61 - 70 of 84 Comments

1. Pam

   4 years ago

   What about the immorality of knowingly and needlessly shoving the two teenagers and their baby into a media firestore? That's where the lack of judgment is shown by Sarah Palin as well as John McCain.

2. R.C.

   4 years ago

   Amy:
   
   It is a libel to call McCain Pro-War.
   
   He believes that Ahmadinejad & Co. intend to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. Not an unreasonable conclusion, since they've plainly said so.
   
   (What else does it mean, after all, to say that Tel Aviv will "burn in fire like the sun," that "soon the Zionists will be gone from our midst," and that "Israel is after all a one-bomb state...If the Jews are foolish enough to gather all in one place, so much the better for us to kill them at one stroke.")
   
   McCain believes that it *might* deter Ahmadinejad & Co if they think that:
   
   (a.) If Israel perishes, so will the power of Iran's ayatollahs;
   (b.) If the ayatollahs get too close to being able to destroy Israel, that power will be forcefully removed from them, painfully; and,
   (c.) They therefore have no hope of destroying Israel, and ought instead to turn their funds toward their hungry people, instead of nuclear arms development and terror-sponsorship.
   
   If McCain is wrong, it is simply because the ayatollahs cannot be deterred.
   
   In that case, several million Jews will die (or get radiation poisoning and cancer) sometime in the next 10-20 years, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.
   
   But if McCain's hopes are correct, and they can be deterred, then his approach -- and not another -- will prevent war, and prevent deaths, which is his (obvious) intent.
   
   You can agree with his logic, or you can disagree and say there's no hope of saving Tel Aviv, and that we should just make sure *we* aren't party to the conflict, for our own lives' sake.
   
   But you can't, as an honest person, call the man Pro-War. As soon call a policeman Pro-Murder, because he tries to deter a man with a knife, by drawing his gun.

3. R.C.

   4 years ago

   DS:
   
   When one knows the right thing, it doesn't mean that it is emotionally easy to do the right thing.
   
   And when much of one's culture habitually does the wrong thing, doing the right thing is especially meritorious.
   
   In a sense, you're right: By not aborting either baby, the Palins were "only lowly servants, they were only doing their duty."
   
   The same could be said about every apostle going to his martyrdom. The same could be said of the Virgin Mary, submitting to the will of God. The same could be said of Christ, as he stated "not my will, but thine, be done."
   
   All servants. All merely "doing their duty."
   
   But I, for one, will hold obedience to be praiseworthy, especially when it is difficult, and especially when much of the rest of the world does otherwise, and sneers at you for exercising "family values."
   
   So, YES. It makes sense to praise Governor Palin, and even her daughter. Let us encourage those who do right...especially those, like Bristol, who repent of a moral mistake, and far from fleeing responsibility, decide to turn over a new leaf and do the right thing.

4. R.C.

   4 years ago

   Nuts.
   
   That is the word for Catholics who're foaming about how McCain, Palin, and Bush aren't sufficiently pro-life or pro-morals.
   
   Clear-thinking Catholics from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas to Cardinal Newman would have (in charity) harsh words for folks who can't distinguish between a real, and an unreal, choice.
   
   It wasn't an option between Bush-Cheney and Wojtyla-Ratzinger. It was between Bush and Gore...and later, Bush and Kerry. Bush was far more pro-life than either Gore or Kerry.
   
   It also wasn't a choice between "Bush the absolute monarch" eliminating all abortions in the U.S., and Bush choosing otherwise. He is *president*, which means he can't legislate, only veto; can't adjudicate, only nominate. What he *could* do for the cause of life, he *did*: Nominate pro-life justices and veto bad legislation. Furthermore he use the bully pulpit and stretched his power to the limits of propriety in the matter of executive orders/findings...all to support the pro-life cause. He's the most pro-life - I would almost say "the most Catholic" U.S. president since before Roe v. Wade, and Catholics who treat his contribution as valueless are ingrates.
   
   Now we face a similar choice, and once again, there isn't a perfect ticket! Perfection is an unreal choice. So look at reality: McCain-Palin is miles better, if you value Catholic teaching, than Obama-Biden.
   
   (Shameful, that, since Biden's a Catholic, but that's where decades of bad catechesis will get you. And, I guess it gets you a lot of logic-impaired Catholics taking aim at their own allies, too.)

5. Cletus J Tauer

   4 years ago

   MsSwin, you cannot get by making claims that just are not true, such as -- “Studies have shown time after time that focusing only on abstinence programs do not work”. Please reference some truth on this.
   
   Excellent essay Deacon. You are doing great work this election period. I disagree with you on many of your phony “Social Justice” ideas but all in all your work may save us the embarrassment of a president (Obama) who seems to have no regard for anything except his being elected -- may God help us.
   
   I do, however, wish you would refrain from your constant waste of words telling us how good the Democratic party WAS; e.g., in your last paragraph, “and there really are good pro-life Democrats.” Sounds a bit to much like what I heard in the late 1940(s); “yes there really were many good Germans.”

6. Amy

   4 years ago

   Is this the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes"? Are McCain and Obama really my only two choices for president? Pro-Life and Pro-War? Come on people, you know what Pope John Paul's unheeded advice was to George W. And I am supposed to be excited about Gov. Palin? I am thrilled that she seems to be conservative and supports life, but am I thrilled about her possibly running our country some day? No. And if she is so pro-family, when will she have time to care for her newborn son and other children? I need to find a name to write in the blank on the presidential ballot or I will be in the same position I was in back in 2004- no one to even cast a vote for.

7. DS

   4 years ago

   If abortion is evil and it is not a choice and it should be illegal, then how does it make sense to praise Gov. Palin and her daughter for "choosing" life?
   
   Why don't you praise them for not being murderers and bank robbers while you're at it? It makes as much sense.

8. Maria

   4 years ago

   Are you serious? Great for Sarah Palin, let’s have all out 17 year all daughters and get pregnant. It is very Catholic, as long as they keep the baby. How shameful it is today to be part of this group of individuals who voted for G W Bush as the pro-life choice, and have been responsible for thousands of innocents lives lost because of the republican’s war. Much more lives lost than thru abortion.

9. Thomas J. McCarthy

   4 years ago

   Hey Marty, I guess when you say the family values party is the Democrats you mean that Sen. Obama should have volunteered to accompany Bristol Palin to the abortion clinic because his family values say his daughters shouldn't be BURDENED with a baby.
   
   As a father of two daughters who went through this, I like the deacons message that these ladies did the right thing. I now have two beautiful grandkids who can live their lives and maybe make this world a better place and who knows -- straighten out the immorality of decay that this nation (and you Marty) are displaying.

10. truthfinder

    4 years ago

    Marty,
    You said "the ticket for family values this year is democrats"? So supporting a man who sees a baby in the womb as sub-human and not worth saving, even after a botched abortion, is your idea of great family values then? Please do the research and reconsider your position. God bless.

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