Hypocrisy and Right vs. Left Wing

[SpiritMeadow]

At it again?

First off, abortion was made legal because some clever lawyers played up a constitutional notion (implied right to privacy) that is specious at best, and the Supreme Court bought it. Public opinion did not and does not enter into evidence in a court of law.

Actually a right to privacy is part of a good many court cases that have nothing to do with abortion. It usually arises in 4th amendment cases. SCOTUS was well aware of the position of the public prior to Roe. Amicus briefs include an amazing amount of information, polls, scientific studies and even antidotal material.

Incidentally, the woman on whose behalf the Roe v. Wade suit was filed eventually became a pro-life activist and a Catholic.

Wiki is not the best source, and if true it is proof of exactly what in regards to this discussion?

Secondly, please demonstrate some evidence to back up your claim that “most people in this country” supported or still support the legalization of abortion.

You can’t just throw bald assertions around, SM. If you’re going to make a claim – particularly when it’s being used to shoot down someone else’s position – the onus is on you to provide some evidence.

Try polling results since Roe was passed. It is absurd to ask for proof of the obvious. No one is the least confused that the public favors retention of the right to chose. I am certainly not going to be sent on a time wasting mission simply to play games with clearly known evidence.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Very well stated. IIRC SpirtMeadow is a former attorney. I don’t know how a trained attorney could not realize that Roe v Wade was what made abortion legal and was not an act of the people…very strange.

I never said any such thing of course. To read it so literally suggests that you have little if any understanding of the legal system. I assume people have a basic high school understanding of SCOTUS, how bills become laws, and what public opinion means. The fact is that based on American public opinion, the status of abortion throughout the world, medical advances in our understanding of fetal development, legal precepts such as right to privacy believed inherent within the Constitution, the Court made the determination that the time was right to act on this issue. The did so. It is quite likely it would not have happened should any, some or all of the above not doved tailed in the same direction. It is unlikely that the Court would have taken such a step if it believed the electorate were heavily in disagreement. I assumed most here were sufficiently aware of basic American civcs that I did not have to spell out everything. thanks for setting me straight.

 

[BamaRider]

I never said any such thing of course. To read it so literally suggests that you have little if any understanding of the legal system. I assume people have a basic high school understanding of SCOTUS, how bills become laws, and what public opinion means. The fact is that based on American public opinion, the status of abortion throughout the world, medical advances in our understanding of fetal development, legal precepts such as right to privacy believed inherent within the Constitution, the Court made the determination that the time was right to act on this issue. The did so. It is quite likely it would not have happened should any, some or all of the above not doved tailed in the same direction. It is unlikely that the Court would have taken such a step if it believed the electorate were heavily in disagreement. I assumed most here were sufficiently aware of basic American civcs that I did not have to spell out everything. thanks for setting me straight

Do you think Roe v Wade was the correct ruling by the court?

 

[SoCalRC]

Excellent. I may not agree on the solutions you might want, but I sure do on the priorities. Great link.

I think that a case could be made that John Paul II was the most pro-life Pope in history. What I find amazing about his contributions in this area is that little that he presented was particularly new. Even his writings on the death penalty, which a great many Catholics still struggle with, have deep theological roots in our faith.

But his clarity is simply breath taking. When I ask an Evangelical Protestant about social justice issues, I’ll often hear responses to the effect ‘abortion is more important because it is better to be suffering in poverty than dead…’ From a Protestant point of view, with its rejection of our beliefs about things like baptism, this does not even make much sense. But, even from a Catholic point of view it is arguing evil as a zero sum game, justice for the unborn must come at other’s expense…

Compare this to the Pope’s argument in CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI. He approaches it from the other direction. These are inalianable rights of the human person. Given by God, affirmed by Scripture, and held as absolute by the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. This is, in effect, what we already hold most dear. And, the most fundemental of these rights is life…

The arguments may seem similiar, but they are not. One is, I think, hypocritical. It professes to pursue justice in the name of Christ, but starts with the assumption that it is impractical to apply the same principles universally. The other is cohesive and coherent. Abortion is not an issue in isolation, but one of many aspects of a fundemental belief in the right to life, at “any stage” and in “any condition”…

Again, this is not knew, consider this quote from Pope Stephen V in the 9th century:

“If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old.” - Pope Stephen V, Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

More than a thousand years have passed since that was written, but the topic is still relevant. Our inalianable rights of the human person do not end at birth. So it is hypocritical to only treasure life, without exception, when it has not yet even reached its most clearly identifiable form.

