Paul Ryan!!

[PJD1987]

Because to reduce Catholic social teaching to homosexuality, contraception, and abortion is to miss the boat entirely!

In saying this I mean it with the utmost reverence. Modern Catholic social teaching is in many ways looking back onto the pre-industrial era, when most of the population was agrarian, when we didn’t have industrial production that ran the risk of alienating workers and increasing social inequity, nor the industrial production of condoms, birth control pills, televisions, automobiles, and all of the other changes that our society has undergone.

Fundamentally, Catholic social teaching is an extension of the concept that a person has irreducible dignity, which itself is not reducible to a formulaic prioritization of reproductive and sexual issues. To me, Ryan’s “social policy” which is bound up in his economic policy is anti-poor, motivated by a belief in a “better class” of men who, freed of their government-imposed shackles, will lead us all into a utopian paradise (reflected in his Objectivist reading list). That, to me, is just plainly and simply not what Christ told us about building the Kingdom of God, nor is it what the Apostles were doing in Acts, nor what Paul tells us about mutual charity in the Lordship of Christ, nor what 1 John tells us about the person who hates his neighbor, nor what James 2 tells us about faith without works.

That he’s Catholic and pro-life is all well and good, but I believe that his advocated policies will facilitate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, and to me, that’s not pro-life!

No one is reducing Catholic Social Teaching to those issues, although equally important. That is a misunderstanding of the Catholic Social Teaching on subsidiarity and solidarity, which is well defined and supported by the Teaching of the Holy Father’s and which Mr. Ryan framed his budget plan around. The “Objectivist reading list” you refer to is an overblown, overhyped, and distortion of the true motivations of Mr. Ryan’s beliefs, which are firmly rooted in his Catholic Faith.

Cardinal Dolan and many other Bishops have endorsed his plan, and if not endorsed it, deferred to his opinion on the matters that are his expertise. They have also admonished themselves on their own neglect of the subsidiarity and solidarity aspects of Catholic Social Teaching.

In fact, caring for the poor is what cannot be reduced to simply handing out money to programs with no strings attached that have little effect and in fact can be detrimental to the actual elevating of the poor’s dignity by perpetuating an impoverished lifestyle that rewards lack of incentive and implies that poor people must be perpetually dependent upon the state, rather than the true American Dream of everyone rising up from their bootstraps.

Simply judging someones care for the poor by their support or non-support of government handouts and programs, in fact, is entirely missing the point. Mr. Ryan doesn’t not care for the poor, he cares for the poor very deeply and wants to shift the focus of charity from a government responsibility to an individual and local responsibility. Jesus and the Apostles told us individually to care for the poor and help the needy, but did not leave a mandate for governments to take on the responsibility of individual Christians. This is a fallacy, and therein lies the larger problem with criticizing the Ryan-Wyden Plan. It reduces Christ’s commandments to love the poor to a bureaucratic government agency and everyone’s love and care for the poor is measured by how much they support such a government agency, when the truth is, they do not actually help the problem, but cost enormous amounts of money.

This is a faulty understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, that ends up being morally irresponsible because it encourages wasteful spending that does not actually effect any significant change.

The poor will always be with us. And it is our duty to help them.

Mr. Ryan understands that, the Catholic Church understands that, Mr. Ryan is exploring a BETTER and more cost effective way to get that done, and thus it is an unfair characterization of the man, or his budget, or the Catholic Church to say that he does not care about the poor.

God bless.

-Paul

 

[fnr]

Here’s the issue, it’s not a matter of NO regulations regarding the environment, but that many of these departments and government based regulatory agencies have gone far beyond reasonable. When huge constructions projects are stopped because of one dead desert mouse (this is NOT a joke) or when a public bridge is stopped because someone monitoring the stream saw a fish swim by or when someone is prevented from building on their own property because some environmental nut decided the TEMPORARY puddle in his backyard was a “wetlands” (true case and it went to the SUPREME COURT) then your cause loses credibility.

