A good-hearted reader writes:
Enclosed is a good article from Peggy Noonan on why she left the GOP, but wants to see it nursed back to health, I agree with this, and now I’m starting to see that I need to stay a Republican, almost like a missionary, because so many good people have gone down the wrong path with them, I know you don’t agree that it’s possible but philosophically I don’t think the idea of 1 party is a healthy one, even for Democrats, we’re human, so 1 party ultimately leads to corruption, look at every city Republican or Democrat that has been ruled by 1 party, there’s always tremendous corruption, my own city Philadelphia has the longest 1 party rule in history, and I think even Democrats would admit that it’s not a good thing, and sadly the poor suffer the most, because you begin to compete with each other, I’m sure there’s southern Republican cities that experience the same thing, anyway, I’m off to try an win back the Republican Party to sanity, wish me luck, it won’t be easy,
I thought you would be interested in the following story from The Wall Street Journal.
I disagree with Noonan. I think the GOP is past saving and needs to be killed as a political force in the US. The model is no longer Dems vs. the GOP. It is Normals vs. a toxic, dangerous, anti-American, anti-human freak show of criminals, predators, and their dangerous cult of idiots. The GOP now constitutes the gravest domestic threat the US has faced since the Civil War. It is the enemy of our Republic, having not only launched an attack on our government and protected the attackers, but having done all in its power to kill 580K Americans in the Pandemic. There are, very simply, no GOP left who are not part of the Cult. When their priority is to punish Cheney while doing nothing about Trump, Gaetz, and MTG, that is all you need to know.
What should therefore happen is the destruction of the Cult of the Trump (which is all the GOP is now) without mercy or pity. The Dems will evolve to fill the ecological niche, just as species do when a species goes extinct. It will essentially play both the roles of the centrist/conservative (the Biden wing) and the Progressive (the AOC wing), but without the braindead killer toxic insanity that is all that remains of the GOP.
I think it is the duty of every person of good will in the US to actively help the Dems to destroy the GOP over the next decade. Let not one stone remain standing on another. And the MAGA influence in the Church needs to catechized, exorcised, and banished as the evil antichrist thing it is as well. It is likewise the gravest threat to the US Church in my lifetime: a seductive unclean spirit from Hell that has single-handedly done more harm to the witness of the Church in four years than two and a half centuries of anti-Catholicism has ever done.
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64 Responses
I completely agree with Mr. Shea’s assessment of the GOP. Totally. I am not as ready to wholeheartedly embrace the Democrats as he is, though I respect his reasons for doing so. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. So that said, I think we need to do things as Christians:
One, realize that people of good will need to be involved in both parties to change them for the better.
Two (and most importantly), keep in mind that we are first and foremost members of the Kingdom of Heaven, not political parties of any stripe. That should always come first. Christians who forget that and put the needs of their political party first (and both sides) goes a long way to explaining our current mess.
I wouldn’t bet money on it, but I still think there is a chance that Trump is going to wake up one morning and realize his age and that he’d rather spend his latter years spending money and playing golf. Being President is such a hassle. Maybe he’ll go away. Again, I wouldn’t bet money on it. But hope springs eternal.
The simple hard political reality is that there is no party that is even close to being able to destroy the GOP than the Dems. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to back them. Period. End of story.
We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose.
I am not Saruman. I need not be quiet at all about evils done by Dems. But the reality remains that at the federal, state, and local levels, only Dems are able to crush the clear and present danger that is the GOP.
Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the GOP any more than you do. In fact, I jumped off that train a good 5 years before you did. 😉 And in the past election cycle, I did vote mostly Democratic in the legislative and executive races. (I went Green in one race because the Democratic candidate was so odious.) But I confess I had to hold my nose a bit while doing so. You are 100% correct in your assessment of the GOP. I just don’t share your willingness to embrace the Democratic Party with such enthusiasm. I respect it, even if I respectfully disagree with it.
In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love.
