TheScout

I almost wrote that exact same thing about being elitest. But I didn't.

They like Obama because he promises to give a lot of people free stuff. Go figure. Reminds me once again of what the 18th Century Scottish legalist, Sir Alex Tyler wrote, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.... The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage."

"Scout, depending on how your priest answers the question, then ask him, does the mother and doctors still get excommunicated if they did not go through with an abortion, killing the girl instead, knowing that she would not survive the pregnancy? Also ask if the perp should be excommunicated, and whether he feels God will reconcile with mom and the doc's when they arrive?" Of course they would not get excommunicated if they do did do the abortion. It would not be them killing the girl. The two can be reconciled if the repent in this life. Usually excommunication can be lifted if certain conditions of repentance are met.

I don't think it is really immoral. Just wrong. Thats why the Catholic liturgy has prayers for the conversion of the Jews.

Its ok. We always take the schismatics and heretics back if they repent.

I have not yet. Though my work will be taking me overseas soon. Books are a great resource. I am not sure how else one can learn so much in such short periods of time.

Well I can assure you a priest can better explain Catholic theology to you than myself if you really have questions. They are very highly educated. Catholic seminaries are quite good. There are Catholic churches all over. Priests will usually accept visitors at all hours. So even if you don't have a priest you can find one easily. As I mentioned and as the article said, the daugher was not excommunicated due to her age. No matter what I would not call the value system messed up. Like it or not the Catholic one has been one of the most unchanged throughout history. I would not question the deposit of faith and the Successor to St. Peter as the head of Christ's Church on Earth.

I really don't know. Perhaps you should ask your local priest. He would certainly know more than me. He might teach you a thing or two as well! I'm pretty sure the Church considers abortion worse than rape though. There is no taking of human life in rape . . . But ask your priest!

I wasn't equating the two. I was just saying two things I hope not to embrace. Though perhaps you could say socialism was immoral. Income redistribution does not necesarily strike me as moral. But that is for a different day . . . " But as life unfolded, reality set it. The world isn't black and white. Its a blend of all colors." With all due respect that comes off as moral relativism, a great tyranny of our time as described by the Pope himself. Stick to the Church. It makes hard moral decisions a lot easier. Good morals do not change in time. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong.

I am no expert on such matters. However, we all know all sins do not require excommunication. Those that confess can usually still recieve the sacraments. However, the Church has decided that some sins are so serious that they are cause for excommunication. Excommunication is not a penalty really. It is the making known of a previous poor condition. It also does not require a Church official to to it. It is automatically incurred by some actions, such as abortion.

"What does state's rights have to do with racial ugliness? You're jokin', right?" No. States deal with the same issues as the nation as a whole. They just do it at a level closer to the people. I guess that sounds bad to you? "As for da rest, do you have any notion of how hard it is to conduct military operations on a long supply line in a remote area? Any notion of the diplomacy required to secure staging areas and overfly neighboring countries?" We seemed to pull it off pretty well in Iraq and Afghanistan. I doubt we would need 150,000 troops in Rwanda, its tiny. Send Uganda a couple hundred million dollars and you get any rights over their territory you need. "Give TheScout a break. He's viewing the world through an academic prism. Another 20 years or so of having to face life's daily challenges will season him well. Reality has that effect on people. Especially after he has kids." What is that supposed to mean? You have no idea what I have gone through or how I have done for myself after my studies. I hope time will not lead me to socialism and immorality. People often say the youth are liberal and get more conservative in time . . . I doubt I will embrace socialism and immorality in time.

I just came across the story on the BBC. The doctor and mother were excommunicated, the girl was not due to her age. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7929712.stm I salute the Archbishop for sticking to Church doctrine despire some pressure to the contrary. I deplore the President of Brazil who has not set a good example for his Catholic nation. Hopefully the doctor and mother will repent and God in his grace will save them.