But what if all the animals are dying off at once??? There may be no more sharks in the oceans in 20 years. Or commercial fisheries. Or bluebirds. The data speak for themselves.


And please, don’t just take my word for it, search scholar.google.com on search terms you find there.

It’s so easy to propagandize the headaches to development projects that are often driven by parochial, not public, interests, and downplay the significance of one species at a time. But biodiversity is dropping like a rock, and I sincerely believe that it is a major threat to human welfare. Honeybee and bat populations are falling, and that may mean higher food prices and more mosquitos (with the attendant illnesses for people and animals).

You want to be taken seriously, then come up with reasonable, rational ideas that actually solve problems.

So then you advocate a carbon tax?

I don’t know how old you are but I lived through the birth of the environmental movement. I think many great things have resulted. But it’s gone WAY off the reservation at this point.

I was born after the first Earth Day. To me, we’ve got a whole lotta problems at hand.

Global warming…meh…I remember the Time cover with “The Coming Ice Age.” You can only scare people with baloney for so long and then they tuned out.

2011-11-28 Vatican Radio
On Sunday Pope Benedict expressed the hope that “all members of the international community might reach agreement on a responsible, credible response,” to the phenomenon of climate change, which he described as “complex” and “disturbing”. In remarks, which followed the Angelus, the Holy Father also asked that leaders’ response be consonant with the spirit and requirements of solidarity, taking into account the needs of the poorest people and future generations.

I tuned out long ago. But I still recycle, compost, turn off lights and only drive when necessary. It doesn’t take a federal department to promote common sense suggestions.

Inaugural mass, 2005:
*
“The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.”* -Pope Benedict XVI

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

jsmith3549646700:

HOWEVER, if you compare the two sides on major Catholic social issues in this election including Abortion, Contraceptives-Morning after pill, the definition of marriage and the right to our Church’s religious freedom, there is NO comparison. The Republican nominees support the traditional Catholic teachings on all subjects.

Romney supports the Catholic Church’s teachings on all subjects? On contraceptives? The traditional Catholic teaching on contraceptives? Really?? I thought that ABC wasn’t part of Catholic teaching.

 

[SusansChoice]

Until recently I had no idea how many Catholics were in government.

The Vice President is Catholic, Nancy Pelosi is Catholic, a lot of the governors are Catholic, 6 of the Supreme Court Justices are Catholic.

Wow.

Unfortunately, many of them do not practice their faith

 

[LisaA]

But what if all the animals are dying off at once??? There may be no more sharks in the oceans in 20 years. Or commercial fisheries. Or bluebirds. The data speak for themselves.
http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/extinctions.gif

And please, don’t just take my word for it, search scholar.google.com on search terms you find there.

It’s so easy to propagandize the headaches to development projects that are often driven by parochial, not public, interests, and downplay the significance of one species at a time. But biodiversity is dropping like a rock, and I sincerely believe that it is a major threat to human welfare. Honeybee and bat populations are falling, and that may mean higher food prices and more mosquitos (with the attendant illnesses for people and animals).

So then you advocate a carbon tax?

I was born after the first Earth Day. To me, we’ve got a whole lotta problems at hand.

2011-11-28 Vatican Radio
On Sunday Pope Benedict expressed the hope that “all members of the international community might reach agreement on a responsible, credible response,” to the phenomenon of climate change, which he described as “complex” and “disturbing”. In remarks, which followed the Angelus, the Holy Father also asked that leaders’ response be consonant with the spirit and requirements of solidarity, taking into account the needs of the poorest people and future generations.

Inaugural mass, 2005:
*
“The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.”* -Pope Benedict XVI

Look at your language: What if…there may…this may mean…google this and pull out one chart that comports with your thinking. Speculation fnr, speculation. So far much the previous speculation has been proved wrong.

