McCain Voters Support Huckabee? How Come?
Well, the results from the West Virginia Republican caucuses are in, and Mike Huckabee takes it all - all of the state’s delegates go to him. Romney gets nothing. John McCain gets nothing.
Actually, John McCain’s votes went to Huckabee, after McCain failed to get the threshhold required to be counted in the state.
Why? Why, if John McCain represents the moderate wing of the Republican Party, as he claims to do, did his supporters all go over to Mike Huckabee, who is a very extreme right winger, even within Republican terms?
I’m interested in hearing what other people think about this, but it seems pretty plain to me that John McCain is not as moderate as he would like independents and Democrats to believe. Also, I think that part of explanation is that there are many reasons to hate contained within the Republican Party. One of those is to hate Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon. Mike Huckabee made this case pretty plain, with all his “Christian Leader” and Christmas for President nonsense.
When John McCain’s supporters couldn’t get what they wanted in West Virginia, they reverted to religious hatred, and refused Mitt Romney even though Romney’s political wishy-washy flip flops more closely match McCain than Huckabee. Ideals be damned - there are groups outside the cultural majority that they’ve got to exclude!
Isn’t it wonderful that the Democratic Party has to choose between different modes of inclusion rather than competing agendas of exclusion?
It’s becoming clear that the Republican race is between McCain and Romney. I don’t think you should look for any deep religious or ideological meaning in the support by McCain and his supporters for Huckabeen in the WV caucus. It was simply a deal in order to deny Romney getting the WV delegates. When it became clear that McCain was not able to win the state he and his supporters realized that it was more important to make sure Romney didn’t get those delegates. It had nothing to do with ideology. It’s just simple math.
What about the Southern Huckabee wins tonight, Mark?
yah. Romney is hardly winning anything. Huckabee is getting the Chrisofascist vote big time.
A lot of conservative Republicans (including Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh) absolutely HATE McCain because of his attitude toward immigration, not being conservative enough [Ann Coulter said she'd vote for Hillary and even campaign for her if McCain gets the nomination; Limbaugh strategizes that the Republicans should just go ahead and let the Democrats inherit the mess (recession, unstable situation in Iraq, etc.) so that they won't look bad in 2010 when they can take back Congress and 2012 when they'll be back in the White House].
i think Huckabee is getting the “least of the worst” vote. i’m still amazed at the “Christian” fundie voters who support the war, the death penalty, and NO social programs for anyone but claim to be “pro-life” and “Christian” somehow.
The delegates Huckabee gets from a few southern states won’t be enough to put him into contention with McCain or Romney.
No, but they might put him into the convention with McCain or Romney.
I really don’t think that there’s a “deep religious…meaning” in this, I think it’s quite blatant, and FGF has his the nail on the head.
American fundamentalist Christianity (FC) doesn’t think that Mormonism (LDS) falls under the category of Christianity.
I suppose, broadly speaking, there are two litmus tests that the FC could apply here
(i) do the LDS and the FC ascribe to the same set of propositions?
(ii) do the LDS and the FC hold almost identical moral values?
I have argued elsewhere on this site that LDS theology is incompatible with traditional Christian theology (from which FC is derived), so the LDS fail on litmus test (i)
However, the conservative moral stance of the LDS is essentially identical to the conservative moral stance of the FC.
If the goal is imposing a fundamentalist moral stance on America, then the FC would do well to vote for Romney. His LDS value system will be consistent with the FC value system almost every time.
But when faced with a choice, Huckabee’s FC supporters apparently virtually unanimously voted against Romney.
Apparently it doesn’t matter that he will vote moral conservative, what matters is that he’s LDS. And that’s not a proper Christian cuz he doesn’t believe the right set of propositions.
“I have argued elsewhere on this site that LDS theology is incompatible with traditional Christian theology”
–if you’re interested…
http://irregulartimes.com/diaries/2006/03/the-lds-conception-of-god/
What is this - are we living under King Charles the Second in merry old England, having to argue about which religion will lead the nation? This garbage is archaic.
Well, it ought to be archaic, but it’s not. It’s the way a large portion of Americans think.
This worries me. Faith is, by definition, the will to believe in a set of unjustified and unjustifiable propositions, the will to believe something that is contrary to evidence and reason, and the will to make the effort to not be persuaded by evidence and reason.
