Suppose you were trying to decide whom to vote for in a Senatorial election. You had already ruled out one candidate, but were considering the other who was great on economic issues. Only one problem -- he is a white supremacist who believes in segregation. Do you think you'd vote for him? Heck no! Everyone repudiates that position (which is the politically correct position to take).
Now lets take a look at Scott Brown. All the conservative talk show pundits have jumped on his bandwagon. The excitement level on Laura Ingraham's show is sky high over polls showing him ahead of Martha Coakley. Sean Hannity is on the Brown soapbox. I haven't listened much to Rush, but I expect he's singing Brown's praises too. Brown is the tea party movement's candidate as well and they are calling for money, money, money to get him elected.
Not me!
If I lived in Massachusetts I would not vote for Scott Brown. Why? Because he favors killing unborn children. You can read about his position here. All I had to see was that he thinks abortion should always be legally available and he went straight into the "disqualified" column. Some, who would object to my being a "purist," ("Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.") are the same folks who would disqualify outright a white supremicist. Is being a bigot less serious than supporting the murder of the innocent? I don't think so.
The local pro-life group has endorsed Brown as a "pro-life" vote. Which simply illustrates that the pro-life movement is so corrupted at this point it's hard to understand what many groups actually stand for. Is it really okay to support killing the innocent victims of rapists? What does that say about the survivors? Their lives are completely demeaned by the exceptions legislation.
What if I said I'm opposed to murdering people except obnoxious teenagers who smash mailboxes? Would you call me pro-life?
Some call Brown's position "highly nuanced," but regulating the circumstances under which you ALLOW the murder of children is like regulating the circumstances under which you allow killing blacks, or jews, or any other class of persons. IT IS IMMORAL IN THE EXTREME.
As a pro-life Catholic I'm no longer willing to support those who advocate crimes against humanity even if they are "less evil" than their opponents and would regulate "some" abortions.
Scott Brown is not pro-life and calling him pro-life illustrates the corruption of language in our culture.
Mary Ann, I would agree with you in this instance IF there was a truly pro-life third party candidate running. However, either Coakley or Brown will win - ain't nuttin else on that menu up there! I would say the same if they were both equally racist, as sitting out the election would not be acceptable morally in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteBy the way - in the last MD gubernatorial election, when Erlich ran against O'Malley, I voted the Simmons/Hargadon ticket (and yes, I caught some flap from prolifers for so doing).
I do agree that it is ridiculous to call Brown pro-life. I do think it incredibly sloppy of prolifers to do so. However, there is benefit to having the Dems filibuster-proof majority broken, as that might halt the Obamascare Hell bill, or at least slow it down until 2010.
I'm not from Mass., but I'm with you on this one, even if it means missing a chance to bust the 60 vote majority. If there are only two dishes on the menu, each with enough poison to kill you, you still don't have to eat.
ReplyDeletePerhaps things have to get much worse before they get better. Besides, if you vote for him, it's one more instance where the pro-lifer's caved, in which case you're not needed anymore.
P.S. The Dems may pull a "conference bill," or some such thing, in which case they won't need 60 votes anyway.
Thanks for the info. This is why I never support the National Right to Life Committee. Everything is measured by political expediency. It is a good-looking fruit, rotten at its core. Good for you, Mary Ann. (as usual )
ReplyDeleteWhen there is no third party candidate, one can either elect to enter a blank ballot or write in a candidate. I believe both choices are legitimate. Others believe incrementalism is a valid option. I don't agree although I've often voted that way in the past. I'm just determined not to do it any more. Not only do I think it makes no sense, but I don't think it works either. It just legitmizes unthinkable horrors and it leads the Republicans to take the pro-life vote for granted. Too many Republicans make the party God. Newt Gingrich certainly did that when he supported Scozzafava in New York. You could hardly find a candidate who was more of an extremist pro-death democrat than she was. But Newt chose party over principle and that's what it gives you. I'm not playing their game any more.