What enthusiasm? Seeing the obvious necessity of supporting the Dems is not enthusiasm. It is realism. And I deeply resent the comparison to Saruman. Here’s reality. One of the biggest lies conservatives tell is the Both Side Moral Equivalence Lie, which they use to try to posture about their moral aloofness from the catastrophe they helped create in their slowness to oppose the monstrous freak show of the GOP. When you compare people who had the guts to *act* while you stood back and lied to yourself that the Dems were no better than the GOP freak show, all you do is insult people who helped to stop the gravest domestic threat since the Civil War, and one responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in a single year. When you slander those people as being willing to do evil that good may come of it, you are simply bearing false witness against your neighbors. It’s ugly and you should repent it and apologize. One need not support evil to see that voting Dem is clearly the sane way to lessen evil. Your moral aloofness has one concrete effect: it helps the evil and it bears false witness against those who, often at great personal cost, have fought that evil.
“What enthusiasm? Seeing the obvious necessity of supporting the Dems is not enthusiasm. It is realism.”
Perhaps I am simply reading too much into your comments. But when you write things like, “I think it is the duty of every person of good will in the US to actively help the Dems to destroy the GOP over the next decade. Let not one stone remain standing on another.” And “The simple hard political reality is that there is no party that is even close to being able to destroy the GOP than the Dems. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to back them. Period. End of story.”
That seems rather enthusiastic to me. Am I wrong?
“And I deeply resent the comparison to Saruman.”
I wasn’t comparing you to Saruman. I was comparing the Democratic Party to Saruman. Mea culpa if that was unclear.
“One of the biggest lies conservatives tell is the Both Side Moral Equivalence Lie, which they use to try to posture about their moral aloofness from the catastrophe they helped create in their slowness to oppose the monstrous freak show of the GOP.”
Yup. I don’t disagree in the slightest. I’m not for a second claiming the GOP and the Dems are the same. They aren’t. I just don’t buy the argument that the GOP’s villainy automatically defaults the Dems to heroes.
It might be necessary to fill our house with snakes to get rid of the rats. But once the rats are gone, what are we gonna do about the snakes?
“When you compare people who had the guts to *act* while you stood back and lied to yourself that the Dems were no better than the GOP freak show, all you do is insult people who helped to stop the gravest domestic threat since the Civil War, and one responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in a single year. When you slander those people as being willing to do evil that good may come of it, you are simply bearing false witness against your neighbors. It’s ugly and you should repent it and apologize.”
Simmer down, Mr. Shea. I did no such thing. See above. Not sure how much clearer I can be. I forsook any support of the GOP years before you did. I voted mostly Democratic or Green in the last elections. And I wasn’t comparing you to Saruman. I think seem angry over something that never happened. I think your aims are basically in agreement with mine.
Did I really state things that badly?
“One need not support evil to see that voting Dem is clearly the sane way to lessen evil.”
Agreed. But we all need reminders now and then that lesser evil is still evil.
The simple hard political reality is that there is no party that is even close to being able to ensure the survival of the GOP than the Dems. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to form a new party. Period. End of story.
https://youtu.be/a4v3x5jMX2c
YouTuber “Vaush” makes a similar point in this clip:
MORE Psychological Evidence That Conservatism Is Bad For Your Brain
If you want to get to the heart of it, you can skip right to the 12:40 mark. He does go a step further than just saying the GOP should cease to exist and suggests the formation of a new party to the left of the current Democratic Party.
You appear to be stumbling towards Hell. I’d like to help you get back on track towards the path to eternal life.
No small part of the blasphemous idolatry of your evil antichrist cult is the ease with which you condemn people to hell for not supporting the GOP. Your absolute contempt for conscience is of a piece with your nihilist love of raw, lawless tyranny.
@ jeff
Please do let me know when god sends you the letter of patent declaring that he will confide in the likes ofbyou exactly his plans for anyone else. The spiritual arrogance you display only has its place in a whited sepulcher.
The AOC wing will take care of that. A new party may actually make that harder if they split the Dem left.