Again I have absolutely no disagreement with the Holy Father’s words. But does he say we need squiggly lightbulbs? Reduce the size of our toilet tanks? (Trust me they used to be a whole lot bigger!). Should we put in a transfer tax to give Al Gore a few more private jets to fly around on? Does someone need to stop building a house because a bureaucrat saw a puddle in his backyard? How about the EPA official who talked about threatening people with crucifixion? Gee that was just a riot!

Again no reason to rape and pillage but the government inspecting what’s in our trash cans or telling us what temperature we can keep our homes is getting stuck in the weeds.

And back to the thread which you seem to have forgotten, Ryan/Romney are a sharp contrast to Obama who ignored a court order to restart drilling and who has blocked the Keystone Pipeline. So tell me how your side’s plans benefit America and Americans because I’m just not down with $8 gallon gas or those blankety blank lightbulbs that take five minutes to light a room and require a Hazmat team when they break.

Lisa

 

[fnr]

No one is reducing Catholic Social Teaching to those issues, although equally important. That is a misunderstanding of the Catholic Social Teaching on subsidiarity and solidarity, which is well defined and supported by the Teaching of the Holy Father’s and which Mr. Ryan framed his budget plan around.

Subsidiarity means that you use the smallest possible solution to fix a social problem. It doesn’t mean doing less than is needed to fix the problem. That’s not to say that big bureaucracies are the solution, but that the problems are big, and can’t be minimized.

The “Objectivist reading list” you refer to is an overblown, overhyped, and distortion of the true motivations of Mr. Ryan’s beliefs, which are firmly rooted in his Catholic Faith.

*“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” *(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel - April 25, 2009)

In fact, caring for the poor is what cannot be reduced to simply handing out money to programs with no strings attached that have little effect and in fact can be detrimental to the actual elevating of the poor’s dignity by perpetuating an impoverished lifestyle that rewards lack of incentive and implies that poor people must be perpetually dependent upon the state, rather than the true American Dream of everyone rising up from their bootstraps.

Agreed. However, the American Dream doesn’t seem to working at present for many of the poor, for whom past criminality, single parenthood, the elimination of unskilled manufacturing jobs, or lack of access to transportation has meant that unemployment is a long-term thing. I would say that as Catholics, we do far too little on our own!

Simply judging someones care for the poor by their support or non-support of government handouts and programs, in fact, is entirely missing the point.

I’m not. It’s in the numbers. His proposal to convert Medicaid to state block grants will result in poor people and the elderly in nursing homes will be unable to keep up with projected medical inflation. That means some of them will be turned away from medical care.

To quote the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (3/27/2012):
“The Medicaid block-grant proposal in the Ryan budget that the House of Representatives will vote on this week would cut federal Medicaid funding by 34 percent by 2022 (on top of repealing the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion) because the funding would no longer keep pace with health care costs or with expected Medicaid enrollment growth as the population ages and employer-based health insurance continues to erode.”

I’m all for charity, but how many doctors and nurses are going to need to volunteer their days off to go work in inner-city hospitals, suburban nursing homes, and urgent care clinics to maintain the same level of support? Who’s organizing the effort?

Mr. Ryan doesn’t not care for the poor, he cares for the poor very deeply and wants to shift the focus of charity from a government responsibility to an individual and local responsibility. Jesus and the Apostles told us individually to care for the poor and help the needy, but did not leave a mandate for governments to take on the responsibility of individual Christians. This is a fallacy, and therein lies the larger problem with criticizing the Ryan-Wyden Plan. It reduces Christ’s commandments to love the poor to a bureaucratic government agency and everyone’s love and care for the poor is measured by how much they support such a government agency, when the truth is, they do not actually help the problem, but cost enormous amounts of money.

I’m just skeptical that volunteering, which is what we need about 1000x more of from each and every Catholic, is going to step into the gap of government-sponsored health insurance. Ryan-Wyden is about Medicare, I’m discussing Medicaid, and Ryan’s proposal to transfer them to block grants. A lot of Medicaid goes to seniors in elder care facilities, so it’s about them too.

