Posted on 03/24/2008 1:08:24 PM PDT by tcg
God has called each one of us into this real world, a world which he fashioned, and given to us the capacity to exercise our human freedom for the good. We make our choices and in those choices we change ourselves, as well as the world around us, for better or for worse. One of our choices is how we choose to govern ourselves and whether we will do so for the common good.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
Professor Kmiec holds the distinguished Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University. He is a legal scholar of the highest order. He is also a dedicated and sincere Catholic Christian.
He has an accomplished record of public service. He served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (U.S. Assistant Attorney General) for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He is the former Dean of the law school at The Catholic University of America, and was a member of the law faculty for nearly two decades at the University of Notre Dame.
So, who did Professor Kmiec endorse?
Senator Barack Obama. His decision is sending shock waves throughout the Pro-Life community.
I wanted to get out ahead of this story before all the discussion, both charitable and uncharitable, began. I also wanted to use it as a framework for a broader discussion. So, I grabbed your attention with this title, didn’t I?
I will probably get a lot more than just attention. I am sure I will receive angry E-Mails. Political discussion is all getting so, well, “un-civil” and we have not even made it through both major party conventions. I am tired of the stridency, the talking heads and the messiness of it all! I am also tired of the unelected talk radio hosts who have appointed themselves as the new oracles and I can barely listen to their wasted words.
Let me make myself and the title of this article a bit clearer, “God is not a Republican or a Democrat”. Nor is He a member of the Constitution Party, the Libertarian party… or any of a growing number of political “alternatives” that reflect a growing dissatisfaction with both major political parties.
Nor can God be placed within the numerous categories bandied about these days in the kind of "Balkanized" landscape of political discourse. You know the labels like “liberal”, “conservative”, neo-conservative”, “neo-liberal”, “paleo-conservative”, or any permutation of them.
Political parties are our creation, not God's.
In fact, it seems like the political labels we currently use in our public conversation go through a change almost every twenty years. Yesterdays “liberal” is today’s “neo-conservative”. Or, are they actually? Most of yesterdays’ “liberals” would have opposed the initial decision to enter into Iraq with no justification.The "neo-conservatives rattled their verbal swords and led the charge. So, are yesterdays “liberals” more like the “paleo-conservatives”?
Well, you see the problem with all these labels.
God has called each one of us into this real world, a world which he fashioned, and given to us the capacity to exercise our human freedom for the good. We make our choices and in those choices we change ourselves, as well as the world around us, for better or for worse. One of our choices is how we choose to govern ourselves and whether we will do so for the common good.
We who live in this wonderful Nation call the United States of America will soon be faced with one of the most important choices in my lifetime, electing the next President of the United States. This is an election of particular importance for Christians because of the issues that most of us hold as vital to a truly just and humane society.
Over the years I have come to group those issues in categories around what I call “four pillars of social participation”; the dignity of every human life (from conception through to natural death), the primacy of true marriage and family (as the first vital cell of all civil society as well as the first church, first government, first school, first economy and first mediating institution); authentic and responsible human and religious freedom; and our obligations in solidarity with all the poor and the needy.
I have worked for decades to encourage Christians, indeed all people of faith and good will, to build a more just and human society around these four pillars. I have participated in, and helped to build, movements and associations oriented toward this vital work because I have long believed and proclaimed that my faith compels me to live a unity of life.
I reject the so-called “private/public” dichotomy of some Catholics and other Christians in public life as heresy. My faith is profoundly personal but it is radically and fundamentally public. It is not a coat that I put on when I enter a Church building but rather a center from which I live and a lens through which I view all of human and social existence. There simply are objective moral truths that must guide truly human behavior and authentically free and just social community life.
For example, the position I hold on the right to life and the dignity of every human life at every age and stage is NOT, in the first instance, a “religious” position; it is a human rights position and I know that it must become the polestar of all good public policy. Without the right to life and the freedom to be born, as well as the further right to live a full life and die a natural death, unimpeded by euthanasia, passive or active, there simply are no other rights or human freedoms.
If human freedom becomes reduced to a notion of doing whatever one “chooses”, including the intentional killing of children in the womb, the elderly, the “dependent”… it has been ripped away from its true meaning and reduced to some fabricated “right” to exercise a raw power over others.
