What if the democrats were

[Black_Jaque]

Would it be reasonable to guess that if the Democrats were pro-life on all faces including abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia they would stand a good chance at really taking a lot of seats in congress?

If they took a pro-life stance on those issues how many of their current supporters would really jump ship? It just seems that the people I know who vote Democrat seem to choose them for other reasons, war in Iraq, labor, wellfair, taxes, etc. They seem to avoid defending the Democratic position on abortion, euthanasia and stem-cell research.

So it seems to me, that if the Democratic Party as a whole changed their tune on just the Human life issues they could stand a really high chance at winning some seats.

Although they may be afraid that they’d lose all the money from those special interest groups that support the culture of death, they would similarly strike the funds of the Republicans by eliminating those issues from the race. If the Democrats lose donations from Planned Parenthood, the Republicans would likely lose money from all the various Pro-Life groups because there would be no reason to donate for that cause.

 

[Liberian]

Black Jaque,

You still have some bugaboos like homosexual marriage and adoption.

I think the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats pretend to care about the poor and Republicans pretend to care about family values. In fact the top priority of both parties is to get elected. (Somebody won a Nobel prize for figuring that out!)

• Liberian

 

[batteddy]

Really…the liberal/conservative split in the two party system disatisfies many people.

Frankly, a lot more Americans would rather see a libertarian/populist split.

That is to say that Democrats are generally economically AND socially liberal. And Republicans are categorized as economically AND socially conservative.

But frankly, I think a lot of Americans are economically conservative but socially liberal (“libertarians”)

And many more (and this is really the Catholic position, IMO) are economically “liberal” but socially consevative (“populists” or “communitarians”).

But the parties don’t split along those lines sadly.

However, I think a subtle change might be happening. If you look…the popular republicans these days (Rudy Giuliani, Mark Kirk, etc)…are actually pro-choice. Which means that the Republican party is becoming more Libertarian.

Now, that’s a bad thing if the Democrats don’t change too. But maybe in response to “pro-choice republicans” many “pro-life democrats” will come out to meet demand. And though many democrats are firmly liberal economically and socially…perhaps we will start to see a Communitarian or Populist movement in the Democrats which is economically “liberal” (maintains its concern for social justice) but which is socially conservative and and keeps wholesome values.

Instead of the liberal/conservative split…id much rather have a libertarian/populist split.

 

[EBSSTF4]

I have a major problem with the Republican Party in general. They use the hot issues to cover the fact they do not care. What have they done about Poverty, Environment, Health Care, Diplomacy, the Death Sentance, War. And this is the “Family values” party? What has happened in the last six years? The world is more dangerous now than ever. People keep dying and if there is no oil nothing is done. We need to stress what we want and have not gotten. As poverty increases, morality is falling. I only vote for a few candidates. I will not vote for Republicans who have done nothing positive, and use politics to make a few of their buddies wealthy.

They use 3 main issues to get our votes, Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Gay Marriage. Are we supposed to buy this? How many bills do they introduce knowing they will fail? How often do they cover for people like Mark Foley?

I would love a system without political affiliation.

The real question is why do so many people believe abortion is ok? This is what we need to ask.

I will pray for these people and their children.

 

[detrockcity3]

I have a major problem with the Republican Party in general. They use the hot issues to cover the fact they do not care. What have they done about Poverty, Environment, Health Care, Diplomacy, the Death Sentance, War. And this is the “Family values” party? What has happened in the last six years? The world is more dangerous now than ever. People keep dying and if there is no oil nothing is done. We need to stress what we want and have not gotten. As poverty increases, morality is falling. I only vote for a few candidates. I will not vote for Republicans who have done nothing positive, and use politics to make a few of their buddies wealthy.

They use 3 main issues to get our votes, Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Gay Marriage. Are we supposed to buy this? How many bills do they introduce knowing they will fail? How often do they cover for people like Mark Foley?

I would love a system without political affiliation.

The real question is why do so many people believe abortion is ok? This is what we need to ask.

I will pray for these people and their children.

I hear this a lot, but seriously…even if you are for things like socialist health care and are extemely opposed to things like war and capital punishment (both allowed for by Church in specific circumstances)…how do any of those things trump something like abortion?

 

[EBSSTF4]

I hear this a lot, but seriously…even if you are for things like socialist health care and are extemely opposed to things like war and capital punishment (both allowed for by Church in specific circumstances)…how do any of those things trump something like abortion?

