Today the Colorado Republican State Assembly met, and it was an embarrassment. At 10 AM the credentialing was closed, and we were supposed to approve the report of the credentials committee by 10:30 AM.

At 10:45 AM we were told to take a break and the credentials committee would be ready with their report by 11:15 AM. After many more delays they decided to start releasing counties to go vote on a county by county basis. I believe the first county was released around 1 PM. Boulder County was released close to 3 PM, and I don't think they were last.

Meanwhile I discovered that my wife and myself had not been given our delegate's information packages when we were credentialed by Boulder County, and therefore had no clue what the 20 resolutions on the ballot were. Since it was after 10 AM when we discovered we did not get our packets it was impossible to get copies. I managed to borrow a copy of the resolutions to study while waiting. Apparently this was a common problem as we saw many others who did not know how to vote on the resolutions since they were not printed on the ballots, but just the resolution numbers from 1 to 20.

Every delegate had a sealed envelope waiting for them with their name on the outside and two serial numbered ballots inside. This means this was not a secret ballot since they knew exactly which ballot serial numbers had been issued to you and how you voted.

UPDATE I have been told that the serial numbers on the ballots were unique to the County and not to the individual delegate. This was done to allow the results to be tallied by County.

To further mess things up each delegate was given two ballots, one for the candidates and one for the resolutions. After voting these had to be deposited in voting boxes, with one box for the candidate ballots and the other for the resolutions ballots. Ballots inserted in the wrong ballot box would not be counted. I wonder how many of the 357 delegates that were credentialed to vote but who did have recorded votes, lost their votes due to putting them in the wrong ballot boxes, and how many just left in disgust before being allowed to vote.

UPDATE Apparently after the initial announcement stressing the importance of getting the correct ballot in the correct box, it was later announced during the wait for the credentials report that either ballot could be placed in either box and still be properly counted.

One unconfirmed report said that part of the delays were due to Adams County not requiring their delegates to sign in when they picked up their credentials. Given what happened to use in Boulder County and to many others who did not get their delegate information packets when signing in, I could easily believe this.

UPDATE I now have confirmation from a second independent source that part of the delay was due to Adams County messing up. I also heard from two sources that Adams County had made a similar mess the previous day at the 2nd CD Assembly. According to a source with the Beauprez campaign the majority of the delays, however, were due to "the extremely convoluted process
demanded by the Holtzman campaign". To be fair I must note that the Beauprez campaign did agree to this process.

I can only hope that this State Assembly will serve as an object lesson in how not to run a State Assembly. Is anyone paying attention for two years from now?

Charles Krauthammer identified Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush."

Dr. Sanity now exponds on Christianophobia or Christianity Derangement Syndrome (CDS) defined as "The excacerbation of acute and severe paranoia about the imminent imposition of a Christian theocracy in the U.S.; in an individual already suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome as a reaction to the very existence of (1) the Christian religion; (2) the practitioners of Christianity; and (3) symbols of Christianity anywhere within the culture; while simultaneously completely ignoring and dismissing any threat from the religious fanatics of Islam who repeatedly and clearly have stated that their goal is the imposition of a world-wide Islamic theocracy (or "Caliphate")".

While Dr Sanity has a point, I think those suffring from CDS have been around far longer than those suffering from BDS and that instead of CDS being a subset of BDS the other way around may be closer to the truth.

Two very recent examples of CDS are "The Da Vinci Code" and Time magazine's article by Andrew Sullivan "My Problem with Christianism". "The Da Vinci Code" of course is the virulently anti-Christian and anti-Catholic work of fiction which in book form clearly stated it was a novel, but Sony Pictures has refused to so label the movie version. "My Problem with Christianism" on the other hand is merely the latest example of someone who denies the doctrines of Christianity insisting loudly he is a better Christian than those who follow Christian doctrine.

For those who have questions about "The Da Vinci Code" a good place to start is Dr. Mark D. Roberts "The Da Vinci Opportunity".

