Do we vote for the lesser of two evils?

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scipio337 said:
If you know that’s not what I’m saying, why ask?

Agreed, but in the context of the thread, war and abortion are two evils, but in this case, abortion is a much greater one.

No party has “go to war, kill innocents” as part of its platform, and war is largely a bi-partisan effort.
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I asked and then qualified the question to let you know how it comes across.

Because a war is bipartisan does not make it justified.

People continue to make this a ‘us against them’ argument. I have repeatedly said, the two party system is our problem; no matter who is in control, they will blame the other side for nothing being accomplished.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
I have several issues with Romney, and other politicians, who flips on an issue. That really makes me suspect of being pandered too. Was he sincere in supporting abortion then, or sincere about being pro-life now? Risky business; placing one’s trust in a man.
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Romney was never a supporter of abortion on demand, though he was certainly tolerant of it in a more limited way. I’ll grant that he has become significantly more prolife than he was in the distant past. But Reagan, Norma Corvey, Abby Johnson, Bernard Nathanson and many others have had a change of heart as well. weeklystandard.com/articles/mugged-ultrasound?page=1 Do you think they are (were) “pandering” as well?

There is no reason whatever to doubt Romney’s prolife views now.
 
eightandsand said:
Had the revolutionaries of 1776 been content with the “lesser of two evils” logic, there never would have been a Revolution.
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Except this is not a matter of logic. In the case of voting, it is also Church teaching.
 
gnjsdad said:
You make an excellent point!

The pro life movement is in the sorry shape that it’s in because it has allowed itself to be saddled with the rest of the morally problematic Republican agenda…hyper-aggressive foreign adventures and economic exploitaton.
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I agree, though I also have to say that the abandonment of the Democratic party has not helped. That is ground that should never have been conceded.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
It’s not all the difficult to know, however, it is difficult to go against one’s faith formed conscience when one is called to avoid the lesser of two evils. You should go by your conscience and accept that I will go by mine. We are neither more or less righteous than the other in our decision, as long as we use our faith formed conscience. At least we cannot declare the other less, or ourselves as more.
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This is a protestant view, not a Catholic one.

Nor have you explained why Romney is “the lesser of two evils” other than your subjective judgment that he, unlike many others who have become more prolife might be insincere. Since we know for sure that Obama is a promoter of abortion, human vivisection, homosexual “marriage” and forcing Church institutions to act against conscience, and since you do not know Romney is insincere, it is not a question of “lesser of two evils”. It is, at worst, “known evil and suspected evil”.

I do not expect anyone to like Romney particularly. But when it comes to throwing up one’s hands and refusing to oppose Obama, who is indisputably pro-abortion, I find it very difficult to understand.
 
gnjsdad said:
You make an excellent point!

The pro life movement is in the sorry shape that it’s in because it has allowed itself to be saddled with the rest of the morally problematic Republican agenda…hyper-aggressive foreign adventures and economic exploitaton.
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Would you put Saddam Hussein back in power if you could, then?

And what economic exploitation are you talking about? Be specific, please. No generalities.

Republicans can be faulted for a lot of things. Certainly overspending. Tolerating the corruption of Fannie and Freddie and the consequent rot in mortgage backed derivatives, yes.

But wasn’t it Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said “It’s okay to call a spade a spade, but you don’t have to call it a bloody shovel.”
 
Mickey said:
The other candidate (and most of his party) is staunchly pro-abortion.
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That’s what happens when your pro-life candidates, who generally don’t get pro-life organization support, get defeated. Witness all the “bluedog” Democrats who lost, even those who voted against Obamacare.
 
Ridgerunner said:
This is a protestant view, not a Catholic one.

Nor have you explained why Romney is “the lesser of two evils” other than your subjective judgment that he, unlike many others who have become more prolife might be insincere. Since we know for sure that Obama is a promoter of abortion, human vivisection, homosexual “marriage” and forcing Church institutions to act against conscience, and since you do not know Romney is insincere, it is not a question of “lesser of two evils”. It is, at worst, “known evil and suspected evil”.

I do not expect anyone to like Romney particularly. But when it comes to throwing up one’s hands and refusing to oppose Obama, who is indisputably pro-abortion, I find it very difficult to understand.
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Calling it a protestant view is ironic. I see a protestant type view when one espouses Church teaching that doesn’t exist without spin. Where is the Church teaching that specifically forbids one from voting for a third party candidate, who is pro-life?

