Greece’s voters are facing a potential election next month.  Voters there are restless.  Its politicians have proven unable to form a governing coalition for almost two weeks.  The problem is relatively simply, Greece has spent itself into bankruptcy.  They were bailed out by the EU and now, must pay back some of their debts.  However, without a functioning government, it will be difficult for Greece to avoid defaulting.

The solution is a bit more difficult.  A country in recession shouldn’t be in the business of cutting spending as a general rule.  At the same time, austerity measures are the most obvious way to get debt and spending under control long term.  That kind of responsibility taken today, is the action necessary to protect the nation’s interests tomorrow.

However, the disturbing trend that we are seeing in westernized nations across the world, are citizens who have become so reliant on their social programs that they are blinded to what is best for their children long term.  We have the same problem in the U.S.  The old don’t want to lose Medicare, the middle-aged are worried about Social Security and the young want their school loan debt reduced.  Although its difficult, it must still be addressed.

If Greece cares about their once great nation, if it’s citizens care about their children, they will continue to pay off their debts, continue with the austerity measures set out by Germany and the EU and will endeavor to stay in the Eurozone.  This should be advocated not because multi-nation centralized government is something to be desired, but because the selfishness of Greek voters not wanting to live within their means could hurt the entire Eurozone and in turn, the entire world economy.

The right now wants to undergo the painful surgery that will put Greece on the path to recovery through a “technocratic ” board of unelected officials that could make the necessary cuts without being held accountable.  This may be the worst option — except for all of the others.  But the leftist SYRIZA party believes they can turn this into an electoral victory if they denunciate austerity enough.  What would happen then, no one really knows.

The Greek people don’t have to stick with the Euro over the long term, but if they are going to drag down everyone else with reckless policies, they need to at least act partially responsible during this crisis.  Future Greek citizens are depending on it.  Austerity now, spending later.

This weekend, Mr. Romney visited Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia to better sell himself to evangelicals.  It was an epic fail.  I know, I witnessed it, I was there.

To be sure, we’ve had to listen to evangelicals toot his horn for days now.  The local paper, twitter, facebook — it seems as if everyone in the area loved Romney’s speech.  I was there, and if you were on the fence rather than already in his camp, it accomplished nothing.

The first presupposition is that the main evangelical opposition to the Romney nomination is his religious views, it isn’t.  The biggest problem many Christians have with Romney is his history of being pro-choice.  What makes Church goers uneasy, is that he presided as Governor over the first state to allow gay marriage without lifting a finger of opposition.

In Saturday’s speech, Mr. Romney said that marriage is between one man and one woman.  He got deafening applause.  But where was he when it mattered?  Where was he when his healthcare plan that he signed into law paid for abortions?  It is easy to give speeches in the Bible belt, my question is how will you stand up to those who fight for abortion and other issues in D.C. when you don’t have tens of thousands of Christians applauding you?  Do you have the stomach for it?

Many Christians will continue to swear that this speech mattered for him.  If Romney was concerned with checking off the box, then he was a success.  If he was attempting to give his Christian supporters more ammunition to argue on his behalf, he was a success.

However, if Romney sought to pick up votes, if he sought to solidify his base, if he sought to demonstrate to Christians that there was something to be gained by his candidacy, he utterly failed.

The message of the speech was this, although I am not one of you, I have the same values that you have and that is why we should get into the same bed.

The reality is much different.  The real message is that while Romney is of a different religion from Christians, he hasn’t demonstrated any commitment to pushing forward on the life issue.  He hasn’t told us what, if anything he will do to protect marriage.  Romney hasn’t told us why the judges he nominates will be more conservative than the liberals he nominated in Massachusetts.  He simply says that he won’t be as bad as what we have now.

The speech accomplished nothing.  He didn’t pick up new voters, he didn’t prove he was conservative.  He didn’t pledge any tangible moves on his part, but because he checked the box, we are supposed to get inline.

I have no qualms with the most avid Mitt Romney supporters, defeating Obama is an honorable goal for any American.  But my Christian brothers should stop asking us those of us that see Romney for who he really is to fall into line as well.

