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After my post on what a real community organiser looks like, I’m glad that Rep. Steve Cohen (D, TN) comes from the other end of the state.

He informs us that “Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.”  Although it’s an obvious shot at Sarah Palin, it should be noted that such a remark is also aimed at his own Democrat governor, Phil Bredesen.

This, from Art Rhodes:

As one of the handful of lawyers that participated in the Florida recount back in 2000, I am amazed that we have gone from a few dozen lawyers on each side to 7,000+ lawyers on each side. Even in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election, on the Republican side there were only about 50 or so of us lawyers – and the Democrats had even fewer lawyers there. Based upon the numbers that are being reported (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080909/ap_on_el_pr/lawyering_up_2), each state in the Union would have 140 or so Democratic lawyers if they divided them up equally.

Rest assured, though, that they will not be divided equally. States like Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and possibly even Missouri and Colorado, will be the battleground states. There may be more election lawyers in those states than voters who care!!

I’m welcoming Art, whom I’ve known and worked with for many years, to the blogroll.  For those of you like my decidedly Republican politics–and maybe those of you who don’t–you’ll find Art, a Washington veteran, interesting.

New York Governor David Paterson thinks that calling Barack Obama a community organiser is a racist slur:

“I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama ‘black’ in a sense that it would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican Convention – a ‘community organizer.’ They kept saying it, they kept laughing,” he said.

Paterson referred to McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin who compared her work experience to Obama’s.

“So I suppose a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities,” she said at the convention.

Paterson sees the repeated use of the words “community organizer” as Republican code for “black”.

“I think where there are overtones is when there are uses of language that are designed to inhibit other people’s progress with a subtle reference to their race,” he said.

But this is absurd.  An example will suffice.

Here in Chattanooga, City Councilman Manny Rico is the following:

1. Hispanic
2. Community Organiser
3. Republican
4. Former member and Chairman of the city’s Human Rights and Relations Commission
5. Current member of the City Council (which is more than Obama managed in Chicago.)

As I noted earlier, he also made the following statement a few months back:

I think every woman should carry a gun in this evil time.

Now that’s Sarah Palin’s idea of a community organiser.

I agree with Rogers Holding CEO Jim Rogers that the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae takeovers are socialistic:

“America is more communist than China is right now,” Rogers told CNBC Europe’s “Squawk Box Europe” September 8. “You can at least have a free market in housing and a lot of other things in China. And you can see that this is welfare for the rich. This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters.”

I made the same comment with the Northern Rock takeover, and that adventure pales in comparison to this.  And the Chinese capitalist urge has survived many years of communism to boot; it’s a hardy strain.

But, take a good look at how he characterises the presidential race:

The Rogers Holdings CEO had little confidence that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, Ill., or Republican vice-presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would be able to do anything to steer Fannie or Freddie on a more stable path.

So much for voting for McCain!  And forget about Biden!

This from Abu Daoud:

Folks always say they want someone who can deal with the Islamic nations intelligently and who understands them. Someone like Palin who actually BELIEVES in her religion, unlike pseudo-Catholic VP nominee Joe Biden who supports abortion rights, is that kind of person. My experience indicates in a very solid way that religious Muslims respect religious Christians (who read the Bible and go to church weekly and fast and pray regularly) much more than they respect non-religious Muslims. Need I mention non-religious Christians?

I’ve griped about the high incarceration rate in the U.S., and now I have company:

The United States has crossed, for the first time, a dismal threshold: One out of every 100 American adults is in prison, according to the Pew Center on the States. Five states have reached the point where they are spending as much or more on corrections than they do on higher education systems. To place it all in perspective, consider that America has approximately 5% of the world population but about 25% of the world’s prison population.

The fact that violent crime, according to the Justice Department, has dropped over the same three decades of surging prison-population growth poses a complex tangle: Is less crime the product of get-tough enforcement and sentencing, or are we just incarcerating more low-level offenders who don’t need to be in prison? Probably some of both. But whatever the case, the situation is enough to chew on the conscience of any follower of a religion that emphasizes compassion and redemption. Multitudes of Americans are languishing in prison — and it’s all suggestive of something deeper afflicting the soul of the nation.

The article, unfortunately, goes on to feature moralistic hand-wringing on what a problem this is.

One thing I learned from liberals is that moralistic hand-wringing isn’t enough.  It’s interesting to note the following today in Barna:

In general, evangelical voters are perceived with a mix of skepticism and respect. Americans are not always sure what to make of evangelicals, but they believe the voting bloc has significant influence. Barna examined eight perceptions of evangelical voters. Four of the statements represented the most widely-held views…(one of them is) that they (Evangelicals) will be spend too much time complaining and not enough time solving problems (59%);

So, Evangelicals, if you want to be perceived as superior to the liberals, stop complaining and start solving!

Our incarceration rate, IMHO, is the result of two major factors (outside of the vagaries of the criminal justice system, which are many.)

The first is that too many people in this country have life views and styles that are bascially dysfunctional and undisciplined without the social checks of either community or state to counteract them.  That’s a broad statement that takes into consideration the basic nature of the country, the lack of values and discipline that our state schools can or will inculate in our children, the breakdown of the family and the lack of encouragement to put it back together, “community leaders” who encourage unproductive behaviour to perpetuate their community’s need for them, and of course this.  In a country where freedom is upheld by self-discipline and a sense of responsibility rather than order being solely imposed from above, it’s important for non-governmental institutions to take their part.  For reasons both related to the state (and some not,) they don’t.

The second should be self-evident but isn’t: we have too many laws on the books.  The more laws on the books, the more people are likely to violate them.  It’s that simple.  Passing a new law for every problem that arises is a reflex response we need to curb.  It’s why, for example, Congress has been the opposite of progress for along time.

Evangelicals should think about the latter more carefully than they do.  Face it: if we thought laws and rules were the answer, we should try the following way:

This day have those who disbelieve despaired of harming your religion. So fear them not, but fear ME. This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed MY favour upon you and have chosen for you Islam as religion. (Qur’an, 5:3)

This, from Sarah Palin’s speech earlier this evening at the Republican National Convention:

Senator McCain’s record of actual achievement and reform helps explain why so many special interests, lobbyists, and comfortable committee chairmen in Congress have fought the prospect of a McCain presidency – from the primary election of 2000 to this very day.

Our nominee doesn’t run with the Washington herd.

No, he doesn’t.  But the herd is running.  Do I hear the stampede of elephants–or caribou, in Gov. Palin’s case–from George W. Bush?

For all of the Democrats’ persistence in calling a McCain presidency four more years of George W. Bush, it’s worthy of note that the only candidate running now who has ever actually run against Bush is…John McCain.  And that was in the 2000 primary.

Just wondering…