Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King, created as a universal holiday in part to combat the primary allegiance of many Catholics to secular governments instead of allegiance to their true king, Jesus Christ.
More:
Christ the Crucified King
Christ the King (per Christum)
For Ohioans, this is a huge weekend of football rivalries.
First, there was the Ohio State-Michigan game. Not only is this probably the greatest rivalry in college football (maybe sports), but both teams went into the game undefeated and ranked #1 and #2. The game itself didn’t disappoint either and went back and forth in terms of scoring and excitement. In the end, Ohio State pulled off a narrow victory. Go Bucks!
The second part of the weekend belongs to the Cleveland Browns. While the Buckeyes are ranked number one in the polls and undefeated, the Browns…well…aren’t. This hasn’t been the Browns’ year, but then again, the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t exactly done well either. This game today may not be about championships, but in the Cleveland area and Ohio in general (I was a huge Browns fan even in southern Ohio) it is about bragging rights and respect. Go Browns!
For the sports fan in Ohio, this the weekend!
Sorry it’s not full screen. To see it all, go to YouTube
It seems now there are two groups of people who should avoid Michael Schiavo like the plague:
1) Women
2) Politicians
[NB: I don't write about politics much anymore, but I felt the need to say something after last night's election.]
I’m asking myself that question right now as nearly every major candidate I voted for took a major drubbing. Granted, if a party ever deserved to lose and lose badly at this moment in history it was the Republicans. Seeing VP Cheney on TV declaring we’d continue in Iraq no matter what the people say was enough to almost make me vote Democratic. I get the sense that this election isn’t really a big Democratic victory as much as a huge Republican loss. Granted the Democrats will take it and the Republicans will lament it, but overall it doesn’t present us with a huge change in voter ideology. Simply put, voters hated the Iraq mess, disdained the corruption at high levels, and felt the economy wasn’t trickling down to the middle class. So, people naturally booted out the leaders. It just happens in a two party system that booting means it’s the turn of the Democrats to mess…um…I mean govern.
Yet, in spite of all the hype, I don’t think the Democrats would do any better at running the country and in fact could do a lot worse. Sure, we’d possibly get minimum wage hikes (a good thing), but also probably a lot of Bush bashing and fringe liberal activism to please the base (as much as I dislike Bush and respect some aspects of liberalism, still bad things). And what about voter anger about Iraq, corruption, and jobs? NAFTA was Clinton’s big thing…and Clinton, the Democrats, and scandals? Are our memories really so short? And Clinton also pulled the whole “war that we didn’t belong in with no UN approval” thing in the former Yugoslavia. This happened (including authorization for Bush’s war in Iraq, by the way) with support from congressional Democrats. In many ways, Bush, with his wasteful spending and interventionist foreign policy is simply taking cues from the Democratic play-book. Does anyone really believe the Democrats will get us out of Iraq, keep us out of Iran, or stand up to Israel to achieve a just settlement with Palestinians? The Democrats may be remotely better, but I don’t think, even if they had the power, they would drastically change US foreign policy. I don’t think they have even said as much. Many are simply neo-conservatives in blue drag.
The question remains: what is a conservative to do? I think we need to return to our roots and try to take the Republican party in that direction as well (which incidentally are the party’s roots as well).
1. We need to return to a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy. Our founding fathers consistently warned about the USA getting overly involved in world affairs that didn’t concern us. Let’s heed their advice.
2. We need to admit that the dogmatic and total adherence to principles of free trade is bad for Americans and bad for America. Other countries look out for their interests first and so should we. Losing a couple million manufacturing jobs is not good for America, or even neutral.
3. We need to totally abandon wasteful spending and influence peddling, and create balanced budgets.
I think this is a vision that would appeal to many liberals and moderates. It is, believe it or not, the position of traditional (or “paleo”) conservatism which, although somewhat small as a movement today, is still represented well by Pat Buchanan , American Conservative Magazine and AntiWar.Com (and by some in religious blogdom like A Conservative Blog for Peace)
I think after the midterm elections, in terms of conservatism, it’s time for the Republicans to try something old, not something borrowed or new. Sorry for bad poetry, but..those only turn states blue.
