Kmiec Endorses Obama:
Back when Mitt Romney was still in the Presidential race, Doug Kmiec was Co-Chair of the Romney Campaign's Committee for the Courts and the Constitution. Today, over at the Slate Convictions blog, Kmiec has a post endorsing Barack Obama for President. An excerpt:
No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.
However, Mr. Kmiec is being intellectually dishonest with himself by endorsing Barack Hussein Obama who is probably the most unpatriotic candidate for President since Aaron Burr and who is likely a closet Jihadist sympathizer. Furthermore, Barack Hussein Obama a/k/a "Nat Turner" has failed to disavow Reverend Wright's racist and hateful remarks toward our fellow Americans who happen to be Caucasion by accident of birth.
And don't forget that Aaron Burr was a closet Jihadist sympathizer, too, so it totally makes sense.
Furthermore, Barack Hussein Obama a/k/a "Nat Turner" has failed to disavow Reverend Wright's racist and hateful remarks toward our fellow Americans who happen to be Caucasion by accident of birth.
It's hard to be white in America, isn't it?
Bah!
1. Like JB says, if this was such an important issue to him -- to the point where he can't even endorse McCain -- why wasn't he with Obama, or another anti-war candidate, from the beginning? What was he doing with Romney?
2. If Obama is elected president, I certainly hope we hear nothing -- and I mean nothing -- out of Kmiec when Obama makes his nominations to the Supreme Court. It is almost doubtless that a President Obama would appoint Justices who have a fundamentally different view of constitutional law (and other aspects of judicial decisionmaking) than Kmiec. Is Kmiec prepared to defend such appointments when they are made -- or, conversely, is he prepared to abandon his legitimacy to speak out against them when they are made?
I am just floored by this. The Court is one nomination away from everything that Kmiec, and many others, have spent the last 25 years working for, at least in terms of judicial (as opposed to political) conservatism. There is no guarantee that a President McCain would appoint someone in that style, but it is almost certain that his appointments would come far closer than a President Obama, whose appointments -- especially given a Democratic-controlled Senate -- will be the polar opposite, further retarding, if not setting back entirely, all the progress that Kmiec and many others have made over the past generation.
I know that Kmiec has never been one to shy away from speaking his mind, and he has been a refreshing and welcome asset in that vein. But I honestly don't know if I can take him seriously after this. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it "treachery," the "betrayal" certainly comes to mind.
Don't follow the news much, do you Gaius? Or what would he have had to do to satisfy you, actually waterboard Wright?
Which candidate is most likely to face a hostile Congress? Gridlock is the best we can hope for--and usually, it's not so bad, witness '94-'01.
The guy's coming at it from the partisan political angle, where party is EVERYTHING. If your party wins, it's your ticket to appointments, power, etc.. So siding with the other party equals treachery.
As far as why was he with Romney to begin with, well, a lot of folks in politics are pretty much mercenaries. Dick Morris, who from what I can see hated just about everything the Clintons did, had no trouble becoming a major advisor to them, and generally giving sound advice on how to win and maximize popularity.
His liberty faculty buds at Pepperdine? The mind boggles.
Yes, that would explain why he worked for Romney's campaign. The faculty liberals just LOVED him.
As for the judicial nominations issue, it's politically much more useful for the Republican Party to keep Roe around, probably in a weakened form, than to see it overturned. If Roe were overturned they'd have to face demands for a wildly unpopular total national ban. People like to claim that overturning Roe would just return the issue to the states but a federal statute banning abortion by persons who have moved in interstate commerce, using implements that have traveled in interstate commerce, or in places of public accommodation would be indistinguishable from a total ban for all practical purposes. So politically there's no incentive for the Republicans to try to put another serious conservative on SCOTUS.
Were you indicating what you thought ought to be, in which case I'd agree, or are you actually surprised to see that treachery (or dishonesty or some other ill-motivated purpose) is indeed how many people who populate these threads see it?
I would note that Pepperdine University is NOT a Catholic university, but rather has ties with the Churches of Christ, including a requirement that a majority of its Regents be of that denomination.
