PLAYING WITH FIRE
“I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win.
If I have to fuck my opponent to win I’ll do it.
If I have to destroy my opponent I won’t give it a second thought.”
—John McCain
The quote is from Capital Hill Blue’s Doug Thompson. It is a personal recollection of Thompson’s, from a GOP gathering of the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his strategy for winning his race for the Senate.
Given McCain‘s self-described canon, it’s hardly a stretch to believe he professed such a crass philosophy. And above all other considerations, it puts the lie on his religion; whether it was Rethuglican bravado or genuine credo. Embracing such a tactic er, strategy— or the meaningless distinction McCain draws between the two— is tantamount to embracing evil.
Evil. Soul destroying wickedness. Playing with the fire of mortal existence. Not the physical “fire” of some make-believe eternal torture pit unthinking Christians ascribe to God as thee Supreme Torturer, but the cessation of the gift of life— forever.
Grownups can agree: there really is no fate worse than eternal death. Such a fate is, of course, a judgment made by an Infinite Father for his errant children, whom God allows through free will choice to be the architects of their own destiny.
It should be instructive to any moral being— but especially professed Christians like McCain and Palin— that choosing and abusing hypocrisy— the one sin the Son of God yelled at the Sanhedrin for— is very dangerous ground. No matter how you bullshit yourself, don’t expect our Divine Judges to reason with you that “politics” is just that sort of “game.”
The greatest punishment (in reality an inevitable consequence)
for wrongdoing and deliberate rebellion against
the government of God is loss of existence
as an individual subject of that government.
The final result of wholehearted sin is annihilation.
In the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals
have destroyed themselves by becoming
wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity.
—The Urantia Book
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UPDATE:
Georgia Congressman John Lewis says John McCain and Sarah Palin are “stoking hate” by creating the atmosphere at Republican campaign events to those of George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama. Said Lewis, “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.”
More from Jonathan Martin:
Appearing with Barack Obama at a forum at Rick Warren‘s Saddleback Church in August, McCain included John Lewis as one of “three wise men” he would consult as president.
“He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than our self-interest,” McCain said of Lewis.
Now, Lewis is castigating McCain in the harshest of terms.
“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all,” Lewis said today. “They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.”
McCain responded with disappointment, but also a challenge to Obama.
“I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track,” the GOP nominee said in a statement this afternoon.”
Read the entire article here.
