At his commencement speech at Liberty University, formerly known as Liberty Baptist College founded by The Reverend Jerry Fallwell, Mitt Romney repeatedly talked about good deeds while only mentioning Christianity. It was Christian chest-thumping at its worst, a speech in which Romney had nothing good to say about your religion if your religion isn't Christian.
In the Rewrite, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell highlighted two other politicians who previously challenged very religious audiences, showing us it can be done with respect and without pandering.
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"One Lord, one faith, one baptism" anything else is just Religious rhetoric....
Why don't you point out that Bain kept this steel company from collapsing and that Mitt Romney helped keep those workers jobs for nearly 8 years?
And that is was poor management before AND after he left?
As they say on Media Matters, try again.
Oh, on Oct 3, 1983 was Ted Kennedy drunk while giving that speech?
Never will truly know will we?
Really the best arguement that you have is a one off drunk line????? I guess it says a ton about the substance and strength of Kennedys speech.
What gives this yayhoo's remarks the lie is how Romney and Bain looted the pension plans of the companies they acquired, sold them at auction block chop shop prices or loaded them with debt and filed for bankruptcy...
And Bain is still drawing income from some of those deals... And this after often gaining concessions from local governments via tax breaks, incentives, etc...
No wonder they sing the praises of their newly reinvented notions of capitalism...
Its a lot more effective than the crony capatalism of the Obama Nationalist Socialist Administration, Cab Driver. 78% of Bains attempts to right the sinking businesses they did takeovers and restructuring of were successfull, some very successful. Compare that to the elternative energy companies the Obama Administration has sunk billions of tax payers dollars into that have gone belly up.
And take note of the two major Corporations that are most closely aligned with this Administration, General Electric and General Motors (the only two Generals that Obama actually pays any heed to). Neither of those Corporations pay a single dollar in taxes, General Motors is still into the taxpayer for billions of dollars, and of the 220,000 employees they have at present, only 80,000 are employed in the U.S.
So you do the math Cab Driver. Where is the economic malfeasance, with Bain and the private equity firms that develop past failing companies, or the Obama crony capatalists? And who is hanging out the taxpayers now?
Mr. O'Donnell why is it that you left out this sentence of Romney's speech at Liberty U,
"Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life."? Why would a commencement speaker go to a Christian University and speak of the virtues of Islam? Or a commencement speaker at Notre Dame speak on the virtues of Satanism?
Your manipulation of the truth is what keeps MSNBC in the tank with cable ratings. Mr. O'Donnell, listeners are smarter than you think, and your manipulation only turns them away from MSNBC and especially your program.
Listeners are smarter than O'Donnel, in fact! And they know how to change the channel; I much prefer Greta in the 10:00PM news hour! Of course she is an attorney with a legal mind trained in logic and a former prosecutor, and this fool is a "socialist", a college major that usually leads to a career as a barrista in in a po dunk coffee shop who works noe toeing the MSNBC Party Line for his past fleeting stint as a Democrat Party hack in Congress some odd decades ago.
To be fair, Lawrence, when Mitt Romney tells us in his commencement address at Liberty University that “there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action,” he is using “parity advertising,” and is not making the claim of Christianity’s superiority over other religions in the Good Works Department.
Advertisers frequently use this (for lack of a better word) trick. Mostly, I assume, for legal reasons, when a claim of outright superiority can’t be substantiated. They tell us that “no product works better than ours.” Sure, on first listen, it may sound as if the product is being sold as the best of its kind, and I have no doubt that advertisers would like audiences to hear it that way. But, in fact, with parity advertising, the product being sold is simply being touted as ON PAR with the best. The implied meaning is that, “While no product works better than ours, there are plenty that work JUST AS WELL as ours. Ours is not superior to the competition, but stands alongside the best.” And, when you think about it, that’s not a very bold claim, since it says as much about the competition as it does about the product being advertised.
Mitt Romney may have hoped his Christian evangelical audience would hear exclusivity when he spoke about a Christian’s ability to perform good works for the nation, but that’s not what he said. (And thank goodness he didn’t, since the claim of exclusivity wouldn’t, as they say, hold up in court.) His claim (intentional or not) was simply that “no belief system creates better good-works-producing-consciences than does Christianity," the implication being that any number of them – including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even secularism – do just as well. And, in saying that, Mitt Romney is telling the truth.
