Hallelujah! The Stupak Amendment just passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 240 to 194, with one member voting present. Earlier reports had predicted 225 votes for the amendment which bars federal funding of abortion as a part of health care reform but Congressman Stupak was able to whip up 64 Democratic votes. (Yes, 64 votes from what was recently called “The Party of Death.”) To be clear, only Democrats who favored health reform but oppose abortion could achieve this outcome. One of the fringe Catholic websites earlier was urging Congress to vote yes on Stupak and no on the final bill, which just doesn’t make much sense since the prohibitions on abortion funding in the Stupak Amendment would only take effect if the bill they amended takes effect.
The House is currently voting on the ridiculous GOP alternative plan, which will fail, and then they will proceed to a vote on the final health care bill.
(And, lest we forget, only liberal Catholic support for a radically pro-abortion President and Congress that are quite happy to give free abortions to all women sans Stupak have made this even a problem in the first place. Bragging about how you took a first step towards saving us from falling off a cliff is hardly appropriate when you pushed us most of the way off the edge in the first place.)
The only essential application of Stupak is in the insurance exchange, which will only be absent if the insurance exchange is taken out in conference.
Let us remember that Harry Reid is a pro-life Morman, so I don't expect Stupak to be stripped out in conference.
There is no longer any room for Catholics to use abortion as an excuse to demagogue on the bill. Not only are the bishops and CHA for this bill, but the vast majority of the faithful as well. You are either with us or against us.
For those self-styled libertarians out there who object to the bill, I would say that the only reasonable alternative to government mandated care is for employers to provide direct care without insurance by opening their own clinics and by providing HMO coverage to local hospital based HMOs. Shilling for the insurance companies is not Catholic. Some may not know it, but in truth the GOP is bought and paid for by the insurance lobby (which is desparate).
There is nothing in Catholic doctrine that says we must support them and everything that says we should not - especially given their track record of fraudulently accepting payments for years and then seeking to drop people when they are sick. Even Ayn Rand would find that reprehensible.
Well at least Mr. Winters had identified the Democrat party correctly, The Party of Death. Some Catholic friends and myself were commenting awhile ago how many dead in the 20th century can be attributed to policies that the Democrat Party is in harmony with. And how any one could be a member of the Democrat Party and still be a Catholic. Not that we thought the Republican Party was a party of saints but that there is a vast difference between the two and there is always much room for improvement.
There is the issue at hand, namely abortion which world wide can add up probably more than a hundred million and about 40 million in the US alone since Roe vs. Wade. The protection of this piece of bad legislative judgment has been a litmus test for the Democrat Party ever since. And last night it was the Republicans who got the Stupak Amendment passed not the Democrats.
Besides abortion there is socialism and the socialistic leanings of the Democrat Party. I believe the number dead for this failed view of life is over 100 million in the 20th century. The greatest killer of all, Mao, is a favorite of a high profile member of the Obama administration. Mr. Winters and any sympathizers with socialism should watch the movie ''The Lives of Others'' to get a small glimpse of what socialism will eventually do to a society besides killing them in large numbers. Socialism is a defective system that must eventually control nearly aspect of your lives to survive.
Malaria was a disease that was getting under control till the environmentalist got hold of it and there are probably 30 million dead because of environmental decisions that restricted insecticide use in malarial ridden areas of the world. Rachel Carson is a patron saint of the Democrat Party. Then there is the revolution in sexual attitudes. How many dead can be attributed to AIDS and how many teenagers and young adults now have STD's because of these attitudes fostered by the left and the Democrat Party.
But to me an equally big moral crime is what the Democrat party has done to African Americans since the 1930's. The illegitimacy rate within this community was about at the national average in the early 1930's till the Democrat Party started with aggressive social action programs which seemed to affect this community the most. They doubled/tripled down with the War on Poverty or Great Society till the average illegitimacy rate is now around 70% with all its dysfunctional effects.
And we are about to double down again to make us even more dependent upon the government. And when the inevitable dysfunctionality arrives, will we abandon the madness or end up like East Germany but with no United States on the other side of the Wall. Mr. Winters likes to tout Catholic Social Action and how this vote in Congress is pro Catholic. Well I do not see anything in all this government control and coercive legislation that is virtuous at all. If anything we are giving up our responsibilities as Catholics for positive social action to a secularized coercive institution. Doesn't Mr. Winters ever think that the purpose of Catholic Social Action is not the establishment of an ''heaven on earth'' but as a means for Catholics to earn Heaven. Sometimes I find that many Catholics have forgotten what we are here for. Or do they really believe it. I also find it ironic that the policies of a political party which supports free enterprise and liberty has done more to ease the misery of life on this planet than the party that wants to control your every move to achieve equality. From the start of this movement of equality in the French Revolution, a prime target of this ideology has been the Catholic Church. Does Mr. Winters think it will be any different in the future and here we have many Catholics championing this toxic philosophy. I guess out of compassion but the end result has not been compassionate.