I acknowledge that both the Catholic University of America and Notre Dame University (Kmiec taught at both prior to Pepperdine) are, in fact, Catholic. However, I know nothing of Kmiec's own religious beliefs though the Catholic University and Notre Dame ties do point toward Catholicism.
I agree with the other posters that if Professor Kmiec considers the Iraq War an overriding issue, his support of Mitt Romney earlier this campaign season seems rather odd.
both, because it is- even people who don't know you will.
GWB is almost old news by now and there's not a lot of point in defending him (if 'defending him' this is), but he hardly lacked a clear objective in invading Iraq. There was never any doubt that he intended to force political modernity on the Moslem world through both the threat and good example of our actions there: what he failed to have was any idea of how to do the job besides throwing a too-small military at it.
Because our lack of military resources forced us to stop with Iraq, the War Against Radical Islam has become the War in Iraq and we've totally lost sight of our reformist objective. But there was one, once.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested in more than knee-jerk reactions to actually read Kmiec's piece, and actually read The Audacity of Hope, and actually read Senator Obama's position summaries online; and seriously ask why a prominent, intelligent conservative would endorse Obama. I'd go so far as to suggest that, for those of us interested in forward-thinking conservativism, Senator Obama provides the best hope since Reagan. He's the only candidate that has the potential, and an expressed desire, to change the debate and actually face questions like: when should government intervene at all? when it does, how can it be useful and limited? We might not agree with all of Senator Obama's answers, but he's the only one that I've seen even express an interest in wrestling with the questions.
It's a presidential election folks, not a sundae bar -- you canot mix-and-match facets of the various parties &candidates to build your ideal president.
And don't forget Obama's church... Kmiec seems to endorse Obama based on his values and how they should be attractive to Catholics, but if his church is any indication, they seem pretty foreign to Catholic values: I happen to be a Catholic and cannot conceive of my church giving farrakahn a lifetime achievement award (and that is not a racial issue...there are plenty of black Catholics that attend the church I attend in Chicago)...nor do we have regular sermons on how the government created AIDS to kill black people (or anyone else for that matter).
Undoubtedly such opinions on the nature of the voters' preferred candidates would lead a lesser being to question his own sense of political balance.
Get used to it. McCain is running as a continuation of the Bush Administration's policies on just about every level -- including torture given his recent votes on the issue.
Since Kmiec presumably isn't that stupid, that leaves mendacity. Which could be understandable, if Kmiec is that desperate to be loved by his liberal faculty buds.
You obviously know nothing about Pepperdine's faculty.
CJ2, I don't understand this argument, unless "forward-thinking conservativism" is some sort of codeword I don't know. Can you summarize Obama's conservative positions? Or is your view that by asking questions, Obama leaves open the possibility that he may in the future adopt a position that is conservative? Or maybe that by asking these questions, conservative positions wil win out in the battle for ideas even if Obama rejects them?
I just read Obama's stances on the issues. As far as I can tell, he will increase taxes on the rich to pay for a large number of programs that the federal government arguably shouldn't be involved in, he will tighten trade and "re-negotiate" NAFTA. Can you please tell me where he takes any positions that are at all conservative?
BHO’s pastor and mentor Jeremiah Wright has come under much scrutiny lately, and he’s now in the damage control mode trying to deal with Wright’s published remarks. However the extreme focus on Wright misses the larger issue of what kind of Church has BHO regularly attended for the last 20 years. His Church subscribes to the doctrine of black liberation theology as advanced by the theological scholars James Cone and Dwight Hopkins. Their theology is of a most peculiar kind for Christians. Cone confidently asserts that Jesus was black and* With such a doctrinal foundation, Wright’s seemingly intemperate remarks should come as no surprise to anyone. They come from core beliefs, not a momentary flash of anger, or careless hyperbole. We must question the judgment of man who would closely align himself such an institution. His Church borders on the subversive.
BHO’s ardent supporters will of course say, no big deal. But they are a big deal because they give us additional facts to evaluate this man’s judgment.
