Comments on: Glendon @ Notre Dame – Round 3

By: celtoid2

celtoid2 — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:03:16 +0000

This fight IS about Catholic orthodoxy and is not really about politics.

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:28:29 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 9:45 AM --

"I'm NOT shutting THEM down. They're try to shut US down, can't you see that?"

No. Obviously not. (*SHRUG*)

"Every time there has been an attempt to moderate the platform or its candidates, the Religious Right threatens to walk out."

All I can tell you is where I stand on issues... issue by issue.

What the Religious Right does... it does... "they" do. Just as you're gonna do what you feel you have to.

Sinz... frankly... people tend to take Party platforms about as seriously as Justice Ginsberg takes... er... the text of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders.

(*RUEFUL SMILE*)

Still... for what it's worth... I'm sure you and I - working together - could improve upon any Republican Platform in recent memory.

BILL

(And Franco and I could REALLY improve upon any existing GOP platform!!!) (*HUGE FRIGG'N GRIN*)

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:17:42 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 9:39 AM --

Sinz. I'm just informing you how you come across to me.

(*SHRUG*)

"I always respected the Christian evangelicals tremendously. I know a few personally."

Hey... and I bet some of your best friends are black!

(*CHORTLE*)

Hey... you and the wife treat Juanita the cleaning lady like FAMILY, right...?

(*GRIN*)

Sinz. Obviously I'm busting your chops, but you get the picture. Your proclamation that you "know a few" doesn't exactly put paid to my... er... suspicions. (*SMILE*)

"They started excommunicating..."

(*SNORT*) Rim shot, Sinz. (*CHUCKLE*)

"They got their own guy, George W. Bush, a born-again Christian..."

No, Sinz. The fact that George W. Bush was the SON of former PRESIDENT George H. W. Bush was what cleared Dubya's path to the White House.

Bush's faith... (*SHRUG*)... sure it helped him with the "Christian Right," particularly in the face of McCain's relationship with them, but long before Dubya this nation elected a "wear it on your sleeve" Christian named James Earl Carter.

"...they stopped McCain from picking a popular moderate--say Tom Ridge--as running mate..."

Popular with who - you? My guess is that McCain would have lost even worse with Ridge on the ticket.

Palin gave McCain a shot at winning, but of course McCain - being McCain- just had to waste her and had to waste his opportunity to reject Bush's socialistic bailout. If McCain had campaigned as a true conservative - an economic conservative and not a "Bush moderate" as you use the term - he might well have pulled the election out and won.

(God only knows if as a result I'd be more or less depressed today if McCain had won the presidency... but he COULD have won.)

"You and Franco should stop inverting the truth."

(*SNORT*)

"We moderates are fighting a last-ditch effort to keep from being expunged..."

Sinz. GO! Join the Democratic Party! Work from the inside to move it to the Right and then at election time... in the privacy of the booth... if the Republican candidate is the more conservative... vote for the Republican.

What else do you want me to tell you?

BILL

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:45:04 +0000

barker13 sez: "When you disagree with them state your case... don't try to shut them down for stating theirs. "

I'm NOT shutting THEM down. They're try to shut US down, can't you see that? Every time there has been an attempt to moderate the platform or its candidates, the Religious Right threatens to walk out.

Here's what the 1976 GOP Platform said about abortion:

"The question of abortion is one of the most difficult and controversial of our time. It is undoubtedly a moral and personal issue but it also involves complex questions relating to medical science and criminal justice. There are those in our Party who favor complete support for the Supreme Court decision which permits abortion on demand. There are others who share sincere convictions that the Supreme Court's decision must be changed by a constitutional amendment prohibiting all abortions. Others have yet to take a position, or they have assumed a stance somewhere in between polar positions.
"We protest the Supreme Court's intrusion into the family structure through its denial of the parents' obligation and right to guide their minor children. The Republican Party favors a continuance of the public dialogue on abortion and supports the efforts of those who seek enactment of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children."

Notice the difference? Back then, the GOP majority could call for a Constitutional Amendment on abortion, while still recognizing that there was a sizable minority who disagreed on this.

But in the 2008 Platform, that language is gone. All that's left is the call for the Human Life Amendment, with no acknowledgment of dissenters. And the wording on the Amendment got much stronger; it now says that even an embryo deserves 14th Amendment rights.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:39:04 +0000

barker13: "Sinz actively disdains such folks."

FALSE.
I don't "disdain" them. I always respected the Christian evangelicals tremendously. I know a few personally. And when, in the late 1970s, they starting coming into the GOP in large numbers, I was glad that they saw how liberalism was hurting them too.

BUT then they started taking over everything. They pushed the GOP platform on domestic issues way to the right. They started excommunicating moderates like myself as "RINOs." They got their own guy, George W. Bush, a born-again Christian but an economic moderate, into the White House. They even had their own private agenda for the War on Terror: It was Christianity that was going to vanquish Islam! And finally, they stopped McCain from picking a popular moderate--say Tom Ridge--as running mate, thus losing Pennsylvania for good.

You and Franco should stop inverting the truth. We moderates are fighting a last-ditch effort to keep from being expunged, after which the GOP will turn into the Southern White Christian Party, a rump party that is virtually dead in the Blue States, and nearly so in many Purple States.

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:02:09 +0000

Re: Franco; 1:27 PM --

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Franco gets it.

