Tag: Hilary Clinton

What’s The Matter with Los Angeles?

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Thomas Frank asked what was the matter with Kansas. Why did lower-middle class whites vote for the GOP when the Republicans did little for such voters economically. The interests of Kansans economically were supposed to be much more Democrat than Republican. But conservatives in the GOP used social issues — abortion, marriage, etc. — to attract support.

Frank’s argument makes me wonder the same about the Hollywood stars who live in the greater Los Angeles area. Simply on economic grounds, why would people worth millions vote for a party that wants to raise taxes on them?

Then there is the art-makes-viewers-more-humane-and-empathetic argument. Don’t actors in Hollywood play all sorts of American character types, from people who vote for Republicans to business owners, cops (how many cop shows and movies are there?!?), angry white men, and Christian nationalists? If art is supposed to help us see how others see the world, why are Hollywood actors like Meryl Streep so clueless about how so many Americans other than movie stars live?

Not to mention that in the aftermath of Debbie Reynolds’ and Carrie Fisher’s death, the missus and I watched Meryl Streep give a very fine performance in Postcards from the Edge (foul language trigger warning). She plays a Hollywood star who is a drug addict and whose life is hardly stable? If you play that kind of character — and I imagine Hollywood has more people like this than among the rest of the millionaire demographic — do you really get on a soapbox and instruct the rest of the country about how insensitive and vicious regular Americans are (with a straight face)? Don’t you perhaps remember that Hollywood types have their own clay feet (even if outfitted in Prada)?

One last anomaly. Meryl Streep has far more in common with Donald Trump than Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz. Streep and Trump are both loaded, live lives becoming the rich and famous, cultivate celebrity, and are not overly concerned about abortion, gays, or sex outside marriage. Trump is one of Streep’s tribe.

And now the press can see how hollow and shallow Trump’s way of life is:

Trump understands one thing. In business, on TV and in conducting a presidential campaign, all that matters is making the news. He was famous and infamous, but most of all he was a media tsunami. He was not to be avoided. Fame is Donald Trump’s drug of choice. Being famous gives a person an automatic market value, a faux-virtue that comes from virtual supremacy.

Didn’t they understand that when Katy Perry and Beyonce were headlining for either Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton?

I’ll See Your 2 Popes and Raise You 5 Presidents

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

That would be, after the next inauguration, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all improving the world during the reign of Hilary or Donald. I wonder if Michael Sean Winters had President Obama in mind when he wrote:

All politicians should write their memoirs. After that, they should retire from the public stage beyond the occasional speech and whatever work the management of a presidential library entails. It is unhealthy for a democracy if new slots on the stage are not opened with regularity. Stroking the egos of former presidents is redundant. And, creating these personalized, secular and necessarily politicized charities will, beyond doubt, harm the brand of charity over time.

When professional athletes retire, they have a long life ahead of them. But they have precedents. Color commentators. Coaches. Automobile dealerships. Not so with presidents. Where do you go after being the most powerful man in the free world? Even presiding over Harvard seems like slumming.

Winters thinks the Clintons’ problem is moral earnestness:

The real problem here is not so much the foundation itself as the tone deafness of the Clintons to the suspicions of their motives. I have noted before that there is something creepy about the ethics of the Clintons, something commonly found among the do-gooders of the world. It goes like this: I am a good person, and X is not a good thing to do, yet I did it, therefore X must not be such a bad thing after all. It is true that they no doubt mix up their prideful motives with their altruistic ones. Find me the politician who doesn’t? But they take it to a level that is noxious.

I think it has more to do with their former lack of wealth. Hilary had to find a law job after Bill lost the Arkansas governor in 1980. They were supposedly in serious debt. How do you rub shoulders with the rich and famous (and Yale Law alums) if you aren’t rich? Well, you speculate in real estate, you take really really big speaking fees. Once out of the White House, you form a charity like the Gates. That shows you are philanthropic and rich. But it doesn’t play well with the hillbilly/hound dog in Bill, just as Huma’s break with Anthony Weiner doesn’t make Hilary look all that virtuous for standing by her man.

Coincidence?

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

I’ve likely watched too many episodes of that HBO Series that shall remain nameless for the sake of the weaker siblings, but was anyone else struck by the timing this week of Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden? While Hilary goes before Congress to carry the water for the Obama administration in Libya — it was after all the executive branch that looked bad with the attack in Benghazi, not just the State Department — and oh by the way Joe Biden decides to not to run for president.