*Credit for pointing this out goes to columnist “Spengler” at the Asia Times. He quotes from William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology.
I must confess that when I first read this, my immediate reaction was:
He's the only candidate that has the potential, and an expressed desire, to change the debate and actually face questions like: when should government intervene at all? when it does, how can it be useful and limited? We might not agree with all of Comrade Stalin's answers, but he's the only one that I've seen even express an interest in wrestling with the questions.
(Note to the obtuse: I am not comparing Obama to Stalin, I am saying that the two statements are equally meaningful ... and equally meaningless.)
In that sense, the statement has positive semantic value (whether or not it is true is not at issue, of course) - to wit, that (in Kmiec's opinion) Obama is willing to confront these questions in a more complete and forthright manner than the other candidates.
Alright so as I understand it, if you are tolerant of homosexuals, you cannot be conservative. So, under your theory, conservatism equals bigotry. Whatever.
Can you articulate why you think Kmiec is a phony and a hack? Unlike Professor Kmiec, you didn't give any reasons for your position.
A top supporter and advisor of a con man RINO candidate who once ran his senate bid to the Left of none other than Ted "I don't swim with women" Kennedy is now supporting a freshman senator whose nonexistent qualifications and woeful inexperience for the highest office of the land is second only to the previous imposter of a First Lady ( whom apparently received her modicum of experience and qualifications through osmosis and illegal management of government entities. )
The voted most liberal senator/candidate speaks only in generalities and platitudes of overused and therefore meaningless political buzz words of 'hope' and 'change'...how positively humiliating for those without a clue who are supporting him on that mindless basis not also aware the vast majority are supporting him for only two other reasons; the fact that he's not Hildabeast which 50% of the base refused to vote for before Obama even became noticed and the other singular support due solely to the pigment of his skin. ( Isn't it also wonderful to realize how his parents nor Barack observed the simple custom of adopting an American name? )
To then hear his spouse drool sweet nothings of ludicrous disloyalty which later added to the further drivel of his self-declared 'mentor' in a bigoted racist who further spews in teaching ludicrous conspiracy theories.
Ofwhich none of them, including Kmeic, are worth the time it would take to waterboard for their outrageously unprincipled and treasonous ways.
* Obama Defends Rev. Wright, Blasts Imus
* Obama's Silver Tongue is Forked by Ken Blackwell
* Obama and the National Anthem
* Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007
* When Obama, Clinton and McCain Decisively Agreed By Terence Jeffrey
* Obama Minister's Hatred of America By: Ronald Kessler March 6, 2008
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats." - P.J. O'Rourke
I'm looking for a palatable alternative explanation to the one that I suspect: that Kmiec, to use James Lileks' memorable phrase, has not only drunk the Kool-Aid but ordered up another gallon for a high colonic.
Kmeic has bought into the argument that the Ds have been pushing to get Catholics back--based on the social teachings of the Catholic Church that free markets produce injustices and it is our duty as christians to rectify these. What they gloss over is how this should be done, which isn't spelled out anywhere in these teachings. In the 30s Catholic thinkers were with the idea that it was the role for the state to do it. Gradually, even prominent radicals like Dorothy Day became disenchanted with this approach since creating welfare bureaucracies just seemed to perpetuate poverty. You had a whole wave of catholic thinkers (I am thinking of Catholic Conservatives like Michael Novak) who saw that the social message of the Gospel was a charge to invididuals using their free will to seek justice. Clearly though, the statist line of thought is making a comeback.
On abortion, Kmeic's argument is that we are at an impasse on that issue anyway--unlikely to outlaw it, unlikely be able to do anything to promote it at the federal level so that's a wash in deciding who to vote for in this office. I think he's wrong about the latter. For example, federal power could be used to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, or not get federal money. It would end the idea of Catholic hospitals--either they would become like any other hospitals or they would have to close their doors.
Google Ron Paul
Perhaps you could give a more substantive definition of 'American Name' so I could better understand your point?
"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." General George Washington
dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/full
An Irishman!