Mark, Get some medical help quickly! You write like someone who is mentally I’ll. And I recommend you be careful associating any of your writings with Christian thinking. I can help you but feel tou need medical help.
Sorry. I can’t hear you over your insane cult ranting about Jewish space lasers, COVID conspiracies, the Great Reset, QANON idiocies, chemtrail conspiracies, stolen election lunacy, and Pope Francis-bashing. The enmity of your pack of weirdos is a badge of honor.
Gotta love your Soviet “medicalization of dissent” tactic. Very Stalinist, like your filthy MAGA cult.
@Mark Shea:
Oh, I agree. The linked video makes the same point as well. As things stand right now, the entire governing debate dynamic is taking place within the Democratic Party in its entirety.
What I was referring to was regarding what should take the place of the GOP should it cease to exist. The idea is that if we have to have a 2-party system due to the whole First Past the Post voting system we have, then that second party should be a more progressive party, to the left of the Democrats.
This also stresses the importance of holding the Democratic Party’s feet to the fire with effective primary challenges where appropriate; the last thing we need is for bad politicians with bad policies to be perpetually coasting to re-election on the account of Republicans being worse.
The AOC wing has been completely smothered by… drumroll… the Democratic Party, a masterpiece of failure and ineptitude. By not really changing things all that much, they keep everyone demoralized and resigned to this ridiculous political “realism” you espouse. You should try living in the realism this situation creates for some of us. I guess I’m supposed to be happy to go from being really screwed by the GOP to just being plain old screwed by the Dems.
Stick with insulting and demeaning people who disagree with your enthusiasm (yes, your words communicate enthusiasm) for the Democratic party. That’s all you seem to be capable of on this point.
And, for the record, I’m glad that people like MLK, FDR, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis Xavier, and Mother Theresa didn’t subscribe to this supposedly practical realism you seem to think is so necessary. You’ll get a heavy dose of realism when Democratic mediocrity paves the way for the next GOP demagogue to inhabit the Oval Office.
Remember when we were told that we weren’t truly pro-life if we didn’t vote Republican? Turnabout is not fair play, Mr. Shea.
Huh?
Sorry Mark, You couldn’t lead anyone to Christ with the anti-christ arrogance you gave. Maybe the puppet masters are paying you but regardless, you are FAKE NEWS.
anti-christ arrogance? You don’t like his style of preaching the Gospel message?
I am not news at all, you silly person. I am writing opinion. Is there a member of your Cult capable of an original thought without just parroting braindead slogans? Sheesh.
@ jeff
Mark is too polite to say it, but I’m not.
Accusation is confession, every single time.
Whatever it might have once been, the GOP today has all the pro-life credentials of ISIS or the Khmer Rouge. It is the political wing of an actual terrorist movement.
Regarding social justice and conservatives, this is a good quote from a paper from Fr James Loiacono OMI entitled:
“LIBERATION AS AUTONOMY AND RESPONSIBILITY: Jürgen Habermas and the Psychoanalytic Method in the Analysis and Critique of Values and Tradition”.
“. In the post-World War II period, North American and European society have tended towards a free expression of selfish, narcissistic, collective id impulses based upon a positivistic-objectivist perspective, which expressed themselves at virtually all levels of society. Fortunately, the radically centrist quality of the people and their adherence to their own values and traditions…”
…
“Nevertheless, this conservative shift must also be critiqued in order to mitigate its negative impact upon social justice issues. This is the vortex where the contradictions meet, i.e., on the one hand, progress toward greater autonomy and responsibility through a self-determined, self-reflective critique, and, on the other hand, correction of the negative elements within the values and traditions of the culture-subject. Here, it is crucial to maintain the positive aspects of these values and traditions in order to preserve one’s own identity and avoid selection through their collapse.”
pp 50-51
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18uRcc5VEOZHCRKSQtJ3C9R4KbGsMb1oa/view?usp=sharing
I agree with Mark on lots of issues. We disagree on some, of course. But these things I am sure of.