This counterfeit definition of freedom of “choice” as a right to do what is wrong will not promote true freedom. It will inevitably lead us all to a new and profane form of slavery.It has already effectively consigned an entire class of human persons, children in the first home of their mothers womb, to the status of property to be disposed of.
Like most folks, I have tried to use my prudential judgment in exercising a treasured right, the right to vote as an American citizen. I believe that there is a hierarchy of values which should be applied in the application of this kind of judgment. I have sought to order the issues in deciding for whom I would vote. Of course, I will do so once again this vital election year.
However, it is getting increasingly difficult to live through the political chicanery and reinvention, the glitz and image, and the increasingly hostile responses of even good people to the growing hostility of our political dialogue and climate.
For example, every morning I receive several missives (that is what they are) by E-Mail telling me why one party is “evil” and implying the other party is somehow “good”. Frankly, I am growing sick of them all.
To any political “experts” reading this article, I am a “swing” voter. I write this article to give some insights into the issues that will determine my vote. Maybe the so called “experts” will pay some attention.
I officially left the party called Democratic years ago. The last Democrat that I enthusiastically supported was Governor Bob Casey. I could not be associated with a party that claimed to care for the poor and failed to hear the cry of the “poorest of the poor” children in the womb. Though I never “officially” switched my registration, I have been “lumped” with the other major party called “Republican.”
I have seriously considered trying to launch a new party, one that is pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom, pro-peace and pro-poor. I am still leaning heavily in that direction.Maybe some of the readers of this column have had similar thoughts.
I am whole life, pro-life. I absolutely oppose the taking of innocent human life in the first home of the entire human race, the womb. Science has confirmed what our conscience has long known; the child in the womb is out neighbor. It is always and everywhere intrinsically evil to take innocent human life. Senator Obama is wrong in his support of legalized abortion. It is also intrinsically evil to “manufacture” human embryonic life to then kill that life for spare parts.Senator McCain is wrong in his support for deadly research on human embryonic life.
I also oppose capital punishment, though on different moral grounds. I accept the refined teaching of the Catholic Catechism and the modern encyclical letters that insist it is no longer defensible in the West because it is no longer necessary to protect or preserve and promote the common good. Bloodless means are available to protect society and “punish” the criminal.
Also, as a former prosecutor, I know that there is simply no doubt that mistakes have been made in its application and we have executed the innocent. So, I believe that mercy should trump justice. Vengeance is never ours.
Marriage must be defended and protected from the current assault against the institution. Marriage is what it is and we all know it. There is a word used in Philosophical and theological discourse to speak about the nature of things. It is the word “ontology”. It refers to the essence of something. There is an “ontology” to marriage.
A cabbage is not a rock. A dog is not a human person. Homosexual relationships and the sexual acts accompanying such relationships cannot ever constitute a marriage. They are not capable of being open to the fullness of the love that is at the foundation of the unitive nature of marriage and for which even our bodies are constituted, that is the total gift of self to the other in faithful, lifelong love. Nor can such sexual acts, or the relationships formed around them, ever be procreative, open to new life in children. Social groupings built on such relationships are also not families.
There is an intense effort underway to categorize those who still support this objective reality as uncaring, bigoted or antiquated. We are not. Marriage and the family founded upon it are the future of freedom. Redefining marriage and family will not help anyone, including those who are self defined homosexuals. It is also destructive of the social order. Marriage and the family built upon it is the solid foundation of civil society. It is the first vital cell of that society.
Of course all persons must be treated with human dignity and not be discriminated against and that includes homosexual persons. However, there are other ways to protect against discrimination than the current efforts to redefine the fundamental social institution of marriage, the defining cornerstone of our social order.
To destroy marriage through redefining the word in some verbal form of alchemy, especially under the guise of “tolerance”, is dangerous and corrosive to the common good and horribly intolerant of those who feel as I do.
I opposed the pre-emptive war in Iraq. I rejected then- and still reject - any notion of a “pre-emptive” war as ever being acceptable under any analysis of the Just war teaching within the catholic tradition. Like all Americans, I believe that prudence and justice now require that we assist the people of Iraq in their hour of great need.
I do not see all that much difference between the two major parties on how we must act going forward in Iraq. Rather, there is a debate over whether we should ever have gone in. Perhaps this may speak to judgment, but I find the discussion to be wearying.