Lawrence has hit a home run regarding his comments on Romney's speech. It expresses my concerns about what is happening to the Republican party. Every citizen who has ever been persecuted because of his religion, any person who is aware of what religious persecution has done since the beginning of time should be greatly concerned about what Romney is saying. The single most important event that has made our country different from all others and the main reason we have been so prosperous is we have the freedom to believe what we want about our God - Freedom of Religion.
I am beginning to think that the Grand Old Party (GOP) is becoming the first religious party in our political system.
You fool, Tony. Don't you pay any attention to the anti-Morman and anti-evangical Christian histoty of this arse O'Donnell, and his MSNBC cohorts?Why do you think they put this topic up for their leftist bigotted "black shirts" following to drool over?
We need to live our life based on the fundamental laws of nature instead of some Religious statement that someone made up. We are all born into this universe and live our lives within its laws and principles. From the inescapable law of gravity extending across the universe to the fundamental principles behind the tiniest atom, our lives are immersed in the laws of nature. As intelligent beings it is only natural for us to wonder about the world around us, and as children of the universe it seems reasonable that we should be able to arrive at this understanding - that this understanding is very much our birthright. The understanding combines both faith and reason. Faith without reason is contrary to the laws of nature and to God, if he ever was here. In fact, to many of us it seems that we have already arrived at this understanding with only a few loose ends remaining. Our moral understand (emphathy, kindness, love, forgiveness and all that makes us human) is not much different than an understanding of gravity as an attracting force in nature and the many contributions to our understanding of light, electricity, magnetism, atomic structure, quantum theory, etc. For example: Quantum theory is based on faith (not a faith) that we can find answers and reason. How is this similar to moral principles? In the same way that particles can influence other paricles far away when they become entangled, a single act of kindness can influence only the person receiving that act, but also future events like a great echo staraing from the courage of the person who performed that act of kindness. Faith without reason is evil because it can justify almost any act. In the same wasy that reason has given some understanding of nature, it can also give us a better understanding of what is ethical and moral and how it can benefit all mankind.
Corrected version of above post.
We need to live our life based on the fundamental laws of nature instead of some Religious statement that someone made up. We are all born into this universe and live our lives within its laws and principles. From the inescapable law of gravity extending across the universe to the fundamental principles behind the tiniest atom, our lives are immersed in the laws of nature. As intelligent beings it is only natural for us to wonder about the world around us, and as children of the universe it seems reasonable that we should be able to arrive at this understanding - that this understanding is very much our birthright. The understanding combines both faith and reason. Faith without reason is contrary to the laws of nature and to God, if he ever was here. In fact, to many of us it seems that we have already arrived at this understanding with only a few loose ends remaining. Our moral understand (empathy, kindness, love, forgiveness and all that makes us human) is not much different than an understanding of gravity as an attracting force in nature and the many contributions to our understanding of light, electricity, magnetism, atomic structure, quantum theory, etc. For example: Quantum theory is based on faith (not a faith) that we can find answers and reason. How is this similar to moral principles? In the same way that particles can influence other particles far away when they become entangled, a single act of kindness can influence not only the person receiving that act, but also future events like a great echo starting from the courage of the person who performed that act of kindness. Faith without reason is evil because it can justify almost any act. In the same way that reason has given some understanding of nature, it can also give us a better understanding of what is ethical and moral and how it can benefit all mankind.
Speaking at Liberty University IS pandering. That being said, Mr. Romney did mention "Judeo-Christian values" and "people of every faith."
I must admit that O'Donnel's Rewrite was somewhat deceptive. There are plenty of Romney misdeeds to talk about without making one up.
I believe Romney also inclusively mentioned the moral values of "even those of no faith!" That is soooo far fom the attitudes denigrating Mormons, and evangical Christians that the commentators on MSNBC exude nightly, O'Donnell the Bigot in Chief, of course, as has been pointed out countless times by even his supporters on these blogs!