Posted on 08/27/2012 10:04:11 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
TAMPA, Fla.— Karl Rove on Monday predicted Rep. Todd Akin will lose by the widest margin of any Republican candidate in modern history if he remains in his Missouri Senate race against Sen. Claire McCaskill.
“What he said was indefensible and the way he handled it made it worse,” Rove told POLITICO’s Mike Allen at the first POLITICO Playbook Breakfast at the Republican National Convention.
“This is a program that he taped and obviously he saw nothing wrong with it in his tape,” Rove said, pointing out that Akin didn’t respond to the taped interview until two days later.
Rove said Akin has no option other than getting out of the race.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
You don’t know what planet I came from? I come from the planet when Todd Akin went from being 10 points ahead to being 10 points behind in the polls when he said that a woman’s body shuts down during forcible rape.
Rove believes everyone has a price. He is upset because he can’t find a price for Akin. Rove is the American version of a Mexican drug lord. If he can’t bribe you, he’ll try to kill you politically.
Akin is a fighter and he’s defying Rove and the elitist gangsters who surround Rove.
I am glad that you think anybody is sincere, as you sound quick to doubt the sincerity of others.In regard to the pro-life issue (with no rape/incest exception), these are the politicians I feel are sincere (because they've spoken out clearly in this regard): Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and now Todd Akin. I'm sure (and hopeful that) there are others; I'm just not "aware" of them.
For me, I am really proud of my son for responding to the call amidst the uncertainty of whether our country will fall into the abyss of atheism, multiculturalism, and socialism.You have much to be proud of (God love and protect your son). These are tough times indeed.
Thank you. Yes, we are all all-in in this one.
I don't know what planet you're from...In all due respect, I don't know what planet you're from. Why not accept his apology (it was sincere) as it's toxic to continue to try to wrap your head around something that just isn't there. Here are Akin's words on life:
Our founders understood that life is a fundamental right granted to us by our Creator and that the government’s role is to protect this right. A government that doesn’t protect innocent life fails at one of its most basic roles. I believe that life begins at conception and I’m appalled that we do not protect the innocent lives of our unborn children.To me, it sounds like Todd Akin has been working hard for "innocent, unborn people."
As a former Board Member of Missouri Right to Life, I have remained steadfast in fighting for life. I actively worked to pass numerous pro-life legislative initiatives at both the state and federal level. Because of these actions, Planned Parenthood has listed me in their “Toxic Ten” worst legislators in the US for daring to stand up for the unborn.
I have repeatedly fought against our tax dollars going to fund abortions. Just in the past two years, I cosponsored the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 3) and the Protect Life Act (H.R. 358) both of which passed the House.
Recently, I discovered a potential loop-hole where abortions might be funded with our tax dollars through multi-state health exchanges. To prevent the indirect funding of abortions, I introduced H.R. 4971 the Stop Abortion Funding in Multi-state Exchange Plans (SAFE) Act. My amendment was added to the FY2013 House Financial Services Appropriations bill.
I also stand against embryonic stem cell research. It is wrong to build science upon the lives of our unborn children. Furthermore, there are other viable options which do not promote abortion: adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells are two of these.
Protecting life is fundamental to freedom. --Todd Akin
And why is the inference of "illegitimate" rape more offensive than the explicitly used term "legitimate rape"? It seems clear that from the way that Akin used the term "legitimate rape" that an "illegitimate rape" would not be rape at all. Yes, referring to rape as "legitimate" is a very foolish thing to do, because of what it implies. However, it does seem pretty clear from the context, that what Akin meant to say was in the case of a "bona fide" rape.
Yes, he made a terrible choice of words, but the outcry over "legitimate rape" seems to be way overblown. After all, Akin didn't say that rape was ok, and it would be silly to call rape "legitimate" and then say in the next sentence that the rapist should be punished. Obviously, if you're being punished for something, whatever you did was not "legitimate" in any good sense of the word. After all, you can't be punished for doing something "legitimate" so it's clear that this is not what Akin must have meant when he used the word.
Besides, other politicians have used similar phrases concerning rape in the past, and those didn't make nearly the splash that this has now, which leads one to suspect that there are political motives behind this comment being given as much coverage as it has in an election season. Who wins from dragging this flap out?