The Church does not narrow itself down to supporting one single candidate.

I am not voting for either of the two major party candidates this election, and I’m comfortable with it.

Since the discussion is turning into what appears to be an attempt to inflame me, or other means that are not what I consider a part of an honest discussion, against what my faith formed conscience leads to me to do, I am out of this discussion.

Unsubscribed.
 
ProVobis said:
That’s what happens when your pro-life candidates, who generally don’t get pro-life organization support, get defeated. Witness all the “bluedog” Democrats who lost, even those who voted against Obamacare.
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Democrats long ago ousted those Dems and Dem hopefuls who were prolife. If one was a prolife person with political aspirations, how much confidence would you have in trying to work within a party that has abortion on demand and homosexual marriage in its platform?
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
Calling it a protestant view is ironic. I see a protestant type view when one espouses Church teaching that doesn’t exist without spin. Where is the Church teaching that specifically forbids one from voting for a third party candidate, who is pro-life?

The Church does not narrow itself down to supporting one single candidate.

I am not voting for either of the two major party candidates this election, and I’m comfortable with it.

Since the discussion is turning into what appears to be an attempt to inflame me, or other means that are not what I consider a part of an honest discussion, against what my faith formed conscience leads to me to do, I am out of this discussion.

Unsubscribed.
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Better to be out than to accuse one’s interlocutor of dishonesty. I agree with that.

But it’s just a fact that the Catholic Church does not teach the “primacy of conscience”.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Democrats long ago ousted those Dems and Dem hopefuls who were prolife. If one was a prolife person with political aspirations, how much confidence would you have in trying to work within a party that has abortion on demand and homosexual marriage in its platform?
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You may have a point there. Even Jimmy Carter can’t seem to get the Democrats to tone down on their pro-abortion platform. Something definitely needs to change here. Those who are stuck under such pro-abort politicians need to put pressure on them at least.
 
ProVobis said:
Isn’t this what Reagan did as a way to fight Iran and anti-Christians?
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Not the question here, but regardless, Reagan did not put Saddam Hussein in power. Saddam already ruled Iraq when Reagan took office. But neither do I claim Jimmy Carter put Saddam in power, even though he came to power during Carter’s administration. Saddam Hussein put himself in power and worked on it for a long time, gaining in power for quite some time.
 
ProVobis said:
You may have a point there. Even Jimmy Carter can’t seem to get the Democrats to tone down on their pro-abortion platform. Something definitely needs to change here. Those who are stuck under such pro-abort politicians need to put pressure on them at least.
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Interesting that you should say that. My wife was once a state party leader in the Democrat party. She actually gave a speech to party leaders in which she promoted encouraging prolife people in the party structure and those who aspired to public office, not rejecting them.

She was later told by party leaders never to do that again; that it was “divisive”.

It really isn’t possible anymore for a Democrat to be truly prolife. Your own party will work against you.
 
Ridgerunner said:
No he didn’t. He initially opposed that portion and vetoed it, but it was passed over his veto. When asked if it applied to Catholic institutions, he responded that it did.
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Wrong.

Here is what happened:

In July, 2005, Romney vetoed a proposed state law to make the Morning After Pill available to rape victims treated at Massachusetts hospitals, including private hospitals. Great, right. Immediately, pro-choice groups attacked Romney. Romney responded to them and justified his veto by insisting that during his gubernatorial campaign he promised not to change the state’s abortion laws, and this one did, and therefore he vetoed it. The Legislature then overrode Romney’s veto. The law, as passed over Romney’s veto, required all hospitals to dispense the pill to rape victims - no exceptions for Catholic hospitals. So it looked like at this point that the pro-abortion Legislature had won. The only problem for the pro-abortion Legislature, was that in December 2005, Romney’s public health commissioner determined that a preexisting statute saying private hospitals could not be forced to provide abortions or contraception gave Catholics and other privately run hospitals the right to opt-out of the new law on religious or moral grounds. That law gave Romney a major loophole to exploit, and many now believed that this ruling by Romney’s public health commisssioner would turn the tables back against the new law of the pro-choice Legislature. But what happened next would become a common theme with Romney: he Flip-Flopped under widespread criticism, including some from his own lieutenant governor, and days later Romney reversed course. Romney directed his Department of Public Health to scrap the old rules that exempted the Catholic institutions from the the new law, writing: “I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view.”

