He shoots, he scores!!!

Er, bad sports metaphor, eh?

Honestly, why protest abortion at a Clinton Campaign Rally?

Bill Clinton, no longer tied down by Arkansas-state politics is no longer “pro-life”, that we know.  His “wife” supports abortion; “pro-choice” isn’t even an appropriate label for her - “pro-abortion” would be more like it.

My Catholic brothers from Steubenville are, of course, “making a name for themselves” in the “pro-life community” by protesting - what else would or should I expect from a group of weirdo-charismatics?

In the end: America is in Full Revolution against God, and the only way to end “abortion” (aka Murder) is to end the Revolution.

In defense of Bill Clinton, at least he is honest about his pro-choice views. The enemy at the gates is less of a menace than the enemy within.

The conservatives are worse than liberals because they are liars. They say every election cycle that they oppose abortion, illegal immigration, affirmative action, etc. Their actions tell a different story.

7/9 SCOTUS justices are Republican appointees. Clinton was only responsible for Ginsberg and Breyer. Roe v. Wade should have been overturned 15 years ago. Why is abortion still legal in this country? Because of Souter, Stevens, O’Connor, and Kennedy - Ford, Reagan, and Bush Sr. appointees.

It suits the GOP to keep the abortion issue on the table indefinitely. If the pro-life cause won, these voters would suddenly find themselves free to vote against the pro-business Republican agenda. Their strategy is to give lip service to your concerns and just enough action to keep you voting against the Democrats to keep the GOP in power.

The Democrats, of course, count on this. The elites who control both parties wink at each other and maintain their dominance. And so we keep going around in circles. This awful state of affairs will continue until a critical mass of people say enough.

The proof that conservatives are insincere is their reaction to Huckabee’s win in Iowa. The conservative establishment was aghast at the possibility of having a social conservative presidential nominee in the driver’s seat. They spent all of Jan/Feb shooting him down. Ron Paul, of course, was similarly beyond the pale. At times it became clear that they would rather lose to Hillary/Obama than cede power to the evangelicals/Catholics who were soft on tax cuts.

Look at them now. Bill Kristol is crowing that we are all neocons. The Beltway Boys are salivating at the possibility of a McCain administration. At National Review, Kudlow is saying that McCain will staff his administration with top business leaders and cut taxes on hard working corporations. They are celebrating their victory over you and counting on riding the lesser of two evils card to the White House.

What does it say about Juan McCain that he swept the pro-choice vote in the Republican primaries? He is perceived by pro-choicers, and rightly so, as a politician who will advance their agenda. This is an individual who rubs shoulders with Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter.

Cthuhlu ‘08

Just a reminder: a vote for Mammon is not a vote for Jesus.

<<cut taxes on hard working corporations>>

A well laid quip by, in referencing previous posts, our seemingly “racialist” friend, Prozium.

I will “come out of the closet” with this post:

I am a Georgist.

There it is.

Tax Land, not Labour, nor Capital.

Capital is a ***** that needs to be put in her place. A lot like Lindsay Lohan.

On the plus side, the Clintons seem headed for
the dustbin of history.

We are going to get Obama for President. We better
learn how to live with him.

Unfortunately now it is a bad time to be a conservative.
“Conservative” today means “Like what Bush 43 did”,
that is “a complete disaster”. 

Remember the blue collar Reaganites that formed his
coalition? Well, they just saw their jobs shipped to
China, and so-called conservatives saying it is a
good thing. Guess who they are going to vote for in
November?

(Writing from Steubenville; some of our kids were outside waving Ron Paul banners.)

Why confront Bill Clinton about abortion? To remind him and others of the eternal verities. Nothing wrong with that. And not all the kids from campus are charismatics--some of them are Latin Mass types. ;-)

is this a catholic v protestant thing?  as usual?

<<is this a catholic v protestant thing?>>

I don’t think we’ll go down that path with this Lester.

<<We are going to get Obama for President.>>

No, we’re not.  There just aren’t enough states he could carry; either Obama or Hillary.