ReplyDeleteMary Ann is a purist or a roadside bomb. Elections are not about single individual pure issues. If you cannot agree totally with Scot Brown then tell him so, he will probably listen. Try that with the D candidate and you will just get a lot more abortions ... thanks alot
ReplyDeleteGreg
Although I have followed the special senatorial race in Mass. to some extent, I am not certain as to what I would do if I lived in the state. I OBVIOUSLY WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE! I believe a third party candidate is running, but I have been unable to find out anything about this. If a third party candidate was running that I believed was deeply and firmly pro-life with generally traditional conservative views and of good character, then I would vote for the third party candidate. I have long generally been a "purist" in my voting. However, if the third party candidate was either non-existent or questionable, then I would probably vote for Brown in an attempt to slow down the radical agenda that is being carried out in this nation. I think it is wrong for pro-life groups to label Brown as pro-life.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me that I am considered a "roadside bomb" because I will not support someone who supports the legal murder of children. By this kind of rationale the person who will not support a grand wizard of the KKK is also a "roadside bomb" if the other candidate is worse in someone's estimation. Is this the point we've reached in this country where the person who supports child-killing is okay, but the person who says, "Then I won't vote for him," is a villain? I'm scratching my head over that one. We aren't, after all, talking about whether the person supports bus or metro transportation.
ReplyDeletePolitics is the art of compromise. The issue is not agreeing with Brown and Coakley on every issue. But you also have to ask the question of whether you're better off with one than the other and which is more likely to be movable on issues where you don't agree.
ReplyDeleteA vote is not agreement, it is a say in the process. If you opt out of the process then it's not clear that you're being effective in any way.
You don't have to support an candidate who takes immoral positions and all supporters of abortion are intrinsically talking immoral positions. But it is also unclear how opting out advances anything.
I think these kinds of things are definitely Hobson's choices. There is no really good option, but opting out isn't a good option either.
Mary Ann, as a Massachusetts voter, I must disagree with you. Here's why: from activist Gary Kelly
ReplyDelete"There continues to be a “lively” discussion among Christians across Massachusetts where many will not vote for Scott Brown because he is not 100% pro-life, as if this in the one and only issue to be considered in 2010. This is not 1776, when America was permeated with Biblical moral virtue, it is 2010, where America is permeated with secular progressive political correctness.
As hard as it is to vote for yet another apparent RINO, it is harder still to allow a Marxist win the election and send another “progressive” to Washington to further corrode the American Way of Life for our descendants. While we must continue to proclaim the Kingdom of God we need also to reduce the risks or combat to lessen the evil in any way we can until we have accomplished permeating America once again with the Biblical moral virtue that produced the Republic.
EarsToHear.net also contends neglecting to vote for Scott Brown is a vote for Coakley and if Coakley becomes your next Senator more abortions will occur and be funded with your tax dollars.
Not only will Coakley further the cause of abortion, but as she kowtows’ to the Washington Democrats, she will also jeopardize our national security, violate the Constitution by mandating healthcare, continue to violate the Second Amendment, etc. etc. etc. More? See About Martha Coakley here: http://earstohear.net/#Election2010
To win the war we must win the battles….and yes, this is yet another unpleasant battle, but one we must win. If we pick and choose our battles in this war for life, we will simply continue to pass the same battles to the next generation.
Gary Kelly
Fitchburg
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Gary. I appreciate the debate. I think if I lived in Massachusetts I would be agonizing over this. But does it really take biblical morality to know that ripping a baby limb from limb is wrong?
ReplyDeleteI am fiercely prolife and a Catholic. However, I am voting for Scott Brown. We have no 100% prolife candidate running here. Here's why: if the healthcare bill passes, it will expand abortion coverage across the United States. And with this administration and Hillary Clinton in office, abortion throughout the world is being expanded drastically already.
ReplyDeleteWe have to choose our battles, and win incrementally - that is what the Democrats have done and it works.
What I HAVE done, is contact Scott Brown directly and try to influence his stance on abortion rights. With enough voters who are prolife contacting him, it is possible that should any prolife votes come up in Congress, he would listen and act accordingly. That and praying for him to change his mind, and telling him I'm praying for him to change his mind, are the only things I can do at this point.
No offense, but keeping Brown out is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Susan,
I agree with you Mary Ann. When the dust settles, if conservatives rule the day and Scott Brown gets Kennedy's vacated seat, what will we have? A chance(and not a real good one at that)of stopping the current health care bill from passing and then what? We will have another pro death senator in congress to vote to continue the slaughter of the unborn. Now you might say, yes, Lisa, but isn't he still the "lesser of two evils"? If we pro lifers really stood up for what we believe, the Republican party would not be supporting these anti life candidates because that would alienate the large and powerful pro life vote. Except we don't vote like that do we? We take what we can get and that usually means more of the status quo.
