Ronald Reagan vs College Students, 1967

Randall Stephens

"NEW HAVEN, Dec. 4 [1967]--Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who said he had never taught anything before except swimming and Sunday school, sat on a desk at Yale University today and conducted a class in American history." So reported the New York Times on the Gipper's visit to the ivy, where he was met with student protests and plenty of probing questions (December 6, 1967).

"Should homosexuals be barred from holding public office?" a senior from LA asked. The governor was surprised by the question. Rumors had been swirling that his administration had fired two staff members after their sexual preferences came to light. "It's a tragic

illness," said Reagan, after a pause. And, yes, he did think that homosexuality should remain illegal. Some students earlier had demanded that the school rescind its invitation to Reagan. The governor, who visited Yale as a Chubb fellow, gave his $500 honorarium to charity.

The confrontation between the 56-year-old governor and Yale students in 1967 speaks to the culture wars that roiled the decade and continue to reverberate to this day. In the video embedded here the students, with haircuts that make them look like clones of Rob from My Three Sons, square off with Reagan on poverty, race, and Vietnam.

The commemoration of the one-hundredth birthday of the 40th president brought with it the usual fanfare of radio specials, documentaries, guest editorials, and the like. The new HBO doc
Reagan, like PBS's American experience bio, spans the actor-turned-politician's career. (Watch the latter in full here.)

Lost in the telling, sometimes, is the scrappy, intensely ideological cold and cultural warrior from the 1960s and early 1970s. To correct that a bit, see the governor go at it with the somewhat nervous Yalies. Or, observe him lashing out against that "mess in Berkeley." (A clip from the HBO doc showing the governor dress down Berkeley administrators shows that pretty well.) The public memory version--rosy-cheeked, avuncular, sunny--overshadows that more fiery aspect of his personality and politics.

Americans remember their leaders as they choose. (The myths and legends are as stubborn as a Missouri mule.) But it is good to remind ourselves that the politicians and public figures we revere and/or study are rarely as one-dimensional as we'd sometimes think they are.

1980: Not A Kid Anymore

All this year at my Facebook page, which you can view from the link in the sidebar here at my website by joining up yourself and 'friend'-ing me, I am taking a daily trip back in time to the 1980's. Each month I am highlighting a different year chronologically, and this month have been featuring the music, tv, movies, and important events of the first year of the decade: 1980.

In 1980 the world changed, both in my own individual life and the world at large, in some of the most important and influential ways it ever would. Just one year earlier, as 1979 dawned, I was a 17-year old high school senior living in an apartment in South Philly with my dad and brother. Little did I know how much a life could change in less than a year.

I had been dating a girl, Anne Jacobs, ever since meeting her down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood, New Jersey during the late summer of 1976. We overcame the fact that I lived in South Philly without a car and she lived out in the Delaware County suburb of Prospect Park to become high school sweethearts.

Anne was a year behind me in school, and so while I was finishing up my senior year and preparing to graduate from St. John Neumann high school in South Philadelphia during the first half of 1979, she was still just a junior at Archbishop Prendergast high school out in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

It was at some point in the late spring of '79 that we began to realize something big might be up. There were increasingly unmistakable signs to us that Anne had become pregnant, and by the early summer we knew it was true. We told our parents at the end of that summer, and I put my LaSalle University plans aside to go out and find a job.

In the fall of 1979 I landed a job as a messenger clerk with the old First Pennsylvania Bank, beginning a decade-long career in the banking world. Anne and I, with the necessary permission from our parents since we were still under 18 years old, got married on November 7th that year, and I moved in with her family.

This is where 1980 opened for me, vastly different from a year earlier. Married at just 18 years of age, living in the suburbs, taking a train in to work everyday in downtown Philadelphia. And then in early February, a day before my own father would turn 40 years old, Anne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who we named "Christine", adding 'Dad' to my new roles in life.

There is no way that I will ever encourage any teenager to get pregnant. It is one of the most difficult things to go through, trying to properly raise a child while you are still very much one yourself in so many ways. But I also cannot deny the love and joy that Chrissy brought into my life beginning on that day. In a few days from now she will turn 30 years old, and is now a 2-time mother herself. Where has all that time gone?

