Things Fall Apart - How Democrats gave up on religious voters

[Suudy]

Oh I understand Suudy the Church makes the standards different, the focus on numbers and all the rest. I merely was questioning whether those standards perfectly reflect fairness across the spectrum.

No, the Church doesn’t make the standards. God does. The Church merely teaches them. So if you have an issue with the standards, take it up with Him.

A. Catholics who might dissent on choice or perhaps something else are clamped down on and even sometimes might feel they are being pushed away from the Church.

You can disagree with the Church. That is not the issue. The issue is disobedience. You can disagree with the Church stance on abortion, homosexuality, marriage, etc, but you are to be obedient. Now, you chose the word “dissent”. This has a much stronger meaning than just disagreement. And those that dissent are challenged, or as you put it, “clamped down on”. But as for being “pushed away from the Church”, that is not what is occurring. What is happening is that they are corrected by the Church, and their refusal to be obedient has them walking away. That is like saying Jesus pushed away those who refused to believe him when he said “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. Did Jesus push away those who said this was a hard teaching and could not be acceptd?

B. CCC states regarding capital punishment there are only “very rare if not non existent” cases for it to be implememted today.

Indeed it does. That’s why I oppose capital punishment in the US.

C. Yet those who are stronger pro death penalty than the CCC seem to me to be embraced much more freely.

Because those in favor of capital punishment do far less damage than those in favor of abortion. Let’s say you have a flood in New Orleans and an tornado in Peck, KS. Which do you think should get the greatest response? Who should we focus on the most?

Make exceptions for guilt vs innocent.

Here is where your confusion lies. It isn’t “exceptions”. It is in definitions. Killing, in and of itself, isn’t evil. We kill cattle, sheep, insects in our homes, but we (well Catholics at least) don’t consider this an evil. The distinction lies in who or what is killed. So the problem isn’t the killing, but who is killed. And killing innocents is always wrong, and the killing of the guilty, may be wrong (and in today’s society, I think it is wrong). Again, this is not an exception, it is how it is defined.

And look at a lesser number of born human beings having their lives taken by the state as perhaps less troubling than the number of fetuses aborted, then those are Her standards.

You mean His standards. They are God’s after all.

Again I merely was questioning the perfection of those standards is all.

Then you seem to be questioning God’s perfection, for He defines the standards, not the Church.

 

[CMatt25]

No, the Church doesn’t make the standards. God does. The Church merely teaches them. So if you have an issue with the standards, take it up with Him.

You can disagree with the Church. That is not the issue. The issue is disobedience. You can disagree with the Church stance on abortion, homosexuality, marriage, etc, but you are to be obedient. Now, you chose the word “dissent”. This has a much stronger meaning than just disagreement. And those that dissent are challenged, or as you put it, “clamped down on”. But as for being “pushed away from the Church”, that is not what is occurring. What is happening is that they are corrected by the Church, and their refusal to be obedient has them walking away. That is like saying Jesus pushed away those who refused to believe him when he said “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. Did Jesus push away those who said this was a hard teaching and could not be acceptd?

Indeed it does. That’s why I oppose capital punishment in the US.

Because those in favor of capital punishment do far less damage than those in favor of abortion. Let’s say you have a flood in New Orleans and an tornado in Peck, KS. Which do you think should get the greatest response? Who should we focus on the most?

Here is where your confusion lies. It isn’t “exceptions”. It is in definitions. Killing, in and of itself, isn’t evil. We kill cattle, sheep, insects in our homes, but we (well Catholics at least) don’t consider this an evil. The distinction lies in who or what is killed. So the problem isn’t the killing, but who is killed. And killing innocents is always wrong, and the killing of the guilty, may be wrong (and in today’s society, I think it is wrong). Again, this is not an exception, it is how it is defined.

You mean His standards. They are God’s after all.

Then you seem to be questioning God’s perfection, for He defines the standards, not the Church.

No no no Suudy. Perhaps you misunderstood. I may question any human being’s infallibilty to understand and correctly read all things about God in every instance. But I do not question the perfection of God Himself nor think He in the form of Jesus was pushing anyone away.

 

[Suudy]

No no no Suudy. Perhaps you misunderstood. I may question any human being’s infallibilty to understand and correctly read all things about God in every instance. But I do not question the perfection of God Himself nor think He in the form of Jesus was pushing anyone away.

Nobody here is saying humans are infallible. But the Church, through her magisterial teaching, is.

So are you saying that you are questioning the accuracy of Church teaching? That the Church is wrong in its declamation of homosexual behavior, when life begins, whether marriage is for life, etc?

 

[ProVobis]

Bork was a Reagan pick aborted by Ted Kennedy (God have mercy on him).

Unlike his brother JFK who appointed one of the two justices who voted against Roe vs Wade. I believe 5 (or 6) of the 7 justices who voted for were Republican appointed.

I just can’t remember if justice Kennedy was Reagan or Bush Sr.

