In Mocking Santorum, Eugene Robinson Reveals A Sickness in Our Society
Here we go again. Eugene Robinson went on Rachel Maddow to mock Rick Santorum for taking his deceased child home to meet its siblings:
Not everybody is not going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child, whose body they took home to kind of sleep with and introduce it to the rest of the family. It’s a very weird story.
I’m not sure why this recurring story makes me so angry. But I can venture a few guesses.
It could be because I know someone whose child was stillborn, and she did something very similar: she invited friends to come see her baby and see how beautiful the baby was. This was someone who had trouble getting pregnant, and the blow was very difficult for her. (She later became pregnant again and had an absolutely beautiful daughter.) How could anyone second-guess the decisions she made while in such emotional pain?
It could be because my wife miscarried twice in the last two years — and my sister recently tried IVF and it failed. My wife and I have two beautiful children, and my sister has a wonderful son — and I know none of us will ever be sad about the blessings of our life. But after my wife and I lost the last baby — a pregnancy that really looked like it was going to take — a friend wrote that she thought “all 4 of your sweet babies” would always have a “special place in your hearts.” And she was right. How can Eugene Robinson know our feelings for our unborn children?
It could be because, increasingly, it seems that those in public life — especially Republicans — are seen as fair game for criticism of their most intimate decisions. Sarah Palin has a Down’s Syndrome child and is mocked. Rick Santorum brings home his child that died hours after his birth, and is mocked.
First, let’s dispense with the idea that this is objectively bizarre behavior. Allahpundit links advice from the American Pregnancy Association for parents of stillborn children — a situation very much like Santorum’s, whose child died after two hours of life:
After the tests are completed, you will usually have the choice to spend time alone with your baby. You can find comfort in looking at, touching, and talking to your baby. Most parents find it helpful to make memories of this precious time that will last a lifetime…
With the loss of your baby, your family members will also grieve. Your baby is someone’s granddaughter, brother, cousin, nephew or sister. It is important for your family members to spend time with the baby. This will help them come to terms with their loss. If you have other children, it is very important to be honest with them about what has happened by using simple and honest explanations. It is your decision whether you would like the children to see the baby. Ask for a Child Life Specialist at the hospital; these are trained professionals who can help you prepare your children for the heartbreaking news, and prepare them to see the baby if you wish.
So, not only it is not “weird” behavior, it is recommended behavior that helps the other children deal with the loss. If you haven’t yet read the sentiments recently expressed by my commenter Leviticus, they are worth a read:
Santorum’s wife gave birth to a child. When she did (and, to my mind, even before she did), Santorum’s other children had a baby brother.
When that baby died, the other children lost their baby brother. What were the Santorums to do? Pretend that the other children never had a baby brother? No. The kids might not have understood at the time, but they would eventually; and, young as they were, they had a stake in the matter, a right to know.
The alternative – the only really acceptable alternative – was to tell them that a child had lived and breathed as their brother, to memorialize him. But it would be difficult to communicate that message to young child with mere words. So, they brought his body home; the words became unnecessary.
Those children will always remember their brother; and thoughts of the mystery, sanctity, tragedy, and brevity of human life will be indelibly stamped on their consciousness – a trait sorely lacking in many modern men and women. What bothers the most calloused members of the pro-choice crowd is the intuitive (though ever unacknowledged) realization that some people really do feel love for a child that they don’t know, for the “simple” reason that it was their own, however briefly – that some people really do respect and realize how sacred that bond is, and that they… don’t.
But the problem is not just that some leftists can’t understand the love that some people feel for their unborn children — or for their children who (like Sarah Palin’s son Trig) were born with disabilities. What really infuriates is the contempt they show for parents who make different choices than they would . . . and the smug arrogance with which they pronounce judgment on the most intimate aspects of others’ private lives.
What Robinson has done, and what Colmes did the other day, is indecent. These men would never say such a thing to Santorum’s face. (Or maybe they would — which is possibly even worse.) What sickness has invaded our body politic that people feel free, not only to act the cretin, but to do so on national television while sporting insufferable, supercilious, self-satisfied smirks like those we have seen on the mugs of Colmes and Robinson in recent days?
In short: how dare they? How dare they?!
There is something wrong with a system that expects people to undergo such indignities to attain high office. I’m not a fan of Rick Santorum as a candidate, but the treatment he has received in recent days regarding an intensely personal decision is a disgrace.
UPDATE: Similar thoughts from Peter Wehner via the Hot Air post above and Instapundit.
UPDATE x2: Thanks to Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Mark Levin for the links.
How can Eugene Robinson know our feelings for our unborn children?
— Well, he IS a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Perhaps we all should aspire to one day be as lofty as he.
Icy (e6ad7f) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:49 pmI think this is a thing already … a thing where they’ve done polling and they’ve learned that this story is a very effective on as far as painting Santorum and Team R by extension as being a bunch of weirdos.
Yup they’re doing this cause it works I think, and Robinson is just following orders.
I noticed this from listening to people this morning who were talking about it, how genuinely effective this story is at making people say omg what a weirdo. A lot cause it surprises them, and in their surprise they don’t reflect.
What I think personally in my head is that Santorum is a lightning rod for interminable discussions/attacks along these lines, and it’s most certainly not the hill Team R wants to fight 2012 on.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:50 pma very effective *one* I mean
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:50 pmThey are just vile people.
JD (392f2d) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:52 pmThey are SCUM. So sorry to hear about your troubles, Patterico, I understand too exactly. I’d try very hard to just walk away from such a remark directed at me, but I might just do that through the blood splatter from his nose.
htom (412a17) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:52 pmYes, the discourse is much, MUCH more civil these days.
Icy (e6ad7f) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:55 pminnumerable *and* interminable is what I think I meant there
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:55 pmRobinson does have a way of ‘dialing up to eleven’
narciso (87e966) — 1/5/2012 @ 7:58 pmfrom the mere stupidity which his the coin to get on Morning Joke, to pure vicious ness,
___________________________________________
Eugene Robinson went on Rachel Maddow to mock Rick Santorum for taking his deceased child home to meet its siblings:
I was talking with a big-time liberal awhile back, who also happens to be black. I noted how pervasive left-leaning bias is in the black community, citing figures that indicate it is as high as 90 percent. I asked the guy if all that liberalism has made the African-American community more compassionate, more decent, more stable, more sensible, more humane, more generous, more educated. He looked at me in kind of a nonplussed manner.
However, one specific reply to the question is to point out all the ongoing problems with various forms of socio-economic dysfunction — including some of the most cruel, unkind and harsh (or rowdy) behavior on display in today’s society — evident in far too much of black America. The kind of behavior where teachers in public schools with a predominantly black student body are known to suffer from battle fatigue.
Liberalism doesn’t mean a damn thing in the level of a person’s or community’s goodness, kindness and generosity. Or perhaps I should say it most ironically appears to trigger just the opposite of what one many assume will be a cause-and-effect dynamic.
Mark (411533) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:04 pmTo those of us who have lost babies, whether by miscarriage or after their birth, this is reprehensible slap in the face and simply beyond the pale. I take it very personally.
What a blunt and hurtful reminder that this rabid arrogance and indecency is the beating heart of the left. We who value life in all its stages can never forget the gulf that separates. And this is political – the R’s are indeed fair game. When was the last time any of us ever heard/read of a D being mocked and criticized for their response to their walk of grief?
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:10 pmRighteous post, Patterico. A harangue that just makes sense if ever one did.
Dana’s right. This is about making some people ‘fair game’.
I know some lefties who wouldn’t do this, but by and large, they seem to let their own treat the right as fair game for all kinds of pain.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:13 pmPat: you have it backwards. They’re not opposed to the underlying decision (whether Santorum’s or Palin’s), they’re opposed to the person who made that decision.
The last thing a liberal can stand is for a non-liberal to be accepted by the general public, and in particular, the public whose votes are up for grabs. Thus, they scramble to come up with something with which to twist in some way to portray the non-liberal as defective in some critical area (largely to avoid having to debate the opposition on the merits of their proposals, a battle they know they’d lose).
And the easiest things to twist are situations which are relatively rare… like the situation involving Santorum’s baby. Rare makes it easier to depict the act as weird and the person making the decision as outside the mainstream (and therefore not to be trusted with something as important as the Presidency). They’re like some demented beautician… they can take something that is actually nice and twist and turn it into something that seems perverse. And they don’t worry about the media coming down on them for having done so.
If it wasn’t this, it would be something else that Santorum has done or said.
steve (254463) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:14 pmI try not to read Robinson’s columns, as I usually can’t even begin to see his alternative reality.
Palin was hit with many things, baby trig was just one of a flood. Lest anyone thought the Dems became more civilized in the last 4 years, this is a prelude of things to come.
One should remember that Santorum lost his last election in PA to a candidate who stood for Pro-Life Dems, “Santorum-Lite” to turn the description around. He did not lose to someone who would ridicule him. The Dems outside of PA probably are not thinking about this.
No matter how “ill-prepared” any of these folks may be, Obama makes a very, very low bar to hurdle. I know that history as recent as George HW Bush teaches us that just because one conflict is over it is not time to reduce the military, forget the lessons after other wars. I know that what Obama proposed today makes no sense for national security, and makes no cents to help balance the budget. If Obama has his way there will be no US Navy to help with tsunami relief, or to protect shipping against pirates, or hostile governments like Iran.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:15 pmAnd don’t bow to foreign leaders, stick up for your friends, make your enemies respect you at least, if not fear you. There, I am better prepared to run US foreign policy. Anyone else should be able to do much better also, except Ron Paul who is stuck in a time period prior to Jefferson sending the marines to Libya in his day.
Someone should ask our vice-president how he feels about this.
Icy (e6ad7f) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:19 pmSome trolls don’t mind that you know they are trolls. Perhaps the nametag should read
Kevin M (563f77) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:19 pmThey’re not opposed to the underlying decision (whether Santorum’s or Palin’s), they’re opposed to the person who made that decision.
I agree to some extent.
I think the really sick thing is they don’t really care that Santorum did this. If one of their friends did it, they would understand.
It’s that they want to use the death of Santorum’s child to hurt Santorum politically. The same with Palin. They wanted to use the most hurtful thing against Palin they could, and that was to go after Trig.
It’s much more despicable than actually caring about what Santorum did.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:21 pmThey may be surprised to find out that losing a child during pregnancy or birth is more common than they realize, results in far more grieving than they realize, and more people will wonder how sick they are than they realize.
feets, as steve said, the reason Santorum is a lightening rod is because he has an R after his name. If it is not this, it will be one of another zillion things, most of them made up.
I think the Dems are assuming the R will be Romney and are saving their barrage against him until the day after the nominating convention.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:22 pmWhat I think personally in my head is that Santorum is a lightning rod for interminable discussions/attacks along these lines, and it’s most certainly not the hill Team R wants to fight 2012 on.
happs, I really can’t abide by blaming Santorum for drawing this hatred upon himself by having his child die.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:22 pmYeah, Kevin, I think you’re right.
He knew about the outrage Colmes got and learned the wrong lesson. He wants to show us and his rabid MSNBC crowd that he can really get his hands dirty being awful to social conservatives.
He might as well be one of those beandogs on twitter trolling with an eye for actual emotional hurt.
Rick Santorum’s kids and wife are not running for president, and this has to hurt them. They are human beings, and I bet they’d rather be celebrating Rick’s triumph recently and are instead suffering with these attacks on the dignity of their family.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:23 pmTwo relevant quotes:
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
“As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.”
The answer to the first question is, of course, no. Because as is well known, “love means never have to say you’re sorry.” And liberals love themselves.
Do these people have any children of their own?
great unknown (f6d6d1) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:23 pmMaybee, you may be partially correct, but I bet some of these people really don’t “get it”, even if it was a friend. If one supports partial birth abortion the concept of child-in-utero being a loved member of the family is likely outside of one’s usual thought, I would think.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:26 pmConsider this example by Sally Quinn, whose son has a learning disability, and lets be blunt about it,
‘networked’ her way up the Post organization
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2009/07/13/washington-posts-sally-quinn-defends-scathing-palin-column
narciso (87e966) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:28 pmWhat’s so awful is they didn’t care about Trig Palin, the innocent baby and they don’t care about Gabriel who was so loved in his short time here. Why they cannot even bring themselves to use his name because both babies are a nothing to them – just blobs to be used as convenient tools for their viciousness.
They are cold, ruthless, and their hearts are beating blackness. (Yeah, Robinson, you heard me).
Those who are strong abortion proponents in the MSM certainly confirm to us their stunted ability to value human life.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:30 pmLike Antracite, or Obsidian, then again it befits their almost bloodless, unempathetic standard bearer, and many of his minions, like the Health
narciso (87e966) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:38 pmCare Czar, the Science CZar et al.
(Note, tongue in cheek wit to follow, nothing patronizing intended)
Dustin, Dustin, Dustin my friend (visualize my putting my arm around your shoulder, like an older man to his soon to be adult grandson)-
What does it matter if they are human beings and not running for office? You see, this is their way of getting a head start and minimizing the number of good candidates next election cycle already- like shooting down that Daniels guy before he ever got in the race. They need to make sure that any candidate with an R has to be so power hungry they will sacrifice their family on their alter of ambition, or they will need to have a really, really, solid, supportive, brave, and tough family to weather the storm- and those are few and far between.
Politics is war, you see. It’s not about principle, or what is best for the country, it’s about Power, it’s about who wins. Ever since Sherman’s march to the sea it’s been clear that scorched earth policies are what win arguments in this here US of A.
Don’t worry, if we can make the public think a traitor like Kerry was a war hero, that a gov. with an 80% approval rating was an idiot, and it doesn’t matter if your friends tried to blow up and kill people in protest and your pastor preaches GD America, why, do you think it matters what these Sanatorium people think??
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:42 pmI know it’s worthy of the Screwtape letters, isn’t it, what was the last part of that Yeats line;
narciso (87e966) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:47 pm‘the worst are filled with passionate intensity’
Dana, great point about Gabriel’s name. I admit I didn’t even know it.
They are human beings who have twisted themselves all the way to thinking this is the right thing to do, spitting on a family’s dignity because Rick Santorum is oh so wrong about something or other.
They are simply brainwashed / brainwashing into what I believe is actually fear of Republicans. Do they ham it up for the camera? Yes, and ruthlessly with calculation, but these people think they are justified because they are totally convinced people like Sarah Palin are something they aren’t.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:48 pmWhen ol Eugene was born the doctor took one look at his mother and jumped out the window of the 15th floor.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:49 pmWhat was Maddow’s reaction? Did she have one? Did she concur?
Cassandra (104e96) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:50 pmRobinson was just channeling Milhouse.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:51 pmMD, it makes me sad to think about how right you are. The price for being a republican presidential candidate is just too high for any reasonable person to be willing to pay unless they basically have no loved ones.
And this is exactly why Daniels knew better. It’s why a lot of us will muse ‘why in the hell did so and so stay in the House? he should run for President!’ No, they shouldn’t.
This country doesn’t deserve any better than the government it’s getting right now, if it is going to tolerate this. It’s been like this for years, now.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:51 pmnarc- thanks for reminding me about that article.
MD- you may be right that they wouldn’t understand if it were their friend, but they they wouldn’t be talking about the creepiness in public.
happs- you know I adore you.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:54 pmSomething really did get unscrewed in my brain somewhere along the way and I just am totally naive about this. I actually find the idea of political leaders and major pundits being good, decent patriotic folks completely realistic, even though that is completely unrealistic if I force myself to figure how that would come about.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:55 pmYou can click the image in the post and watch the video. It was basically a nonreaction.
Patterico (d508e7) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:58 pmMeanwhile, as Rick Perry would say, ‘Oops!’:
Iowa Caucus 2012 Results: Vote-Counter Says Mistake Gave Mitt Romney 20 Extra Votes
WINDHAM, N.H. — Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said he was “not surprised to hear” that the vote total for ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may have been overcounted by 20 in the final tally of Iowa caucus-goers, but both he and his campaign were declining to weigh in on the story that broke Thursday night.
Speaking to a large gathering of New Hampshire voters at Windham High School, the Pennsylvania Republican said he was unaware that a local television station in Iowa had aired a report on a potential vote count discrepancy that would alter the winner of the caucus two days ago.
The station, KCCI, reported that in Appanoose County, a vote-counter had discovered an inconsistency between the number of the 50 votes he had monitored and what the Republican Party of Iowa had recorded.
“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” said the vote-counter, Edward True, 28. “Not Mitt Romney.” A spokeswoman with the Iowa Republican Party did not immediately address True’s assertion, but stressed that he was not a precinct captain and was not authorized to discuss the vote. The 20-vote discrepancy remained, late Thursday, unconfirmed.
