CE9

[chrisfan]

Thorn, you have not upset me in the slightest. My lack of response is simply a reflection of the absurdity of this whole tirade. It's childish, and I choose not to paticipate.

[stratman19]

someone said:

I always find it funny when stratman goes on these long offensive rants, then tries to excuse it all by citing emotional reasons. What fucking bullshit. Have some balls and just say "yeah I said it, motherfuckers. And I believe it." But no. Instead you hide behind some emotional excuse, as if it excuses anything. Please. It just makes you look like an even bigger fucking douche.

Let's review the record, shall we? Here's what I said:

I was pissed off when I wrote it, but I'm not going to apologize for the way I feel, or for what I believe in.

It's just that so much of this case was bullshit. And it's true, I'll defend life in a case like this. I hope I always believe in erring on the side of life.

Rebuke away Thornmeister, rebuke away. I'm not pissed. After all, as you note, I invited it. I'd be an asshole to get pissed off at any criticism now. I stand by my post. It was emotional, yes, and perhaps a bit unfair, but I said as much. It was also honest and heartfelt. I'm not going to back away from it. Whether 'someone' or anyone else thinks it's verbal vomit...well I couldn't care less.

Missed all that Someone? I didn't back away from what I said one bit. I gave an explanation for why I posted what I did. I never hid behind anything. Got it?

Perhaps if you can afford some reading comprehension classes on that waitress salary of your's, it might be beneficial to you.

Fucking cunt.

[stratman19]

Thornigan said:

You won't apologize chrisfan cuz yer just a cold hearted bitch

Feel like a bigger man now Thorn? I mean since you joined the "pile on" parade. Christ, I sure hope so.

[JACkory]

What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Is he rich? Is he rich like me?
Has he taken any time
To show you what it means to live?
I'll tell it to you slowly (tell you why)
You really ought to know...
It's the time of the season for [glow=red,2,300]LOVING![/glow]
---"Time of the Season" by The Zombies

[JACkory]

Ahhh, the irony.

[Thorngrub]

stratman19 said:

Feel like a bigger man now Thorn? I mean since you joined the "pile on" parade. Christ, I sure hope so.

Actually, stratman, No, I don't feel better. I feel ashamed that I let my "emotions" get the better of me. Hope that answer sits well with ya bud.

[ken]

But while we're on the topic of hypocrisy ... I don't think there is a better example of it than a bunch of people who whine and complain all the time that they're views aren't respected or listened to continuing for how long now to mock Stratman's comments about Terri Schiavo. So you didn't agree with him. Fine. The intelligent thing to do would be to either state why you don't agree, or ignore it. When you mock his comments in almost every post, you are begging other people to ignore your remarks and not take you seriously rather than actually making any change from your whining. You want respect? Try giving it.

You're right Chrisfan. Let me try some of that "values" respect you showed me a few days ago. Shut the fuck up.

[chrisfan]

Grudges work well for you Ken?

[JACkory]

Must be a slow news day...

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Okay.....let's talk about oil for a second or the social security thing. I know you guys have probably talked about this before, but I'm interested in what you guys think.

[Mary]

maarts said:

I finid it amazing that a church, faced with so much sociological changes over the last twenty-five years would still claim to fall back to doctrines dating back to 1967, let alone social teachings going back to before 1891.
No wonder they're treading water.

While I'm sympathetic to many many many criticisms of the Catholic Church, I'm not really sure if this is a fair one. I've only said that the Church still follows certain general and abstract principles set down in 1891 - such as the principle that the right to private property is not absolute and must be exercised in a way consistent with the dignity of other human beings. This is a general principle which can be modified in its specific applications according to changing social circumstances. Contemporary Popes aren't necessarily interpreting this doctrine in an identical manner to the Rerum Novarum. I mean, put Catholicism aside for a minute and consider that most Western liberal democracies can trace their philoophical foundations to the writing of John Locke back in the 1680s. It doesn't follow that we haven't adapted and changed any of our principles whatsoever in 320 years - it just means that Locke stated his principles at a sufficient level of abstraction that they can still be brought to bear in the contemporary world. The same would apply to Catholic social teaching.

