Earl of Times Against Humanity starts day one of election coverage with DP Convention Day 1: Blog Cheerleaders Tilt Left
Earl blogs on the Republican rift and the FMA.
Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization, said "moderate and reasonable" Republicans such as Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, oppose the amendment.
In that case, Please give me an immoderate and unreasonable Republican any day.
Lane Core Jr. asks “Why is it important to have Catholics in public life if, once there, they’re no different from anybody else?”
Unfortunately most modern politicians who advertise themselves as Catholics are martyrs in reverse. The word martyr means witness and regardless of the mindless justifications that come out of their mouths their actions are anything but a witness to the faith. John Kerry’s recent quote as saying that “life begins at conception” reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the two sons. The one who did what the father asked was the one that was obedient and not the one who only said they would do it but didn’t.
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, believes people who follow God pose a more significant threat to the modern world than terrorists do.
"Terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face," writes Reich in a column titled "Bush’s God" published in the American Prospect.
Reich begins his column criticizing the Bush administration as he pushes for a liberal understanding of America’s separation of church and state.
He uses the term "religious zealots" and says their problem is that "they confuse politics with private morality."
Reich concludes his column by taking aim at those who believe in God:
The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face.
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And Reich confuses the Natural Law, which applies to everybody, as something totally subjective and private.
The comedy of errors today in the reportage of John Kerry veep nomination continues. Originally the New York Post reported that the pick was Rep. Dick Gephardt. Then John Kerry announced that his pick was John Edwards. Contrary to media coverage he did not choose Sen. John Edwards from North Carolina of whom he had once quipped "I don’t even know if John Edwards was out of diapers" His nomination was actually celebrity psychic John Edwards of the Sci-Fi channel.
Kerry’s team reports that this was done to balance the ticket and provide strength in some areas that critics have said that Mr. Kerry lacks. Yesterday John Kerry told the paper, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception." With this nomination he can now show that not only does life begin at conception but that he believes that life also continues after death. Mr. Kerry said "This is a win-win situation for me. During war time I can have John Edwards talk to FDR and JFK for me so that I can get some experienced advice. Not only can I have a great kitchen cabinet, I can have Roosevelt’s kitchen cabinet if I want to. Hillary Clinton might have been able to talk to Eleanor Roosevelt previously in the White House, but I can get advice from anybody that I want. In fact I can even talk to all those friends of Bill Clinton that showed up dead. At first I had looked at Sen. Edwards since Back in 1985, he stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl. But he seems to have lost his psychic skills or he would never have run against me for President. So I thought ‘Hey, why not go with a professional psychic?’ I can even apologize to those 1.4 million aborted babies each year and can say I am sorry I couldn’t do anything about that. You know I don’t want to force my personal moral choices on others. In fact in my twenty years in the Senate I was so worried about forcing my morality in others that I only sponsored eight bills. Five ceremonial, two for the fishing industry, and one for small businesses for women. Only three of those passed so I have been very effective in not forcing my beliefs on others."
There is a developing story about Catholic lawyer who has filed heresy charges against Sen. John Kerry with the Archdiocese of Boston.
Details at Catholic?
Kerry Watch.
Not one to resist a tie in to my own humor. Here is a joke I wrote on my previous blog.
A man and his servant were out in the woods sitting around a campfire when the servant noticed "Sir, you have a tick on you arm!". "Get that blasted bloated hairy thing off my arm, pluck it out!" said the master. The servant cautioned "If I pluck it out it will leave its head in arm your and it might become diseased , better to bring fire to it so that it will remove itself". "Do as you say and hurry!", the servant brought a lighted stick onto the bug. "You clumsy idiot, you have burned my arm!". Thus he became the first person in history to be burned for a hairy tick.
Update: Here is a link to the heresy charges.
Sen. John Kerry visited us here in Jacksonville today and just finished up his speech at the Jacksonville Landing. Coming back from Mass I heard on the radio that there were many conservative protesters at the event. They also mentioned the gist of the emphasis of his speech. That he would pay for his health care program by rolling back tax cuts for the rich. I am pretty tired of this same old rhetoric like a broken record on tax cuts for the rich. Every social problem in the world will be eliminated if we would just get rid of tax cuts for the rich. Of course no mention is ever made about the negative effects on our economy of taking more money out of the economy and throwing it at yet another wasteful government program.
