Tumor growing in Democratic Party (shocking what the writer has to say)

Rocky Mountain News ^ | November 12, 2004 | Francis X. Maier

[Former Military Chick]

My wife is a Democrat. Her family home in Chicago is lined with photos of the Kennedys. As a child, she remembers Saul Alinsky organizing neighborhood groups in her living room at the invitation of her mother and father. She volunteered on the Eugene McCarthy campaign. She worked as a floor runner at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Adlai Stevenson was a household icon.

My wife is a Democrat. Always was, always will be - at least in her heart. But she hasn't voted for a major Democratic candidate in more than 25 years. And therein lies a lesson for any Democrat who wants to understand the debris of the 2004 election.

I met my wife before I had returned to my childhood faith. One day I made the mistake of poking fun at those neanderthal Catholic views on abortion. What I got for my ignorance was a kindly but memorable tutoring on the sanctity of human life.

For my wife and her family, being a Catholic meant being a Democrat, and being a Democrat meant fighting for the little guy - literally. That included the poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, and the unemployed. It also meant defending the unborn child.

For my wife, arguing whether an unborn child was a "full human person" or a "developing human being" was irrelevant - or worse, a kind of lying. The dignity of the unborn life involved was exactly the same, whatever one called it.

In the years since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand, my wife and I have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic. Our youngest son has Down syndrome, and Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don't.

But it's also true that children like our son are becoming extinct in part because the abortion lobby has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party platform, with all that it implies for legislation and judicial appointments. The easiest response to handicapped children is to kill them before they arrive. That's not a solution. That's homicide.

We can't build a just society while killing a million unborn children a year. No matter how much good we try to do, we can't outrun the effects of that most intimate form of violence against women and children.

Not so long ago, leading Democrats understood this. Robert P. Casey, governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995, embodied the deepest ideals of the Democratic Party: pro-worker; pro-minority; pro-economic and social justice; and also thoroughly pro-life, from conception to natural death. In arguing for the rights of the unborn child, he worried that the Democratic Party was becoming "little more than an auxiliary" of the abortion industry.

For his candor, the Clinton machine publicly humiliated him at the 1992 Democratic Convention. Other prominent "Catholic" Democrats - including fellow governor and media darling Mario Cuomo - looked the other way.

In his 1996 autobiography, Casey warned that:

"Many people discount the power of the so-called 'cultural issues' - and especially the abortion issue. I see it the other way around. These issues are central to the resurgence of the Republicans, central to the national implosion of the Democrats, central to the question of whether there will be a third party . . . \[The] Democrats' national decline - or, better, their national disintegration - will continue relentlessly and inexorably until they come to grips with these values issues, primarily abortion."

Bob Casey isn't around to see the 32-state crater his party left in this year's election. He died in 2000, loyal - to the end - to his party, his Catholic faith and his convictions about the dignity of all human life, born and unborn.

But after a decade of "ethnic cleansing" within the party by the abortion goon squad, is anybody left to learn from Casey's warning? Don't count on it. Hundreds of thousands of traditional Democrats, barred from any real voice in the party, have simply left. And the tumor within the party has only worsened as the culture war has widened from abortion to the nature of marriage.

California's Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein warns cluelessly that gay marriage was pushed too fast - as if the troglodytes in the red states (and, oh yeah, in Oregon) need more time to see the light. Others point to Bush's personality, or Karl Rove's evil genius, or John Kerry's bumbling campaign team. The list of excuses is endless.

The 2004 election wasn't about "personality." It was about character - the Bob Casey, moral values kind. Democrats used to be able to tell the difference. That they no longer can is why my Democratic wife, and millions of people just like her, had no trouble at all pulling the lever for Republicans on Nov. 2.

Francis X. Maier is chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver. The views expressed here are his own.

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Yeah. Excuse me???!!! Capra absolutely hated and despised that mountebank anti-Catholic bigot FDR.As did all politically mature people aware of the FDR conspiracies of the New Deal. Eleanor was one of the most notoriously anti-Catholic agitators in modern American history.

Hold on...I'll forward a link.