That would not turn out to be the last major domestic change in my life during 1980, however. We tried to live with Anne's family, but trying to make your own way as parents and a couple is difficult enough without having the dynamic of living under the same roof as people who still treat you like kids. By the fall we had gotten our own apartment at the corner of American and Ritner Streets, and thus began trying to give it a go out on our own back in my old South Philly stomping grounds.

One of my favorite little life stories comes from February 22nd of that year. Just as this year, 1980 was a Winter Olympics year, and the American hockey team made up of young college kids had been stunning the world by slipping through the tournament undefeated. Looming ahead of them was a date with Cold War destiny.

On that Friday the American kids were poised to take on the goliath hockey juggernaut from the Soviet Union in an Olympic semi-final game at Lake Placid, New York. Just two weeks earlier, the Russians had blitzed the U.S. by a 10-3 score in a pre-Olympics exhibition. Then they rolled over five opponents by a combined score of 55-11 to reach this point in the tournament.

The day before the matchup, New York Times columnist Dave Anderson wrote: "Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments."

No one really believed that miracle was likely, but the young American team had captured my and the nation's hearts and imaginations with their dramatic play. The game against the Soviets was going to take place during the day, but would be televised that night in prime time by the ABC network. Remember, these were the pre-ESPN domination days with no 24-hour news coverage of events.

I resolved to stay away from any radios or television during my work day at the bank, which in those days proved easy. I went home with no knowledge of what had happened in the game and was prepared to grab some dinner and then settle in to watch the drama of the U.S.-Soviet hockey game.

While I ate, excited about the upcoming game, Anne walked in to the kitchen of her parents house on 11th Avenue and said matter-of-factly "How about the Americans beating the Russians in hockey today?!"

I'll leave it to your imaginations the phrase that immediately raced through my stunned mind at the revelation of the game result that I had been successfully avoiding all day. Ouch. Priceless.

With my excitement ruined and my enthusiasm tempered by the knowledge of what was going to happen, I settled in that evening to enjoy the spectacle of what has become known to history as the 'Miracle on Ice' in the American squad's 4-3 epic upset of the Soviet hockey team: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

In the larger world during the first year of the 1980's, the Carter Presidency continued to deteriorate as the Iranian hostage crisis droned on and on. His candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination received a serious threat from Teddy Kennedy, who I stood just a few feet away from during an early spring campaign stop in Philly that year.

Kennedy would receive my first-ever vote in a Presidential primary, but would lose a hard-fought nomination process to Carter. Later in the year, the Reagan Revolution began with the election to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the greatest American President of the past century, but one who I simply did not appreciate or support at the time.

During the year of 1980 we Americans would become introduced to or more familiar with people and topics such as Abscam, Voyager, Ayatollah, Olympic boycott, Rosie Ruiz, Mt. Saint Helens, Yoda, CNN, Solidarity. We would all end the year sobbing over the murder of John Lennon while asking the question "Who shot J.R.?"

Philadelphia was the capital of the sports world in 1980. That spring, the Flyers were beaten in overtime of the 6th game of the Stanley Cup Finals on a controversial goal by Bob Nystrom of the New Islanders. The Isles appeared to be clearly offsides on the winning play, but the refs blew the call. Had the Flyers won, they would have tied the series and sent it back to the Spectrum for a decisive 7th game.

Also that spring, the 76ers advanced to the NBA Finals before succumbing in six games thanks to a herculean performance from Lakers rookie Magic Johnson, who filled in for injured all-star center Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and single-handedly kept the Sixers from sending that championship to a deciding game.

The Philadelphia Eagles had a season to remember that fall and winter, finishing 12-4 and winning the NFC East under coach Dick Vermiel. The Birds finished tied with the Dallas Cowboys, who beat them in the regular season finale by a 35-27 score, but won the tie-breaker for the division title. They would advance to make the franchise' first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl in January of 1981.

And then there were the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. One of the best teams in baseball since 1975, the Phils were repeatedly disappointed and disappointing in making playoff appearances in 1976, 1977, and 1978. The 1980 team was considered by some to be getting a little old-in-the-tooth, but the veterans fought to yet another division title.

In what many still believe to be the greatest NLCS in baseball history, the Phils edged past the Houston Astros and advanced to face the great George Brett and the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. In the dramatic finale to the 6th game at Veteran's Stadium, Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to preserve a 4-1 win and give the long-suffering franchise' it's first-ever world championship.