The last five years of right wing crazy have done an incredible amount of damage to our country, our finances (such as they were), our place in the world, the principles which we allegedly hold, and our institutions. This is a threat not just to our country, but to the entire world. I don’t care what people think about abortion, because compared to THAT, abortion simply does not matter.
The two party system stopped serving us at minimum in 1980, when reagan sold out the party. It could easily be argued it stopped serving usin 1968, with Nixon and his southern strategy. The constitution certainly stopped serving us then.
When the self-appointed Guardians of Traditional Morality decided that any immorality was justified in their single minded drive for power money, dominion, and revenge, they really declared that morality doesn’t matter.
Bidenstein and his bolsheviks stole the election on 2020 through massive voter fraud. Why? The banking puppet master Deep State cartel was afraid Trump would expose what at the criminal mossad did on 9/11 while bidenstein is a Judas who won’t speak out!
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to find a better strategy. Try facts and logic as a first step
Your word salad shows you have been triggered. Go take a walk or a run or something. If you are vaccinated you won’t even need a mask.
Scratch a right wing weirdo, find an antisemite.
jj
The GOP can be saved only if the Mormons want to save it.
The GOP isn’t going anywhere, and part of the reason for that is that the Dems have no serious interest in destroying the GOP. The Dems need the GOP to blame for their own lack of leadership and failure to effect the profound changes that hurting Americans need. And so the American political charade, a cynical game in which both parties never fail to protect rich and powerful interests while presenting Americans with an illusion of choice, continues.
But thank God we now have a Democratic president, a man who has repeatedly reiterated that he would, IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, veto any legislation in favor of universal healthcare. Because it’s more important to protect Obama’s signature legislation than to help more people. Yes, thank God for this wonderful “change”. Isn’t it heart-warming? if that doesn’t warm one’s heart, then maybe his recent ramping up of the drug war (anyone remember that his son is a addict?) or proposal to spend more on the military than even the Trump administration will do the trick. I am grateful, though, that since the campaign, his meds are helping him to complete sentences and stop insulting fat people.
There are millions of us who, like myself, vote Democratic because we have no other choice, because the alternative is worse, because all we can do is minimize the extent to which we are being screwed over. That is demoralizing and it pisses me off. And I refuse to be shamed into sitting around and keeping my mouth shut by people who can’t seem to admit that the tweaking and stalling and deferring in which the Democratic party specializes is not a solution. Only solutions are solutions.
Perhaps, at some future time, more Americans will wake up. In the meantime, those of us who, like myself, are numbered among the working poor, who have been worn down by decades of struggle, and who have to suffer constantly the consequences of all the comfortable people who keep the status quo intact, will be told to shut up and calm down because, you know, Trump.
Bravo. Well said! Er, written. Whatever. All true regardless.
Thank you.
“Biden clings to the possibility of a bipartisan infrastructure breakthrough” appeared as a recent headline on Politico. This seems to indicate that the current face of the Democratic Party, which Mark thinks is going to destroy the GOP, has little interest in doing so. Another indication of this is the incessant chirping of Pelosi and Schumer about the supposed need for bipartisanship. And yet another indication of this is the party’s incessant chirping about such a strategy every time they have a freaking majority.
Biden knows that if his infrastructure plan passes at all, it will do so along party lines. He also knows that his infrastructure plan is too weak to make the kind of difference that is really needed, and that this will cause his opponents to say (as they said of Obama’s inadequate stimulus), “See! We tried infrastructure and it didn’t work. This needs to be accomplished through the private sector.” Be prepared to welcome our next GOP-controlled government as a result.
Biden also knows that his smoke and mirrors routine about bipartisanship is just a stalling tactic, one of the Democratic party’s favorite strategies. Biden knows that he is helping the GOP survive. Biden is a liar and, unless you are rich, he is not your friend. The same goes for the Democratic party and it’s insipid posturing. They will never effect economic justice, because they don’t want to. They will continue to dump all over the poor, only with less vigor than GOP goons. That way it can look like they’re helping in order to continue to accomplish their real objective of coddling their rich friends. And they will constantly divert everyone’s attention to identity politics in order to keep up this charade.
