and turn it into a liberation story you've abandoned Christendom and I don't think you have a right to claim it."

[_Chap]

... I happen to greatly appreciate the conservative tradition in our country just as I appreciate the progressive movement. The conversation between the two is a necessity for our democracy to function and prosper ...

Agreed. But it is spitting into the wind to say this kind of thing in the present degraded state of US political discourse.

After all, it contains two sentences, and has therefore gone way past what most popular news outlets seem to consider their audience's attention span to be. Plus it is wishy-washy, flip-flops, is intellectual and elitist, assumes you have to have gone to Harvard to have an opinion worth expressing, disrespects our veterans, ignores the Word of God, and so on, and so on ...

[_honorentheos]

... it is wishy-washy, flip-flops, is intellectual and elitist, assumes you have to have gone to Harvard to have an opinion worth expressing, disrespects our veterans, ignores the Word of God, and so on, and so on ...

LOL, chaps. Nicely put.

[_EAllusion]

Reading those comments in context helps honor. He was questioning the faith of liberal Christians in general, yes, but the second half is more specific. This was following the Rev. Wright scandal. He was saying that liberation theology isn't Christian. Liberation theology is popular among Black Churches like the one Obama attended. He was attacking the Christian status of Obama's Church with that swipe. Doubtless he considers the label "Christian" a matter of doctrinal correctness. This, like many things, makes him come across much more like a fundamentalist evangelical than a Catholic, but that's where he's at.

There's pretty much no way Santorum thinks Romney is a Christian, so there's that.

[_honorentheos]

Thanks for the additional information, EA.

[_huckelberry]

"When you take a salvation story and turn it into a liberation story you've abandoned Christendom and I don't think you have a right to claim it."


Perhaps somebody should have straightened Moses out about this important doctrine so there would not be this confusion. Slaves are supposed to wait on.

[_EAllusion]

The challenge posed by my statement is that when our government functions well, it is the proxy of empowerment of the people. Rather than centralizing, it is representing.

Since the will of the people is fractured and diverse, it necessarily can't represent everyone's views. "The people" aren't some hive mind. So instead of having smaller, more local competing bodies decide for narrower realms of interest it creates a central authority through which all decisions flow. This, for good or ill, is what centralization is. If all local school board authority over school curriculum was all of a sudden vested in the federal government, that would centralize the process. And it wouldn't be just as rrepresentative because the government is a representative democracy. It would mean all those specific local interests would lose their power up the chain.

There are times where this might be necessary. National defense / immigration policy comes to mind, but I'm hardpressed to see an argument for it not really being centralization.