It is hard for me to imagine that Hilary’s compensation for enduring Congress’ examination was an agreement that Biden would not run on the president’s coattails.

Call me Norman Wilson.

How Others See U.S.

Published on by D. G. Hart165 Comments

They sound a lot like U.S.

The Good:

America is a blessed nation. Visiting New York and seeing Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty is a great reminder of how much blessing has been brought to and through America. For many decades, with all its faults, the USA has been a bastion of liberty and freedom. Its hard not to love America.

The Bad:

it was an incredible experience to share with Tim Keller and Alistair Begg. God continues to bless the US with such pastors. Alistair is a gift of God, (from Scotland!) whose local church and wider ministry is a significant factor in the US Church. He has a wonderful ability to explain and proclaim the Word of God clearly. Tim is just the sharpest exegete of culture I know – the fact that he is also a superb exegete of the Bible and brings the two together is what makes his ministry so helpful to many of us beyond his own congregation. But it was not just the well known pastors. One of the things I loved about the conference was the fact that so many ‘blue collar’ pastors were there, battered and bruised, and hungry for the Word of God. I felt at home with them! I love Tim Keller and Alistair Begg, both of whom are great gifts to the Church and for me personally a great help to my ministry, but the Basics conference was not about them.

The Ugly:

We need to pray for this because all is not well in the US. Its political system is in trouble – prone to corruption, dumbing down and short termism. It is terrifying that someone with the reputation and inabilities of Hilary Clinton could actually become the most powerful person in the world – primarily because she has the backing of the corporate world which will grant her $2 billion of a war chest. . . .

All is not well in the church either. I don’t like the celebrity culture, the emphasis on money, the corporate business mentality or the view that America = Christianity. Yes much has been given to the Church in the US, but to whom much has been given, much is required. I think that a great deal of the Church in the US is self-obsessed, consumerist, dumbed down and shallow. How else can you explain a Church where Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and Rob Bell are significant figures? But its not just the obvious false teachers. My fear is that the Church is being invaded by the culture, rather than the other way round.

So there are good celebrities (TKNY) and bad ones, exegetes of culture who don’t analyze celebrity culture. And there are good politicians — Jeb Bush? — and bad, Hilary. I was hoping for an outsider’s perspective.

Freedom for Home Schoolers, Tyranny for Infidels

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

In the category of harmonic convergence, Rabbit Bret and Brothers B recently huffed and puffed about a PCA pastor from Richmond, Indiana who had the temerity to write a letter to the local newspaper editor in which he argued for more government oversight of homeschooling.

In his 19-point reply (with subpoints, no less) the good rabbi makes this not so subtle rejoinder:

Tom, the chief person you’ve offended is Jesus Christ in heaven above. You have advocated the State to usurp the prerogatives that God has given to the parents in order that the State might play God to the family. Your advocacy for increased State control is an advocacy that leads to the deterioration of the family and the enhancement of the State. A State, I might remind you, which is hostile to Biblical Christianity.

Weighing in for the Baylys is brother Tim who has this reasoned response (though, a drive-by snipe at Covenant Seminary ended up provoking the most discussion):

It takes a village? Actually, no: that village is a gang or a group home.

What it really takes is a home. It takes a father and mother. It takes God and the natural sovereigns He’s put over sons and daughters–Papa and Mama.

Those authorities that undermine or remove the authority of fathers and mothers by transferring their authority to the state are rebels against God.

Keeping the cosmic convergence on a roll, I too would come down on the side of Bret and Tim. I affirm limited government and the value of mediating institutions, starting at the very basic, natural law, level of the family. On matters of policy, I might favor some kind of interaction among families and local school authorities, just at a meet and greet level so that both sides actually function as neighbors, another association that yields mediation. So I understand and approve generally of their concern about the state controlling more and more of daily life.

What I call attention to though is the contradiction between these pastors’ call for limited government regarding the family and their frequent requests for the state to uphold and defend the true religion. To put this matter graphically, would Bret and Tim be so willing to see a Wiccan family conduct home schooling? Maybe they would given their opposition to big government.

But how big a government would you have if the Westminster Assembly was right about the powers of the civil magistrate and Hilary Clinton as the next president of the United States had the power and duty to call and preside over the PCA General Assembly or the CRC Synod? At this point I believe Bret and Tim might finally come around to a 2k outlook (mind you, I know longer speak of worldviews).