Interesting article about the Catholic vote in the US election

[Fish and Bread]

According to the video of a discussion between Clinton and Ryan - the only way his budget proposal wont work is thru the Senate who wont pass it.

[...]The only thing that will hinder educational training and what not - is the senate [democrats]

Equating opposing the Ryan budget to opposing education training is ridiculous (No offense).

Put forward a straight forward a bill that funds educational and vocational funding/training and doesn't change anything else, and I can almost guarantee you that such a bill would get enough Democratic support to pass the Senate. Heck, Obama would probably sign it. Democrats aren't against vocational training and further education. Actually, in general, Democrats support more funding for education. It's the Republicans who want to make cuts.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I hope you do know we already are taxed enough as it is. You got your sales tax, income tax, property tax, water tax, local tax, state tax, federal tax, gift tax, sin tax (Cigarettes, booze).
...

Yes indeed, pay the taxes you owe for the services you receive:

1. Sales taxes to fund special purpose projects, such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
2. Income tax to fund general public services such as defence and federal policing agencies.
3. Property taxes to fund your local police force, your locally run schools, garbage collection and such things.
4. Property taxes to fund building the infrastructure you use, such as sewerage pipes, water pipes, street lighting, local roads and so on.
5. Water tax to pay for the water you use and the purification costs incurred to make it fit for human consumption.
6. Local tax is pretty much covered in property taxes and local sales taxes.
7. State tax to fund sate government services you receive such as power lines, power generation, environment protection, parks, roads and so on.
8. sin tax (on the items you mentioned) to fund medicare and midicade services needed to look after those whose sins make them ill enough to need such services.

And when you become too old or ill to work, and it will happen to you eventually, you pay taxes for pensions and for the medical insurance cover you will no longer be able to afford.

There's a bible passage about this principle. I started a thread about it. It is Romans 13:1-10

Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, for it is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer. Therefore, it is necessary to be subject not only because of the wrath but also because of conscience. This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, (namely) You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.​

 

[AMDG]

Devout Catholics will vote for life, for support of marriage (and not redefination) and for religious freedom. IOW they won't be voting for Obama (who despises life, morals, and religious freedom) and his cohort, gaffe-prone Biden (who approves of China's one child policy and is just plain scary thinking he's one heartbeat away from the presidency.)

 

[Fish and Bread]

Biden (who approves of China's one child policy

Citation needed. I have trouble believing that the same guy who was praying a rosary in the situation room while waiting for word about our attempt to capture Bin Laden, and who as a Senator used to take a train to Washington and back all the way from Delaware nearly every day so he could fall asleep and wake up every night under the same roof as his wife and children (I believe he has more than one, by the way), approves of China's one child policy. I just have trouble believing that.

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

Yes indeed, pay the taxes you owe for the services you receive:

1. Sales taxes to fund special purpose projects, such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
2. Income tax to fund general public services such as defence and federal policing agencies.
3. Property taxes to fund your local police force, your locally run schools, garbage collection and such things.
4. Property taxes to fund building the infrastructure you use, such as sewerage pipes, water pipes, street lighting, local roads and so on.
5. Water tax to pay for the water you use and the purification costs incurred to make it fit for human consumption.
6. Local tax is pretty much covered in property taxes and local sales taxes.
7. State tax to fund sate government services you receive such as power lines, power generation, environment protection, parks, roads and so on.
8. sin tax (on the items you mentioned) to fund medicare and midicade services needed to look after those whose sins make them ill enough to need such services.

And when you become too old or ill to work, and it will happen to you eventually, you pay taxes for pensions and for the medical insurance cover you will no longer be able to afford.

...Okay? And?

And why did you find it appropriate to lob off the rest of my post?

You really want to rectify things? It's simple: get rid of the plethora of loopholes for big businesses, stop spending money on frivolous things, close down various agencies that are beyond antiquated, only allow benefits to be given to people who are here legally, cut down military spending even further, quit supplying arms to NATO, close down military bases around the globe, etc.

Raising taxes also causes strain for the poor. Look at various urban areas and see how many people are leaving.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Equating opposing the Ryan budget to opposing education training is ridiculous (No offense).

Put forward a straight forward a bill that funds educational and vocational funding/training and doesn't change anything else, and I can almost guarantee you that such a bill would get enough Democratic support to pass the Senate. Heck, Obama would probably sign it. Democrats aren't against vocational training and further education. Actually, in general, Democrats support more funding for education. It's the Republicans who want to make cuts.

If you are attacking Paul Ryan - and you are - then you are attacking the Church teaching he is specifically using to make his budget.

Here's the thing - read what he proposes instead of the liberal bloggers who get an audience for scaring.

FWIW - please do not tell me that it is only republicans cutting school funding - do you have kids in school to know this? No.

School funding the last couple years have been cut back so bad - [democrats of my blue state] our kids are doing fund raisers just to keep band in school and chorus and arts. I know this - i am personally living it.

What personal experience have you had the last couple years ?

