26 October 2016

Election 2016, Pope Francis, and other events.


Strictly speaking, we’re not as such stuck with Trump or Hilary, insofar as our votes are individual, and we should vote for the person that best represents our values, person being on a ballot or not. But it it is accurate to say that Trump and Hilary have the best chances to win, as both have the major attention of the media and other outlets of information. So with error of being “stuck” with Hilary or Trump now out of the way, we can get to the substance of what actually needs to be said.
There are enough people out there telling you who to vote for, and I’m certainly not going to add my voice to this choir, you’re probably sick of hearing about this election already…but I am going to analyse both candidates, and see what can be done about it.

a.       a. Hilary Clinton:

If there’s any person that represents the establishment, the status quo, or that things shouldn’t change, it’s this person. Or as I’ve affectionately dubbed, her, she who has already been president. We all know while Bill was having his escapades during his time in the oval office, we know who was calling the shots (or told which buttons to push, however one wishes to spin it)
There are some that will say that because we know who she is, and she’s a known quantity, better to work with what we know, rather than what we don’t know. To this I say, not so much. The thing is this time around she’ll have actual power instead of just being a figure head. I don’t need to explain how corrupt Hilary is: from Watergate, to getting a rapist of Scot free, to her hatred of Catholics, setting up fake Catholic organisations, inciting violence through puppets, not to mention the rather infamous kill list, let alone her dealings as secretary of state, mishandling of classified documents (which legally renders someone ineligible to be president, but we all know laws are for poor people ;), and not for the government to actually hold itself accountable), there’s a litany of reasons why dealing with Hilary in the White House would be bad news for America. (Not to mention her thoughts that the government should solve problems, by proceeding to kill its future tax base and then somehow expect money to appear out of thin air after killing off those that would have been paying taxes, but who am I to judge? TM)
But yes, we should toootally trust someone who has made a career out of politics and corruption, and somehow magically expect that she transform into a model of sanity and totally protect the Church and other religious institutions because she’s so willing to cooperate with the graces God has given her :p (And if you believe that….welll……)…dancing with the devil has worked so well for us after-all, what’s a few more years going to do? :p
Since for all intents and purposes she has bought the election from the time her husband was in office, this election is in a way a formality…(save a Divine Miracle)…so I suppose it might be time for everyone to start learning Russian. (classes I teach by the way :p), Arabic or Chinese to prepare for the takeover that’s totally coming after this ;)..

Those of you that have been paying attention to the e-mail scandal, those of us of a Faith background, even more importantly those who aren’t of a faith background of some type. The anti-Catholicism should down right scare you. In spite of how it’s often practiced, tolerance does not mean I only accept you if you agree with the things that I say. For people that often are supposed to represent tolerance, some people can be quite intolerant, especially if they put up an blockage to giant social experiments. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, they’ve been trying at this for years, and many of us have had suspicions of this behaviour for years, the e-mails only confirm what we already knew. (And before anyone goes there, it wasn’t the Russians. For goodness sake, the Russians have better things to do than actually care what goes on here. They have their own interests and their own problems to deal with. The cold war is over. It doesn’t mean things are perfect over there, no one said they were, but to be wasting time with this country, please….come at me with something better than that)….But of course why should all of the anti-Catholicism matter? The Bishops’ helped themselves in on it anyway….with Bishops like these, who needs enemies like Hilary ;)…we do just fine ourselves.

I know at least I’ll be doing my part to hopefully keep her out of the white house (again), here’s           praying….but don’t worry, I’m not done….

b.      Donald Trump

One could argue that his running is a downgrade from positions (who in the world wants to be president in this kind of climate. If I owned a business and wasn’t responsible to anyone other than my family, I certainly wouldn’t want to run a country and actually have to be responsible for the fellow people, it’s hard enough dealing with one.

By running as a republican, he runs as an outsider, although being a business man, he’s very much outside what most of us wuold consider to be normal America :p. Yes, he’s advocated for very liberal positions in the past, and to some degree, if you listen closely there are some points where he’s not exactly the conservative ideal….But unlike his competitor, he is at least hearing the advice of his counsel. For whatever it’s worth. Some may call it flip flopping, it may well be. Some may question his conversion to pro-Life, it may well not be sincere…But it would be pretty darn stupid to say these things with a populace that is angry and not back them up to some degree. Many people fault him for not doing enough to give in to the pro-Life movement….Well, since when is the president supposed to write law? We decry liberals when they appoint activist judges, or when the president does something that is completely outside of his authority as president, should we not hold Trump or anyone else to the same standard? They’re not supposed to be activists, it’s their job to execute the laws of the United States of America, northing more, nothing less. If anything it’s probably more important that the people that he surrounds himself with are pro-Life (which so far he seems to be doing).  He has to know that he’s going to be held accountable for what he says and for what he does.
Realisti cly, the only chance Trump has at being elected is thorugh the electoral college. McMullin (One of the other people running) had an opportunity to run as a republican to oppose Trump but chose not to. The only logical conclusion for his candidacy is that he’s there to split the vote and insure that Trump does not get elected. There is zero way if this election went to the house that career politicians and establishment types would elect someone from outside of their number for president. 
It would contradict the very principle that they’re trying to do…stay in power, they have to elect one of their own to keep themselves on good footing.