But by the time Santorum had left the stage, word had gotten to him and his aides that he may have been the winner of the Iowa caucus after all. Asked for reaction by the Huffington Post, he replied:
“We were ahead and they told us that 20 votes were undercounted for Romney and that’s what changed it. So, I’m not surprised to hear that. We will see what happens.” – source, hufpo, 1/5/12
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/5/2012 @ 8:59 pmPardon my vagueness, but a number of weeks ago I read somewhere what I thought was a discussion of something Buckley had written many years ago, early in his career. The claim was that in general (not exclusively) the conflict between liberalism and conservatism was a conflict between the irreligious and those of religious faith, between those caught up in the idea of what man could make himself be once freed from limitations of previous thought, and those who saw man as near-divine yet tragically fallen, who had greatness in them yet would always be their own worst enemy in need of saving.
In many ways that seems to be the case, with one problem being that many who would claim religion do not realize how much of their head and heart actually owe allegiance elsewhere. Of course there are people who are not of any particular faith who are well aware of the depravity possible in the human heart and are not under the illusion that all that stands between mankind and Utopia are some of those antiquated religious freaks of past centuries.
If one is deciding between a “religious zealot” who wants to save unborn children, and an “idealogue” who wants to reserve the option of post-birth infanticide, and one prefers infanticide, well…
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:01 pmYou know, dcsca, there is a thread on the ioqa caucus, where we are talking about that.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:02 pmDustin, you’re not totally screwed up. There are people who really do want to do what is best for the country. I think Bush was one of them, and he didn’t realize that he needed to fight back not so much on his own behalf, but on behalf of keeping “the system” honest.
One of the most condemning statements in Scripture, as far as I can tell, is when someone is described as “having forgotten how to blush”, which I guess is the divine equivalent of “have you no shame”.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:08 pmMaddow’s non-reaction was a tacit approval and agreement w/Robinson because who, if they recognize the inherent value of life, would not be compelled to push back against Robinson? At the least, to inform him that perhaps the death of a baby and the aftermath should be strictly off limits. In the name of common decency.
We all know Maddow doesn’t hesitate to speak against what she deems an injustice. Her silence said it all.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:08 pmThey seem to working on the ‘more selective’strategy, Dustin;
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2012/01/05/msnbc-adds-leftist-writer-melissa-harris-perry-its-lineup-2
On another blog, someone pointed out one of those
narciso (87e966) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:09 pmwho was laughing at Santorum behind his back was
a former denizen of Air America, where Schultz,
Maddow, and company come from
DCSCA, unable to defend the actions of liberals, cries “Look over there!”.
I wonder whether there’s a competition this week for lowest statement by a liberal and a separate prize for deflecting commentary that arises.
Chuck Bartowski (490c6f) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:09 pmHey, John Edwards lost a child once. Remember this? From campaign consultant Bob Shrum’s book “No Excuses”:
“(Kerry) was even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else — that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before — and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again.”
elissa (252cbf) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:10 pmYou nailed it. As predictable as the sun rising tomorrow.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:14 pm28- As did Colmes mother.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:17 pmelissa, I think what Kerry found chilling was that Edwards had clearly perfected some kind of ‘I’m sharing this to only you and I’ve never said it before’ crap and also that he had told it so many times he couldn’t keep track of who to.
I also want to note that the media is really killing Santorum for being racist, relying on complete BS. They are warming up that card for use in the general.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:19 pmJust think when you run out of money for the teachers unions they have the same amount of vitriol tantamount to Eugene Robinson.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:19 pm#1
You took the words from my mouth.
AZ Bob (7dbcdc) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:22 pmLurch found it chilling because it was the first indication he had that Edwards has a soul.
Icy (e6ad7f) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:29 pmI have experienced the deaths of close friends, some of whom died in combat, all my grandparents and my parents and parents in law. Those losses were difficult for me.
Last June, I lost my first grandson. His mother, my daughter, developed eclampsia in the sixth month of her pregnancy. Had she not delivered immediately, she would not have survived the day. My grandson was in the NICU for 21 days and we visited him every one of those days. He seemed to be getting stronger, but on the afternoon of the 22nd day, we were told he developed a bowel obstruction and woudn’t survive the delicate surgical procedure to correct the problem.
Our entire family (five daughters and spouses, my wife and I) gathered at my grandson’s bed — he was being kept alive on a respirator until we could see him — and after everyone said their goodbyes to him, comforted my daughter and son in law as they gave the ok to remove the respirator. It was the saddest and most emotionally draining event I have ever experienced.
This Christmas, my daughter and son in law had Christmas cards made with several pictures of my tiny premature grandson while he was in the NICU. Many who received the cards called my wife and me expressing discomfort and disapproval for what they thought were inappropriately graphic pictures of my grandson. Our answer to all was the same. That was the parents’ way of expressing their inexpressible grief of the loss of their little boy, and should be respected as such.
The Colmes and Robinson incidents reminded me again how intolerant some so-called liberals can be.
Vnjagvet (31d371) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:30 pmDustin @45 you are being too kind. In truth, we’ll never know what exactly Kerry found “chilling”–Edwards’ convenient and habitual retelling of the story –or the actual fact that he lay down next to Wade on the slab in the mortuary. If you are right in thinking that Kerry and the Dems found only his telling of it to be weird and “chilling” (not the action of lying on the slab in the funeral home) then how was Eswards’ action with his son that different in spirit from the Santorums and Gabriel? Well except that Edwards is a lefty, I mean.
elissa (252cbf) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:32 pmMayBee all I mean to say is that I think this is for reals a lot what a Santorum candidacy will look like.
I don’t know how they’ll ever get people to attack Mr. Santorum for his tax proposals or his ideas about regulating stuff.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:34 pmI agree with Mr. MD… if it is not this, it will be one of another zillion things, most of them made up.
But one of the zillion things won’t be his deficit reduction plan is all I mean to say.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:36 pmPeople who have said this have never been parents. Nor will they allow themselves to be parents.
I say good, the less the libs are breeding the better for us. Sick assholes.
Jusuchin (Military Otaku) (bec99c) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:41 pmYou’re probably right, Elissa. Chilling seems to carry more than just ‘he’s a damn lying politician’.
Not at all different. But if, say, Rush Limbaugh had mocked Edwards for that, we’d be deaf from the screaming.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:46 pmfeets, please forgive my slowness before I go to bed- do you mean that they will never get to it, or that he doesn’t have one? differentiating sarcasm from seriousness and then understanding it can be tricky. but I’ll look for your answer (later) in the morning.
Chuck and Dustin- so that’s what that was. I never picked it up.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:47 pmEugene Robinson is an African American patsy for the Chicago political machine and the Democratic Party. He enjoys wielding his Pulitzer – which has about as much veracity as Obama’s Nobel – as a weapon against conservatives and especially African American conservatives he dislikes and doesn’t understand. What Rick Santorum and his wife chose to do in a private way is something the pro-choice Robinson can’t reconcile with his belief system.
NWBill (7dcdf3) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:49 pmI mean that they’ll take the cheap shot every every time.
The last thing obama wants to discuss is deficits. Or jobs. Or energy.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:50 pmsleep good
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:50 pmfeets, there isn’t a Republican candidate who they can’t do it to. I think it largely is a wash.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:52 pmTailgunner Joe was a piker compared to the mainstream liberal pundits and politicians.
It is an absolute disgrace that there is not a single Edward r. Murrow-worshipping media type asking, “Have you no decency?” It is telling and unequivocably damning.
Ed from SFV (c65bcc) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:54 pmI don’t believe that Mr. Dustin I think Wall Street Romney is fairly… how to say? Immunized.
Sterilized.
Homogenized.
Pasteurized.
You know, like the wholesome goodness of milk.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:57 pmWhy does anyone without corroboration believe Edwards actually did lie next to his deceased child? Perhaps he did, but this is a man who netted over $50M of personal wealth by pulling emotional strings and then made a political career of saying anything to get ahead, and so he falls well below the trust-but-verify line.
Politics aside: there can be little doubt of Santorum’s sincerity regarding his family (if anything, the political criticism is that some think he wants to nationalize those beliefs). Edwards’ actions regarding his family indicate a man who should not be trusted to pump your gas.
Jeff (3a1735) — 1/5/2012 @ 9:58 pmConsidering Obama dug up the sealed divorce records of two opponents, I have to say there is nothing they won’t go after.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:04 pmHappyfeet, that’s what Mitt would deserve, but I suspect they will figure a way out to call him a racist homo and/or adulterer. It’s what they do.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:06 pmFeets, the only reason Romney is being left alone by the MSM is because he is their most-beatable Candidate of choice. Just wait till he gets the nomination. They will shred him.
Gazzer (e70d98) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:10 pm. . . and the smug arrogance with which they pronounce judgment on the most intimate aspects of others’ private lives.
Too many social conservatives adopt this same pose of smug arrogance when damning homosexuals and women who choose to have abortions. Everyone should respect the most intimate aspects of others’ private lives.
Observer (f499dd) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:11 pm== I have to say there is nothing they won’t go after==
Heh, Maybee. You are probably right. But I think they (Axelrod) may be a leettle reluctant to go after anyone’s birth certificate!
elissa (252cbf) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:13 pmMonstrous as the subject of this post is, Patterico, thank you for writing it. I think that folks should fill this man and his boss’ mailbox with our opinions of his actions.
My father once told me something very odd. He thought that maybe there were now more people than there were souls. That would explain some of the evil, evil people we see: they lack souls.
I suspect Alan Colmes and Eugene Robinson lack anything like a soul. They are dead inside, to have said such things.
It will be interesting to watch Robinson tap-dance around this one…my guess is that we will get a Colmes style apology.
It’s not enough.
Sorry to carry on, but I am furious.
Simon Jester (71fe7e) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:19 pmImo whats almost worse than the orginal comments by these two is that nothing of consequence will happen to Robinson in terms of any media peer criticism, and i suspect in almost every network TV newsroom in America these two are heroes.
mike d (04e8ba) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pmPete Seeger fights against gorebull warming………but yet he won’t aim his vitriol at Pelosi and her private jets nor Al Gore the Bore and his fleet of poison spewing SUVS.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pmThis isn’t just smug arrogance. It is indecency about someone’s incredibly sad loss.
If you know of a prominent conservative who was acting like this with regards a gay man who was grieving his husband, let me know. If you know of someone prominent on the right who smirked when mocking a back alley abortion gone mortally wrong, please let me know. I will go Angry Villager on them.
But Rick Santorum does not have to celebrate the things he disagrees with just to be treated like a f*cking person.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pmMaybee is right: they don’t actually care that Santorum did this. But their callousness is deeper. think of all of the babies the Liberals have aborted and let be aborted. Their own children and grandchildren, nieces, nephews. they cannot possibly admit the value of Gabriel or Trig Palin without collapsing into an ocean of sorrow for their own children that they killed. So instead, they dehumanize babies and hold those who love them in contempt.
that sickness as you refer to it in our society in the one caused by legalizing abortion. It has made us callous, not compassionate. It has turned us from people who helped ladies with unexpected pregnancies into people who say it´s someone else’s problem. the only children who count are those that they decide count.
Allison (af0fa4) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pmPiss off Observer AKA Eugene Robinson.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pmObserver, you find me a person on the Right who acts this way, and you will be surprised at the number of people here who would also revile that person. Despite your attempt (no surprise here) at “equivalence” (“Tommy did it first!).
For example, you show me a person with a nationally syndicated column or television show would who mock a gay couple whose adopted child died as a baby, or had some kind of birth defect.
Simon Jester (71fe7e) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:23 pmok here is my thinking of this
It’s inhuman to make an issue of Mr. Santorum’s dead baby.
But I think it rolls rather more quickly off the tongue to say it’s un-American to make an issue of Mr. Romney’s religion.
swidt?
Everyone on the right is mostly de-linking Mr. Santorum’s baby tragedy from his religion. Cause of the indecency of the attacks writ large, mostly, and also they highlight the wrenching and disorienting vertigo of coming suddenly and irrefutably face to face with the horrifically arbitrary nature of the death of a child.
And cause of the non-denominational nature of the tragedy.
But I think the way the Santorums handled this was deeply informed by their religious views.
Simple as that.
This is a freedom of religious practice issue.
And if you fight on that hill, you’re bracing your back against the very timber of this nation’s founding…
…plus you help salt the field for thems what would go after Mr. Wall Street Romney…
and that is my thinking of this.
I always get in trouble this is just like Claire Ann Shover.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:23 pmHeh, Maybee. You are probably right. But I think they (Axelrod) may be a leettle reluctant to go after anyone’s birth certificate!
elissa- Ha!
But I think they’ve already pointed out that Romney hasn’t shown his.
They will go after Romney for being rich, and they will try to find something in his taxes (which they will push him to release) to make him look bad.
They will send their minions out to push the Mormonism= weird thing, as they did with the Palin pregnancy rumors.
They will find pictures of one of his kids drinking or having coffee.
They will find pictures of Ann standing close to some male family friend.
If they don’t have anything, they will make it up. Like how they turned Bill Clinton into a raging racist.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:25 pmAccording to Pete Seeger babies cause gorebull warming…………………..dontcha know.
/Sarc off
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:26 pmthe thing about the mormonism = weird thing is?
Mormons have already been to your door, and far more likely than not they were oddly endearing.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:30 pmWhen you were born the doctor took one look at your mom and somehow managed to skin himself alive.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:31 pmthat doesn’t even begin to make sense
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:38 pmI actually don’t think Mormons are weird. But remember the anti-prop 8 ads? Mormons were all in people’s bedrooms, looking through their drawers.
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:40 pmthat was not their shiningest moment
but I didn’t mean to suggest you thought mormons are weird, just that I think people will discount it
they all know the weird ones are the Scientologists
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:44 pm” – especially Republicans — ” ~ Hmmm…. With all due respect, I’d say “exclusively Republicans.” When Bill Clinton was caught with his pants around his ankles in the Oval Office, that was considered strictly a “personal matter” by the tone set in the liberal media enviro industrial complex. Obama’s kids? “Don’t you DARE talk about them!”… But Palin’s kids? What prominent liberal HASN’T made ridiculous, much less reprehensible comments about them? Or Sarah? Or Todd Palin? What about Michele Bachmann? Laura Ingraham? Clarence Thomas? Ann Coulter? Herman Cain? George W. Bush? Dick Cheney?….. Basic Google searches would yield egregiously despicable examples for weeks.
Pitbullll (cf188d) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:44 pmIt’s not partisan politics. The Leftists really have no moral compass from which to gain guidance on any subject; be it the grieving process for a child’s death, or taxation of the rich. This example is one of thousands where those on the Left simply mock to demean someone who is different than they are. There’s no moral high ground here on either side. There are grieving parents and siblings on one side, and douchebags who will say anything to promote their agenda on the other side.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
Diggs (d296fe) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:45 pm@41/43- Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie. Let’s review: a defeated ‘big government’ earmark favoring, conservative senator, the last apple you’d consider (definitely not a Huntsman brand) in the current candidate barrel to float up, drop-kicked out of office by 18 points or so by the good citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania years ago; who became, among other things, a Fox News ‘commenthater’; a fella who wears his religion on his sleeve and revels in telling other people how they should live their lives and was in a position to legislate same, brings his dead baby home for a personal family show and tell- an intimate decision to be sure- as Patterico rightly notes- which Santorum then openly discusses in public (so much for how Ricky S values intimacy) and conservatives find foul when mere talking heads in cableland question that behavior, particular in a candidate for president. =yawn= The Culture War redux! You took their bait.
So by all means, chatter on about social issues and the biases of the LCD in the loosely regulated world of cable snooze. Abortion! Gay marriage… yeah, ‘drag’-em all up. That-a-boy! Focus on every hot, juicy, man-on-dog, prayer-in-school, guns and Bibles social issue you can think of. And Santorum can get waste face time raising them at every media opportunity. Newt, too. What a gift.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:47 pmSpeaking of people who, um, lack anything like a soul. Folks, if you don’t know this character DCSCA, he has quite a storied history around here. Gently put, most of what he writes is questionable. Demonstrably so.
But this one shows a real lack of class. Good one, Commander McBragg!
Simon Jester (71fe7e) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:51 pm“There is something wrong with a system that expects people to undergo such indignities to attain high office. I’m not a fan of Rick Santorum as a candidate, but the treatment he has received in recent days regarding an intensely personal decision is a disgrace.” ~ Indeed. That needed to be said. Thanks.
