Sunday, May 17, 2009

Let's find Common Ground!


President Barack Obama was granted an honorary degree and honored at Notre Dame University today. Critics of this honor who protested the fact that a Catholic University choose to honor someone who promotes abortion (and would put no restrictions on it up to and including killing a baby who survives an abortion) were arrested and detained when they disrupted the ceremony. Charges of trespass and Lèse majesté are pending.

The President "acknowledged that there is little common ground on the fundamental question of whether abortion should be legal. 'At some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable,' he said in his prepared remarks. 'Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.'"


In a related story, Senator Stephen Douglas is receiving an honorary degree from Howard University and will be giving his famous speech "Slavery, What's the Big Deal."

26 comments:

TitusIwasworkinginacoffeeshop said...

To make up for this next year Notre Dame has booked Bristol Palin and Miss California.

Bristol will be giving her abstinence speech she is now delivering around the country and Miss California will talk about her tit job....and gay marriage.

TitusIwasworkinginacoffeeshop said...

Bristol Palin will be giving her speech at Dame while also giving birth to her second child.

It will be incredible.

Anonymous said...

Which shows that the parishioners in the pews of St. Suburbia have good company with the Hierarchy in being cafeteria Catholics.

dbp said...

It stands to reason that abortion is more likely to kill a potential supporter of "choice" than of life.

Time and history are on the side of life.

I find it endlessly amusing that the same people who think they are tweeking fundamentalists with their Darwin Fish are aghast at the thought that "choice" selects against their type.

Trooper York said...

Hey Bristol Palin shouldn't be getting an honorary degree either.

Trooper York said...

The President should get his honors from the people who agree with him.

Darcy said...

Good stuff, Trooper. You do have a way of making a point. ;-)

I'm Full of Soup said...

Very good one Trooper.

Titus don't you feel like a pompous ass when you pick on an 18year-old kid? I am surprised you are re-cycling the Dems conventional talking points. Have you run out of original material?

Peter V. Bella said...

The President just wants us all to get along; just like the famous civil rights victim Rodney King. We should all join hands, pro life, pro choice, Blacks, Whites, Dums and Reps. We should get into a circle jerk and sing a rousing chorus of Kumbayah. Then the barney theme.

I heard that the messiah is considering the Barney theme as the new National Anthem.

knox said...

Aren't Catholics overwhelmingly Democrat? I never understood that.

dbp said...

Catholics used to be overwhelmingly Democratic, but now they are pretty evenly divided.

Anonymous said...

Knox: It's true, as Catholics, we used to be heavily beholden to the Democratic Party, because most Catholics were Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants who wound up in big cities. And the big city Democratic machines took care of our ancestors in exchange for their loyalty.

Now, I'm also related to the Carrolls of Maryland, who were English Catholics, here since the get-go, and didn't have not too much in common with the despised Irish. But even there, politically, the original pre-Irish American Catholics were not a natural constituency of any of the old American political parties. They all were anti-Catholic to one degree or another: The Federalists were too Yankee Protestant and well-known anti-Catholics. The Whigs had the same problem, plus some others, although they were probably the natural party for Catholics in the pre-Civil War era. And the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson and Jackson were too Southern, with all the anti-Catholic baggage we remember from the old South, which continued until fairly recent times.

Catholics finally found a home in the American political mainstream with the post-Civil War big city Democrats, who, as Henry Adams noted, had little enough in common with Southern farmers, except their desire to stick it to the WASP power elite of the day.

But nowadays, the Democratic Party has other constituencies than the long-assimilated and mainstream descendants of those old immigrants. They (we) have become more and more aware that the modern Democratic Party has become not a Protestant, but the atheist-dominated anti-Catholic party.

That leaves a lot of us who have traditional Catholic concerns about social and economic justice, but also hate things such as abortion, and are concerned about national security, wandering in the wilderness.

I always say I'm a 'regular' Democrat. That means I've been known to pull the lever for Republicans more often than I like to admit. I know that even in my liberal Cambridge parish I'm not alone in this.

But I think if the Democratic Party were once again dominated by Joe Lieberman types, you would likely have the old solid Catholic constituency back in the fold.

That is as unlikely as my growing green gauzy wings and flying to the moon, so, for the forseeable, at least, my vote is up for grabs.

Anonymous said...

That should be "...didn't have too much in common..." above. Quick typing during morning break. Other funky bits of writing as well. Sorry.

We all can use more coffee and an editor sometimes.

ricpic said...

"Slavery, what's the big deal?"

Well, what is the big deal? Every age is an age of slavery, witness the present day destruction of the livelihoods of the American blue collar class by a two headed establishment deliberately allowing the invasion of the country by illegals who can be relied on to work in a state of semi-slavery while simultaneously undercutting the decent standard of living of the natives.

knox said...

Thanks for the thoughtful answer.

Would that any of us had a decent party to vote for at this point.

dr kill said...

Easy, Troop, this smells suspiciously political. If I wish to read drivel from Obama apologists I could read that other blog.(but I won't)

I would make that smiley face here if I could, so you all know I enjoy all the comments here. Especially Titus,

I have been in New Orleans at Tulane commencement. It was fabulous. 3 down and 1 to go. Then I can go underground for the cash.

dr kill said...

CL,
a little Alice Cooper was in order Sat night. With 80 lbs of boiled crayfish and a half- barrel of some local suds. School's out, dude.

Ellen Degenerates was the commencement speaker. Very nice.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Hey Dr. Kill:

I was at a Fordham commencement on Saturday. Is Tulane a Jesuit college too?

I guess you are saying your kids did not get that same paid scholarship that went to all the Reggie kids (Ted Kennedy's wife Victoria and her brother and sisters and cousins).

I'm Full of Soup said...

How was Degeris? Brokaw did the standard at Fordham inckuding profit is evil, the earth is warming, diversity is the top virtue.

A friend of mine is middle class and his dreamn is that his son goes to Princeton. He said he will choke the commencement speaker if they tell his kid to "give back" after he just spent $200,000 to send his kid to college.

Penny said...

Troop doesn't do politics, but he sure as hell has no problem with satire. Well done.

knox said...

Easy, Troop, this smells suspiciously political.

"this" is not your blog.

hugs!

knox said...

Sorry, trooper, pet peeve of mine.

Trooper York said...

Hey I just felt especially Catholic the past few days. Call it relgious instead of political. Now back to your regularly scheduled titties.

dr kill said...

AJ

Degenertes was very good, some humor and some be true to yourself wisdom. She said that half of the graduates might decide they were queer in the next year. This was the subject of much laughter and finger-pointing at the following party.
She also said there is a good chance many graduates had just wasted 175 grand. I applaud such comments.
Joe Biden gave some taped opening ceremony words of wisdom, so did Slick Willie. I did not applaud such comments, but I was in the extreme minority.

Don't the Phils need another starter? Too many Koreans on the staff, no?

dr kill said...

AJ-
Paul Tulane was a Presbyterian. I was too, till I realized I was Atheistic.

But he is buried in some Presbyterian cemetery in Princeton.

Tell your friend.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Tulane is presbyterian institution- I did not know that.

The Phils will be fine but they have some different starters by the end of the season.

I am looking forward to this weekend when they beat up on Trooper's Yankees. Heh.