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estesbob
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I posted it. You ignored it
Will voting for Liberals lower poverty, unemployment and the deficit?
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estesbob
Guest
Supporting unrestricted taxpayer funded abortion is not a path to making abortion rare
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LisaA
Guest
You must be under the illusion that overturning Roe would thus ban abortion. It would not. Before Roe, abortion was available, legally, in many states including my own. I learned many years after the fact that my own parents facilitiated an abortion for the teen daughter of a friend who lived in Utah. It was more difficult to get an abortion pre-Roe and pre Planned Parenthood’s evil empire invading our country. But at best if Roe were overturned, it would simply return to the states. So what would that accomplish? You’ve already claimed that simply REDUCING abortion is not an objective. I disagree on all counts.
At any rate to judge a polticial candidate unacceptable because working to overturn Roe is not part of his platform and thus assisting a radical pro infanticide candidate like Obama to win, seems counterproductive to say the least. One can stand on ceremony and high dudgeon with their sanctimonious position but in the meantime here is the reality…the abortion mills will grind ever faster, your religious rights will be trampled, and your tax dollars will soon be confiscated to help pay for it all.
Yep that sounds like a really good plan…
Lisa
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George_Stegmeir
Guest
Timothy, You are quite eloquent in your anti-war posture and in explaining your beliefs, and nothing anyone on this or anyother sit will alter your beliefs.
However, you will not gain any converts to your way of thinking by arguing about the Churches position on war vs. abortion is wrong, if for no other reason than your lack of historical knowledge.
The Church states that waging war is licit under certain conditions.
I will name just 3 justifiable and licit wars in which the United States was involved:
The American Revolution, 1776-1781, in which the American people rose up against a tyrannical King. The American Civil War, in which the Northern States fought the secession of the Southern States over the issue of human slavery, and World War II, in which the US fought Nazi as well as Japanese agression and their slavery of conquored people. Were it not for these wars, in all probability you would not enjoy your freedom today.
As for the issue of war vs. abortion, the horrible thing is that their have been more deaths from abortion in the US since Roe vs. Wade than there have been in all the wars that the United States has been involved in !!!
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Al_Moritz
Guest
You can’t be serious. I was specificially asking about economic differences, not about alleged moral values. You didn’t answer my question.
See also this comment, which you did not answer satisfactorily:
He’s talking about Europe, not democratic socialism. I see that you are trying to apply this to democratic socialism, but really it doesn’t. You are grasping for justification and coming up with nothing. You do realize that the Europe he was talking of was not a democratic socialist Europe, right?
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estesbob
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I posted it. You ignored it. No surprise there
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Pugsly
Guest
Spot on mate…spot on!
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ProVobis
Guest
Nonetheless the number of abortions dropped under Clinton and the first year of Obama. Apparently someone did get the memo on making it “rare” which both Presidents wished. I think the drop was much more than 4,000 which would be number you were pushing.
Sorry to make it all about numbers game but just stating a point.
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LisaA
Guest
ProVobis, I’d love to get a source. I heard the “abortions dropped under Clinton and increased under Bush” was not accurate.
I do think numbers matter but more than numbers, the overall promotion of abortion vis a vis life means a lot more to me. For example Clinton vetoed the bill on Partial Birth Abortions and Bush signed it. Obama tried to push “Freedom of Choice” which would have supported forcing providers to act against conscious, he’s promoted abortion, even infanticide, changed the Mexico City policy, etc.
Even if there was a drop in total abortions, I’d much rather have President Bush’s pro-life support versus fighting with Obama over every restriction or attempts to cut off funds to the evil empire Planned Parenthood, his support of infanticide, his attitude that a baby is “punishment.”
There is no doubt Obama’s objective is to EXPAND abortion and better yet, you and I should be paying for it.
OTOH I am all for INCREMENTAL restrictions and other methods to reduce the appeal of abortion rather than demanding a ban, an overturning of Roe as the only option.
