AmericanPapist Comments
I don't think you can expect Obama to appoint a pro-lifer to anything. So, I'll take a half-radical pro-abortion appointee over a 100% radical. At least it's better than someone who supports every last word of FOCA... Not that the "it could be worse" argument is much consolation.
Also, a part of me always holds out hope that all these Catholic pro-choicers will eventually come to their senses and do the right thing. I have seen this happen to two Catholic pro-choice politicians whom I know personally (albeit, these two are at a much more local level). Additionally, my state just elected a new pro-life Catholic to the United States Senate who used to fund planned parenthood when he was the mayor of my city (although, in my opinion more work needs to be done on this guy). And, although not Catholic, the pro-life Attorney General of my state used to write pro-abortion newspaper editorials.
It's definitely not the realist in me, but I know things can change. I'll bet that many of these politicians have already discovered the right thing to do in their hearts, and they just need courage (along with our prayers and support) to put it into action.
I'd like to see any papal encyclical on social justice that doesn't start with not killing the innocent and defenseless as one of the foundations of social justice.
Despair and dissent is the new creed... an unshakeable faith embraced by Kmiec and others.
We are impeding progress; we're warning a bunch of lemmings as they are progressing toward an abyss.
No doubt between 1896 and 1954 there were those who said, "Plessy v. Ferguson is here to stay, so the only way to improve education for black children is to accept separate schools and work to improve them rather than trying to force the children into white schools."
A major component of the Obama plan to reduce abortion is to prevent pregnancy by greater spending on and distribution of artificial birth control. So the next time a Catholic tries to defend Obama by saying "he plans to reduce abortion"
ask him if he supports the use of birth control to accomplish it. If he is like 90% of Catholics he won't have a problem with it. Still how can we expect God to answer our prayers to end abortion when the great majority support these other intrinsically evil acts?
Isn't it funny how so-called pro-life liberals seem always willing to compromise their pro-life views in order to advance their liberal ones? Fast. All they need is a little nudge, and sometimes not even that. Just an observation. Not that I'm cynical or anything.
By the way, can we do away with the meme "crisis pregnancy"?
Wait, Joe Scheidler "has never spoken with a poor woman facing a crisis pregnancy"? I don't know the numbers, but I would venture to guess he has spoken with thousands of such women, and understands their situation far better than the abortion-rights crowd.
I've been a poor woman facing a crisis pregnancy, and I'm ferociously pro-life. Another left-wing cliche shot down. The abortion issue can be expressed in three questions, two of which science has settled on the pro-life side, the other of which is the very basis of all laws:
1. Are the unborn living human beings?
A: Yes. Life begins when an organism is conceived, and an organism is the species of its parents. An organism conceived by a woman and a man is a human child and is alive until it dies.
2. Is pregnancy the end of a woman's life?
A: No. Pregnancy is the beginning of biological motherhood. That can mean social motherhood as well or adoption or other arrangements for the child's care, but it almost always leaves the mother just as healthy and strong as before, and having a few children turns out to increase a woman's life expectancy. Any social setbacks a woman may go through in becoming a mother are results of an anti-child society, and most mothers do overcome them. A majority of women who do not want their children but who give live birth anyway report later that they are glad they had their children. Psychological harm from motherhood is rare and is a result of an attitude the mother has some control over in most cases. Physical injury from pregnancy is almost always temporary and very rarely disabling. Even disability does not destroy a person, anyway, but merely adds a challenge. It is not equivalent to death and cannot therefore be weighed against a death.
Most of the tiny number of actually life-threatening pregnancies are the fallout of previous abortions or of a severe lack of basic medical and nutritional care, and are preventable.
3. Is human life worth protecting?
A: Yes. To deny this is to reject conscience, social life, and the basis of political and legal thinking entirely.
It really upsets me to see so many high officials who are "Catholic" yet oppose Church teaching.
This is scandalous, I think formal excommunication is necessary for pro-choice politicians. This would tell Catholics that it is not okay to hold these views. Otherwise, some Catholics are going to think it's okay to be pro-abortion.
Obama is Santan's little helper.
Why all the hullabaloo over this?
OBAMA WAS BORN IN KENYA
and therefore is ineligible to take the oath to become president of the USA.
Even the ambassador of Kenya admits that Obama was born in Kenya, not the USA.
What is it with using the poor woman scenario. Do these creeps think that the poor don't love their children?
Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Forgive me for being so dense and unenlightened. I forgot that only people of a certain class, educational level, and economic strata should be reproducing themselves (That's if these elites bother with having more than the one "token" baby, at all!). And it ain't the "poor."
The poor are such an expense and they use up too many carbon credits. Hurts the environment, you know.
Less than 1/4 of all aborted babies are killed because of economic issues. I fear that the end result of Obama's policies will not be a reduction in abortions but, perhaps, an increase in sales of flat screen TV's.
As for the "partisanship" issue, Archbishop Chaput said it best at his recent talk in DC (paraphrasing): "I wish that pro life people registered in the Democratic Party and changed it to pro-life"
You guys do realize that if you refer to the president as a tyrant you could end up in serious trouble.
What type of trouble?
Isn't there a Numero Uno Amendment or something?
"Tyrant" has certain specific connotations which "dictator" doesn't have. Namely, "sic semper tyrannus", which is a quote that worries the Secret Service folks and spoils their usual attitude of childlike joyousness and play.
But I don't think it's regarded as a direct threat, so if you really want to use that strong of language, go ahead. Personally, I'd save it for later. You need to leave room in life for escalation of rhetoric.
Yes Maureen,
And if someone called for the president's assassination they could go to jail. No one may call a president a tyrant. That's against the constitution.
Roman Crusader,
Where in the Constitution does it say no one may call the president a tyrant? It seems to me Mr. Bush, our current president, has been called that and worse for at least seven years.
Use some logic Mairin. I haven't anything radical from Obama yet, cause he's not in office yet. So far, we could be seeing repeat of the Carter years.
Roman Crusader,
You didn't answer my question. Where in the Constitution does it say the president may not be called a tyrant?
Because our constitution condemns tryanny.
And farther more, to call the president a tryant is like saying "let's overthrow him". Becareful.
Legally, you can call the president a tyrant, or whatever you want to call him. Legally, you can even say in a book or a letter, "I think the government should be overthrown by force" but what you cannot do is say in front of a crowd, "Lets go overthrow the government, now."
Susan Peterson
Thank you Susan. That was my point. You can call the president a tyrant because of the first amendment Action to over throw the government is entirely another thing.
Thank you, American Papist, for analyzing so effectively Mr. Winters' argument. As a regular reader of the America blog (in order to see things from a "different" perspective), I have become more and more upset by Mr. Winters' recent entries. His comments have become extremely partisan and negative toward the hierarchy and those of us who, with good reason, disagree with his positions. When I have attempted to note this trend in the comboxes, my comments are not posted (unlike the many comments that support his position). I am glad that others are seeing what I am seeing and are exposing it all for the weak arguments that they truly are. Keep up the great work.
What the hell is Roman Crusader talking about?
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say you can't call the president, or anyone else for that matter, a "tyrant."
Please, stick to fighting the heresy of Americanism, and forget about the Constitution and what you can and can't say altogether, Crusader.
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