I remember clearly watching the game in our little South Philly apartment that was full of friends for the game. We spilled into the streets after the victory, and I headed up to Broad Street with some to enjoy the victory celebration. We worked our way towards the Vet, and it was in the midst of that joyous celebration of the championship just won by Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa and crew that my life very nearly changed forever once again.

I was standing on Broad Street just north of Snyder Avenue in the middle of what was a sea of celebratory humanity, and at the same time there were vehicles still trying to leave the area as well. Somehow I got squeezed by the crowd into the small space between two cars slowly edging their way along. Trying to avoid the crowds, one of the cars kept edging towards the other, pinning my legs between the two.

I started to bang on the hood and windows of the two cars as my legs got squeezed tighter, and just in time felt the release of pressure as the drivers realized what was happening and eased off me. That close to getting my legs crushed while celebrating a life long dream of a World Series victory!

1980 was absolutely a year of change for me, for the country, and for the world. It was a year of beginnings and challenges, of frustrations and celebrations, of defeat and victory, and of joys and sorrows. It was a year that not many others to follow would be able to equal for it's quantity of high drama. And it was ultimately the first year of my life in which I was not a kid anymore.

BORN 1980: Christine Veasey, Erin Mooney Bates, Justin Timberlake, Elin Nordegren, Zooey Deschanel, Robinho, Nick Carter, Gilbert Arenas, Albert Pujols, Eli Manning, Adam Lambert, Francisco 'KRod' Rodriguez, Natalie Gulbis, Andre Iguodala, Joe Flacco, Mischa Barton

DIED 1980: Jimmy Durante, Paul Lynde, Paul 'Bear' Bryant, Ray Kroc, Johnny Weissmuler, Jackie Wilson, Donna Reed, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray 'the Scarecrow' Bolger, 'Pistol' Pete Maravich, Hirohito, Ted Bundy, John Lennon

Movie Vets Help the Rest of Us Appreciate

Like most Americans, I have never experienced the honor of wearing the uniform of one of our brave military branches in service to my country. I have heard it from many who are my same age. We turned 18 years of age in the late 1970's and early 1980's. There was no war, unless you count the Cold War, and in many homes the tradition of military service was not passed along.

I have always felt it missing from my own set of life experiences and from my professional resume. An opportunity to experience that sense of duty and honor, and of service to my country and community, is certainly one of the many reasons that I joined the Philadelphia Police Department almost two decades ago now. If I didn't make the choice as a kid to put on the uniform of my country, then at least I could put on a uniform here and help protect our homeland.

Still, it would be hard for most of us to ever appreciate what real soldiers, sailors, and pilots have experienced as they have defended both our nation directly and the cause of freedom around the world. While television news shows missiles being launched and far away explosions, they rarely, if ever, show the truth of close, intense combat situations and the split-second decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.

What was it really like to climb inside the cockpit of a fighter plane in World War II and engage in a mission over enemy lines, perhaps in combat with Nazi or Japanese pilots? What was it really like to crawl inside of a tank and head out into the deserts of Iraq? What was it really like to trudge through a swamp in the jungles of Vietnam? What was it really like to charge on to a battle field in the Civil War? What was it like to cross the Delaware River in a small boat, freezing and shivering in the cold with General Washington in the Revolutionary War?

For all of it's many faults, one of the things that Hollywood has managed to do best is to portray those military heroes well, bringing us close to the battles and often inside the very heads of the individuals involved. Whether those men and women were fighting in combat in war time or protecting our nation and it's interests in peace time, motion pictures have given us the opportunity to get close to the action.

In 1998, Steven Spielberg took us right out on to Omaha Beach with it's horror and death during the D-Day invasion of World War II. Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Paul Giamatti, Matt Damon, Dennis Farina and the rest of the stellar cast of 'Saving Private Ryan' took us into the heads, hearts, and minds of the heroes who rescued humanity from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

In 1994, Hanks had joined with director Robert Zemeckis and fellow actors Gary Sinise and Mykelti Williamson to explore the Vietnam War and it's participants from some unusual angles in 'Forrest Gump'. Back in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola had given us a look into the jungle battles with starring turns from Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, Sam Bottoms, and Dennis Hopper in 'Apocalypse Now'. In 1986, Oliver Stone's 'Platoon' with Keith David, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Charlie Sheen took us back to the 'Nam.

