Before the election, James Dobson created and circulated an imaginary “letter from the future”: “Letter From 2012 in Obama’s America”
The ability of the letter to sway the election is gone, of course. We have a little space from the election now, and can take a breath.
But the letter is still a useful document for staking out some territory about some likely outcomes of the Obama adminstration. For the most part, because these outcomes depend largely on packing the Supreme Court with leftists, and involve known Democrat plans in Congress, there may not be much we can do to avoid these outcomes by political activity, except maybe a successful filibuster of far-left judges. But maybe forewarned is forearmed, and just maybe there is something we can do by the 2010 congressional elections to slow it all down.
You can read the Dobson letter by clicking the link above: it will download a PDF to your computer, which you can save, print or just view. I have not reproduced it here because it has many formatting features that would be lost, including many footnotes with sources for quotes and policy positions that Obama and others have taken. It is a fairly clear distillation of the warnings given by many in the center-Right about the Obama presidency.
Jim Wallis, of Sojourners, and frequent spokesman for the Christian Left, replies here.
The following will only make sense if you read Dobson’s letter and Wallis’ response first.
The short story: Dobson makes specific predictions based on known policy positions of Obama and the Democrats. That’s why his letter has so many footnotes, to demonstrate that he is operating from facts, not rumors, about the plans Obama and the Democrats have stated publicly, and about known policy and philosophy on the part of current Leftist Supreme Court judges, as well as the stated intents of Leftist organizations to use litigation to force all kinds of accomodations to their radical desires, if they can get a foundational court ruling here and there to make up new law in their favor. The only liberty Dobson seems to have taken is to postulate retirements by Kennedy and Scalia during Obama’s first term, so that the Supreme Court leftist majority is in place fairly soon.
Wallis’ response is striking in that, while accusing Dobson of fear-mongering and appealing to the worst in people, Wallis does not offer a counter argument to any single assertion in Dobson’s post. That’s right (and you did read it, correct?), Wallis does not deny ANY of Dobson’s assertions about either Obama’s intent or the Democrats’ intent. While Wallis’ never actually says so, in reading between the lines, I think maybe we’re supposed to think Dobson is fear-mongering because of the relatively unlikely circumstance of both Kennedy and Scalia retiring early in Obama’s first term. And I hope that’s true. But that has nothing to do with the INTENT of the Left, Obama and Democrats, rather only with their ability to pack the Court with Leftists.
In other words, if you were to read Wallis’ response looking for places where he says that Dobson got a particular fact wrong, you’d be looking a long time, because he never does that. He’s just mad that Dobson actually said it, by pointing out what would happen if Scalia and Kennedy retire during Obama’s first term.
He accuses Dobson of “misrepresenting” Obama and the Democrats, but gives not a single example of it, let alone an argument about why any of it is a misrepresentation. Wallis simply asserts that it is a misrepresentation, and then moves on to lecturing Dobson about the hackneyed “seamless garment of life issues”, as if there is some parity between someone being poor, or fighting enemies of America in war, and unborn babies being murdered.
I wonder what the “misrepresentations” might be? Maybe Obama hasn’t endorsed the Freedom of Choice Act? Maybe he won’t appoint very leftist judges? Maybe he’ll veto the Democrats union card-check legislation? Maybe he’ll leave our forces in Iraq until it is truly stabilized? Maybe Wallis thinks that a very left Supreme Court won’t rule in favor of gay marriage, despite existing examples of exactly such rulings from leftist judges? Maybe Wallis thinks the ACLU wouldn’t sue churches, the Boy Scouts, etc., if the Supreme Court creates a constitutional right to gay marriage? Maybe Wallis thinks that medical personnel won’t be forced to participate in abortions if the Freedom of Choice Act becomes law? Maybe he thinks porn won’t be mainstreamed? (He should think about what NOW appears at grocery store checkouts, on broadcast TV, etc., and compare it to 40 years ago.) Maybe Wallis thinks Obama and the Democrats won’t create new gun control laws, hamper home schooling, block talk radio, raise taxes, spend more than they have, etc., but the evidence is simply against him, and he knows it, because those are EXACTLY things that Democrats have tried to do for years, with occasional success. And now they have the keys to the city, and the country.