People might well make some good judgments under such circumstances, but might have grave difficulty recognizing when they are making bad judgments, or being convinced that they are making bad judgments. Do you want to vote another person into the White House who is not persuaded by evidence or reason? Look at the catastrophic effect of doing it last time.
Yes, it ought to be archaic.
1)As I recall, Mormons believe in polygamy and maybe even practice it unofficially. That might play havoc with the evangelical “one man, one woman” theme.
2)Faith does not necessarily mean rejecting evidence and reason. While this might be the case with literalist type groups, there are plenty of denominations that say science and religion cannot be in conflict because they concern themselves with different questions.
3) It is not just a question of what groups reject LDS. There is also to consider what groups the LDS rejects. While I’m pretty sure Baptists don’t have any problem letting Mormons into their churches, Mormons do not let anyone into their temples unless they are certified pure by their local religious leader. This means if a non-Mormon has been inside a temple–like during construction or something–the entire building has to be purged and purified in some ritual to get rid of the fleas or bad vibes or whatever before the Mormons can use it. This means definitely no one who is not a Mormon can attend their weddings and funerals. As far as I know, anyone can go to a Baptist’s funeral.
1. Polygamy
- there is some evidence that it was secretly practiced for about a decade after it was officially prohibited (1890).
- the then president of the church believed that God prohibited polygamy, not because it was wrong, but because of the social & political repercussions
- fundamentalist “mormons” not associated with the LDS still practice
- many members still believe that polygamy will be the norm in the afterlife
So judge how you will. Even if Mitt Romney believes polygamy will be the norm in the afterlife, such a private belief doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that ought to stop people from voting for someone with almost identical conservative moral values any more than it would stop someone voting for a roman catholic because transubstantiation is contrary to the evangelical anti-cannibalism theme.
2. Faith & reason
- there are different domains of belief. You may accept evidence and reason in one domain, yet not feel to require it in the domain of religion. I didn’t say anything that implies that all people who believe propositions on faith are impervious to logic when it comes to other domains. Though clearly it does happen. Bush & the war in Iraq, the rejection of evolution. Thought habits spill over into other domains.
- if one believes something on faith, one believes it in the independent of evidence and reason. If a proposition is demonstrable via evidence or reason, then it doesn’t require an act of will (faith) to believe it.
3. The LDS reject…
- Mormons, like Baptists, welcome anybody into their churches. Temples are different. There are plenty of Holy sites in various religions that are off limits to non-believers. That is hardly grounds for not voting for someone of those various religions.
“some ritual to get rid of the fleas”
–???
3. No, non-Mormons are not welcome in Mormon churches here. My next-door neighbor and childhood friend converted to LDS when she married a Mormon. If anyone in town had an idea that Mormon was just another church they lost the idea very quickly. None of us were invited to the wedding, including the bride’s own mother. The members of the bride’s new religion, however, were very aggressive about approaching the non-Mormon friends for wedding presents, and in making clear they were expected to spend plenty of money on them, even if they weren’t welcome at the wedding.
When I toured the new temple at Navoo, everyone was asked to put little footies over their shoes. I thought it was just to save wear on the carpets, but then I found out they were also going to spiritually purify the building afterwards too. Apparently the mere physical presence of people like me freaks them out and leaves some kind of lasting malevolent influence in their minds that has to be exorcised.
1. Another polygamy/Mormon marriage mystery: I have heard when a Mormon couple gets married, the husband is told the heavenly name of the wife so he can call her in the afterlife, but the wife is not given the husband’s name. Is this a case of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”? And what if he turns out to be a real jerk and she wants an eternal unlisted number? The last is a personal concern–I’m considering a Pact with the Other Establishment.
I think a lot of resistance to the Mormons is not just that they are different,it is that they are different in bizarre and secret ways that don’t make any sense. No, they are not just like everyone else. They are something outside the culture. Even the most casual contact with them turns up the most inexplicable things. I’m thinking of a pioneer reenactment where a guy demonstrating colonial barrel-making or somesuch went though the whole procedure of assembling something, but then had a child in the audience hit something with a hammer, because Mormons are not allowed to do any work on Sunday. He believed doing work on Sunday was evil, yet he would guide a child who was not of his religion to do something he believed was repugnant to God. The outcomes of their beliefs on policy can’t be predicted by someone outside the faith.