While World War II and Vietnam have been the focus of some of the best war movies in motion picture history, many other conflicts around the world have shone a light on the struggles and accomplishments of America's fighting heroes. From 1935's 'Gone With the Wind' visiting the Civil War to 2005's 'Jarhead' taking us inside Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm we have seen American troops rise to defend their nation, democracy, and freedom.

So while few of us have had or ever will have that experience, we get at least a small taste of the hardships, the horrors, and the sacrifices that men and women make when they join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and other military service groups thanks to the best of these Hollywood productions. Still, while it gives us a taste, it will never compare to real life.

Those men and women represented by these Hollywood characters and caricatures, by these retellings of history, and by the drama of fiction within a historical construct are the real heroes who we must always thank and never forget.

Especially today, on Veteran's Day here in the United States, we must all join together in supporting and thanking the military veterans who fight for our nation, and in some cases who are injured and even die for the cause of our freedom and liberty.

Tearing Down the Wall

Twenty years ago an amazing event happened, one that two generations of Americans and lovers of freedom the world over had a hard time imagining would ever happen in our lifetimes. On November 9th, 1989, at the crest of a wave of liberty sweeping across Eastern Europe, the East German government announced that its citizens could openly visit West Berlin.

The problem with such visits for decades had been the presence of one of the single most blatant symbols of political and cultural oppression in modern history, the Berlin Wall. The Wall was not just symbolic of socialist and communist oppression, it was a literal wall that encircled the 'free' city of West Berlin and included a thick concrete wall, barbed wire, guard towers, and patrolled trenches that would become known as 'the death strip' in history.

During the period of the Wall's existence between 1961 and 1989, estimates show that a couple of hundred people were killed in approximately 5,000 attempted crossings. All were trying to move one way, across the 'Iron Curtain' from the oppression of the Eastern Bloc to the freedom of Western Europe.

The roots of the Berlin Wall stretched back to the end of World War II, when what remained of Nazi Germany was divided by the Potsdam Agreement into four 'occupation zones', each controlled by one of the victorious Allied powers: the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.

Despite the fact that the capital city of Berlin lay entirely within the Soviet zone, that city was also divided into four controlling zones for the Allied powers. Within short order, rifts began to appear between the Soviets and the others on a number of post-war issues regarding reconstruction of Germany, as well as political and ideological differences between the nations.

Almost immediately after the war, Soviet leader Josef Stalin began to orchestrate the creation of and control over an 'Eastern bloc' of nations including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet-controlled section of Germany which he envisioned as a buffer zone of protection for the USSR against the influence or advances of the European democracies.

In 1948, Stalin began to finalize his ultimate plans of a complete takeover of Germany by instituting a blockade of West Berlin, the section controlled by the other Allied powers. His hope was to see the others withdraw from control over and interest in the city. But the Americans and British responded with the 'Berlin airlift' efforts that kept the free section of the city supplied with goods and materials. After almost a year, Stalin finally lifted the blockade.

In October of 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was declared and would become known as East Germany. This section of Germany was highly influenced by the Soviets and was oppressive to its people. West Germany developed as a capitalist nation in alliance with the United States and the other western nations. Over the years, West German economic growth and political freedoms became increasingly attractive to hundreds of thousands of East Germans, who fled their nation for the freedom and prosperity of the west.

In the first few years, nearly a million people fled the Eastern bloc to West Germany as people began to recognize the oppressive tactics and governing principles of socialism and communism. What became known officially as the 'German inner border' but was more popularly christened as the 'Iron Curtain' by Winston Churchill was the response. Initially a recognized but open border between the post-war zones controlled by the Soviets and the western powers, the 'Curtain' was formally closed with the erection first of barbed wire fences and later more substantial security in 1952 and 1953.

With this major path to freedom blocked, more and more citizens of East Berlin began to flee into West Berlin, the only remaining bastion of freedom behind the Iron Curtain of Soviet and East German oppression. The East German authorities attempted many measure to thwart the massive emigration that ensued, as approximately 20% of the entire GDR population escaped to the freedom of the west up until 1961.

Finally, Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev gave the East Germans the orders to build a physical wall separating East and West Berlin. At midnight on August 13th, 1961, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border. Streets were torn up and barbed wire fences installed to prevent passage. By August 15th, construction of a concrete wall had begun. Many families were literally split apart suddenly, and people were unable to travel to their jobs.

