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JimR-OCDS
Guest
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating voting or not voting, just stating what I’m planning on doing, at the moment.
It’s a long way till November, many things can happen between now and then.
Jim
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It’s a long way till November, many things can happen between now and then.
Jim
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Do you really dispute that we have an obligation to oppose evil to the extent it is within our power to do so? Certainly, the Popes have said we have such an obligation. Various bishops have said it, including mine.
It is only because some have come to temporize with evil that we do not think we are bound in conscience to oppose it.
To make the thought, perhaps, easier. If one sees a person in the act of strangling a child, and if one has the physical ability to stop it, does any rational person think one has no moral obligation to use that force in order to save the child? Does any rational person think it is not immoral to refuse to do so?
Pope Benedict, in speaking of our civic duty to oppose, e.g., abortion and euthanasia, said:
“When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility. In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognize that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person. This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia…”
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simple_soul
Guest
I think I understand… that is why I said I would pray for you, please keep me in your prayers too.
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MarcoPolo
Guest
I’m not familiar with the teaching that a Catholic cannot vote for a 3rd party pro-life candidate and why that means that such a voter “refuses to oppose abortion” as you asserted a few posts ago. And in this case, Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party may be equal or superior to Romney in every way.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
There are no absolutes in an election, just as there lacks an absolute must vote for candidate according to the Church. What you suggest is tantamount to the Church instructing us to vote for a certain candidate.
If we cannot, in good conscience, vote for one of the two, we are at liberty to vote according to our faith formed consciences for the candidate of our choice.
Abortion has been ‘at stake’ for many years now. Republicans have placed more of the serving justices on the supreme court than the democrats. Nothing changed; however, we continue hearing ‘this president will seat more justices, you must vote for this candidate.’
To spin Church teachings into ‘one has to vote for a specific candidate’ is wrong. If it were correct to say that, one could easily produce the Church documents that says it specifically that way. That would be the Church endorsing a specific candidate, and that doesn’t happen. If it were that easy, I’m sure the Church would plainly say it so the simplest of us could understand it.
To suggest so is political attempts to sway people into voting a specific way.
The two party system has ruined us. Each side blames the other, and nothing gets done.
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PTL
Guest
The title of this thread does NOT apply to current situation. There is only one evil, not two.
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pnewton
Guest
What is meant is, there is not candidate that is in line with solid moral theology and has consistently voted that way. “Evil” is just a saying when what is meant is less than perfect. Even ten years ago Romney still supported a woman’s right to an abortion in Massachusettes. This does not mean he is evil, only less than perfect.
Also, he supports abortion in the case of rape and incest.
*“I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.”
*
July 26, 2005, Boston Globe,
2012.republican-candidates.org/Romney/Abortion.php
It is still moral to vote for Romney based on the fact that Obama believe in a much wider use of abortion (100X).
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
Both sides pander to ‘blocs’ of voters; making it very difficult to know what’s real and what they might feel is beneficial to their political aspirations. 
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rlg94086
Guest
You are exactly correct, Paul, and I would say it is not an obligation to do so. A Catholic can choose to abstain from voting or vote for a third party candidate, even if they know that their candidate doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning. Personally, I’m a realist, so I think it is dumb to take the abstain or third party option. I prefer to vote for the lesser of the two electable evils. That way, you are at least doing your best to minimize evil.
That said, we should do what we can to influence the major parties and/or create a third party to eventually replace one of the major parties (like the Republicans replaced the Whigs). I think the best way to do that is from the bottom up - congressmen first - rather than wasting a vote on a third party presidential candidate.
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pnewton
Guest
Now *that *is an interesting thought.
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MarcoPolo
Guest
I tend to agree with this. Although the Church endorsing a candidate would jeopardize tax exempt status, I don’t think the Church speaks to such specifics anyway. Voting for a certain candidate does not fall under the prism of faith or morals. The moral principles, yes, they teach. And I think we all understand the anti-Catholic oppression imposed by Obama. Question is, whether to vote for Romney (who I don’t trust) or at least platform-superior 3rd party candidates (IMHO), like Virgil Goode. Or heck, write-in Ron Paul. It’s not a “wasted” vote. The founding fathers would cringe at the thought! The country, and pro-life movement, needs a serious revolutionary in Washington, IMHO again (or an alien invasion
). A Romney victory may well destroy that hope for at least 8 more years. We understand Obama’s prevalence would also jeopardize the pro-life movement, unless the “mandate” part of the HHS loses in court, or if Congress shakes up some of his other takeover policies.To everyone, admittedly, it’s a bad situation for sure. An ugly, serpentine situation.
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ProVobis
Guest
Intuitively speaking, that might seem true. But if the position is such that incest and rape feti are inferior and thus unwanted in society, this position might actually encourage their abortions. Not to mention that anyone can scream rape. If there is a loophole, they will find a way. So in practice I’m not sure either candidate will slash the number of abortions performed in the U.S.
According to New Oxford Review, 50% of the population call themselves “pro-life” but only 20% want abortion made illegal. And IMO, even fewer politicians want to make it illegal.
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pnewton
Guest
I think you have a valid point. Others may see it differently though and the bishops have allowed leeway for that.
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tarboy
Guest
I’d think through the bar you have set
There isn’t a man/woman alive that hasn’t sinned, that hasn’t erred in their “moral theology” Requiring perfection is a straw-man argument often used to justify doing what you know is wrong.
I myself have flip-flopped on abortion rights through my life. What matters most is where we are now, not where we have been.
There isn’t a man/woman alive that hasn’t sinned, that hasn’t erred in their “moral theology” Requiring perfection is a straw-man argument often used to justify doing what you know is wrong.