“My personal view, in my heart of hearts,” he said then, “is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information."

I think C.J. Doyle, the executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, summed up Romney best when he said, “the initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama Administration but from the Romney administration…President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.”
 
JimR-OCDS said:
I live in Massachusetts and this is not true.

Governor Romney was very much pro-life and supported the rights of the Catholic Church very strongly.

As governor, he was good.

Unfortunately, he chose Paul Ryan, which was political suicide.

Jim
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I beg to differ.

I find it very hard to believe that after spending most of his political career being “personally pro-choice” (and doing such a good job publicly defending “pro-choice”) that he suddenly became aware of the “science of life” only in 2004. That’s the type of ignorance that strikes me as either grossly incompetent (especially considering the office he is running for now) or politically motivated. And while he may genuinely not have been educated on the issue up until 2004, I find that hard to believe given his public statements on abortion up until 2004.

I find his “conversion” even harder to swallow given his public actions since 2004, one of the most glaring examples of which was the 2005 flip-flop on the question of whether or not Catholic Hospitals in Massachusetts should be forced to administer the Morning After Pill. Since you live in Massachusetts, you would remember this affair. It happened AFTER Romney’s conversion, it demonstrated his lack of courage and trustworthiness on the issue, and it prefigured the current problems we face with Obamacare. In case you forgot about Romney’s 2005 Morning After Flip-Flop, here is what happened, as I have written elsewhere on this forum:

In July, 2005, Romney vetoed a proposed state law to make the Morning After Pill available to rape victims treated at Massachusetts hospitals, including private hospitals. Great, right. Immediately, pro-choice groups attacked Romney. Romney responded to them and justified his veto by insisting that during his gubernatorial campaign he promised not to change the state’s abortion laws, and this one did, and therefore he vetoed it. The Legislature then overrode Romney’s veto. The law, as passed over Romney’s veto, required all hospitals to dispense the pill to rape victims - no exceptions for Catholic hospitals. So it looked like at this point that the pro-abortion Legislature had won. The only problem for the pro-abortion Legislature, was that in December 2005, Romney’s public health commissioner determined that a preexisting statute saying private hospitals could not be forced to provide abortions or contraception gave Catholics and other privately run hospitals the right to opt-out of the new law on religious or moral grounds. That law gave Romney a major loophole to exploit, and many now believed that this ruling by Romney’s public health commisssioner would turn the tables back against the new law of the pro-choice Legislature. But what happened next would become a common theme with Romney: he Flip-Flopped under widespread criticism, including some from his own lieutenant governor, and days later Romney reversed course. Romney ORDERED his Department of Public Health to scrap the old rules that exempted the Catholic institutions from the the new law, writing: “I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view.”

C.J. Doyle, the executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, summed up Romney best when he said, “the initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama Administration but from the Romney administration…President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.”
 
Ridgerunner said:
But it’s just a fact that the Catholic Church does not teach the “primacy of conscience”.
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The poster did not use that term. In fact, the poster you accused of a protestant idea was dead on with Catholic moral teaching:
old.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect1chpt1art6.shtml
A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.
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We should never let our politics become more important than treating others with Christian charity. If a Catholic reads Faithful Citizenship, he will reflected there Article 6 of the CCC (Moral Conscience) precisely because that is what a Catholic voter is expected to use for this and all prudential judgements.

Can we cut out the name calling?
 
Ridgerunner said:
It really isn’t possible anymore for a Democrat to be truly prolife. Your own party will work against you.
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I was reading somewhere that had Carter not supported Roe vs Wade as he did, we’d have a totally different Democratic Party structure today. Now it seems he’s trying to rectify it but the vicious and obnoxious position of some of the party members will no doubt prevent it. But I wouldn’t say all Democrats hold such extreme positions; in fact many of them have positions not unlike many of the “moderate” Republicans, ie. personally against abortion but okay in case of rape, incest, and mental state of the mother. (I believe all Presidential wives since Jackie Kennedy have held this position or close to it.)
 
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