The GOP is not your friend. The Democratic party is not your friend. There is no solution available to us within our ridiculous two-party duopoly, which is mocked all over the world. Nothing will change until we get the money out of politics and mount a third party that will offer people a meaningful choice. This will probably not happen, so we are stuck with the non-solution of voting for the Democratic jerks who don’t really care about economic justice, only to kick the can down the road while they posture about a bunch of policies they are never going to fight for.
I said nothing about Biden destroying the GOP. His affable chuminess with all his former colleagues makes it highly unlikely he aims to do that. I’m saying it is up to we the people to do that. I don’t think either party is my friend. I think the GOP are fucking nuts and enemies of the human race and the Dems are ordinary people who retain all the full complement of normal human virtues and flaws. They have a fringe. The GOP is nothing but fringe.
You: “I said nothing about Biden destroying the GOP.”
Also you: “I think it is the duty of every person of good will in the US to actively help the Dems to destroy the GOP over the next decade.”
Last time I checked, Biden is a Democrat, and a fairly prominent one. You’re behaving like someone who says, “I never said that!” when confronted with the implications of their words. So maybe you should have said, “I think it is the duty of every person of good will in the US, except Biden, to actively help the Dems to destroy the GOP over the next decade.” Geez, man. Are you merely stubborn or are you just daft?
You: “I’m saying it is up to we the people to do that. I don’t think either party is my friend. I think the GOP are fucking nuts and enemies of the human race and the Dems are ordinary people who retain all the full complement of normal human virtues and flaws.”
Not all Dems are ordinary people. Dem voters may be ordinary people. Dem politicians, however, especially at the federal level, and Dem party leaders, are elites with the means to control the direction of the party independent of the will of their average constituents. So if we the people are to exert enough influence in the political sphere to destroy the GOP, throwing our support behind a party whose leadership doesn’t give a shit about we the people is a losing strategy.
The only solutions are to either effect an abrupt change in the direction of the party (which will not happen because the party’s leadership are powerful and determined enough to stop that from happening), or to form a new party. You think the second strategy is a non-starter because of your reflexive commitment to this failed notion of political “realism” , a misnomer if ever their was one.
Here’s reality: an unchanged Democratic party will ensure the GOP’s survival through it’s unwillingness to effect the economic justice that would ameliorate the tendency of suffering citizens to fall for fake populist demagogues. And The party will remain unchanged for reasons I already mentioned.
You can afford to screw around with this stuff because you are far more comfortable than I. I don’t even need to know you to know this. Unless you: cannot afford to own a car, have never been able to afford a house, have not been able to afford a vacation in 13 years, have over $12,000 in yearly medical expenses (even with the Affordable Care Act), lost 24 music students during the lockdown only to be denied unemployment benefits twice because it was not possible to “verify the Covid-19 restrictions as the cause of your current economic situation”, cannot afford a $300 emergency, cannot afford internet at home, am not homeless only because someone is paying my rent, in spite of voting for every duplicitous Democrat that has ever been presented to me, then my assessment of your situation in comparison to mine is correct.
Feel free to screw around with the Democratic party and its commitment to every fucking diversion that keeps them from really making a difference for people like me. Thank you for helping to ensure that I continue to have a sucky life. Thank you for that.
I’m sorry for what you are suffering right now and hope that things get better. I don’t place messianic faith in political parties and don’t think the Dems are saviors of mankind. I’m perfectly aware of Biden’s (and the Dem leadership’s) limitations. I regard politics as a crude blunt instrument for getting shit done in a rough and rude manner (at best) and as a slow, dumb, wasteful project most of the time. It is the art of the possible in a fallen world and it can be done, at worst, monstrously and (at best) reasonably okay, but still shittily. My point is not that Biden is off the hook, but that I know what kind of person Biden is and he is not going to lead some giant revolution of love in the the Dem party. He’s a competent bureaucrat who is getting some important work done, but he is also a solid corporate pal and that’s life outside the garden.
