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Former first lady Betty Ford dies at 93
AP ^ | Jul 8, 2011 9:53 PM (ET) | CONNIE CASS and LINDA DEUTSCH

Posted on 07/08/2011 8:03:15 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW

Betty Ford said things that first ladies just don't say, even today. And 1970s America loved her for it.

According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana - and if she were their age, she'd try it, too. She told "60 Minutes" she wouldn't be surprised to learn that her youngest, 18-year-old Susan, was in a sexual relationship (an embarrassed Susan issued a denial).

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bettyford; moralabsolutes; moralhypocrites; naral; obit; obituary; prolife; rip
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To: P-Marlowe

When is a dead horse beat enough?


241 posted on 07/10/2011 8:58:42 PM PDT by STARWISE (The overlords are in place .. we are a nation under siege .. pray, go Galt & hunker down)
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To: STARWISE; Outlaw Woman; xzins; wagglebee
When is a dead horse beat enough?

50,000,000 dead babies and counting. Betty Ford was a supporter of the deaths of every one of those children since 1973.

My question to pro lifers is how can any of you find anything nice to say about her considering her contribution to the deaths of the innocent?

Must I say it again. She didn't merely take a pro-abortion position, she EARNED a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM NARAL!

Maybe we can't beat this horse enough. If you want to see it beat some more, then keep responding to my posts and outlaw woman's posts. If you don't like it, then don't come back here.

242 posted on 07/10/2011 9:08:19 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: STARWISE
If a poster cannot tell the difference between asking for civility and praising someone, the problem is theirs not ours. Walk away and let the horse be beaten. It ain't worth it.

The real shame is that Jesus doesn't hate her. He weeps because she was tricked by the Great Deceiver.

Have a Blessed evening. :-)

243 posted on 07/10/2011 9:27:59 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: verity
Yep!

Night.

244 posted on 07/10/2011 9:31:26 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: P-Marlowe; Admin Moderator

I CLEARLY stated my position .. numerous times on this
thread .. and my opposition to abortion and liberal policies. In my 13+ years here, I’ve NEVER praised her or ANYONE for leftist policies, especially NEVER, EVER abortion. I’m a Roman Catholic.

Yet, you insist on redundant falsehoods, fabricating positions I don’t hold, and purposefully distorting my posts to fit some scenario in your mind only, as if you never read a thing I posted.

I’ve had enough of your tactics and your persecution.

You are harrassing me, and it’s unwarranted and completely unacceptable.... beyond the pale.

I will not exert another moment responding to you on this again.


245 posted on 07/10/2011 9:34:34 PM PDT by STARWISE (The overlords are in place .. we are a nation under siege .. pray, go Galt & hunker down)
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To: Outlaw Woman; DJ MacWoW; american_ranger; STARWISE; P-Marlowe; TheOldLady; Kickass Conservative; ...
Outlaw Woman, I don't have a problem with you criticizing Betty Ford's views. They deserve to be criticized, and although I'd argue this is the wrong time because it looks bad, I'm not going to object in principle to careful, well-reasoned and compassionate criticism of Mrs. Ford's views on abortion, even at this time and place.

Comments calling a former First Lady of the United States a “classless drunken cow” are what prompted my post.

It's important to note that the only person on this thread I have specifically attacked has been American_Ranger, the one who said that, and who, interestingly enough, has been silent since this uproar started.

As I said at 215 in this thread: “I'm not going to single out specific posters on Free Republic other than the initial item about Mrs. Ford being a ‘classless drunken cow.’ That statement is factually wrong and indefensible under any circumstances. However, speaking more broadly, there's a type of language being used in conservative circles that is just as incompatible with Scripture as abortion, sexual promiscuity, illegal drug use, or any of the other things on which Mrs. Ford's published views are being legitimately criticized.”

Outlaw, with regard to you at 215 on this thread: “I do not know who said what to whom, what got removed, and what got put back later. I finally found the Outlaw Woman post with the “POS” language, but it was on a different Betty Ford thread, and Outlaw Woman's comments were some of the less offensive things. A lot of other things that have been said, not just on this thread but others, have been far worse.”