I guess I just don't feel as strongly about Supreme Court appointments as many people around here. Suppose you had a chance to replace Ginsberg and Souter with a couple of Roberts clones, with the trade off being two terms of Barack Obama as President. Would you take that trade?
Yeah, Obama sure was vague on that point.
Wow. I ran out of breath reading that.
I'm not sure what McCain's qualifications are. He was a POW; he went after a bunch of stuff that shouldn't even be on a Senator's radar (mixed martial arts/ultimate fighting and steroids in baseball); and he enacted campaign finance "reform" legislation that makes it harder than ever to defeat an incumbent.
This is not a good election for the Republic.
Nonetheless, his thrust seems clear enough. He thinks responding well to radical islamic ideology is the overriding priority facing the country. And he views Senator Obama as more likely to get that right than Senators McCain or Clinton. He suspects that he and Obama may well disagree on lesser matters, but he'll count on goodwill all round to work those out.
Hardly radical ideas. So I'm amazed at the invective that Kmiec's drawn in the comments above ... some of which are guttter talk, and an embarrassment to a blog of this quality.
"As for the judicial nominations issue, it's politically much more useful for the Republican Party to keep Roe around, probably in a weakened form, than to see it overturned.
This is very true, and I don't think you'll run into too many thinking conservatives (sadly, a dwindling breed) who would disagree.
But it's Kmiec's shortsightedness and seeming betrayal of his own consititutional and judicial approach that is astounding here. He is a professor of constitutional law, not a political hack. For decades, he has continually advocated a judicially conservative approach that is fundamentally at odds with the one that Obama has gone on record espousing and will surely follow through on. This isn't a matter of judicial outcomes, be it abortion, gun rights, or what have you; it's a matter of judicial philosophies.
This is no slam against Obama or his supporters — reasonable minds can disagree about the proper role of the judiciary — but it is a slam against Kmiec and his seeming blindness to what he and so many other have worked for for years. Seriously, what is Kmiec going to say at a Federalist Society panel when he argues against the most recent decision by Justice Koh or Justice Tatel finding some unenumerated, "penumbral" right? Why should anyone in the audience respect his arguments against them and the "direction of the Court" when he himself has now facilitated that direction?
"Perhaps Kmiec would likewise prefer McCain's SCOTUS nominees but, on the balance, thinks Obama would be the better CiC.
This may be, but the only reason Kmiec's endorsement "matters" — and is not just the endorsement of some random guy on the street — is because of Kmiec's position as a prominent constitutional scholar and frequent commentator on the courts. And in those capacities, he has consistently stated a position that is the polar opposite of what Senator Obama, and most Democrats, have stated.
So it's mind-boggling to see that he's abandoning those principles — and the long-fought battle over judicial philosophies on the Court that he and his cohorts are literally on the verge of winning, given the pending likely vacancies on the Court — due to his belief that the Iraq War is misguided and that, apparently, nothing — not one thing — would change under another Republican, such that he cannot possibly vote for one and must endorse the likely opponent. (I realize there are many partisan hacks who buy into the "nothing-will-change-under-any-Republican-president" proposition. But Kmiec has never been a hack. What he is now, however, I just can't figure out.)
I remain utterly astounded by this. Professor Kerr, will you be offering your take on it in a forthcoming post?
Thanks for making every other comment on the thread appear temperate and well-reasoned.
I would absolutely take that trade. Presidencies come and go, and political winds shift all the time. But Court appointments last long after any presidential term of office is complete, and Court decisions -- unlike laws and executive orders -- are not easily, and seldom, undone.
As a Catholic fishing for votes for Obama from other Catholics Kmiec is engaged in sophistry. He conflates prudential matters with Catholic dogma in an effort to convince other Catholics that Obama is a like minded fellow.
All nonsense of course because Barack Obama has a voting record on abortion that violates every dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church.
Having read this endorsement and his recent article on "Reaganite for Obama", I can only sigh in frustration that such a learned man and self professed practicing Catholic can pull the wool over his own eyes.
