I have been accused of many things in my short time on this rock, but undue deference to a man is never going to stick. [You could say that one again, jerk.--ed.] Anyway, I was talking it over with God just now, and if the bishops, guided by the Holy Spirit, want to wade in and short-circuit a political discussion by sanctifying one particular policy over another...well, I'll just say, "Thy will be done," and we can be foolish together.
The rest of you, there's at least a 32.4% chance that I don't care what you think. (This still means you, Bob Costas.) In any case, if any of my previous statements seemed to indicate a possible unwillingness to submit to the authority of the bishops, it was not intentional.
I'm usually a very affable contrarian, but I am a contrarian. As much as I love consensus and agreement and harmony, a false, comfortable version of those things irritates me. We all have to be on guard that we don't make character judgments about people based upon a little information. Believe me, I am the worst. Still. America may run on Dunkin' Donuts, but American politics runs on Ad Hominem.
Politics is something I enjoy. [You don't seem to enjoy it.--ed.] And the quickest way to get me to explore another side of an issue is to call the people on that side "extreme." Not to say real extremes aren't out there, and consequences negative, but in my experience, this is a word in politics often used to silence people you don't like, especially when you don't have an argument to make that anyone will buy. Note to Jason Whitlock: The NRA and the KKK are not the same thing. You're a sportswriter, and not even a good one. You don't have the leeway of The Great Bob to begin with, and I'm looking up from my NRA application and Babyface collection to tell you how dumb your statements are. I don't own a gun, but from what I know of the "gun culture" you gentlemen speak so cavalierly about, I think it's a culture of not getting killed by criminals. Just sayin.' Other note: "Semi-automatic" weapons cover anything you don't have to cock and/or reload after every shot, so let's bear that in mind before we go forward in our emotional overreaction to a tragedy.
I digress. I am probably going to face challenges going forward, grappling with the divine-human reality that is the Church. But may it never be that I dissent from what she teaches as the apostolic faith.
The rest of you, there's at least a 32.4% chance that I don't care what you think. (This still means you, Bob Costas.) In any case, if any of my previous statements seemed to indicate a possible unwillingness to submit to the authority of the bishops, it was not intentional.
I'm usually a very affable contrarian, but I am a contrarian. As much as I love consensus and agreement and harmony, a false, comfortable version of those things irritates me. We all have to be on guard that we don't make character judgments about people based upon a little information. Believe me, I am the worst. Still. America may run on Dunkin' Donuts, but American politics runs on Ad Hominem.
Politics is something I enjoy. [You don't seem to enjoy it.--ed.] And the quickest way to get me to explore another side of an issue is to call the people on that side "extreme." Not to say real extremes aren't out there, and consequences negative, but in my experience, this is a word in politics often used to silence people you don't like, especially when you don't have an argument to make that anyone will buy. Note to Jason Whitlock: The NRA and the KKK are not the same thing. You're a sportswriter, and not even a good one. You don't have the leeway of The Great Bob to begin with, and I'm looking up from my NRA application and Babyface collection to tell you how dumb your statements are. I don't own a gun, but from what I know of the "gun culture" you gentlemen speak so cavalierly about, I think it's a culture of not getting killed by criminals. Just sayin.' Other note: "Semi-automatic" weapons cover anything you don't have to cock and/or reload after every shot, so let's bear that in mind before we go forward in our emotional overreaction to a tragedy.
I digress. I am probably going to face challenges going forward, grappling with the divine-human reality that is the Church. But may it never be that I dissent from what she teaches as the apostolic faith.
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