Inspired by an impressive piece of crapaganda (crap + propaganda) heard on the radio today (sponsored by this group), I offer the following retort that hopefully doesn't quite rise to their level of pompous, self-righteous transparently partisan non-partisanship -- oh who am I kidding, in order to respond to it I will have to rise to that level of pompous, self-righteous transparently partisan non-partisanship for purposes of illustration only. (Please, don't try this at home.):
To identify most of the above positions with Catholicism would be wrong. They are conservative, not Catholic positions just as Common Good promotes liberal, not Catholic positions. (Note also the implicit self-righteousness of the 'common good' tagline.)Education is one of the most important contributors to the common good and though powerful teachers' unions exist there are no students' unions. If not sympathetic to the plight of individual students trapped in poor schools, think of the common good and how American would be improved if those same students were given good educations and were thus able to better contribute as adults to the common good. Vote the common good. We want a sustainable, solvent health care system that does not crush our children's children in debt nor mire future generations in another pyramid scheme. Vote the common good. Cynical politicians may pit classes of Americans against each other even though we're all in this together. Don't deny the poor and middle class their dignity by disallowing their contributions to the common good. Children are America's future so let's stop killing them in the womb. If unmoved by their individual plights then think of all the inventors and scientists, entrepreneurs and teachers denied the chance to serve America. Vote the common good. Our communities and states express the great diversity of this nation. Let's strengthen them by respecting the principle of subsidiarity and not allowing too much power and influence to be centralized. Vote the common good. Economists say that businesses create jobs and pass on any taxes to consumers. Raising taxes on impersonal corporations feels good but does not contribute to the common good. A society cannot long survive if it doesn't know what the word 'marriage' means. Vote the common good. Many would prefer to appease enemies and allow rogue nations to bully the weak. Some would stand passively by while great evil occurs such as when over a million Rwandans were killed. Vote the common good. A famous past president who will not be identified since that would be partisan, needlessly prolonged the misery of the Great Depression by his liberal economic policies. Vote the common economic good this time. Our Founding Fathers gave us a jewel in our Constitution; let's not squander it by electing those who would appoint judges who would rather re-write it than respect it. Vote the common good.
Spare me organizations attempting to influence naive voters by presenting one-sided presentations under the banner of the Catholic Church while pretending not to be presenting a one-sided presentation. And anybody who thinks there's any sort of moral equivalency between Catholic Answers and this Common Good group ought to have their head examined. Catholic Answers makes an effort to treat Church teaching in their voter's guide the way strict contructionists treat the U.S. Constitution, while Common Good manipulates the emotions of the ignorant and completely ignores church teaching on pro-life issues. The barf-inducing ad I heard on the radio today makes Catholics for Obama look good by comparison if only because at least the latter are honest and upfront about who they are supporting and at least they don't employ the subterfuge of impartiality while being as impartial as my ass.
The bishops have pretty consistently emphasized there's a difference (duh!) between supporting the continuation of the Iraq War and supporting unlimited access to abortion. Common Good plays into the perception that Catholics on the left are - ironically - less interested in the common good as they are partisan politics. After all, "common good" is an oxymoron when you're talking about support of abortion while it's not necessarily one if you're talking about differing with 99% of the left's agenda, from pulling out of Iraq to universal welfare.
How utterly shameful that Catholic leftists would attempt to use the Church in order to further their pet political ends. It's no different than the way many Nigerian scammer emails begin with "Blessings of Jesus Christ to you", though at least the scammers want only money and not the lives of the most defenseless.
No comments:
Post a Comment