In describing his conversion, [abortionist] Adasevic said he "dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn’t recognize the name."[emphasis: mine]
"Why don’t you ask me who these children are?" St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.
"They are the ones you killed with your abortions,” the Dominican saint told him.
"Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions," the article stated.
--SNIP--
Adasevic has told his story in magazines and newspapers throughout Eastern Europe. He has returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood and has studied the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
"Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas wrote that human life begins forty days after fertilization," Adasevic wrote in one article. Scientific advancements since Thomas’ time, however, have revealed that human life begins at the moment of conception. La Razon commented that Adasevic "suggests that perhaps the saint wanted to make amends for that error." Today the Serbian doctor continues to fight for the lives of the unborn. --"Serbian Abortionist Who Aborted 48,000 Babies Becomes Pro-Life Activist"
The idea that abortion is wrong goes all of the way back to the beginning of Christianity. You are right to say that, historically, the position of when the soul is added to the baby has been a source of debate even amongst Catholic Saints. However, the idea that life begins at quickening has never been the official position of the Catholic Church. Appealing to one Saint's opinion, even a Doctor of the Church, does not establish the idea as either the traditional or official teaching of the Church.
The Catholic Church, the Orthodox, and Christianity generally have condemned abortion in almost all cases since at least the end of the first century or beginning of the second century A.D. Just to name one source, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is seen in the Didache which purports to be the teachings handed down from the Twelve Apostles themselves. The Didache dates from the end of the 1st century or early 2nd century A.D., long before St. Ambrose, and it states in no uncertain terms:
And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.
This command, of course, does not mention quickening. It doesn't say that you shall only abort the "unquickened" children. It says you shall not murder the child by abortion without listing any exceptions. Consequently, in order to determine the true teaching of the Church concerning when life begins one must appeal to the declarations of the magisterium to clarify the issue. You'll find that nowhere in the Ordinary Universal Magisterium nor in the Extraordinary magisterium, has the Church ever taught that abortion is ok up until the quickening. However, the Church has clarified its previously uncertain position with several definitive acts so that position on the matter is now closed. It is now clear that the Church believes that life begins at conception, and she has done so using her infallible Ordinary Magisterium.
The Church has consistently taught that abortion is always gravely sinful. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that soul was added to a baby sometime after conception, as you appear to believe, taught that abortion was still gravely sinful before the "ensoulement". It just became an even graver sin to kill the baby after this point. So you see, even though St. Ambrose may have believed that the soul was added to the baby sometime after conception, like Thomas Aquinas, he also probably held that abortion was still a mortal sin.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in keeping with the teachings of St. Ambrose, distinguished between abortion after ensoulment, which he said was homicide, and before ensoulment, which he still considered a grave sin. To say something is homicide is to say the coercive power of the state must be mobilized to defend that human life. To say that something is a grave sin only, is that say that the matter is one in which the Christian conscious should, as a moral imperative, do the right thing. As Christians, we should never hesitate either to call upon the coercive powers of the state when the legal components of a crime are involved, nor should we hesitate to call up individuals, even when they are young, to go beyond the boundaries of what is legal, to do what is morally right. Certainly, the government should respect the moral convictions of those, like this Serbian man, informed by their faith, who oppose abortion even from conception, whether legal or not. Romans 13 says government is to be a terror to evil and also to promote those who do good. So, the Bible seems to generally distinguish between what is criminal and subject to the coercive power of government, and what is moral only, on which persuasion rather than power is to be relied. Science does tell us when the material stuff of a human life are gathered together. But, the Bible tells us that the human soul exists from the beginning of time, with God in heaven. Yes, God can place that soul into the material stuff at conception, or at implantation, or whenever time he chooses, but it has always been obvious that we are talking of a human being by the time of quickening. I’m going to flip this line of discussion, to an secular humanist, there is no human soul, so “ensoulment” is a hoax, and abortion, at any point, is merely an exercise of political will. For that matter, morality, too, is a hoax, and there is no morality apart from the law. The choice, then, is threefold: (1) a secular state, (2) a theocracy, and (3) liberty.
He never said anything to intimate that the woman “must not have actually been raped.” Get off the public school literacy bus and talking points. Pay attention. Or join the other idiots on the downside of your favorite poll who don’t understand what he actually said and meant.