Wallis does not name ONE misrepresentation and specifically rebut it. He just claims there are some. He doesn’t name ONE Dobson prediction that is not based on a continuation of current policy plans and announced objectives.
So, Mr. Wallis, put up or shut up. Can you name anything in Dobson’s letter that is not directly planned by Obama and/or the Democrats? Is there anything in Dobson’s letter that is not based on trendlines already existing in Leftism, Obama’s past and present policy positions, and the Democrat platform or previous Democrat legislative initiatives?
The answer, of course, is, “No, there isn’t.” Wallis admits it, in fact. He admits it by not bringing up a single counter example, or a single fact Dobson got wrong in quoting Obamian and Democrat plans and public statements, as well as extrapolations from past legislative attempts and judicial decisions. Read the footnotes in Dobson’s letter. The facts are so clear that even Wallis can’t deny them in detail, so the best he can do is attack Dobson personally and call him a hater.
If Wallis had even one point that was a counterfactual to one of Dobson’s predictions, don’t you think he would have brought it up?
Dobson does not claim to be a prophet, and he does not call his letter prophecy, so the Biblical standard of 100% correctness does not apply in evaluating the letter.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in an America where HALF of what Dobson predicts comes true, let alone all of it. I will continue to pray for President-elect Obama’s heart to be softened towards the unborn. I will pray that he’ll find the strength to veto the over-reaching of a Democrat congress. I will pray for excellent health and wisdom for all the Supreme Court justices. And I will work in whatever ways I can to apply political pressure wherever it will help.
In any case, the marker is down. Bets are on the table, and the world is watching. There are two groups in the Christian Left, those who really won’t MIND if Dobson is correct, because they want to live in that America, and those who think it’s all a big lie, and isn’t Obama just a nice man who wouldn’t really do such things, and didn’t he just say them so he would get elected (wink wink nudge… gotta please the base, you know)? I wonder if the Christian Left will have the grace to admit just how wrong they were, if even 1/3 or 1/2 of Dobson’s predictions come true. It will be interesting to find out if they are merely, uh, “prevaricators, or condemned prevaricators” (to semi-politely rephrase Mr. Clemens).
Of course, if Dobson is correct, pointing out the lies of the left in the year 2013 may be hate speech. If that happens, see y’all at Leavenworth… if you can find me at all.
As it happens, I think Dobson is probably overly pessimistic about one thing. All this change probably won’t happen by 2012, if Scalia and Kennedy stay healthy, and the Court remains in a “balance of power” of 4 Lefties, 4 Originalists, and 1 moderate. But 2016 is another story. If Obama doesn’t get a chance to replace Kennedy until even late in a second term, that’s all it will take to tilt the Court so that a Republican president who might follow Obama wouldn’t be able to stop many of the predictions that Dobson made.
This is one time I really, really, really want to be proved wrong.
November 16th, 2008 2:45 pm
You have responded to this whole thing with wisdom and insight. Another point I would like to make is that Wallis accuses Dobson of not caring about anthing other than abortion:
“You make a mistake when you assume that younger Christians don’t care as much as you about the sanctity of life. They do care–very much–but they have a more consistent ethic of life. Both broader and deeper, it is inclusive of abortion, but also of the many other assaults on human life and dignity. For the new generation, poverty, hunger, and disease are also life issues; creation care is a life issue; genocide, torture, the death penalty, and human rights are life issues; war is a life issue. What happens to poor children after they are born is also a life issue.”
I’m tired of the religious left stating over and over again that the evangelical Christian ‘right’ doesn’t care about “…poverty, hunger…”, etc. They always have and they always will. They have done more to solve the social crises of the world than any other group of people in human history including those on the religious left. What I have not seen from any on the left side however is any meaningful manifestation of concern for the pre-born. I mean I have seen absolutely NONE!!! They give it lip-service when necessary but that is all.