REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Birth Control Debate: Why Catholic Bishops Have Lost Control On U.S. Politics--And Their Flock

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 07:05
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Monday, February 13, 2012 6:08 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

The Vatican’s timing was ironic. While Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. were trying to revive their moral and political clout last week by battling President Obama over contraception coverage and religious liberty, a papally endorsed symposium was underway in Rome on how the Church has to change if it wants to prevent sexual abuse crises, the very tragedy that has shriveled the stature of Catholic prelates worldwide over the past decade, especially in the U.S. One monsignor at the Vatican gathering even suggested the hierarchy had been guilty of “omertà,” the Mafia code of silence, by protecting abusive priests.

The Roman forum was a reminder—and the birth control clash is turning out to be one as well — of just how much influence the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has lost in the 10 years since the abuse crisis erupted in America. It hopes that its protest of a new federal rule requiring religiously affiliated institutions like Catholic hospitals and universities to provide no-cost contraception in their health insurance coverage, even if church doctrine forbids birth control, will help restore the bishops’ relevance. They did win a partial victory last Friday when Obama, acknowledging the uproar, said those institutions would no longer have to pay for the contraception coverage themselves. But the President did not fully genuflect: The compromise will still oblige religious-based employers to offer the coverage, while their insurance providers foot the bill.

Although major Catholic groups like Catholic Charities and Catholic Health Services accepted that revision, the bishops are holding out for more. But their crusade to be exempted from the mandate is likely to fall short of its grail. If so, it’s because Obama read the Catholic flock better than its shepherds did.

Granted, the bishops, led by New York Archbishop and Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan, did get the White House to acknowledge how high-handedly and ham-handedly it had managed the contraception debate—confirming along the way the public’s wariness of the so-called liberal elite—and convinced it to craft a deal that should have been policy in the first place. Yet in his refusal to cave completely to the religious liberty campaign, Obama has illustrated the reality that the bishops no longer speak for most U.S. Catholics—the nation’s largest religious denomination and a critical swing-voter group—on a host of moral issues, according to polls.

Not on abortion or the death penalty (a majority of Catholics believe those should remain legal); on divorce or homosexuality (most say those are acceptable); on women being ordained as priests and priests getting married (ditto); or on masturbation and pre-marital sex (ditto again, Your Excellencies).

And especially not on contraception. Ever since Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Church’s senseless ban on birth control in 1968, few doctrines have been as vilified, ridiculed and outright ignored by Catholics – evidenced by a recent study showing that 98% of American Catholic women have used some form of contraception. It’s hard to believe, as the bishops would have it, that those women simply succumbed to society’s pressure to do the secular thing. They’ve decided, in keeping with their faith’s precept of exercising personal conscience, that family planning is the moral and societally responsible thing to do—for example, preventing unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions. And it explains why a recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found most Catholics support the contraception coverage mandate even for Catholic-affiliated organizations. Presumably most endorse Friday’s compromise.

Far more Evangelical Protestants, according to the PRRI survey, back the bishops than Catholics do. But that hardly makes the bishops, when it comes to the more independent Catholic vote, the same force to be reckoned with that they were in the 20th century. That is, before 2002 and the horror stories of how prelates like Cardinal Bernard Law, then Boston’s archbishop, had serially shielded alleged pedophile priests. It’s true that some bishops, like Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, confronted rather than coddled accused priests. But when it became clear that so many of the men in miters cared more about safeguarding the clerical corporation than about protecting kids, episcopal “authority” vanished like so much incense smoke—and Catholics increasingly abandoned the 2,000-year-old notion that their church and their religion are the same thing.

That’s essentially what Catholics like me are asking for, especially from my colleagues in the media, during episodes like the contraception and religious liberty fracas: Stop equating what the bishops say with what we think, because we’re not the obedient, monolithic bloc that newspapers and cable news networks so tiresomely insist is in “jeopardy” for this or that party whenever they smell church-state friction. When a hardline U.S. bishop calls for withholding communion from a Catholic politician who supports legalized abortion, stop assuming all Catholics have the prelate’s back rather than the pol’s. When Catholic politicians draft legislation like the religious liberty bills popping up on Capitol Hill right now, stop accepting their assertion that the birth-control ban is “a major tenet” of Catholic faith, as Florida Senator Marco Rubio called it this month. For the vast majority of Catholics, it isn’t.