I do not mean to wholly deride efforts targetting secular law. I just think that reality should be considered. We have 5 Catholic judges, GOP appointed, on the Supreme Court, including the chief justice. The last time I checked, 5 is a majority out of 9.

More importantly, in the history of the US, I cannot find a single instance of prohibition, be it alcohol, cigs for minors, illegal drugs, or even abortion, being remotely close to 100% effective. If you want dramatically fewer abortions, you need dramatically fewer unwanted pregancies. If you want to achieve that without contraception, and all its societal ills, you have to fundementally change how people think and act. And, you have to lend a hand to those acting in despair and stress.

It seems pretty faith reaffirming to me that Evangelization and Service to those in Need are precisely what Christ called upon us to do.

 

[rlg94086]

I never said any such thing of course. To read it so literally suggests that you have little if any understanding of the legal system. I assume people have a basic high school understanding of SCOTUS, how bills become laws, and what public opinion means. The fact is that based on American public opinion, the status of abortion throughout the world, medical advances in our understanding of fetal development, legal precepts such as right to privacy believed inherent within the Constitution, the Court made the determination that the time was right to act on this issue. The did so. It is quite likely it would not have happened should any, some or all of the above not doved tailed in the same direction. It is unlikely that the Court would have taken such a step if it believed the electorate were heavily in disagreement. I assumed most here were sufficiently aware of basic American civcs that I did not have to spell out everything. thanks for setting me straight.

You are very welcome. Eventually, with enough practice, you will be able to make intelligible arguments the first time out.

 

[SoCalRC]

Do you think Roe v Wade was the correct ruling by the court?

Even Ginsburg, with whom I disagree a great deal, has described the ruling as flawed. Casey, which narrowed and more clearly defined the right (and is actually the basis for most legal constraints on abortion passed since) seems a lot more legally coherent.

Rather either ruling was “right” depends on what standard you are using. From a strictly Catholic point of view, both rulings are horribly wrong. But from a justice system in a constitutional democracy, it is not so clear.

Scroll back to the link I provided to the big collection on abortion polls. Huge collections of polls, some going back decades, and we can see that, when asked, somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 people in the US will state that abortion should be illegal in all cases. When polled more extensively, the number drops to around 2-3 per 100. This should not be surprising, many people here consider themselves staunchly pro-life, but when you ask about things like ectopic pregancy and uterine cancer, many folks will concede those as exceptions (usually, they argue that they are ‘not abortions’, but since we are talking about secular law we have to use the secular definition for abortion as well).

This means that, contrary to political sound bites, there are not really two simple positions on the issue. There is a long sliding scale of beliefs, even among self described Christians.

But the Church notes that democracy has its limits:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

“The Church recognizes that while democracy is the best expression of the direct participation of citizens in political choices, it succeeds only to the extent that it is based on a correct understanding of the human person.[17] Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle, for otherwise the witness of the Christian faith in the world, as well as the unity and interior coherence of the faithful, would be non-existent. The democratic structures on which the modern state is based would be quite fragile were its foundation not the centrality of the human person. It is respect for the person that makes democratic participation possible. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, the protection of «the rights of the person is, indeed, a necessary condition for citizens, individually and collectively, to play an active part in public life and administration».[18]”

The footnotes refer to the Second Vatican Councils Pastoral Constitution.

But even the Church’s position raises an interesting question. The Church basically says, fine, majority rule is a good way to reflect the will of the people, but a society is invalid if it does not protect the inalienable rights of each human person. As we’ve seen from my prior quotes, these rights are quite broad, certainly they are not limited to abortion alone.

And (here is where it gets interesting), the mechanism that has historically protected most those rights, albiet imperfectly, is the Constitution and our legal system. In a morally abstract way, the ruling matches the court’s constitional purpose. Opinion is widely divided among the nation and any arbitrary boundary set by the court would have meant that the will of a minority was being forced upon the majority.

