Why do some Catholics lean politically conservative?

[RCIAGraduate]

Okay, in order to help ensure the civility level doesn’t spiral out of control, I ask that future answers focus on conservative catholics explaining why they lean conservative. I would rather not have this turn into a slugfest that creates enmity and strife though I like discussing politics but both appear to be inevitable fruits.

 

[MonteRCMS]

Be aware that when one “googles” something such as “what immigrants brought to America” that even ‘google’ was brought to you by…hold unto your seat!..Yes…an immigrant.!!

While we wallow in our exceptionalism we need be aware that the majority of things we can boast of were brought to us by immigrants coming to this country for what ever reasons they did. We all stand on the backs of immigrants.

Actually, in order for us to arrive where we are politically and economically, took a tremendous amount of work here.

We DO NOT “all stand on the backs of immigrants”.

Educationally, not on the backs of immigrants.

And we want people who are able to appreciate education.

And we have a waiting line for people who want to emigrate here.

They have to fill out forms, prove they are not criminals, and prove not carrying communicable diseases.

Why should we allow people do cut the line?

We allow in a million people per year who filled out the forms … why should those law-abiding people be cheated by people who choose to break our immigration law?

We **DO NOT ** “wallow in our exceptionalism.”

If that was the case, then the other 200 countries in the world would be equal to us in their exceptionalism.

And then no one would want to come here.

But, as it is, nobody wants to immigrate to Cuba or to Venezuela or Guatemala or Nicaragua … or even to Russia.

But they all seem to want to come here, to the USA …

… “wallow”? … I think not.

 

[MonteRCMS]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/311954-bolton-obama-dislikes-american-exceptionalism

Jindal, Feb. 9 : There’s a greater problem here. This is a president who won’t proudly proclaim American exceptionalism, maybe the first president ever who truly doesn’t believe in that.

We allow that politicians may have reasonable disagreements about the role of American leadership in world affairs, and Obama’s commitment to multilateralism. And there may be large differences of opinion about what a belief in “American exceptionalism” means and how that should manifest itself. But Jindal’s claim that Obama “won’t proudly proclaim American exceptionalism” simply ignores Obama’s own words on numerous occasions.

This debate over Obama’s belief in “American exceptionalism” goes back to the early days of his presidency, when he was asked during an April 2009 press conference about his “enthusiasm for multilateral frameworks,” such as the G20 Summit and NATO. His answer –“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism” — did not satisfy many of his critics. Here’s Obama’s fuller answer:

Edward Luce, Financial Times , April 4, 2009 : [C]ould I ask you whether you subscribe, as many of your predecessors have, to the school of American exceptionalism that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world, or do you have a slightly different philosophy? And if so, would you be able to elaborate on it?

> Obama: I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.
>
At the time, some criticized Obama’s response as a rebuke of American exceptionalism, because Obama said it was probably a universal feeling to believe in one’s own country’s exceptionalism. James Kirchick, then an assistant editor of the New Republic , for example, wrote that, “If all countries are ‘exceptional,’ then none are, and to claim otherwise robs the word, and the idea of American exceptionalism, of any meaning.”

 

[Augustinian]

So is the GOP talking about banning the pill

No they are not. They are focused on banning abortion mills and defunding Planned Parenthood, as well as protecting people’s right not to pay for birth control pills and other contraception.

 

[Augustinian]

So you don’t see any benefit at all to closing up Abortion Mills unless you ban Birth Control pills simultaneously?

Did you know that birth control pills are just powerful hormones that have other medical uses outside of contraception? Treating hormone sensitive cancers and other ailments

 

[philipl]

We need to stop policing the world. I would start by removing troops stationed in other countries or having those countries pay for the cost of our military providing their protection. America First needs to become a way of life. But americca first doesn mean america alone. But for too long it has been america only. We have 11 flat tops but how many do we need just to protect the USA? 7 tops? Those countries that benefit from our flattops need to be paying the usa for those flat tops.

 

[deMontfort]

That post made no sense either logically or grammatically.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

Again, I ask that people be civil, it appears the civility level is spiraling out of control.

 

[Ender]

I ask that future answers focus on conservative catholics explaining why they lean conservative.