Now, a word to probably well intended Republicans; repeatedly telling people like me that one candidate opposed the war in Vietnam, as if that fact would make people like me feel more negatively disposed to him simply because of that, is not helping you with us.
I opposed that war also!
In fact, I marched in Washington against the Vietnam War. That’s right! I am a former “hippie” of sorts. My desire back then to reject materialism and unjust war was sincere. I believe it helped me to continue the guidance of the Holy Spirit and come home to the faith of my early childhood as a young man.
I believe the Catholic Faith is the fullness of the Christian faith and, when truly lived, is to actually be the true “counter-culture”, intended by its prophetic presence in the world to act as a leavening agent in the loaf of human culture.
Perhaps some of my 'conservative" or "neo-conservative" colleagues have either forgotten their opposition to that Vietnam war or they have morphed into some sort of “Alex B Keaton” kind of “conservative from birth” caricature. I have not. War is always horrible and must be strictly evaluated according to an authentic application of the principles of the “just war” analysis.
At the outset of this last war, under the leadership of our last great Pope, John Paul II, the Church opposed the incursion into Iraq. Our current Pope has taken the same position. The efforts to change the mind of the Servant of God John Paul II by neo-conservative Michael Novak were ineffective. he actually went to Rome on some kind of lobbying mission.
Anyone who says that the Church did not oppose the intiail foray into Iraq is simply wrong, or engaged in verbal gymnastics masquerading as prudential judgment.
I am deeply concerned that in the wealthiest Nation on earth we still have not solved the real health care crisis. I personally dread the idea of a “nationalized” solution because big Government has not proven itself to be very efficient nor is it very good at compassion and care. That is part of why I have so strongly supported the “faith based” and community initiative of the current administration as a part of fulfilling our national obligation to the poor.
Churches and religious institutions ARE good at compassion and care and need to be seen as partners in solidarity! The principle of subsidiarity which holds that government is best when it is closest to those being governed and the principle of solidarity that reminds us of our obligations to one another and that we are our “brothers (and sisters) keeper” have found a wonderful meeting place in this great new (really quite old) initiative. It is fresh, creative public policy.
We MUST now find the creative solutions to providing health care for all Americans. We can not selay any longer. The “market” will not solve this crisis without leadership. I have an ever increasing disdain for what is called in catholic Social teaching an “economism”, an approach to economic issues which somehow posits “freedom” as best advanced through a kind of economic Darwinism.
Freedom is a good of the person.
Our market economy is a tremendous vehicle for freedom but it must always be placed at the service of the person, the family and the common good. We simply MUST hear the cry of the poor! We cannot ascribe to a notion of an “invisible hand” which may, if not guided, strangle the poor.
Expanding economic participation to all is a vital part of making sure that “free” is the operative description before the phrase market economy! That must be true in our international economic relationships as well.
You can see just from what I have written thus far, that I am neither Republican nor Democrat, neither “liberal” nor “conservative.” I am, however, very politically engaged. I am also not ready to join any of the current “Third Party” efforts, though, as mentioned,I have “flirted” with the notion of starting one, based on the great principles of Catholic Social teaching. I feel that it will throw away my vote at this time.
I also cannot “opt” to “not vote” -as a growing number of people whom I respect are choosing to do.
I will vote. Here is one of the main reasons why.
The next occupant of the Whitehouse will choose at least one Supreme Court Justice. That choice will, at least in this Constitutional lawyers mind, determine whether the current “culture of death” hiding under the profane precedent of Roe v Wade will take another generation of our children before they are able to breathe our air and be welcomed into our family.
The next President will be called upon to provide the genuinely moral leadership so desperately needed to prevent the new cultural revolutionaries from eliminating marriage and family from its favored social status by equalizing homosexual and heterosexual relationships outside of marriage and using the power of the State to enforce this new order.
The next President will be called upon to extract our troops from Iraq, while also ensuring that the Iraqi people, who have suffered so greatly from the War and what led up to it, are given the help they need to rebuild from the devastation of the last five years.
The next President will have an opportunity to solve the health care crisis, expand economic opportunity, bring our troops home from Iraq with honor and dignity and continue to open up our market, and our National embrace to the poor in all of their manifestations.