[macbee]

Yeah. Excuse me???!!! Capra absolutely hated and despised that mountebank anti-Catholic bigot FDR.As did all politically mature people aware of the FDR conspiracies of the New Deal. Eleanor was one of the most notoriously anti-Catholic agitators in modern American history.

Hold on...I'll forward a link.

I look forward to seeing it, especially if it supports your contention that Potter is based on FDR. Capra's feelings toward Roosevelt are the source of some contention, especially since the publication of McBride's biography Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. Other sources of the time quote Capra as being very impressed with many of FDR's policies and with the man himself. Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer choice.

It seems to be a bit of a stretch to go from saying that Capra may have disliked, even hated FDR to establishing that the character of Potter was based on FDR. I look forward to reading your source(s).

[68 grunt]

The tumor is a cancer called 'communism'.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

For starters, probe this:

"The timelessness of Capra's cinematic politics are the result of his collaboration with writer Robert Riskin. Capra, a conservative Italian-Catholic Republican who never voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt..."

http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDAmericanMadness.htm

Another classic satirical portrayal of FDR
as a not-so-subtle arch-villain is
Burgess Meredith's The Penguin in the
1966 Adam West Batman.

This was no accident or coincidence.

There is an episode where The Penguin runs against Batman for, I think, Mayor of Gotham City and The Penguin essentially buys votes. Connect the dots.

Prohibition and the "Great Crash" were deliberately manipulated political conspiracies to curtail growing Catholic domination of the politics of the big cities. Those in the know were less than amused. The key factor in prohibition - Irish Catholic urban politicians got a lot of their campaign funds from saloon and bar owners. *

FDR cultivated Joe Kennedy with Machiavellian ruthlessness as a stooge to cover the Catholic vote for FDR. Fact.

[redgolum]

A reoccurring debate among my friends and I is "What would a truly Christian and Godly society look like?"

Some point to the old Roman empire where the emperor and the Pope (or Partiacrh) pretty much decided between the two of them the law. Sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes together.

I don't think that was it, and ZC I know what you mean. Pure market forces often lead to some hellish conditions. Social Darwinism has more akin to Hitler's dreams than it does to the Word, however Communism is not the answer either.

C.S. Lewis once commented that a truly Christian society would be more conservative and more liberal than we have today. Personally I don't know. The materialism of the West has infected America, but the instituialism of the Socialists is not the answer either.

[Zionist Conspirator]

C.S. Lewis once commented that a truly Christian society would be more conservative and more liberal than we have today. Personally I don't know. The materialism of the West has infected America, but the instituialism of the Socialists is not the answer either.

The way I read it, Lewis basically said if the early chr*stians had created a state it would have been a socialist state with very prudish morals. How ironic that because of today's political alliances an economic doctrine has been confused with a moral/religious one.

The pattern I would recommend is the one outlined in the Torah for when Israel conquered its land. There was a very complex system in which the land was divided by lot and allotted to tribes and families. Then on top of this were the laws of shemittah ("sabbatical" year) and yovel ("jubilee"). The amazing thing is how this Land was thus divided up for all time to an immigrant people. Too bad we didn't do this when we first came to this country.

Of course, Noachide law is not the same as the halakhah for Jews. While I assume non-Jews would be free to set up their societies in this way, they would not be required to do so. The main doctrine of rightwing Catholic "pre-capitalist socialism" is a rejection of the concept of interest which is considered "usury." But the thing is, interest charged on a loan is no more "theft" than the money charged for any item or service. Jews are forbidden to charge interest to each other but are permitted to charge interest (or pay interest) to non-Jews. If interest were inherently immoral they would not be allowed to do this. The commandment against interest among Jews is (as I read recently) not the forbidding of a crime that may be committed against others, but rather a form of compulsory benevolence that need not be extended to outsiders.

I believe that non-Jewish societies would be within their halakhic rights to forbid interest provided that they did not attribute the law to G-d Himself (which would be "adding to the Torah") and provided they did not apply the injunction against Jews, whom the Torah expressly permits to charge non-Jews and one of whose rewards for Torah obedience is to be "loaners" to the nations and not "borrowers" from them. (Plus, banking helps the economy grow and makes social mobility possible, if not certain.) But I am not a poseq. This is something that the Rabbis and a coming generation of learned Noachid poseqim will have to hash out.

