Disqus - Latest Comments for Phil Hull

Re: Things I Would Wait in Line for

Phil Hull — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:53:00 -0000

I want the bluetooth blaster too. I have a bluetooth headset, but that never leaves my car. I don't understand why a woman in sweats walking around Walmart needs to talk hands free.

Re: Livi, from Amy…

Phil Hull — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:44:09 -0000

John and Amy,

I am saddened to hear the news of Livi's passing. I thank the Father for His infinite mercy that He is showing your family at this difficult time. I cannot fathom what you may be feeling, but know that you are as always in our prayers.

Re: Why I am choosing to vote for Obama

Phil Hull — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:09:37 -0000

John,

First of all, I must say that I would rather you would have discussed this with me privately first before posting this on your blog. My blog is only read by my close friends and family which is why I chose to write about it there, I didn't want to become a lightning rod for conservatives all over the country who have no idea who I am.

I am pro-life. I would love to support a candidate who was pro-life, and I mean really pro-life. I would love to support someone who doesn't stop at abortion and says that all life is precious including the lives of poor Iraquis that have died in an unjust war. I would love to support someone who sees hundreds of thousands of innocent Africans dying in Darfur and has the guts to call it genocide and act on our moral obligations to protect those people. I would love to support a candidate who not only deals with the lives of the unborn children but with the tens of millions of children living in abject poverty without health insurance. Life does not stop with those that have not been born yet.

I knew that I would take criticism from people over making this decision public. I could have kept things to myself and just walked into a voting booth like any other anonymous citizen. The reason I chose to make my decision known is that I am fed up with Christians who see only one or two issues as "moral issues" and vote based on abortion and gay marriage. My heart is broken by the very concept of abortion, and I truly wish it was not a reality in our world, but I am also pragmatic enough to know that it will always be the law in our country. No matter who takes the White House and no matter how conservatives pack the Supreme Court. I do not support gay marriage and I believe that homosexuality is wrong and is forbidden by the Bible. I also realize that homosexuality is a sin that will exist until Christ returns and no amount of laws preventing marriage or sharing of benefits will change it.

I am not only voting for Obama because I hope that he presents a brighter economic future for our country, create more jobs and end a war that we should have never waged. I hope that he has a broader view of what protecting life means and actually has the guts to do something about it instead of posturing.

I don't believe I am "coming into intentional agreement with death… with a strategy to methodically kill" by voting for Obama, but I'm not surprised that you would believe it. You have always been an absolutist as long as I've known you and I'm sure you were long before we met. Things are not always as clear as you may like them to be and decisions like this should not be made based on such a narrow set of criteria.

Next time, lets have this discussion over email or the phone instead of on the internet for all to see. You know where to reach me.

Re: Why I am choosing to vote for Obama

Phil Hull — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:11:21 -0000

Your response is a little surprising. You dismissed my arguments pretty quickly. The Iraq war has resulted in over 100,000 deaths by the most conservative of figures. This includes Iraqi and American casualties together. In Darfur, 400,000 people have died and over 2.5 million have been forced to leave their homes and the United States government has done nothing but talk tough and refuse to act. Are these lives not precious to the Father? Does God's heart not break when a poor African or Iraqi soul dies?
This is the hypocrisy of the "pro-life" position. I believe that ALL life is precious to God, including the ones that we try to ignore. ALL of us are created in the image of God and we are ALL his children. To dismiss their lives as a secondary concern is something that troubles me greatly.
Right now in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is quite literally tearing his country apart at the seams. He has destroyed what once was a prosperous economy and now the country is facing 80% unemployment and an inflation rate of 1.5 million percent. A loaf of bread in Zimbabwe now costs nearly two months salary, but no one can afford to buy bread because no one has a job to make any money. We are talking about millions of people who cannot afford a loaf of bread and thousands of whom will die very soon.
It's late and I don't really want to stay up all night looking up statistics about how many children die from starvation and disease in third world nations, but the numbers are staggering. 1 person in Africa dies every 13 seconds of AIDS. That's over 6600 every day and we are only talking about one disease in one area of the world. It breaks my heart just to think about it and I'm sure God's heart feels the pain far greater than mine does.
It rings very hollow to me to call for a return to morality and holiness while ignoring the least of these. I would hope that we can agree that protecting innocents, be they unborn children or starving children or children with AIDS, is what being pro-life should be about.

Re: Why I am choosing to vote for Obama

Phil Hull — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:29:12 -0000

As I stated on my blog, I'm trying to cut down on the political talk because I think it's doing more harm than good. But I do feel the need to respond to your issue because I think we are in agreement on things, we just prioritize them differently.

I can understand the view that we would seem hypocritical to try to solve what I see to be pro-life issues around the world when abortion is still so prevalent here at home. The flip side of that argument would be how can we spend so much time and energy on abortion when so many people are dying every day all over the world from genocide, war and disease? They are all colossal problems and all need to be addressed. What we are arguing over is the level of importance we place on each issue. My worry is that the focus is only on abortion while the others get shut out.

Re: Why I am choosing to vote for Obama

Phil Hull — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:36:23 -0000

I will stand before God a sinner condemned to death like everyone else who goes before the Father. It's for Him to judge, and I will accept it whatever He decides it to be.

Re: Why I am choosing to vote for Obama

Phil Hull — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:42:40 -0000

I'm not advocating a full-scale invasion of either the Sudan or Zimbabwe the way we invaded Iraq. But America stands by and let these innocent people die without even having the decency to call it genocide. Calling it genocide would mean that we would be obligated to step in and end it.

Genocide in Iraq against the Kurds was in 1988 and America did nothing about it. It was only after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened other (dare I say oil-rich) allies that we took any action.

I disagree with your assertion that we would have to go to war with either country to end the violence and atrocities going on there. Much of the violence in both Zimbabwe and Sudan is at the hands of mercenaries and poorly trained militia who would never be able to stand up to any sort of American force. The problem lies in doing nothing at all.

At least there would be reasonable justification in military action in these countries, as there was when we attacked Afghanistan.

There are no no perfect answers here and I am definitely not smart enough to fix all of the world's problems or even decide where to start. I'm fighting a losing battle in the comments here because regardless of what I say, it will not change anyone's views on what is going on in this election.

Re: My Top 11 (OK, 12) Films of 2007 (by Gareth Higgins)

Phil Hull — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:41:56 -0000

I agree that Once is the best movie of the past year. It comes out to DVD on Tuesday and everyone needs to see it.