This is an extraordinarily important election.
God is not a Republican, nor is God a Democrat….and, neither am I. However, I will continue to follow this campaign with great interest. I hope we all do. And, I will vote. There is too much at stake.
On many important public policy issues I agree with my friend Professor Doug Kmiec. I also admire him and believe that he is sincerely pro-life. However, I respectfully and strongly disagree with his decision to support Senator Barack Obama.
In the application of issues in a ccordance with the hierarchy of values, I choose to hear the cry of the ones whom Blessed Teresa of Calacutta called the "poorest of the poor", the children living in the wombs of their mothers.After all, they have no voice but ours.
I can tell you this: God would not support a candidate that supports the murder of innocent children in the womb. The execution of guilty parties is endorsed in the Bible, the wanton killing of babies is not.
Whoever says “God is not a Republican or a Democrat” sure is trying to make it sound like one party is just as bad as the other...and that notion is nonsense.
Both parties have problems. One is nihilistic, abortionist, and pacifist to a fault. The other, on the whole, endorses human freedom, dignity, and will fight for the same.
I’ve made my choice for the latter.
You’re wrong, God is a republican.
God is not a Republican, but the devil is a Democrat.
Very long, very involved, unnecessarily vague article, but Deacon Keith Fournier finally comes down to it in the end.
I think the length and the vagueness and the concessions represent his difficulty in dealing with this issue, because he thought he was on the same wavelength as Kmiec. They are both liberal, social justice Catholics. But Fournier is not quite a dissenter.
He could have put it put much more simply:
The most fundamental human right is the right to life. All other rights depend on that one. And Barrack Hussein Obama has a long and extreme record of supporting any and all kinds of abortion, including partial birth abortion and even killing an infant after he has been born.
Therefore, no decent Catholic can possibly endorse him. Nothing else Obama has done and nothing that he claims to represent can undo that clear and terrible evil. Period, end of statement.
"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."
Abraham Lincoln
Didn’t Lincoln make a statement something like; “We should not ask if God is on our side but ask ourselves if we are on His side!”?
I find it problematic when people try to speak for God, as if they know all He knows. I say let Him speak for Himself, unless of course we have been chosen by Him to speak for Him as, for example Moses, Peter, Paul, and others were.
You beat me and got it right!
Hey Doug.....you support a person who votes FOR PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION!! Are you NUTS??
Fournier is not a dissenter at all. In fact, he is an orthodox Catholic.he has done what you have said repeatedly in other places. It seems that here he is trying to stop this decision by Kmiec from influencing others. He is doing so by laying out catholic social teaching. If it were as “simple” for many catholics and other Christians as you make it, why are they supporting Obama?
No, no, I said that Kmiec has become a dissenter. Fournier is a bit of a liberal for my tastes, but he is certainly orthodox. I think this was a blow to him, coming from a friend he thought he knew.
That reply is for post one.
Sorry
agreed - however the basic tenets of the Republican Party are much more at one with Christian values. The Democrats have little to offer one who tries to live out his faith.
I think Fournier is very close to hitting the target. Obama is definitely a no-go, but Fournier is right to suggest that the alternative is problematic as well. I’d welcome a party that presented a platform similar to Fournier’s outline.
Anyone who lets Kmiec's opinion influence them is an idiot, as is Kmiec for endorsing such a racist, anti-American, Marxist, abortion-worshipping fanatic like Obama.
I just heard this guy on FoxNews.
Got to be drugs!
What an uncharitable comment. I hope we can all do better than that. Kmiec is a true scholar, and accomplished man, who has made a mistake.Fournier is trying to help. What are you trying to do?
Thanks for clarifying. ONLY through intelligent discourse will we keep this guy out of the White House. the word “LIBERAL” is also being used for theological reasons. You are saying Fournier is a faithful Catholic but you do not agree with some of his political views?
I am trashing him, as his ridiculous "endorsement" deserves. I guess he is not as "accomplished" as you thought.
I think he’s a bit too swept away by “social justice.” The problem is that some Catholics seem to believe that social justice can be accomplished through government welfare. I happen to think that if the government didn’t tax us all so heavily, we could do better through charitable donations.
In other words, I believe in social justice but think that government redistribution of wealth is all too often a bad way of accomplishing it.