2. What does science say about the meaning of life and the purpose of existence? Nothing. It’s not a scientific question. What about right and wrong? Same thing. One of the limitations of science. We can use science to invent nuclear weapons, but science doesn’t give us a clue about what to do with them. That’s where religion comes in.
On the other hand my church offered its space free of charge when local fundies raised a bruhaha about an evolution presentation at a local museum. We like dinosaurs. Jesus died to take away your sins, not your brains.
Actually, science delivered nuclear THEORY which then was usurped by the military to achieve their ends (to the great disappointment and fear of the scientists involved). It was up to our “leaders” to make practical uses for it (as in medicine and nuclear power - which still has problems with disposal of the by-products). As usual, the military industrial complex only sees things in terms of US and THEM, whereas Einstein wrote to FDR at the time that we should begin finding a way to become a one-world government in order to avoid the military use of these horrible weapons. And here we are . . .
“No, non-Mormons are not welcome in Mormon churches here.”
–sorry, I can’t argue personal experience against personal experience, it will go nowhere.
“footies over their shoes.”
–…continue to be worn after dedication. Had nothing to do with your mere physical presence corrupting the place.
” the husband is told the heavenly name of the wife”
–accurate. And in my opinion disturbing. The LDS church, like many (let’s be honest, including Huckabee’s variation of Baptistism) is not doing well in confronting it’s own sexism.
(BTW, I’m not looking for a fight from LDS members who want to disagree.)
“it is that they are different in bizarre and secret ways that don’t make any sense.”
–There is a disturbing disconnect between the exaggerated normalcy of the churches public face and idiosyncratic (even foreign) private practices & beliefs.
“The outcomes of their beliefs on policy can’t be predicted by someone outside the faith.”
–I find it odd that I find myself in the position of defending the LDS Church. I am certainly no apologist, but I do know church history, theology, and sociology. My answer to this last point is I think we ought to avoid voting for people of faith in general. I think issues of public policy ought to be decided by a rational process of dialectic.
“I’m considering a Pact with the Other Establishment.”
–please to translate?
“nuclear weapons, but science doesn’t give us a clue about what to do with them. That’s where religion comes in.”
–well, that’s where ethics & morality come in. Religion is but one source of ethics.
There must be quite a bit of difference between religion and ethics, otherwise people would be writing things like “ethics is, by definition, the will to believe in a set of unjustified and unjustifiable propositions, the will to believe something that is contrary to evidence and reason”…
What I saw at Navoo at the entrance to the temple was a series of entrances, something like the turnstiles for entering a train station, where believers would present their credentials prior to being admitted to the building. They would have to be pure, whatever that entails, and in good standing with their home church. I was told I was taking the tour on either the last or second to last day before the temple would be closed to anyone not Mormon. After that day, the temple would be “purified”. After purification, non-Mormons would not be permitted to enter the building at all.
Going up the stairs, I saw a room full of white clothes behind a counter. The men would go up one stairway, the women would go up the other and get their white clothes at opposite sides of the same counter. There were separate changing rooms for men and women on each side for them to change into white gowns before the religious rituals.
I saw several progressively lighter rooms for religious instruction, the beginners in a room with rows of chairs and jungle prints on the walls to tell the story of their previous lives with God before they became born into this world and got new families and forgot their old heavenly families. The next levels of rooms going through the gold tones and becoming progressively plusher, until the highest level had expensive white carpets and white overstuffed chairs.
I saw a huge basin, large enough to hold several people, with some quotation beside it that reminded me of the old testament description of the “sea” of the Jerusalem temple–and was reminded the Mormons do a lot of baptizing, even of dead people, hence their extensive geneological research archives. I saw their sanctuary for worship which had two sets of bleachers facing each other–the imagination boggles here. I saw the several rooms for performing marriages, the couple standing in the middle of the room with mirrors lining two opposite walls and reflecting each other endlessly to symbolize their connection to past and future generations.
We were instructed not to ask the guides anything about their religion. You could see a smug sort of holier-than-thou superiority on their faces though, so maybe it was just as well.