Whether one is conservative or liberal has nothing to with Catholicism. Who we vote for in specific elections may be controlled by our faith, but the faith actually contributes much less than most suspect in teaching us how the world works. I believe putting up a wall would be beneficial, most liberals believe it would be harmful. The Church is silent on the question. I believe raising the minimum wage is on the whole harmful, most liberals believe it is beneficial. The Church is silent on the question.

This is why it makes no sense to suggest there could ever be a Catholic political party. Except for a small handful of issues that are both moral and political, most issues are political only, and about which the church takes no position, properly leaving it to the laity to decide what solutions to implement.

 

[MonteRCMS]

We need to stop policing the world. I would start by removing troops stationed in other countries or having those countries pay for the cost of our military providing their protection. America First needs to become a way of life. But americca first doesn mean america alone. But for too long it has been america only. We have 11 flat tops but how many do we need just to protect the USA? 7 tops? Those countries that benefit from our flattops need to be paying the usa for those flat tops.

The USA has been sucked into foreign wars since 1805.

Do want to start from zero each time?

Those aircraft carriers wear out. Then they need to enter a shipyard for refitting and are unavailable for a long time.

For example, as of 2015,

The photo in the eRumor showing five carriers docked at U.S. Naval Base at Norfolk is said to have been taken in December 2012. The carriers were the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72).

Contrary to the eRumor none of the carriers were ordered to Norfolk by the Obama Administration. Four of the carriers were in port for various maintenance such as major overhauls, flight deck resurfacing and refueling. This according to a February 25, 2013 article by MPR-News of Minnesota Public Radio. The article reported that the “Navy also says the story about this being the first time so many carriers were moored together since Pearl Harbor is untrue.”

The oldest carrier in the U.S. Navy, the USS Enterprise was deactivated.

The USS Enterprise is 50 years old and was deactivated Dec. 1, 2012.

The USS Eisenhower, according to the Eisenhower website, was redeployed in mid February 2013 to support the 5th and 6th Naval Fleets. The carrier returned to Norfolk in September 2013. The article said that the crew of the carrier “participated in Ike’s first shipwide general quarters (GQ) training, Feb. 5.” The article also said there were “several other training phases: an ITT phase, a partial integrated training phase, and eventually a full integrated training phase (that was) slated for mid-May.”

The USS George H. W. Bush was in for repairs and the USS Lincoln is in for an overhaul. This is all dependent on future funding from Congress. According to a February 12, 2014 article by WTKR-TV News, a CBS Affiliate in Norfolk, the USS George H. W. Bush went on deployment on February 15.

The USS Truman lays in Norfolk along with the Bush and Lincoln, which are awaiting funding for repairs.

 

[Socrates92]

Nyeh. Anything that has consequences can seem harsh if one isn’t receptive to it. “Harsh” is a fairly subjective word. I think the real question is why is harshness assumed to be an objectively bad thing?

 

[philipl]

My point is that, to protect the USA, do we need to spend 600 billion a year? We are going to spend 6 trillion in total for the Iraq and afganstain war. Yet we have achieved nothing both of those countries will revert back to their terrorist background. We need to protect the USA and if the other western countries are willing to pay help protect them.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I also know of pregnancy clinics who provide parenting classes and provide diapers, car seats, clothing to those mothers who decided to keep their child and come in after the child is born–

Many many women in crisis pregnancies need a safe place to stay, food, transportation, medical care and ways to get to that care. They face being kicked out by boyfriend, parents, losing their jobs, etc.

Diapers are nice, but, when you are living on the street, they are not enough.

 

[TheLittleLady]

They are also dancing around putting loopholes into every single bit of legislation because they are afraid to say that all direct abortion is morally wrong. Every. single. time. This worship at the altar of loopholes and incrementalism is what opened my eyes.

 

[PJH_74]

The US Constitution does not endorse slavery or male only suffrage.

It defacto denied universal suffrage. The writers did not thing to challenge the status quo where only a small percentage of men, land owners, were allowed to vote. If the bill of rights was supposed to protect individual rights, and the supposed founding of this country was to have a government of the people and for the people, then you’d think guaranteeing the right to vote for all would be one of them.

Much the same with slavery, it ignored an obvious evil by both guaranteeing the chattel property value of slaves and allowing this “property’s” governmental power to be appropriated by their “owners” on a 3/5th basis.

For all it is put on a pedestal, the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights basically only fully applied to rich white men.