Viewed that way, perhaps it isn’t the supreme court that needs fixing. After all, we’ve stacked it with 5 GOP appointed Catholics, and it hasn’t ‘tipped’ yet. It’s goal, protecting individual liberties, constitutional checks and balances, etc. is seemingly not readily giving us the answer we want. So, instead of trying to subject a minority view on the majority, perhaps what we need to be doing is changing the majority view.

Consider again the statistic from a few posts ago. 27% of abortions are procurred by Catholics. That means that we obtain abortions more, not less, than our representative share of the population (about 24%). When Catholics, even some self described pro-life Catholics here, are not in sync with Rome on abortion, what are the chances that we can force people who do not share our beliefs to comply?

I liken it to theocratic thinking. Yes, you can make a form of Christianity the state religion. You can even make a law requiring observance and enforce it with the might of the state. But you cannot force Christ into people’s hearts. Christ already showed us the proper way to spread the “Good News”.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One thing that is important to keep in mind is that, scientifically speaking, there is reason to believe that self described liberals and self descried conservatives actually think in very different ways.

From research at UCLA and UC Davis we know that, statistically speaking, self described conservatives have considerable more difficulty with correctly identifying objective reality (even something as fundemental as letters of the alphabet presented on a screen). The data also strongly suggests that self indentified conservatives are significantly more prone to “pattern conditioning”.

Research at UCLA and UC Davis. Now, there’s a source that convinces me! Puts me to mind of those old studies back in the early 20th century that “proved” Jews, Italians, Poles, blacks and others just didn’t have the intelligence that WASPs had. The studies told more about those doing the study than it did about those who were supposedly being studied.

Judging from his posts, SoCalRC is pretty far left and wants us to vote Democrat in the upcoming election, but has the abortion “hurdle” to get us past. Since so many of us have so little insight into “objective reality”, but don’t realize how stupid we really are, getting us to vote for abortionists is challenging. But possibly, if we are told about a study done by leftists that says we’re stupid, we will come to realize that we are, and that we should listen to our “betters” and vote for avowed abortionists.

Stupid as I am, I do enjoy it when leftism gives us a glimpse of what it really thinks about the rest of us.

 

[estesbob]

Judging from his posts, SoCalRC is pretty far left and wants us to vote Democrat in the upcoming election, but has the abortion “hurdle” to get us past. Since so many of us have so little insight into “objective reality”, but don’t realize how stupid we really are, getting us to vote for abortionists is challenging. But possibly, if we are told about a study done by leftists that says we’re stupid, we will come to realize that we are, and that we should listen to our “betters” and vote for avowed abortionists.

Stupid as I am, I do enjoy it when leftism gives us a glimpse of what it really thinks about the rest of us.

That preety much sums it up. The left always whines about how the poor and the young are mistreated but they just cant get past the fact they suopport slaughtering them in droves.

 

[BamaRider]

Estesbob made this observation-

That preety much sums it up. The left always whines about how the poor and the young are mistreated but they just cant get past the fact they suopport slaughtering them in droves.

And I’ll add-

Dang Estes, ya oughta know by now, nothing is consistent about a liberal.

 

[Dee_Dee_King]

we all know how hypocritical the left are. but the right are too. a good example is how the government bails out the investment banks when they make poor investments out of greed. this goes against the globalist mantra that government should not interfere with the economy. but then they have no problem taking government money if it fills their pockets.

the republican party is hardly conservative. they basically want not only big buisness, but big government as well who they can use to get rich at the expense of the middle class.

 

[estesbob]

we all know how hypocritical the left are. but the right are too. a good example is how the government bails out the investment banks when they make poor investments out of greed. this goes against the globalist mantra that government should not interfere with the economy. but then they have no problem taking government money if it fills their pockets.

the republican party is hardly conservative. they basically want not only big buisness, but big government as well who they can use to get rich at the expense of the middle class.

Do you have any idea what would have happened if Bear stearns and Lehman brothers had went down? The miiddle and lower classes would have been devastated . Even the Democrats knew this could not be allowed to happen.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have never understood the acceptance, by both parties, of the seemingly ever-increasing disintermediation of money from regulated and insured banks to unregulated, uninsured institutions. It started during the Carter administration with financial deregulation and federal preemption of usury laws, but has continued and increased since then, during all administrations and all congresses.

Now, the Fed and Treasury both advocate greater regulation of such institutions. Kind of like partially closing the barn door after at least some of the horses have escaped.