What a heart-wrenching decision. I certainly do not claim to be a theologian by any means. However it is quite clear that in the view of the Catholic Church, at the point of conception an embryo becomes a human and is entitled to all such rights. It also seems clear that abortion in all cases is a "grave moral disorder." A quick search of the Catechism let me to the following passage: "Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, 'if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human foetus and is directed toward its safeguarding or healing as an individual... It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence." I am no doctor either and don't know what exactly a 'prenatal diagnosis' is. It seems if the doctor did such checks to find out if all these problems would occur and an abortion was needed, that was wrong. And who is to say the doctor is actually right? Doctors have been wrong before. Many times. God has been responsible for miracles. Many times. How do could we possibly know what He in His wisdom has in mind for this family. Regardless of any way the situation turns out, if the girl lives her life according to the precepts of the Church she will end up in Heaven, which is a better place anyway. Whether it is sooner or later I am sure she will enjoy the reunion with her Creator and Savior. To me, it seems the best solution is to ask a priest. He will be able to answer the question or at least be able to point one to a person who can best answer it.

"Yah, Merlyn, sad to say yeh might have the right conclusion there. The tragic underbelly of some of the Ron Paul states-rights crowd is its nearly overt racial ugliness." What does state's rights have to do with racial ugliness? It is one of the oldest American poltical beliefs. Predates the union. Believe it or not, some of us actually believe government can best be directed at its lowest levels. "Problem with both Rwanda and Sudan is logistics, eh? Devilishly hard to get to landlocked entities." Afghanistan is a landlocked entity. We seem quite able to put a lot of resources there. Iraq is basically landlocked. We have 150,000 troops there. That is an absurd argument. With modern logistics we can put people anywhere we want. We have all Army brigades that on stand by ready to perform air assault missions on a moments notice. Bosnia was virtually landlocked. Kosovo and Serbia are too. We intervened there. Cambodia was not landlocked. Didn't do anything there. I don't know why it is so hard to admit America cares more about Europe than other places, especially in the deep dark of Africa . . .

"Excluding someone because their beliefs make them incapable of being "the best kind of citizen" is almost the textbook definition of a pariah; someone shunned because of their lower social status." So? Do you think we should accept someone with immoral beliefs?

"My own, of course. But why Nigeria? Why not use Germany in your example?" Just picked a random country. Could have picked Peru, Albania, Burma, Mongolia. I can more about my family than one in Germany though too. "How about this: Who do you care about more? A family whose skin color is the same as yours, or some strange country where it isn't the same as yours?" I don't follow your question. Like most people who care to admit it or not, I like people more like myself the most. I relate the most to them. "You seem to also DEFINE the USA as that, which makes all non-Eurpean/non-Christians as somehow foreigners in their own country." Not foreigners, its called a minority.

Nobody makes one man have sex with another. It is a choice. We all have sinful urges which we must fight.

I'm actually a non-interventionist in general. Saves American lives, spends less money, lets us lower taxes at home. I like to cite Henry Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft around the world war time periods and admire Ron Paul today. I would have liked to avoid the war with Japan as well. Like it or not, we kinda forced Japan's hand. We held them hostage over the oil they needed to run the war (at that time we ran the world's oil market). They were forced to choose between fighting us and withdrawing from their empire. Without this action, and other measures of freezing assets and aiding Japan's allies, I don't think they would have attacked us. Pearl Harbor was just a brutal backstab that could not be forgiven. Desite the embargo, we had launched no military actions. Plus they had attacked US installations in the Phillipines and throughout the Pacific which had to be liberated. The Iraq war was brought on by other interventionist foreign policiy mistakes. The first Gulf War should have never been fought. Who cares if Iraq or Kuwait owned the oil? They would still sell it to us. They have to. Saddam was our friend anyway. We were on his side against Iran. (Which we shouldn't have been but that is a different story for a different day. Few people know that in the 1940's the US was actually very popular in the Middle East. Then we started intervening. Supporting Israel against the Arabs, and messing with Iran's domestic institutions. There are reasons why they don't like us. They don't hate us just because. That all being said, I for the most part defended President Bush as it seemed most liberals were against the war for mere partisan purposes. I watched so many in the Clinton administration talk about Saddams WMD's and then later vote for the war resolution. And of course once you start a war I say you must win. All that being said - I am more sympathetic to European Christian populations. They are more like us and myself. It is natural to care more about people you are closest too? Who do you care about more? Your family, or some strange family in some random country in say . . . Nigeria? I don't know about you I care about my own country. It is not a radical concept. Why didn't we intervene in Rwanda in 1994? Because it was in the heart of Africa nd nobody cared. Or Sudean now? Same thing. Meanwhile we took great care to drive Serbia from Bosnia and Kosovo over the years. It is in the heart of Europe.

