It’s been a long time since I’ve written about politics. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s happening in the political realm, but I get frustrated at apathy on the one hand and ignorant compromising on the other that I see among Christians who ought to be able to count on both hands, many times over, the number of times the wool has been pulled over their eyes in every election dating back to when the Moral Majority first gave evangelical voters a voice.
Lately I’ve been wishing I had some artistic ability because I’ve dreamed up a great idea for a political cartoon. I will have to draw you a word picture instead. I see a washtub floating on the sea, waves splashing all around. Crudely painted on the outside of this craft are the letters “G.O.P.” Inside it are three men: the butcher (Rudolph Giuliani, whose support for abortion makes him the obvious pick for that occupation), the baker (Mitt Romney, who is able to fabricate support for his supposed conservative credentials based on dubious ingredients, which include his new-found pro-life epiphany and a “faith” which both does and does not inform his political beliefs—whichever makes you feel more comfortable), and the candlestick maker (Mike Huckabee, a Christian whose beliefs give a faint light in the darkness, but that light seems to flicker with whichever way the wind blows). Outside the bobbing tub, tied to it with a thin rope, is a life preserver with the words “S.S. Liberty” printed on it, bearing up an optimistic and smiling Ron Paul, who does not appear to fear the huge waves around him. Sadly, one of the washtub’s occupants is sawing away at the rope with a saw labeled “Pragmatism.” Another is trying to submerge him with an oar named “Electability.”
Not surprisingly, many homeschoolers have decided that Huckabee is their man. Early in the Republican race, Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) gave ex-Governor Huckabee a ringing endorsement, claiming that he would be the friend of homeschoolers and hold the conservative Christian banner high if elected president. I do find this surprising—while the average homeschooler may not be politically informed and know the background of a candidate who pushes all the right buttons in a high-profile political contest, and they count on the recommendations of trusted sources for whom to vote in big races, HSLDA does have the whole scoop which means they ought to know better. I have appreciated HSLDA’s principled stand for unpopular positions, such as being against vouchers and charter schools, but since Patrick Henry College was built on the outskirts of the corridors of power and the welcome mat has been put out by Republican lawmakers for those well-scrubbed and anxious-to-change-the-world students, their principles seem to be wearing thin. PHC is named after a man who is known for being one of our country’s foremost statesmen. Pragmatism and electability are flimsy stuff on which to build one’s statesmanship.
Ay, there’s the rub-a-dub-dub. Everyone wants to be on the winning team. Nobody wants to be a loser. So we look at polling data and listen to sound bites and ignore broken promises, hoping to keep a Democrat from the reins of power. Our political choices are often based on fear: what if Hillary got in the White House (again)?
The Values Voter Debate is the only Republican debate I have watched, and it is the only time I have heard Mike Huckabee speak except for some brief interview clips. If we were holding an election for king of our country, I might be tempted to vote for him. He’s personable and witty, and he has good intentions of using his political power for good causes. At one point in the debate, different people were allowed to ask the candidates some very detailed and specific questions and the candidates were only allowed to respond with a “yes” or “no,” indicated by lights on their podiums. Without an opportunity to explain his position on those detailed questions, Ron Paul consistently refused to go with the crowd’s sympathies for some tough situations when questioners asked the candidates to agree that they would use the power of their office to promote causes which are the hot button issues of the Christian conservatives. Even though I agree with the righteousness of the causes addressed, I do not agree with the idea of wielding presidential power in an unconstitutional way to achieve those good ends. I knew then that Ron Paul was a trustworthy man.
Let me remind you of which job we are discussing right now. We are not deciding whom to elect king of America, we are going to choose a new president. The man (oh, please, let it be a man!) we elect will place his hand on the Bible (oh, please, don’t let it be a Book of Mormon or the Koran!) and repeat these words:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
By taking that oath, the president is stating that he will abide by the law of our land which is written in the Constitution, a document which specifically constrains the power of the man who sits in the Oval Office. Have you read it? Has Mike Huckabee? I wonder, considering the king-like promises and statements he has made. He has said he supports a federal ban on smoking and an internet sales tax. When he was governor of Arkansas, state spending increased over 65 percent (three times the rate of inflation). While he talks tough on immigration now, his “get tough” plan for dealing with illegal aliens is to send them back home and let them apply for citizenship from their own country (something called “touchback” by critics, who say it still rewards border crossers and is a kind of amnesty), and when he was governor he supported tax-funded college tuition for children of illegal immigrants and opposed legislation which would have curtailed public services to illegal immigrants. One of his campaign ads boasts of providing health care coverage to 70,000 uninsured children. This is the candidate leading the charge in the party which once talked of curbing statism. If he is elected, I won’t hold my breath waiting for him to be asked what part of the Constitution grants him the authority to promote all these good causes.
I could list many more examples of Huckabee’s statist (“The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy”) proclivities, but one of the biggest red flags for me, and the reason I am sorely disappointed in HSLDA’s support of this man, is his support of federal government involvement in education. Do none of you remember when the Republicans were promising to shut down the Department of Education, that behemoth which wants to micromanage the education of every child in this country, using its massive power to keep records of our children and looking for every opportunity (through “testing”) to profile and psychologically evaluate the young prisoners locked in that system? The “No Child Left Behind” Act is the vehicle for doing just that, and it was proposed by our “conservative” Republican president, and Huckabee supports it. He calls for greater federal funding for “music and art” programs as a solution for our education woes. He has recently been endorsed by the New Hampshire branch of the National Education Association (NEA), the first time they have picked a GOP primary candidate to endorse (remember that the NEA is a very liberal union which thinks homeschooling ought to be highly regulated if allowed at all). Perhaps they have paid more attention to his record as governor of Arkansas than HSLDA, when he signed a bill in 1999 which imposed greater restrictions on homeschoolers in his state:
The 1999 legislation called for a two-week advance statement of intent to home school or truancy charges would be filed. In addition the restrictions do not permit students to be withdrawn from school for the purpose of home schooling if the students are facing disciplinary violations. The compulsory attendance law was also revised during Huckabee’s governorship to require that attendance in school be required beginning at age 5, not 6, as previously.
HSLDA started a political action committee a few years ago called Generation Joshua. I have met some of the bright young people who work in this organization, most of them hoping to return our country to its Christian and constitutional roots. If they are looking to Mike Huckabee to do this, then they are pinning their hopes on the wrong star. The head of Generation Joshua (perhaps former head as I read a rumor that he stepped down because of HSLDA’s endorsement), Ned Ryun, is not so star-struck. You can read all his Huckabee thoughts here, where he reminds Christians that God’s Word says, “by their fruits you shall know them,” but let me sum up his well-informed position on the evangelical political hope in his own words:
I don’t think his die hard supporters want to be confronted with who he actually is, or what he’s done in the past. They’re living in the moment, have turned off their rational thinking and want to embrace him because he’s a Baptist minister and a Christian. I just know that I don’t want to be associated with him, or to have people think that he is what a social conservative looks like.
Friends, we need to get off this merry-go-round. It’s the same old story, the same old promises, and the outcome will be the same old thing. We get some crumbs from the political table and they wipe their feet on us until we are needed to further the statist agenda again. To conclude as I began, with a nursery rhyme analogy, if we follow that same old path we will find Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum waiting at the end of it. I suggest we throw out that worn-out tale and go back to a really good, old true story that begins, “We the People of the United States…”
This is cross-posted at Backwater Report.