And for that matter, stop forgetting that in the 2008 election, 54% of Catholic voters ignored their bishops and backed a pro-choice presidential candidate like Obama. I certainly don’t point that out as some kind of endorsement of Obama in 2012. I’m simply noting that pundits and politicians need smarter criteria for gauging the Catholic vote—just as advisers in Obama’s White House shouldn’t have been so clueless about religious issues when they first decreed the contraception mandate. If the tragedy of the 2002 abuse crisis reminds us of anything, it’s that religion does matter in politics. Just ask the church leaders who are still paying a political price for their religious code of silence. http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/13/birth-control-debate-why-catholic
-bishops-have-lost-their-grip-on-u-s-politics-and-their-flock/

That's pretty much how I see it, except for the fact that the contraception thing came into being almost a year ago and has only now become a political football. Is that what this is then? An attempt to re-assert the Church's power? If, so, I think it will fail.

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Monday, February 13, 2012 6:22 AM

HERO


This whole issue was headed fairly well by the Church. The real problem, besides the policy, was that the response was completely fumbled by the White House.

Instead of a simple disagreement on the details of a policy, something that could be resolved over time, you had a hard line stance, no compromise, an direct attack on Free Speech to go along with a broader attack on religion, then a compromise that does nothing to resolve the issue.

Now the Republicans have their wedge issue that then broadens into the debate they were hoping to have on Obama's overreaching health care plan.

Very bad week for Obama, one that will likely be felt heading into November.

H
H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Monday, February 13, 2012 6:35 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
Now the Republicans have their wedge issue that then broadens into the debate they were hoping to have on Obama's overreaching health care plan.

Start with the assumption that ObamaCare is repealed, in its entirety, tomorrow. The day after tomorrow Abdul Hussain, owner and CEO of a large private firm with 5,000 employees, announces that his firm will no longer offer employees health insurance that permits women to visit male doctors or male employees to be treated by female doctors. This is a newsworthy event. Will the Roman Catholic Bishops and Congressional Republicans stand up for Hussain's "freedom of religion" in this case?

I'm going to guess no. The Muslim employer who – speaking purely hypothetically – wants to impose de facto sharia law on Muslim and non-Muslim employees alike will get no support.

Conservatives don't like the Affordable Care Act and are sympathetic on the merits to the claims of those who think contraceptives are morally wrong, so in this particular case the principle of "freedom of religion" seems appealing to them. But they will not endorse the general principle being invoked here.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:02 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Quote:

Originally posted by two:
Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
Now the Republicans have their wedge issue that then broadens into the debate they were hoping to have on Obama's overreaching health care plan.

Start with the assumption that ObamaCare is repealed, in its entirety, tomorrow. The day after tomorrow Abdul Hussain, owner and CEO of a large private firm with 5,000 employees, announces that his firm will no longer offer employees health insurance that permits women to visit male doctors or male employees to be treated by female doctors. This is a newsworthy event. Will the Roman Catholic Bishops and Congressional Republicans stand up for Hussain's "freedom of religion" in this case?

I'm going to guess no. The Muslim employer who – speaking purely hypothetically – wants to impose de facto sharia law on Muslim and non-Muslim employees alike will get no support.

Conservatives don't like the Affordable Care Act and are sympathetic on the merits to the claims of those who think contraceptives are morally wrong, so in this particular case the principle of "freedom of religion" seems appealing to them. But they will not endorse the general principle being invoked here.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two






Hello,

This is a poignant example and food for thought.

--Anthony



_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner


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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:07 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

This is a poignant example and food for thought.

