Pelosi fears ACORN violence!
September 17, 2009
Pelosi chockes up against political violence against ACORN. The recent vote in the Senate and House to cut off funding to ACORN is a blow to Pelosi and she is worried that if the ‘rhetoric’ against them does not end there will be violence. She seemed genuinely scared. Watch for yourself on Real Clear.
Erosion of the Establishment Clause helped Acorn
September 16, 2009
I have always felt that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment had specific meaning: to prevent the state from ‘establishing a religion’ but I never really saw it as a prohibition of religion in state funded/sponsored organizations (schools and townhalls). My view was unique mainly because I wasn’t terribly religious earlier in my life. Prior to meeting my wife the only church I attended with any regularity was a Unitarian congregation in Massachusetts. In 1998 my wife and I began visiting various churches around Dallas looking for a church home and literally ran across a Cooperative Baptist church called Wilshire. We immediately connected with the church and I was baptized in 2001.
My views about separation of church and state have been evolving of late. As a Republican in Texas I have been surprised how much the party seems to revolve around religious values instead of conservative values. While at first glance this may seem positive, I think it has hurt our party and ironically our religious institutions. When Governor Bush became President Bush his first executive order was to create the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. His second executive order lifted restrictions on DOJ, HUD and Health and Human Services, Department of Labor and Department of Education that made it difficult for private organizations (i.e. churches) from seeking federal funds. The federal government was going to start funding activities sponsored by churches (and other groups). This didn’t seem like a very conservative measure – in fact it seemed a lot like an expansion of government and intermingling of the state and religion.
Bush’s executive orders meant that billions of dollars would be injected into faith-based organizations as well as non-faith-based organization like ACORN. The proverbial floodgates were opened and the money flowed. I believe this was a mistake. Bush and his allies suggested that the money would NOT be spent on religious purposes – but this is a silly argument – money is 100% fungible. ACORN has two arms. The nonpartisan side of the house at ACORN focuses on voter drives, receiving federal funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. The partisan side of the house at ACORN endorsed Barak Obama and took money from his election to fund voter drives.
MY POSITION: The founders never mentioned God in the Constitution. They specifically sought to prevent the establishment (i.e. funding) of religion in the United States. We need to return to those ideas. Separation of church and state is NOT meant to protect the state, but to protect the church. The state can ONLY poison religion (see the Middle East). Bush sought to expand the role of the church to offset the role of secular groups like ACORN, but abandoning conservative values is never the answer. Ironically, ACORN was MUCH better at securing federal funding than our churches were. Our party is made up of Christians, but it shouldn’t be a Christian party. Our country is made up of Christians, but we shouldn’t attempt to make it a Christian state.
Last Sunday Wilshire hosted a Baptist historian from the First Baptist Church (i.e. the first Baptist church founded in the New World – 1638) who gave a presentation on the history of the Baptist church as it relates to the separation of church and state. I was fascinated by Stanley Lemmons presentation. Dr. Stanley was a history professor at Rhode Island College from 1967 to 2006 and is the historian for the First Baptist Church in America. I learned a couple of interesting things:
- Early Baptist in England, like Roger Williams, came up with the revolutionary idea that church and state should be separated.
- Rhode Island was chartered by Baptist and it was the ONLY colony/state not to adopt a state religion.
- Baptist in Virginia blocked ratification of the Constitution until James Madison promised to include the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment after ratification.
Interestingly, the Baptist felt that any institution with the power of the sword had no business dealing with matters of the church. They believed in soul freedom, i.e. “the soul is competent before God, and capable of making decisions in matters of faith without coercion or compulsion by any larger religious or civil body.” In early America Baptist were a fringe religious sect and they felt that given a ‘free marketplace of ideas’ their ideas would spread like wildfire – all that was needed was for the state to get out of the way. They were right. Once each state abandoned the idea of a ’state’ religion the Baptists and Methodists flourished in the United States.
The atheists have co-opted the argument FOR separation of church and state and many conservatives (even Baptists) have taken up the argument FOR inclusion of religion in state sponsored activities like school and in town squares. The whole idea of the separation of church and state was invented by Baptists who sought the freedom to practice their Religion without state interference. Roger Williams, one of the early founders of the Baptist church, was exiled from England for his beliefs. He was even exiled from Massachusetts for those same beliefs. Conservatives (and Baptists) need to take back the issue of separation of church and state – the concept is biblicaly sound as well as founded in conservative values. Today we may be the majority, but tomorrow we might be the minority (see growth of Islam).