Meanwhile, his party remains the best chance there is of forwarding some goals of Catholic social policy. That’s reality. The only other major movement in US politics right now is the crazy, malignant fascists who want to kill the weak and enact mindless authoritarian vengeance on the human race. Between the Fucking Crazy vs. Corporate Centrism to AOC Spectrum Parties, I will take the latter every time. Because the latter has a shot at evolving toward the Rooseveltian/AOC end of the spectrum, while the former is going to launch a civil, and possibly world, war.
Also, I agree that the GOP is fucking nuts. But if you think Kamala Harris or any Democrat is going to get elected over some right wing lunatic after the Democratic Party has been screwing you over for four straight years, then you are fucking nuts.
I’m not feeling especially screwed over. Biden has been competently addressing the pandemic and the economic catastrophes left behind by the Asshole, as well as quietly undoing the the infrastructure damage the Asshole did. There’s a lot of cleanup happening that I am content with, and I can wait on the stuff he has not yet gotten to. He needs to be more aggressive with addressing GOP (and centrist Dem) resistance to changing the status quo, but that’s never been the temperament of this affable man and I don’t know that I will get that wish. His approval ratings do not reflect “WE ARE ALL BEING SCREWED OVER!” So I’m not losing sleep over 2024. Right now, I think the goal is clear, continue to crush the GOP at federal, state, and local levels in 2022. I hope for progress, not perfection on that front and realize that this is a long haul project. Happily, Trump’s lazy, stupid, selfish cult seems to not be interested in lifting a finger to help him, judging from the death of his blog at the age of one month. But nothing is certain. So I continue to push for people not to get overconfident, and to get out and vote in the midterms. We came within an ace of a fascist dictatorship and we are not out of the woods yet.
When the disciples heard that the GOP cannot be saved, they were greatly astonished and said “Who then can be saved?”
Winner!
Poor Dave Griffey. He just cain’t quit me!
@Mark:
Isn’t that Mr. “Both Sides” himself?
It seems like he can’t stop talking about you; he just can’t talk to you. Which is kind of dumb. And dishonest. And uncharitable.
But it gives him what he wants for the audience he’s trying to appeal to.
In justice, he can’t talk in my comboxes because I blocked him long ago. He *could* write me privately if he really wanted to try to ward me off from the Nazism he imagines I embrace when I reject his Cult that marched under the banner of the swastika to assault the Capitol. But of course, he’s not interested in that. He is, as you say, interested in Unit Cohesion lies designed to bind the fascists together in opposition to their enemies and victims. He is one of the People of the Lie, which is why I applied Matthew 7:6 to him long ago, and kicked him out of my comboxes.
I like it that he attributes to you what you didn’t say, and doesn’t attribute to you what you did.
With the Cult, accusation is *always* confession.
@ mark
I know. You can’t imagine how many times i have quoted you to that point.
Dude. You do not get to call me a Nazi and then pretend you are all sweet reasonableness. I know your bullshit, Saruman. He who has left by the rooftop thinks twice about coming in by the door to your little parlor. Your MAGA cult is a pack of liars, marching under the banner of the swastika both at Charlottesville and in your assault on the Capitol and you are bent on defending it all with filthy lies accusing your critics of your own sins. Own it, liar. All I want to hear from you is an apology. Nothing else. We are not partners in dialogue. You are a liar who needs to repent your vicious slander in defense of treason. Period. And until you do, you are not welcome to use my comboxes to spread more lies and slander. I owe you not platform. Matthew 7:6, buster.
I’m leaving this up because it show progress, but only dallies with an apology while still refusing to offer one. “Ein Volk, Ein Partei, Ein Shea” is an insinuation that I am a Nazi. Period. Full stop. It is not that your writing skills are bad. It’s that you said exactly what you meant to say for the delectation of your fellow MAGA morons and you have spent the past week defiantly refusing to apologize for it. Now you are trying to cop to a lesser charge.