"But I'm sorry that you think it's "nonsense" to have to tell a group of 15 year old Scouts that BSA thinks that homosexuals can not be the "best type of citizen", while full well knowing that some of those boys will eventually discover that THEY are homosexual. This is the way I see ("skew") it: BSA is telling two minority groups that they are not welcome while at the same time knowing it has no factual basis for claiming they can not be the "best type of citizens"." Not everything can be based on facts. Some things have basis in faith alone. Why not try to improve boys by trying to get them away from bad lifestyle choices? Isn't that what we are about? The real question is what is a bad lifestyle choice. We all have different views. Why should we discourage smoking, but not homosexuality? Or insert any other behavior we discourage. "skeptic, why can the BSA make some people pariahs by excluding them, but it's not OK for people to make the BSA or their members pariahs? Seems to follow the golden rule." Because one side is on the side of God and His morality, the other is not.

Fiction.

But who cares? If some crackpot who can barely harm us why do we launch the biggest war in our history, sending our young men and treasure to Europe? What if a harmless country, like Albania declared war on us today? Should we invade and occupy Albania? I wouldn't. I would just laugh.

"Yah, TheScout, yeh remind me of a typical bright undergraduate, eh? Are you?" Close enough. A year off. "There can be a certain fun and fascination in entertainin' oddball theories and pokin' a stick in the eye of established scholarship. Old folks don't know everything and all that." But its really not that odd. Lots of people talk a big game. Few actually try to pull it off. Even less succeed. There were many reasons we got into World War II. I don't think an impending German invasion of the US was one of them. Go back to World War I. The German Empire then had much less capacity to harm the US - but we still found a way to go to war against them. "I reckon it also moves yeh back toward the credible and truthful." That all being said, I don't think anything I said is particularly not credible or truthful. Of course this is all speculation. What If history has been around for a long time and can be legitimate exercise in scholarship and a good mental exercise. I think Churchill, who himself was a great historian and author, wrote some speculative history about the South winning the Civil War. Discussing how the US could have kept out of World War II is a much less crazy thought.

I don't think the terms are meaningless. They are a way to easily describe a particular viewpoint at a particular time. However one must be aware of that when they use it and make proper note of it. It reminds me of the Whig Theory of History. A British theory about the progress of constitutional government in England which was developped in the 19th Century. One of the major faults that critics of it claim is that it tries to fit past political figures neatly into the current political spectrum.

Jefferson was a proponent of small government and states rights. He loved the use of the militia, wrote the Kentucky Resolution. In the 18th and 19th century - liberal usually referred to what we today call classical liberalism. They promoted free trade, a small state, etc. to maximize human liberty. With the turn of the 20th century, changing conditions made many think that wealth inequality and the abuse of the poor by the rich stymied their liberty. Hence a more active state was needed, basically switching the term from a small government one, to a big government one. Not to mention one can be a political liberal like many Founding Fathers. Or a social liberal. Or an economic liberal. And then the term has a different meaning in Europe too. It is a term with a complicated history. Please check your facts sir.

Wow. I don't know what to say. I am sure someone more wise than me will have something to say. I assure you I will keep that scout in my prayers tonight.