Probably the religious injunction the Protestant groups take the most seriously, at least in terms of politics, is the injunction of Jesus to feed the sick, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, because what you do to the lowest of human beings you are doing to Jesus. So when the fundies say “what would Jesus do” the mainstream protestants are saying “what would you do to God”. To an outsider this might look like “the will to make the effort to not be persuaded by evidence and reason”, but to an insider, it has nothing to do with reason and can coexist with reason. It is a profound statement about how to order your life.
Oh, and sex. I’ve heard the Mormons regard sex as bad. They are not supposed to enjoy sex. They are supposed to have special sheets with a hole in it so they don’t actually have to get naked or anything like that for the occasion. This last tidbit comes from popular fiction sources.
The pact thing is a reference to the medieval practice of selling your soul to the devil, usually in exchange for earthy enrichment. See, if you are willing to bargain with Evil Personified in order to avoid someone in the afterlife…aw, if you have to explain a joke like that it isn’t funny any more.
“Mormons regard sex as bad. They are not supposed to enjoy sex”
–not even close
“You could see a smug sort of holier-than-thou superiority on their faces”
–I live in a high LDS area, and many of my students (Ethics, Logic, Philosophy, Psychology) are recently returned missionaries. You have described them to a T.
“To an outsider this might look like “the will to make the effort to not be persuaded by evidence and reasonâ€, but to an insider, it has nothing to do with reason and can coexist with reason. ”
–okay, if you say. I’m an outsider, and I don’t know what faith is, and the definition of faith is wrong. But I’m not sure why you keep disagreeing with me. All I did was give the definition, and agree with you that they are different domains.
Obviously I am taking offense at your definition of faith. It seems unnecessarily hostile without explaining anything. The example I like to give to the guys here is love. They all insist they love their wives (who no doubt can read this blog whenever they want) even though they can’t see love or even prove it exists. If I characterize their marriages as being outside of reason, not provable by evidence, or not reality-based, it’s probably an accurate description, but entirely missing the point.
I didn’t criticize, but I can see where you might think I did. All I did was give the definition.
“The acceptance of ideals which are theoretically indemonstrable”–Kant
“Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”–American Heritage Dictionary
“The conviction of the truth of some doctrine which is the result of a voluntary act of will.”–Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy.
“It is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd…the fact is certain because it is impossible.”–Tertullian (2nd Century Church Father)
Taking offense at a pretty standard non-controversial definition of faith is probably missing the point.
As it turns out, I am extremely critical of faith as defined above. I think a better approach can be taken to theology (as embodied by other Church fathers like Anselm & Aquinas). I think it’s mistaken. I think that anything that we consider faith can be reduced to something else, and that faith is entirely non-justifiable. But that’s hardly something I’m going to discuss in a limited forum like this. Plus, you’d get offended, and I’d be dismissed out of hand because I’m an outsider.
In the spirit of contiuing the love analogy, here are some more definitions:
Love: a grave mental disease. –Plato
Have you ever been in love? Stay well clear. It leaves you very bitter and very twisted. –Tamzin Outhwaite, in EastEnders
To love someone is to isolate him from the world, wipe out every trace of him, dispossess him of his shadow, drag him into a murderous future. It is to circle around the other like a dead star and absorb him into a black light. –Jean Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies
Love is the worst of lies one can tell oneself. –Lydie-Anne, in “Liliesâ€
What I want to know is this: If love’s so great, why do you fall into it? You fall into a puddle. You fall into the mud. You fall into the abyss. –Brian Strause, Maybe a Miracle
Perhaps anything we think is love can be reduced to something else, and love is entirely non-justifiable. Of course the married guys here aren’t going to agree with that–probably “justification” isn’t what they’re looking for in marriage..
Dismissed, no, or I wouldn’t bother to respond to your points. Outside, yes. Rather like the six blind sages (Anselm, et al) lurking around the elephant saying “an elephant is like a tree, an elephant is like a rope, etc.” because that’s your training and inclination. An interesting approach but not the only one. The other option is to jump on the elephant and take it for a spin just to see what happens.
Iroquios - Love and marriage is outside of reason? Explain that? Also, why don’t you provide us with a reasonable definition of faith?