Your cult needs to be destroyed as the gravest domestic threat since the Civil War. I think only the Dems are able to do that, therefore they are the necessary tool to achieve that goal. I have no desire for a one party system, nor a believe in the infallibility of the Dems. I’m simply addressing practicality. To end your Cult, it must be destroyed at the polls. I call for no enabling acts, no sweeping dictatorial powers. It is your filthy cult that honors MTG and her calls for the assassination of her colleagues. It is your filthy cult that assaulted Congress and lies that Trump won and tried to overturn the election and now calls for a military coup to reinstate Trump. As ever, it is your Cult that projects the evils in your own hearts on your victims. So I spit on your charge that I am a Nazi or an authoritarian. That’s you. That’s your Cult. That’s your failed god Trump.
So: apologize for painting me as a Nazi or get off my wall, liar.
@ Dave G.discuss, please, alongside your criticisms of Fred Phelps
Cardinal George: same sex marriage supporters have lost touch with humanity
cardinal George: compares gay pride to the Ku Kux Klan
Pope B: gay people couldn’t possibly have any rights, and if they claim it, no one should be surprised if violence is the response.
Bishops in the US, pro life to a man: tried to kill, so to speak, a bill funding suicide prevention because it said something nice about gay kids.
Archbishop Nienstedt: “Sodomy, abortion, contraception, pornography, the redefinition of marriage, and the denial of objective truth” are “threatening the stability of our civilization,” and that the source of those “threats” is satan.” I’. Not sure whether he saidvthis before or after The many accusations about how handy he is.
Archbishop Nienstedt, representing family values at its finest: writing a letter to a Catholic mom, telling her she had to either reject her gay son or burn in hell forever. Did I Mention the accusations against him?
Bishop Paprocki: performs an exorcism on the entire state of illinois because of same sex marriage four years earlier. Civil Marriage.
Cardinal McCarrick: toeing the church line while fingering a huge number of catholics.
A huge numberof conservative catholics: blaming the church’s 1000 year old sexual abuse problem on gay people infiltrating the church in order to destroy it, while simultaneously ignoring the facts about abuse, including that while spme of the abusers may have been homosexual, every single one of them was a catholic priest, as was every single bishop who ignored it, every single diocesan staff member that knew all about it, entire dioceses that must have known about McCarrick, Branson (?) and a host of others but just pretended that it wasn’t there.
—- – —-
back to me. i fail to see the difference. Fred Phelps was Fred Phelps, whether in a cassock ornot.
Dave can’t reply because I made clear that the only thing I wanted to see from him was an apology for calling me a Nazi. He has refused and therefore will not be allowed back till he does. All he needs to do is say, “I’m sorry I compared you to a Nazi and lied that you want totalitarian rule. It was out of line. Please forgive me” and he can post again. If not, Matthew 7:6 reigns. I don’t have time for MAGA People of the Lie on my wall, accusing as their way of confessing. Enough with the BS.
The reason you are not feeling particularly screwed over, Mark, is because you are part of the middle class who, because of its majority status, gets to determine presidential approval ratings. Some of us are not so lucky.
The perspective of those who recommend supporting either party is basically a solipsistic endorsement of the status quo and fails to actively embody the principle of solidarity proposed by Catholic social doctrine.
The Democratic party is a extremist right wing party, because not giving everyone healthcare during a pandemic, not enacting universal basic income during a pandemic, voting for a trickle-down economic stimulus during a pandemic that ended up being the largest ever form of corporate welfare in human history and locking kids up in cages both before and after Trump (Obama was already doing so and it’s still happening accompanied by crickets from mainstream media), is extreme and to the right of every single democracy in the developed world.
Shame on you and every single comfortable shit lib who have basically gone back to brunch now that things are back to “normal”. And shame on every single one of you who continue to shame those of us who have the courage to pull back the curtain on this dog and pony show and are actively trying to do something about it.
