restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Conservative Talk Radio
Simply resisting or combating what is known to be evil or immoral does not automatically make one righteous. Consider, for example, that the defeat of Adolph Hitler, murderer of 6,000,000 Germans, was aided by Joseph Stalin, who systematically exterminated 60,000,000 of his fellow Russians.
In the same fashion, just because Republicans and their various supporters in the media can identify the debauched and mindless condition of the Democrat Party does not mean the GOP or its sympathizers do so with pure hearts or for noble purpose.
A decade has passed since the GOP has assumed legislative majorities in Washington, DC, and in most of the state legislatures. It won that responsibility with promises of decentralizing power, balancing federal budgets, drawing down military occupation throughout the world, and allowing states to set their own governing agendas.
Over that time and despite their promises, the federal government has become larger and more intrusive, budget deficits are double the size projected when Democrats last held congressional majorities, Republicans have not only maintained foreign military assignments, but expanded them by nearly 30 percent. The combination of GOP-led federal and state governments has all but abandoned the system of balanced competing powers for the sake of building a governing monolith in which state governments are merely implementation tools of federal policies.
Sufficient evidence to support these claims can easily lead to a charge that the GOP has betrayed its supporters, but Republican politicians could easily talk their way out of blame for what the party has done to the government in spite of campaign promises. Furthermore, they are only doing what comes naturally to people who gain access to wealth, influence, and the avenues of power they do what they can to hold on to those accessories.
Those who have helped to rally public support for Republican candidacies, especially those who claim to be conservative radio commentators, do not have similar convenient defenses. Central Florida is treated to more than 18 hours of conservative radio programming every Monday-Friday from 6:00 am to 6:00 p.m.. One would think that sometime within the 90-plus hours per week that those unflinching conservatives of the air waves would find some time to challenge Republicans to reexamine their principles and return to them.
Instead almost the entire broadcast week is spent with delivering bad John Kerry imitations (that have supplanted the bad Bill Clinton imitations that are now returning with the publication of Clintons biography), endless but unverifiable assertions of liberal intentions to subvert the country, assaults on the integrity of just about anyone who questions the tactics employed in the War on Terror, and aggressive techniques in spinning news negative to the GOP that make Democrat spin doctors look like rank amateurs.
When is the last time a conservative talk program investigated the balance of powers, constitutional limits on federal power, or limits on the jurisdiction of the courts? Imagine political impact, for example, if any of the conservative radio talkers had pointed out that the 2002 Federal Circuit Court ruling prohibiting the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools fell outside the constitutionally defined jurisdiction of the federal courts and that the court was acting to usurp authority from elected local school officials. If they would have added that the president has the authority to reject the ruling they would have taken steps to educate and inform the electorate on the principles of American government prior to the 2002 midterm election.
Instead conservative radio talkers filled their 90-plus hours a week from August to the November election with stories of Iraqi WMD and calls to support an undeclared war against the nation because it was a threat to the US.
The herd of radio talkers forfeited measuring public officials and events against reliable and unwavering standards sometime during the first term of that the GOP won its congressional majorities. Although frequent and easy criticisms they made against the Clinton presidency during that time seemed principled, those same principles have not been applied in reviewing the conduct of either the Republican president or senate and house majorities. Just compare and contrast radio commentary regarding federal budget deficits, federal intrusion into health care, or federal education initiatives just to name a few during the past two presidential administrations.
American government was not formed to be an exclusive franchise of a political system or a ratings device for media celebrities. It was intended to be guided by a promise from constitutionally defined officials to uphold a contract with the states and its citizens. The only measure of right or wrong, good or bad, righteousness or evil in that relationship is from the U.S. Constitution. Anyone who attempts to influence that relationship by different standards, regardless of the party or candidates they support, are to be trusted about as far as America should have trusted Stalin during 1939 to 1945.
July 5, 2004
Since 1993 Bob Strodtbeck has been writing commentaries for The Apopka Chief, a news weekly circulated in a community ten miles north of Orlando. His analyses investigate a wide range of topics from what he calls a Christian pragmatic view that is to say, he considers that human interactions are largely driven by the human instinct toward self-service, which is traditionally known as sin. This perspective has given Bob great liberty to criticize governmental officials from both parties upon the standards of constitutional laws they swear to uphold and review cultural and economic phenomena from moral standards defined in the Bible. Bob currently lives in Orlando with his bride Pam and children Charlotte and Richard. He may be reached for comment here.