And, frankly, the Greenspan money flood at ridiculously low rates was bound to inflate real estate, since real estate “values” vary inversely to interest rates.

Nothing in all that for anybody to be proud of.

 

[estesbob]

I have never understood the acceptance, by both parties, of the seemingly ever-increasing disintermediation of money from regulated and insured banks to unregulated, uninsured institutions. It started during the Carter administration with financial deregulation and federal preemption of usury laws, but has continued and increased since then, during all administrations and all congresses.

Now, the Fed and Treasury both advocate greater regulation of such institutions. Kind of like partially closing the barn door after at least some of the horses have escaped.

And, frankly, the Greenspan money flood at ridiculously low rates was bound to inflate real estate, since real estate “values” vary inversely to interest rates.

Nothing in all that for anybody to be proud of.

Agreed-. The problem was that while banks continued to have strict regualtion investment banks did not. I ws in banking back when the S&L debacle occured. First they deregualted them allowing them to get into areas they had no expertise in and then they raised the Capital gains tax which had the effect of devaluing real esate. Then after it all fell apart congress balmed greedy investors

 

[vern_humphrey]

Agreed-. The problem was that while banks continued to have strict regualtion investment banks did not. I ws in banking back when the S&L debacle occured. First they deregualted them allowing them to get into areas they had no expertise in and then they raised the Capital gains tax which had the effect of devaluing real esate. Then after it all fell apart congress balmed greedy investors

And let me point out that some of these S&L bankers went to jail – Charles Keating and James MacDougal are cases in point.

“Deregulation” was blamed – but when people are breaking laws, there’s no logic in saying it was lack of regulation. It was lack of law enforcement.

 

[estesbob]

And let me point out that some of these S&L bankers went to jail – Charles Keating and James MacDougal are cases in point.

“Deregulation” was blamed – but when people are breaking laws, there’s no logic in saying it was lack of regulation. It was lack of law enforcement.

My testimony helped put some of those crooks in jail in Houston. But congress had their fringerprints all over this mess.

 

[vern_humphrey]

My testimony helped put some of those crooks in jail in Houston. But congress had their fringerprints all over this mess.

Oh, indeed they did.

It wasn’t lack of regulation that caused the mess, it was failure to enforce laws and regulations – and the reason was the crooks bribed congress to keep the law and regulators off their backs.

 

[SoCalRC]

Research at UCLA and UC Davis. Now, there’s a source that convinces me! …

Judging from his posts, SoCalRC is pretty far left and wants us to vote Democrat in the upcoming election, but has the abortion “hurdle” to get us past…

The research suggests that you are much more prone to trust perceptions over measurement or analysis. Low and behold, you rejected the research outright, based soley on your vague perceptions of the sources!

But, if you look at the research itself, it is pretty hard to rig. For example, in one of the UC experiments, participants simply looked at a computer screen, which displayed letters, then pressed the corresponding letter.

Of course, what makes this more interesting still is that we have research from supposedly ‘conservative’ sources as well. In fact, one of the earliest statistical indicators of the so called “reality gap” came from a graduate project where the student started with the hypothesis that fellow conservatives, like himself, would be better versed in facts surrounding current events.

Even the vague perceptions that you use to filter what you find credible are, themselves, seemingly not backed up by measurable reality. Condi Rice is a professor at Stanford here in CA, whose public policy school has conducted similiar research on conservative’s seeming distrust of measurable reality. And, of course, Mr. Yoo, whose recently disclosed memo has triggered a war crimes investigation, is a professor at UC Berkley, a school name that seems to trigger incontinence and convultions in many conservatives.

What I find especially interesting is your mental leap from my posts to voting Democratic. I have consistantly endorsed voting wholly and completely Catholic. As my user name suggests, I accept the Church’s role as set by God and, gasp, recommend following the Vatican’s recommendations on voting completely. Most of my quotes are from Vatican documents.

As I just noted in a post, I reject the premise that Christian justice is a zero sum game. I live in the highest density of Christians in the history of humanity. I see no reason to choose between uncompromisable moral obligations. For example, I won’t choose between abortion and torture/murder. Both are absolutes in my faith. In fact, they are aspects of the same moral principle!