I think that the problem is that we're examining the issues Professor Kmiec cited in that post looking for a reasonable explanation. We're ignoring an unspoken and decidedly unreasonable answer: Kmiec really dislikes McCain.
A man of Kmiec's intelligence can't just live with the cognitive dissonance. He has to attempt to reconcile his desire to vote against McCain with his conservative principles. The result is this weird post where all his explanations and excuses seem to ring false.
I think you have offered the best explanation for Professor Kmiec's cognitive dissonance, McCain Derangement Syndrome.
True. But March Madness reminds me that Pepperdine is the lone non-Catholic school in the West Coast Conference, so it has plenty of Catholic ties.
Elections are always the selection of the lesser/least of evils. Thus, abortion cannot be a litmus test for conservatism or acceptance by Catholics. As far as gun control goes, McCain-Feingold stifled the voice of the NRA, funded by individual supporters. Each of the candidates threaten gun owners' rights.
I can see no principled reason why it's acceptable to compromise on the death penalty or the war but not on abortion or abstinence education. If one is truly unwilling to compromise, it would seem the only alternative this round it not to vote at all.
(1) if you read the whole post, rather than just the excerpt above, it should be clear that the iraq war position was not dispositive of his endorsement, so those of you busting a spleen over some apparent inconsistency should calm down a bit.
(2) the people talking about pepperdine being full of liberal professors are funny. obviously you don't know the first thing about its reputation, and i'd love to .pdf you the letters that they send faculty recruits.
(3) uh, he's CATHOLIC. do you think the mindless courtship of hagee might play into this?
By the way, I may be willing to take an Obama Presidency (even two terms) in return for "three Roberts clones" to replace Stevens,Breyer, and Ginsburg.
I agree. Now if only you and I could agree on the efficacy of AEDPA.
Folks are too quick to equate the politics of the Dean's Suite with those of the faculty. It's a mistake.
Oren fails to understand the Catholic concept of dogma. According to the Catholic Church, ALL Catholics must be personally opposed to abortion and homosexuality to be Catholics in good standing. By contrast, Catholics are free to have their own views on things like the War in Iraq, waterboarding, the death penalty and fiscal issues; it just happens that at the moment the current Pope is liberal on these issues but there is nothing that says that Catholics in general are supposed to be liberal. Other than abortion and homosexuality, there are very few political issues on which Catholics are supposed to agree.
How does the MSM justify allowing a PRESIDENTIAL candidate to close off more than four years of his life from investigation?
Hah! I always come away from an AEDPA disagreement feeling over-exercised, but I don't mean anything personal by it.
I was tweeking you. We will have our disagreements in the future. Bask in the fact that we agree today.
This is unnecessary and imprecise moral equivalence. Lefty blogs unapologetically put Lieberman in photoshopped blackface. None of the discussion of Kmiec's unusual positions has even come close.
And the idea that Obama is the ONLY candidate to talk about whether gov.t should intervene? Role of government? Is someone cracking jokes here?? Fred Thompson, whom I didnt vote for, and as someone noted, Ron Paul, both hammered on this point repeatedly.
Obama's question isn't whether Government should intervene, thats a fait accompli, the only question is "To what extent?" Thats where were at. With all three remaining "viable" candidates. Paul is in it to the convention and no matter what happens, Ill just write him in. Consequences be damned. At least I will be able to sleep at night with my vote.
Oren, that's because you evidently don't understand the difference between prudential and dogmatic teachings as they apply to the Catholic Church and those who practice the Catholic faith.
However, I made it quite clear that any citizen can vote for whomever they please for whatever reason.
The problem is that Professor Kmiec is attempting to persuade Catholics that they can, in good conscience, vote for Obama which is sophistry because a man of Professor Kmiecs intelligence and experience understands full well that the War in Iraq is a prudential matter while opposition to abortion is a dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church.
I don't understand why he's not supporting Hillary, who is surely to Obama's right; but maybe he thinks Hillary's out.
I do think that McDS -- McCain Discernment Syndrome -- may be at play here. McCain can barely open his mouth without sounding like a warmongering ignoramus ... and we just had eight years of that.