I myself have flip-flopped on abortion rights through my life. What matters most is where we are now, not where we have been.
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pnewton
Guest
I set no bar at all. Nor did I advocate any political position.
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ProVobis
Guest
I would think where we will be matters even more, but none of us can see the future. I voted for Nixon as the lesser of two evils because I thought Humphrey was worse and look what happened. Appointment of enough justices to put Roe vs Wade into effect bypassing Congress, dropping of the gold standard, wage freezes, gas lines, and a few recessions to boot. Forget the bungled burglary. After Nixon, I haven’t voted for a major party candidate.
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pnewton
Guest
What should we used to best guess at what the future will be? Hmmm. Past voting record? Currect political speech? Now that is a lesser of two evils!
While I appreciate that people can change, I never base my guess of what someone believes on what they say while running for political office. :whacky:
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Tony_the_mad
Guest
In the US and probably in every democracy, all votes have been and always will be about voting for the lesser of two evils. The natural balance of the parties is ALWAYS such that the moral good is more or less split evenly between them. It is a basic mathematics and natural selection.
In every society there are moral goods that everyone accepts, that no one accepts, and that some fraction near 50/50 accepts. Disregarding the first two categories since they are politically uninteresting (all sides agree), that still leaves scores of issues that vary dramatically in importance with most near the middle.
Now let us assume for a minute that the morally correct decision is the most popular on average (if it is not then democracy is bound to fail). If that was the case then how would the people vote if one party was morally correct on all or most of the issues? Would they not vote overwhelmingly for the morally correct one and therefore effectively eliminate one of the parties?
Now this is when it gets interesting, for the morally inferior party will then for the sake of survival change sides on enough issues to bleed enough support to reach parity or better with the morally superior one. This will then cause the morally correct party to adapt some of the more popular of the morally incorrect issues to capture enough votes to survive. The end result is that what started off as morally unambiguous quickly ‘devolves’ to become morally ambiguous.
(If you skipped the previous 2 paragraphs for being too wordy please start again here, I will keep it simple from here on
) .
The end result, which I believe is confirmed by history, is that we end up with a party system where moral issues are continually changing between the parties and that generally favors both parties being roughly equally morally correct.
All of us are wrong about some fraction of the moral issues. It is to be hoped, though, that the vast majority of the people are significantly better than the roughly 50/50 split that the reality of politics forces upon the parties. This is why there has never been an easy choice in politics and why we will always have to vote for the lesser of two evils.
A multiple party situation can mitigate the problem some what. In a three party system each party will roughly have 2/3 of the morally ‘correct’ answers. (Where correct is in all cases above means what the majority feels is correct.) But even in multiple party systems they still need to form a majority to govern, which essentially leads to the same problem.
In every society there are moral goods that everyone accepts, that no one accepts, and that some fraction near 50/50 accepts. Disregarding the first two categories since they are politically uninteresting (all sides agree), that still leaves scores of issues that vary dramatically in importance with most near the middle.
Now let us assume for a minute that the morally correct decision is the most popular on average (if it is not then democracy is bound to fail). If that was the case then how would the people vote if one party was morally correct on all or most of the issues? Would they not vote overwhelmingly for the morally correct one and therefore effectively eliminate one of the parties?
Now this is when it gets interesting, for the morally inferior party will then for the sake of survival change sides on enough issues to bleed enough support to reach parity or better with the morally superior one. This will then cause the morally correct party to adapt some of the more popular of the morally incorrect issues to capture enough votes to survive. The end result is that what started off as morally unambiguous quickly ‘devolves’ to become morally ambiguous.
(If you skipped the previous 2 paragraphs for being too wordy please start again here, I will keep it simple from here on
) .The end result, which I believe is confirmed by history, is that we end up with a party system where moral issues are continually changing between the parties and that generally favors both parties being roughly equally morally correct.
All of us are wrong about some fraction of the moral issues. It is to be hoped, though, that the vast majority of the people are significantly better than the roughly 50/50 split that the reality of politics forces upon the parties. This is why there has never been an easy choice in politics and why we will always have to vote for the lesser of two evils.
A multiple party situation can mitigate the problem some what. In a three party system each party will roughly have 2/3 of the morally ‘correct’ answers. (Where correct is in all cases above means what the majority feels is correct.) But even in multiple party systems they still need to form a majority to govern, which essentially leads to the same problem.
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Tony_the_mad
Guest
It is unfortunate (or maybe fortunate depending on your point of view) that the number one determination about how a person will act is party affiliation. Nothing else matters. The presidency (in the US) has a little more freedom but not really that much.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
I wanted to say something to the tax exempt status of the Church and how I see it as a flawed argument as to why the Church doesn’t state a specific candidate one must vote for.I tend to agree with this. Although the Church endorsing a candidate would jeopardize tax exempt status, I don’t think the Church speaks to such specifics anyway. Voting for a certain candidate does not fall under the prism of faith or morals. The moral principles, yes, they teach. And I think we all understand the anti-Catholic oppression imposed by Obama. Question is, whether to vote for Romney (who I don’t trust) or at least platform-superior 3rd party candidates (IMHO), like Virgil Goode. Or heck, write-in Ron Paul. It’s not a “wasted” vote. The founding fathers would cringe at the thought! The country, and pro-life movement, needs a serious revolutionary in Washington, IMHO again (or an alien invasion
To everyone, admittedly, it’s a bad situation for sure. An ugly, serpentine situation.
Certainly if we are to override all issues for the most important issues, the Church would not be setting an example if it were concerned with the tax issue over those important issue. It would be hypocritical to say that economic issues, pertaining to a dignity of life for all, are not as important as the important issues.
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