For those with more basic questions about Christianity and Christian doctrine I recommend C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christainty".

Hugh Hewitt's 12 Words have now become 15.

Win the war.

Confirm the judges.

Cut the taxes.

Control the spending.

Secure the border.

These are words to the wise for any Republican running for the US House or Senate.

Cathy Jarrett has agreed to run as the Republican candidate for the Colorado House from the 11th Congressional District (parts of Longmont and Boulder).

Click for a map of the 11th CD.

Cathy is a retired schoolteacher, and was one of the founders of the Charter School here in Longmont, Colorado. She is Pro Life, and Pro 2nd Amendment, and I feel will make a fine representative for our district. I will have more in weeks to come about how you can help elect this fine lady.

Hugh Hewitt has 12 words the Congressional Republicans should be using as their guiding principles:

Win the war.

Confirm the judges.

Cut the taxes.

Control the spending.

Read Hugh's complete post!

Thanks to Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog for the idea and graphic.

When the disgraceful Jimmy Carter was President, his CIA chief Stansfield Turner slashed 25% of the covert operatives (the folk who actually gather intelligence information) from the CIA payroll. This was one of the main reasons for the CIA's drastic decline in abilities that has lead to today's CIA which appears far from as capable as we need in gathering intelligence, yet fully capable of running covert operations against our own government in the hopes of destabilizing and overthrowing conservative governments such as we currently have.

With that in mind, Power Line notes "In the tradition of his former boss Jimmy Carter, ex-CIA director Stansfield Turner has gone abroad to stab his country in the back." Read the whole thing!

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." - 2 Timothy 1:7

Today Power Line has a post titled "Sound and Unsound Minds". In in John Hinderaker links to Dr. Sanity, a psychiatrist/blogger on Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). In it he quotes Charles Krauthammer's definition of BDS "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush."

I was reminded of this yesterday by the comment I received on my Quote of the Day for 11/3/05. In the comment he took exception to the quote. I replied, but today would like to expand on part of my remark "This is the real problem for Christians in the Democrat party: How to justify supporting a party where the entire base is so far gone into the fever swamps of conspiracy, that they actually "believe a lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11) and honor someone like Michael Moore."

Lest someone think this characterization of the Democrat base and much of their leadership is unfair, here are some examples:

On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean (now the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) was asked by a leftist interviewer on National Public Radio "Why do you think he (Bush) is suppressing that (Sept. 11) report?" Dean's reply "I don't know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?" Notice how Dean promotes this "theory" while trying to insulate himself from its obvious falsehood. This is the man who the Democrat party later chose as their national leader!

Disgraceful former President Jimmy Carter just claimed "President Bush's policies conflict with American values." This from someone who honored Michael Moore with a seat in the President's box at the Democratic National Convention, and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize after it was publicly stated that it was given to him as a way of attacking the USA.

Mary Mapes the former CBS producer of Dan Rather's infamous attack on President Bush based on fake documents, still pathetically tries to claim the story was true.

Rob Reiner the Hollywood actor, director and producer and leading Democrat spokesman claimed about President Bush "When I hear that on the weekend of the Super Bowl an Iraqi expatriate was explaining to him the difference between Kurds and Sunnis and Shiites, it makes me want to cry. I want to cry!" The only problem is other than Reiner's claim he heard "this anecdote on cable news or talk radio", there is no evidence that this is anything other than another example of BDS made up in Reiner's fevered brain.

Dr. Sanity comments:

"The number of things that Bush has been blamed for in this world since 9/11 (even acts of God like Tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters) is the stuff of major comedy. You name the horrible event, and he is identified as the etiologic agent.

"He is blamed when he does something (anything) and he is blamed when he does nothing. He is blamed for things that occurred even before he was President, as well as everything that has happened since. He is blamed for things he says; and for things he doesn't say.