(*NOD*)

Re: Sinz54; 1:30 PM --

"...is it impossible for you to respect someone on the diametric opposite side of the political spectrum?"

You ask that as if you doubt any of "us" on what you seemingly consider the "irrational Right" could response in the negative. (*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)

There you go with the Left-Right spectrum as opposed to the principled-unprincipled spectrum. This is your hang-up, not ours, Sinz.

Ralph Nader. I respect Ralph Nader. (Just as one example...)

Btw... your "Right-Left" spectrum is so limited as to be worthless in the way YOU use the term. Again... what's "Right," Buchanan, Dobbs, and Nader on "fair trade" with nationalism a key component of the first two's argument or are they "Left" because support of "Free Trade" is an absolute pillar of the GOP?

(*SHRUG*)

Re: Sinz54; 4:39 PM --

It's not a question of "like" or "dislike," it's a question of respect.

Let me give you tw examples of where Obama could have had me singing his praises:

1) If he had privately (and if necessary, publicly) used every resource at his disposal - official and unofficial, governmental and Party, reaching over the heads of both government and Party to go directly to the People if necessary - to "purge" Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank from their House/Senate committee chairmanships.

No... neither Rangel nor Dodd has been convicted of criminal activities... but I hope that regardless of ideology we can all agree that these two are corrupt... and as for Frank... along with Dodd and a fair number of former Clintonistas... he and his policies led to economic disaster with the real estate bubble and Fannie/Freddie as personal piggy bank of the Clinton administration retirees...

(*TAKING A BREATH*)

Ideology aside... partisanship aside... Obama could have hit the ground running in January and acted as a true reformer. Instead... instead of going after the bad guys... he appointed tax cheats to high office.

(*SNORT*)

2) He could have DEMANDED the pork be taken out of the Stimulus bill. He didn't.

(*SHRUG*)

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:33:45 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 1:27 PM --

"Since America cannot have an official endorsement of religion..."

Nonsense, Sinz, as I explained to you over on another thread. (*SHRUG*)

(See the thread: "Don't Know Much About Science Books" by David Jenkins.)

"Since America cannot have an official endorsement of religion, what non-religious arguments can be mustered in support of such Amendments?"

Sinz. You're giving me a headache. We're talking about Constitutional AMENDMENTS...!!!!

AMENDMENTS...!!!

Now I'm with you in opposing these particular Amendments and indeed my default position is "Stop Screwing Around With The Constitution," but the whole PURPOSE of the amendment process was to allow future generations to ADVOCATE for (and with enough popular support achieve) change of any kind... for ANY REASON.

(*SIGH*)

Sinz. You should have learned this stuff in Elementary School.

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:13:23 +0000

Re: Purple Fury; 12:35 PM --

"I respect people who hold pro-life and pro-traditional marriage views in good faith..."

And Sinz... er... doesn't. In fact, Sinz actively disdains such folks.

(*SHRUG*)

Sinz... that's how it comes across.

(*SHRUG*)

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:07:58 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 11:51 AM --

"I just wish there was room in the conservative movement, not just for the votes of non-Christians like me, but for our ideas as well."

Oh, cry me a frigg'n river, Sinz. I don't know where your obvious problem with Christians comes from, but clearly you have one.

BTW... the Catholic Church is very liberal on social welfare, immigration, the use of force in foreign policy... etc. My own Episcopal Church - and the Lutherans, Methodists, Congregationalists, etc., are often far to the Left on both "social" and "security" issues.

You ever hear of Liberation Theology...? How'bout...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqtX4qZBdRs

Jeez, Sinz... they were all on the cover of Newsweek for God's sake!

(*GRIN*)

"We cannot abide advocating the passage of Constitutional Amendments that have no philosophical justification other than that the Church might like them."

I agree. HOWEVER... folks have a right to advocate for what they want to advocate for. When you disagree with them state your case... don't try to shut them down for stating theirs. The whole point of the constitutional amendment process is to give citizens the right to advocate for change... yes... up to and including changes in the constitution.

"For folks like me, that is a show-stopper."

Diversity of opinion is a "show stopper" for people like you...??? See... THAT'S a problem, Sinz; and the problem is with YOU.

"If the Vermont legislature, through the democratic process, legalized same-sex marriage, what right do you have to tell them they cannot have that?"

We're on the same page, here, Sinz, but again... you need to show a bit more open-mindedness - not to mention confidence in your own beliefs - by trying to convince "the other side" (aka "those damned Christian Right Wingers) (*GRIN*) that when it comes to the Constitution... well... Jesus did say "Give unto Caesar..."

(*WINK*)

Seriously... Sinz... you come across as having a real intolerance for religious Christians if their ideology is more politically conservative than not on social issues.

BILL

By: Purple Fury

Purple Fury — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:07:20 +0000

sinz:

Re: respectable liberals, Joe Lieberman and John McCain come to mind.

And no, I don't automatically dislike Obama because of his politics, in the same way I don't automatically dislike many of my personal friends, just because they hold liberal views. I dislike Obama mostly because -- as I've shown numerous times in my earlier posts -- he refuses to deal honestly and fairly with the actual views of his political opposition. Instead, he minimizes them or carries them to a ridiculous extreme, and by doing so casts himself as a "moderate", and his opponents as "extremists". To the extent I happen to hold some of those opposing views, I find it insulting when he does this.