And no, not everyone in favor of maintaining Medicare thinks that “loving the poor” consists of a government bureaucracy. I actually find it odious to even suggest that. But for all the talk of bootstraps, the health care situation is a monstrous problem and instead of talking tough with doctors about Fee-for-service, Ryan seems to have taken the course of getting the savings out of poor. I’ll grant that in Washington, it’s much easier to take money from the poor than from doctors, but still, it’s a little pitiful to me!

This is a faulty understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, that ends up being morally irresponsible because it encourages wasteful spending that does not actually effect any significant change.

I’m not talking about ineffective programs. I’m talking about one that’s got good studies to back its efficacy. Medicaid is a program that effectively improves the health care of poor people, according to the one study I’ve seen that actually is properly designed to answer the question.

Mr. Ryan understands that, the Catholic Church understands that, Mr. Ryan is exploring a BETTER and more cost effective way to get that done, and thus it is an unfair characterization of the man, or his budget, or the Catholic Church to say that he does not care about the poor.

I don’t think I said he doesn’t care about the poor. Sorry if I did. I said his policies are anti-poor. Particularly his Medicaid block grant proposal.

Bless you too!
-Chad

 

[CMatt25]

the Ryan-Wyden Plan

I’ve noticed a number of posters attempting to tie Democratic Senator Ron
Wyden to Paul Ryan. But here is what Wyden actually says:

"Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget. Governor Romney needs to learn you don’t protect seniors by makings things up, and his comments today sure won’t help promote real bipartisanship.”

Wyden has repeatedly said that the Medicare plan that Ryan pushed through the Republican-led House is different from the “policy paper” that he produced with Ryan.

oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2012/08/sen_wyden_says_romney_is.html

 

[meltzerboy]

Others have posted the fact that the USCCB is not a teaching authority. It’s not part of it’s mission. Therefore, these letters don’t have the weight that many Catholics think they have. That is the very reason some bishops have criticized these letters from the USCCB.

However, Robert, your post #446 regarding the Catholic meaning of pro-life is based on the statement of the USCCB, which sounds pretty authoritative.

 

[fnr]

Look at your language: What if…there may…this may mean…google this and pull out one chart that comports with your thinking. Speculation fnr, speculation. So far much the previous speculation has been proved wrong.

Actually, if you don’t believe the first chart, here are a bunch of studies that should be free online. If you don’t believe me, search on scholar.google.com for “extinction biodiversity”:
pnas.org/content/105/suppl.1/11490.full.pdf+html
sci.odu.edu/biology/directory/Butchart%20et%20al%20Global%20biodiversity%20declines%20Science.pdf
ipicyt.edu.mx/storage-sipicyt/materialposgrado/Pereira%20et%20al_2010_Scenarios%20for%20Global%20Biodiversity%20in%20the%2021th%20Century.pdf

Again I have absolutely no disagreement with the Holy Father’s words. But does he say we need squiggly lightbulbs? Reduce the size of our toilet tanks? (Trust me they used to be a whole lot bigger!).

So what should we do?

And back to the thread which you seem to have forgotten, Ryan/Romney are a sharp contrast to Obama who ignored a court order to restart drilling and who has blocked the Keystone Pipeline. So tell me how your side’s plans benefit America and Americans because I’m just not down with $8 gallon gas or those blankety blank lightbulbs that take five minutes to light a room and require a Hazmat team when they break.

More to come… but “my side” is humanity.

Besos,
-Chad

Lisa

 

[PJD1987]

Subsidiarity means that you use the smallest possible solution to fix a social problem. It doesn’t mean doing less than is needed to fix the problem. That’s not to say that big bureaucracies are the solution, but that the problems are big, and can’t be minimized.