Pitbullll (cf188d) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:53 pmPete Seeger supports Abortion as a way to fight Climate Change.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:54 pmI hope you’re right.
We’ve already seen democrat ads on Romney which were quite effective without taking the low road at all, but I suspect they will actually unleash uglier stuff if they are lucky and we nominate this guy. I think they are already lucky… we’ve rejected the guy with the best way to handle the inevitable smearing because he had a record that provides such a perfect comeback.
But what’s done is done.
I suspect any nominee the GOP picks will be hit. Doesn’t matter if they are angels.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:55 pmYou aren’t talking about Eugene Robinson’s disgusting comment about Gabriel Santorum?
And you’re smearing Santorum? The man has a campaign site. I recall three of his long list of issues reference social conservatism, but really only two focus on those kinds of issues. He’s running on tax cuts, regulation issues, energy, Iran. Real issues. You’re bashing Santorum with great irony for bringing up only these issues that * you * are bringing up.
What do you think MSNBC should do with this Eugene Robinson creep?
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:58 pmwhich Santorum then openly discusses in public (so much for how Ricky S values intimacy) and conservatives find foul when mere talking heads in cableland question that behavior,
What is to question about it?
Is it better for parents who lose children to just shut up and keep it to themselves? What about people with other difficulties? Like…someone who is gay and struggling with it. Better just not to discuss? Better to just keep it to yourself?
MayBee (081489) — 1/5/2012 @ 10:59 pmWe’ve already seen democrat ads on Romney which were quite effective without taking the low road at all
yes. But that’s just vicissitudes. The temerity what I have in unapologetic spades is to say our sad little country desperately needs this election to be on topic.
I have grave doubts Santorum can orchestrate such an election.
…
I am so not going to be the Best Rester today.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:03 pmDCSCA – Why aren’t you cheering King Obama’s unconstitutional NLRB and CFPB appointments along with Granny McRictusbotox and Dingy Hairy Reed?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:05 pmalso i’m pretty sure dylan mcdermott has had some work done
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:14 pmLet me get this straight…
Eugene (someone give me a brain transplant) Robinson is telling RACHEL MADDOW how weird Rick Santorum’s behavior is???
ROTFLMAO
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:17 pmWhat do the left expect us to do in order to prop up artists?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:19 pm@94. Let me get this straight…
You’ve got a 50/50 shot at it with those two. And well played… you’re catching on.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:23 pmSpeaking of sickness in our society (click on the link on my name, ya’ll).
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:27 pmDCSCA, you are really overmedicated again, aren’t you. Geez.
As for Robinson, he has two sons. Which just proves what I wrote before: this man has no soul. Dead inside. A father said those things?
There isn’t a decent father alive who hasn’t had nightmares about losing a child.
Politics uber alles. And I do mean everything, apparently.
Simon Jester (71fe7e) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:28 pmhe’s just following orders I think
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:31 pmAaron – Hilarious!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:32 pmYeah, everyone click Aaron’s name and go to his blog. A bastard is trying to con Aaron’s lawyer into dropping Aaron as a client.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:54 pmThat’s how some people attempt to win legal disputes. Getting their opponents to lose their representation with BS threats and lies.
It makes me see red.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/5/2012 @ 11:55 pm“this man has no soul.”
Yeah, well, he’s worked for the WaPo, so it kind of goes with the territory.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:27 am“Yeah, everyone click Aaron’s name”
I saw it. More fun and games with the Mad Bomber o’ Speedway.
Very droll.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:30 amHey, Robinson and Colmes:
Go die in a fire, you contemptible bastids.
You are a waste of protoplasm and I resent having to share an atmosphere with you.
Chester White (3b7b93) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:37 amThat’s a good way to put it. It makes you laugh, but it’s a tired laugh at this point because he is such an endlessly dishonest hustler.
But it’s affecting a lot of good people. A real injustice has been done, and hopefully Aaron can undo that.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:44 amre: The Left’s attitude on the Santorum’s grieving process.
Leland Sprague, MD (c33cbf) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:44 am55 years ago as a young FP resident on call, I delivered a tiny fetus, which even today would not be viable; yet it was a complete baby and made little movements with it’s limbs. It was alive. The two nurses present and myself were unsure what to do. Better to do nothing and let it die quickly or …or what? We decided the only thing we could do was to put it in an incubator , warm it, give it a little O2 by way of encouragement and leaves the rest to God.That’s what we did. All signs of life had left within 2 hours or less. This case did more than any other thing to make me solidify my thinking and make me staunchly pro life. Those who denigrate the real grief felt by anyone merely betray their own elitist point of view and the foolishness of voting for anyone having their views, in a society where all persons trusted with power must be sworn to the principle of living by the rules they themselves make.
The child was not stillborn. He was born alive, and lived two hours. Then he died. So I don’t understand what this whole story has to do with the question of unborn children and their legal status. Whatever one thinks about them, Gabriel Santorum was not one of them. In the greater scheme of things, what’s the difference between a life of 2 hours and one 80 years?
As I commented earlier, I do find the story weird; and I’m not “down” with it. I come from a culture where one simply doesn’t treat dead people in such an intimate way. One doesn’t look at them unnecessarily; one doesn’t touch them unnecessarily; one certainly doesn’t take them home for show and tell. The Santorums come from a different culture, where one does do these things, and they don’t seem weird. That’s America. And I can’t believe that many people are so shallow as to let stories like this influence their votes.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:26 amDo you mean he should have seared it into his memory?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:44 amEarlier Patterico and Beldar were complaining about people who use “swift-boat” to mean a lie, thus entrenching the lie that the SBVT lied. Now McCarthy was before my time, and I grew up hearing that he had lied, that he had accused people of being communists who weren’t, that he smeared people, etc. In other words, exactly what people falsely say about the SBVT. And I grew up hearing this even from people on the right, so I believed it. But now I wonder; is it true? Can you point to a specific lie he told about someone; a particular innocent person he smeared? And if you can’t, then by using him as an example in the way that you did above, aren’t you doing the same thing that Patterico and Beldar were complaining about Gingrich doing?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:58 amIndeed, from what I’ve heard he is an extraordinarily decent person. It’s a pity his policies are so far from anything I could support.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:00 amMore to the point, when Santorum was in the Senate he had a staffer whom he knew to be gay; the decency with which he related to that staffer speaks volumes about the kind of person he is, and his lack of precisely this kind of “smug arrogance”.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:04 amApart from the general moral revulsion I feel at those who hold up Santorum’s behavior as morbid or whatever, I have another big problem with the leftists who make this point.
Cindy Sheehan.
Remember her? We were supposed to not criticize her, not contradict her, because she had lost her child. To suggest that her claims did not stand up to scrutiny was to interfere with how she chose to mourn for her son. To counter anything she said was alleged to be heartless.
Of course there are some pretty major differences between the two cases: Santorum didn’t use the story of his child to advocate political views; he didn’t say his opposition to abortion, for example, was his way of mourning for his child. And his colleagues didn’t accuse pro-choice activists of being heartless for interfering with his mourning process by continuing to advocate their position.
Now the same people who tried to use Cindy Sheehan’s grief to stifle debate are criticizing Santorum’s grief even though he’s not using it in a parallel manner. It’s just blatant hypocrisy.
Jim S. (7ca87a) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:05 amWhat this turd said is nothing compared to the heavy shit that is about to be dumped. I know romney has ammo, but will he target o-f-stick?
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
sickofrinos (44de53) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:33 am“…the smug arrogance with which they pronounce judgment on the most intimate aspects of others’ private lives.”
This is the reason I stopped being a Democrat in 1977…and, sadly, it’s the reason I stopped being a Republican in 2006.
Both parties need to get out of my house and stay out of my personal business. If I’m not stealing from you, if ‘not busting heads, stay the hell out of my life, you smug bastards.
Warren Bonesteel (bea22d) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:43 amRe: #84
Icy (eca528) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:51 amDisco Stu unleashes hate spew?
Please say it’s not true!
Oh, but wait . . . it’s you.
So do you suppose it ever occurs to Obama that when Momma got pregnant with Frank and had to marry a foreign student for the anchor effect that maybe if abortions had been easily, safely available he’d been flushed?
Or is that his turn on? One sick dude.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:31 am110. Reminds one of the O’Reilly Coulter interview on her McCarthy book, at least the one detailing him.
O’Reilly took it as given that McCarthy headed the House Committee on UnAmerican Activity.
Was dumbfounded to be reminded that Senators don’t head House committees.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:36 amFor people on the Left it’s never about compassion regardless of what they do or say. It’s always about making themselves feel better personally. It’s about making themselves feel morally or intellectually superior to everyone else.
A pox on them and their houses.
Ralph Gizzip (5ab3ea) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:49 ama continuing saga, Aaron. And a hilarious one, at that!
Colonel Haiku (c7d740) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:12 amEdwards, this guy, note the raw hypocricy in his tactic;
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,994665,00.html
I think the nadir was that book by McGuinness which were utterly lies, told by denizens of that ‘hive of scum and villainy’ up there, promoted even after the source of the lies confirmed it. Yes Casey Jr. was a placeholder they gathered for their ultimate project,
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:39 amHmmm…another in a long list of Dims who will spit on anything. A long night in a barracks covered with blankets would correct these attitudes.
Kerry (082789) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:59 amWhat’s so awful is they didn’t care about Trig Palin, the innocent baby and they don’t care about Gabriel who was so loved in his short time here. Why they cannot even bring themselves to use his name because both babies are a nothing to them – just blobs to be used as convenient tools for their viciousness.
[part of]Comment by Dana — 1/5/2012 @ 8:30 pm
Correct. It’s all very consistent with how the far left sees young children, born or unborn — tools to accomplish political goals, not human beings. Others’ or even one’s own.
This society is somewhat (and tragically) inured to the biggest of example, abortion, but can still sometimes be shocked at, just for example, the occasional OWS mom putting her own 4 year old on the railroad tracks or using her to block a door, or traffic, in a dangerous protest scrum.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:02 amMaybee is right: they don’t actually care that Santorum did this. But their callousness is deeper. think of all of the babies the Liberals have aborted and let be aborted. Their own children and grandchildren, nieces, nephews. they cannot possibly admit the value of Gabriel or Trig Palin without collapsing into an ocean of sorrow for their own children that they killed. So instead, they dehumanize babies and hold those who love them in contempt.
that sickness as you refer to it in our society in the one caused by legalizing abortion. It has made us callous, not compassionate. It has turned us from people who helped ladies with unexpected pregnancies into people who say it´s someone else’s problem. the only children who count are those that they decide count.
Comment by Allison — 1/5/2012 @ 10:20 pm
Just thought this deserved a second look. We will possibly never understand how much damage legalized abortion does — not only to women, and children, but also to the society which leaves it legal. This is (just) one of the reasons why making abortion illegal, even if it doesn’t stop all abortions (it will stop a lot, especially as time goes on and society adjusts its help to the women in crisis) is so important.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:07 amAnd can’t believe I forgot to say:
Dana,
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:09 amHadn’t known before today that you had lost a child. Was very sorry to hear it.
I had never heard of Eugene Robinson until now. Sounds like he got what he wanted.
The media is following a plan – have a few select commentators make some outrageous statements, and let the conservatives spread it around. Sure, most people will react with horror. But the objective isn’t to make people happy, it’s to derail Santorum’s message, his persona, and his campaign by making it all about this obscure event. They will turn Santorum into the dead baby candidate, and they are counting on our reaction to make it happen.
Do not feed the trolls.
Amphipoolis (b120ce) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:21 amUnfotunately, there is a view held by some (many?) on the left that an unborn child is a parasite. It is all right to kill it up until the moment before it is born. Really – I’ve had both men and women tell me this.
lhf (c6193c) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:23 amThese are the same people that lionized a man who left a young woman to die at the bottom of a pond in his car. What do you expect?
ctmom (58d65f) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:24 amIf you’re going to print a story as truth, shouldn’t you at least get the facts into the story. The baby was not stillborn or unborn. It was born and lived for hours….Nah, nevermind, this the corrupt media we have in the ‘age of Obama’.
Fredddd (7057f3) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:27 amHow is Santorum’s method of grieving (taking the baby home for their other children to view) so different from our society’s practice of laying a deceased person out for viewing ~ often public ~ in a funeral home setting? They chose to do their grieving and viewing in private, including their deceased child’s young siblings. Is there no level below which some people will stoop to demonize those with whom they disagree politically?
Penny (3d2e0b) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:33 amFirst, your entire answer was non-sequitur.
Second, Santorum didn’t publicize this matter, his wife did in a book she wrote.
Third, we’re not talking about folks in cableland questioning the behavior, we’re talking about the way particular liberals mock conservatives for private family decisions.
You really are an ignorant bunt.
Chuck Bartowski (490c6f) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:42 amWhen I was younger, one of my family’s foster babies died of SIDS. We stayed at the hospital all afternoon and held her after she passed. It may sound weird, but it’s extremely therapeutic and peaceful. I’m so glad we were able to do that because it provided some closure. You cannot judge until you’ve been in the horrible position. I think he did a great service to his children.
Lottie Steinke (7b4ede) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:43 amWell you’re talking about people who are on the average this clueless;
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/us/politics/president-obama-unveils-aggressive-re-election-strategy-against-gop-rivals.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Complementing Nero’s skill with the violin, while
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:45 amRome burns,
About trash talking on Ted Kennedy.
Is it too soon?
I mean, he has been below ground long enough to push up the odd daisy or two.
papertiger (e55ba0) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:57 amCompletely moldered, or at least well on his way.
Imagine the negative discussion if one of Obama’s daughters died, and he took her home and sat her in a chair.
tadcf (ead2bd) — 1/6/2012 @ 5:58 amWhat if it’s a strategy to keep Santorum at the top, and possibly the nominee? Colmes is a filter-less creep, but Eugene Robinson *usually* self-filters.
Lots of libs seem not to care if they are seen as callous and know it all jerks, so just maybe they think the underdog effect will be in play, and that he would be easier for Pres. Obama to demolish?
Amy Shulkusky (67fbd5) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:11 amShould Santorum be the nominee I think any attempt by the Democrats to make something out of this would backfire. In the words of Ronaldus Maximus, “Go ahead, make my day”.
Gerald A (9d78e8) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:19 amI believe that abortion should be legal. within some commonly accepted limits. I believe that humanity is learned or developed, rather than inborn, and so a fetus is a potential (as opposed to extant) human …. and so are infants and most five-year-olds.
I also believe that there is no way for me to prove this, and no way for anyone to disprove it.
I also, reluctantly, believe that a significant segment of the Pro-Choice faction are arrogant and insensitive jerks whose behavior s likely to result in the eventual loss of the “right to chose”.
This story is a case in point of that arrogance.
C. S. P. Schofield (d726e2) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:47 amOf course, in classic Alinsky fashion, they aim at
the strongest point, Rule 5, in order to obscure other issues.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/01/santorum-jihadism-is-evil-and-we-need-to-say-what-it-is-sharia-law-is-incompatible-with-american-jur.html
khalid bin mahfouz (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:51 amSorry about that, it’s a strange world where someone who actually opposed the ‘Born Alive
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:58 amBill’ is actually sitting in the White House,
it’ like something out of an early 80s Richard
Matheson novel.
One more data point indicating that Progressives are not the compassionate people they paint themselves to be.
LarryD (feb78b) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:00 amNarciso, the novel this president resembles is Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:07 amNo matter the political affiliation, people will react to this story. It had nothing to do with politics except for it being let out now in the midst of the campaigning. It was not a hidden story. Mrs. Santorum had it in a book she had written. It was taken from that source.
HRA (9beddd) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:12 amMany of us have had personal tragedy of the same nature. At the same time, we cannot get our minds around it having occurred at all. It is much more than highly unusual.
Yet another example of why I sometimes think we should bring back dueling.
Lance (779c52) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:17 amMy view is the opposite. Humans are mostly well designed to be open to connecting with other humans in a fashion we consider ‘having humanity.’ We have to learn what reality is, and we have to learn to identify other humans as human, but we start out completely open to that process and eager to make those connections. We learn to limit those connections to avoid getting beaten down. We become perhaps more wise, but generally less human.
Roland (5ff18d) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:19 am137. I believe the only argument for abortion is pro-death, i.e., more sad, confused, ignorant women will be butchered if abortion isn’t legal than otherwise.
Nihilists like Frank’s Bastard Spawn and Islamists are natural allies coopting Progressive Fabians hoping to stem the species’ slide back into the ooze.
“Humanity”, weasel words if there ever was.