ACORN, a little background. . .
September 15, 2009
Lots of you have asked me, “What is ACORN?” I assumed everyone knew about ACORN, but obviously I was wrong. I thought it might be helpful to write a little about the organization. The stated purpose of the organization is:
a community-based organization in the USA that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States.
The organization claims to be nonpartisan, but only champions liberal and progressive causes; more troubling is that the group maintains a political action arm that has lobbied in every Democratic National Convention since 1980. ACORN’s political action arm endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. The main focus of the organization since the 1980s have been large scale voter drives. In 2008 ACORN registered more than 1.3 million voters in 21 states. These efforts were partially funded by federal dollars as well as private contributions. In 2008 the Obama campaign hired ACORN to conduct a ‘get-out-the-vote’ effort during the Democratic primary that cost $800,000.
Whats the big deal? ACORN is a nonprofit that support Democratic causes and candidates. Who cares? The problem for most conservatives is the federal funding. Why should we fund the opposition. ACORN argues that their voter drives are non-partisan. Of course this is hard for conservatives to believe given the close ties between ACORN and the Democratic party. Recently these concerns have proven to be valid. From 2004 to the present day more than 50 ACORN employees in nine states, including Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Florida, have been arrested for voter fraud.
For example, in the 2008 election ACORN registered 1.3 million voters in 21 states, but ACORN’s auditors determined that 400,000 of these were fraudulent. Despite the fact that ACORN’s purpose and funding is specifically to register new voters the organization claims it doesn’t have the resources to prevent fraud. The ACORN branch in Ohio allowed voters to register multiple times. In Indiana ACORN representatives turned in more than 5,000 voter registration forms that were taken directly from the phone book with forged signatures. In Washington seven ACORN employees were charged with submitting fraudulent voter registrations. In Las Vegas the director of ACORN plead guilty to voter fraud and agreed to testify against the regional director of ACORN and other employees. In Miami eleven ACORN employees were arrested for voter fraud.
The latest videos showing ACORN employees willingness to engage in illegal activity isn’t terribly surprising to conservatives. We have been frustrated by Congresses inaction and livid by the continued use of tax money to fund ACORN despite evidence of criminal activity. My friends on the Left suggest that the videos don’t prove anything – I agree. But they might just be what is needed to provide Congress a ‘teaching moment’ – they may be willing to overlook case after case of voter fraud – hopefully they can’t overlook human trafficking, tax fraud or prostitution. I know Acorn isn’t involved in this sort of thing, but that isn’t the point. The fact is: ACORN’s culture IS one of criminal activity. I know there are thousands of decent people who work for ACORN – the problem is that there are thousands who are obviously willing to break the law.
Hell Froze Over: Senate Votes to cut off ACORN!
September 14, 2009
Holy Cow! Hot Air has the full story here.
Justice for all or just for acorn?
September 12, 2009
Most conservatives, include me, view ACORN as a criminal organization. In state after state the organization has been charged and convicted of voter fraud. Of course, the most troubling part of the ACORN story is that we, the taxpayers, fund the organization – to the tune of $58,000,000 this year. Congress has decided not to investigate the group leaving them free to continue their activities unchecked. The Obama administration even planned to let the organization run the Census in 2010. Then two bloggers managed to expose the organization for what it is – a criminal enterprise. Have you seen the video the of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles ‘conducting a sting’ of the group:
The pair capture ACORN representatives giving advice on child prostitution, prostitution, tax evasion, bank fraud and money laundering. The State Attorney for Baltimore City was VERY interested in the case, but not in the way you might think. Patricia Coats Jessemy, the State Attorney, suggests that she plans to investigate the bloggers who exposed ACORN. She hopes to convict the pair under the Maryland wire tapping laws for recording the ACORN representatives – a felony punishable by five years in prison. Ms. Jessemy indicated she would NOT pursue any sort of case against the ACORN officials caught on tape.
Is this justice? It certainly isn’t justice for all. . .