*“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” *(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel - April 25, 2009)

Agreed. However, the American Dream doesn’t seem to working at present for many of the poor, for whom past criminality, single parenthood, the elimination of unskilled manufacturing jobs, or lack of access to transportation has meant that unemployment is a long-term thing. I would say that as Catholics, we do far too little on our own!

I’m not. It’s in the numbers. His proposal to convert Medicaid to state block grants will result in poor people and the elderly in nursing homes will be unable to keep up with projected medical inflation. That means some of them will be turned away from medical care.

To quote the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (3/27/2012):
“The Medicaid block-grant proposal in the Ryan budget that the House of Representatives will vote on this week would cut federal Medicaid funding by 34 percent by 2022 (on top of repealing the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion) because the funding would no longer keep pace with health care costs or with expected Medicaid enrollment growth as the population ages and employer-based health insurance continues to erode.”

I’m all for charity, but how many doctors and nurses are going to need to volunteer their days off to go work in inner-city hospitals, suburban nursing homes, and urgent care clinics to maintain the same level of support? Who’s organizing the effort?

I’m just skeptical that volunteering, which is what we need about 1000x more of from each and every Catholic, is going to step into the gap of government-sponsored health insurance. Ryan-Wyden is about Medicare, I’m discussing Medicaid, and Ryan’s proposal to transfer them to block grants. A lot of Medicaid goes to seniors in elder care facilities, so it’s about them too.

And no, not everyone in favor of maintaining Medicare thinks that “loving the poor” consists of a government bureaucracy. I actually find it odious to even suggest that. But for all the talk of bootstraps, the health care situation is a monstrous problem and instead of talking tough with doctors about Fee-for-service, Ryan seems to have taken the course of getting the savings out of poor. I’ll grant that in Washington, it’s much easier to take money from the poor than from doctors, but still, it’s a little pitiful to me!

I’m not talking about ineffective programs. I’m talking about one that’s got good studies to back its efficacy. Medicaid is a program that effectively improves the health care of poor people, according to the one study I’ve seen that actually is properly designed to answer the question.

I don’t think I said he doesn’t care about the poor. Sorry if I did. I said his policies are anti-poor. Particularly his Medicaid block grant proposal.

Bless you too!
-Chad

1. I do not think Ryan’s plan “does less than needed to fix the problem”, and I will take Cardinal Dolan’s opinion as to whether it conforms to Catholic subsidiarity/solidarity over yours, no offense meant to you, I hope you’ll understand my reasoning behind that. I suppose if you disagree with it, well you’ll just always disagree with it. But I think it’s very clear the plan is modeled after Catholic Social Teaching, but we can agree to disagree on that.
2. As far as the Ayn Rand stuff goes, please read this article: catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=29490. The Ayn Rand stuff is totally overblown, the quote you provided is also at an Ayn Rand event, so of course he’s going to talk up the Ayn Rand connection for the audience that he’s speaking to.
3. Yes I agree we individuals do far too little on our own. The Catholic Church, however, as I am sure you are aware is the world largest charitable organization, bar none. And the government does way too much ineffectively and is the cause to some of the issues you mentioned that are making poverty a long term thing. Obviously the current administration, and administrations past, for the past 50 years or so have not been effective, and thus something in the philosophy is fundamentally wrong, thus…a change is needed.
4. The Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security system is broken! It is going broke. The status quo is not sustainable, a change is needed, and that is a fact. Ryan-Wyden is a framework of ideas that addresses these issues, but to think it will pass as is is not accurate. Obviously there will be a give and take on the part of Republicans/Democrats, and the issues that are rightly brought up with the plan will be worked out. The man is making a good faith effort to solve the crisis we’re in, in an environment where absolutely no one else is coming up with anything remotely feasible and is more content with just kicking the can down the road and ignoring the problem. So, the plan is not perfect, I’ll concede that, I wasn’t making the point that it was. But its a stepping stone, and provides an altered philosophy about the role of government and a framework which rightly places government in its proper place rather than the current philosophy that replaces God with government creating a dependent nanny state of perpetual poverty and lack of initiative.
5. You speak as if Medicare/Medicaid will be eliminated completely by Mr. Ryan’s plan, but that is simply not the case. I don’t know what else to say about that. Medicare/Medicaid WILL be eliminated if we do nothing, Mr. Ryan’s plan is a good faith effort to save these efficient programs and rework them for the 21st century.
6. Saying the man’s policies are anti-poor is simply a different way of implying the man does not care about the poor. I don’t believe his plans are anti-poor at all, in fact he’s the only one trying to save our safety net whereas everyone else is content with letting our country fall into financial ruin, taking Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security with it. Again, plan is not perfect, but broadly speaking it falls within the concept of subsidiarity/solidarity of Catholic Social Teaching, was ok’d by several bishops and Cardinal Dolan himself, provides a framework for the proper place of government in this country, was endorsed by former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskin Bowles, was co-sponsored by a liberal Democrat, and is literally the only plan that feasibly tries to tackle the fundamental problem of our era.