Abortion is evil. Those who use their public position to advocate abortion bear responsibility for promoting evil. I'm not Betty Ford's pastor nor would she have wanted me in that role, and while my family was once close to the Fords that was many, many years ago. If I were in a position to speak to her on a personal level in the months prior to her death, which I most definitely was not, there would be things that needed to be said that she would not have liked.

On that point I don't think you and I have any disagreement.

I'm also not opposed to public attacks on public people at the time of their death under all circumstances. It's uncouth, it reeks of bad manners, and it's probably counterproductive in most cases, but under rare circumstances it may be appropriate. Pointing out that a dead rock star died as the result of his drunk driving and killed three uninvolved people in the other car may be a really good idea.

The problem here is that Mrs. Ford isn't some popular Hollywood starlet promoting abortion who died of a drug overdose at a young age and is getting lauded by the Hollywood community for her pro-choice advocacy. Mrs. Ford is a former First Lady of the United States. She is entitled to the respect of that position. There's also the issue of her being an older woman. Modern American culture doesn't have a lot of respect for the elderly, but Scripture is quite clear about the way we are to treat our elders.

I can think of very few good things to say about Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or their wives, but at the point they die, they will be biblically entitled to the respect warranted by their positions. At least three of those four people have done a great deal of damage to the United States, some more than others, but we as conservatives simply cannot talk about our civil magistrates the way that liberals do. The office is worthy of respect, no matter how much we object to the person who may be in it, or who previously held it.

Again, as I've said a number of times, we are conservatives. We are not revolutionaries. If we adopt the liberal tactics of disrespect for order and authority, those methods are not neutral, and they will take us places we most definitely do not want to go.

246 posted on 07/11/2011 1:55:18 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: DJ MacWoW

(linked article mentions the Fords as embracing pop culture and throwing WH parties with celebrities)

Well what do you know? I was sure that the Obamas were the first to do this.

Oh, and incidentally Betty Ford was born the same day as my great aunt (April 8, 1918)


247 posted on 07/11/2011 2:59:34 AM PDT by Strk321
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To: trisham

“Moderators are people too.”

Depends on the site. Maybe on FR, but I know certain other places where the mods are living proof that Neanderthal Man didn’t go extinct.


248 posted on 07/11/2011 3:06:57 AM PDT by Strk321
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights

Yup. The Nixons were as stodgy as they came. When Elvis met RN at the White House, the latter didn’t even know who he was. It seems pretty incredible that Nixon was that out of touch with popular culture that he had never heard of the King.

“Her outspoken nature was shocking to many (parents & grandparents). I was 20 and found it quite refreshing.”

Especially since this was in an era when most young people thought their parents’ generation (ie. the WWII generation) were old farts out to stop them from having a good time.


249 posted on 07/11/2011 3:17:38 AM PDT by Strk321
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To: darrellmaurina
I appreciate your thoughts and thank you for responding. My remarks were prompted after discovering her views and then reading the continued ‘glowing’ comments made by FReepers.

It's over now and you were included on my reply because you had responded (and yes I'm aware you didn't ‘attack’) and just wanted to give my own viewpoint on the reaction which included some ugly FReepmail.

As far as respect, well that is an opinion and was addressed in my last post. Respecting (as in being still) the moment (her death) can be done but, as someone else pointed out, the article was posted in news and there was no indication that it was intended to be a solemn obit. I'm blunt and abortion is the one topic that will instantly set me off. The damage to our Nation & culture, which has been spear-headed by the pro-death & promiscuous culture, of which, Ford belonged, is absolutely incalculable. I don't know if she repented or not, but sincerely hope so, ‘for her sake’.

As I said, I'm sorry if my post offended but I will never lavish praise on someone just because of their age or position in society; not when they've assisted evil.

250 posted on 07/11/2011 3:29:54 AM PDT by Outlaw Woman (Palin/Perry 2012)
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To: Outlaw Woman; american_ranger
Outlaw Woman posted on Monday, July 11, 2011 5:29:54 AM: “As I said, I'm sorry if my post offended but I will never lavish praise on someone just because of their age or position in society; not when they've assisted evil.”