--Anthony

It is also a strategy to hit the Republicans below the belt, if the Whitehouse has the guts to fight like the Republicans do for what they believe in. Rather than use the hypothetical Muslim CEO imposing sharia law on his non-Muslim employees, the Whitehouse could use a hypothetical Buddhist CEO who wants to raise the co-payment for health insurance on all employees that eat meat. Why should the Buddhist CEO's "freedom of religion" be limited by law?

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:08 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I agree. The dichotomy of protecting "our religion", as in not only just Christian religions but THE "Christian religion" (Catholic) is easy for any who aren't blinded by their own prejudices, but rarely gets attention. This whole debate about contraception completely leaves out the rights of those working for hospitals, universities, etc., who are NOT Catholic...what about their rights?

Yup, it truly IS just a wedge issue, but hard-core conservatives and The Church will argue until the cows come home about THEIR religion's rights.



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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:43 AM

STORYMARK


Sure, it's a wedge issue, but not between the right and left, or even between religious and non-religious - it's between the hard right and the really, really hard right.

Meanwhile, a VAST majority of Catholic women approve of birth control. But then - what women think is rarely given much weight in such discussions.

http://news.yahoo.com/98-catholic-women-used-contraception-church-oppo
ses-201936745.html


"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:52 AM

FREMDFIRMA



IMHO, the very moment that any Religion uses force or manipulation to strip another being of their human rights it's all academic cause they lose all legitimacy in my eyes - in fact, as I have mentioned, my own beliefs strongly encourage the assassination of such people, specifically by strangulation, and as there is no taboo against cannibalism either, theoretically I could eat them, too.

I don't exactly hold with that particular bit of the Vajrayana, but character assassination certainly, not that they have any worth offing if ya ask me...

As I mentioned before, forcing ones religious tenets upon others via law, society, or other means amounts to moral rape, and yet we let these scumbags get away with it - and I'll have none of it, freedom OF religion should also mean freedom FROM religion, should it not ?

Anyhow, the moment anyone tries to force their religion/morality on another, is the moment in my eyes where they lose any right to be considered a human being, I really do feel that strongly about it.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Monday, February 13, 2012 9:28 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

IMHO, the very moment that any Religion uses force or manipulation to strip another being of their human rights it's all academic cause they lose all legitimacy in my eyes. . .

The thing most politically damaging for the Republicans is the funding this will give Santorum:
Quote:

Obama’s greatest skill is in getting his opponents to overreach and self-destruct. And this issue could not be more tailor-made to benefit the candidate with real potential pull with far-right-wing Catholics and evangelicals: Santorum. If the GOP really makes this issue central in the next month or so, Santorum (whose campaign claims to have raised $2.2 million in the two days following his victories last week) is by far the likeliest candidate to benefit. It could finally unite the Christian fundamentalist right behind him—especially since Romneycare contained exactly the same provisions on contraception that Obamacare did before last week’s compromise was announced.

That’s right: Romneycare can now accurately be portrayed as falling to the left of Obamacare on the contraception issue. This could very well be the issue that finally galvanizes the religious right, especially in the South. Imagine how Santorum could use that on Super Tuesday. In fact, it could be the issue that wins him the nomination. And do you really think that would hurt Obama in the fall? www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/12/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-se
t-a-contraception-trap-for-the-right.html



The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, February 13, 2012 9:42 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


ssshhhh... since Obama is going to win easy none of this stuff regarding "how it effects Republicans" matters EXCEPT to CNN, etc - they have months of commercial slots to sell so they have to make it seem close.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Monday, February 13, 2012 4:51 PM

HERO


Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:

This is a poignant example and food for thought.



Not really. Private businesses play by different rules the religious institutions. only way the example holds water is if he business does o interstate commerce.

The govt can't dictate the tenets of faith or the practice thereof.

I note for the record that Muslims owned businesses before Obama's health plan. How did women ever survive?

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Monday, February 13, 2012 4:56 PM

HERO


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
This whole debate about contraception completely leaves out the rights of those working for hospitals, universities, etc., who are NOT Catholic...what about their rights?