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:22 amIt’s clear that Frank Davis, was a very significant influence on Obama’s life,(that chip on his shoulder toward Churchill, for instance) channeling his alienation toward society,
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:28 am114. Astute observation. I have a three year old, all the good and bad impulses are already there. But the organism(child) is responsible for and directs its own development.
I only control some of the opportunity.
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:33 amThey are in your lamp, your schoolhouse, your doctor
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:36 ams office, (not merely related to abortion)
144 not 114.
146. Stanley invited pederast Davis into the Dunham’s home soon after arriving in Honolulu.
gary gulrud (1de2db) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:40 amIt’s pretty simple really. Liberals, being so high on abortion in general, cannot conceive that a baby who either is stillborn or dies shortly after birth, is any more “human” or part of the family than an aborted fetus. They can’t possibly grasp the idea of treating the baby as a deceased member of the family. What the Santorums did was no different than what many would do if the baby had passed away at home – what family would not gather around their deceased brother or sister? Because it was in a hospital, a sterile and public place, they didn’t feel they could bond with their child, nor the kids have an opportunity to do the same. Not to mention the idea of praying as a family together with your deceased loved one. Mrs. Santorum carried that baby for however many months, the children were waiting for a sibling, and then tragedy strikes. Liberals toss the baby and forget all about it. People like the Santorum’s treat the baby as family and in their on personal way said goodbye the way that brought them the most comfort. These snobby, demonic libtards can just stuff it.
JonInVa (627bcd) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:46 am#11 Dana, #49 Vnjagvet —- my condolences on your loss, and to others here who I suspect share those losses.
I may get a karma hit for saying this, but I hope that those doing this get a taste of our pain. Maybe then they’ll get it.
And yes, I remain pro-choice. The burden on us is to accept the mother’s choice, and to help her cope with the consequences thereof. This treatment of grieving parents is not helping them.
htom (412a17) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:49 amI am also pro-choice. A woman should have the choice of whether or not to engage in procreative behavior, just as the man has the choice.
Choosing to engage in procreative behavior is an implicit promise to the fetus that she will nurture it (just as the man’s choice is an implicit promise to provide for the child). If she does not wish to make that promise, she should not engage in the behavior. Taking ‘precautions’ against getting pregnant does not negate the promise should those precautions fail.
Roland (5ff18d) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:05 am______________________________________________
For example, you show me a person with a nationally syndicated column or television show would who mock a gay couple whose adopted child died as a baby, or had some kind of birth defect.
The line between liberal biases and other characteristics within a person or group is a rather slender one, and it’s hard to know where one begins and one leaves off.
I wonder what the political arena would be like — and how the left would respond to various cultural issues — if by some miracle over 80 percent of gays (or the “GLBT” crowd) were conservative or truly moderate instead of leftwing. For that matter, one can apply the same question to black America, Latino America or any other group that is both quite liberal and which also triggers touchy-feely sentiments (or the phony emotions of “limousine liberalism”) among so many people on the left.
However, there is a slight dichotomy occurring between Jewish America (statistically over 80% of that populace favors liberalism/liberals) and the left, referring to the split between a desire to shed tears for the Palestinians (“sad, noble, long-suffering underdogs!!!”) and a desire to flip off Israel (“heartless, racist, greedy imperialists!!”). I guess a variation of this can be observed in the way various liberals throughout America give more benefit of the doubt to Islamicists than Christians.
And to extend this peculiar split to the issue of abortion, there is a growing number of people (again, mainly of the left) who feel more touchy-feely about the plight of animals than the plight of human fetuses. So, for example, in blue-state California, a majority of voters don’t give a damn if young, single girls can get abortions without parental consent, but if owners of horses want to unload their animals to a rendering plant, “hell, no, that’s mean, cruel and heartless!”
Mark (411533) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:18 amAsk any mother if she thinks her newborn baby has no humanity in it. Observations of newborns and pre-born babies contradict your claim.
http://www.creationmoments.com/content/what-mothers-always-knew
People in the so called modern world have removed God given common sense from their thinking.
Gerald A (9d78e8) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:34 amWe’ve already seen that, at least with Blacks. They used to support Republicans in the south. And Democrats instituted Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and the like.
(Really) Random House (3bccbd) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:43 amYes, they have no standards except double standards
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/are-obamas-democrat-nlrb-appointees-tax-evaders/296951
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:45 amthe problem is not just that some leftists can’t understand the love that some people feel for their unborn children
There is that. But I would point out that technically speaking the Santorum child was not in fact an “unborn child”. The baby was born alive, lived for a couple of hours, and died. So the idiotic liberals who are busy imagining this incident as some sort of weird “fetus worship” or whatever are, as usual, completely and utterly wrong.
FrankL (288a0a) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:32 amAncient Hawaiians often used to retain a bone from a dead loved one. They kept it in their house. They also used to make tools our of the bone, believing that the tools would be more effective as they somehow retained the strength and skill of the departed loved one.
The practice died out as Hawaiian culture was supplanted by white culture.
What puzzles me about so-called “liberals” is that they always paint themselves as protector of the “brown” person or “person of color” (their terms).
So I would ask the liberals who have the courage to answer: Were the ancient Hawaiians “weird” in this cultural practice? Is white culture really somehow superior to this “brown” culture?
Will (5911bd) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:52 amAs the proud father of two sons and a daughter who have grown into responsible, self-accountable, caring, young adults, I feel so blessed. I know that I can’t fathom the depths of suffering that those who have lost children must feel. They must deal with their grief each and every day and that has to be a heavy weight on their shoulders.
Dealing with grief is personal and people will find their own ways of coping. The fortunate are able to learn from it – or perhaps, even better – able to teach their other children valuable lessons about the sanctity of life and how precious it is. Some may find the Santorum’s ways unusual, but I don’t count myself among them.
The strange folks are people like Colmes and Washington Post hack Eugene Robinson. Not only strange, but damaged and truly reprehensible.
Colonel Haiku (c7d740) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:55 amThe baby was born premature, at 20 weeks.
At that age I don’t think the baby can breathe. Yet they say it had a birth defect. What birth defect? Immature lungs?
The question is, if this is the case, how did it live even for 2 hours?
Did they disconnect him from something? Is that why he died in their arms?
Well, it was like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/magazine/22SANTORUM.html?ei=5088&en=83d72ed75fbada1d&ex=1274414400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
The childbirth in 1996 was a source of terrible heartbreak — the couple were told by doctors early in the pregnancy that the baby Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and would survive only for a short time outside the womb. According to Karen Santorum’s book, ”Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum,” she later developed a
life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant. After resisting at first, she allowed doctors to give her the drug Pitocin to speed the birth. Gabriel lived just two hours.
Later on she sought treatment for back pain from a chiropractor and suffered a ruptured disk from an improperly administered spinal manipulation…Karen Santorum asked for $500,000 and was awarded $350,000 by a jury. A judge finally reduced the award to $175,000, of which Santorum said they received about $75,000 after their lawyer took his share. ”I’m not against all lawsuits,” Santorum said. ”I think they’re appropriate where the case warrants it, and this one did. It was not frivolous.”
Sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:05 amC. S. P. Schofield, it’s hard to understand what you are saying. Are you really arguing that it would be justifiable to kill a newborn baby or 5-year-old child because the child represented “potential” humanity and not “extant” humanity?
Will (5911bd) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:10 am__________________________________________________
Were the ancient Hawaiians “weird” in this cultural practice? Is white culture really somehow superior to this “brown” culture?
The liberal might respond with—certainly in the back of his or her mind: “If the Hawaiians were registered Republicans and of the right, then, heck, yea, they were freaks!!!
“As for white culture? If it’s epitomized by Nancy Pelosi, the late, great Ted Kennedy or most of the folks at the New York Times or MSNBC — or our heroes like Hillary Clinton — then, yep, it’s superior to ‘brown’ culture, at least when that culture is represented by people like the governor of Louisiana or Marco Rubio!”
Mark (411533) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:16 amComment by gary gulrud — 1/6/2012 @ 3:31 am
when Momma got pregnant with Frank and had to marry a foreign student for the anchor effect that maybe if abortions had been easily, safely available he’d been flushed?
Wait. There was no anchor effect. She married him to be more respectable.
If abortion had been legal in 1960…well, there’s another thing. This was not just before legal abortion. This was before the birth control pill, you know.
The birth control pill only became available in 1962.
There is a question if Barack Obama would have been born ten, five or even two years later.
Sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:17 amC.S.P. is indeed insisting it is justifiable to kill newborns.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:18 amComment by MD in Philly — 1/5/2012 @ 8:15 pm
If Obama has his way there will be no US Navy to help with tsunami relief, or to protect shipping against pirates, or hostile governments like Iran.
No, he seems to be shielding the Navy and the Air Force from very steep cuts – he even overrode a proposal to eliminate one aircraft carrier. Obama likes small scale operations.
It’s the Army and the Marine Corp (land based armies) that are being severely cut.
Sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:26 amI have a lot of friends who have saved their kids baby teeth and even the part of the umbilical cord that falls off at home.
MayBee (081489) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:29 amI’m surprised that in a culture that increasingly thinks ‘do whatever feels good to you’ – spend whatever you like, abort if you want, walk away from debt, your family, be your own god etc, that there would be any criticism at all for this family doing what felt right to them in their grief. A man that values the life of his child, no matter how brief, is a man that values the lives of the people he represents in office!
Michelle (4402f9) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:31 amBingo, Michelle. They preach “tolerance” to the rest of us, and they drive cars with bumper stickers proudly proclaiming “Celebrate Diversity.”
Then when they meet someone with different cultural beliefs–someone who did no harm to anyone else–we get to hear how “weird” that person is.
I’d rather be “weird” than a flaming hypocrite.
Will (5911bd) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:38 amI find the notion that someone would *mock* Santorum for this to be very, very odd.
I mean: I will admit that I find the behavior of bringing a stillborn child home to introduce it to the rest of the family to be somewhat disturbing. I was not aware that it was recommended, but even if it’s recommended, it still bothers me on a gut level.
And yet.
I’ve watched parents of friends go through the unutterable grief of losing adult children suddenly, and seen it come close to destroying them. I’ve seen friends have stillborn children and watched them suffer from the emotional repurcussions. I understand, not from direct personal experience but from watching people around me, that this is a painful, difficult thing, and if someone finds it comforting to bring their stillborn child home, if it helps them and their family to deal with their pain, then they should do it. Yes, I find it icky, and I wouldn’t do it; but my squeamishness is irrelevant.
If it helped Santorum and his family, then good for them; I’m glad they did it.
So what is there to *mock* about this? Mocking someone for how they deal with their pain is cruelty, plain and simple.
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:48 amLong time no see, Aphrael.
That’s what it probably feels like to the Santorum family.
This isn’t my way of handling loss either, Aphrael, but I agree that this isn’t about me or you… it’s about the family dealing with their loss their own way.
Used to be folks on MSNBC would probably say we need to celebrate different cultures and beliefs so long as they don’t hurt anybody. Oh, I guess that’s not true.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:53 am“I believe that humanity is learned or developed, rather than inborn”
Yeah, I know what you mean, and Blacks and Jews will never be human, so we ought to be able to dispose of them (if they’re a nuisance) or enslave them, or whatever, just like we do with folks that ain’t been born yet.
Nothing like being able to redefine what a human being is in order to justify slavery or cold-blooded murder.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:53 amWas he stillborn?
JD (392f2d) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:55 amNo, he wasn’t stillborn, JD. Born alive, and lived for a short while.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:56 amEugene Robinson continues his rapid descent into irrelevance.
AD-RtR/OS! (fe49d9) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:01 amWhat’s interesting is that CSP is actually taking the pro choice argument in an intellectually honest direction.
Yes, it’s disturbing when people justify “abortion rights” because they have defined what a person is. More interesting is that they are justifying killing very young children.
Yet any sane person knows that murdering a defenseless six month old baby is horrible.
So what we know is that morally, something absurd happens here.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:01 amJD, that’s a fair point, and indicative of my poor ability to read details today, but my point remains: even if you are somewhat squicked out by Santorum and his family’s way of dealing with this loss, mocking him for it is cruelty.
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:02 amLet us not forget that as Health and Human Services Committee Chairman IL Senator Obama fought to kill the “Born Alive” bill in IL that would accord full legal rights (including a right to medical aid) to babies that survived an abortion. This despite having heard testimony from hospital personnel about living babies being disposed of into medical waste containers after abortion procedures.
Liberals seem to lack the compassion gene when it comes to babies.
in_awe (44fed5) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:03 amThe results of a failed abortion, to a Leftist, are not “babies”, but just “inconvenient tissue mass”.
AD-RtR/OS! (fe49d9) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:04 am.
Those on the modern left lack the compassion gene completely. They are just skilled liars.
Roland (5ff18d) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:08 am“What’s interesting is that CSP is actually taking the pro choice argument in an intellectually honest direction.”
Too bad it’s the same intellectual direction the Nazis took in order to justify exterminating Jews and other “less than humans”.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:20 amMargaret Sanger the Eugenicist… a true-blue liberal.
Colonel Haiku (c7d740) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:25 am_______________________________________________
Liberals seem to lack the compassion gene when it comes to babies
And yet I have no doubt that leftists like Eugene Robinson — and if one has read his opinion pieces through the years, then one knows he’s a stereotypical, rock-ribbed liberal — believe they and their side is where all the love, humanity and tolerance resides. That assumption annoys me the most of all the other various pathetic aspects of the world of liberals and liberalism.
Mark (411533) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:28 amMilhouse – the tragedy is that McCarthy was correct about Communist infiltration. It was his broad smearing that was odious. I am referencing the similar smear tactics employed by the Dems and their minions.
The true enemy are those who cover truth with their darkness. It was true 50 years ago and it remains true today.
Ed from SFV (c65bcc) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:32 amLiberals really do see themselves as compassionate when they promote abortion on demand, because it culls the weakest of the permanent under-class they’ve created and “solves” the “problems” of those who practice the destructive personal behavior they preach.
The irony of this shouldn’t be ignored.
Colonel Haiku (c7d740) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:34 amDustin, the kulaks, “believers,” and other reactionaries are not human beings. You will need to rid yourself of those bourgeoisie sentiments that are merely remnants of your indoctrination to support the current capitalistic, materialistic, imperialistic, and militaristic class structure. Otherwise you will fail to avoid disturbing good “fundamental transformationist” order and denunciation by righteous “99 percenters.”
(The above taken practically verbatim from friend-of-Obama Bill Ayer’s series of “Teaching for Social Justice” series of published works. Don’t take my word for it, please. As Ayers put it when he paid tribute to Hugo Chavez and his “Bolivarian” revolution, “Viva La Revolucion Sucre!”)
happyfeets, it’s truly a cheap shot they’re taking at Santorum. As you know from another thread, I find it personally offensive. But the partisan in me, in a way, hope they keep it up.
This message may somehow resonate with the crowd you hang out with. But you have know idea how many people the likes of Robinson, Colmes, and their ilk are insulting. Not just those who lost children at birth, or shortly thereafter, but those who miscarried and mourned their children. And most women, except those few who are ideologically committed to being in the vanguard of Obama’s “fundamental transformation,” understand the feelings those women who’ve lost their children.
You really think this is a hill the GOP doesn’t want to fight for? Really? You think that it’s a winning strategy for pundits to act like, or reveal themselves to be, heartless, soulless, ghouls who later have to go on and make insincere public pseudo-apologies when they get “schooled” (as Robinson put it on “Morning Joe”) that the Santorums did exactly what grief counselors advise? Go for it, I say.
Observer, are you serious? You think that issues such as gays in the military or societal recognition of gay relationships as equal to marriage are “intimate aspects of other’s private lives?”
But forcing people like caterers, florists, photographers, etc., to participate against conscience in servicing the very public ceremonies surrounding the recognition of such “marriages” somehow isn’t interfering with the “intimate aspects” of their lives.
You think that public funding of abortion, sticking scissors into a viable infant’s skull and scrambling its brains when it’s a fraction of a second from being born is an “intimate aspect of other’s private lives?”
(Question for abortion enthusiasts: what possible mental, emotional, or physical condition could a woman possibly have that requires not only terminating the pregnancy, but knowing her infant is dead, dead, dead! Fine, do a late term “abortion.” Induce pregnancy. But instead of scrambling the kids brains, pull it another couple of inches out, then give it to someone who appreciates a live baby. Perhaps someone who’s lost one [Nahh. Such people are “wierd;” just ask Eugene Robinson. But people who scramble an infants brains with scissors are not only normal but laudable.])
I realized during the Clinton impeachment that liberals have a very unique understanding of the difference between public policy and the intimate aspects of one’s personal life.