Your sentiment of hoping that my situation improves does not embody a Christian virtue. James 2:15-16.
You declared that it was impossible for the Dems to win because they are screwing me over. I pointed out that the demographic reality is that most people are not feeling screwed over. I am not saying that there are no people suffering because of Dem failures. I am disputing the claim that there are enough of them to somehow rout the Dems and hand the US back to MAGA in their fury. Biden’s approval rating are pretty comfortable and most people are content with the work he is doing. You need to make up your mind about whether the seething rage of betrayed Dem voters is just about to throw Biden and the Dems out or most Dems are privileged blind people like me who don’t care about anybody as long as We’ve Got Ours. I think both readings are deeply false myself.
@ mark
Mr. Biden barely shows up in the news at all, yet his approval rating remains high at 60%. That 60% corresponds fairly roughly to the number of people that voted for him. The 40% they don’t disapprove corresponds roughly to the people who voted for former guy. Funny about that.
Mr. Biden is also not showing up every day for saying something outrageous, outrageously untrue, or outrageously insulting. He doesn’t praise himself.
Contrast Mr. Biden for the last four months to this: “ Now when I made the best speech I’ve ever made, they said it was at West Point. And it was pouring and I had a ramp that was an ice skating rink. “So I walked gingerly down — that was on every newscast in the world and I never went down. I never went down, either…” more word salad.
That speech was in JUNE. The photograph of former guy walking down the ramp with assistance clearly shows the sun shining on that thing that purchase on his head. There is not a sign of rain anywhere.
On the other hand, Mr. biden did pick a dandelion and give it to Mrs. biden
I’ve already made up my mind. Most Dems are privileged blind people like you who don’t care about anybody as long as You’ve Got Yours. Of course you believe that is a false reading. You would have to in order to justify your enthusiasm for the Democratic party. And of course enraged Dem voters are not numerous enough bro influence the party. You for whom the status quo has worked pretty well have seen to that.
@bensnewlogin Thank you for verifying my point about the majority being able to determine presidential approval ratings. The majority of voters who voted for Biden are middle class, and that majority calls the shots. Your point is basically a tautology. And the fact that Biden rarely shows up in the news at all is a problem, especially during these times. What are those who control the flow of information afraid he might say?
Interesting how neither of you have engaged the more egregious flaws of the Democratic party which I have pointed out. What are you afraid of?
I’m not especially enthused for the Dems. I just realize that it is the only thing capable of defeating the most dangerous cult since the Civil War.
https://youtu.be/qo-NjasArkQ
What you did not do is demand they change it. You knew who you were writing for. Instead, you spent a week or two defiantly telling me you refused any apology. You devoted all your energy to attacking and defying me, not to telling the assholes in your cult that they were way the hell out of line.
There is nothing extreme about taking the practical step of voting Dem to defeat your evil Cult. One need not and I do not believe the Dems should have one party rule. I merely understand that your evil cult needs to be utterly destroyed as a power in the land and that the Dems are the only ones capable of achieving that end. That’s it. That’s all. You are getting closer to issuing the apology you should have just made when I demanded it. Nice to see somebody whose party blabbers about Personal Responsibility edge toward taking some responsibility. Maybe next time try, “I’m sorry I said nothing about the outrageous slander that was posted under my name implying you are a Nazi. I should have demanded it be taken down immediately. But because of my cowardice in challenging my fellow Cult members, I said nothing and instead attacked you and refused to admit it was wrong. Please forgive me.” Try that. Try being honest for once.
Nope. Not good enough. They put the headline on your piece. You could have objected. You said nothing. Get back to me when you offer the apology I thoughtfully wrote out for you. Till then, you remain nothing but the liar you’ve been and back in the trash your posts go, liar.
Oh, and I explained long ago how the mutation of your Cult into a deadly, treasonous pack of predators made it compatible with the faith to vote Dem to defeat it. https://markpshea.com/tag/voting-with-the-mind-of-christ/ But then you know that, liar.