Comments for Life Issues and the Mid-Term Elections at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 07:53:04 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-5224 I wish that the Catholic Church would just stay out of politics. Period. I can't stand going to mass and being told who to vote for. - Theresa Banks Sat, 06 Nov 2010 11:17:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4987 Efforts to attenuate the fervor and co-opt the pro-life vote are alive and well. Marlin's is a very good and very important article. Reagan had a Democrat (pro-abortion) Congress. Still, policies like the Hyde Amendment prevailed, and the Mexico City Policy was instituted. He wrote a book, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, while in office; an exercise of moral authority. Bush 41 vetoed five - five - pro-abortion bills, costing him huge political capital, and perhaps reelection. Bush 43 gave us Roberts and Alito, and signed the Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion which Clinton had vetoed twice, and like Reagan and Bush 41, kept federal funds from providing abortions. The number of babies killed skyrockets when federal funds are allocated for it. Elections have consequences. - Roger Stenson Sun, 10 Oct 2010 04:12:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4970 Please consider this paraphrase of a famous quote as an additional argument against refusing to participate in the political process: "All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Yes, the political parties are imperfect. After all they are human institutions. Bringing our Catholic beliefs to the public square is a benefit to the political process. See Chaput,"Render unto Ceaser",Image Books. - Ray Hunkins Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:59:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4969 Here's something else Pro-Life citizens should propose, in addition to working on the law. Challenge the "Pro-Choice" facade with this: take all the public tax money forced into propping up Planned Parenthood et al, split it into 3 parts, and send 2 parts to Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers, adoption agecies, and similar services for men & women choosing life over abortion, and leave the last 3rd for Planned Parenthood, because, as Pro-Choice advocates have said, "no one is really pro-abortion." Or better yet, work to eliminate all tax funds to either side, and then implement generous tax incentives for charitable support of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, and watch what happens. - Chris in Maryland Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:07:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4968 Until Roe, Doe and Casey are overturned, there is not much that can be done legally about abortion beyond placing marginal restrictions on it. People have to focus on who is going to be selecting and voting on the nominees for the Supreme Court over the next few years. No difference between the GOP and the Democrats? Do you actually believe there is no difference between Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito on the one hand, and Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor on the other? - Brian English Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:06:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4967 Brad & Ray are right. To imitate Christ means we can't permit ourselves to "check out" because politics doesn't pave the way for the City of God. It's a battle to the end...an end way beyond us...Christ expects us to stay in the fight. Mother Teresa once had a skeptic interviewing her, who suggested she was wasting her time in her works of charity, saying she was not succeeding. She cut the knot of the question with a sword: "My job is not to be successful, my job is to be faithful." So - Semper Fi... - Chris in Maryland Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:02:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4966 I agree with Mr. Hunkins. As George Marlin suggests, this election offers some dramatic choices between pro-choice and pro-life candidates, as it also does between big-government and limited-government advocates. That said, I think we will also be giving the GOP a last chance to serve American principle and the American people and not just self-interest. About that I'm guardedly optimistic. But . . . put not thy faith in princes. - Brad Miner Wed, 06 Oct 2010 05:18:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4965 Insightful column. No difference between the Republican party and the Democrat party? Henry Hyde would disagree, God rest his soul. Checking out is an abdication of citizen responsibility in a republic. As for me, for the first time since the last election I am embracing "hope and change". - Ray Hunkins Wed, 06 Oct 2010 04:51:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4964 I agree with James. It's a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Replace the old corrupt crooks with new ones and you get the same old corrupt government. After 40 years of voting I am convinced that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two major political parties, both of which are propelled into power by one thing and one thing only: Money. The Golden Rule in America has always been and always will be: He who has the gold rules. - Joe Wed, 06 Oct 2010 04:15:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/life-issues-and-the-mid-term-elections.html#comment-4963 I find little solace in this analysis. It doesn't matter much who sits in which chairs, the central government grows and converts ever more social power into state power. This is the nature of the State. Ronald Reagan was pro-life but did nothing to end abortion. His successor was a cipher. The cipher's son tapped the brakes on federal funding of fetal stem-cell research--but that's about it. The Republicans have held both houses of Congress, and for a while the White House at the same time, but did nothing to change our gruesome abortion "policy." Every election, candidates from both parties fire up the same hackneyed rhetoric in which images of verdant fields of liberty and prosperity soar over a very different reality. Thing One will surrender his chair to Thing Two, and band will resume the same old tune. - James Danielson Wed, 06 Oct 2010 02:47:03 +0100