ReplyDeleteMary Ann, because Scott is not perfect, you don't support him. Is this because you hate abortion better or more than the rest of us. Don't you see that a Senator Scott weakens or kills that dreadful abortion-promoting health bill. The Church does not command or define in detail what we do in the realm of politics. I'm not saying you err, but I don't think you can say that punishing Scott for a moderate (in worldly terms) stand on abortion is worth enabling a health bill (and whatever other democrat shenanigans Coakley might support) that, inter alia, will shut down the few Catholic hospitals that don't do abortions. I understand you are the beneficiary of more grace and training than Scott and that you can see, unlike he in his ignorance, that a good end cannot be reached by evil means. Nonetheless, if we waited for people as virtuous as you to obtain political office and manage the day-to-day affairs of the U. S., we'd be over-run by madmen who outpoll the pols (our friends if not in total communion with us) that at least have a notion of God, natural law and objective right.
ReplyDeleteWhen we have a Senate-full of men like Scott, we can through them out when people like St. Alphonsus run against them.
Read the opening of Shakespeare's Tempest. The one really moral ruler (Gonzalo, if memory serves) on the ship is sternly rebuked and put in his place by a scofflaw boatswain who is "destined for hanging". This is because there is a terrible storm and the boatswain knows how to cope with it. He might be immoral, but he wants to live and he knows how to trim a ship better that a virtuous, wise ruler.
Such is the case today. Our ship, Christendom or the West or whatever, is foundering. We can't wait for a perfect bark, perfect weather or perfect sailors. We're just trying to keep afloat. Scott will at least bail instead of, like Coakley, going down to the hold and going after the timbers with an axe.
We see the truth by grace. I don't think we can expect overyone to have been given as much as we anymore than we can know who has been given more.
Reminds of a John Quincy Adams quote:
ReplyDeleteAlways vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
For those who still have qualms about voting for Scott Brown, I lifted these quotes from Fr. Z's website comments:
ReplyDeleteThe first is Pope Pius XII, summarized by Father Tom Carleton:
This moral principle, applicable in the political realm was explained and approved by Pope Pius XII.
When we are not able to completely eliminate an evil, as we would wish, we, nevertheless, must attempt to limit the evil as much as possible. Limiting evil is already a positive contribution. It is already doing something good. No one can say that “because I can’t completely solve a problem, therefore I’m not going to do anything.” This is especially true, when “doing nothing,” is actually going to help the greater evil prevail.
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:
“When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
I submit the that we have “proportionate reasons” to vote for Brown and defeat Martha Coakley!
Posted by Walburga at 8:44 PM 0 comments
It's interesting to me that I am considered a "roadside bomb" because I will not support someone who supports the legal murder of children.
ReplyDelete--------------
Mary Ann, remember, these same people who level this sort of critcism at people who think like us don't mind compromising. See, Mary, you keep writing the truth because it's amazing to me that the Republicans are again stating that the election of Brown is a roadmap to power. What does that map include---distancing themselves from social conservatives in order to seem electable. And again, we sell our souls to profit from this world. GOD HELP US.
The election of Brown nixed the health care bill which would have provided government funding of abortions. The bill would have had a much greater chance of passage if Coakley had been elected.
ReplyDeleteyour insight on the matteris enlightening. until i read your comments i never narrowed it down tosuch a preciceand important issue. I was also very proScottBrown and now i know there is a moreimportant reason to have pushed and supported another republican who is proLife - what's more important than life itself? Nothing. without life we are literally not in the picture.
ReplyDeletethanks for makiking your voice heard.
this is almostas bad as the information they withheld from us about obama. this should have been more of an issue and a REpublican Prolifer should have been backed instead.
your insight on the matter is enlightening. until i read your comments i never narrowed it down to such a precice and important issue. I was also very proScottBrown and now i know there is a more important reason to have pushed and supported another republican who is proLife - what's more important than life itself? Nothing. without life we are literally not in the picture.
ReplyDeletethanks for making your voice heard.
this is almost as bad as the information they withheld from us about obama. this should have been more of an issue and a REpublican Prolifer should have been backed instead.