The fact that he wants to build a wall does not make him anti-immigrant or someone who hates Latinos. Yes, everyone has a right to move, but that right to move is conditional. The condition being that when one moves that one must obey the laws of where they are going to. (And lest someone compare to the native Americans, we don’t know of their immigration laws (or lack there of, two totally different things) Being able to accommodate this does not mean that one has to be stupid in the process. Why do we have locks and windows in our homes, it’s for protection. It’s not that people can’t visit or come in, it’s just that people need to be known and trusted. We do all kinds of discrimination as a people, knowingly or unknowingly. We don’t let people in we don’t trust, why would not the same standard be applied at a national level? Making sure we know who is coming in is always a good idea. The government has very few jobs (at least listed in the constitution), one of them is to protect the country. This is of course done through a vetting process. Perhaps though the government has gotten so big, that it can’t do what little jobs it is supposed to do effectively.

And yes, I’ve heard the comments that he has said, and doesn’t that make him a horrible person? Let’s be honest, all of us in our private conversations have said things questionable. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with women, it can be on any subject, we’ve all said things that we’d like to take back, or may have said differently. It of course doesn’t excuse the behaviour, no one said that it did, but before we go casting stones, we better look in the mirror. Everyone needs to be given the chance to convert and change their ways if necessary.

It’s quite interesting to watch people jump to conclusions based upon a faulty premise. It’s one of those things neither side really gets it right, but fortunately, there’s people out there to put an end to the craziness.

It’s not just because one holds to position x, that automatically makes them insert your favourite buzzword of the day here. It’s almost as people didn’t take logic. (And at this rate, I doubt people do anymore), whatever happened to arguing a point based upon substance and actually based upon the point. Ultimately, do I believe that Donald will do the things that he says? Of course not, that’d be crazy to trust humans like that (everyone knows that’s what cats are for), I do know that Hilary will do exactly what she says she’s going to do….and that is a major problem, and something that needs to be dealt with.

c.       Pope Francis:

Oh dear, he’s talking again…..this can’t be good. The three most dangerous words in the Church today are “Pope Francis says…” Something bad is bound to follow. Now does this in of itself present a problem, of course not. For 99.999 999 999 999 % of what Popes say isn’t infallible. But as the old saying goes, just because one has a thought doesn’t always mean that one should express it. How do we deal with this? In short, since we’re not the magisterium, nor are we ordained to be able to deal with this, we can point out the errors, but we have zero authority to convict the Pope of formal heresy. Never has it been in Church history that the Sedevacantist or Orthodox positions look to be more correct. (No I have not left Peter). But I see the wisdom in having a recourse for correction. It’s not the councils are more powerful than the pope as such. Rather, it’s a mechanism to be able to deal with someone that’s in heresy formally. A pope with no recourse to correction can absolutely wreck havoc on the Church. This is the problem with untramontanism, authority gone wrong is an absolute disaster. But that said, our salvation should be relationship with the Trinity, not worried about every ism that comes from the Holy Father’s mouth. Just because it comes from the HF, doesn’t mean it’s gospel, the converse is also true that just because it comes from his mouth that it automatically means that we have to dismiss it. All things in due prudence.
d.      The death penalty and the Bishops need to stop
The opinion of Pope John Paul II should have never made it into the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Our Lord himself died, the death penalty can be justified….but this application needs to be prudential and proportional. One obviously does not use the death penalty on someone who stole a pencil. But someone who is an unjust aggressor, or a child rapist, that’s an entirely different judgement call. So, I’m not sorry, the opinion of the Bishops however good it may be, we’re not bounded to agree to their judgement on this issue.

More often times than not, what screws things up is the appeal process. The appeal process should be streamlined, one gets one opportunity to appeal, a fully impartial DNA test, get it done and make sure they weren’t at the crime, if they’re innocent ,great, let them free. If they’re guilty, get rid of them quickly. People might argue this violates the dignity of life. But I argue, that the right to life was taken away by both the crime and due process. The thing is that the death penalty sometimes kills innocent people. This is absolutely wrong and needs to be minimized. It is not anti pro life to be in favour of the death penalty application on various points. Abortion is an evil that out weighs everything. Why? Simple, it always involves the killing of innocent life without due process. There does not exist a right to kill one’s own child on purpose. (Miscarriages are not abortion, that is down right evil to even compare the two). That said, legislation of morality is not usually that effective (That doesn’t mean that laws shouldn’t exist)….the real change has to come from the cultural level to make abortion not even an option in the first place….Then law can be dealt with. Legislation towards effect is always bad law. (That is to say, just because people were doing coat hanger abortions does not imply that there needs to be laws on the books to now make abortion legal.)…..or put another way, just because someone does something stupid doesn’t mean that there needs to be laws always enacted. It’s best to use the principle of subsidiarity to handle most of these problems. It of course doesn’t mean that we can’t try to solve the problem, but legislation doesn’t always solve problems. Often times it makes problems much worse.
e.    
  Please keep me in your prayers.

For reasons I can’t go into detail about yet, please do keep me in your prayers, and do pray for this intention. As always everyone here is in my prayers and thoughts.
f.       
The culture of whine and complain

It seems rather interesting to me that people will complain about something behind one’s back and fail to actually try and work out full solutions to their problems instead of just dealing with things as they should. Something’s offensive, so what! There does not exist a right to not be offended by something. How we react is something that we can control and do something about. For whatever good intentions some of these various campaigns for various issues do, I think at the end of the day, the actual issue gets undermined and it actually does much to damage society. Transforming things into a social media circus instead of actually dealing with the problem makes everyone look rather stupid. This of course doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bring issues and abuses to light, but rather before doing so, I believe it to be important to understand where everyone is coming from, and not jumping to conclusion before the facts have been found about the situation.