It’s disheartening and a sad commentary on the state of the nation when conservative leaders like Paul Weyrich and Christian leaders like James Dobson, endorse someone like Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary race.
Huckabee is a liberal. He lies about his record, but he is a big government, tax raising liberal. Besides being a proven liar, Huckabee has other huge ethics problems as well. He is also soft on crime and at least as bad as McCain on amnesty for illegal aliens.
On top of that, his theology isn’t any better than his politics. Huckabee said in an interview in “Time” magazine:
“I’m a ‘grace’ Christian,” Huckabee told me over lunch recently, “not a ‘law’ Christian. The Second Commandment–do unto others–is the basic tenet of my faith. And so I believe that life begins at conception, but I don’t believe it ends at birth. I believe we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to provide a good education, a safe neighborhood, health care … That’s why I talk so much about the need for music and art programs in our schools. I know some conservatives think it’s foolish, but I just believe it’s necessary to build whole, creative individuals.”
Huckabee distorts the Biblical teaching both grace and on providing for the needy. The Bible is clear that grace is not license. Christians are NOT commanded to help people commit crimes, harm others, or to reward those actions as Huckabee believes. Grace comes into play when one repents of his criminal acts and stops doing them.
Nor does the Bible ever teach that it is the government’s responsibility to take money from some people and give it to others. There is no Biblical basis for Huckabee’s claim that it is government’s responsibility to feed the hungry, provide a good education, or health care. The Bible teaches that those are personal responsibilities. It never says they are government’s responsibility. In fact, the Bible teaches that it isn’t even the church’s responsibility to care for the needy, if the needy person has family. 1 Timothy 5:16 admonishes Christians: “If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.” One would think a Christian leader like Dr. Dobson would be familiar enough with the Bible to know that and condemn those distortions of Biblical doctrine rather than endorse them by endorsing Huckabee.
From a Constitutional stand point Huckabee is as heretical as he is from a Biblical stand point. The Constitution does not give the government the right to appropriate a single dollar of the public money to charity. The Founding Fathers did not believe in the kind of big government welfare state Huckabee believes in. They believed in, and tried to establish, a limited government based on freedom and personal responsibility. Huckabee’s belief in government charity was specifically repudiated by the Founding Fathers. Here’s what Jefferson and Madison had to say to people like Huckabee:
– Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. – Thomas Jefferson
– With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. – James Madison
– I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison
– Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. – James Madison
One has to wonder if Paul Weyrich and other conservatives who endorsed Huckabee have abandoned the wisdom of Jefferson and Madison and now believes in the big government, high tax, welfare state Huckabee believes in.
Huckabee got an F from the Cato Institute in their report; “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2006”, although he did manage a D for his total term in office. Nor is the Club for Growth any more impressed with Huckabee’s fiscal record. They said this about him:
“Huckabee is proud of his tax hikes, his spending increases, and his regulatory expansions as governor, and he has not indicated that he would govern any differently as president. Nominating Mike Huckabee for president or vice-president would constitute an abject rejection of the free-market, limited-government, economic conservatism that has been the unifying theme of the Republican Party for decades… Overall, Huckabee’s substantial tax hikes far surpassed his modest tax cuts, with the average tax burden increasing by a whopping 47% over his tenure.”
The nonpartisan public interest legal group, Judicial Watch, lists Huckabee as one of the 10 most corrupt politicians of 2007.
Ann Coulter says: “I guess Huckabee is one of those pro-sodomy, pro-gay marriage, pro-evolution evangelical Christians.
No wonder Huckabee is the evangelical liberals like.” (Read her column here)
Pastor Chuck Baldwin says of Huckabee: “Why any Christian leader would want to support a man with such a dubious record truly escapes me.”
Huckabee is loved by the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association. It is the first time the union thugs have ever endorsed a Republican. But, Huckabee offers the classroom bureaucrats’ union plenty to love.
Huckabee says he is “a passionate, ardent supporter of having music and art in every school for every student at every grade level”. His opposition to school vouchers, his support for the Bush/Kennedy No Child Left Behind program and his support of Bush’s doubling of the size of the Department of Education, all make Huckabee the union’s wet dream of a candidate.
All things considered, I agree with Pastor Baldwin, it escapes me why any Christian would support Huckabee. It also escapes me why any conservative would support him.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”