Anyway, the Court is certainly going to tilt right for the next 20 to 30 years, no matter what liberal appointments Obama might make. And I think a prudent constitutionalist might see some structural concerns with a Court that was completely right-wing.
Next time I say "X", please try a more extensive refutation than simply saying, "well, [not] X." it will make for more thought-provoking discussion.
for instance, a number of comments on this thread, and on redstate - to name just two of several blogs i've read today - are downright hostile. i don't know what you mean by "moral equivalence." What am I equating morally - I am equating descriptive fervor. I suppose you read the term "moral equivalence" in the krauthammer piece this week, or something like that. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
what is it that you think results from white guilt? i mean, the endorsement is consistent with both a white guilty explanation and with an "earnest support" explanation, so what evidence do you have that it is the former rather than the latter? and you can't just say that the result is consistent with white guilt, because that's just to assume the conclusion.
Catechism 2309:
I told my Republican friend in Mississippi about Kmiec's shocker endorsement, and she said she would never ever vote for Obama. "Obama is Farrakhan," she told me.
I think that will keep us off the subject of politics for a few months.
(She's very upset about the "typical white person" comment. As Prof. Kerr notes about, it's so hard to be white in America.)
I am assuming. I can no more prove his real intentions than you can. However, having read his article, I find it hard to believe otherwise. Plus he is of the boomer generation. That says it all.
so if i'm reading you correctly, your argument is that you are assuming, contrary to the author's statements, that which you seek to prove, just because you can. i concede, that's a difficult position to argue with.
It not that it hard to be a white (rich) person in America, its not (or so I'm told), but it is a lot easier to be a black public official in America because until recently, you could get any with a lot more than white public officials. Whites had to live by the PC code where blacks did not because white liberals like to treat blacks with kid gloves and not as equals. To use a Rev. Wrightism, the chickens have come home to roost and the PC policies liberals have imposed have boomeranged into one of its own. But, if a man what to be the most powerful man in the world, he has to play by the rules like everyone else. Welcome to the PC world Barry!
Your refusal to see the salutary effect, on the other hand, is puzzling at best. Surely Christ preached the brotherhood of man to the exclusion of the racial hatred and prejudice born out of our history. That history is neither "mythological" nor does it show our actions to be particularly Christian.
Let me put it like this, everything Prof. Kmiec stated was important to him is antithetical to what Obama truly stands for (as the best I can tell anyway). Obama is a liberal or "progressive" democrat, nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, how can Obama address extremism abroad when he is an adherent to a form of extremism at home, namely a pernicious form of theology that preaches hatred and does nothing but prolong the day when we actually become a post racial society. Kmiec is profoundly misguided and simply sees what he wants to see in Obama.
you seem to arguing that obama cannot address extremism abroad because he is himself an extremist.
i'm not sure even the hannity/oreilly axis would go so far as to say that obama is an extremist (they tend to stop at saying that he brooks extremism). i'm not really sure what a post racial society is, or what the road map to getting there looks like, but i'm guessing that it doesn't include pretending like racial resentment doesn't exist. i'm sure i'm not saying anything that you haven't heard before, and your "critique" is mind-numbingly familiar to me. we'll just have to agree to disagree on the merits of whether obama is an extremist.
but the extremity of obama's ideology seems irrelevant to the issue of whether kmiec's endorsement is animated by white guilt. you just seem bent on conflating the fact that you don't like obama with the "obvious" intellectual dishonesty of anybody that does. that's silly.
I don't know if you get this far into the comments, but I know you have friends at Chicago Law and in the school's Federalist Society. Recently they held a debate between Sunstein and Epstein re: why a conservative would support Obama. Not Sunstein's best performance, but it's available via podcast here:
http://federalist.uchicago.edu/conservativecaseforobama.mp3
good stuff,
Kmiec is free to support whoever he likes, of course. But to say that he gets there through some sort of Catholic path or conservative path , in my informed opinion, is ridiculous. I also have no illusions that i have put forth a solid critique on this board nor do I have the time or inclination to do so (I'm a drive by poster, so to speak).