If you paid attention you would realize I’m on your side. You’re one of few Freepers these days who clearly understands the moral imperative at stake here, and I appreciate it.
Given your post here I should retract the negative tone and only ask that we not understand Akin’ remark(s) to state a woman is not acutally raped in the event she does not conceive. Thanks.
I, like the Catholic Church, did not say ensoulment occurs at quickening. I said, the tradition of the church, and the laws of the states of the U.S. prior to Roe v. Wade say we know with legal certainty this occurs by quickening.
Yes, the Catholic Church today definitively says that at conception we are talking of a human life. In saying this, it demeans several of the most revered Doctors of the Church, considering them not merely foolishly mistaken (since they did not know about modern science), but considering them to be not inspired by the Holy Spirt (when its doctrine is that Doctors of the Church cannot be very wrong).
But, this really doesn’t mean much to me, since I quietly resigned the Catholic Church after I read Quadragesimo Anno promoting Mussilini’s form of fascism. “Anyone who gives even slight attention to the matter will easily see what are the obvious advantages in the system.” The arrogance of this sentence is a sin of pride. To make such a thing a tenet of the faith is to be responsible for the rejection of faith by intelligent people. I, fortunately, had an Italian grandfather who taught me to believe in the church but not in the priests.
The Catholics are at real risk in this country of having their teaching and medical institutions nationalized by the government (we are all at risk). They need to consider their options in terms of making alliance with those who advocate limited government and, hence support freedom of religion. But, since the 19th century, the Catholics have characterized themselves as neither liberal (in the sense we would today say libertarian) nor socialist (in the sense we would today say communist).
Maybe this equating liberalism with communism served some purpose when the Catholics were constantly at war with the Protestants. But, is it really the case that liberals such as John Locke and Adam Smith are as evil as communists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? Locke and Smith were Christians, albeit Protestants. And, among the liberal thinkers of Europe were several prominent Catholics including Erasmus and Lord Acton.
Then, with Pope John Paul II, we had one of the greatest ever advocates of private property-based, free-market oriented economy. But, the current Pope skipped over John Paul’s encyclical on social teaching, to connect his encyclical on social teaching to Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio. The Holy Spirit, it seems, can’t make up his mind between semi-socialism and a free-market economy.
Having said what I have said, I must praise the church - including the priests - for preserving for us the Bible, for husbanding the church through the ages, for raising our children in the faith, and for all its many other good works, and pray for the church, that it will be effective in bringing the Gospel message to a world that is in such great need of it.
If you paid attention you would realize I’m on your side. You’re one of few Freepers these days who clearly understands the moral imperative at stake here, and I appreciate it.There is no "edit" button on Free Republic. Once the "Post" button is clicked, there's no going back... sorry for letting something rip before I realized what I was doing. Hey, wait, isn't that what Akin did? :)
So what are you going to do, since Akin looks like he’s not going anywhere? Are you going to get behind him, despite his screw up, and try to get him elected, or are you going to continue to go around telling every one how Akin can’t win.
Like I told another poster, if you choose the latter, I am sure the DNC, as well as the RNC, has some good talking points for you to use.
Please, Rove has nothing to do with it, Akin’s comments were repugnant and ignorant, and he should have stepped aside, had he done so he could probably live to fight another day, instead he decided to effectively be a millstone aroudn ever republican in the country.
This idiot has cost a Senate seat, and will cost other close races across the country, trying to blame Rove when you have a moron who cited a belief from discredited studies from the 70s that suggest women who are raped don’t often get pregnant is idiotic.
Akin shot himself, its not anyones responsibility to commit suicide with him.
Akin isn’t getting Pillored because he doesn’t believe in a rape exception, he’s getting destroyed because he stated a ludicrous claim, that women who are raped don’t often get pregnant, and that’s a flat idiotic.
I won’t support any candidate who is so ill informed that he thinks women who are raped have some magical non existent never proven model that keeps them from getting pregnant.
He believes there should be no rape exception, that’s fine by me, I have no issue with the sins of the father should not be punished upon the Son, simple enough and straight forward enough argument to make, but this guy implied something way beyond that, and frankly if he’s this ignorant about this topic, I sure don’t want him anywhere near a legislative body.
DING DING DING!!! Exactly.
So how should he answer
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.