*To be clear, I am not advocating voting against Romney.  I just am on record that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Last year, Congress made a deal with the President.  They argued that if we were to raise the debt ceiling, there would be no one willing to cut borrowed government spending, which, after being out of control during the previous President’s eight years — have jumped up again under this one.  They argued that this was the line in the sand, that we couldn’t move forward another inch.  In the end, these politicians blinked and signed onto a deal, promising that if they could not come adopt a bi-partisan commission’s recommendations and a deal by the end of the fiscal year — they would cut spending together, with a majority of cuts coming from defense spending.

But now these politicians have balked.  The debt issue is so crippling that at the time, many conservatives believed this to be better than growing our debt.  Now they are afraid.  They don’t want to open themselves up to defense issue attacks from the right.  They don’t want to cut contracts that may effect their districts.

The problems of course, is that although this same Congress promised to cut spending last year on this exact bill — even going as far as passing a bill promising to do so, they have now changed their minds.  They are now arguing that it is a raw deal.

Not surprisingly, conservatives told these sell-outs last year that this was a bad deal, redstate.com contributors almost unanimously asked them to “hold the line”.  We believed that Obama would be forced to balk.  But they made a deal.  Now they don’t want to live with the consequences.

At the time, they cared more about political victories than patriotic ones, and in the end, got neither.

Where I come from, a deal is a deal.  Even when it is hard.  Conservatives wanted cuts, we got cuts.  Now we just have to follow through.  It is disingenuous to talk about cutting spending while refusing to cut it on our side of the partisan divide.

We can’t demand that the budget be brought under control without raising taxes or cutting defense spending.  If we are going to refuse to raise taxes (and we must) we are going to have to cut defense spending AND entitlements.

The conservative response of 2010 to spending, debt and bailouts can never be realized unless conservatives are willing to stand up to war hawks in our own party and tell them to cool it.  It is ok to cut future increases in defense spending.  Our defense budget is large enough.

If there is to be a national party looking out for our long term economic goals, it will only be on the right.

Politicians on the right are the adults on the spending issue trying to negotiate with demanding children on the left.  What’s worse, is that they don’t intend on growing up until its too late.  But we must press on.  We have a responsibility to slow spending and pay for our expenditures under this president and a responsibility to cut spending under the next.

Right now, the House needs to tie the Senate and President to this “compromise” and go all in together thus avoiding political fallout from cut programs.  Anything else is childish.

Tuesday, the voters of North Carolina voted to protect marriage as between one man and one woman.  It became the 31st state to protect marriage and did so through a constitutional amendment.

What is striking about the victory isn’t that it passed, but the margins its passed by.  The latest tally puts support for the bill at 61.05% for marriage with 38.95% against.  The overwhelming support for the amendment in an Obama state drives home the fact that although republicans in Washington have all but thrown this issue out of their re-election planks, it still resonates with voters and demonstrates why Obama hasn’t come out with a full-throated endorsement of gay marriage thus far.

The fact remains that the protection of marriage as an institution is largely accepted as the bedrock of the American family and in turn, represents the foundation of our society.  While poll watchers and politicians have been distancing themselves from the protection of marriage, the views of many Americans have not “evolved”.

Many on the left legitimately view the issue as a civil rights matter.  But the people of the United States have spoken over 31 times in favor of the protection of marriage.  Even in Obama states, voters have recognized that this is not a civil rights issue.

Denying a marriage license to two men is nothing like the violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of protection of life, liberty and property that abortion presents.  The protection of marriage seeks not to take away rights from Americans but rather, prevents the government from creating new rights for new relationships.  This presents a stark difference from race relations of the last century where minorities were denied entrance into bathrooms, schools and restaurants.  The civil rights plight of MLK Jr. and other black Americans was a righteous cause that sought equal treatment so that blacks no longer had to be content with used text books and Jim Crow laws while sitting at the back of the bus.  That movement was about the fact that blacks were treated as second class citizens.  The same cannot be said of every political movement.

Now days, many on the left argue that this is a civil rights issue.  But no gay person is treated as a second class citizen under our laws.  The denial of new privileges and rewards is not a civil rights issue.  It is a political battle for new rights by a minority demographic.  The people of North Carolina demonstrated that they understand that the only way to achieve true equality is to treat people the same, not carve out new rights for special demographics.  The war is far from over, but the margin of victory suggests the win of a major battle.