The worst part of this continuing appeal by the majority of Democrats is that they are using envy to achieve their goal. Democrats are against all warfare but class warfare and I guess I am a pacifist on class warfare. The appeal of envy by mentioning people in the top one percent and how it is not fair that they are taxed even higher. I guess the tenth commandment of “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” does not apply during a campaign and that it is alright to encourage people to sin to gain political advantage.
This appeal also lets people think they are off the hook when it comes to charity. Those greedy one-percenters are taking care of it for me. They won’t miss it. They have plenty and shouldn’t complain.
For I was hungry and the government gave me food, I was thirsty and the government gave me drink, I was a stranger and the government welcomed me, I was naked and the government clothed me, I was sick and the government visited me, I was in prison and the government came to me. Then the non-taxpayers will answer him, `Lord, when did they see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did they see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did they see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, whenever the top one percent of tax payers funded these programs for you, you did it to me.’
Now I am not sure what is the lesson of the story of the widow’s mite is suppose to be. She wasn’t part of the top one percent, in fact she was probably in the bottom one percent. By modern sensibilities Jesus should have been upset that she gave those two copper coins out of her poverty and that the top one percent of Pharisees and Sadducee’s didn’t give out of their abundance instead.
On Saturday at the Vigil Mass, Mr. Kerry received Communion again from the Paulist center. Fr. Joe Ciccone (Paulist Center): “We’re following the directive of our archdiocese,” said Father Joe Ciccone, who gave Kerry the Eucharist. “They have said we should give him communion.”
This reply by Fr. Ciccone does not ring very true. In another story today on the Paulist center.
Sen. John Kerry regularly receives Communion attracts Catholics uncomfortable with some of the Vatican’s orthodox teachings or who otherwise feel alienated from the Roman Catholic Church.
The Paulist Center’s congregation includes gay couples, whose adopted children are baptized there, unlike in some other Boston parishes. In November, its leaders refused to read aloud during Mass from a letter opposing gay marriage, as requested by the Massachusetts bishops.
The congregation is not geographical, but ideological, drawing people from as far as away as New Hampshire, said Drew Deskur, the center’s music director and a parishioner for 25 years.
“It’s not St. Around-the-Corner,” Deskur said. “It’s an intentional community that draws people from all over Boston. It tries to make sure that everyone feels welcome and that everyone participates in the liturgy.”
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In an old post I had once said that many of these places should rename themselves to the Saulists since they have reversed St. Paul’s conversion and fallen back onto the horse. There is more than just the scandal of giving Communion to people who stand opposed to basic teaching by the Church on life, but also those pockets of resistance that while being part of a diocese have become heretical in many of the sexual teachings of the Church. It is hard enough for a Bishop to be responsible for teaching the faith to the flock without priests un-teaching the faith.
Amy Welborn posted this suggestion:
The Kerry discussion just a bit. I was just about the post something, when cs and Patrick Sweeney started an echo chamber of my thoughts down below.
It really is time for John Kerry’s bishop – O’Malley, and perhaps even McCarrick, while we’re at it, to join forces and respond to this guy every time he makes one of his misstatements about Catholic teaching or trumpets his faith the day after he’s skipped Mass to go to an AME church.
If anyone at all had nerve and a sense of humor, it could actually be entertaining. The idea, in my mind, is not to threaten and be Big Brother. It’s to point out idiocy when it appears – and if it appears under a particularly pompous, self-righteous guise, all the more reason to avoid self-righteousness ourselves.
So, I’ll volunteer. Bishops are invited to fund “KerryWatch.” I’ll edit and add my moderating tone. Curt Jester and Mark Shea can be content editors.
If there’s not enough money in the diocesan coffers to fund us all, perhaps the company that makes Botox can kick in some dough.
Well it is always nice to be named as a possible content editor with the likes of Mark and Amy. Of course KerryWatch could become a full time job in tracking Kerry’s misstatements about the Catholic faith. In reference to this suggestion Mark Shea left the following funny comment.
In the words of Pope St. Pius XXIII, “I’m there.”
Of course everybody is commenting on Kerry’s latest blunder.
Mr. Kerry became combative when told that some conservatives were criticizing him for being a Roman Catholic who supported policies, like abortion rights and same-sex unions, that are at odds with Catholic teaching.