The Berlin Wall was ultimately built up and strengthened over decades in four main elements. The initial 'Wire Fence' effort of 1961 was followed quickly by improvement to that fence between 1962 and 1965. A concrete wall was completed and extended between 1965 and 1975. Finally, the 'Border Wall' was built, extended, and improved between 1975 and 1980, but was continually improved right up until the end in 1989. In the end, the Berlin Wall was more than 87 miles long.

In the beginning, no crossings at all were allowed for over two years between 1961 and 1963. Negotiations between the powers allowed for Christmas visits over the next four years. There were ultimately 8 different official border crossing points between East and West Berlin which were all heavily secured and controlled. It was far easier for West Berliners to cross into the east than vice versa. For the most part, no East Germans were permitted to cross into West Berlin until the fall of the Wall in 1989.

Located near the center of West Berlin, the 'Brandenburg Gate' is one of the main historic symbols of Germany in general and Berlin in particular. On June 12th, 1987, American president Ronald Reagan appeared there and made a speech to help celebrate the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin. Reagan had throughout his presidency challenged the ideology and authority of communist and socialist regimes, publicly calling the Soviet Union an 'Evil Empire' at one point.

In his speech that day, Reagan directly addressed Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev: "..we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"

Inspired by events such as Mr. Reagan's speech, citizens and governments across the Soviet sphere of influence began to crack. In August of 1989, "red" Hungary removed its border fence with a free Austria, and 13,000 East German tourists escaped to freedom. This set off a chain reaction of similar activity in Czechoslovakia, and finally in East Germany itself. Mass demonstrations resulted in the resignation of the East German president in October 1989.

These generally peaceful demonstrations continued to build throughout East Germany, culminating in what was known as the "Peaceful Revolution" and the gathering of a million people in East Berlin on November 4th. In response, the East German government and its puppet-string pullers in the USSR had little recourse but to loosen their grip, and when some pieces of a plan to do so were leaked to a German television network, the story was run on November 9th that "the borders were open to everyone" on what was called a historic day.

After this public announcement on television, which was actually a complete jumping-of-the-gun by the network, Germans began gathering at the Wall, completely surprising and overwhelming the guards. In contacting their superiors for orders, the guards were given no direction, and became overwhelmed by the throngs. The gates were opened and people flocked from both sides, embracing one another in glee. Over the ensuing days and weeks, people gathered daily to climb the Wall, break off pieces, and begin to informally demolish the structure.

Over the next few months, restrictions on crossings became officially lifted, including at the Brandenburg Gate on December 22nd. The following day, visa-free travel began between the states. On June 13th, 1990, official dismantling of the Wall began, and continued until being completed in November 1991. Only a few guard towers and portions remain as memorials.

For three decades, the Berlin Wall stood as a wall of oppression, keeping people from seeking their freedom and liberty and entombing them inside a world of failed communist and socialist ideologies. It was ultimately the will of these freedom-seeking and loving peoples, aided by those of us around the world who share these ideals, that resulted in the awe-inspiring events which began on November 9th, 1989.

How Would Jesus Vote ?