During the presidential primary campaign of 1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn’t doing so great.  He was more of an uncommitted and moderate democrat compared to his frenemy and fellow New York pol, Al Smith.  Compared with the hugely successful Smith, Roosevelt was panned as the “weak-willed” “corkscrew candidate”.

The problem with FDR was that he was out-of-line with his base.  He was a flip-flopper.  He had changed his positions on everything from his support of embattled NY Mayor Tammany Hall to his support of the League of Nations, Prohibition and monetary policy.  Convention delegates saw him as weak in light of his lack of a spine combined with his perceived weakness due to his inability to walk unaided.

FDR lost in the all of the first three rounds of convention voting.  Chicago bookies placed FDR’s odds at 5-to-1.  But everything changed when Senator McAdoo decided to swing his support to Roosevelt, rather than allowing Smith to win.  (Smith had denied McAdoo the nomination eight years earlier.)

As soon as McAdoo took the microphone at the convention to announce his support for Roosevelt, the audience knew that Roosevelt would be the nominee.  The delegates began to jeer Roosevelt’s name.  The party didn’t want a weak ticket with such a bad economy.  It was political suicide!  They though they could defeat Hoover and win if they had a strong enough ticket.  As the boos came in, McAdoo replied, “I intend to say what I propose to say without regard to what the galleries or anybody else thinks.”  Senator McAdoo swung his California delegates to Governor Roosevelt and clinched for him the nomination.

Governor Al Smith was so bitter, he broke with tradition and refused to endorse Roosevelt on the floor.  It was the first of two upsets.  The general election soon followed.

Of course, we all know how the story ends.  Roosevelt, the weakest of candidates became one of the first presidential candidates to speak at his party’s convention and arrived on something a presidential candidate had never utilized before — an airplane, in dramatic fashion.  In the end, Roosevelt was able to paint Herbert Hoover as completely incompetent, although he continued the Hoover policies for another decade.  Today, FDR is regarded by the left as the greatest democratic president in United States History.

Will a weak flip-flopper arise from the GOP nominating contest in 2012 and go on to beat a weak incumbent in November?  It is difficult to say, one thing we know for sure is, it has happened before.

Congratulations to the many Christians that successfully convinced PepsiCo to alter it’s contract with the unethical biotech firm known as Senomyx Inc.  Senomyx is a company Pepsi contracted with in 2010 to conduct flavor testing for new soft drinks.  The problem is that Senomyx harvests cells from aborted fetus’s to create new and tasty soda flavors.  While this author will admit to consuming a few Pepsi products during 2011 and 2012, we joined the fight in largely abstaining from Pepsi until the problem was corrected

Senomyx  creates new flavors that are supposed to “reduce sugars and salts.”  But the company doesn’t only do this through organic and healthier foods.  It uses proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems which provides Senomyx biochemical responses when a new ingredient interacts differently with existing ingredients.  The receptors are made from “HEK293″, or Human Embryonic Kidney cells from a healthy, electively aborted baby, whose cells were then harvested and cloned and successfully used on the 293rd try.

No, this isn’t a sci-fi movie.  This is how junk food flavors are created in the twenty-first century.

Pepsi’s act of redefining its relationship with this sick company is not a total win, Senomyx Inc. continues to exploit human death in order to create better selling ingredients.  It’s not only extremely weird but it is immoral and unethical.  Although Pepsi no longer directly benefits from this exploitation, it will indirectly benefits because of its associations with Senomyx.

The reason the pro-life community should care about companies like Senomyx isn’t simply because we oppose the exploitation of innocent human life, but from a practical standpoint, if we are ever to win the abortion fight, we must keep big money at bay.  Sadly, there are companies looking to usurp the remains of unborn babies to make a profit.  The zealousness of pro-aborts is a strong enough opponent to this righteous cause, the pro-life movement must not allow pro-aborts to continue to enjoy a huge financial advantage as well.

Although the contract should never have been performed and didn’t go far enough, PepsiCo should be applauded for the change in course.  At the same time, Pepsi needs to consider cutting off all ties with unethical groups such as Senomyx.  To many Americans, the cost of a soda has become too high.  I for one am taking a Cherry Coke to work today, but I look forward to buying a twelve pack of the sweet nectar known as Mountain Dew Code Red.  What?  My teeth and kidneys will be fine.