[macbee]

Um, you're actually kidding on some of this, aren't you? I hope so. Capra never voting for FDR does not support your flat contention that Mr. Potter is based on Roosevelt.

The whole "Penguin as FDR " theory is... well, words fail me. Are you actually contending that Bob Kane (the creator of Batman) was anti-FDR and created "The Penguin" as a satire? That would certainly be news to the folks at DC and the majority of the attendees at Comicon.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Oh, come off it. I have no time for some left-brained anal-retentive control freak debate on the hermeneutics of Frank Capra and the bizarre anti-Catholic conspiracies of the FDR era. Read some Flynn, Hamilton Fish, Mencken...study the Wilkie campaign, read Henry Wallace's "guru letters," Al Smith's private correspodence, study the FDR Supreme Court packing crisis, pick a new topic and get back to me.

FDR was scum, Capra knew it, and so did my grandfather and a lot of people. FDR and his hideous wife were closet Know Nothings. Good grief!

Your assaults on my post and textual cherry picking are becoming boring.

Please do not ping me again.

[macbee]

Duly noted. My compliments, by the bye: argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad verecundiam in the same post. You don't see that too often on FR. Later.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[redgolum]

The charging of interest (usury), is something that is historically resent. Even in Rome, one of Julias Cesar's many acts was to limit interest to 10% simple interest. Compound interest was condemned rather widely in the past.

What you described for a banking system would be a good one except for one thing. That was what Medieval Europe had (where only the Jewish bankers and a small group of others) could charge interest. It helped fuel the fires that caused the pogroms that killed some many Jews in that time, and even today you can hear someone saying "The Jews control the banks!" (Which is kind of silly, most banks in the US are run by WASP's.)

[thackney]

"democrat catholic" ping

[redgolum]

some = so.
Dang spell check foiled me again.

[Siobhan]

It could have been written by almost anyone we know.

Ping.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The "dramatic irony" in the last exercise of the self-hoodwinking demonstration was...illuminating. At least the ministrations of ratio and phronesis were rekindled for posterity. Perhaps the NEA will take note - if they ever get around to restoring history beyond the Deweyesque social studies of vogue.

Enjoy.

[Condor51]

Yep in the '70's the Dem party went to hades. I was watching the 1972 convention on TV and that's where the socialist/commies unseated the entire IL Delegation by challenging their credentials. Old man Daley was livid. I could tell he wanted to kill every one of them. Steam was almost coming out of his ears as he was marched out of the hall by 'security'.

The sad part is, his punk kid 'Mayor Richie', is a soft on crime, pandering for Illegal Alien votes, socialist. The old man must be spinning in his grave.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

One thing people have to keep in mind, the urban machine style of politics has very little to do with what we mean by "liberal" ideology in the contemporary wacko sense. The urban Irish-American politicians were playing territorial and turf politics of patronage and bureaucratic fiddling. If there is anyone left (anyone who is actually educated to any degree) who still takes that Tammany Hall/Boss Tweed style seriously, that seems somewhat absurd. Frankly, I think some urban Dems just adopted liberalism to hold on to their power. Machiavellian expediency.

The Daley Machine was a bit different from the Jane Fonda style of iconoclastic psycho liberalism. So were all the urban machines that helped put JFK in the White House.

[UltraKonservativen]

Kerry tried the "language of religion" bit but no amount of "piety" can wash down votes against a ban on partial birth abortion. If you support such an abominable procedure..you just ain't got any kind of religion.

[Texas Songwriter]

The Democrats are going farther to the left. Look at their freak show which they cobbled in order that they might 50% plus 1. Radical ACLU,radical lawyers,radical whites and blacks,including NAACP,a radicalized NEA with its perverse agenda, radical homosexual,transexuals,lesbians, the mass of professors at universities trying to coopt the students to appropriate their world view,socialist, communists,radical environmentalists, and many others. The singular group they do not try to represent is the swath of mainstream Americans which make up 75% of the electorate. They look like a sideshow with carnies. Let them wonder at the election. If their leadership has no more core values than what they propound and represent they deserve to continue to loose constituents.

[valkyrieanne]

Saul Alinsky was a communist. This writer sounds like a red-diaper baby all grown up.