You mean their right to work somewhere else if their conscience dictates?

No, you mean their right to ObamsFaith. ObamsFaith, the govt religion. They write e tenets, the values, the practices and you are required to be a member or be fined.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Monday, February 13, 2012 6:45 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Wondering which types of birth control are covered, are we talking about what I call preventative controception, what you do to keep the egg from getting fertilized, like the regular pill? Or are we talking morning after type stuff. Just wondering.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, February 13, 2012 7:51 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:

This is a poignant example and food for thought.



Not really. Private businesses play by different rules the religious institutions. only way the example holds water is if he business does o interstate commerce.

The govt can't dictate the tenets of faith or the practice thereof.

I note for the record that Muslims owned businesses before Obama's health plan. How did women ever survive?

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.




So are you saying that Cedars-Sinai Hospital is a RELIGIOUS institution? Is Methodist Hospital in Dallas a RELIGIOUS institution?

If so, we must immediately cut all government funding to all such institutions, in the interests of separation of church and state.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:16 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
So are you saying that Cedars-Sinai Hospital is a RELIGIOUS institution? Is Methodist Hospital in Dallas a RELIGIOUS institution?

It has gone beyond religion because your boss's "moral convictions" are also important:
The Republican Plan to Let Your Boss Control Your Life
by Kevin Drum http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/republican-plan-let-your-bos
s-control-your-life

Adam Serwer reports today on the latest GOP attempt to make hay out of the contraception controversy. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has introduced an amendment to Obamacare that would allow any employer or other healthcare provider to refrain from covering any medical service that is "contrary to the provider's religious beliefs or moral convictions":

If Republican leaders get their way and Blunt's bill becomes law, a boss who regarded overweight people and smokers with moral disgust could exclude coverage of obesity and tobacco screening from his employees' health plans. A Scientologist employer could deny its employees depression screening because Scientologists believe psychiatry is morally objectionable. A management team that thought HIV victims brought the disease upon themselves could excise HIV screening from its employees' insurance coverage. Your boss' personal prejudices, not science or medical expertise, would determine which procedures your insurance would cover for you and your kids.

This bill isn't going to pass, of course. As with most Republican legislation these days, it's designed to prove to the true-believer wing of the party that their representatives in Congress are true believers too. The clown show in Washington DC continues apace.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:22 AM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:

No, you mean their right to ObamsFaith. ObamsFaith, the govt religion. They write e tenets, the values, the practices and you are required to be a member or be fined.




I love how you right wing zealots insist on equating a refusal to bend to the will of a religous group (and not even its members) with actual religion.



"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 8:10 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



This entire issue is nothing more than a phony election year ploy, by Obama, contrived to secure the votes of women. Contraception is legal & widely available, but the Dems want to scare women voters into thinking the GOP want to take contraception away, which is absurd. By arbitrarily making birth control an " entitlement ", which it is not, the Left is once again using scare tactics to stay in power.

It will fail.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:02 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Pizmo: Right on, unfortunately. Much ado about nothing, in the minds of the VAST majority of Americans; a cause to be championed by the far right and religious leaders, who apparently are quite happy to ignore their followers completely.

As to making contraception illegal, it's being attempted right now:
Quote:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich acknowledged on Thursday that his support for a “fetal personhood” constitutional amendment would make some forms of birth control illegal.

The New York Times determined that a similar plan in Mississippi to declare a fertilized egg a legal person, also promoted by Personhood USA, would have banned some forms of birth control like IUDs and morning-after pills. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/15/gingrich-post-conception-birth-c
ontrol-should-be-illegal/
on Monday that he believes states should have the right to outlaw birth control and sodomy without the interference of the Supreme Court.

In an interview with Jake Tapper on ABC News, Santorum reiterated his opposition to the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling that prevented Connecticut from banning contraception.

“The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that," he said. "It is not a constitutional right." http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:laxCww1tUGwJ:www.
outsidethebeltway.com/rick-santorum-favors-making-birth-control-illegal/+would+make+contraception+illegal&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea ... Many in the Christian faith have said, 'Well, that's okay ... contraception's okay.'