Thank you to Mercola and Lifenews for the sources.

griffinelection.com

Last week Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese prisoner escaped house arrest with the help of Christian missionaries.  His charges were brought in retaliation for uncovering a massive campaign of forced abortions in his hometown.  Rumor has it that Chen is now in hiding at the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

Next week, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton will head to Beijing for an economic summit.  This certainly couldn’t come at a worse time for the Obama administration that undoubtedly will not want to be caught up on the issue of one man’s life.  But it is important that they do.

The quality that has made America great has always been its status as a light on the hill.  It wasn’t until the last generation that we gained our national identity from military superiority or a growing economy.  What brought immigrants to America was our stand for liberty and our opposition to tyranny.

It isn’t fair to any administration to derail economic talks with China over human rights abuses, but at the same time every administration must do it.  America is very, very sick.  The nation is in debt, China will soon equal our military and economic might.  But what China will never have that America does — is a reputation as the nation that stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.  We are a nation of unalienable rights with the freedom to speak and protest.

Most pro-choice Americans would agree that massive forced abortion campaigns are something to be opposed and detested.  Thus, this isn’t a partisan issue.  When our nation speaks, foreign people listen — even when their governments may not.  Opposition to policies such as this may not set Chen free but they provide a voice for good in the world that other countries will see.

Although we may be sick, America cannot lose its soul.  Now more than ever we must continue to be that city on a hill.  U.S. officials should continue to come out strongly against the policy of forced abortions in China and in defense of Chen Guangcheng, who should receive diplomatic immunity if he is indeed in a U.S. embassy and above all the spiritual and moral support of our country.

Yesterday, I was at the airport where I was subjected to the same invasive procedures that all Americans are now forced to undergo.  I was asked to stand on a mat on top of a pair of footprints, take off my shoes, belt, jacket, take out my computer and empty my pockets — even paper.  I then held up my hands in the air like a criminal under arrest.  Finally, the body scan failed to go through so I received a government pat down.  Most Americans are willing to make this sacrifice in the interest of safety.

I am not.  Does the Fourth Amendment mean anything anymore?  Stick with me-

If being patted down isn’t infringing on the security of my person and taking papers out of my pockets doesn’t violate the first statement in the Fourth Amendment, what does?

The Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yet, the horror of 9-11 has seen Americans do as Benjamin Franklin warned against — trade freedom for security.

What does the Fourth Amendment mean?  Do we waive our rights just because we want to fly in an airplane?  Is the Fourth Amendment contingent upon you never flying in the Twenty-first century?  What if America begins having bus or subway bombs as Europe, India and Russia has experienced, will we give up our Constitutional rights to travel at all?

If the Constitution guarantees the right to travel (and the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that it does), shouldn’t that guarantee also carry with it the right to the other Constitutional rights?  Can one Constitutional right come at the expense of another? 

The answer is no.  The bill of rights present a consistent list of rights that do not come at the expense of one another.

To be clear, I am not in favor of rogue airplane flights where we all carry weapons.  However, the governments ability to violate the Fourth Amendment without a warrant simply because you want to visit your family is a frightening interpretation of the Constitution.  The Constitution says, our rights to be secure in our persons shall not be violated.  They can’t be violated.

Americans demand to be safe on their airline flights.  But it should be the airline flights who are responsible for airline safety.  The Fourth Amendment does not protect us from being patted down from a private company.  In the private instance, there is no Constitutional issue at stake and private companies would race to have the safest and most efficient form of airport security as no one wants to be the plane company that allowed a repeat of 9-11.  This is an instance where the free market would deliver the consumer the least invasive and safest manner of airport security that would still protect against unreasonable search and seizure.

At the same time, the federal and state governments have a vested interest in security and ensuring that no one tries to run a plane into a building or the ground.  But the government has already taken measures to ensure that pilot’s cabins are locked with no way for intruders to enter while in flight.  While passengers could be in danger of other nefarious passengers, planes themselves are no longer in danger of being taken over by “terrorists.”

As the years wear on, Americans cannot become resigned to the fact that our government will pat us down without a warrant or probable cause.  We must teach our children that this is something that goes against our Constitution.

When nominating and electing judges at the state and federal level, we should know their view on the Fourth Amendment.  Does it still stand or do they believe it should be bent for security reasons?  Mainstream, center-right conservatives should defend the Fourth Amendment with the same vigor as they do the Second.  For it is of paramount importance in protecting our children from the slippery slope of government overreach.