Reagan, but let’s not forget Reagan got the Roe vs Wade ball rolling when he signed an abortion bill when he was governor of California.

Here’s a good article on pro-life politicians.

newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin415.htm

 

[ProVobis]

You’re right Della. Bush Sr. gave us justice Kennedy (a disappointment) but he also gave us Clarence Thomas.

And let’s not forget there were several Democrat Senators who needed to confirm that nomination in spite of the political heat they had to take for it. Anita Hill was very much loved by the left.

 

[Suudy]

Reagan, but let’s not forget Reagan got the Roe vs Wade ball rolling when he signed an abortion bill when he was governor of California.

To which he admitted was a mistake. And all his actions since then were pro-life, including his push for a Constitutional amendment. No single Democratic candidate for president since Regan got the so-called “Roe vs Wade ball rolling” had a pro-life stance. And McGovern was the most conservative of them, but it got steadily worse over the decades.

So, I’m still not clear what your point here is. That the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats since they haven’t done anything (substantial)? Sorry, but I’d rather have someone do nothing than have someone make it worse.

 

[ProVobis]

Bork was a Reagan pick aborted by Ted Kennedy (God have mercy on him).

Unlike his brother JFK who appointed one of the two justices who voted against Roe vs Wade. I believe 5 (or 6) of the 7 justices who voted for were Republican appointed. We’ve had mostly Republican-appointed courts since then.

I just can’t remember if justice Kennedy was Reagan or Bush Sr.

Reagan, but let’s not forget Reagan got the Roe vs Wade ball rolling when he signed an abortion bill when he was governor of California.

Here’s a good article on “pro-life” politicians.

newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin415.htm

 

[Suudy]

newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin415.htm

And there it is. Equating inaction on abortion with the expansion of abortion.

 

[ProVobis]

And there it is. Equating inaction on abortion with the expansion of abortion.

No one expanded it more than the Republican court of 1973.

 

[estesbob]

And there it is. Equating inaction on abortion with the expansion of abortion.

Yes-it is unusual since " Since Republicans don’t do enough to keep Democrats from killing babies it’s okay to vote for those people to support kiling babies " argument.

The mental gyrations necessary for one who claims to be pro-life to rationalize supporting abortion is a terrible thing to behold.

 

[ProVobis]

Read back and note that I said “HW Bush.” Junior, for all his faults, was solidly pro-life.

Junior performed well on the immediate abortion issues, this is true. But someone who dismisses killing of civilians (pregnant women, elderly, children, etc.) in Iraq as “collateral damage” can’t be that solid. Pro-life means Iraqi feti, too.

 

[ProVobis]

Democrats often scoff at pro-lifers and claim that we are often manipulated by republicans that TALK pro-life, but are really just using us. They have a point in some cases. But in making it, they need to take a look and notice that the SAME thing occurs in THEIR ranks.

This is true. But look at what happened in the last House. 64 of the Democrats were true “prolifers” as they voted for the Stupak Amendment at great political risk. This was borne out by the fact most of these pro-life Democrats were voted out. So guess who’s left in the Democratic House? And have all Republicans who replaced the pro-lifers really pro-life themselves? Statistically speaking, I very much doubt that.

 

[estesbob]

This is true. But look at what happened in the last House. 64 of the Democrats were true “prolifers” as they voted for the Stupak Amendment at great political risk. This was borne out by the fact most of these pro-life Democrats were voted out. So guess who’s left in the Democratic House? And have all Republicans who replaced the pro-lifers really pro-life themselves? Statistically speaking, I very much doubt that.

The only so-called pro-life Democrats who were voted out were those who voted for the abortion funding healthcare bill. Though they may have voted for the Stupak amendment they abandoned the unborn out of party loyalty when the final vote was taken.

 

[estesbob]

The religious left is not the same thing as the political left. The religious left cares very deeply about many of the same things we catholics do: unjust war, poverty, immigration, health care access, racism. The political left differs slightly in that they care about the above, but appear to care MORE about abortion (unrestricted and publicly funded, if possible), normalization of gay lifestyles, specifics of monetary affirmative action, increased taxation on the rich, etc.

Obama has achieved significant things for the political left: Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, major relaxation on previous federal abortion funding, TWO hard core abortion SC justices, an end to restrictions on “out” gays in the military.

But he has really achieved NOTHING for the religious left bloc that was so enthused about him. Health care seems to be a fizzle for the poorest, war goes on unabated, Guantanamo runs as usual, the military budget trajectory is unchanged, illegals still have no path to legitimacy here and so forth. Perhaps you can argue that he did his best on health care and simply failed to make a big difference, but that’s cold consolation compared to what he’d achieved for the secular lefties.

I think many religious left folk feel lied to the same way many religious right folk felt lied to by Bush the First.

I have an office in the Greeley Colorado area and tell you this guy is considered to be pretty much of a gadfly. But he is loving the publicity.