6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Social conservatism explained (exposed), July 23, 2007
This review is from: From Power to Purpose: A Remarkable Journey of Faith and Compassion (Hardcover)
I give Senator Brownback credit for being honest. I have no doubt that he is a good, honest man. I agree with much of what he says, when he discusses foreign policy (I call myself a "Reagan Republican", by the way). What I strongly disagree with, is his support for massive government powers over Americans and our lives. His stance is one of social conservatism: an all-powerful government that forces us to be good. He has chapters on how government would control culture, enforce morality, and put faith into our prisons. This is an all-encompassing state, and a federal government that would moralistically be "on our backs", 24/7. What ever happened to limited government ? What ever happened to letting individuals and the family decide for US how to live ? What happened to "getting government off our backs". One example is the media. Brownback for instance relates going to "Hollywood" to sit with CEOs of big media corporations. He would then play a track of music or read the lyrics and then ask the CEO "Would you let your kids listen to this ?". (the answer was no). Brownback's "solution" to this is censorship. Instead of individuals and families choosing to just not listen (the same way we would choose to not listen to racist lyrics), he wants it all banned. Whatever he dislikes, he wants a federal ban on. To me, this censorship and banning things is more of a liberal, Hillary Clinton type tactic. I am conservative and I criticize the Left for doing this. Brownback wants the government to sit in as some kind of moral judge and jury, and ban things he dislikes (this would, I guess, include most modern music ?). I don't have to name which part of our world, geographically, that has people who "ban music", do I ? This of course is a slippery slope: if the standard is "would you let your kid do it ?", we might as well ban almost everything. And who decides what is "obscene". Brownback would love a world in which pornography is banned. He claims that "obscenity" is destroying our culture, our families, etc. First off, social conservatives constantly state this, but can't provide evidence. How, concretley, is the family "destroyed" by pornography ? (by the way, the county in the U.S. that downloads the most porn in the entire U.S. is in Utah, which is also the most conservative, religious state in the U.S., and has the strongest family structures. So I just don't buy this logic at all. The Mormons have shown that looking at porn doesn't "destroy the family"). Brownback then goes on to say that our prisons need more Christianity. Aside from the obvious Constitutional issues there with separation of church and state, you can poll any murderer on death row, and ask him if he is religious and believes in God. I am pretty sure that at least 95 % of them will say they believe in God, or are already "born again". So this is also an idea of dubious use. I don't want my tax dollars put into making a religious guy who killed a bit more religious. Brownback often states "God was preparing me..." (for politics). I find this presumptuous, in that he is reading God's mind and then aligning God with the GOP. How does he know that God is not for instance, trying to put Hillary Clinton or Gore in office ? (not to mention Obama). He also in my view confuses the origin of our freedoms. He states for instance "God" (defined by Protestants) is the "author of our liberties". Aside from the fact that the Founders didn't put that into the Constitution, I find that very limiting. It basically states that freedom is coequal with Biblical religion. However, freedom is far broader than that, and our Founders obviously felt that it was far broader than that. Thus, Brownback's view of freedom is extremely limited, and I find, a bit scary, to be honest (if you are not a Protestant, I guess you have less rights ?). In addition, our Founders spoke of freedoms, not of "culture". They maybe wrote about it a bit, but the true emphasis was on freedom. As P.J. O'Rourke wrote, "America was not founded to make you good, America was founded so that you could be whatever you want to be".
In the end, I really wish that social conservatives in the GOP would realize one thing (I write here in caps, not becuase I am emotional, but because I think this is so important): ANY POWER YOU GIVE YOURSELF VIA THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, YOU ARE GIVING TO LIBERALS, WHEN THEY ARE IN POWER. Please think about that. All the powers to tell prisoners what to think, to "reform our culture", to deal with obscenity (with the state defining what obscenity is), to tax, to regulate, to tell your family how to live, will be used relentlessly by liberals, when they are in power. This is to me the achiles heel of social conservative logic.
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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The American Answer of humble use of Power for good, August 11, 2007
This review is from: From Power to Purpose: A Remarkable Journey of Faith and Compassion (Hardcover)
I laughed a bit when I read the libertarian socially leftist "conservative" poster on this book talked about the author presenting a protestant view, that would leave him out, when the author is actually catholic :-).
This book presents the humble conversion of a man who had a lot of power as a senator. Lying at deathbed fighting a deadly disease, he humbled himself and came to realize the important truth that humility is the God exalted path to true greatness.
The author presents his views on whole life that goes above just prolifer on [...] to a strong next position lead on the issue. He is obviously a strong leader to protect life at all levels. Obviously, the basic purpose of our government is to protect our right to LIFE, liberty and pursuit of happiness. There is nothing more important for government to do than to use all its powers to humbly protect all life (unborn, young, old, disabled, of all races and ethnicity), including the life of the leftists who are supporting government regulated abortions as China does.
This author's belief obviously led him to rescue a child from the clasps of the evil one in China and gain a wonderful blessing of another daughter in his own house. What a wonderful example of adoption as a wonderful alternative to murdering a child in the name of population control.
Thanks Sam.
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