Hezbollah
I read the Democratic Party Platform yesterday morning. On the whole, it is a more palatable document than the Republican Platform I read last week, perhaps because it supports the full protection of American law in our territories and isn't telling big steaming porkies about the Postal Service. (Cockney rhyming slang: Pork Pies=Lies)
A party platform is an aspirational document, and the the Democratic Party Platform aspires to some very fine things. It unequivocally defends the rights of women to bodily autonomy, health care, and the right to make their own choice concerning abortion. It supports the middle class as the true engine of economic growth, and speaks to the need for a certain degree of security, such as health care, Social Security, and Medicare. It supports marriage equality, education, energy diversity, infrastructure, defense, and so on.
It wasn't what was in the document that some people found objectionable. It's what wasn't.
Neither God nor Jerusalem were mentioned anywhere in the platform ratified at the Convention on Tuesday night. I don't see the problem with Jerusalem - this is a platform for the Democratic Party, not the Likud. The nation of Israel appears 15 times in the context of our unshakable commitment to her security and the 10 billion dollars given to support Israeli defense over the past three years despite our own straitened circumstances. But apparently some felt that Jerusalem needed a special shout-out from the podium.
As for mention of God, last I looked, God wasn't a member of the Democratic Party, or even eligible to vote. Americans worship many gods, and some of us acknowledge none at all. The Republican ticket is led by a man who believes in three separate and distinct Gods, but only addresses prayers to one of them. His running mate believes in one single-but-triune God, but prays to a pantheon of saints and angels as well as all three of the three-in-one. It would seem safest to leave such a potent point of contention unmentioned.
But the opposition picked up the omission and ran with it. According to Marathon Man Paul Ryan, God has been purged.
Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan told "Fox and Friends". I think it’s rather peculiar. It’s not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision. I’d guess you’d have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform. There sure is a lot of mention of government. I guess I would just put the onus and the burden on them to explain why they did all this, these purges of God.
Don’t you love that word "purge?" Like the purges that disappeared people in Soviet Russia?
That Paul Ryan has a, shall we say, complicated relationship with the truth and with his own church is interesting but irrelevant. The Democratic Party Platform, like the Constitution, is not a religious document. We are not a theocracy, we are a secular republic that permits no religious prerequisites of any candidate for office in its Constitution. All Americans are free to worship any god or no god. I personally find it peculiar that the God to whom many Americans make the most ostentatious appeals is the one who taught his followers to do their praying in private and never show off their piety. Let the Republicans be the American Party of God.
But you don't want to give people a reason not to vote for your party, so a sop was thrown to both the Jerusalem lobby and the God squad. It sounded like about half the delegates disapproved, and I'm not happy about it myself. Still, I have to remember that President Obama is the first president in my lifetime to even acknowledge nonbelieving Americans. It's not like there's any other choice. This year.
A party platform is an aspirational document, and the the Democratic Party Platform aspires to some very fine things. It unequivocally defends the rights of women to bodily autonomy, health care, and the right to make their own choice concerning abortion. It supports the middle class as the true engine of economic growth, and speaks to the need for a certain degree of security, such as health care, Social Security, and Medicare. It supports marriage equality, education, energy diversity, infrastructure, defense, and so on.
It wasn't what was in the document that some people found objectionable. It's what wasn't.
Neither God nor Jerusalem were mentioned anywhere in the platform ratified at the Convention on Tuesday night. I don't see the problem with Jerusalem - this is a platform for the Democratic Party, not the Likud. The nation of Israel appears 15 times in the context of our unshakable commitment to her security and the 10 billion dollars given to support Israeli defense over the past three years despite our own straitened circumstances. But apparently some felt that Jerusalem needed a special shout-out from the podium.
As for mention of God, last I looked, God wasn't a member of the Democratic Party, or even eligible to vote. Americans worship many gods, and some of us acknowledge none at all. The Republican ticket is led by a man who believes in three separate and distinct Gods, but only addresses prayers to one of them. His running mate believes in one single-but-triune God, but prays to a pantheon of saints and angels as well as all three of the three-in-one. It would seem safest to leave such a potent point of contention unmentioned.
But the opposition picked up the omission and ran with it. According to Marathon Man Paul Ryan, God has been purged.
Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan told "Fox and Friends". I think it’s rather peculiar. It’s not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision. I’d guess you’d have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform. There sure is a lot of mention of government. I guess I would just put the onus and the burden on them to explain why they did all this, these purges of God.
Don’t you love that word "purge?" Like the purges that disappeared people in Soviet Russia?
That Paul Ryan has a, shall we say, complicated relationship with the truth and with his own church is interesting but irrelevant. The Democratic Party Platform, like the Constitution, is not a religious document. We are not a theocracy, we are a secular republic that permits no religious prerequisites of any candidate for office in its Constitution. All Americans are free to worship any god or no god. I personally find it peculiar that the God to whom many Americans make the most ostentatious appeals is the one who taught his followers to do their praying in private and never show off their piety. Let the Republicans be the American Party of God.
But you don't want to give people a reason not to vote for your party, so a sop was thrown to both the Jerusalem lobby and the God squad. It sounded like about half the delegates disapproved, and I'm not happy about it myself. Still, I have to remember that President Obama is the first president in my lifetime to even acknowledge nonbelieving Americans. It's not like there's any other choice. This year.