Not the point. Abortion is the big one. But…
CCC
[SIGN]

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68

2327 Because of the evils and injustices that all war brings with it, we must do everything reasonably possible to avoid it. The Church prays: “From famine, pestilence, and war, O Lord, deliver us.”

[/SIGN]

Can you honestly say the avoce conditions have been met?

The crimes in Darfur are more than deserving of military action, and nothing is being done.

How many times do they make bills unpassable to pretend to push their agenda?

 

[JimG]

Well, I think a lot of Catholics historically have aligned with the Democratic Party. Many continued out of habit even after the 1972 election when the party turned sharply left, especially on the social issues.

A lot of Catholics later began to realize that Democratic presidents were appointing pro-abortion judges, and that the party was supporting the Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion agenda completely, going so far as to even deny a popular pro-life Democrat, Governor Rober Casey of Pennsylvania, the podium at the 1992 convention.

There is a group called Democrats for Life, but they have precious few candidates currently to recommend.

So I do believe that if there were more pro-life Democrats, they would tremendously increases their electability.

 

[Priscilla_Ann]

I hear this a lot, but seriously…even if you are for things like socialist health care and are extemely opposed to things like war and capital punishment (both allowed for by Church in specific circumstances)…how do any of those things trump something like abortion?

In good, conscience I can not vote for a Republican. Health care, war and poverty are also moral issues; and the Republican Party fails miserably on all of these.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a major problem with the Republican Party in general. They use the hot issues to cover the fact they do not care. What have they done about Poverty, Environment, Health Care, Diplomacy, the Death Sentance, War.

I could ask the same thing about the Democrat Party. What have they done within recent memory about poverty, environment, health care, diplomacy, the death sentence or war? Nothing worth a cup of warm spit…and that’s as true of Clinton’s administration as well as Bush’s. They talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk, and have not done so for decades. Harry Truman is surely spinning in his grave. So, okay, they now oppose a war they all voted for, and tell the stupendous lie that they were somehow misled into doing so by Bush when every intelligence agency in the world with an opinion on the subject said there were WMD there. (And, indeed, there were, though we have only found old ones so far.) On the other hand, the Democrat Party bombed Serbia into ruin, prevented Russia from protecting Serbs in Kosovo, and thereby alienated the Orthodox World, for which we are now paying a heavy price. So who’s the war party here? Who’s the champion of diplomacy? I submit that the Democrat Party cares no more about those issues than does the Republican party.

I was once a very active Democrat and held office in the party. I remember back when campaigning was grass roots and elected officials had to “pay back” the voters by benefiting them. Now campaigning is all media, and officials in both parties owe their debts to the moneyed people who finance their media campaigns.

If anybody thinks current administration policy is made by Haliburton and other major corporations, and doesn’t like it, they ought to think what it will be like when policy is made by George Soros and NARAL.

Neither party actually offers much that’s important from a Catholic standpoint, outside of “gender politics”. But no one can deny that the Republican Party gave us Roberts and Alito. If it didn’t do another thing, it did that. The Democrat Party gave us Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who thinks the age of consent for sex should be 12. The next president (and Senate) will determine, perhaps for decades, whether Roe is overturned, because it only takes one more prolife justice to do it. Those votes may be the most important moral choices we who now of voting age are ever going to make at the ballot box. I for one would prefer to hold my nose and vote Republican than to vote Democrat and know I have authorized the continued murder of unborn children and the legalization of gay marriage. That’s the real choice here. All the rest is just so much talk.

 

[Liberalsaved]

I hear this a lot, but seriously…even if you are for things like socialist health care and are extemely opposed to things like war and capital punishment (both allowed for by Church in specific circumstances)…how do any of those things trump something like abortion?

I vote for what I feel will do the most good. Sorry if this ticks people off, but I’m not going to vote for someone who destroys the environment, or alienates allies, or starts unneeded wars, or plunges the country into debt or any of the other things we’ve had inflicted on us in the last six years, just because they talk a good talk about being pro-life. Republicans have used two issues, homosexual marriage and abortion, to paint over the fact that they just don’t give a care about the disadvantaged, or our soldiers, or pretty much anyone accept themselves. And even if you make a halfway decent Republican President, you still have to deal with a crowd of those non-decent Reps pulling the strings.
I can’t tell you with any kind of certainty that I will vote Democrat in the upcoming elections. I CAN say the harsh winds of winter will be biting at the hills of Hell before I vote Republican again.