 

[midori]

But you realize why they didn’t challenge the status quo at the time?

As far as remaining silent on slavery, it was a deliberate attempt to avoid controversial issues that would have stood in the way of the Colonies uniting in the first place. If the industrial North believed slavery was wrong, and the agrarian South depended on slavery to keep its economy running-- you couldn’t get to a happy agreement with a totally-free or a totally-slave country right off the bat. So they elected to maintain the status quo, and kicked the issue down the road to be addressed in the future, when they were in a better position to hash things out.

Re: male-only suffrage, you have to remember that it started off as being limited to white male property owners. Because the states (who gave people the right to vote, not the federal government) figured people who owned businesses and property would have more of an interest in government, and would thereby make more educated decisions, rather than having universal suffrage. Nowadays, we get more information running past us in a day than a Colonist would have viewed in his entire lifetime! But not back then. Harrison, for example, ran with a picturesque log cabin to show his humble upbringing and being a “man of the people”… when in fact, his father was a Continental Congress delegate, a Declaration of Independence signatory, a rich Virginia planter whose estate covered thousands of acres, a legislator, a governor, and his brother served in the US House of Representatives. Hardly an obscure family… but it still fooled a lot of people into voting for “an ordinary guy”.

Now, we get YouTube videos of college kids who have suffrage, but can’t name the Vice President, give their thoughtful reactions to a Supreme Court pick before it’s actually been picked, don’t know who won the Civil War… that sort of stuff. It might be interesting if we reinstated those property-owning requirements!

 

[MonteRCMS]

My point is that, to protect the USA, do we need to spend 600 billion a year? We are going to spend 6 trillion in total for the Iraq and afganstain war. Yet we have achieved nothing both of those countries will revert back to their terrorist background. We need to protect the USA and if the other western countries are willing to pay help protect them.

We pay our soldiers a living wage instead of drafting them as conscripts.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was badly botched from the beginning.

Read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307351068/ref=pd_sim_14_3

Even if we build an impenetrable bubble over the United States, it will take more. The 9/11 perpetrators merely overstayed their visas.

 

[jfz178]

As a former, military officer who served in the Mideast, I disagree about those wars being “botched from the beginning.” Both Iraq wars and the Afghan war post 9/11 were fought very well, textbook in fact. What the US did not do in all three instances is what we typically do and fail to follow up to win the peace. We did the “one and done” thing we are legendary for. What is more, we could have prevented Iraq II and Afghanistan post 9/11 if we have followed up on earlier efforts.

Don’t blame our military for botching wars. We have the best military in the world and #2 isn’t even close. Blame our politicians for botching diplomacy.

BTW, there is a cottage industry of ex-CIA and ex-military people writing books like the one you cite. The more sensational they are, the more they sell.

 

[PJH_74]

But you realize why they didn’t challenge the status quo at the time?

I’m well aware of the issue of slavery and the Constitution at the time, I was trying to explain my earlier assertions.

Re: male-only suffrage, you have to remember that it started off as being limited to white male property owners. Because the states (who gave people the right to vote, not the federal government) figured people who owned businesses and property would have more of an interest in government, and would thereby make more educated decisions,

Again powerful men justifying their worldview.

Hardly an obscure family… but it still fooled a lot of people into voting for “an ordinary guy”.

I wonder where we’ve seen that one played out recently?

 

[MonteRCMS]

As a former, military officer who served in the Mideast, I disagree about those wars being “botched from the beginning.” Both Iraq wars and the Afghan war post 9/11 were fought very well, textbook in fact. What the US did not do in all three instances is what we typically do and fail to follow up to win the peace. We did the “one and done” thing we are legendary for. What is more, we could have prevented Iraq II and Afghanistan post 9/11 if we have followed up on earlier efforts.

Don’t blame our military for botching wars. We have the best military in the world and #2 isn’t even close. Blame our politicians for botching diplomacy.

BTW, there is a cottage industry of ex-CIA and ex-military people writing books like the one you cite. The more sensational they are, the more they sell.

Time and again bureaucrats back in the U.S. sabotaged the campaign with their need to “be the boss” even though they ignored the accurate information they were receiving and bitterly resented the successes by people who were actually in contact with the enemy.

The bureaucrats’ mantra seemed to be: “Well, just because field operators ask for something, doesn’t mean we have to give it to them.”