For whatever it's worth, your post did not offend me. The drunken cow comment by American_Ranger did. I didn't see the “POS” post to which others had objected for quite some time since it was on another thread, and I probably would have held my fire on that one because abbreviations can have more than one meaning.

OW, I have no idea of your personal beliefs. We haven't discussed such matters. If you are an evangelical Christian, a conservative Roman Catholic, or an Orthodox Jew, I'd urge you to take a close look at the Scripture passages I referenced earlier.

Order and authority are important in society. Certain positions are entitled to respect. I certainly concur with you that people who have used powerful positions to encourage evil bear responsibility for their actions, but there are right and wrong ways to address people. Lavishing praise on people who are wrong because of their position is not right, but as I quoted earlier from Scripture...

I Timothy 5:1-2: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat ... older women as mothers...”

Leviticus 19:32: “Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD.”

That doesn't mean we blindly obey older people just because they are old. As Psalm 119:99-100 says: “I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.”

What doesn't change with regard to political rulers and older people is that even if they're wrong, we still owe them the respect they're due.

251 posted on 07/11/2011 4:41:34 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: darrellmaurina

Outlaw Womans post is NOT on another thread. It is Post 68 on THIS thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2745915/posts?page=68#68

“If Betty Ford stood for what I have read this evening, she was a POS.”


252 posted on 07/11/2011 4:49:00 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: darrellmaurina; Outlaw Woman; wagglebee; xzins
What set me off (and it was on the other Ford thread) was not that people were saying meaningless platitudes on the other thread, but I saw PRO-LIFE freepers actually saying such nonsense as "She was an inspiration to millions" and that "She was a classy lady". When I pointed out that she was a lifelong abortion activist, the mods pulled my posts. It was not out of any disrespect for the dead that I made those posts. It was intended to inform people who were praising her about who it was that they were praising.

Betty Ford was a LEADER in the pro-death movement. So what if she was a Republican. Does not anyone on this forum remember that it was the REPUBLICANS on the Supreme Court that gave us ROE v. WADE? Brennan was a Nixon appointee. I frankly voted for Carter in 1976 because I thought that as a Christian we would get some moral leadership. OK, I was wrong. The Republican Party did not become pro-life until Reagan beat Carter.

This thread and the other threads were linked to news stories and posted in news. Hence the threads were legitimate forums to point out the FACT that Betty Ford was not a saint and that she was, IN FACT, a tireless worker and supporter of NARAL and Planned Parenthood and was given a lifetime achievement award by NARAL at a luncheon where the topic of the day was to try to convince Bill Clinton to VETO THE PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN. However when I did just that, I was attacked by freepers, most of whom identified themselves as Pro-life, for being insensitive. The more I tried to point out my frustration with pro-lifers the more I was attacked by them.

I have apparently been made an enemy of some of my long time FReeper FRiends on this thread and the other because of my insistence on posting the truth about Betty Ford.

I guess when Nancy Pelosi finally is laid to rest we will all be forced to forget for the moment her tireless efforts to ensure that an entire generation of Americans were killed off in the womb and remember her for her tireless work on behalf of the plastic surgery industry?

I apologize for NOTHING I said on this thread or the other.

If I offended anyone, then tough beans!

I for one will not sit still while someone who epitomized what is wrong with this country is given praise and accolades merely because she is no longer able to promote her evil agenda because she is now standing before God and making an accounting of her life before Him.

If pro-lifers want to pray that God will be merciful to her soul, then I have no problems with that. If pro-lifers want to praise her for her alcohol work, then frankly I do have a problem with that because all her work on other projects cannot possibly make up for her tireless work on behalf of the enemies of life.

I'm done here.

253 posted on 07/11/2011 6:48:44 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: 668 - Neighbor of the Beast
First ladies are not that important in the greater scheme of things...My only thought was she live to be in her 90’s. She was very lucky to be well off and taken care of by her family....Lots of the old die miserably in nursing homes....if your going to live to be 90 or more, be rich...I have heard good things about the Betty Ford clinic. She did something good about her addictions...thats enough for me. RIP
254 posted on 07/20/2011 1:06:14 AM PDT by goat granny
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