Huckabee And Flawed Views of the Self
Mike Huckabee, way cooler than you and not afraid to say so.*************************
"I'm a conservative too, I'm just not mad at anybody", says a smarmy ex-governor Mike Huckabee out hustling for votes and favorable media. The implication of course, is that most conservatives are angry, and that this anger somehow makes them inferior in attitude to Mr. Huckabee.
Where to begin to unravel this quote? Perhaps with the first four words. Let's start with the idea that Mike Huckabee is a "conservative". On abortion he is moderately conservative, and on defense of marriage a bit more so. On virtually every other issue he is a nanny-state open borders liberal who never met a 25 year income stream that he did not want to spend in four years (see federal highway and tobacco settlement money). Government spending grew 60% in his term of office, and borrowing grew even more. We had to have a Democratic Governor before the grocery tax got cut! Mr. Huckabee pushed through a school consolidation bill that takes more and more control over children's education away from parents. There is simply nothing conservative about his record outside of defense of traditional marriage and a moderate interest in pro-life issues.
But onto the second part of his quote, about not being mad at anyone. There are two things I have to say about this, one is the issue of whether or not it is ever appropriate to be angry, and the other is the issue of the reality about Mike Huckabee and anger rather than the image that he seems to have of himself about it.
(continued- click TUESDAY below and scroll down for rest of article)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Tuesday, August 21, 2007
5 Comments:
To the first point, I shall quote Aristotle: “Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.”
and here is one from Bede Jarrett, “The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.”
In 1996 Bob Dole asked in frustration "Where's the outrage?" when the American people did not get more upset about Bill Clinton's repulsive behavior in the White House. That year, 95 million prescriptions for Proza-family drugs were written. Where was the outrage? It had been chemically blunted by a nation on drugs that leveled them out so that they could no longer display the appropriate response to wickedness. And it still is.
Now the Bible does not say a lot of good things about anger. But it does not tell us that we should not get angry. It cautions us like Aristotle that the wrong anger will not accomplish God's purposes. It says, "Be angry, and sin not, and don't let the sun go down on your anger". It could have said, "don't be angry", but it did not. Hopefully, the right kind of anger will be turned into APPROPRIATE action, and not nursed into a grudge.
When I see another instance of America losing her freedom on the march to either nanny-state socialism or corporate fascism, I get angry. It is a right and good response to the appearance of evil. Hopefully, the action it leads me too will not be sin, and because I took the right action I won't have to nurse it and stay angry.
Mike Huckabee spent most of the last four years in Arkansas twisting conservative noses and then when the camera came on he would assume an angelic countenance and ask why the person whose nose he just twisted was so upset.
It was not that he was a terrible governor, he was a better governor than Bill Clinton and certainly better than Jim Guy Tucker. But he failed to be what he could have been, what he implied to the people who first put him there that he would be. Conservatives mourn the loss of potential of what could have been with Mike Huckabee.
The last point I want to make is that Mike Huckabee does get mad at people. He has hissy-fits and holds grudges like few can. The targets of his anger run the spectrum. He was angry at true conservatives whose genuineness showed Huckabee to be the counterfeit conservative. That includes former state senator Peggy Jeffries of Fort Smith and Jim Holt of Springdale. When the later introduced a bill to deny public benefits to illegal aliens (like the bill just made law in Oklahoma) Huckabee went so far as to say that Holt, "did not drink the same kind of Jesus juice" as he did. I guess folks from Oklahoma don't drink Huckabee's brand of "Jesus juice" either.
As for the left, ask the folks at the Arkansas Times if Huckabee is mad at anybody! Really, the idea that he "isn't mad at anybody" is laughable to us in Arkansas. I am not saying he is a terrible guy, but his thin-skin is legendary. He gets mad at everyone who calls him on his baloney, and that is the one thing that Arkansans from Max Brantley to Jim Holt can agree on.
Do you Boys ever have a good word for anyone?
No, they don't. That's why the decomcrats control this state. The so called conservatives would rather stick knives in each others backs than actually unite and try to get something done. If I weren't out of tears, I'd cry.
Kind word about anyone? Yes. Scroll down to August 11th and you will see that I had good words about Mike Huckabee himself "STOCK WAY UP". We just call them like they are, and this time we are not going to let Huckster play innocent victim after he twists our noses.
So let me ask you, where were Huckabee's kind words for conservatives when he made the statement "I'm a conservative too, I am just not mad at anyone"? Where were Huckabee's kind words when he told the newspapers that conservative Jim Holt "doesn't drink the same kind of Jesus juice" that he does?
And where were his kind words when the newspapers asked Huckster if he endorsed Holt for Lt. Gov. and he said "I am going on vacation, check back later"?
Answer: Nowhere.
So why do the Democrats run this state? Because of some blogger who is not even in the GOP or because Mike Huckabee squandered ten years in the Governor's chair only helping himself and appointing and endorsing and contributing to Democrats instead of building the state party?
Who put the knives in whose back? Who first gained office as a something different than the way he governed? Mike Huckabee betrayed his base in an effort to be spoken well of by all. It did not work, the Republicans in Arkansas are on to him, so now he is taking his show on the road looking for new suckers.
Unite? To do what, grow government? We would have been thrilled to unite behind the man who we thought took office from Jim Guy Tucker 10 years ago. When Tucker reneged on his promise to step down, I was ready to answer Huckabee's call to protest and drive to Little Rock. And in those younger and more foolish days, if he had asked me to bring my gun I might have done that too.
No ma'am, I did not start out like this. I started with lot's of good words for Mike Huckabee. You can only kick a dog so many times and not expect him to turn on you.
Is there someone I have said good things about consistently? Yeah. Congressman Ron Paul.
Blah Blah Blah, same old story, second verse! Here in Eastern Arkansas, where most of us grew up poor a little goverment help has helped us a lot. Blah Blah Blah, Same old Shit
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