Note to the Left: I am not a Racist or a Radical

As is typical, the left wingers, along with help from their news media sycophants, are now trying to do CPR on Obamacare by using their (in their view) electric shock paddles - calling opponents racists. This is how it goes. You might be a racist if ...
you oppose Obamacare
you attend a town hall meeting
attend a rally in Washington
give any outspoken response to anything Obama says, even when he is being blatantly disingenuous.

It is ridiculous and offensive. I am vehemently opposed to both Obama's left wing, socialist agenda and to racism in any form. In the mindset of liberals, being politically and/or socially conservative is tantamount to being a racist. They are dead wrong. Moreover, this position is morally reprehensible. It is arrogant, close-minded, judgmental in a juvenile fashion, and simply wrong. Then to slander normal Americans with this "wolf cry" is irresponsible and morally outrageous.

I am deeply conservative in my political views. Government is and has been out of control. Obama's view of government is way out of character with the clear understanding of our history, the U.S. Constitution, and the mainstream of America. These are political, philosopical, legal, and moral arguments - not racial arguments. I am not a radical and I am not a racist.

As a lawyer, I served on a legal team which represented the city of Memphis, Tennessee and defended the consent decrees which settled significant race discrimination lawsuits against the police and fire departments. Our law firm fought against racism and even for affirmative action efforts to repair the huge amount of damage done in those organizations by institutional racism for decades. I was active in conducting supervisor training and other corporate training seminars related to teaching proper employee management - not political correctness mind you. In those sessions, I regularly and strongly taught about racism and how to keep it out of your employee relations.

As a pastor, I was first in involved in Promise Keepers when I began my ministry in the late 1990s. Racial reconciliation was a major focus of the rally held in Memphis. I served on the leadership team of area pastors that helped organize and put on that rally. We designed and conducted a series of follow-up events in which men worshipped together in different congregations. We met alternatively in traditionally African-American and white or integrated churches, with alternating white and black preachers. They were powerful and deeply spiritual events and to this day remain some of my favorite times in ministry. I led in the prayer time at the conclusion of each event. It was a joy and an honor. As a staff and senior pastor, I have taught against racism as sin from a biblical perspective on numerous occasions and will continue to do so.

I deeply resent everyone of these accusations thrown out for cheap political gain by left-wingers. I do take these accusations personally because I have been hearing them from left-wing politicians my entire life. Immoral men such as U.S. Representative Harold Ford and current U.S. Representative Steve Cohen from Memphis, not to mention national politicians too numerous to name. I take them seriously and so should you. I take them personally because I am exactly the person they are aimed at - a christian, caucasion, male, bible believing, politically and socially consrevative person.

These accusations are slanderous. They are as sinful and shameful as racism itself because it is the flip-side of the same coin. It cheapens the true moral outrage of real racial prejudice. It disrespects in a fundamental and offensive manner the real sacrifices men and women of both colors made to fight racism. It dishonors the progress normal, regular, "fly-over" Americans have made over decades of working towards the goal of seeing people for the "content of their character and not the color of their skin." The person who makes this claim is using race as a tool for political (and in a politician's usage personal) gain. How clearly can it be stated that this behavior is immoral and wrong?

Such behavior slanders the vast majority of men and women in America who are not racists and do not abide racism in any form. That is you and me. It is yet another example that America must fight without tiring the immoral, left-wing politicians, pundits from the "drive by" media, Hollywood, etc. They are the radicals.