'What Would Jesus Do?' is a popular saying sometimes shortened to the simple acronym 'WWJD' on bumper stickers. A new play on that might be 'HWJV', or 'How Would Jesus Vote?' Now some might say that it is more than a bit presumptuous for myself or anyone else to try and get inside the head of Jesus Christ and determine who he likely would vote for in Tuesday's U.S. Presidential election. But I definitely do not think that it is a question that should not be at least thought about and explored. Let's look at the issues, and see how one might interpret Christ's view of them. He was not against taxes, telling us directly that we should "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's." What Jesus was about on this issue was excessive taxation, and so we find that He understands the necessity of taxes to support public works, but is against over burdening the taxpayer. On the issue of taxation, Barack Obama claims that he will give a 'middle-class' tax cut, but will raise corporate taxes. Of course as has been proven time and time again, corporations who have their taxes raised will not take on this burden, they will pass it along to their customers in the price of the goods they sell. In addition, if their tax burden gets too high, it has often resulted in businesses laying off workers, even shutting down completely. So as we see, Obama's plan might give that middle-class a tax cut on one hand, and effectively take it away or even worsen the situation on the other hand. With John McCain, the 'Bush tax cuts' due to soon expire, tax cuts that stimulated our economy, will have an advocate to keep them going. Those are very real tax cuts that have already been given to the middle-class. If allowed to expire, as Obama wants, they will result in a tax increase to that middle-class. The fact of the matter is that on taxes, in my opinion, Jesus would be squarely in the McCain camp. Let's move on to the important issues of judicial appointments and the key issue of abortion. This one is almost a no-brainer. Obama supports a woman's perceived 'right' to 'choose' to kill her baby as a method of birth control, even up to the point of not providing medical care to a child that survives the abortion procedure. That is not an exaggeration, that is his actual position. John McCain believes that the abortion procedure should only be a last resort for medical reasons, and would appoint justices who would hopefully overturn the 'Roe vs. Wade' decision that has resulted in a holocaust of millions of American babies begin killed over the past 30+ years. The fact is that without the 'Roe' decision, tens of millions of Americans would have lived, and had their own children. Just imagine what some of these young people might have accomplished had their parents chosen simply to allow them the most basic gift of the life that those parents got to live. Let's move on to the recent issue of war and national protection. Clearly, Jesus would have been against war as an action, because by it's very nature it involves the taking of human life. Just as clearly, Obama would like to end the current war actions in the Middle East and 'bring home the troops'. McCain would just as clearly continue the actions of our military in battling Islamofascism. The fact is that Jesus certainly would not have taken his 'turn the other cheek' teaching, one that he directed towards individuals to seek reconciliation rather than retribution, to apply to nations trying to defend the existence of Christianity. If you don't understand that the radical Islamists in the Middle East fully intend to destroy Western civilization, Judaism, Christianity, and every other 'ism' that stand in the way of their world dominance, then you simply are not educated enough on this issue. If the U.S. pulls its troops out of the Middle East before strong, stable democracies are formed there that can stand up for themselves, then the Islamofascists will overrun the region. If you say 'Who cares?' to that, then you are extremely naive. Jesus Christ was far from naive, and would understand that a war to stop Adolf Hitler from dominating the world and spreading racial and religious hatred, a 'Cold War' to stop Soviet socialism from dominating the world and destroying individual freedoms, and a war to stop Islamofascism from dominating the world and destroying His message would need to be fought. Sometimes making the hard decision in life, and having to roll up your sleeves and fight, is the only way to defend freedom and even life itself. War to save lives? That is exactly right. The Church has always supported the idea of a 'Just' war, and so would Christ. He thus would not support us coming home, turning our back on world responsibilities, and allowing the systematic ethnic and religious cleansing, death, regional conflict, and destruction that would result from our leaving the Middle East. Finally, on the issue of health care for all, would Jesus support the government giving away a poor quality of health care at a burdensome cost to everyone in massive tax increases, or would he support continuing to allow the greatest medical and health care system in the history of the planet to remain the way it is? My belief is that he would keep the current system that allows freedom of choice, opportunities and incentives for research into further advances, advanced care like none other in the world, and that still finds a way to give basic care to the most indigent who walk through emergency room doors. He certainly would not support a socialized system such as the all-inclusive government health care of Canada, where citizens literally die while on a waiting list for operations, and where in desperation they cross the borders to partake of the current American health care system. Jesus certainly would be attracted to the idea that Obama is part African-American, and thus would take that social aspect into consideration. Of course, he would also be attracted to Sarah Palin's candidacy as Vice-President on the Republican side, and the fact that she very well could end up as the first female President. My guess is that Jesus would not in the end be swayed by race, sex, religion, ethnicity, or anything other than who would be better at guiding the nation under a Christian ideal. No matter what campaign rhetoric might say, both candidates would support aid to the truly poor and needy in our country. This election's 'Choice' has perhaps been clearer than any in history. You can choose to vote for Obama: raise taxes, spend ourselves further into debt, embolden terror regimes, kill more babies, trash our Constitution. Or you can choose to vote for McCain: controlled taxation, reduced spending, strong military defense, supportive of traditional American values, and perhaps most importantly an administration that will value human life. Many opinion polls, broadcast news shows, entertainers, and liberal print media are trying to sell the public that this election is already over. Republicans, conservatives, traditional Americans, just stay home because you can't win anyway. I say this election is going to shock the liberal elements with its closeness, and two nights from now they will be wondering what could have happened to those big leads that they were being sold. I also say that, if he were alive today and a U.S. citizen, the answer to the acronym 'WHJV' is that Jesus Christ would be voting for John McCain for President.