LIsa
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TimothyIgnatius
Guest
Wow, a lot has gone on in this thread since I left for work this morning. I have a few points to make, hope this doesn’t get to muddled.
Firstly I’d like to thank Spider42. In my eyes (this is my opinion, take it at face value) you are the champion of this thread. You captured the essence of everything I was trying to get across and you did it more coherently than I ever could have.
To George, I’d agree that the wars you listed would probably qualify as just wars. The wars I cited, however, were unjust. Even the pope (when he was still a cardinal) believed the Iraq war to be unjust. I wasn’t trying to win hearts by comparing war to abortion, I was trying to point out the fact that the conservative angle is much more inclined to support war. I’d also like to state that I am constantly examining my own conscience, constantly trying to improve myself by bringing myself closer to Christ. I am open to discussion, the very reason I even created an account for these forums was so I could learn.
The idea I am truly against is that the Republican party is the party Catholics should be voting for. By all reason, this is not true. Overturning Roe v Wade would allow states to decide on the issue (a very libertarian concept, not a conservative one. Republicans being anti-government is the biggest sleight of hand ever known in this country’s politics). This would allow certain states to ban it, if they so chose, which some undoubtedly would. This would not solve anything and would only create worse ills. Nobody can stake the claim that the Roe v Wade decision increased the abortion rate, as there would be no way to document the unlicensed abortions in states where it was banned.
You cannot tackle this issue with prohibitive laws. The only real means is education and counseling.
I implore Lisa and Bob to read this article, from a Catholic news source, no less.
ncronline.org/news/politics/which-presidential-candidate-truly-pro-life
From the article:
"There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
For example, Obama’s Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney’s health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan’s budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney.
But let’s not stop there. Obama does not financially profit from the abortion industry. Romney does. Bain Capital, in the time Romney was listed as its legal head and even when he was attending Bain board meetings, was an owner of Stericycle, a major disposer of the dead bodies of aborted children in the United States. (See: Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show.) Bain owned a share of Stericycle until 2004, selling its interest for a profit in the tens of millions of dollars. We can parse what Romney’s 1999 “retroactive retirement” from Bain means, but he still gets an annual payout from the firm. To the extent those dollars are part of Bain’s Stericycle profits, a strong argument exists that Romney is an abortion profiteer. How pro-life is that?
And it has long been known that millions of Bain Capital’s original outside funding, solicited by Romney himself, came from wealthy El Salvadorian clans, some of whom, while they were funding Bain, were “linked to right wing death squads.” (Salt Lake Tribune, 1999; See also: Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads.) Death squads killed tens of thousands of mostly poor people in El Salvador. They also killed priests, nuns and Archbishop Oscar Romero. How pro-life is that? How pro-life is taking the money of these people and doubling or tripling it for them? And did any of their Bain profits fund more death squads? Before we endorse Romney’s “pro-life” claims, isn’t it important for us to know that?"
The idea that Obama is ‘pro-abortion’ is such a vile statement to make. It’s not true.
Lisa, you said you adored Reagan. What are your feelings on the fact that he is a mass murderer via his implementing policies of genocide in South America? It was also during his administration that then-CIA director George HW Bush trained and armed Osama bin-Laden to go after the soviets.
The concept of “liberals are bad” or “conservative are bad” isn’t helpful at all. Neither party is fully within the lines of Catholic teachings, so why would you vote for either of them? There is an inherent danger and evil in two-party politics.
Firstly I’d like to thank Spider42. In my eyes (this is my opinion, take it at face value) you are the champion of this thread. You captured the essence of everything I was trying to get across and you did it more coherently than I ever could have.
To George, I’d agree that the wars you listed would probably qualify as just wars. The wars I cited, however, were unjust. Even the pope (when he was still a cardinal) believed the Iraq war to be unjust. I wasn’t trying to win hearts by comparing war to abortion, I was trying to point out the fact that the conservative angle is much more inclined to support war. I’d also like to state that I am constantly examining my own conscience, constantly trying to improve myself by bringing myself closer to Christ. I am open to discussion, the very reason I even created an account for these forums was so I could learn.