Let’s see. CNN’s Soledad O’Brien laughingly dismissed Billy Jeff’s escapades with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office as personal and private. So what if he perjured himself and suborned perjury; everyone lies about sex.
But Billy Jeff previously signed the Violence Against Women’s Act into law. The VAWA provides for, among other things, that sexual harrassment plaintiffs such as Paula Jones can gather evidence of similar on-the-job activities to bolster their case. (Of course Billy Jeff lied about sex during his deposition, and suborned perjury in Monica Lewinsky’s written testimony. Sexual harassment trials are about sex. If it were an illegal fund-raising trial, Billy Jeff would have lied about money.) That’s just good public policy.
As long as you’re going after top executives screwing around with interns in the corporate offices.
Not the Chief Executive of the United States screwing around with an intern in the Oval Office.
Yup. Got it.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:42 amIt’s a scary world where this isn’t fatal to a presidential campaign.
And when we nominate either Newt or Romney, watch the left go nuts about things a million times smaller.
I really shouldn’t generalize the left, though. There are plenty of lefties who are decent, brave, patriotic, and decent.
The problem is that, for whatever reason, they are not filtering out people like Colmes and Eugene Robinson. the right has some asses too, but they don’t seem to enjoy a lot of support. I can’t think of any popular right wing pundits who would mock someone’s memorializing the loss of a gay marriage spouse, or whatever counterpart situation you can come up with.
What we need is for lefties with decency to represent their movement. Even if I disagree with them, it’s coarsening the country when such unpersuasive stuff comes from that direction.
Rachel Maddow didn’t object. Maybe she wanted to and was too weak, or maybe she didn’t realize this was cruel. That is not OK.
Fox News, however, called that out instantly.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:51 amSince I can’t edit the previous post:
1. Yes, I realize most late term abortions involve poisoning the fetus so it’s born dead.
2. I forgot to mention how liberals think a woman’s abortion is “intimate and private.” But forcing nurses to participate in the abortion against their conscience is not.
A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits a New Jersey hospital from forcing 12 nurses to participate in training or services related to abortions.
3. It’s personal and private only when the Chief Executive of the United States has a “D” after his name.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 11:54 amLibtards are the compassionate and empathetic ones, as you can oh so readily see.
I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism (8e2a3d) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:03 pmAre you kidding? To the Left, anyone on the Right is a drooling, halfwit illiterate ass.
This gives them the right to seize the “low ground”.
I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism (8e2a3d) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:06 pm163. Well, I meant for senior. My syntax is deteriorating for sure.
I suspect respectable with Mrs. Dunham was the issue.
Compare the temporal vault of Demon Seed with Marshall and Obama. There is no doubt.
Ann followed in her mother’s footsteps as a Banking consultant in Indonesia and Pakistan an expert in microloans.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:08 pm181. So why do Robinson, Obama, et al., want to see PP continue to abort 391 Black babies for everyone sponsored for adoption?
Because the quality of life is so important to humanity.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:12 pmThis probably is the heart of it.
They justify treating people as less than human because they assume the worst about men like Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum isn’t even that conservative… he’s kinda like George W Bush ideologically. He’s a compassionate conservative. Even if he’s wrong (he is on some matters) he wants to use the government to make the world better (I don’t agree with that). Why wouldn’t most lefties appreciate that he is “a good man”?
Why is it so hard for people to see that the other side has “good” people? This was a dominating topic back when I started reading this blog. It’s probably why I kept reading it, as it’s very interesting how folks will *fear* the other so much that they wind up acting like bastards. Which of course fuels the contrary side.
That’s why the adults, if there were any at MSNBC should see the merit in, frankly, civility non-BS.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:14 pm169. Robinson’s speech gives one the impression of a severe cardiovascular accident. Colmes just the certainty of cross species breeding.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:15 pmIs that true?
That made me unable to finish my lunch.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:16 pm194. Laura this AM, her site probably has more. $500 Million for 400,000 abortions and a lot of pharma.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:23 pmBTW, is Perry skipping the NH debates while Romany tours SC?
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:27 pmWhat exactly do you mean by this? What “broad smearing” did he do? I’m asking because I don’t know.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:34 pmAnd yet, as far as I know, every culture that does not derive its core values from the Bible has had no problem with this. A fortiori such cultures had no problem with abortion, at least with the father’s consent.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:36 pmDustin: whether Santorum is ‘conservative’ depends on what you believe ‘conservative’ to mean. On social issues, he’s extremely conservative; he’s one of the few prominent people in public life to condemn the use of contraceptives, for example, and he’s been arguing that states don’t have the right to legalize gay marriage because doing so undermines the fabric of society (regardless of what the Constitution doesn’t say on the issue).
Among social liberals, he is the most disliked of the Republican primary candidates, for precisely these reasons.
[I should reiterate, though, that I’m not endorsing the cruelty of mocking him for his method of dealing with pain; he’s an opponent, sure, but he’s still entitled to the same charity that, ideally, we should extend to all humans.]
As an aside, in one of the debates last fall, Santorum gave an amazingly moving answer to a question which most candidates refused to take seriously.
It was at the “Thanksgiving family forum”. I don’t remember the precise question, and I can’t find a transcript to refresh my recollection, but it was something along the lines of, can you tell us about some personal challenge that you’ve overcome that affected your public life?
most of teh candidates gave relatively lame answers; this is the kind of question that *ought* to encourage some revelatory soul-searching but which, in the context of a political debate, usually doesn’t, because that kind of soul-baring is risky.
Santorum, on the other hand, gave a tremendous, deeply personally reflective, answer, about what he learned about himself from the way he reacted to the birth and early childhood of his severely disabled daughter.
It was, honestly, one of the most inspiring answers I’ve ever seen from a presidential candidate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5-OWKEUTjNU
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:40 pmReally? What the hell? That doesn’t compute. People killed six month old children w/ parent content?
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:41 pmYeah, he’s been bashed without mercy for a long while. I think I remember Andrew Sullivan cheerfully noting the urban dictionary meaning of his name.
So yeah, he is not a sufficient fan of freedom, in my opinion. From the normal MSM way of saying things, I guess a radical change of policy with deep government intrusion is conservative because it stems from Santorum’s religious views.
Regardless, you could come up with 1000 more persuasive ways of saying his views are wrong. Why couldn’t Rachel Maddow and Eugene Robinson? The way their show presented this man will inspire a lot of anger, and I’m sure that will come back around, and you know, over and over eventually it’s like we’re two different species.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:47 pm200. Sparta had a pile outside the city where it discarded the infirm.
Rome objected strenuously to the Christians both because they refused deference to the gods but because they opposed infanticide.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:47 pmRobinson is trying to walk back his criticism as an unfortunate choice of words.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:49 pmI think I remember Andrew Sullivan cheerfully noting the urban dictionary meaning of his name.
Said dictionary meaning originally created by a relationship advice columnist who was, at one point, his college roommate.
(Wierd, but true.)
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:54 pmAs Rico alluded this discussion doesn’t bode well for the Left. The Right is somewhat united on fiscal issues. Allowing them to define the social issues they are agreed on seems a major blunder.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 12:55 pmAbsolutely. In Rome a man’s children were his property for as long as he lived, and he could kill or sell them even after they’d grown up, even if they were senators.
In most northern European cultures murder was not a crime, but a tort against the victim’s family, who had to be compensated; thus if the family didn’t mind that you killed their relative you could get away with it, and certainly the family could kill its own members without any legal consequence.
In Scandinavia newborn babies were brought before their father a few days after birth for him to decide whether to kill them or let them live.
“Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed business by which some people earn their subsistence.”
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:12 pmRobinson is just upset that he got okey doked by the man.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:14 pm“the tragedy is that McCarthy was correct about Communist infiltration. It was his broad smearing that was odious”
Yeah, he was broadly “smearing” a government that was scum rotten with communists, sympathizers of communism, Soviet agents and just plain old nitwits.
Which is what any rational person would do.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:15 pmAlso, speaking of rudeness:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1111735–huntsman-objects-to-campaign-attack-ad-featuring-his-adopted-daughters
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:17 pmIt’s not private. It was. It was an intensely private matter. That’s where my real uneasiness with this lies – that it was presented as an object lesson or even as a credential. This wasn’t a story that got around after they shared with persons intimately connected with the family. it was broadcast.
sarahW (b0e533) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:44 pmIt’s good to know we’ve evolved from that Milhouse, Gary.
IMO.
Really disturbing to contemplate what society is capable of.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:47 pmGood link, Aphrael.
That is so bad I guess I’d wonder if it were a dirty trick if it didn’t come from a Paulbot.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:49 pm#207
Charming folk, those pagans.
And, we’re heading down that same road now, riding merrily along in the vehicle of secular humanism.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 1:54 pm215. This returns one to the social justice arising from the original monotheists.
JBS was making a relatively weak argument on Genesis’ iconoclastic evil, bordering on eisegesis, reading the Law given to Moses into the earlier accounts.
But the Law explicitly enjoins the farmer from harvesting the corners of his fields inorder that the destitute may provide for themselves by gleaning. Hence the Book of Ruth.
Liberals have turned this on its head, the farmers provide lock stock and barrel, the poor simply have to file in line to provide for themselves.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:19 pmI would probably vote for Santorum in the general election (following Reynold’s Rule – he’s not a syphilitic camel), but I can’t support him as a primary candidate – his presidency would be a little too much toward the theocratic regime that my wife is paranoid about. On top of that, he’s not a winner- he holds the distinction of being on the losing end of the largest margin of defeat of ANY incumbent Republican Senator, EVER.
That said, these sort of attacks are disgraceful, but is anyone surprised at anything coming from MSNBC as long as it is negative toward anyone to the right of Vladamir?
bud (8d8936) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:31 pmbud, there really aren’t any candidates left that truly deserve our support. The two guys with strong conservative executive records can’t get support, hence they aren’t any good at politics. The other guys… well, we have to settle way too much no matter which we pick.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:38 pm217, 218. I really don’t see Santorum uniting the Right. Perry could but he just isn’t going to hit his stride before the race is over and the crowd departed.
We’re in a bad way. The last time we had such a divided front and as weak a frontrunner was Goldwater. Then LBJ was, for mostly ill, an outstanding leader.
LBJ, like Newt, was an especially effective Speaker.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:49 pmLBJ was not Speaker. He was Majority Leader of the Senate, a similar, but different, job.
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:54 pmBrokered convention?
If it’s ever been called for, it’s called for when the voters don’t get to pick anyway, courtesy the Lt Gov of VA.
If Romney’s multimillion dollar effort ties Santorum’s $23k one, he is astoundingly weak. And he’s the best ‘politician’ of them. Even I can see that.
Maybe Newt can pull it off. He’s the least bad who can win, anyway, but I think we’re in trouble.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 2:55 pmaphrael- that’s awful. Will be interesting to see if someone can sleuth out who posted that.
MayBee (081489) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:04 pmHow does one smear Communists by calling them Communists.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:06 pm220. I stand corrected, again.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:09 pmBack to the thread topic: did you all see Robinson’s squirmy incomplete apology?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/06/eugene-robinson-squirms-through-apology-to-rick-santorum/
Simon Jester (844e98) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:10 pm221 “Brokered convention?” We can only hope.
Jay Cost again has a column up telling conservatives, ‘Better luck next time’.
There’s a lot of water to run under the bridge just yet.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:17 pmSomeone have a link for Robinson trying to walk it back today?
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:32 pmSomeone have a link for Robinson trying to walk it back today?
Comment by Dana — 1/6/2012 @ 3:32 pm
Dana, here you go.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
no one you know (325a59) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:34 pmHmm, spam filter strikes again.
Dana,
tried to link but no worky. So — go to Hot Air site; it’s called “Eugene Robinson Squirms Through Apology to Rick Santorum”
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
no one you know (325a59) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:35 pm227. HotAir for one.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:35 pmThe link in my last post, Dana. Also, I wonder if Robinson would be as quick to forgive a racist comment when someone says that “they didn’t intend to offend” and they “could have put it differently.” Ace does a nice flensing of Robinson not owning his own words.
Or maybe I am on your “ignore” list. If I am, could someone repost that link for Dana?
Simon Jester (844e98) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:42 pmThanks Gary & Simon Jester.
“I wish I hadn’t said it that way, Joe. You know, I — we had — had this sort of discussion when I wrote about Chris Christie‘s weight, and I do think that a columnist has an obligation to — to write what he or she thinks and write what he or she sees, but obviously I did it in the wrong way. Or in a way that rubs people the wrong way, and that’s not what I intended.”
Oh for godsake, he admits here that he believes he has an obligation to write what he thinks. And he did just that.
You wrote what you thought and it was reprehensible, Eugene. Now own it and shut up because anything else you have to say now, short of a humble “I’m sorry, please forgive me”, is just word vomit.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:52 pmDana, I don’t see why they can’t say that they were hired to talk, and sometimes they say things that they straight up regret later?
Because they never make mistakes? Remember how they used to hammer GWB about that topic? Projection?
Anyway, I don’t like Joe S. that much, but he at least made Robinson squirm. And squirm he should, like a word.
Again, I have gone digging, but I am curious how forgiving of racist comments Robinson is…
Simon Jester (844e98) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:54 pm220. I stand corrected, again.
Comment by gary gulrud
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D’OH!!!
Colonel Haiku (c7d740) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:59 pmOn another sort of sickness, zerohedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/record-consecutive-treasury-dump-feds-custody-account
We are at a significant tipping point. Sovereigns are no longer holding on to their dollars or buying US Treasuries.
There are multiple reasons for this but it means inflation for us.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 3:59 pm@ Dustin,
They are human beings who have twisted themselves all the way to thinking this is the right thing to do, spitting on a family’s dignity because Rick Santorum is oh so wrong about something or other.
They are simply brainwashed / brainwashing into what I believe is actually fear of Republicans. Do they ham it up for the camera? Yes, and ruthlessly with calculation, but these people think they are justified because they are totally convinced people like Sarah Palin are something they aren’t.
I think there is another element driving this sort of behavior besides the political motive you speak of, and it’s something that was touched on the other night at this subject’s original thread.
Someone made the comment that killing people and robbery was a threat to the society but abortion wasn’t (I can’t remember exact wording), yet in light of Eugene and Colme’s cruel comments, I would suggest that our bloody culture of abortion certainly has had a denigrating effect resulting in an abusive tweaking of the moral compass. Hence, a threat to our society.
People like Colmes and Eugene felt complete freedom to make hateful comments publicly without fear of reprisal, but before they spoke out loud, they thought the thoughts first. This is where their mindset is, their stunted ability to value life, and a result of embracing the culture of death (abortion). What causes such a coarsening of the heart so much so that they missed the brevity of the matter? When barbaric acts like abortion are legally approved of, we will definitely see the results of that played out in a number of ways, in the individual and the society at large.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:19 pmAnother father’s eloquent story of loving and losing their baby, and how his family dealt with it.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:24 pmThat makes sense to me.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:30 pmOne wonders what is the proper punishment for these
folk, mauled by polar bears is the best bet;
http://www.adn.com/2012/01/06/2249283/pa-men-accused-of-threatening.html
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:36 pmRobinson is trying to walk back his criticism as an unfortunate choice of words.
Comment by gary gulrud — 1/6/2012 @ 12:49 pm
I can see that. The transcript shows Robinson stuttering his way through it. Like his mind was working out how bad this sounded as he was saying it.
That may be an end of it as a campaign meme.
papertiger (e55ba0) — 1/6/2012 @ 4:45 pmI suggest you familiarize yourself with more cultures that don’t derive their core values from the Bible.
If you go to many (perhaps all; I haven’t been to all) Buddhist shrines in Japan you’ll see small statuettes. Depending on the Season they might be wearing small knit caps and sweaters. They might have little toys with them. They are Mizuko Jizo. They’re traditionally associated with miscarried, stillborn infants, and those who died shortly after birth.
But since the end of WWII overwhelmingly they’re for the protection of the spirits of aborted infants. Abortion in Japan is seen as sometimes necessary but evil. “Mizuko” means “child of the water.” Infants that die in the womb, are aborted, or die soon after birth are thought to be too young to be able to cross the river to the next world on their own. They need help to cross the water. That’s where the “Jizo” part comes in. It has something to do with Buddha and apparently it’s sort of a guardian angel (although some of the explanations I got sort of made me think it had something to do with the potential of the aborted child). Women who have abortions “adopt” these statuettes to comfort the spirit of their aborted child, to apologize to it, less often because they’re afraid of the danger of a vengeful spirit.
They can request a “Mizuko Kuyo” or an atonement ceremony. Many doctors who perform abortions also ask for atonement ceremonies.