 

[mary_bobo]

In good, conscience I can not vote for a Republican. Health care, war and poverty are also moral issues; and the Republican Party fails miserably on all of these.

Your opinion and I do not agree. If by health care you mean socialized medicine, I think I’ll pass on that. I was very sick in a country with socialized medicine and darn near died because of it. As far a poverty goes, there are different ways to assist the poor and the Democrat way is not necessarily the best way. We have been pouring more and more money into care of the poor each year and have not accomplished much. I think we should try something different. Some wars are just–popes have said so. In closing, a thought, are all the other issues you mentioned, taken together, as important as abortion? I think not.

 

[mlchance]

Would it be reasonable to guess that if the Democrats were pro-life on all faces including abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia they would stand a good chance at really taking a lot of seats in congress?

In theory, sure, but I think it’s gone too far for the Democrats on these issues, especially abortion. The abortion issue (meaning the Democratic party’s stubborn refusal to compromise at all on its support for more taxpayer funding for abortion-on-demand, which must be kept legal at all costs) will destroy the Democratic Party in about a decade or so.

The Democratic Party’s days are numbered. Within my lifetime, they’ll go the way of the Whigs.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Hastrman]

I for one would love to see an Impaler’s Forest around the Capitol building and most of both parties hanged on it. But until you’re ready to commit to overthrowing both parties by military force, killing an awful lot of people, you’re simply justifying your inaction.

The Democrats have a policy on the disadvantaged and poor, all right: abort them. And any of these Lebensunwerte Leben who manage to escape, keep them in perpetual slavery by welfare, identity politics, and the erosion of the family. They were the friends of the Soviet Union, they filled the entire government with traitors like Alger Hiss, and they destroyed the American Black race. It almost doesn’t matter who is elected, as long as it’s not them. That’s why I’ll keep voting for the best Republicans I can find (I’m not a slave to the party, nor even a member, there’s just no other viable choice).

There are good Democrats, of course–mostly from Louisiana, where pro-life Dems, like rougarous, are occasionally sighted (although, like the Cajun werewolves, they are usually invisible). But there were any number of honest, decent, hardworking Soviet Communists and Nazis, too, to say nothing of decent Fascists, especially in Spain. The fact is that the party’s leadership is evil, as evil as any party that’s ever been. How much innocent blood personally stains the hands of ex-abortionist Howard Dean?

And liberalsaved…under the Republicans, what “allies” did we alienate, who weren’t taking bribes from Saddam? What unnecessary wars did we start? Surely you don’t mean the invasion of the country that Osama bin Laden called “the theater of the Jihad, capital of the universal Caliphate?” Seems to me that if the enemy wants to re-establish the Lone Star Republic, military control of Texas might be just a titch relevant.

 

[detrockcity3]

Ok, I want someone here who immediately responded with “but the environment!” to explain exactly how that should even be considered in the same thought as abortion.

 

[martino]

In good, conscience I can not vote for a Republican. Health care, war and poverty are also moral issues; and the Republican Party fails miserably on all of these.

Does your conscience allow for the murder of millions of innocent human babies? How so?

War, health care and poverty are all important issues…but they are complicated issues with diverse opinions about how to tackle each one. There is no clear right and wrong answer for many issues. You may disagree with the Republican idea of dealing with these issues but that is simply a difference of opinion.

Abortion is different because this clearly a right and wrong issue. There may be different opionions on the best way to stop it but the fact that it is objectively wrong is not up for debate. How can you vote for the politicaly party that wishes to promote and even expand this moral evil?

All the wars the U.S. has been involved in, going back to the Revolutionary War, do not have a combined death toll even close to the death toll that abortion has rung up since 1973. Abortion is the greatest evil of our time.

I can not, in good conscience, vote for a Democrat.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

In good, conscience I can not vote for a Republican.

I can not, in good conscience, vote for a Democrat.

I hear you. And yet, in good conscience, I’ve got to try to elect the best somebody I can.

I try to take it one candidate at a time, based on what I think their work is likely to do to the law and what their rhetoric is likely to do to the country. Sometimes, I have to write somebody in or vote for a third party that I’m not that nuts about because there is just plain too much wrong with both of them.