Barack Obama has spent significant time that could have been spent dealing with the economy, shoring up his base over the last few years.  After the mandate election of 2010, he pushed through repeal of DADT for gays, he half heartedly looked toward the DREAM Act for Hispanics, this year he mandated that Church organizations pay for contraceptives and chemical abortions and is currently pushing his Buffet tax on the rich.  He is doing what any presidential candidate must do to shore up his base.  He realizes that any strong candidate must build his base on rock in order to truly be strong going into November.

Last night, Mitt Romney used his five state sweep to officially kick-off his general election fight with Obama, which arguably occurred a few weeks ago following his win in Wisconsin.

While Romney is looking towards picking up independents in November, he has still failed to shore up his base, and that is a major problem.

In two weeks, Mr. Romney will speak at Liberty University’s commencement (my alma mater) in an effort to kiss the evangelical ring.  That is a nice gesture.  The problem is that you convince people you are with them through policy suggestions, not vague promises.  While there are many people in my hometown that are happy to have Romney come, there are many that are not and that is a problem for him.  It is not just the division between Christian and Mormon doctrine that leave evangelicals feeling weary, it is his policies from Massachusetts and past stands against religious values in the past that leave evangelicals feeling luke warm.

The point is, if Romney wants to make his upcoming speech in my hometown mean anything, he needs to tell the evangelical community what fig leaf he plans to offer us.  If he wants the trust of the Church, which is  a large part of his base, despite what you may have heard, vague promises won’t be enough.   He will win no friends by failing to promise policy changes on life, marriage, adoption and religious liberties.  He needs a bold plan for moving the social conservative ball down the field rather than a routine for managing moral decay.  If he has a prayer of winning in November, he is going to need to shore up his base by the time of the convention, otherwise, his foundation will be built on sand.  And, as every Christian knows, a house built on sand will wash away.

Earlier this week, I had the misfortune of watching Meryl Streep’s “The Iron Lady”.  Harvey Weinstein must have given it this title due to its constant theme that she was cold, stupid and ambitious.  Before we begin, this site has endeavored to give accurate and unbiased film reviews in the past, and will do so again.  However, this film earns every ounce of denunciation.

( See here: http://griffinelection.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/game-change-movie-review/)

The Iron Lady is a biopic of the great Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher.  Thatcher and her leadership of the conservative party in Britain played a vital role in returning the country to growth and prosperity in the 80′s.  She also played a pivotal part in standing up to communism in the 1980′s.

But that wasn’t what the movie was about.  The movie starts off with an elderly Thatcher living alone with dementia.  I wish I could say it moved on from this theme, but the entire film was about Thatcher’s dementia and merely peppered in moments of her life.

Her younger days were portrayed the same as her golden years.  The film flashbacked to a time when she was insecure as a young girl, which presumably pushed her into politics.  The film flashed to a sequence where she was fiscally irresponsible leading to a war, a scene where she placed career ambition in front of family, a sequence where her children chased her car down the driveway beating on the windows and screaming as she left for her first trip to Parliament, as if she had not even told them she was departing.  Then there was the sequence outlining her defeat, which the film implied she deserved.  The movie portrayed her as cold and short-sighted when she was young and crazy when she was old.

There was little mention of her leadership skills, her partnership with Ronald Reagan to kill communism and her fiscal responsibility.  There were numerous shots of rioting anarchists burning buildings and vehicles in protest of her leadership.  Yet, there was not one shot of her supporters.  Not one frame demonstrating how much Britain loved her.

This was a hit piece properly done.  It wasn’t necessarily filled with mis-truths, but it successfully painted a portrait of the darkest points and acts in one woman’s life while intentionally avoiding the vast positive impact she left on the world.  It was, as Thatcher’s children called the film a “left-wing fantasy.”

The movie left me feeling down that anyone would set out to tarnish the legacy of such a great leader in such a bold and in-your-face style.  They didn’t even try to hide their bias.  It was a shameful film.  Near the end, I was forced to turn it off because the focus on the sickness of an elderly lady was too much for me.  Thus, I cannot recommend this film and only wish I could receive my $1.26 back from the redbox.

Please, don’t let my agony be in vain.

griffinelection.com