 

[WarriorAngel]

Oh and the lunch program is going up up up - making it more expensive and according to my kids - getting a whole lot less food.
Carbs are needed by kids who are growing and thinking all day. So what happens? They run home immediately after school to grab anything to eat - which guess what - makes them fatter.

I have a variety of foods for the kids - including healthy snacks as well as what they like. I will ______ if i am told i cant purchase food for my kids and what they like.
BUT i have never seen kids hungrier than the last year when Obama implemented this health food crap in schools.

Hint: Boys and girls are maturing - putting them on a gross diet will only cause their bodies to go into 'starvation mode' - and they will either over eat later at night when they should NOT - or their bodies become acclimated on very little food and they will gain weight if they eat the normal caloric intake.

Great for Michelle if she needs a DIET - growing kids do not. Its integral they get the appropriate measures of carbs they need to think.

Final real outcome - fatter kids - worse test scores.

 

[AMDG]

Citation needed.

I have trouble believing that you haven't followed the news following Biden's remark he made on his Chinese trip. Perhaps it was just made out to be another of Joe's gaffes. Anyway there are many many news stories. Some are from Boehner, some are from Lifesites, some are from the Washington Post, some are from the Washington Examiner, some are from Hot Air, some are from still others. Here is one. If you don' like this source, you can google for others. Romney slams Biden on ‘one child’ comment in China - Right Turn - The Washington Post

 

[Fish and Bread]

I have trouble believing that you haven't followed the news following Biden's remark he made on his Chinese trip. Perhaps it was just made out to be another of Joe's gaffes. Anyway there are many many news stories. Some are from Boehner, some are from Lifesites, some are from the Washington Post, some are from the Washington Examiner, some are from Hot Air, some are from still others. Here is one. If you don' like this source, you can google for others. Romney slams Biden on ‘one child’ comment in China - Right Turn - The Washington Post

The Washington Post is a good newspaper.

It reads as though Biden was in a round about way trying make a case that the one-child policy in China was impractical. He sort of set aside moral disagreement, to make the practical case that, listen, if you limit a couple to one child each, it's going to be difficult financially to take care of the elderly with whatever their equivalent to social security and medicare are. I guess he thought the Chinese people wouldn't really listen if he bashed their policy on moral grounds before making a practical case against it, and would have just figured he was making stuff up to lend weight to the moral objections.

The point he was making about it being potentially financially ruinous for China was a good point, but I don't agree with what he did in downplaying any objections to the one child policy on moral grounds. The policy is a gross human rights violation, and evil, and I would have rather he called a spade a spade. Then again, I would make a horrible diplomat.

I do believe that in his heart, Joe Biden is against China's policy on moral and humanitarian grounds as well as on practical grounds. I can't prove it, but that is what my gut tells me. I think Biden is a good man, and I don't feel like he could condone that sort of thing on the inside, even if he was downplaying his moral objections before that one particular audience (Which he shouldn't have done, I'll agree).

 

[Fish and Bread]

By the way, a bit of an aside here, but while we're talking about population issues. A perfect really, really long-term solution to overpopulation that would also be moral and ethical and in accord with human rights, would be to try to get our space program to the point where we can make other planets and moons habitable one day, and colonize space. There is virtually unlimited space (no pun intended) out there.

It'd take a long time to get to the point where colonies would be viable, but if we started now with more manned exploration, and worked on genetic engineering some start microbes to introduce on Mars to give it a thick ozone layer and heat it, generating carbondioxide to eventually bring plants in, and so on and so forth, we might be able to have a second good planet in a few hundred years. Sounds like a long time, and it is, but the longer we wait, the longer it'll take until it's done. Then people could be fruitful and multiply across a whole galaxy.

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

By the way, a bit of an aside here, but while we're talking about population issues. A perfect really, really long-term solution to overpopulation that would also be moral and ethical and in accord with human rights, would be to try to get our space program to the point where we can make other planets and moons habitable one day, and colonize space. There is virtually unlimited space (no pun intended) out there.

Or we can cut down on immigration, both illegal and legal.

Unless you meant the world over and not just the U.S.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Or we can cut down on immigration, both illegal and legal.

Unless you meant the world over and not just the U.S.

I meant the world over.

I have no problem with immigrants or immigration.

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

I meant the world over.

I personally think it will be a moot point once the baby boomers kick the bucket and people aren't having as many kids as they once were.

I have no problem with immigrants or immigration.

Legal? Sure. Illegal? There are problems.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I personally think it will be a moot point once the baby boomers kick the bucket and people aren't having as many kids as they once were.

The birth rate is still extremely high in places like Latin America and Africa. The world population is growing every day.

Legal? Sure. Illegal? There are problems.

I don't judge. If I had a horrible life in Mexico and my family was starving, and I thought I could do better in the US, I'd probably cross the border illegally, too. We're all human beings. There was a time when the folks who were already here didn't much care for people like me (Irish ancestory) either.

I think all this immigration stuff works out in the end. America is a nation of immigrants. A great melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. And I'm glad it is. For one thing, I really like Chinese food.