Abortion isn’t a public issue in Japan. But then neither is there a public “abortion rights” campaign. People still think of it as an evil, sometimes murder, and the women who have them most often are ashamed and would never think of telling their parents or their husbands.
The Japanese don’t go through the contortions the “pro-choice” movement does to try and convince themselves the life inside the womb isn’t a human being. Of course it is; what else is it? A dog? But then, morality and legality aren’t the same there. It’s legal to terminate that life. And most women who do feel really guilty about killing that little human being inside them.
You can hardly say the Japanese have no problem with abortion, let alone infanticide (although in the feudal era famine sometimes forced that upon the commoners). They have a problem with it. That’s why women who have abortions spend the rest of their lives apologizing to the aborted child for what they did to it. And doctors go to ask forgiveness for what they do.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:27 pm239. Thanks for the info. Buddhism or Shinto? Just asking.
By the same token Islam seems rather ready to send its young be suicide bombers.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:44 pmBuddhist.
Here’s a link to a page that has more on it.
Human Flower Project
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:49 pmJust so you know, the information on that page isn’t quite how the concept was generally explained to me. It talks about how Mizuko refers to the “watery world” of those awaiting birth. But I was told it refers to the Sanzu river separating life and death.
On the other hand, the various explanations I got when I was living there were a little confusing as well. It seems to explain the concept.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 6:55 pmhttp://mediamatters.org/blog/201201040001
Meanwhile…lefties fly into a rage when someone dares to make a VALID criticism of the profligate spending (on themselves…at taxpayer expense) of their current great heroes…the Obambis.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:12 pmReally interesting stuff Steve!
—
And there’s nowhere to turn if folks hesitate to support Santorum because he’s controversial.
Since Beldar criticized Newt I’ve kinda reopened my eyes and unfortunately he has a big mouth.
He’s still the least bad, I guess, but honestly I don’t know that I even have a preference anymore. Is there any chance Perry can recover or we can get another conservative (who can campaign properly, please) to enter the race late?
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:14 pmYes the same NAACP who accused W of complicity in the James Byrd dragging, for opposing Hate crime
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:18 pmlegislation, as Beldar put it, ‘there’s no penalty
greater than death’
‘Ramming speed, although the death mobile might get totalled;
https://twitter.com/#!/AndrewBreitbart/status/155470660750147584
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:20 pmHe’s still the least bad,
So that’s what we’ve sunk to, eh? I look forward to an election where we say, He’s the best of the best.
Steve, thanks for the Human Flower Project…what a read.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:24 pmBut if Obamas daughter died ad he took the lid of the coffin off to hold the hands of his daughter and you mocked it as weird you would not have long to live.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:30 pmBEyond parody, how do they write this with a straight face;
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/us/politics/michelle-obamas-evolution-as-first-lady.html?_r=2&hp
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:34 pmand*
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:46 pmEvery now and then a liberal pundit morphs into something that gets stuck on your shoe when you walk through a messy dog kennel.
Robinson and Colmes–quite a pair.
If a couple loses a child/has a stillbirth/has a miscarriage etc–the pain is intense. Whatever helps them get through that is okay–and not to be mocked.
Comanche Voter (0e06a9) — 1/6/2012 @ 7:54 pmDustin, we’re doomed.
sarahW (b0e533) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:02 pmJust when you think Robinson, plumbed the depths, there’s another blog that goes lower, I’m not linking it,
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:17 pmCmon, narisco. Linkie?
Bill Walton (318f81) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:23 pmBig Journalism found it,
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:25 pmI have full confidence in the left’s continual ability to lower the bar.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:33 pmObama and Eugene Robinson can see N.Korea from his white house.
By the way to those who say Palin is too stupid to run this country if Obama suspends the presidental elections than you deserve to be thrown into the reeducation camps you fools.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:34 pmRobinson wrote a particularly nauseating piece not so long ago, essentially stating that China is the Future, so you’re not totally off, Doh.
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:42 pmif Obama suspends the presidental elections
You know, this kind of claim – “$president is going to suspend elections” was crazy when leftists were making it about Bush, and it’s just as crazy now that it’s rightists making it about Obama.
aphrael (9ef75a) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:43 pmnarciso, that was one of the most disgustingly dishonest things I’ve ever read. Leave it to a self-proclaimed feminist to viciously smear and malign another woman in a vain attempt to give her own existence meaning. Unfortunately, the author simply revealed how dead inside and irrelevant she is.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:43 pmDana – what article is that from?
Bill Walton (318f81) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:46 pmLet us just say, the publication’s name is well deserved.
narciso (87e966) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:53 pm______________________________________________
and it’s just as crazy now that it’s rightists making it about Obama.
But not as much when Mr. Peace-and-Love (aka Obama in a former guise) didn’t make even the slightest effort — unlike his predecessor George W Bush — to get Congressional approval before sending the military into Libya to fight Muammar Gaddafi. And, even more so, not as much when President “Goddamn America” happily and smugly pulls stunts like this.
Mark (411533) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:57 pmYou wrote what you thought and it was reprehensible
I guess I’m illiterate or something, because when I read what Robinson word’s, I’m not seeing anything that mocks Santorum or is reprehensible. He made the observation that a lot of people would find what the Santorums did to be wierd. Well, guess what? A lot of people do. Robinson then tacked on the comment that he himself thought it was wierd.
Now, please tell me, how does that mock Santorum? How is it reprehensible to say that you think that, in their grief and trying to deal with it, they actually disrespected the mortal remains, and therefore the memory, of their dead child. If you really understood what being pro-life was about, you’d understand that treating the deceased’s body with the utmost respect is yet another way of showing how much you value human life. That something is done to help cope with grief does not automatically validate it as good and uncriticizable. Or do y’all simply think that it’s fine and dandy for the family do whatever they want with the corpse? (And just because the American Pregancy Association suggests it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.)
Rome objected strenuously to the Christians both because they refused deference to the gods but because they opposed infanticide.
JBS (14ed7d) — 1/6/2012 @ 8:59 pmIt was Mohammed who got the Arabs to stop the practice of infanticide. In fact, like the Romans and the Christians, much of the early opposition to him centered on his denounciation of infanticide.
The purpose for which they acted as they did could have been achieved just as well by bringing their other children to the funeral home and letting them view the body in the casket.
My cut and paste-fu was a little off. The last paragraph of 264 should have come before the part about Mohammed, not after, “they” of course referring to Sen. and Mrs. Santorum.
JBS (14ed7d) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:03 pmDid you watch it, JBS? If that is not mocking, or making fun of, then you have redefined those words. I would love to hear how this was disrespectful to the remains.
JD (318f81) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:03 pmWhen Eugene Robinson calls Mussolini and his henchmen far-right they are lying Mussolini and his granddaughter were far-left well Mussolini’s granddaughter reformed and became a centrist.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:08 pmWatch the clip: Robinson is pretty much laughing as he says this. That’s how it mocks Santorum.
And don’t even try to tell us that Robinson was saying the Santorums disrespected the remains of their child, it more the tone of pointing at the fat kid in the corner of the classroom eating paste and saying, “Look at the weirdo”.
Chuck Bartowski (490c6f) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:22 pmQuestion for liberals who think that when conservatives criticize abortion they are being equally as vile as when Robinson and Colmes criticize Santorum for the way he and his family mourned his child.
Whose intimate personal life does this news report intrude upon?
Doctor now facing murder owned Colonie clinic where 17 fetuses found in ’96
A Dr. Steven Brigham is being charged with multiple counts of first degree murder and multiple counts of second degree murder for violating Maryland’s viable fetus law.
Along with a Utah doctor, he’s charged with murder conspiracy as well.
In an intriguing twist, he was investigated in upstate New York due to similar suspicions back in the mid-’90s. But the New York Democratic machine forced investigators to drop that particular investigation. Apparently infanticide remains a protected practice in New York.
I’m not using the term infanticide recklessly. A pregnancy is considered full term at 37 weeks. One of the 35 fetuses the Maryland investigators found in this kind, compassionate doctor’s freezer, the kind of man Robinson and Colmes would find exemplary and in no way wierd, appears to have been aborted in its 36th week. It was days away from being full term, and according to the evidence reported in the article it’s not the only one that was aborted after it was fully developed.
Hence the murder charges.
I’m sure I’m being hugely insensitive to some poor woman by discussing the most intimate details of her private life that, through some wild twist of fate, somehow became what must be one “interesting” dude’s souvenir in the freezer of an Elkton Maryland abortion clinic.
But being the simple right-wing neanderthal that I am and not being wise in the philosophical principles of progressive moral equivalency, I somehow fail to see the parallels between me criticizing these practices and the Robinsons/Colmes of the world criticizing the Santorum family’s funereal practices.
Perhaps I see a public interest in one and not the other. I’m sure Robinson and Colmes would say the same, but we wouldn’t be looking at the same case study.
A little help.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:29 pmSteve – One difference I see is that you’re not naming names of the people whose private lives you are theoretically invading.
Colmes and Robinson purposefully are.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:44 pmThey still condone infanticide thru suicide bombing.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:46 pmJBS channeling his inner Finkelman?
Icy (eca528) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:48 pm“He made the observation that a lot of people would find what the Santorums did to be wierd. Well, guess what? A lot of people do.”
JBS – Do you think the subject has anything at all to do with the election or Santorum’s qualifications for office? If so, could you explain why it is a relevant topic for public discussion?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:49 pmIcy – Sammy thinks Catholics always take the bodies home. Must live in some kind of a bubble or something.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/6/2012 @ 9:53 pmMy bad for being unclear, daleyrocks. I was referring to how Sammy seems to bend over backwards trying to justify the opposing viewpoint on many a subject — and how, just as JBS did in this case, the issue of someone’s intent (rather than their actions) is put forth as the determining factor.
It’s okay, JBS seems to be saying, because there was no ill will behind Robinson’s words. Sure, he was just sharing information with the public, with no agenda of tarnishing Santorum in the eyes of the voting public. Right.
Icy (eca528) — 1/6/2012 @ 10:12 pm“You know, this kind of claim – “$president is going to suspend elections” was crazy when leftists were making it about Bush, and it’s just as crazy now that it’s rightists making it about Obama.”
It isn’t all that crazy when you stop and think what the Democrats in good old dixie did about the election in 1860.
Not crazy at all.
In truth, members of that particular organization have never shown much respect for elections, unless the election happened to go their way.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/7/2012 @ 12:52 amRobinson and Colmes are speaking from the heart (which has its reasons) and from the depths of Democrat morality: they know the truth and their own morality: people are garbage. There is no sanctity of life in their morality, where every insect, plant, and animal must be saved from depredations by humans. Only man is vile. Two EUropean countries embodied this morality of theirs in the 20th century. Need I mention them?
tehag (5c7fe4) — 1/7/2012 @ 3:49 amWell more like in 1876, when their paramilitary arm, the KLan acted like the Iraqi resistance, and scared enough people away from the polls, to provoke that controversy that saddled Rutherford B. Hayes
narciso (87e966) — 1/7/2012 @ 6:52 amhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287410/left-s-so-called-empathy-mark-steyn
narciso (87e966) — 1/7/2012 @ 7:24 amRobinsons way of journalism is weird.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/7/2012 @ 7:25 amMario Cuomo-We shouldn’t stigmatize Food Stamps. Gingrich is a bigot.
Typical lefty mindset.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/7/2012 @ 7:32 amCharles Lane of the Post writes eloquently on the Santorum baby issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/rick-santorums-baby–and-mine/2011/03/04/gIQA0uH1eP_blog.html?hpid=z4
Colonel Haiku (a951af) — 1/7/2012 @ 8:06 am_______________________________________________
where every insect, plant, and animal must be saved from depredations by humans. Only man is vile. Two EUropean countries embodied this morality of theirs in the 20th century.
Actually, the morality you speak of is, if anything, more commonplace today than it was during the past century.
Western culture for the past several decades has increasingly moved in the direction of ass-backwards, two-faced compassion, in which growing numbers of people feel more protective of non-humans — of animals, including their pets — than humans. With that in mind, Americans need to be aware of the contradictions in the type of people responsible for the following. Even more so since hip, trendy, modern folks tend to fall for the notion that a variation of PETA-type sentiment reflects an inherently more decent, humane, wonderful society:
^ This doesn’t include several passages of the legislation that went into even more absurd minutiae on what was or wasn’t legal in the way animals were treated. A law that was sponsored by a regime that would eventually round up humans like cattle and send them en masse to gas chambers. A regime, by the way, that did include the word “socialist” in its formal designation.
Mark (411533) — 1/7/2012 @ 8:43 amI’ve said some things I shouldn’t have said but at least I never mocked someone mourning the deaths of their children.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/7/2012 @ 8:56 am283. To be worn as a phylactery on our foreheads lest we forget.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:43 amTo tehag’s point, no one believes in original sin more than a leftist. And it is because they don’t believe in religious or moral redemption that they justify the need to control our lives. We’re beyond hope, which is why there is no point in being tough on crime or holding people accountable for their own financial security. We’re too stupid, greedy, slothful, etc to take care of ourselves properly, so our betters need to take care of us in order to help us squeeze a few drops of precious happiness out of this wretched thing we call a life.
Case in point: Yesterday I went to the doctor for a bronchial infection. Before I leave my physician says, “Let’s talk about your weight.” Turns out that as of Jan 1st there is a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REQUIREMENT that if your Body Mass Index is above a certain number your doctor has to speak to you about it.
Somebody remind me, at the time of the Obamacare debate didn’t the Dems assure us that the government was NOT going to tell doctors how to do their jobs?
Icy (5239d5) — 1/7/2012 @ 10:34 am“Case in point: Yesterday I went to the doctor for a bronchial infection. Before I leave my physician says, “Let’s talk about your weight.” Turns out that as of Jan 1st there is a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REQUIREMENT that if your Body Mass Index is above a certain number your doctor has to speak to you about it.”
My doc has been doing that for a while now, Icy. Next time I go in, I’ll turn the tables on him and tell him he needs to put a little weight on those bones. Guy’d be lucky if he went a buck twenty five.
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/7/2012 @ 10:46 am288, 289. You guys need a toddler to chase. I’m down 30 since squirt was born. Lot of missed meals.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 1/7/2012 @ 11:54 amNo, kidding, Icy. And you aren’t even speaking metaphorically.
Beyond America’s Original Sin – New York Times
America’s Original Sin:Slavery in The Land of Liberty
Racism: America’s Original Sin – On Faith at the Washington Post
And the only way to cleanse ourselves of our original sin it to penitently adopt a course of socialism and wealth redistribution.
Which still will never be enough.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/7/2012 @ 2:13 pmDaley–we have here a case where Santorum made a very bad decision under a situation of unusual stress. That ought to be relevant to deciding if he’s fit for office, no?
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/7/2012 @ 5:58 pmI call it a very bad decision because I think it was, and ended up making a mockery of that dead infant far more than anything Colmes and Robinson could do. It ought to be clear to anyone even in extreme distress such as the Santorums were, that you don’t cart around your dead child’s body like it’s a piece of luggage or something.
Icy–actually, it’s the reverse: you’re judging Robinson by what you think was going on his mind; I was judging him by what he actually said.
Joe Klein in the current issue of TIME Magazine (the one that says on the cover that people like Romney all of a sudden) in his column
The Passion of Rick Santorum
How the former Senator will complicate Mitt Romney’s march to the nomination
…I got to know Santorum and his wife Karen about 15 years ago, when we had several intense conversations about the death, in childbirth, of their son Gabriel. Karen nearly died from septic shock, but she refused to have an induced birth–an abortion, in effect. In retrospect, she admitted to me that she wasn’t thinking clearly; she had three other children at home. But the Senator abided by her wishes to go through with a regular delivery. After Karen miscarried, the Santorums brought the dead child home overnight so their other children could see that he was “a beautiful, tiny little baby,” Santorum told me.
He adds:
Subsequently, [Should be: Many years later] Karen gave birth to a girl with a severe congenital birth defect. Standing behind their father on the Iowa podium, six Santorum children–all of them homeschooled–wore buttons with a picture of their beloved 3-year-old sister. They are a remarkable family.
To see it online you need to be a subscriber to TIME Magazine or buy the article.
Sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 1/7/2012 @ 6:18 pmHow did he make a mockery of their sons mortal remains, JBS? We get that you would not do what he did, but simply declaring it unwise, and a bad decision. Do you simply know better than they how to grieve, know better than grief counselors, and the APA? If you actually watched Eugene, you could not state with a straight face or an ounce of integrity that he was not mocking them.
JD (392f2d) — 1/7/2012 @ 6:43 pm“I call it a very bad decision because I think it was, and ended up making a mockery of that dead infant far more than anything Colmes and Robinson could do.”
