THE TENTH CRUSADE: Responding to Fr. Martin Fox

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Responding to Fr. Martin Fox

A friend send me a link to a post at Bonfire of the Vanities - Fr. Martin Fox's thoughts on Gov. Palin and the Catholic Vote.

Father's synopsis on his post is thus:

1. On the strict calculus, Catholics cannot normally vote for candidates who endorse a disqualifying, grave moral evil.

2. Both major-party candidates endorse a disqualifying, grave moral evil: Obama>abortion; McCain>embryo-destroying "research."

3. Therefore, Catholics by the strict calculus would not normally be able to vote for either of these, on the strict calculus.

4. Catholics can set aside the strict calculus, and vote for a candidate who endorses a normally disqualifying, grave moral evil if there is no alternative--no candidate who doesn't endorse grave moral evil.

Several posters adequately address his points. My response is below:

Father,

A few rebuttals if I may-

>As you duly note, McCain felt the pressure and acted accordingly with the nomination. Obama would pay us no heed if he were to get into office and policies and appointments would be devastating to the unborn.

>ESR is moot. Women are not contributing their eggs and the number of offenses against the unborn cannot possibly equate to an administration that supports abortion up until the moment of birth and withholding treatment from a survivor of a botched abortion. This position is sociopathic.

>Palin will not attract the most extreme proabort feminists. This appointment will attract people who were uncertain McCain would kowtow to our pressure (he just proved he will enthusiastically. She will attract mainstream Mommies.

>There is no such thing as a "strict calculus" when two candidates take positions offensive to Catholic doctrines. If one candidate was believer in ethnic cleansing,abortion,moral ambiguity, the abolition of God from the public square and education and other communist philosophies and the other candidate supported ESR which is nearly non-existent, voting for the former instead of the latter is a collaboration in such grave societal evils that it defies common sense.

Keeping a lunatic out of office is the only sensible objective Catholics must use in evaluating such options.

Voting for a candidate we know can't possibly win is as senseless as twiddling one's thumbs when a drunk man gets behind the wheel of a car in our presence.

UPDATE: What a blessing this priest is - so deep is his love for Christ's Church and the truth that he fights the urge to compromise with passion. That feisty quality will come in handy!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I am impressed girl!; September 20, 2008 at 4:48 AM
Anonymous said...: This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
9/13/08

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who
are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this
list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol
Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your
family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or
your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and
Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as
irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck,"
like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with
you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like
to
"shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American
boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six
years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of,
then returned to after making up some coursework at a community
college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to
achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as
unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first
place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about
the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan,
makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss
on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term
state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under
God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the
founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately
disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was
written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until
the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists
their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to
teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly
idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an
extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the
Union, and whose motto is "Alaska first," and no one questions your
patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse
merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids
on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being
disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and
the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women
to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child
labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely
question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with
no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and the
fact that she lives close to Russia--you're somehow being mean, or even
sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even
agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running
mate anyway, because suddenly your presence on the ticket has inspired
confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a
"secon
d look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and
merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in
Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to
a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed
as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and
whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if
you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be
interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting
them.

White privilege is being able to give a 36 minute speech in which you
talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no
substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be
considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an
hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy
proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague
about what he would do if elected.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize
George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly
Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian
theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who
say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for
rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good
church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black
pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of
Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign
policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black
people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such
a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give
one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging
the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school, then
to Yale and then Harvard Business school, and yet, still be seen as just
an average guy (George W. Bush) while being black, going to a
prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and
then to Harvard Law, makes you "uppity," and a snob who probably looks
down on regular folks.

White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your
college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.) and
that's OK, and you're cut out to be president, but if you're black and
you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be
trusted to make good decisions in office.

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's
disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire
beauty queen (who you go on to call the c-word in public) and still be
thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and
married for nearly twenty years to the same woman, your family is viewed
as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called
"terrorist fist bumps."

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and
still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to
be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should
speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them,
makes you "dangerously naive and immature."

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has
anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black
and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among the
"lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin
explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90
percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are
losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly
isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about
that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined,
unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and
certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
- Roque Dalton

Ya, it's me!

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