While Wardlow portrays the ADF as a legal non-profit that defends attacks on First Amendment rights of citizens, particularly religious freedom, the organization itself describes its mission much more broadly. “It is not enough to just win cases; we must change the culture, and the strategy of Alliance Defending Freedom ensures lasting victory,” it states on its website.
Not pushing ‘any kind of policy view’
Wardlow said he doesn’t think the work he did at ADF would have anything to do with him seeking the attorney general’s office. “The attorney general shouldn’t be a political position and it shouldn’t be positioned as pushing forward any kind of policy view or any kind of advocacy,” he said.
[...] In a campaign piece aimed at supporters and volunteers, Wardlow asked them to rank the actions they want him to take if elected. One of those is “Defend President Trump’s agenda in court.” Others are to “prosecute illegal trafficking in fetal body parts” and “investigate and prosecute illegal voting.”
Wardlow said that campaign literature was aimed at “getting the base fired up… we were soliciting input.” He first said it was asking for suggestions and didn’t say he would do any of those things. But after being read the words on the card “Doug Wardlow will institute these duties when he is your MN Attorney General,” he said he wouldn’t, in fact, take all of those actions.
“I can tell you this, I’m not going to use — and I’ve said this consistently — I’m not going to be doing anything political with the attorney general’s office,” he said. “When we’re talking about President Trump’s agenda, I’m not going to be pushing any particular agenda.”
And, again, this video, at one minute into it. One might call that inconsistent, perhaps fully contradictory of "I'm not going to be pushing any particular agenda."
Wise words that perhaps might be called new to Wardlow. Words some might say he should take to heart and heed:
Plato understood that some men are more fit to judge and to lead than are others. Some, in their integrity, their commitment to the virtues, and their philosophic nature (i.e., their access to the true form of the Good), will make more just judgments in the role of judge, and will better guide the polis in the role of politician. Although this may sound slightly elitist, America, in its shared democratic values, agrees with Plato -- we have selected the vehicle of elections as the best way to choose those who are more fit to govern and entrust them with positions of power. Elected officials are not just conduits for the views of the people -- they are also filters, chosen because of their integrity and conscientiousness to apply those qualities to their own judgments.
Edmund Burke, in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol discusses the nature of representation. The representative’s
unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you [constituents], to any man, or any man living...They are a trust from Providence. ... [G]overnment and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion...?
Burke echoes Plato, that it is the natural conscience of a man that ought guide him in governance, for he has been selected by his fellow citizens because his conscience is particularly 'enlightened.' To ignore that God-given conscience for political considerations or in deference to a realization that others may not agree with you is a violation of the trust of the people governed and the trust of our Creator. When a political leader rejects his conscience and instead applies political judgments alone, he moves from true political leader to demagogue.
How might those opening Wardlow related observations be incongruent with such high-faluting stuff, and what is the very worse we can make of any such incongruence?
Perhaps the answer is in the nature of the opening quoted imaterial, the video of an agenda, in light of the authorship of The
Yeah, why not in truth call it "The Rooster" with the on-script crowing call, even when it really don't fit. UPDATE: Best juxtaposition of the crowing refrain, and the actuality, realdougwardlow.com at its current homepage, as of 2:30 pm, Saturday, Oct. 27.
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| Lil' Red Rooster. |
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