The idea I am truly against is that the Republican party is the party Catholics should be voting for. By all reason, this is not true. Overturning Roe v Wade would allow states to decide on the issue (a very libertarian concept, not a conservative one. Republicans being anti-government is the biggest sleight of hand ever known in this country’s politics). This would allow certain states to ban it, if they so chose, which some undoubtedly would. This would not solve anything and would only create worse ills. Nobody can stake the claim that the Roe v Wade decision increased the abortion rate, as there would be no way to document the unlicensed abortions in states where it was banned.
You cannot tackle this issue with prohibitive laws. The only real means is education and counseling.
I implore Lisa and Bob to read this article, from a Catholic news source, no less.
ncronline.org/news/politics/which-presidential-candidate-truly-pro-life
From the article:
"There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
For example, Obama’s Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney’s health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan’s budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney.
But let’s not stop there. Obama does not financially profit from the abortion industry. Romney does. Bain Capital, in the time Romney was listed as its legal head and even when he was attending Bain board meetings, was an owner of Stericycle, a major disposer of the dead bodies of aborted children in the United States. (See: Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show.) Bain owned a share of Stericycle until 2004, selling its interest for a profit in the tens of millions of dollars. We can parse what Romney’s 1999 “retroactive retirement” from Bain means, but he still gets an annual payout from the firm. To the extent those dollars are part of Bain’s Stericycle profits, a strong argument exists that Romney is an abortion profiteer. How pro-life is that?
And it has long been known that millions of Bain Capital’s original outside funding, solicited by Romney himself, came from wealthy El Salvadorian clans, some of whom, while they were funding Bain, were “linked to right wing death squads.” (Salt Lake Tribune, 1999; See also: Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads.) Death squads killed tens of thousands of mostly poor people in El Salvador. They also killed priests, nuns and Archbishop Oscar Romero. How pro-life is that? How pro-life is taking the money of these people and doubling or tripling it for them? And did any of their Bain profits fund more death squads? Before we endorse Romney’s “pro-life” claims, isn’t it important for us to know that?"
The idea that Obama is ‘pro-abortion’ is such a vile statement to make. It’s not true.
Lisa, you said you adored Reagan. What are your feelings on the fact that he is a mass murderer via his implementing policies of genocide in South America? It was also during his administration that then-CIA director George HW Bush trained and armed Osama bin-Laden to go after the soviets.
The concept of “liberals are bad” or “conservative are bad” isn’t helpful at all. Neither party is fully within the lines of Catholic teachings, so why would you vote for either of them? There is an inherent danger and evil in two-party politics.
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TimothyIgnatius
Guest
Correction, George HW Bush was the director of the CIA under Nixon. And we all know what a savory fellow he was.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Good luck with that. Don’t expect conservatives to let facts get in the way of their opinions.
Watch it. The first thing they will try to do is delegitimize the source. After all, the National Catholic Reporter is the ‘apostate’ paper, and the National Catholic Register the only ‘real’ Catholic journal. Yeah right (the Register endorsed Paul Ryan and even tried to make feeble excuses for his anti-Catholic social doctrines of ‘makers and takers’ that are directly influenced by the morally repulsive ideas of atheist Ayn Rand – not that all atheists are morally repulsive though, but this one is) .
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wittgenstein
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Actually, the deficit has decreased under Obama. Also it took over a decade to get over the great depression of the 1930s. It took the liberal policies of FDR to rescue the country from the effects of unregulated capitalism.
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Erich
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There. Fixed it.
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Erich
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The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower was in office. (I should note that the Democrats had gained control of the House of Representatives, where all fiscal bills originate, two years earlier.)
Progress was made toward deficit reduction (but not debt reduction) from 1994 to 2000, during the Clinton administration. (I should note that the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 1994, for the first time in 40 years.) Of course, progress toward deficit reduction took a detour after 9/11/2001… but the trend between 2004 and 2007 was still in the right direction:
What happened in 2007? Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives.
Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a “budget deficit”. So you borrow (i.e. you use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don’t have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you’ll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don’t have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as “bankruptcy” and we’re careening toward it at a pretty good clip.
In fact, the president’s budget for fiscal year 2013 can’t be balanced. In particular, look at page 212 in the “Summary Tables” section, which shows spending and outlays by fiscal year. Spending in fiscal 2012 is $3.796 trillion while tax receipts are only $2.469 trillion, resulting in a deficit of $1.327 trillion. Now take a closer look at the outlays. There are three categories: interest on the national debt, “mandatory” programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and TARP), and “discretionary” programs (security-related expenditures for the military, FBI, CIA, etc; and non-security-related expenditures for everything else that the federal government spends money on).
Aside from the fact that the President’s budget considers TARP mandatory and security discretionary, if you simply cross out the line item for the entire federal government (i.e. all of the “discretionary” programs), the remaining cost ($2.477 trillion) exceeds all tax revenues.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Thanks for that link. Very interesting!
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onemangang
Guest
Why does liberal equal democrat? There was a time where liberal had a whole different meaning. Classical liberalism would include those like Adam Smith, or more modern day Thomas Sowell, and Milton Friedman, it once looked very libertarian.
Why look towards the two parties, they have both proven themselves to be parties that promote a system of death.
The left doesn’t have to be democrat or socialist, it can be a radical left, like libertarian-socialism, guys like Murray Bookchin, Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky.
The right doesn’t have to so called conservatism, it can look a lot more like a Ron Paul, or a Thomas Sowell.
Are we really going to find Catholic social teaching represented in either of the two parties of today?
We have a corporate left and a corporate right, both of which primary concern does not seem to be people first.
Today’s so called conservatives pander to the pro-life and one man, one woman, marriage folks while, the rest of their ideology looks a lot like social darwinism.
The left appeals to as the late great Arch-bishop Fulton Sheen called it “False compassion” crowd that says it compassionate to let a mother kill her child in the name of " convenience" or let men, marry men, in the name of “equality”
I for one think its high time to start exploring other avenues of governance, if one is going to be faithful to Catholic social teaching!
My two cents anyways :twocents:
Why look towards the two parties, they have both proven themselves to be parties that promote a system of death.
The left doesn’t have to be democrat or socialist, it can be a radical left, like libertarian-socialism, guys like Murray Bookchin, Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky.
The right doesn’t have to so called conservatism, it can look a lot more like a Ron Paul, or a Thomas Sowell.
Are we really going to find Catholic social teaching represented in either of the two parties of today?
We have a corporate left and a corporate right, both of which primary concern does not seem to be people first.
Today’s so called conservatives pander to the pro-life and one man, one woman, marriage folks while, the rest of their ideology looks a lot like social darwinism.
The left appeals to as the late great Arch-bishop Fulton Sheen called it “False compassion” crowd that says it compassionate to let a mother kill her child in the name of " convenience" or let men, marry men, in the name of “equality”
I for one think its high time to start exploring other avenues of governance, if one is going to be faithful to Catholic social teaching!
My two cents anyways :twocents:
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pete_29
Guest
It seems to me that if people disagree with you, they are being irate with you. I’m kind of dumb, so tell me, am I mistaken. Also, you might consider the high emotions among people when it comes to abortion. For me, abortion means babies being killed. What am I supposed to do? Ignore it?
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pete_29
Guest
WOW! Pot, Kettle anyone.
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ProVobis
Guest
Thank you for pointing that out. It would take actual surpluses in the budget to reduce the national debt which has spanned for decades. In fact, it will take 16 consecutive years of $1 trillion or 160 years of $100 billion surpluses to eliminate the debt altogether. And we haven’t have one dollar of surplus since 1969 (if one can count that) or as you mentioned since Eisenhower. Even Paul Ryan’s plan wouldn’t create a surplus until 10 years from now.
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