Tangled Webbs in Arkansas Politics
Kathy Webb, the openly liberal State Representative from Little Rock who happens to be a lesbian.
Doyle Webb, the secretly liberal Chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party who happens to be a shyster.
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Doyle Webb spent a career in Arkansas politics proving that he is no conservative, but he does play one on TV, or at least in GOP county committee meetings around the state. Apparently his interpretation of the role involves a lot of satire. All of that is said to make it clear that I am not taking Doyle Webb's side of the "tangling Webbs" controversy. I am not taking his side, but rather the side of the values that he is ineptly attempting to exploit for political gain. I figure those values could benefit from some defenders who are not just cynically using them to dupe Christians into voting for Republicans despite their overall misgivings with the party. The people of this state deserve better choices than they currently get in state politics.
That being said, the media coverage of this is extremely ham-fisted and one-dimensional. That kind of reporting is stepping on blogger territory, so of course I will take exception to it. Micheal Wickline's story on it gave the Kathy Webb forces about 24 lines of quotes, compared to about eight lines for the Doyle Webb side, and he was the more balanced one! Ernie Dumas came on like a two-ton garlic truck in his editorial. I will freely quote from both articles.
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click TUESDAY below and scroll down for rest of article
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Monday, May 18, 2009
6 Comments:
The Arkansas Leader (I assume Ernie Dumas) editorial was called, "No Tolerance for Bigotry". Bigotry is a code word for points of view that liberals disagree with. That way they can pose as the "tolerant" side while those who have come to contrary conclusions are labeled as the "intolerant" ones. It gives them a rationalization to be intolerant of other points of view while maintaining an unjustified sense of moral superiority as the "tolerant" ones.
Fact is about every caring person is intolerant of something. The righteous are intolerant of wickedness and the wicked are intolerant of the righteous. Proverbs 29 verse 27 puts it "An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, and he who is upright in the way of The Lord is an abomination to the wicked".
Since the editorial gave Ms. Webb ample space to brag about what a fine Christian she is, they should not object if I use scriptures as a measuring-stick of the validity of her arguments.
Proverbs also says that the reverent fear of the Lord includes the hatred (yep, hatred) of evil. Apparently you cannot really love a Just and Righteous God while having an indifferent ("tolerant") attitude toward evil. So get off that fence and decide who and what you are going to love, God or wickedness.
And while we are in Proverbs, the 16th chapter and 12th verse reads "It is an abomination [to God and men] for kings to commit wickedness. for a throne is established and made secure by righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area of life). - (Amplified version)
So the scripture teaches that the personal lives and behavior of our rulers matters, and that we cannot expect a secure government when it is being run by those whose conduct (even personal conduct) is wicked. Founding Father Danial Webster reflected the views of scripture when he wrote "you cannot expect good government from bad men".
The personal lives of our neighbors may be their business, but once they present themselves for public office, that is presume to take authority over us, then their conduct, including personal conduct, certainly does matter. It matters whether or not they are people who respect the law of God and the social mores of their fellow citizens or whether they are the willful type who cast all that aside in favor of whatever nonconstructive impulses might capture their imaginations.
I am not picking on homosexuals alone when I say this. A serial philanderer for example, should also be kept from public authority. It is unreasonable to trust a man whose own wife cannot trust him. And as before this is a sign of a person who puts their own desires above the will of their Maker, the desire of their spouse, the keeping of their vows, and the social conventions of their fellow citizens.
continued below......
Much ado was made, in those columns and a later one by Brummett, of the proposition that Ms. Webb was so good a number cruncher that the state needed her on the budget committee regardless of her personal behavior or beliefs.
Such thinking is rubbish. Bernie Madoff was great with numbers, as was Ken Lay of Enron and a host of other Wall Street felons. Good character must come first. Fidelity to truth and respect for your neighbors and their values and traditions must come first.
Without character, people who are good with numbers can use that skill to convince you that things are good when things are bad. They can use that skill to convince you that they are getting you money when they are really siphoning money away from you.