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

The birth rate is still extremely high in places like Latin America and Africa. The world population is growing every day.

Says who? I'm hearing the opposite.

I don't judge. If I had a horrible life in Mexico and my family was starving, and I thought I could do better in the US, I'd probably cross the border illegally, too. We're all human beings. There was a time when the folks who were already here didn't much care for people like me (Irish ancestory) either.

Except, your people had to go through a checkpoint before being allowed into this country. What we have in place now is nothing more than a free-for-all, where anyone from anywhere can easily crossover.

Plus, there is this and this.

I think all this immigration stuff works out in the end. America is a nation of immigrants. A great melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. And I'm glad it is. For one thing, I really like Chinese food.

Sure, if you want to play down the negatives.

 

[Fantine]

I'm surprised that all you conservatives would even venture to think that VP Biden should comment on China's population policy.

I thought you all thought that it is best for individual states and countries to form their own policies at the lowest level possible--isn't that subsidiarity?

 

[MoreCoffee]

I'm surprised that all you conservatives would even venture to think that VP Biden should comment on China's population policy.

I thought you all thought that it is best for individual states and countries to form their own policies at the lowest level possible--isn't that subsidiarity?

No, that's just people on OBOB playing with a word that they do not properly understand.

Pope Pius XI said, "It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and/or industry."

It really has very little to do with determining a policy on birth control or abortion, though, one could argue that God has given definitive moral guidance on abortion and that the church has given definitive moral guidance on artificial birth control and other means of birth control.

I guess the question facing Catholic women and men is "will you follow the teaching against artificial birth control?" and it seems that for the majority the answer in recent times is "No". What that says about the theology of the body and Humanae Vitae is an interesting study in itself.

 

[AMDG]

I guess the question facing Catholic women and men is "will you follow the teaching against artificial birth control?" and it seems that for the majority the answer in recent times is "No". What that says about the theology of the body and Humanae Vitae is an interesting study in itself.

Or the question for the Catholics men and women especially and all Christians in general might be "will you allow God to be God?" You know that artificial birth control is "no births and no control." How about a call to be responsible? The Creighton method of Natural Family Planning has a proven "track record" equal to the pill (and without the awful side effects).

You know, when people can no longer replace themselves, the human race dies. And before that their standard of living gets less and less simply because there aren't enough people to maintain even the industrial revolution. Future generations will be tending their crops and hunting for food.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Says who?

World Population Clock: 7 Billion People - Worldometers

The World Population at 7 Billion | Random Samplings

World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision

Except, your people had to go through a checkpoint before being allowed into this country. What we have in place now is nothing more than a free-for-all, where anyone from anywhere can easily crossover.

Still, we had unlimited immigration prior to the 20th century, didn't we? Seemed to work out alright in the end. There are short term problems, but long term it makes us stronger.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Or the question for the Catholics men and women especially and all Christians in general might be "will you allow God to be God?" You know that artificial birth control is "no births and no control." How about a call to be responsible? The Creighton method of Natural Family Planning has a proven "track record" equal to the pill (and without the awful side effects).

You know, when people can no longer replace themselves, the human race dies. And before that their standard of living gets less and less simply because there aren't enough people to maintain even the industrial revolution. Future generations will be tending their crops and hunting for food.

You're forgetting a few key factors here. One factor is increasing automation. As technology expands, there are less human beings needed to operate a factory of any given size, so much is done with computers and robots. Farming has also begun to see situations where technology has made things less man-power intensive.

Secondly, population growth combined with global climate change are likely to, barring significant technological innovation (Which I admit is possible), going to be significant stress on natural resources. We're already seeing rising food and fuel prices as the result of drought in the American midwest (the bread basket of the world). What happens when the American midwest is a desert? Scientists are also saying that changes in the climate may eventually make the ocean ecology change in ways that lead to the mass extinction of salt water fish, a major food source in some areas, with jelly fish taking over that ecosystem, which again hits the world supply, unless we learn to eat jellyfish (Which is possible, I suppose, but I think they'd need to be processed to remove the poison). Droughts are going to worsen and deserts are going to widen in already hard up places like much of Africa. It might be easier from a pragmatic perspective if we were able to slow population growth and have fewer mouths to feed and water in the world than we would otherwise (Not saying that there are moral ways to make that happen, or that we should make it happen, just speaking purely pragmatically and hypothetically).

Finally, just as an aside, even modern more scientifically accurate versions of the rhythm method is not as effective as the pill, and even where they do work to some degree, they require a lot of self-discipline that a lot of people don't have in practice.

Keep in mind, none of that is an attack on Catholic teaching on birth control. Who knows what God has planned in terms of the future of the world? All I'm saying is that world population growth, and alternatives to birth control, pose challenges for the human race as a whole (especially in light of global climate change) as time marches on, barring unforeseen changes, and for individual couples right now in the present. Of course, technology could help mitigate the former. And expanding into space could help with both in the much longer term. And no one ever said life was going to be easy.