Truth be known, I’m more concerned about the face of “pro-life” America than anything from the other side. At least the death folks are dependable. Whether, on the one hand, its ReichsChurchers like Neuhaus at FirstThings or James Dobson at Phoney On The Family finding themselves curiously incapable of raising their voices about Bush’s stem-cellout in 2001, or, more recently, their tendering noxious support for the aggression in Iraq, or Oberstgruppenpastor, John Hagee, seeking to ethnically cleanse the West Bank together with alleged “orthodox Catholic” websiteteers, Jimmy Akin and Christopher Blosser, clouding - if not openly supporting - torture on the other, what passes for “pro-life” today is hardly recognizable by Catholic standards. The kids at Steubenville need to tend to their own knitting, divorcing themselves from the Fr. Pavones who have made a mockery of their ministries by ideologizing them and keeping a discerning eye on the input they’re getting from a bevey of television “personalities” whose origins in Evangelicalism have as yet fully to be purged. No, I wouldn’t worry about Clinton. “Prolifers” have enough to do at home.

John Lowell

Best thing to work for: as many genuine conservative
Congressional representatives (House and Senate) in
2010 as possible. And, for the long term, a conservative
cable channel: news; opinion; documentaries; “c-span”
type coverage when required; a permanent presence in
the culture war.

“Men with the hearts of boys who drop their baby batter left and right like a drunk pastry chef.”

Disgusting and un-called for.

Disgusting the comment may be, but not as much so as its subject.

It is not necessarily the pregnant woman who ‘freely chooses’ an abortion so much as it is the worthless and selfish man who, having impregnated her, pressures her into having one under threat of withdrawing affection and support. I have met women who underwent abortions under such circumstances and were later consumed with regret. The wretched man’s affection and support have proved transient in any event. Oddly enough some of these unfortunates still defend the free availability of abortion, but the ‘choice’ is not quite what is glibly represented by those who presume to speak for the interests of women.

I salute John Lowell for posting under his first and last names.  I salute him even more for taking Fr. Frank Pavone to the woodshed.

The founder of “Priests for Life” lost my support in 2004 when, from the site of the Republican Convention, he publicly and “proudly” endorsed the bloody-handed warmonger and “pro-life” poseur W. Bush for reelection.

During the Terry Shiavo ordeal, Pavone never demanded of either of the Bush brothers that they exercise their constitutional and moral duty and simply rescue Shiavo from her murderers.

Does anyone really believe that the local thugs, er, police guarding the protracted judicially-ordered murder process would actually have waged a gun battle with either state troopers or FBI agents?  Heck no! The local cops would have stood down and gone home, glad to be out from under thoroughly disgusting and uncomfortable orders.  And Terry would have been saved to live or die as God ordained.

Instead, Fr. Pavone went through a handwringing exercise for the cameras that implicitly absolved both the spineless Bush brothers from their cowardly and reprehensible failures to protect Terry’s innocent life.

I have raised these issues several times--in firm, but respectful terms--to “Priests for Life” via emailed messages.  I am still waiting for any response at all.

Mark Higdon,

Thank you, Mark, for the kind words.

You were earlier on to the Pavone defection than I was, in 2004, my attention having been diverted to such easily purchased stepin-fetchits as Deal Hudson. I mean, really, Rove’s house Catholic? The whole “Catholic” public arena is full of such treachery.

There would seem to be something about prominence on the one hand and Republican associations on the other that almost guarantees corruption. The surprizing ignorance in such quarters of the distinctions to be drawn between a notion of public involvement informed by the pre-Vatican II, neo-scholastic doctrine on nature and grace found in, say, J. Courtney Murray, and that more ressourcement-friendly construct built upon du Lubac and von Balthasar of David Schindler’s simply astounds. Frankly, I think the whole of ideologized Catholicism - of neo-conservative Catholicism, if you will - can be explained in such terms, not that pointing that out does much good. One is simply see as uncharitable, as a latter-day wrecker. But the truth remains, public Catholicism in its most prominent representations has been utterly ideologized. Pavone is one of the more obvious examples.

