I’m pretty sure Kerry made his views on abortion and contraception known, i.e., he favored both. In fact, I believe that Kerry may be the politician who was threatened with excommunication for his views. People WILL vote for a Catholic IF he is credibly pro-choice. But they WILL have to know he is.
Not excommunication, IIRC, but definitely denial of the Eucharist in certain dioceses.
At least within Roman Catholicism, excommunication = denial of the Eucharist.
It’s not like Kerry made a big deal about publicizing his views on contraception and abortion during his nomination campaign, and the attempts to excommunicate him came later in the year.
The expectation, with Democrats, is that they’re pro-choice until otherwise noted. Martin O’Malley won’t have to make a big deal of his pro-choice stance unless someone claims that he doesn’t have one.
Yes, but excommunication is a general denial, not one done only by this or that bishop or diocese. Kerry was never threatened by the Vatican with excommunication, just by individual bishops.
:dubious: And what exactly was or is this Roosevelt/Rockefeller regime?
Latae sententiae is automatic, and does not require action by a bishop or diocese. However, it turns out that Kerry’s pro-choice position did not make him ineligible for sacraments and it was just some cranky right-wing Catholics trying to drum up publicity for their cause.
Nonetheless, the communion you’re being denied by excommunication is Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the literal or metaphorical body and blood of Christ, depending on the tenets of one’s faith. Whoever was refusing Kerry the sacraments was engaging in an impromptu excommunication, just as a wildcat strike is still a strike.
The Libertarian romantic narrative is that once the seed of truth is planted all citizens will see the light and jointly seek Utopia.
Crane
Funny, that’s also the Marxist romantic narrative.
Wasn’t Ayn Rand from the USSR?
From St. Petersburg. No, Leningrad. St. Petersburg. Russia. Duck season.
No, rabbit season!
Be vewy quiet . . . we’re hunting John Galt.
Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller. Great buddies, doncha know. We know that anyone setting up National Parks was a tree-hugging socialist, and John D gave out dimes to undeserving children - so pink as they come.
Its funny, really, what “progressive” used to mean. Teddy R. was a “progressive” for his time, as well as a deep dish dyed in the wool warmonger and imperialist. He did indeed foster progressive efforts to break up the grip of big business on the nation. He was also a racist of the first stripe. being a firm believer in the “Teutonic” races destiny to global rule. He was cordial and courteous to black people on the rare occasion that he met them as putative equals, but never wavered in his presumption that black people were inherently inferior. And everything he believed, for good or ill, he believed with passionate enthusiasm.
Mark Twain
Letter to J. H. Twichell, 2/16/1905
Anyway, we should be talking about this. Tea Partiers behave as if their prescriptions are of the deontological variety. But really their ethics are carefully crafted to benefit a certain group (why else regressive tax proposals?). The deontological paint-job goes on afterwards. Really they employ consequentialist ethics, if they could be called ethics at all. Consequentialism then, only aiming for ends the (consequentialist) general population wouldn’t normally be enthusiastic about.
This article isn’t bad. Kant’s Categorical Imperatives were deontological ethics; he thought the only (or maybe just ‘a’) good thing was a ‘good will’- maybe the results won’t work out, but at least your heart was in the right place. But look at parts of the GOP:
Maybe that isn’t what Kant had in mind, but here in America we have our own ideas about what is a ‘good will’. The GOP, and especially the Tea Party, seem to express something else. And it shows. But they need those voters, so there’s the monster we’re talking about. There’s a lesson in honesty in there somewhere…
You may have heard about Ted Cruz, the newly-minted Senator from Texas who’s ruffling feathers in the GOP establishment (here’s a helpful opinion piece by Frank Bruni of the NY Times). Basically he’s a full-on wingnut (and, naturally, a huge favorite of the Tea Party) who got in some media hot-water last week with remarks from a 2010 speech where he called much of the Harvard Law faculty communists. This week he doubled down on that accusation:
Greg Sargent at the Washington Post reacts, and raises a good point:
Yeah, good luck with calling out “the daily diet of The Crazy” that is fed to “millions of national base voters on a regular basis”. You’re talking about Limbaugh, Beck, Drudge, Coulter, and a whole slew of hucksters who make money hand over fist selling this poison to the rubes. They ain’t going away quietly.
Translated into actual gaming terms: “killing the adds while the boss wipes the raid”
In fishing circles, it’s “all your bass are belong to us”.