As to Obama's faith, I am someone who spent time in a catholic seminary studying theology and I know a little about liberation theology ( I was in a Jesuit institution, some Jesuits are supporters of lib-theo and also borderline -to be nice-Marxist). It is hardly Christian in form on its most basic level for a very simple reason: it teaches hate, whether hate of the white man in black liberation theology or hate of the capitalist in liberation theology in the latin nations. The path to suicide bombing is very short once religion and hate are mixed. (for all the Obama apologist, I'm not saying Obama is a Muslim or a supporter of terrorist, I'm merely making the point that hate plus religion leads to some bad places)
I had a radical (ridiculous?) idea. Why don't you, you know, prove that - with like cites, authoritative sources, and stuff?
I am just shaking my head thinking about an anonymous commenter talking about his informed opinion. While I don't like appeals to authority, I am always willing to respect one's expertise. I also have no problem with anonymous speech.
Yet here you are, an anonymous guy or gal, appealing to your (anonymous) authority. It's truly laughable.
If you have an opinion, great. Prove it. There are widely-accepted ways of doing this. At the very least, some actual citations would be a great start. Relevant quotations would be even more helpful.
Thanks!
I have known quite a number of lib-theos and none of them come anywhere close to being hateful of anyone. Quite to the contrary, the vast majority seek to dismantle racism/capitalism/whatever by changing the hearts of the oppressor, which they consider to be a prisoner of the very same system. One can oppose racism or capitalism without hating the racist or capitalist -- we are instructed to love our enemies and to love the sinners.
My point is that your caricature of an entire religious movement based on the actions of the worst elements is both unfair and unhelpful. Imagine the same done to the worst elements of the Catholic Church and we might start to get on the same page.
You sure did bust Kmiec!
In exchange for the support of someone who can (not) move millions to vote a certain way, Obama has agreed to nominate an anti-Roe/pro-religion Doug Kmiec to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Senate will undoubtedly confirm his nomination.
I'm also told that Kmiec will fly into the White House on a black helicopter before his acceptance speech.
A fine example of Catholic teaching that requires prudential judgement.
Now the Catholic teaching on abortion:
2272 Formal co-operation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. 'A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae' 'by the very commission of the offence', and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law . The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
You do understand the difference Oren?
While war can, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, be the commission of a grave offence it is Church dogma that abortion, the intentional killing of the unborn baby, is always a grave offence.
Conflating the two is sophistry.
(1) Abortion is always a grave offense.
(2) Entering a war can be a grave offense if you do not strictly justify it by all 4 criteria listed in 2309.
Therefore support for abortion is worse than support for an unjustified war because the latter could possibly be justified whereas the former cannot.
Do I understand that correctly?
I think invective is frowned upon here. I'm not sure if self inflicted invective is or isn't. Hopefully not because yours was good for a chuckle. And now to the heart of the matter.
Not only do you not understand, you have no no inclination to try to understand. Such is life.
You're of course right, the Catholic Church never would do such things. However, the Catholic Church was complicit in the slave trade and innumerable instances of genocide.
With that said, I will do you the courtesy of not judging you by your church.
Reasonable Catholics can disagree on when the criteria in 2309 have been satisfied and a particular war is permissible, but no Catholic can disagree on whether abortion is permissible.
This is a lawblog, but let's talk theology for a minute.
You accuse Oren of "conflating" matters of dogma and matters of prudence. Aren't you yourself conflating two very different things:
(1) participating in an abortion
(2) opposing, for reasons of prudence, legislating against abortion
Even if #1 were intrinsically sinful as a matter of Catholic dogma, surely #2 remains a matter of prudence.
Of course, you'll have to excuse a lesser mind such as myself from failing to see the obvious logic of this conclusion. I can only beseech you again to kindly explain the moral distinction between an act that is a grave offense per se and an act that is a grave offense by virtue of the facts surrounding it.
What reason is there to doubt Professor Kmiec's motives, or to take his words other than at face value, when he says:
?