John Lowell

Indeed, simple prudence would indicate that Catholics
should keep a certain distance from politicians and
officeholders. One should anounce one’s principles, and
say what one expects of a candidate, one should reproach
any officeholder for his actions.

But to openly back a candidate or a policy is to invite
trouble, because a) politicians are very good at
manipulating people to their own ends, which a lot of
time have nothing to do with the goals a Christian should
strive for in the public arena and b) if such policy or
candidate turns out to be a dud, the Chruch itself will
be blamed for selling a lemon to the American people -
and making it hard to believe that people that can
be so spectacularly wrong can offer good advice on
anything else (as Robert Redford says to Paul Newman
in “The Sting” ‘I already know how to drink’)

And its precisely this backing of candidates, Republican candidates, that has been the hallmark of the Fr. Pavones, the Bill Donohues, the Fr. Neuhauses and others, Adriana. And the support is tendered in two ways, either overtly as in the case of Hudson, or covertly through a perverse silence when a forceful speaking out would otherwise be required of a Catholic as in the case of Neuhaus’ curious refusal to criticize Bush’s 2001 stem-cell compromise. What we confront in instances like these is something akin to the acquiesence of the ReichsChurch in the early history of German National Socialism. That was particularly true of the spirit over at FirstThings about the Iraq aggression. The judgements there were simply appalling and the influences so all-pervasive as to be unmistakeable.

Fr. Frank Pavone is a fine man doing good work, and how dare any of you heap callumnious scorn on him when it comes to matters of legitimate prudence and conscience. Let’s review the score, which will hopefully reduce from the atmosphere the smug and self-satisfied fumes now present.

Fr. Pavone has dedicated him priesthood to promoting the overthrow of abortion. As the bishops have repeatedly noted, it is the fundamental issue of our day and against perennial Church teaching. While there is a just war theory, and the Church is still on record as saying the death penalty is licit in certain circumstances, abortion is never justified (except in the legitimate case of life of the mother under the principle of double effect).

Thus, in a close election year where the possibility of a pro-abortion president is a real possibility, does Fr. Pavone stay quiet or exhort people to get behind the most viable pro-life candidate?

You can’t be serious about your opposition to abortion (indeed, are you select individuals who have posted here opposed to abortion ... it would be hard to precisely discern given the chaffe of ad hominem attacks through which we have to weed our way) if you say I’m privately against abortion, but I’m not going to do what I can to the greatest, legal extent possible to stop them.

Look at what would have happened with a Kerry presidency: Goodbye, Mexico City Policy (which President Bush has been so successful in maintaining that the Democrats in the current budget have tried to undermine it with riders to the Africa AIDS bill), no Justices Roberts and Alito (i.e., no illegalization of partial birth abortion), and several other items that you can easily discover for yourselves. What would we have had with a Kerry presidency?

All of this tends against the notion which has been facilely labeled people “ideologized.” It’s a function of trying to move things foreward to the greatest degree possible using the tools one has at one’s disposal. To use an admittedly simplistic analogy, it’s like criticizing McGiver for trying to escape death using a paper clip, duct tape, and some rope when he should have employed a bazooka or a rocket pack. Great, but he didn’t have those things, did he, so he did the best with what he had.

One reads above about the lack of charity. Where can we imput charity to the writers? Doesn’t charity assume the best motives for another’s actions?

Finally, let’s just have a comment on the whole war thing: The Church makes very clear that while she can make judgments on whether an armed conflict is just or not, it is up to the competent civil authorities to determine whether just war conditions have been met. Say what you will about the Iraq War, but no legitimate or plausible or serious argument can be put forth that says the Bush Administration did not seriously weigh whether this was a just war. It was the only time in my memory that any Administration, Republican or Democrat, had actually considered armed force in just war terms. And as Weigel, Novak, and several others have noted, the conditions for just war were met. So just because you don’t agree with whether an action was advised or not, prudent or not, just or not doesn’t mean that the possibility ipso facto exists that you are not wrong. Nor does it mean reasonable people who have the best intentions cannot disagree. It is unjust, therefore, to anathematize some Catholics for their positions where the Church herself allows disagreement.