I think these are all commendable things, but instead people are focusing on tearing it down as an atheistic social darwinism, which is patently false and is a scare tactic of a Left-wing liberal agenda that is content to just ignore these very real problems in favor of the status quo while our safety net and society crumble from beneath our feet.

I for one, refuse to fall victim to the liberal fear-mongering, and fall back on my respect of the Bishop’s and our pre-eminent Cardinal, and my general observation that Mr. Ryan is not a right-wing fanatic but rather a faithful Catholic doing his lousy best to tackle some serious issues. Give the man a break!

While we can rightly and legitimately debate actual policy proposals, I think the overall thing to take away is that the Ryan-Wyden plan will NOT pass as is, and its false to believe it will. More importantly however, it fundamentally changes the frame of reference and discussion from government as deity to God as deity, and puts things back in their proper perspective from which to actually deal with the problem at hand. The Ryan-Wyden plan represents a paradigm shift that is so desperately needed right now in this country, and in the world.

I would hope everyone else would see that as well and not cast aspersions and label the man as an anti-poor right-wing nut, it’s a myth!

Romney/Ryan 2012 is our only hope!

God bless.

-Paul

 

[PJD1987]

I’ve noticed a number of posters attempting to tie Democratic Senator Ron
Wyden to Paul Ryan. But here is what Wyden actually says:

"Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget. Governor Romney needs to learn you don’t protect seniors by makings things up, and his comments today sure won’t help promote real bipartisanship.”

Wyden has repeatedly said that the Medicare plan that Ryan pushed through the Republican-led House is different from the “policy paper” that he produced with Ryan.

oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2012/08/sen_wyden_says_romney_is.html

Of course Mr. Wyden is going to distance himself from the Ryan-Wyden plan in the middle of an election year. He’s got his marching orders from Nancy, Harry, and Barry. I already explained how this works earlier today. It’s poltics, CMatt, and dirty, corrupt, Chicago-style politics at that. I think you understand how the game works even without me having to explain it.

God bless.

-Paul

 

[PJD1987]

Bless you too!
-Chad

Chad,

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t state that one should not get make the mistake of getting too caught up in this Ryan-Wyden Budget proposal and forget the fundamentally more important issue at stake here which is the right to life issue that arises from the fact that we have the most anti-life, pro-abortion, anti-Catholic/religion president/candidate in living memory on the ballot in Barack Obama. The Ryan-Wyden issues are things we can all agree to disagree/debate/compromise on, but the most important issue at hand as Catholic voters is voting for the pro-life ticket and replacing Barack Obama as president. Everything else pales in comparison, and I trust that is not lost on you.

Once that is accomplished, then we can all have a substantive debate on the merits and parts of the Ryan/Wyden plan that may or may not come up as part of Romney’s overall budget plan which is the one Mr. Romney said he would push as President, not Mr. Ryan’s. However, all that can be tackled and discussed once we actually have a pro-life administration in the White House that is not persecuting the Church to boot.

