Posted on 11/12/2004 3:36:02 AM PST by 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.
There must be some out there who see the self self-destruct mode of the democratic party a clean slate to move the party into a different direction. Ever take a map and choose the scenic route only to get there 4 hours later. The democrats could do this, but, it might be a faster road if they heed the message this author has penned.
Ping.
Already, the despicable Nancy Pelosi has announced that the democrats are going to use "the language of religion" to foist their horror-show candidates.
Statements like this still chap me. Where is the justice in taxing the producers to fund the lazy?
That is utterly retarded though. As a Catholic I can say that.
I realize that some people (mistakenly) view FDR as some sort of social folk hero but he was a horrible anti-Chatholic bigot who exploited these voters. The character of Mr. Potter (the villain) in Frank Capra's classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life was based on FDR.
I'm sorry, but only stupid Catholics remained in the Democratic fold after the 1960s and Roe vs. Wade. Catholic teaching does not mandate the kind of socialism that has been served up by Dems over the years.
History tells us the Dumbocrats are following in the footsteps of the mid-nineteenth century Know-Nothing Party which collapsed under the weight of its own obtuseness, and ceased to be a functioning political force. Like the Know-Nothings, Democrats will be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Even THIS guy doesn't get it.
"Economic and social justice" is a phrase they use to justify and demand redistribution of wealth. If you have more than me, they think it is "not fair" and must be "fixed" by taking yours and giving it to me. It is Communism at its core and, of course, a complete failure everywhere in the world it has been tried.
I believe if the scientists at NASA discovered a single cell organism floating at the bottom of a primordial pool under the Martian polar ice cap, they would proclaim "Life found on Mars!". How much more infinate is the miracle of humanity?
"I'm sorry, but only stupid Catholics remained in the Democratic fold after the 1960s and Roe vs. Wade. Catholic teaching does not mandate the kind of socialism that has been served up by Dems over the years."
Docility has been taught as a Catholic virtue. Unfortunately once the left captured the seminaries, the universities, the MSM and the schools (both government and parochial), that virtue led vast numbers of the faithful down the primrose path. The way was wide and easy. Only a remnant fought and still fight. But then, hasn't that always been the case?
This guy must have had a wild one last night.
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.
Just a curiosity, but is there another social movement in the last century or so that espoused the same views, and do these modern proponents of that movement understand the ramifications when they tell us it's the Republicans that are the modern incarnation of it?
The reason Democrats continue to slide is a simple one. They are the party of personal irresponsibility. The extremes of zero tolerance nonsense like guns (can't even draw a picture) or drugs (can't even take an aspirin) are simply Democrat collectivist policies that remove responsibility from those that are a problem and punishes the innocent by denying them liberty.
It's that simple.
I did not take from that statement that he agreed with Feinstein, but, I have been known to get it wrong in the past.
I do think he was talking about the party of yesteryear so to speak.
I cannot think like a democrat, I do not know that I have known many but from what I have read the democratic party isn't the same of 30 plus years ago. I doubt it will ever find it's roots, if they have any?
Personally, I would rather starve and be homeless sleeping in the open air than to ever vote for a baby-killer or anti-Catholic secular humanist liberal.
If people think the social safety net should be larger, lobby pro-life Republicans on these issues.
"I cannot think like a democrat, ..."
Sure you can. Deny reality. Deny God. Oh, ok, sorry.
Try this then. Strong drink, way too much strong drink. It isn't exactly the same, but it will make you stop accepting reality and then make you really sick the next day. That is sort of like attending a Democrat Convention.
That pretty much says it all. That explains why 57% of Catholics in Maryland voted for the President (while 53% of Protestants in Maryland voted for Kerry). In 2000 approximately that same percent of Catholics voted for Gore. Slowly Catholics are being weaned away from the Demoncrat Party because of their pagan values.
I agree.
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