Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

Athiests for Islam?

Posted: March 9, 2011 by datechguy in catholic, internet/free speech, oddities
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Warner Todd Huston has an interesting article that I’d like to say caught me by surprise:

Isn’t Islam just as “dangerous” to the world as Christianity in these Atheist’s minds? It has to be for them to be consistent.

Yet, again. Here they are. Supporting a religion.

Ah, but what is the main difference here? Isn’t it obvious? Islam is the PC favored ideology, the one the far left has invested its energies into protecting and militant atheists have joined the left’s gambit in the hopes that Christianity can be further undermined. Because, after all, militant atheists have only one enemy: Christianity.

Not being an Atheist I don’t know what Atheists think. The one’s I’ve met have not had much good to say about Islam, but it’s my thought that a lot of the most prominent Atheists come from Christian culture and are naturally more hostile to what they are rebelling against.

Or it could also be a question of fear of Islam, a-la south park and Molly Norris, but I’ll let my atheist readers comment one way or the other.

It’s amazing what suddenly gets reported with you are worried…

Posted: March 9, 2011 by datechguy in abortion, media
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…about appearances of bias:

Conan: Finally, several of you wrote during yesterday’s show about PP, about the conflict over what percentage of the agency’s clients receive abortions. We’ve asked NPR’s heal policy correspondent Julie Rovner to join us again. Julie, always nice to have with you us.… And we heard two figures from opposing sides yesterday, 3% and 10%, who’s right?

Rovner: Well, the conflict is really that PP keeps its statistics according to the percent of those services that are provided, not according to how many people get what. So it turns out that there are – that indeed, abortions are 3% of the services provided, although – and that was what, I think, Sarah Stoesz from PP kind of misspoke when she said it was 3% of patients who come in get abortions.

It is actually a little bit closer to the 10% that Marjorie Dannenfesler suggested, because there are about 3 million patients who come in. There are about 300,000 abortions provided.

The hook, just 24 hours earlier they promoted the very same 3% figure. Quite a coincidence, or as Jill Stanek puts it:

Perhaps James O’Keefe’s release yesterday of damaging investigative videos against National Public Radio (read more here, here, and here) had nothing to do with it.

Or perhaps a desperate NPR is suddenly trying to appear more fair and balanced in the face of potentially losing $90 million in taxpayer funding.

Yup I can’t see why we would think that NPR is in damage control mode.

I guess when you are fighting for limited federal dollars, some alliances are just too expensive to worry about.

Update: Dropped an “e” in Jill’s name, corrected

Polls vs Actions

Posted: March 4, 2011 by datechguy in catholic, culture, politics
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I’ve talked a bit about the difference between what a poll might say vs actual actions.

Early this morning insty linked to this post at hotair concerning polling on libertarian issues such as Gay Marriage.

Forgetting the splits lets see how this actually works in practice in a couple of blue states:

Getting a gay marriage bill through the Rhode Island House of Representatives with Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s support and a new openly gay House speaker was supposed to be a cakewalk. Instead, as The Boston Phoenix (an alternative paper) reports: “The end game is proving trickier than advocates had hoped. … They’ve been caught off guard by the prowess of the church, which has joined with the nation’s leading anti-gay marriage group to mount a surprisingly potent defense of the status quo.”

And in Maryland another deep blue state things are getting interesting too:

This week in Maryland, black Democrats from progressive districts are beginning to jump ship. First Melvin Stukes, a co-sponsor of a gay marriage bill in that state’s House of Delegates, unexpectedly announced he was switching sides.

A few days later, two black Democrats counted as “yes” votes suddenly went missing, refusing to show up for a committee vote, which had to be postponed.

Maryland is a deep blue state — core Democratic territory — but opposition to gay marriage is also surging

And the reason?

The reaction has been extraordinary! The black church in particular has risen to this occasion in an extraordinary way. Whose vision and whose values count to the Democratic leadership in the Maryland legislature, black pastors are asking? Well, maybe this week they will find out!

If the trends where with them the democrats would not have the trouble they are having. It’s precisely because they don’t have the numbers that it’s necessary to push without public support.

There is a distinction

Posted: March 3, 2011 by datechguy in abortion, catholic, opinion/news
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The Anchoress being a wholly more holy person than me talks about the death penalty and Kermet Gosnell and finds herself opposing it:

If you remain unaware of what investigators (who were actually looking for evidence related to drug trafficking) found when they entered Gosnell’s abattoir-for-humans, read the Grand Jury’s Report, if you can take it.

Nevertheless, I would defend this man’s right to live his life out in prison, rather than watch the state take his life. His life is not anyone else’s to take. For pro-lifers, this is a no-brainer.

And he may need many years and much time, in order to understand the enormity of what he has done, and allow his heart to be turned. He may need time for conversion and salvation.

I would have to disagree here, this is not a “no-brainer” for pro-life people.

Unlike the elderly who have committed no offense other than being old, the sick who have committed no offense other than being sick or the unborn who have committed no offense other than being conceived Kermet Gosnell has committed acts that under our laws can bring the death penalty.

She is absolutely right that his may need time for conversion, repentance and salvation and we are OBLIGATED as Christians to pray for this, but even if he is convicted, loses all appeals and the sentence carried out there will likely be many years of time to avail himself of the opportunity. As long as the process takes place before death it will be achieved, remember Timothy McVeigh a lapsed Catholic in fact received confession and absolution mere hours before his execution, saving his soul if not his life.

But there is a huge difference between protecting innocent life and life taken under due process in a free society. Even Ed is ambivalent.

I am totally indifferent in this matter. I have absolutely no problem with him (if convicted) being given life in jail and I also have no problem if he gets the death penalty. Neither Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI nor has any pope proclaimed ex cathedra the death penalty sinful or an intrinsic evil. Until and unless he does so then I submit that it is not a “no brainer” that we oppose the death penalty in this or any case and there is no obligation for us to think otherwise.

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