Let me start with Mark Shea, and say it like this: I get it. I don't want to be in the GOP tribe, either. I don't like the political culture of deflection. I don't like the notion of pretending that President Trump is a good man, who's misunderstood, or slandered, or whatever people say. I don't like the fact that most serious issues not related to sex are being discussed inside the Democratic Party.
I could go on and on about the GOP, and GOP voters, and that even most thoughts within that coalition strike me as irritable mental gestures in the direction of a philosophy, to borrow a phrase.
Yet I have some truth to share: A human fetus is a person, an innocent person, and killing an innocent person is wrong. Not because Jesus said so, although he does. Any person who loves reason can come to see this truth. We may even convince ourselves that "reproductive choice" is less wrong, because the set of Republican policies related to social support makes the choice to abort more likely (and perhaps it does, in fact).
There's still a lie lurking about: that banning or even restricting abortion does nothing to combat abortion. That cannot be true. We could find the stats about how many abortions there were prior to 1973, and how many there are now. The scale of this genocide puts the lie to this polite fiction.
Now, if you want to have mental seizures all day long about rank-and-file Republicans and their blind spots, fine. I don't care. I'm now an advocate for legitimate social democracy. But I'm not letting Shea, or his left-leaning friends sit in their pleasing delusions. There's nothing immoral--quite the opposite--about banning abortion. Joe Heschmeyer, who wrote the linked post above, sets up the discussion as a sort of false dilemma: social support, or abortion ban?
Why not both? And frankly, perhaps the biggest obstacle to getting this done is the tribal allegiance to the Democratic Party, and that party's slavish devotion to an unobstructed machinery of death. The second biggest obstacle is the tribal allegiance to the Republican Party, and that party's slavish devotion to capitalism, and a fake Cold War binary between capitalism and socialism. We will not turn into the USSR, if we insist on a living wage. We're not a bunch of entitled hippie snowflakes, to forthrightly consider that we are damaging this planet, and that we must act urgently.
I'd run as a Democrat, myself, if you made me choose. But we all know who greases the skids, don't we? They've said they don't want pro-lifers in their party. The closest thing to a social democratic party in the US doesn't want to even forthrightly reckon with the fact that killing children in the womb is heinously wrong. The party that had a death-grip on faithful Catholics for generations can't even give a voice to perhaps the most vital teaching (literally) in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
At least Gov. Bel Edwards hasn't been exiled yet. I'll bet he never becomes a major presidential candidate. I dare the Democrats to prove me wrong. Bob Casey, Jr. needs to check his catechism. At present, he doesn't have a hundredth of his father's courage, and good sense.
For the record, I'll take a Democratic ballot in my presidential primary, and I'll make my best effort. Secondly, you deserve to know that in Congress, I intend to vote for every conceivable Democrat on the ballot. I probably will abstain for president, praying that President Trump doesn't find a way to further coarsen and destroy the country itself. I will give enthusiastic thanks for the continuance of the Mexico City policy, the Hyde Amendment, and numerous other things, in the event of his victory. In the event of his loss, I will pray fervently for a change of heart about these things from the new president, and that he or she will not further criminalize anti-abortion activity, or traditional views on other subjects.
I could go on and on about the GOP, and GOP voters, and that even most thoughts within that coalition strike me as irritable mental gestures in the direction of a philosophy, to borrow a phrase.
Yet I have some truth to share: A human fetus is a person, an innocent person, and killing an innocent person is wrong. Not because Jesus said so, although he does. Any person who loves reason can come to see this truth. We may even convince ourselves that "reproductive choice" is less wrong, because the set of Republican policies related to social support makes the choice to abort more likely (and perhaps it does, in fact).
There's still a lie lurking about: that banning or even restricting abortion does nothing to combat abortion. That cannot be true. We could find the stats about how many abortions there were prior to 1973, and how many there are now. The scale of this genocide puts the lie to this polite fiction.
Now, if you want to have mental seizures all day long about rank-and-file Republicans and their blind spots, fine. I don't care. I'm now an advocate for legitimate social democracy. But I'm not letting Shea, or his left-leaning friends sit in their pleasing delusions. There's nothing immoral--quite the opposite--about banning abortion. Joe Heschmeyer, who wrote the linked post above, sets up the discussion as a sort of false dilemma: social support, or abortion ban?
Why not both? And frankly, perhaps the biggest obstacle to getting this done is the tribal allegiance to the Democratic Party, and that party's slavish devotion to an unobstructed machinery of death. The second biggest obstacle is the tribal allegiance to the Republican Party, and that party's slavish devotion to capitalism, and a fake Cold War binary between capitalism and socialism. We will not turn into the USSR, if we insist on a living wage. We're not a bunch of entitled hippie snowflakes, to forthrightly consider that we are damaging this planet, and that we must act urgently.
I'd run as a Democrat, myself, if you made me choose. But we all know who greases the skids, don't we? They've said they don't want pro-lifers in their party. The closest thing to a social democratic party in the US doesn't want to even forthrightly reckon with the fact that killing children in the womb is heinously wrong. The party that had a death-grip on faithful Catholics for generations can't even give a voice to perhaps the most vital teaching (literally) in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
At least Gov. Bel Edwards hasn't been exiled yet. I'll bet he never becomes a major presidential candidate. I dare the Democrats to prove me wrong. Bob Casey, Jr. needs to check his catechism. At present, he doesn't have a hundredth of his father's courage, and good sense.
For the record, I'll take a Democratic ballot in my presidential primary, and I'll make my best effort. Secondly, you deserve to know that in Congress, I intend to vote for every conceivable Democrat on the ballot. I probably will abstain for president, praying that President Trump doesn't find a way to further coarsen and destroy the country itself. I will give enthusiastic thanks for the continuance of the Mexico City policy, the Hyde Amendment, and numerous other things, in the event of his victory. In the event of his loss, I will pray fervently for a change of heart about these things from the new president, and that he or she will not further criminalize anti-abortion activity, or traditional views on other subjects.
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