The right to life is quite another matter. There are no opinions there. It’s just plain wrong to kill babies.
But that’s a difference of opinion, not a matter of faith.
I hope you’re not saying we can’t or shouldn’t offer help if we want to offer help. I don’t want to turn this into a religious argument, and though I’ve read some of Rand I’m not an expert on her pov.
She has said a lot I respect, but if she believed charity out of one’s heart (as opposed to “charity” conscripted by the government) was anathema, then I must say she was wrong.
True Christianity does not endorse government welfare programs. Instead, it encourages individuals—on a spiritual, not a governmental basis, to care for their neighbors. When central governments try to do that, responsibility and accountability are essentially erased—something decidedly anti-Christian. The family deteriorates and people aren’t able to stand on their own.
I hope we can find common ground on that. :)
RD
Your friend is either one confused dude, or he has been offered some sort of plum position in an Obama Administration in exchange for his endorsement.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he is merely confused and has just been hanging around or reading too much leftist, Marxist claptrap put out by Jim Wallis (Sojourners) which he is now parroting.
Here is how he can get his head back on straight:
He needs to answer the question, "Is God a racist Marxist?"
After he honestly answers that, he will no doubt want to withdraw his endorsement, since Obama has belonged to a church for over 20 years whose leadership and affiliations are racist and Marxist to the core. What does he think "Black Liberation Theology" is all about? Is he that naive?
And it's quite easy to determine which of the two viable political parties has __a base__ comprised of racists, sexists, & Marxists.
If he doesn't think so, send him the following:
Hillary Clinton supporter, Reverend James David Manning says: Obama is a problem because he has a white mother and grandmother. VIDEO
Barack Obama supporter, Reverend Jeremiah Wright: White people are the problem (especially "rich" white people). VIDEO
The common denominator between the two 'RAT supporting Reverends: "The problem is white people". ~ Rush Limbaugh Wednesday 3/19/2008
Their solution? Bigger government ([headed up only by the good people, ie: "real" blacks - (not "fake" ones like Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell). ]).
Theologies of Liberation ~ Pope Benedict XVI
"..But the "theologies of liberation".. go on to a disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx."
[...]
"..Let us recall the fact that atheism and the denial of the human person, his liberty and rights, are at the core of the Marxist theory. This theory, then, contains errors which directly threaten the truths of the faith regarding the eternal destiny of individual persons. Moreover, to attempt to integrate into theology an analysis whose criterion of interpretation depends on this atheistic conception is to involve oneself in terrible contradictions. What is more, this misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the person leads to a total subordination of the person to the collectivity, and thus to the denial of the principles of a social and political life which is in keeping with human dignity. ...
[...]
"..We are facing, therefore, a real system, even if some hesitate to follow the logic to its conclusion. As such, this system is a perversion of the Christian message as God entrusted it to His Church. This message in its entirety finds itself then called into question by the "theologies of liberation."
[...]
"...As a result, participation in the class struggle is presented as a requirement of charity itself. The desire to love everyone here and now, despite his class, and to go out to meet him with the non-violent means of dialogue and persuasion, is denounced as counterproductive and opposed to love.
If one holds that a person should not be the object of hate, it is claimed nevertheless that, if he belongs to the objective class of the rich, he is primarily a class enemy to be fought. Thus the universality of love of neighbor and brotherhood become an eschatological principle, which will only have meaning for the "new man", who arises out of the victorious revolution. ...
[...]
"..But the "theologies of liberation", which reserve credit for restoring to a place of honor the great texts of the prophets and of the Gospel in defense of the poor, go on to a disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx.
In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the Church of the poor signifies the Church of the class which has become aware of the requirements of the revolutionary struggle as a step toward liberation and which celebrates this liberation in its liturgy. ...
[...]
"..The new hermeneutic inherent in the "theologies of liberation" leads to an essentially political re-reading of the Scriptures. Thus, a major importance is given to the Exodus event inasmuch as it is a liberation from political servitude. Likewise, a political reading of the "Magnificat" is proposed. The mistake here is not in bringing attention to a political dimension of the readings of Scripture, but in making of this one dimension the principal or exclusive component. This leads to a reductionist reading of the Bible.