As far as the more radical encyclicals in the 1960s are concerned, I mentioned that leftists who were inspired by this encyclicals were fairly disappointed in John Paul II, as he in many ways rejected the radicalism at the core of these documents. He explicitly rejected a search for a "Third Way" apart from either socialism or capitalism, arguing that capitalism itself was most consistent with Catholic social doctrine, provided it was limited in the appropriate ways - this represented a significant departure from the high water mark of leftish Catholic economic analysis in the Populorum Progressio of 1967. He also explicitly condemned liberation theology in 1979 as heterodox. So there's no doubt that the Church has, in fact, moved away from its stated position in 1967 - the question of whether that move is for the best or not is another matter entirely.

I feel somewhat strongly about defending the Catholic Church against your charge of stagnation based solely on the fact that they still apply principles from a body of social teaching founded over a century ago - after all, my entire life's work would be pretty much useless were that not possible. I use 18th century writers to think about contemporary problems all the time, I don't think this is necesarily absurd provided you consider changing historical context and you are sensitive to the flexibility of abstract principles. Hell, the more I teach this class on Marxism and Culture, the more I think Adorno had it all figured out back in the 1930s and 1940s... I'm not sure any great social thinker since then has been anything but superfluous!! (ok, that's obviously an exaggeration... but the general point stands...)

Cheers,
M

[shin]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Okay.....let's talk about oil for a second or the social security thing. I know you guys have probably talked about this before, but I'm interested in what you guys think.

Well that's sorta broad, but personally I'm more interested in talking about how Republican congressmen, in particular Tom DeLay, are threatening judges with violence. That's domestic terrorism, last I checked. And terrorism? Bad.

Or we could talk about how Tom DeLay was flying to Russia on the tab of Russian security back in 1997. For context, around that time was when Russia was all but siding with Serbia and Milosevic's genocidal regime. DeLay was openly against Clinton's intervening in Kosovo and stopping the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Sounds to me like Tom DeLay was being paid to work against America's interests, and that sounds like treason to me.

Terrorism. Treason. I think the man should be locked up, mmhmm.

[Thorngrub]

shin said:

Well that's sorta broad, but personally I'm more interested in talking about how Republican congressmen, in particular Tom DeLay, are threatening judges with violence. That's domestic terrorism, last I checked. And terrorism? Bad.

Or we could talk about how Tom DeLay was flying to Russia on the tab of Russian security back in 1997. For context, around that time was when Russia was all but siding with Serbia and Milosevic's genocidal regime. DeLay was openly against Clinton's intervening in Kosovo and stopping the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Sounds to me like Tom DeLay was being paid to work against America's interests, and that sounds like treason to me.

Terrorism. Treason. I think the man should be locked up, mmhmm.

Interesting you should bring this up . . .seeing how it's "open season on judges".

Judges are gettin picked off like so many arcade ducks.


This pattern is becoming more apparent.

[shin]

Indeed.

[ken]

shin said:

Well that's sorta broad, but personally I'm more interested in talking about how Republican congressmen, in particular Tom DeLay, are threatening judges with violence. That's domestic terrorism, last I checked. And terrorism? Bad.

Or we could talk about how Tom DeLay was flying to Russia on the tab of Russian security back in 1997. For context, around that time was when Russia was all but siding with Serbia and Milosevic's genocidal regime. DeLay was openly against Clinton's intervening in Kosovo and stopping the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Sounds to me like Tom DeLay was being paid to work against America's interests, and that sounds like treason to me.

Terrorism. Treason. I think the man should be locked up, mmhmm.

Nah, but this is just politics, shin. What DeLay is doing is using an emotional issue (the Schiavo debacle) to play up to the violent undercurrents of his base. So he may get censured. At least he's on record as being strongly opposed to any liberalism. At least he's on record being pro-guns, pro-war, and againt (gasp) nuance of any kind. He knows exactly what he's doing.