It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/2012/01/rick-santorum-the-dangers-o
f-contraception-in-this-country.html
essentiall contradicted himself when called on it by saying
Quote:

the idea I’m coming after your birth control is absurd. I was making a statement about my moral beliefs, but I won’t impose them on anyone else in this case. http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/no-santorum-is-not-co
ming-for-your-birth-control/
, his saying states have the right to make contraception illegal, and backing the Mississippi "personhood" law are a dichotomy. He IS backing making contraception illegal, since that's what the proposed Mississippi law does, specifically.

And, as they have been doing with abortion,
Quote:

If Christian Right activists can ensure that pharmacists don’t have to provide access to contraceptives, this will open the door to putting pressure on pharmacists to refuse to provide contraceptives no matter what they think. The situation for contraceptives would be analogous to the current one for abortion: legal, but providers labor under intense pressure to get out of the business. The Christian Right may not be able to make birth control illegal, but they may could make it unavailable. http://atheism.about.com/od/abortioncontraception/p/BirthControl.htm law they tried to pass in Mississippi would make some birth control methods, including IUDs, illegal, period.
Quote:

...might "even open the door to investigating women who have suffered miscarriages." http://gothamist.com/2011/10/26/latest_threat_to_womens_right_to_ch.ph
p
don't kid yourself that the far right isn't trying to make birth control illegal...they already ARE, and will try to find more ways to do so. Each step they take which succeeds will be followed by other states following them, and more stringent laws, if they have their way.

The far right DEFINITELY wants to make birth control illegal; one of their candidates is close to it, Santorum is very clear that if he had his way, birth control WOULD be illegal. There can be no argument as to whether they not only want it, but are working toward it right now. Hopefully they can be stopped, but their intent is quite obvious.

As to it being a phony election-year ploy, of course it is in some respects. The Republican candidates have latched onto it to pander to their far-right base, but that is NO guarantee what they would do if they were to get into power. All this has already EXISTED since April of 2011, so why is it suddenly the right's raison d'etre, if not to use it against Obama?

Mississippi already tried. End of story.



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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:54 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Niki

This is a 100% phony issue, either collaborated between George Stephanopoulos and the Obama admin, or fully picked up on by the administration, after George's bizarre and out of left field ( literally ) question to Mitt Romney, about state's rights and contraception.

No one on the Right was promoting making birth control illegal, and there is no basis by which FREE goodies should be given out, as a entitlement, to women. It's meddling, in the worst and most divisive, unnecessary way imaginable, but that's what the Left wing does.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 6:44 AM

BLUEHANDEDMENACE


Fair warning Niki, dont drink anything while reading this....

AURaptor, I need your help.

I would like you to train me in the ability to ignore facts that are presented to me. I must admit, you are the master of this ability, and I would humbly beg that you share your secrets with me.

How can I learn to blatantly ignore what I read, in order to further my own point?

I have tried this in the past, but my brain keeps running into this train coming the other direction, called logic. How do I learn to ignore such signals from my brain, when it cries out for facts, how do I tell it "No, be quiet, this is what you believe?"

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 6:44 AM

BLUEHANDEDMENACE


Seriously, does the AU stand for Alternate Universe?

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 7:05 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Whew; thanx for the warning! I'd have had a keyboard full of V8 otherwise...and that stuff is DAMNED hard to remove! Obviously you get the prize for the first AND second guffaw of the morning. Alternative Universe...got to remember that one!

Excellent. Amazing talent, isn't it?

The fact that it couldn't BE an issue unless the "other side" made it one is funnier than hell. Is the implicatio that those on the right are SO stupid that they will bite on anything put out there for them to nibble on? That's not much of a statement, for an ultra-rightie.

And how does that square with the fact that this has been OUT THERE since April 2011??

Oh, sorry. I was asking questions containing logic, wasn't I? I'll shut up now...



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