God bless.

-Paul

 

[ringil]

“Moderate” Republicans and Tea Parties are also generally happy with the pick.

We now have an even starker contrast to “You didn’t build it”.

You feel this “starker contrast” is going to win you the election?

Romney needs both the conservative base, which I believe he had, but also some independents- which the Ryan pick does not help with.

 

[PJD1987]

You feel this “starker contrast” is going to win you the election?

Romney needs both the conservative base, which I believe he had, but also some independents- which the Ryan pick does not help with.

Ringil, that’s not true. Paul Ryan actually is polling well with independents and seniors.

townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/08/13/oh_my_new_poll_shows_huge_paul_ryan_bounce_with_independents_and_seniors

 

[ringil]

According to AARP:

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.

It will be interesting to see how seniors react to this choice. Still impossible to tell, but Ryan may be Romney’s “Sarah Palin”.

Oh I wouldn’t go so far as to compare Ryan with Palin! UUggghh.

Ryan seems like a swell guy, very likeable and bright. I surely don’t agree with his far right economic conservatism, but he presents himself as a knowledgable and upstanding fellow.

 

[JoeBowen7]

Secondly, penalties pre-Roe v Wade typically were imposed on the abortionist not the women.

But if a man contracts a murderer to kill his wife, should the husband go free and undergo counselling and only the assassin punished by capital punishment or life in prison, or should the husband be punished also? The husband is at least equally guilty with the assassin who actually killed his wife, is he not? After all, the wife would still be alive if the husband had not contracted out the assassin to kill his wife?

 

[RPRPsych]

I enjoy following threads like this, if only because I wish we had such choices in our country.

As a non-American, I find this debate quite interesting.

Does Romney have his flaws? Certainly. We all do! Is Paul Ryan a Saint and Doctor of the Church? No. But their policies are certainly in line with the bulk of Catholic teaching, especially with regards to the sanctity of human life and the centrality of the traditional family.

Both these are disrespected in India on a routine basis, and we pay the price for it every day.

I mean, I know Romney isn’t “inspirational”. But count your blessings that you have the right to vote Romney / Ryan instead of THIS party, who will probably rule India next:

bjp.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=133&Itemid=500
bjp.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=375:essay–qsemitic-monotheismq&catid=92&Itemid=501

or THIS party, who are currently ruling, and who make Obama look like a libertarian:

aicc.org.in/new/rajiv.php
aicc.org.in/new/home-layout-manifesto.php

and thank the good Lord that you still have a more than acceptable choice.

 

[Caldera]

Oh I wouldn’t go so far as to compare Ryan with Palin! UUggghh.

Ryan seems like a swell guy, very likeable and bright. I surely don’t agree with his far right economic conservatism, but he presents himself as a knowledgable and upstanding fellow.

There is nothing “far right” with Rep. Ryan. Heck, I have far more doubt that you even understand what you are talking about, ringil. Paul Ryan is a true American. Watch this video and learn what that actually means:

Paul Ryan Welcomed Home by Crowds of Thousands
townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/08/13/paul_ryan_welcomed_home_by_crowd_of_thousands

 

[rlg94086]

Fine. You win.

Does that mean that you should disregard what they say?

I thought I posted an answer to this before I stepped into the movie theater, but I guess I didn’t hit submit.

Of course I don’t disregard what the bishops say. However, if I disagree with them on a prudential matter, and have sound reasoning based on Catholic teaching to back up my disagreement, then I say so. Since some bishops also disagree with certain statements of the USCCB, I feel I am in good company here.

 

[rlg94086]

However, Robert, your post #446 regarding the Catholic meaning of pro-life is based on the statement of the USCCB, which sounds pretty authoritative.

Actually, it is based on sound and consistent teaching of the Magisterium. The USCCB statements are in line with the Magisterium on that teaching. The pro-life teaching of the Church is not a prudential matter.