Think about it, “any stage”, “any condition”. We believe that each of us is a unique creation by God, loved INFINITATELY. We cannot grasp that scale, so we are told to love others as we love ourselves - IE, as intensely as we are able.

In math, once you use infinite as a term, comparisions are meaningless. 1 * infinite is no smaller than 1,000,000 * infinite. And this is true in our beliefs as well. A fertilized zygote has only about a 50/50 chance of reaching birth. The mother carrying it may be a dutiful Catholic, baptized and confirmed, a vital member of our community. She could even be a widow and the sole supporter of other young children. Regardless, our belief is that, even if her pregnancy threatens her life, an abortion would be gravely immoral.

Again, 1 * infinite (1 being a fully formed human with a properly formed Christian concience) is not greater than .001 * infinite, or even .000000000000000000001 * infinite This is why we can say “any stage” and “any condition”, the differences we see between ourselves are made irrelevant by God’s infinite love for each of us.

I would be the first to acknowledge that my way of thinking is not easy. It is hard to put one’s trust wholly in God, particularly against seemingly insurmountable odds. Shortcuts seem much easier. But that does not change what our faith teaches us. Saving a mother’s life is a laudable goal, but it does not justify the grave moral disorder of an abortion. Similiarly, stopping abortions is a laudable goal, but it does not justify comprise on the inalienable rights of the Human Person, as laid out in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. Evil is never a path to God.

Since I am supposed to Evangelize, I say “stand wholly with God”. I am also supposed to have compassion, so I try to understand trusting in constructs geared towards earthly power instead of God, but I still think it is reasonable to suggest that if one collapses one’s faith to a single issue, the approach used to that issue should pass the reality test. That is, single party rule of every branch of government should yield measurable results.

By the way, the suggestion that collapsing issues is not a good idea or that compromising one moral principle for another is undesirable does not come from me, but from Rome:

“In this context “limiting the harm”], it must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good. Nor can a Catholic think of delegating his Christian responsibility to others; rather, the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives him this task, so that the truth about man and the world might be proclaimed and put into action.”

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

Perhaps that is why Mr. Hagee, whose endorsement has been sought by at least one GOP presidential candidate because of his stature in the ‘religious right’ community, claims that one of the reasons that God is angry at the US is that it tolerates Catholics. Rome, like UC Davis and UCLA, is apparently just another corrupt liberal tool…

 

[SoCalRC]

Do you have any idea what would have happened if Bear stearns and Lehman brothers had went down? The miiddle and lower classes would have been devastated . Even the Democrats knew this could not be allowed to happen.

So you don’t believe in the free market?

Face it, you can’t have it both ways. The situation with conventional banks is clear. We, collectively, insure their risk. They, in turn, agree to follow rules.

The current GOP message is that it is not the governments business to bail out, say, homeowners, even if they were utimately victimes. But, it is imperitive to put 100s of billions of dollars at the disposal of the unregulated entities that created the mess because of their sheer size. And, just as imperitive, the money must be utterly without strings.

The current Dem message is that homeowners are also need relief, principally for the common good. When you start having people walk away from homes in droves, you devalue the properties of their neighbors even farther. And, most dems believe that large government bailouts should have strings attached, just like banks.

With the exception of the president, who still seems to argue that their is no systemic problem at all, both sides largely agree on the financial conditions (no bailout, big ripples). The principle difference is ideology, namely, what/who does government and society exist to serve.

The Keating Five is actually an excellent example. It was career ending for the dems, since involvement was highly hypocritical when contrasted with their supposed political principles. But on the GOP side, it was not enought to stop even pursuit of the leadership of the party - today.

A similiar example is also recent. On the Dem side, a lobbyist in a prominent position in a presidential campaign created a situation to which the candidate had to respond. But on the GOP side, having the highest density of lobbiests involved in a campaign, even doing their lobby work from the campaign vehicles, is a non issue.

Again, it is an ideological difference. The first instance is hypocritical, since the candidate espouses the idea of society existing to serve the common good. The condition is potentially not hypocritical for a GOP candidate because the GOP openly contends that wealth and power deserve special treatment from society as a whole. That is, I deserve special status and treatment. This is, supposedly, in your benefit, because what I contribute will trickle down to you.

 

[BamaRider]

 

[estesbob]