Now these words are not meant to be conciliatory but everyone should realize that opposition to this grab for power by the government is not looked upon by many as the passions of a compassionate governing body but in reality as a means to an end. And end which most of the country does not want and fears is not compassionate at all. If the current ruling party were truly compassionate they would have taken a completely different tack. But they are showing their true stripes by the approach they have taken. Attempting to ram down our throats a piece of legislation most don't want and few even know what the details are let alone the potential secondary and tertiary effects. Does Mr. Winters believe the Democrat Party will not eventually find a way to get abortion funded.
Yes, the Democrat Party is the Party of Death.
Well at least Mr. Winters had identified the Democrat party correctly, The Party of Death. Some Catholic friends and myself were commenting awhile ago how many dead in the 20th century can be attributed to policies that the Democrat Party is in harmony with. And how any one could be a member of the Democrat Party and still be a Catholic. Not that we thought the Republican Party was a party of saints but that there is a vast difference between the two and there is always much room for improvement.
There is the issue at hand, namely abortion which world wide can add up probably more than a hundred million and about 40 million in the US alone since Roe vs. Wade. The protection of this piece of bad legislative judgment has been a litmus test for the Democrat Party ever since. And last night it was the Republicans who got the Stupak Amendment passed not the Democrats.
Besides abortion there is socialism and the socialistic leanings of the Democrat Party. I believe the number dead for this failed view of life is over 100 million in the 20th century. The greatest killer of all, Mao, is a favorite of a high profile member of the Obama administration. Mr. Winters and any sympathizers with socialism should watch the movie ''The Lives of Others'' to get a small glimpse of what socialism will eventually do to a society besides killing them in large numbers. Socialism is a defective system that must eventually control nearly aspect of your lives to survive.
Malaria was a disease that was getting under control till the environmentalist got hold of it and there are probably 30 million dead because of environmental decisions that restricted insecticide use in malarial ridden areas of the world. Rachel Carson is a patron saint of the Democrat Party. Then there is the revolution in sexual attitudes. How many dead can be attributed to AIDS and how many teenagers and young adults now have STD's because of these attitudes fostered by the left and the Democrat Party.
But to me an equally big moral crime is what the Democrat party has done to African Americans since the 1930's. The illegitimacy rate within this community was about at the national average in the early 1930's till the Democrat Party started with aggressive social action programs which seemed to affect this community the most. They doubled/tripled down with the War on Poverty or Great Society till the average illegitimacy rate is now around 70% with all its dysfunctional effects.
And we are about to double down again to make us even more dependent upon the government. And when the inevitable dysfunctionality arrives, will we abandon the madness or end up like East Germany but with no United States on the other side of the Wall. Mr. Winters likes to tout Catholic Social Action and how this vote in Congress is pro Catholic. Well I do not see anything in all this government control and coercive legislation that is virtuous at all. If anything we are giving up our responsibilities as Catholics for positive social action to a secularized coercive institution. Doesn't Mr. Winters ever think that the purpose of Catholic Social Action is not the establishment of an ''heaven on earth'' but as a means for Catholics to earn Heaven. Sometimes I find that many Catholics have forgotten what we are here for. Or do they really believe it. I also find it ironic that the policies of a political party which supports free enterprise and liberty has done more to ease the misery of life on this planet than the party that wants to control your every move to achieve equality. From the start of this movement of equality in the French Revolution, a prime target of this ideology has been the Catholic Church. Does Mr. Winters think it will be any different in the future and here we have many Catholics championing this toxic philosophy. I guess out of compassion but the end result has not been compassionate.
Now these words are not meant to be conciliatory but everyone should realize that opposition to this grab for power by the government is not looked upon by many as the passions of a compassionate governing body but in reality as a means to an end. And end which most of the country does not want and fears is not compassionate at all. If the current ruling party were truly compassionate they would have taken a completely different tack. But they are showing their true stripes by the approach they have taken. Attempting to ram down our throats a piece of legislation most don't want and few even know what the details are let alone the potential secondary and tertiary effects. Does Mr. Winters believe the Democrat Party will not eventually find a way to get abortion funded.
Yes, the Democrat Party is the Party of Death.
It will likely become so big that it will split into two parties, while the GOP whithers away. I'd like to think that one of the branches will be both progressive and Catholic, having the courage to undo the problem of illegitimacy in the black community by overturning the harsh drug laws that seem to be designed to incarcerate black men (note that Jesse Helms was the patron saint of mandatory minimums) and restrictions on welfare that prevented payment of benefits to families with a man in the home. These were not provisions that were put in by liberal Democrats. The conservatives insisted on them. Hopefully the new party will purge the law of such anti-family provisions.