Trust has to come first. And although the tone of the articles gave scant credibility of Doyle Webb's claims that a homosexual in charge of the budget committee could use that power to advance the homosexual agenda, that is one thing D. Webb is almost certainly correct about.
Almost every legislator has something he wants money spent on. If any of them stand up too hard for traditional family values, scriptural ideals, social convention, whatever you want to call it, then they might get to listen to this from the new chair of the budget committee: "Well we sure tried to fund your favorite project, but we had to juggle priorities and education was most important, so your project had to be cut".
So their project goes away. Meanwhile, the "education" part that got the money was for "diversity training" so that elementary school students can be warned about the dangers of "homophobia". "Homophobia" is of course an attempt by the left to label disagreement with their politics as a mental disorder. Fifty years ago, before they were pressured to change it, the American Psychiatric Association labeled homosexuality itself as a mental disorder. Times have changed, but truth has not.
continued....
In the Leader Editorial, Webb was given ample space to brag about her "christian" and "family values" exploits. I serve on the Missions Committee at First United Methodist Church, and chair the Green Team there. Last year, I spoke from the pulpit during Lent to help raise money for hunger relief. I am privileged to serve on both the Arkansas Foodbank Network and Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance boards.... Today, I was one of 10 legislators honored by the Arkansas Kids Count Coalition as a Legislative Champion. My parents raised me to help those who are less fortunate than I, that to whom much is given, much is expected, and to love my neighbors.”Jesus (Matthew 6) had this to say about good works, "Take care not to do your good deeds publicly or before men, in order to be seen by them: otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
Thus whenever you give to the poor, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites in the synagogues and in the streets like to do, that they may be recognized and honored and praised by men. Truly I tell you they have their reward in full already.
But when you give to charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So that your deeds of charity may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Proverbs says that "even the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord". That is, when a person clings to sin instead of struggles with it, it is offensive to God for them to present their bag of good works to Him as if He is obligated to overlook their stubborn refusal to repent of sin on account of their good deeds. Such thinking confuses who is God and who is not. We don't get to tell Him what offenses He must overlook once we get to what we feel is a sufficient level of good deeds.
A simple reading of the latter half of Romans Chapter one, and many other places in scripture, will reveal that homosexual practices are a sin. Kathy Webb is not struggling with that sin (and we all have sin that we struggle with) but is embracing it and witnessing for it. Her good deeds are a cover for unrighteousness, to make her a more effective ambassador for practices which God condemns, as he condemns all practices which rob people of the fullness of life as He meant for them to have it.
Even what she brags in on policy, when truly divined, are not good.
In the Wickline article she says, Kathy Webb said she's "clearly demonstrated what her values are: working to end hunger through education, economic development and job training; protecting our environment for future generations; improving both access and quality of health care for Arkansans; being a responsible steward of taxpayer money..
The government cannot create economic development, it can only subtract economic development from one area and put it in another. The government's role is to provide an environment in which private economic efforts are allowed to flourish. Taxpayer supported job training for example, does not develop the economy as a whole, but simply takes money from businesses and people who are not getting the training in order to subsidize favored industries who do get the taxpayer subsidized employee training.
I am all for protecting the environment, provided it is not a guise for a power grab over private property.
The "improving access and quality of health care" may be a reference for putting middle class families on public health care by raising the income limits for public assistance to far more than the median income. Again, just because government provides something does not mean that it is free or that more of it is magically available. We are either going to bankrupt ourselves handing out public benefits or the government is going to be the rationer of our health care rather than our insurance company. Hint- it is much easier to change insurance companies than it is to change governments.
Her claim to be a "responsible steward of taxpayer money" are simply delusions, much like any thought that her defiance of God's law is acceptable to God because she has done good work. Again I will quote Jesus (Matt 7:21+):
"Not everyone who says to Me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven".
"Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven our demons in Your name, and done many mighty works in Your name?"
"And then I will say to them openly. I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly."
The things said on this blog about Doyle Webb show just how loopy this blong and its author is.
Please correct me with the facts. I will be happy to take it back.
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