"What makes Bush Hatred completely insane however, is the almost delusional degree of unremitting certitude of Bush's evil; while simultaneously believing that the TRUE perpetrators of evil in the world are somehow good and decent human beings with the world's interests at heart.

"This psychological defense mechanism is referred to as "displacement"."

Scripture tells us that "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." As we look at everything in life, political or otherwise, we should be mindful that a sound mind comes from God, but that the devil is the "father of lies".

"Democrats love to mock the Republican base for believing the Bible is true. Democratic basemen believe "Fahrenheit 9/11" is true!" - James Taranto writing in Best of the Web Today about the differences between the Republican and the Democrat bases.

Someone wrote to me offended by what I had written about Colorado C & D tax increases. This post is adapted from my reply.

The individual who wrote me is a MD who did not feel he could do what he does to care for the poor without the taxes that C & D would bring in. I replied:

It is the height of irresponsibility to pick the programs folk feel are most vital and threaten to cut their funding in order to try to blackmail the taxpayers into paying more taxes. It is not as though the state has been enduring economic hard times.

C & D are excuses for the legislature to not have to make real decisions about what is worthy of funding and what is not. I can't see how it benefits the residents of Colorado to reward legislators who refuse to do what we hired them to do with even more money with which to act irresponsibly.

This MD further correctly pointed out that we as Christians have a mandate to care for the poor. He felt I needed to temper my "rhetoric to include a Biblically based concern for the poor". I replied:

Concern for the poor has nothing to do with this situation (raising taxes at a time when there is a surplus).

Yes, as Christians we have a mandate to care for the poor. Both as individual Christians and as churches we are commanded to care for the poor.

However, we can't rob someone by force and claim God's blessing on what we do just because we happen to use some (very small) portion of what we take to fund what God commands us to do.

What if the Good Samaritan had setup a toll booth on the highway and charged everyone who wanted to use the road a fee to "help the poor man who was robbed and beaten". Instead of binding up his wounds and paying for his care and treatment himself, he made up posters with the likeness of the wounded man and told everyone the poor man would die if they did not pay the toll. Of course part of the money collected went to pay for a nice house for himself, a really nice toll station, assistant toll collectors, and armed guards for the toll facility. Even though he was collecting tolls there were still robbers attacking travelers so there was a never ending supply of new wounded folk to use for the posters to convince folk they should pay the toll. Those traveling the road knew they had paid a toll "to take care of those attacked" so they no longer felt they needed to take personal responsibility for those robbery victims they might happen to see. After all the "toll collector" was taking care of them. Thus their hearts were hardened and turned from God.

This is the dilemma of raising taxes to "do good". It is intellectually dishonest to use the commands of scripture to Christians to justify governmental action. Sorry it just will not wash! Government can only get the funds to do anything by taking those funds (by force if required) from the governed. You can look at it at best as "Robin Hood" and at worst as "Highway Robbery". In neither case can you justify this by quoting what scripture commands Christians to do, as not all the governed are Christians (and today very few are), and even God does not compel Christians to obey him. Government however compels obedience on pain of imprisonment or death.

This does not mean I am opposed to all governmental welfare programs, but it does mean I believe they must be justified to the taxpayers on their own basis as good things to do, without trying to twist scripture into supporting such programs.

I believe that caring for the poor and sick must start with the individual:

1) Christians must do what God leads them to do as individuals first.

2) Christians then should do what the Lord leads them to as families.

3) The local body of Christians must work together to follow God's commands.

4) Larger groups (state, national, and international in scope) of Christians should work as lead by God.

I truly believe that if Christians did all of the above there would be little left over for other groups to do.

In particular I believe governments should be cautious in what they do to "help folk" because of the danger of unintended consequences. The dangers of governmental action are the least when the control is local since folk can see what is going wrong and take action to fix things with the least bureaucracy. Therefore what can be done at the town or city level should be left for this most basic governmental unit to deal with. Only when things absolutely must, should they be bumped up to County, State, or Federal levels.