“Who are they?” he demanded of his questioner. “Name them. Are they the same legislators who vote for the death penalty, which is in contravention of Catholic teaching?”
He added: “I’m not a church spokesman. I’m a legislator running for president. My oath is to uphold the Constitution of the United States in my public life. My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II, which allows for freedom of conscience for Catholics with respect to these choices, and that is exactly where I am. And it is separate. Our constitution separates church and state, and they should be reminded of that.”
I will give Mr. Kerry a pass on misspeaking Pius XXIII instead of John XXIII, this can be an honest mistake. The egregious error is the fictional oath from Vatican II. No such oath exists in the documents of Vatican II just as the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. Those who have lost limbs in accidents sometimes feel a phantom limb. Democrats seem to have “phantom documents syndrome.” In this syndrome you have the tendency to quote from documents, phrases that don’t exist. This syndrome is also closely related to “foreign law syndrome” where you appeal to laws from other countries when you don’t feel like pretending it is in the constitution. These manifestations also seem to find a common root in “Spirit of Vatican II syndrome.” Maybe one day science will find the genetic defect that causes you to see things that are not there in written documents.
Mr. Kerry often sites following his conscience or in having to follow the will of his constituents. I remember hearing this excellent phrase “Conscience is always student and never professor.” Our society has inverted that relationship. Cardinal Newman is often mistakenly appealed to as one source for the conscience is king concept. The following is from Cardinal Newman in a letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk addresses both conscience and duty.
…The rule and measure of duty is not utility, nor expedience, nor the happiness of the greatest number, nor State convenience, nor fitness, order, and the pulchrum. Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its {249} blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway.
Words such as these are idle empty verbiage to the great world of philosophy now. All through my day there has been a resolute warfare, I had almost said conspiracy against the rights of conscience, as I have described it. Literature and science have been embodied in great institutions in order to put it down. Noble buildings have been reared as fortresses against that spiritual, invisible influence which is too subtle for science and too profound for literature. Chairs in Universities have been made the seats of an antagonist tradition. Public writers, day after day, have indoctrinated the minds of innumerable readers with theories subversive of its claims. As in Roman times, and in the middle age, its supremacy was assailed by the arm of physical force, so now the intellect is put in operation to sap the foundations of a power which the sword could not destroy. We are told that conscience is but a twist in primitive and untutored man; that its dictate is an imagination; that the very notion of guiltiness, which that dictate enforces, is simply irrational, for how can there possibly be freedom of will, how can there be consequent responsibility, in that infinite eternal network of cause and effect, in which we helplessly lie? and what retribution have we to fear, when we have had no real choice to do good or evil?
So much for philosophers; now let us see what is the notion of conscience in this day in the popular mind. {250} There, no more than in the intellectual world, does “conscience” retain the old, true, Catholic meaning of the word. There too the idea, the presence of a Moral Governor is far away from the use of it, frequent and emphatic as that use of it is. When men advocate the rights of conscience, they in no sense mean the rights of the Creator, nor the duty to Him, in thought and deed, of the creature; but the right of thinking, speaking, writing, and acting, according to their judgment or their humour, without any thought of God at all. They do not even pretend to go by any moral rule, but they demand, what they think is an Englishman’s prerogative, for each to be his own master in all things, and to profess what he pleases, asking no one’s leave, and accounting priest or preacher, speaker or writer, unutterably impertinent, who dares to say a word against his going to perdition, if he like it, in his own way. Conscience has rights because it has duties; but in this age, with a large portion of the public, it is the very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations. It becomes a licence to take up any or no religion, to take up this or that and let it go again, to go to church, to go to chapel, to boast of being above all religions and to be an impartial critic of each of them. Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will.
Benjamin of Ad Limina Apostolorum emailed me asking what I thought of Kerry’s MTV interview and what he said about Rap music. I had been intending to blog on that interview after hearing clips of it on the Hugh Hewitt show.
Looking over the interview of John Kerry there were some pretty strange things that he had replied. When one person asked him about gay marriages, part of his reply was the following.
That gives people the rights: the rights of partnership, the rights of inheritance of property, the rights of taxation and so forth, those kinds of treatment that are equal.
Taxation is a right? That is one right I would be glad to be rid of. Of course from a Democratic perspective maybe they see that taxation is a right. Though it is doubtful that anybody would fight for this right.