In other words, and without going into my personal voting record, I do not often find a candidate that I’m happy to vote for. I think this is something I should pray about a lot more often than I do.

 

[rwoehmke]

Ok, I want someone here who immediately responded with “but the environment!” to explain exactly how that should even be considered in the same thought as abortion.

Let us not forget that “environment” goes beyond hugging trees. It all started with “Love Canal” and we have been scrambling to clean up the environment ever since. As far as the unborn, one item is that our waters are filled with so much mercury that childbearing age women are told to eat very limited quantities of fish and often non at all of certain species. Residual mercury damages the brain and nerve tissue of the unborn as well as adults to a lesser degree. Some make the excuse that the plague of cancer is the result of people living longer, but there are many children who contract it in one form or another. Ignore the environment as many politicians would like to do because after all it is those with “business concerns with high profits” who give big to support political campaigns. Our drinking water is also contaminated with discarded pharmaceuticals and chemical compounds that mimic hormones. Maybe that’s why my voice is getting higher. No one will be left who can or want to have children.

 

[becka01101]

Neither party actually offers much that’s important from a Catholic standpoint, outside of “gender politics”. But no one can deny that the Republican Party gave us Roberts and Alito. If it didn’t do another thing, it did that. The Democrat Party gave us Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who thinks the age of consent for sex should be 12. The next president (and Senate) will determine, perhaps for decades, whether Roe is overturned, because it only takes one more prolife justice to do it. Those votes may be the most important moral choices we who now of voting age are ever going to make at the ballot box. I for one would prefer to hold my nose and vote Republican than to vote Democrat and know I have authorized the continued murder of unborn children and the legalization of gay marriage. That’s the real choice here. All the rest is just so much talk.

Well said.

 

[Thal59]

One should remember that the Democratic party of today is not the same as it was in FDR’s time.

The Democratic party has been hijacked by the really wacko liberals. There is virtually no conservative sector within the party, and even the moderates are being squeezed out. The problem lies in that conservatives acknowledge the truths that God has given us through scriptures and the church.

But in order to be truly liberal one must submit to postmodern relativism which basically gives one the liberty to make all truths relative to one’s personal wants and tastes; which is the same thing as manufacturing truth whenever desirable.

The end result is that conservatives have a rock solid foundation to base their politics on, whereas liberals have no such restraints. In other words, nothing is sacred to a liberal; all things are subject to change as their personal caprices move them. As long as this is the case, Democrats will continue to make decisions that are contrary to God-given truths and will continue to alienate themselves from the public.

Get rid of the liberals, return to the rock foundation of Christianity and scriptures, and the Dems will regain success at the voter’s booth.

Thal59

 

[BLB_Oregon]

One should remember that the Democratic party of today is not the same as it was in FDR’s time.

The Democratic party has been hijacked by the really wacko liberals. There is virtually no conservative sector within the party, and even the moderates are being squeezed out. The problem lies in that conservatives acknowledge the truths that God has given us through scriptures and the church.

But in order to be truly liberal one must submit to postmodern relativism which basically gives one the liberty to make all truths relative to one’s personal wants and tastes; which is the same thing as manufacturing truth whenever desirable.

The end result is that conservatives have a rock solid foundation to base their politics on, whereas liberals have no such restraints. In other words, nothing is sacred to a liberal; all things are subject to change as their personal caprices move them. As long as this is the case, Democrats will continue to make decisions that are contrary to God-given truths and will continue to alienate themselves from the public.

Get rid of the liberals, return to the rock foundation of Christianity and scriptures, and the Dems will regain success at the voter’s booth.

Thal59

When I found out what Ralph Reed (of all people!) was willing and able to do to the religious right, how he manipulated the evangelicals to support policies that favor the tribal casino gambling that they so deeply oppose and knowing that he was doing it but not caring because he was enriching himself…I tell you, it told me once again what was the foundation of major party politics in this country.

Money. Do not think that I am under the impression that the Democrats are one bit different on that point.

Be as innocent as doves, but as wise as serpents. We need to use our voting influence with the parties to effect good, but we also need to keep from fooling ourselves about what kind of system is in operation in Washington, DC. It is the world, the flesh, and the devil, from top to bottom, and a good person trying to do good there is on a journey over hazardous seas.

We* really* need to be praying for our lawmakers, every one of them.