Free In Idaho!

Individual liberty. smaller and limited Federal government, lower taxes, much lower spending, get the Feds out of the nanny business, strengthen defense, empower business… we all know the tenets of conservatism, and we all ought to be measuring our candidates by those tenets and beliefs rather than some made-up criteria of “electability” (or “winability” if you like).  In keeping with that, over at WorldNetDaily, Michael Ackley has given us a great piece titled “I want a president who…”

• Believes in God and that our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from “the Creator.”
• Will proclaim loudly: “If your children aren’t learning, it’s your fault.” (This would eliminate candidates – and that would be most of them – who believe government is the answer, to education and everything else.)

• Will explain – if possible – why the United Nations is worth saving, and why the United States should continue to provide its principal financial support.
• Will refute the idea – popular in Congress – that the national debt is no problem as long as it is only a small percentage of the gross domestic product.
• Will ask Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi – as Spain’s King Juan Carlos asked Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez – “Porque no te callas?” (”Why don’t you shut up?”)
• Won’t go six years before vetoing a bad bill.

Go read the rest, I think you’ll find many more that you’ll agree with.  I’d like to add a couple of my own…

• Will not turn out to be some kind of closet globalist, or North American Unionist.
• Will love the American people enough to tell them “NO” once in awhile, instead of pursuing some misguided ideal of being all things to all people.

Do you remember a few months back, when there was a minor disagreement on the blogs about whether or not God and Allah are the same?  Some argued that it didn’t matter which name was used, because “everyone is speaking to the same Being”, or some such silliness as that.  Here’s an interesting news article from Malaysia that might perhaps clarify it for you

(CNSNews.com) -The government of Muslim-majority Malaysia will not renew a Catholic newspaper’s license to publish unless it stops using the word “Allah” to denote God.

The editor of the Herald has come up against an issue that has affected inter-religious relations before in the Southeast Asian country, which is often cited as an example of pluralistic democracy in the Muslim world.

Shortly before Christmas, the Internal Security Ministry sent a directive ordering the weekly to drop the use of the word “Allah,” when referring to the God who Christians worship, editor Fr. Lawrence Andrew said Wednesday.

Instead, the newspaper should use the word “Tuhan,” which is a general term for God in the language spoken by the majority of Malaysians, Bahasa Malaysia.

A ministry official was quoted as saying that “Allah” referred only to the Muslim god, and its use was designed to confuse Muslims.

That makes it difficult to argue that we’re all praying to the same Being, doesn’t it.  And Christian conservatives aren’t the only ones who object to the idea.  Seems the Muslims don’t agree either.

Aliran and others note that the Arabic word “Allah” was used as a name for a supreme being even before Mohammed established Islam in the seventh century. Many Christian Arabs use the same word for God.

Nonetheless, there are considerable differences in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic conceptions of God (not least of all the concept of the Trinity and God becoming man in the form of Jesus, versus the Koranic injunction that Allah “begets not, nor is he begotten.”). Many evangelical and other Christians hold the view that Muslims and Christians do not worship “the same god.”

Words matter, and so do ideas and belief systems.  The concept of one Supreme Being with all the religions being different spokes from the same hub is more of a liberal American idea, not shared by believers of any of the “spokes”.  When was the last time you saw that bumpersticker “coexist” on a car in the parking lot of a mosque, or a synagogue, or the local LDS temple for that matter?   Trying to tell a believer of any religion what they believe, and what words to use, is a losing proposition, and Catholic newspapers and bishops who insist on using the term Allah will always run into trouble, and not only from believers in Islam. 

“You’re not electing a set of position papers, you’re electing a leader.”

Fred has a new video out, to wrap up his pitch to Iowa voters, and speak directly to all Americans.  He even speaks directly to Democrats who have watched their party “lurch to the left” and leave them behind.  The more I watch him, the more I like him.

“What you see is what you get.  I dance to no man’s tune.”

Great stuff.  Go Fred.