Yago: Well, we know that you were into rock and roll when you were in high school, and we know that you play the guitar now. Are there any trends out there in music, or even in popular culture in general, that have piqued your interest?
Kerry: Oh sure. I follow and I’m interested. I don’t always like, but I’m interested. I mean, I never was into heavy metal. I didn’t really like it. I’m fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there’s a lot of poetry in it. There’s a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you’d better listen to it pretty carefully, ’cause it’s important…
I would bet you that President Bush can pronounce more foreign leaders names correctly then John Kerry can name prominent Rap artists. John Kerry and Hip Hop just don’t go together or at least you would need to remove the word Hip. Then again maybe he thought they said Flip Flop instead of Hip Hop. He in intimately familiar with Flip Flop. In the interview he bashed Bush about the Kyoto treaty which over 160 other nations had signed and that Mr. Bush did not support. Of course this same treaty John Kerry voted no in a Roll Call vote to provide funds to implement this treaty. This treaty was so bad that it never even came to a vote in Senate and that roll call vote was unanimous in opposition to it.
Yago: Let’s take another question from one of our viewers. Her name is Meredith and she had a question about one of your heroes.
[Tape plays.] Senator Kerry, I heard you were really inspired by John F. Kennedy. Who do you think is an inspirational figure for my generation?
Kerry: Boy, that’s a good question. You know, it’s just a different time right now. As I talk to my daughters, who are recent graduates of college and out there, they tell me that a lot of young people just don’t have that kind of feeling right now. Certainly not about politics. And I regret that. That’s one of the things that I would like to change. I mean, Howard Dean and I just did a rally here at George Washington University, talking to young people about making politics relevant again. And a lot of what I would like to achieve in this race comes out of the inspiration of my own experience when a candidate for president, and then a president, challenged us to become involved and change the system. You know, young people have so much more power than they tend to think to be able to affect politics. And if people will organize and get involved and go out and knock on doors and hand out leaflets and make a change, then they can determine the future. And that’s what I think is at stake in this race. I hope I can inspire young people to care about the system in this race, certainly in terms of politics. I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I’d like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people’s lives.
Was there an answer to the question in there somewhere. I think I would rather walk on my hands in knees in Iraq looking for WMDs then trying to find an answer in that paragraph. I guess the interviewer felt somewhat the same and followed up with:
Yago: Just to paraphrase her question, any of those writers or musicians that you think would do a good job serving in office?
Kerry: Sure there are. Of course there are people, absolutely. I mean, I’ll tell you. Carole King, who has been out campaigning for me hard in Iowa, New Hampshire and various places, is as knowledgeable about the issues as anybody I have ever seen. And she has been campaigning her heart out, not just doing concerts for me, but going and talking and spending most of her day meeting with people and engaged. There are unbelievable numbers of people in the world of arts who could serve well, but I think a lot of them are turned off by the system, unfortunately, and I don’t blame them to some degree.
So I guess the answer to the question about who is a inspiration figure for today’s generation is Carole King. Good songwriter and singer but an inspiration to young people who have probably not even heard of her? Is she supposed to be inspirations because she campaigns for John Kerry? He says that Rap music is important but he couldn’t name anybody within three decades of Carole King as being inspirations.
Senator Kerry, in the clearest terms, what would be the principal difference between the foreign policy of your administration and that of the Bush administration?
Kerry: Brian, the principle difference will be almost everything….
Well that part of the answer I can firmly agree with.
There is one part that seems to have been left out of the transcript that I had heard a clip of on the Hugh Hewitt show. Other clips that I heard also seemed to be left out. But to paraphrase it from memory. The interviewer had asked Mr. Kerry about the cultural significance ot the symbol on his hat (a Malcolm X ball cap). Kerry replied, “The Latin number for 10, or X-men”, he finally came up with Malcolm X and then related how he was such an important figure to him.
Like most MTV interviews most of the question were beyond stupid. Questions like “Senator Kerry, I really want to know, have you ever Googled yourself?” and “Senator Kerry, were you cool in college? And are you cool now?”
Of course this was the same interview where “Dr. Kerry” informed us that homosexuals were born that way. It looks like his medical knowledge is just as good as his knowledge on culture, economics, the evironment, and foreign policy.