I am surprised that no commenter has yet mentioned Senator McCain's goofy comment last week that it was "common knowledge . . . that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known." Apparently Senator "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain can't tell the players without a scorecard.
This country can survive fifteen of the past twenty-seven years (1981—89 and 2001—present) with a doofus in the Oval Office, but why would anyone want four more?
Anecdotally, there is a perception among some unnamed faculty members at Notre Dame that being a Catholic measurably reduces your chances of being offered a job there. I have no statistics to back this up.
Were Kmiec to be Catholic, of course, his endorsement of an abortion extremist - Obama - would be all the more confounding. Either way, Obama's profile -- abortion extremist, socialist, radical social liberal, economic ignoramus, foreign policy ignoramus, ethically bereft Chicago pol, race hustler -- should be enough to scare away a Douglas Kmiec.
I invoke Occam's Razor, in that he must regard governance at this time to be a function of a single issue, just as Kmiec stated it: Iraq. How absurd.
Bluecollarguy seems to think that, because the war is a "conditionally" grave offense but abortion is "unconditionally" grave offense, the latter automatically gets more weight. I find that argument patently unpersuasive.
Roe v. Wade and the companion case of Doe v.Bolton were decided on January 22, 1973, with seven justices supporting the results thereof. One of these seven justices had been appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt (deceased since 1945). Two were appointed by President Eisenhower (deceased since 1969). One was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, who died on the day of the decision.
Does Catholic doctrine hold these three presidents (all non-catholics) plus President Nixon, who appointed the other three justice who supported the Roe/Doe result but who was then still in office, spiritually culpable for the abortions that followed?
I don't ask this to be argumentative; I simply don't know the answer.
Smartest comment of the night.
I think this is unfair to Bluecollarguy, Oren. There are many teachings of the Catholic Church which are unconditional, such as abortion. OTOH, the Pope may issue a judgement which is "prudential" and with which one may disagree and still remain a Catholic in good standing. For example, it may seem illogical to *you* to disagree with the Pope on the Iraq War, but the fact remains that the Church does allow some latitude on certain political and philosophical matters. This is not Bluecollarguy's personal call--this is the way the Church works.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020109.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020109.php
And what's white guilt have to do with it? He's not a descendant of slaves. He's the son of a nonconformist white teenage girl named Stanley after her father, and an oversexed foreign exchange student who was married at the time.
Supposing that abortion is worse than the Iraq War, there is the obvious point that the President can do something directly about the war but has at best a remote power over abortion. Would this sort of consideration enter the decision?
Let me explain my logic a bit further. My reading of Catechism 2309 (and Augustine and Aquinas) can be broken into two parts, an unconditional part and a prudential part. The unconditional part is that unjust wars constitute a grave offense against both man and God. That much I venture is uncontroversial - no reasonable Christian can support an unjust war.
The prudential part comes in determining whether a particular war meets the definition of a just war. On this matter, as you stated, reasonable Catholics can disagree and remain in good standing with the Church.
If one accepts this partitioning of 2309 into the general, unconditional dogma and the specific, prudential judgment then the rest of my logic follows. Specifically, a Catholic that judges the war in Iraq to be unjust can rightly regard its continued commission as a grave offense on the same moral level as the continued commission of abortion.
Obama graduated magna from Harvard Law. That's top 10% in the class. Grading is blind. All professors saw while handing out grades was a randomly assigned number. Affirmative action had nothing to do with it.
You can dislike his policy positions, but don't pretend that he isn't intelligent or that he doesn't deserve his elite credentials.
On the political side, I disagree that the president cannot effect abortion in a profound way. Court appointments aside, executive and legislative policy have a huge effect. Clinton scored big with FACE, Bush with Mexico City and the PB&E ban. Roe v. Wade was not the end of the abortion debate.
What reason is there to sacrifice so much to have children? What reason is there for a wealthy person to keep working or a wealthy thief to keep stealing? What reason is there to listen to Pavarotti's La Bohème or read a great book?
Because these are things that give life meaning.