JBS – You seem to be in the extreme minority with respect to your opinion, FWIW.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/7/2012 @ 6:47 pm“JBS channeling his inner Finkelman?”
Channeling his inner busybody is more like it.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/7/2012 @ 7:21 pmJD–the Santorums treated the body of their child disrespectfully and indecently. There is no other way to put it. There is a way to treat human remains after death, and carting it around between family home and funeral home is not it, and there’s no excuse for it–parental grief or anything else. Or, more precisly, grief may excuse it, but it can’t justify it; and any professional who actually advocates for what the Santorums did has lost their moral compass. That you and the others here can not understand a point that I find to be blindingly obvious surprised me, to say the least.
And bear in mind, the Santorums could have accomplished what they intended in another way that doesn’t involve disrespect for Gabriel’s corpse–by bringing the children to the funeral home and spending time as a family with the body in an open casket. This is not the sort of situation where bringing the body home was the only possible way available to them.
JBS (3fe759) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:00 pmI don’t think it was the least bit disrespectful, nor indecent. I would not have done so, but I also would not mount my faux moral high horse and rant about their choices.
Romney Fanboi (318f81) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:06 pmOops. That was me.
JD (318f81) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:07 pmJBS, your manufactured argument reflects badly upon you, not the Santorums.
A Movement to Bring Grief Back Home – The Washington Post
Wow! Who knew! The way 90% of human beings deal with death across the globe is wrong! The way more and more Americans are dealing with death even today, which was the common way to deal with death just a few decades ago, is wrong!
The traditional Catholic vigil at home is wrong! The way Muslims conduct funeral rites is wrong!
It lacks dignity! Why? Because JBS needs to come to the defense of some twisted, sick left wing pundits and he has to manufacture some sort of case that defies human history in order to do so.
“Hey, world, you’re doing it wrong because I decided you are!”
Brilliant, JBS, oh self-designated ultimate arbiter of what constitutes dignity and respect on the internet!
Keep it up. Please.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:19 pmSteyn: Politics trumps Left’s empathy
The short life of Gabriel Santorum would seem a curious priority for political discourse at a time when the Brokest Nation in History is hurtling toward its rendezvous with destiny. But needs must, and victory by any means necessary. In 2008, the Left gleefully mocked Sarah Palin’s live baby. It was only a matter of time before they moved on to a dead one.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:28 pmby bringing the children to the funeral home and spending time as a family with the body in an open casket.
I absolutely appreciate that the open casket is the modern, accepted American method of “properly” dealing with a dead loved one. But come on. There’s a lot that coffin-ready body has been through, and there is nothing inherently comforting or intimate about the casket display of the prepped body.
I don’t want my body displayed in an open casket. I hate the makeup, the hair, the waxen hands crossed in just the right position.
MayBee (081489) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:30 pmIf you find comfort in that, bless you. But there’s no reason that has to be the only accepted way to deal with grief.
JBS, in an incredibly tone-deaf manner, wrote:
Sure there is: it’s not of your fracking business, you insensitive asshole.
Now, shove your self-referential partisan politics right up your ass. Damn, but I am mad about this guy.
Sorry folks. It’s just the internet.
Simon Jester (69e6e5) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:30 pmAnd JBS?
Your freakin’ credentials in the area of grief counseling are?
Matthew 7:5 come to mind.
And I apologize again for my outburst.
Simon Jester (69e6e5) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:32 pm“There’s a lot that coffin-ready body has been through, and there is nothing inherently comforting or intimate about the casket display of the prepped body.”
MayBee – I worry the bodies will reanimate themselves, but that may be a function of watching too many zombie movies.
To each his own.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:34 pm“JD–the Santorums treated the body of their child disrespectfully and indecently. There is no other way to put it. There is a way to treat human remains after death, and carting it around between family home and funeral home is not it, and there’s no excuse for it–parental grief or anything else.”
JBS – Good thing it was the Santorum family’s decision on how to deal with Gabriel’s death rather than your’s. Who the hell do you think you are to pass judgement on how they did it?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:38 pmThat you and the others here can not understand a point that I find to be blindingly obvious surprised me, to say the least.
Heh. You don’t see the incredible irony, do you?
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:40 pmWho is this guy, daley? Is this typical? Griefer troll, maybe.
Simon Jester (69e6e5) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:41 pm“Who is this guy, daley? Is this typical? Griefer troll, maybe.”
Simon – No, JBS is kishnevi. Her just does not acknowledge that other points of view actually exist on this point.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:53 pmI have seldom seen someone who is well written and seemingly literate be so empty of compassion.
Simon Jester (69e6e5) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:55 pmIf they had stomped on the dead babys corpse and spat on it than that would be acceptable in the trolls eye.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/7/2012 @ 9:57 pm“That you and the others here can not understand a point that I find to be blindingly obvious surprised me, to say the least.”
Maybe it’s ’cause you’re a self-righteous nitwit, and we’re not?
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:07 amApparently insanity is no barrier to using good grammar and proper punctuation.
If he wants become more and more ridiculous in his losing effort to pretend he’s got a point, I say let him run with it.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 1:28 amJBS, here are more experts who’ve lost their moral compasses.
Doctors: Nothing wrong with Rick Santorum’s grieving process – The Boston Herald
Hurry. If you’e quick, maybe you can find one. You desperately need it. Clearly it’ll be your first one so if you need help figuring out how a moral compass works don’t hesitate to ask.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 5:22 amYour freakin’ credentials in the area of grief counseling are?
The same as yours, Simon. I’m a human being who believes that human life is the ultimate value, and as such I find what Santorum did to be a disgusting treatment of another human being.
I’ll leave it as this:
If we were dealing at the level of basic principles here–the importance and dignity of human life–it would be the pro-abortion folks who would defend Santorum and the anti-abortion folks who would criticize him.
JBS (38f6c3) — 1/8/2012 @ 7:53 amOkay, I’ll admit it. He had me at the nipple licking but lost me when his preaching turned to anuses.
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:03 amWrong thread… huh?!?!
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:06 amJBS: since you admit you have no credentials in grief counseling, admit you don’t know anything about it—-and leave it to the experts, who disagree with your heartless parochialism.
But you’ll never reevaluate your position. Your knee jerk (emphasis on “jerk” of the heartless variety) reactions aren’t natural law.
Me, I stick with what the experts on this say. And, despite your performance here, I hope you never have cause to understand the loss of a child.
Simon Jester (69e6e5) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:14 am“If we were dealing at the level of basic principles here–the importance and dignity of human life–it would be the pro-abortion folks who would defend Santorum and the anti-abortion folks who would criticize him.”
JBS – Since that is clearly not what you are observing, your theory is hosed. Not everybody seems to share your superstitions about the dead.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:14 amWell said, Simon.
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:25 amMe, I stick with what the experts on this say.
Remember that the next time global warming comes up. Or anything other topic where you think the experts are wrong. Just because the experts recommend something does not mean it’s the moral thing to do.
Comment by daleyrocks — 1/8/2012 @ 8:14 am
It’s not a theory. Respect for the dead is a fundamental aspect of respect for life. I was merely making the observation that partisanship and politcal expediency have interfered with people’s understanding.
This would in fact have been a good case in which to expose the hypocrisy of pro-abortion people. But knee jerk reflexive attacks triumphed instead.
Not everybody seems to share your superstitions about the dead.
It’s not a superstition. Respect for the dead is one of the fundamental mores by which we know what we are moral civilized humans. Look at how digusting and offensive jihadi mutilation of the bodies of their victims is.
JBS (38f6c3) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:43 amShorthand JBS:
Icy (90d2a0) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:06 amDealing with the reality that your child — if ever so briefly — lived = disrespectful behavior
Pretending — as in the case of abortion — that your child never existed in the first place = proper behavior
If JBS only had as much respect for life as he claims to have for the dead.
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:08 am______________________________________________
Okay, I’ll admit it. He had me at the nipple licking but lost me when his preaching turned to anuses.
Comment by Colonel Haiku — 1/8/2012 @ 8:03 am
Wrong thread… huh?!?!
Comment by Colonel Haiku — 1/8/2012 @ 8:06 am
LOL! If anyone hasn’t been following the other thread (on how rape statistics are reported) and saw your first post, they’d say “where the hell did that come from?!”
BTW, I’d be ticked off at JBS only if he were glomming onto negative opinions regarding Santorum and his infant for purely political reasons. IOW, if he were a leftwinger like Eugene Robinson, I could easily imagine his saying, “I totally understand the senator’s loss and fully sympathize with the way he handled it!” But that, of course, would be if it involved Senator — drum roll, pleas — Barack Obama of Illinois (or some other liberal) taking the dead body of his child and, say, hanging it in the front window of his house. Hell, that could even include the scenario of Robinson reacting to the way a theoretical liberal senator might take his baby’s body and, out of grief, twirl it around on a rope.
Mark (411533) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:09 amJBS would not want Barack Obama to be punished with a dead baby.
Icy (90d2a0) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:22 amWhat makes you people think JBS is pro-abortion? And what has the whole abortion debate got to do with this story? Gabriel Santorum was born alive, and for the two hours of his life was a person by everybody’s definition. Even Obama, who seems to think that a baby born alive has no rights if his mother wanted him dead, would agree that young Mr Santorum was a person, because his mother very much wanted him to live. Had somebody killed him during the two hours of his life, there’s not a prosecutor in the country who wouldn’t charge murder, or a jury that wouldn’t convict. The question here isn’t whether he was a real person, but what does one do with ones dead relatives. And that’s ultimately a cultural question.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:45 amJBS, I think you are trolling. But you are being foolish (because you shot your mouth off, and you won’t own that).
Grief counselors deal with this sort of thing daily. You DO NOT. Clearly.
So your opinion is fine. But I noticed that you never said “…in my opinion…” when you slagged the grieving parents of a dead child. Your opinion is not natural law.
Bring up AGW is beneath you. It just showcases how little compassion you have for others.
But please, continue to make an insensitive jackwagon of yourself. It will just make people take everything you say with a lot less seriousness.
Again: you reacted to something that was foreign to you, without filter or thought. And now you want to claim that your reflexive thoughtless is justified.
Please move along. Your prior comments were thoughtless. And attempts to move goalposts are specious to say the least.
Simon Jester (6b1c6c) — 1/8/2012 @ 10:37 amThey handled a family tragedy in an appropriate manner and with a valid rationale. I consider my moral compass fully intact, thanks.
Stashiu3 (601b7d) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:18 am“It’s not a superstition.”
JBS – Covering mirrors, leaving windows open, not leaving a body alone, not eating or drinking around a body, all such practices do not constitute superstitions? Seriously?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:40 amWhy, no, Stashiu3! This…person…knows what is best for everyone else. Better than grief counselors. Better than you and me. Better than the Santorums.
In Greek myths, people with such hubris are visited by the Furies, and given the experience that they sniff about with others.
I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen to this JBS person. I cannot believe that he is anything other than a fellow who popped off without thought, and is unwilling to admit it.
Simon Jester (6b1c6c) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:42 amdaley, “JBS” is kishnevi? It was my understanding that kishnevi had some respect around here. This didn’t help.
Simon Jester (6b1c6c) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:43 amI respect the person. I think he’s wrong here and consider my moral compass intact. Just sayin’
Stashiu3 (601b7d) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:58 amHere is an example of Eugene Robinson’s “work”.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:02 pmAnd what has the whole abortion debate got to do with this story?
The fems feminists are manipulating it into just that – Santorum’s supposed hypocrisy regarding abortion. Again, politics triumphs empathy… any way it can.
Let’s get down to brass tacks: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Personhood Pledge-signing, Griswold vs. Connecticut-opposing, Mr. Ban Abortion in All Circumstances With No Exception for the Life of the Mother, believes that the actions of his own wife should be treated as criminal. Why? Because, back in 1996, his wife had a procedure that resulted in the deliberate death of her fetus, even though it was a matter of saving her own life.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:07 pmBut whether or not Karen Santorum had an abortion or medically induced the birth of a non-viable fetus shouldn’t matter in the eyes of someone with views as extreme as Santorum, as he is one of a disturbingly large group of politicians who believe that women should not be allowed to abort under any circumstances. Santorum’s even against abortion if there were no hope of the fetus surviving to full term, or even if the woman carrying the fetus risked death doing so. Karen Santorum would have died if the fetus were not removed, and labor was induced and not halted knowing that the fetus would not survive. How is this not technically “abortion?” In Santorum’s world, it would probably qualify as infanticide.
JBS:
Is this also how you view the Jewish practice of circumcising stillborn babies and babies who die shortly after birth?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:12 pmThis does relate to how he will do his his duties as commander-in-chief. If women should not be allowed to abort under any circumstances, then the United States should not kill anyone under any circumstances.
Because there is no way that it is wrong for a woman to have an abortion to save her own life, while it is simultaneously right to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on people (born and unborn) who were not threatening anyone’s life.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:13 pmSimon – What JBS is saying merely follows Jewish tradition regarding death.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:15 pmThere is no way it is wrong to compare apples and oranges if it is right to compare fish with bicycles.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:16 pmAnd more…
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:19 pmabortion is very controversial
but fishes are simply tasty
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:20 pmFor a society that has been bombarded with Leftist Compassion and Non-Judgementalism for four-decades, we seem to be overflowing with contempt for how some aspects of society handle the instances of life and death within their family; as if they needed anyone else’s permission.
Sign me as Sickened by this Rancor.
AD-RtR/OS! (25ec72) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:25 pmI think JBS has a very strict view of what’s allowed and not allowed, and most conservatives appreciate that law-and-order view of life. But I think this is one area where conservatives value empathy more, because children have a special place in our hearts.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:32 pmI’m a human being who believes that human life is the ultimate value, and as such I find what Santorum did to be a disgusting treatment of another human being.
I think JBS has arrogantly attempted to usurp the authority that belongs to God alone in defining what is respectful and disrespectful treatment of another human being. Thus, he/she is no one’s moral authority. And clearly, that is a good thing.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:39 pmRe: post #335… that’s a clip too far, DRJ.
Colonel Haiku (8e3ab6) — 1/8/2012 @ 12:59 pm“I think JBS has a very strict view of what’s allowed and not allowed, and most conservatives appreciate that law-and-order view of life.”
Well, I’m not a conservative (except in my own life, but that’s just how i prefer to live), I’m a right winger, and as far as I’m concerned you can do pretty much any thing you please as long as you’re not hurting anyone else.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/8/2012 @ 1:18 pmSounds like you’re a libertarian, Dave Surls, and I agree the Santorum family’s decision regarding their son Gabriel should be a matter of personal choice.
Libertarian philosophy works very well as long as everyone acts responsibly. Unfortunately, not everyone does in this world, which is why I’m more of a conservative than a libertarian.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/8/2012 @ 1:35 pm“Sounds like you’re a libertarian, Dave Surls…”
Yeah, pretty much.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/8/2012 @ 2:57 pmJBS, you desperately need to get yourself to Boston and find one of those lost moral compasses I brought to your attention. Because, wow, I’ve never come across someone who needed one more. It is precisely because of the fact that we are dealing with the basic principle of the importance and dignity of human life, that the pro-abortion crowd is attacking Santorum.
They don’t think that dead child deserved any more respect than any other lump of medical waste. Well, perhaps only valuable in the sense that it could be scavenged for spare parts. The fact that the Santorums treated their lost child as a valued and loved member of the family outrages them; it truly does strike them as weird.
The pro-life crowd is defending them because we respect the value and dignity of the infant, the stillborn, and the unborn as valued and loved members of the family.
This is why the world works exactly 180dg out from your irrational assertions about how the world should work. It would work out exactly as you say it should, if reason were entirely absent.
You really should change your screen name to “Exhibit C.” Because following Colmes’ and Robinson’s ill-informed, illogical “smugly arrogant” mockery of the Santorums, you’re the third best example of the sickness in our society.
Frankly, part of me suspects even you can’t believe what you’re saying. It strikes me that having been caught out, with even Colmes and Robinson backing off from their previous statements, you simply can’t admit you don’t have a point. It isn’t so much you’re in the minority. You can’t even make a coherent argument. But you don’t seem to care; you just refuse to admit you’re wrong.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 5:36 pmAnd what makes them think he has any problem with that, let alone that he would want it banned? As I understand it, the Catholic Church has no problem with this sort of life-saving procedure; surely they’re not claiming that Santorum is stricter than the Pope!
Milhouse (dc2f1d) — 1/8/2012 @ 5:55 pmSunday night musical interlude .
