Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

U.S. Ambassador Killed in Libya

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J. Christoper Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya, has been killed in a rocket attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Three other consulate officials were also killed. Angry protests have occurred over the last two days at the U.S. missions in Libya and Egypt, supposedly due to the content of an online film called Innocence of Muslims that is said to be offensive to Islam.

During the attack in Cairo, Egypt, men scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy, tore down the American flag, and raised a black flag with the white Arabic text of the Islamic Kalma prayer, which can be translated into English as, ‘There is no God but Allah, and the Prophet Mohammed is his messenger.’ The Benghazi attack left our mission there in shambles; attackers stormed the consulate then looted and burned it, leaving the bodies of the four murdered American officials in the street outside.

These attacks have been strongly condemned by President Barack Obama (D) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D). However, Clinton has been criticized by former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA)—the Republican presidential nominee—for saying in her initial statement regarding the Cairo attacks that, ‘The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.’ Romney said that, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged [them].”

In an official statement released via Libya’s official news agency, the governing party condemned the attacks and promised to “track down the perpetrators and to maintain the country’s security and the safety and security of its guests.” A spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry also said that, “This is an expression of a feeling that is thought to be an insult, but events like this are extremely deplorable. And we have to work to get things under control.”

Under long-standing international laws governing diplomatic relations, embassies and consulates are considered to be extraterritorial, and may not be entered without the permission of the guest nation. As such, these attacks should be considered a direct assault on U.S. citizens in U.S. territory. The host nations—Egypt and Libya, in this case—have a duty to protect the territorial integrity and safety of all foreign diplomatic missions in their countries.

Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador to be killed by violence in the line of duty since 1979, and only the sixth in all of U.S. history.

Democratic Party Officially Nominates Obama

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Barack Obama (official portrait)

The delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, have officially nominated President Barack Obama (D) to stand for reelection as the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States. He will face-off in the November general election against the Republican nominee, former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA).

Obama has been the presumptive Democratic nominee since securing a majority of pledged party convention delegates in April, running essentially uncontested. Today’s convention vote makes that nomination official. Obama is joined on the Democratic ticket by his running-mate, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden (D).

Buoyed by the highest voter turnout rate since 1968, especially among young and minority voters, Obama secured the presidency in 2008 with an impressive 365-173 electoral landslide. Previously he had served two terms in the Illinois state senate, followed by a single partial term in the United States Senate.

Obama, the son of a white, American mother and a black, African father, is America’s first mixed-race president (though he is often erroneously identified as our first black or African-American president). His ascendance to high office only a few short decades after racial integration represents an important cultural triumph over bigotry. Biden is also noteworthy for being the first Catholic vice president.

Today’s Democratic nominations officially complete the major-party tickets for the November general election. The Republican Party formally nominated Romney and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI 1st) as their party’s presidential ticket at last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

Reclaiming Liberalism

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The United States was founded as, and should remain, a liberal country. You might be surprised to hear that, considering that a 2011 poll found that forty percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, thirty-five percent identify as moderate, and only twenty-one percent consider themselves liberal (Gallup). You might also be surprised to hear this from me, since I constantly make the case for limited government, religious liberty, Second Amendment rights, and other ‘conservative’ causes by quoting from our nations’ founders and a ‘strict constructionist’ read of the U.S. Constitution. Your surprise is understandable. What we have here is a classic case of misappropriating terms.

You see, when we hear the word ‘liberal’ today, we think of leaders like Presidents John F. Kennedy (D), Jimmy Carter (D), Bill Clinton (D), and Barack Obama (D). The word has gotten bound-up with the political doctrine known as progressivism, which rose to prominence under President Theodore Roosevelt—a Republican—but later came to be the driving force behind the Democratic Party. The American brand of progressivism began with government reforms and trust-busting efforts at the turn of the twentieth century that greatly increased the powers and authorities of the federal government. The movement supported laudable policies like child labor laws, the move toward women’s suffrage, set-asides of land for conservation purposes (i.e., the national parks), and, later, the civil rights movement. But progressivism also brought us onerous regulation of business, the ill-advised experiment with alcohol prohibition, progressive (i.e., unequal) taxation, the eugenics movement and related anti-fertility policies, and a generally paternalistic approach to governance.

The Democratic Party’s traditional policy stances are generally in-line with progressivism, although it is debatable whether progressivism is actually progressive (i.e., moving forward or onward). That’s a discussion for another day. What is curious is that the term ‘liberal’ has gotten bound up with the term ‘progressive,’ when they actually refer to very distinct and often divergent approaches to government.

Read more . . .

Love Isn’t Sycophancy

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Think of your best friend. Chances are that the person who came to mind is somebody who has always been there for you through your struggles, and you have probably always tried to be there for him or her through theirs too. You each find strength in one another. Now imagine that this friend struggles with an addiction—maybe alcoholism, or compulsive gambling, or maybe a sex addiction. If that friend called you up and told you that they were going to go indulge their addiction—going out for a night at the bar, or to Vegas for a weekend of gambling, or to pick up a hooker or a one-night-stand—how would you respond?

If you love this friend, chances are that your response will be to try your damnedest to talk some sense into them. You might have to hurt their feelings, or raise your voice, or even threaten them . . . but you love them too much to let them go out unopposed and do something self-destructive. Your love for them does not require a blind affirmation of their every whim; no, at times love requires you to challenge people. Sometimes you have to offend them or hurt them because, if you don’t, they will end up hurting themselves. Real love sometimes has to be tough love . . . even if the person you love ends up getting mad at you and walking out of your life.

There have been times when I, and countless other Christians, have been accused of being unloving (or even of being ‘hateful’) because we are willing to challenge behaviors that we believe run counter to the long-term well-being of individuals and society. This accusation cuts us deep, because we know we are really doing the opposite. We know that love doesn’t mean unquestioning acceptance, constant affirmation, or bottomless approval. People who expect these things are narcissists; people who indulge them are sycophants. Neither are giving, or receiving, anything resembling love.

Let’s steer clear of the political third-rails of the day and consider something that most of us can agree is wrong: adultery. An adulterer can claim, with quite a lot of evidence to support his case, that he is just doing what comes naturally to him. His inborn instincts lead him to ‘spread his seed.’ Monogamy is rare in nature, after all. Who are you to tell him what he can and can’t do? Who are you to stand in the way of his happiness?

If we Christians really hated this adulterer, we would pat him on the back and say, sure, do whatever makes you happy. If we hated him, we’d help him along to his own demise and not lose a minute of sleep over it. But if we loved him like we’re supposed to, we would try to help him to see that what he’s doing is wrong. We would try to convince him to change his ways, to turn away from his sins like Saint Paul did on the road to Damascus (cf. Acts 9). Love calls us to sympathy and understanding; he, like all of us, has his cross to bear. But understanding that he faces strong temptations doesn’t mean we should endorse or support his decision to indulge them.

He might get really mad at us. He might sling insults and accuse us of being mean, or of trampling his freedom. And, sadly, sometimes he’ll be so caught-up in his own disordered desires that he’ll choose to turn his back on us so that he can cling to his sin instead. So be it. But the ones who tell him the truth—even at the risk of destroying the friendship or hurting his feelings—are the ones who really love him. The sycophants telling him what he wants to hear, on the other hand. . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.