Likewise, one places oneself within the perspective of a temporal messianism, which is one of the most radical of the expressions of secularization of the Kingdom of God and of its absorption into the immanence of human history.
In giving such priority to the political dimension, one is led to deny the radical newness of the New Testament and above all to misunderstand the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and thus the specific character of the salvation he gave us, that is above all liberation from sin, which is the source of all evils. ..
[...]
"...Faith in the Incarnate Word, dead and risen for all men, and whom "God made Lord and Christ" is denied. In its place is substituted a figure of Jesus who is a kind of symbol who sums up in Himself the requirements of the struggle of the oppressed.
An exclusively political interpretation is thus given to the death of Christ. In this way, its value for salvation and the whole economy of redemption is denied. ...
[...]
"..For them, the struggle of the classes is the way to unity.
The Eucharist thus becomes the Eucharist of the class. At the same time, they deny the triumphant force of the love of God which has been given to us.
[...]
"...the source of injustice is in the hearts of men. Therefore it is only by making an appeal to the moral potential of the person and to the constant need for interior conversion, that social change will be brought about which will be truly in the service of man.
For it will only be in the measure that they collaborate freely in these necessary changes through their own initiative and in solidarity, that people, awakened to a sense of their responsibility, will grow in humanity.
The inversion of morality and structures is steeped in a materialist anthropology which is incompatible with the dignity of mankind.
[...]
".. the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people.
This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are unworthy of mankind. Those who, perhaps inadvertently, make themselves accomplices of similar enslavements betray the very poor they mean to help.
The class struggle as a road toward a classless society is a myth which slows reform and aggravates poverty and injustice.
Those who allow themselves to be caught up in fascination with this myth should reflect on the bitter examples history has to offer about where it leads.
They would then understand that we are not talking here about abandoning an effective means of struggle on behalf of the poor for an ideal which has no practical effects. On the contrary, we are talking about freeing oneself from a delusion in order to base oneself squarely on the Gospel and its power of realization. ...
[...]
~ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (nka Pope Benedict XVI) August 6, 1984
“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI
“...After all, every normal person wants to help the poor and needy, but helping them at the end of a gun, as the left always want us to do, renders any spiritual benefit inoperative for both parties. .... What we hear from Obama is the eternal mantra of the socialists; America is broken, millions have no health care, families cannot afford necessities, the rich are evil, we are selfish, we are unhappy, unfulfilled, without hope, desperate, poverty stricken, morally desolate, corrupt and racist. This nihilism is the lifeblood of all the democrat candidates, even ‘hope you can believe in’ performers like Obama. When Michelle Obama claims she is only newly proud of her country, she does not exaggerate. In her world as in Obama’s, they believe we are a mess, a land filled with the ignorant and unenlightened, filled with despair” ..." (Fairchok). bttt
Nice to you quoting a papist with such apparent comfort. :o)
I do it all the time. You won’t find me quoting the bad soteriology, etc., though. :)
Agreed.
If I choose to support a charity I do so on my own volition.
Furthermore, I do so anonymously.
My problem is the way the OP worded his statement, as if its a duty or requirement and throwing the classic Catholic guilt trip in there, hehehe.
I also take issue with Rome’s theories of just wars. If you know, (or even suspect), someone’s a threat and is planning something, you hit first and destroy their ability to hurt you. What’s unjust about that?
Why should the United States allow them to strike first? According to Holy Mother Church’s bass-ackward doctrine, only then we’re justified in retaliating.
That’s unacceptable to me. Regardless of what il Papa says.
What you said! bttt
He’s hoping for a SCOTUS appointment.
Supreme Court ambitions is my guess.
If McCainiac wins in '08, the 'RATs on the SCOTUS who have been told not to retire yet, but to hang in there until after the election, will either immediately announce their retirement, or keel over on the spot.
We may have 3-4 opportunities to get more strict constructions on the court if McCainiac follows through on his promise to nominate only those sorts for the bench. (Getting them approved will either depend on us gaining majorities in both houses, or McCainiac cutting deals with the usual suspects.)
The fact that McCainiac has also made some other promises to us -- (even though I want them in a blood-oath written contract to have more confidence in them) -- and if he picks a VP running mate we can get excited about, will be the only reason I would even consider voting in the general for that RINO.
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