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 6:02 pmPerhaps, DRJ. But then, he’s wrong. It is perfectly legal to bring the deceased home everywhere except Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Nebraska, and New York.
Here’s the state of the law in Texas:
So, great, let’s all follow the law. If you’re in Texas, the above is the law. That’s what you have to do to bring the deceased home to prepare the body and conduct the funeral. As many people choose to do.
My problem with JBS is that his argument is completely divorced from reality. In all aspects. His “strict view” on what’s allowed and isn’t allowed has nothing at all to do with what is or isn’t allowed. It’s divorced from the fact that all over the globe people care for their own dead with decorum and respect. Yet for some reason in his view it’s “disrespectful” if you don’t let some complete stranger in the funeral home business haul off the corpse where it can be desecrated by unscrupulous organ harvesters and even necrophiliacs.
His assertions are bizarre (I feel no compunction to say “I find” or “in my opinion” since he believes digital ejaculations [noun, 1. an abrupt, exclamatory utterance] constitute commandments) and bear no relationship to the law, history, or culture.
I suppose it’s correct to say he doesn’t think the universe should allow things he doesn’t agree with. Perhaps he sees an Obama czardom in his future. He could be the Czar of Permissable Funereal Esthetics. And I would expect the output of his office to be as dignified, rational, and respected as that of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 6:21 pmBring up AGW is beneath you. It just showcases how little compassion you have for others.
Bringing up AGW is very much on point. You’re saying listen to the experts, and I’m pointing out an area in which we all agree that the experts are full of hooey. If the experts are wrong there, why can’t they be wrong here? And I say they are.
I have compassion for the Santorums. But I haven’t lost sight of the compassion and respect due to Gabriel Santorum, and I haven’t forgotten what Western spiritual tradition, including Christian values and what the Bible says on the matter, have taught about the proper way to treat the dead, and I think the Santorums didn’t act according to those norms. The fact that they were operating in a situation of extreme emotional distress is pertinent, but it does not render them immune from criticism. The fact that it is legal to do it does not mean it is moral to do it–just like abortion; the fact that a hundred experts suggest it does not render it moral; it merely means the hundred experts are suggesting something that is immoral.
Comment by daleyrocks — 1/8/2012 @ 11:40 am</i
They are not superstitions, they're the Jewish etiquette for mourning, as is the circumcision of boys that don't survive to the eighth day. But I'll tell you what–you stop referring to my religion as a bunch of superstitions, and I won't bring up how people praying on their knees in front of, and to, holy mummies, large wafers of unleavened bread, and paintings and statues (all of which Catholics do, although the holy mummies are much less common in the USA than in other parts of the world) seems very much like idol worship to an outsider.
For Steve and Dana's benefit, I'm basing myself on what the Bible says, nothing more and nothing less. I'm not putting myself in God's place; I'm simply repeating what He tells us in Scripture. And proper burial of the dead is one of the things, like clothing the naked, feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, that is so important that God Himself is shown by Scripture to do it directly (in the case of burying the dead, by Himself burying Moses).
JBS (2d88a8) — 1/8/2012 @ 7:52 pmWell, I give up. JBS, your metaphorical underwear is showing. Good luck with that: making friends and getting people to listen to you and treat you with respect.
I’m glad you feel you are so deuced correct. You will at least have yourself to keep you company.
Lonely, though.
Simon Jester (6b1c6c) — 1/8/2012 @ 7:59 pmActually, it pretty much renders them immune from criticism. Try putting yourself in their shoes. Seriously in the shoes of a parent who just had a baby die.
Anyway, we live in a free society. Let people have their own ways of dealing with pain. If some (And many say they do) handle this pain this way, then judging such folks for that is worse than any supposed offense they have committed.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:17 pm“But I’ll tell you what–you stop referring to my religion as a bunch of superstitions”
JBS – You need to make up your mind. First I am told this is not a religious issue and now I am being told that is not the case. Next I am told that many Jewish mourning practices are cultural, not religious. Making it up as you go along does not create a very strong argument.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:38 pmF*ck you sideways Eugene………..Oh no lets leave that to Ludwig Van Quixote.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:40 pmJBS,
It seems to me that most religions, regions and cultures have their own etiquette when it comes to death. Why are you so sure your version is the only one that is right?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/8/2012 @ 8:53 pmGreat, JBS. Now we know that in the newly discovered “Book of JBS” that Joseph of Arithamea defiled the body of Jesus:
Mathew 27
57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.
How DARE he, how did you put it, make “a mockery of” the “dead
infantMessiah;”everyone knows “you don’t cart around your dead
child’sMessiah’s body like it’s a piece of luggage or something.”Keep digging, JBS.
I don’t mind if you don’t care you’re making a fool of yourself, if you don’t.
Now we’ve established you don’t know much if at all of the state of the law, culture, history, AND scripture.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:05 pmComment by DRJ — 1/8/2012 @ 8:53 pm
JBS (2d88a8) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:10 pmDRJ, I’m not saying that. I’m not criticizing people who have funerals from their home, or hold wakes, or anything like that. But proper respect for the dead is a universal value that comes from properly respecting human life, and in doing what they did, the Santorums did the reverse of respecting the dead. The Santorums transported Gabriel’s body around for the benefit of their children. I’m saying that instead of bringing the body to the other children, they could have and should have brought the other children to where the body was. The psychological results the wanted would have been the same. And contrary to what Dustin says, I think criticism is allowed. It ought to be done tactfully, but they are not totally exempt.
Daley–you called Jewish practices superstition, and did so more than once. They are not, and you insulted my religion. But I’m not suggesting Jewish practices as the universal norm. You’re the one who’s dragging them in here, not me.
Comment by Steve — 1/8/2012 @ 9:05 pm
JBS (2d88a8) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:16 pmHe didn’t cart a body around; he had it prepared for burial and buried it, and in doing so performed a deed of lovingkindness of the sort that the Bible thinks very highly of.
JBS sure has a weird way of blogging.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:19 pmUh, Earth to JBS, he took the body himself, transported it himself, prepared it himself, and buried himself.
He didn’t have it done.
Much like the Santorums.
Look, if you have information that they tossed Gabriel’s body in the trunk and then took it home and played “keep away” with the dog, then spit it out.
Because, frankly, you’re all over the map in your desperate attempt to paint what the Santorums did as “disrespectful” to the dead and a “mockery.”
And,bye he bye, funerals are for the benefit of the remaining children. And for the remaining family and friends. Funerals and funeral rites are for the benefit of the living. The deceased are beyond the “sacramental economy.”
But tell you what; here’s how you can make your point. Find a chapter or verse in the Bible that the Santorums transgressed. Otherwise you’re just pulling things out of your rectum.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:31 pm“Daley–you called Jewish practices superstition, and did so more than once. They are not, and you insulted my religion. But I’m not suggesting Jewish practices as the universal norm. You’re the one who’s dragging them in here, not me.”
JBS – Yes I did. Again, culture or religion? Tradition or superstition? My intent is not to insult Judaism any more than you have openly insulted Christianity. Your first comment on Patterico’s Santorum thread made your perspective clear, you have little tolerance for flexibility regarding views of respect for the dead which differ from yours:
“To return to the original topic (I’ll let y’all scuffle about on abortion and so forth)–what Milhouse was saying was that what Santorum and his wife did ran severely against what Jewish tradition believes is proper respect for the dead. The Santorums could have achieved their object by taking their other children to the funeral home to view the open casket, and spending time alone as a family with the body in the casket. And even that pushes the Jewish envelope a little, since in Jewish tradition one is supposed to close the casket and keep it closed once the body is cleansed and prepared.
(And everyone joining in to fill the grave is another way of showing respect for the dead, by helping in this one last act of kindness to the deceased–but the shovel is held upside down, in token of the fact that this is one act you would very much prefer not to be doing).
We Jews believe that the body, since it was the house of the soul (that is, the Divine Image or Spark), should be treated with utmost respect after death, and that respect is shown by giving it a simple decent funeral, with eulogies, as soon after death as circumstances (which include among other things letting out of town relatives or important friends or colleagues fly in if they can do so quickly) permit, and to bury it in the ground so it can dissolve in the manner God intended, while the family begins the process of grieving in earnest with the rituals of sitting shivah. This means that, for instance, you don’t shuttle the body between funeral home and family home, no matter how valid the rationale might be (and I admit the Santorums had a fairly good rationale.
Last year, when my stepmother (who was not Jewish) passed away, she was given an open casket memorial service at the funeral home, and being in the room with that open casket was one of the creepiest experiences I have ever had. It just felt fundamentally wrong–and the statements by various people on how beautiful she looked, and how good a job the funeral home had done with her makeup and the embalming in general only made it creepier. A cultural thing, no doubt, but it made me shudder to the core.
Comment by JBS — 1/3/2012 @ 7:42 pm”
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 9:55 pm“Find a chapter or verse in the Bible that the Santorums transgressed. Otherwise you’re just pulling things out of your rectum.”
Steve – Actually Jewish practices with respect to stillborn babies and neonatal deaths are slowly evolving. Prior to the 1990s it appears that it was not common to recognize that a stillborn viable baby or a baby who did not survive for 30 days even existed based on my what I have read. They are slowly catching up to the rest of the world.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 10:03 pmThanks, daley rocks. That clears things up a great deal.
The Santorums child can definitely be said to have existed, and per the Catholic Catechism was entitled to a Catholic funeral, because he was baptized.
Even unbaptized infants are still said to have existed, and the fate of their souls has long been debated. “Limbo” is not an official doctrine of the church, but it’s permissible to hold a belief in it. The unbaptized child can’t go to heaven, but because he or she committed no actual sin the soul isn’t consigned to hell and the child does experience happiness.
Also per the Catholic Catechism, the home is a perfectly appropriate place for a vigil, and a vigil can last for two day. There is no law requiring such a quick burial.
So, apparently JBS feels free to condemn the Santorums, who are Roman Catholics, for acting entirely within the Catholic tradition and not Jewish law.
That would explain why he thinks experts who counsel grieving parents to engage in similar conduct have “lost their moral compass.”
They aren’t following the law per the “Book of JBS.”
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/8/2012 @ 10:36 pm“But I’ll tell you what–you stop referring to my religion as a bunch of superstitions”
LOL.
And, the stench of self-righteousness and hypocrisy fills the air, tickling my nose unmercifully.
Religious fanatics give me a royal pain in the ass.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:26 pm“But I’ll tell you what–you stop referring to my religion as a bunch of superstitions”
Dave – I actually enumerated some specific practices as superstitions, not the entire religion.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/8/2012 @ 11:57 pmNot to be a “pain in the ass, but per Catholic doctrine, the only problem would be if there was a choice between saving the mother’s life and saving the child’s life. And the mother chose to sacrifice her child to save her own.
That isn’t the case here.
In any case, the blog post Dana linked to was the typical liberal attempt to smear someone with a charge of hypocrisy.
Rick Santorum and his family are hypocrites because they did something that the blogger decided doesn’t fit the bloggers own caricature of Catholic doctrine, fabricated in complete, blissful ignorance of actual Catholic doctrine.
It’s so much easier for a leftist to accuse others of hypocritically failing to live up to their professed values when the leftist gets to make up what he or she imagines those values consist of.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/9/2012 @ 12:17 am#367
Yeah, I read the whole exchange. If you’re going to go around calling other people’s customs immoral, indecent and disrepecful, then you’re in no position to start crying when someone dares to suggest that some of YOUR customs are rooted in superstition.
The guy is being a self-righteous ass and a big old hypocrite.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/9/2012 @ 12:50 amAnd there is the core of this disagreement. This modern notion that the deceased is dead and beyond caring, or else that he’s doffed his body and moved on and no longer care what happens to it, well, I won’t say it smacks of atheism because I can see how it’s consistent with belief, but it flies in the face of the Bible and thousands of years of tradition. Funerals and burial and mourning are for the dead, not for the living. If the living also benefit from them, that’s all well and good, and presumably the deceased wants it that way, but the purpose of the exercise is to do the deceased one final service, to show him respect, and to help him in the Next World. I’m sure the Santorums had a mass said for Gabriel; was that for their benefit or for his? I’m pretty sure I know what the Church says about that.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:29 amAnd in such a case, as I understand it, the Church is OK with that decision so long as the purpose of the procedure is not to procure the child’s death but to save the mother’s life, and the child’s death is merely an unfortunately inevitable result of that procedure.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/9/2012 @ 7:35 amAnd in such a case, as I understand it, the Church is OK with that decision so long as the purpose of the procedure is not to procure the child’s death but to save the mother’s life, and the child’s death is merely an unfortunately inevitable result of that procedure.
Comment by Milhouse — 1/9/2012 @ 7:35 am
Correct,and well stated. (Although many women of course have chosen to sacrifice their own lives to save their children).
no one you know (325a59) — 1/9/2012 @ 8:31 amYes, I’m pretty sure I know what the Church says about that, too.
Do you think I made up the term “Sacramental economy?” The deceased are beyond it; they’re in God’s hands.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/9/2012 @ 10:29 amReally? Let’s see:
This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: “Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.” From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:
Milhouse (d3fd53) — 1/9/2012 @ 10:51 am“Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.”
Thanks to a law signed by bush we can’t have bulbs that aren’t energy efficient.
Eugene Robinson is a piece of black supremacist trash.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/9/2012 @ 10:59 amMilhouse, you do realize we’re talking about an infant who was baptized at birth, and died before he could have committed no sin.
Catholic doctrine says Gabriel went straight to heaven.
His mass wouldn’t have been a Requiem Mass. It would have been a Votive Mass of the Angels.
What possible benefit do you imagine a Mass could have done Gabriel?
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/9/2012 @ 11:26 am“How dare they?!” That was a rhetorical question right? They are part of the progressive enemedia, dedicated to reducing individual liberty while imposing their immoral, ignorant, baby-killing (and humping) stupidity on the rest of us.
It is past time to hold these people accountable.
Challenge the media folks. Often and hard.
Markon (dd04a9) — 1/9/2012 @ 11:39 am“Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification594 or immediately,595—or immediate and everlasting damnation.596
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.”
Same reference as #374, a little higher on the page.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/9/2012 @ 11:42 amI was responding to your claim that (according to Catholics) the dead have no use for anything the living can do for them, and that funerals are for the benefit of the living. My quote seems to show the opposite. The RC Church teaches that the dead continue to benefit from the living until they reach Heaven.
Once they do reach Heaven, Catholics would indeed seem to believe that they have no further use for the living; that they can help us with their prayers but we can do nothing for them. (That isn’t what Jesus and his disciples believed, but then that’s true of a lot of Xian doctrine.)
None of this is relevant to the separate question of whether the dead are aware of or care what is done to their bodies. Jewish cultural (not necessarily religious) attitudes to the dead reflect a belief that they do know and care, and that what they want and need is to be buried and allowed to rest in peace; that being autopsied, embalmed, or put on display like a museum piece for people to gawk at causes them distress. Catholic culture, probably derived from pre-Xian European cultures, don’t take that attitude. I suppose this is why the Church, while it still discourages cremation, no longer forbids it.
Milhouse (d3fd53) — 1/9/2012 @ 4:05 pmMilhouse, I never said nor meant to imply that once deceased the dead no longer have any use for the living.
The Catholic rites remind us that our relationship with the deceased does not end with death.
We can pray for their souls. We can do a number of things.
But no mass is necessary for those things.
As a matter of fact, there are a number of categories of baptized Catholics who aren’t eligible for a Catholic funeral.
According to the Canons, these are:
1. notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics
2. those who for unchristian motives chose to be cremated.
3. other manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.
Not the language; not just any apostate, etc., is to be denied a Catholic funeral, but the notorious ones. And the concern isn’t with just any manifest sinner, but those who can’t be granted a funeral if it might cause public scandal.
In other words, in as clear a language as the Church can muster, these people are denied Catholic funerals because that would send the wrong message, and have the wrong effect on the living (scandal, for instance, being an act or omission that might induce others to do something morally wrong).
The fact the Church doesn’t want to appear to put its stamp of approval on these people’s lives has no bearing on whether or not they enter Heaven. And the Church will tell you exactly that. The parish priest can and will informally pray with the family for the soul of someone who is denied a Catholic funeral.
So, this is why I say the vigil and the mass if for the benefit of the living.
Steve (8ddf37) — 1/9/2012 @ 5:51 pmEasily the best post you have ever written.
I cried.
Professor Blather (4cd853) — 1/10/2012 @ 6:57 pmI am curious as to how my views on life, death, and the afterlife can be characterized as something akin to atheism?
I simply believe that, unlike the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration, the Lord can make a prompt decision.
Steve (1f4b7c) — 1/11/2012 @ 1:35 pm