Voinovich: ‘Get the hell out’
Republicans are already beginning to defect from the McCainiac party line on Iraq. Here’s George Voinovich, speaking before the Chamber of Commerce, in Howland, Ohio:
“We need to get the hell out of Iraq. Do you hear me?â€
Voinovich decried the impending bankruptcy of the US, wondering aloud at the legacy we’re leaving our young people, sounding more like Ron Paul than the GOP’s putative nominee.
For McCain, the top issue is the war — and even though the gist of every story emphasizes that Voinovich still supports McCain, Republicans who agree with the Ohio Senator are more likely to casts their ballots for Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman who just clinched the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.
Paul D. Alexander
June 10th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Excellent news! Let’s hope more Repubs defect from the ranks of the hawks, at least verbally.
andy
June 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I think the USA will stay in Iraq and continue its general imperialism until the U.S. economy collapses.
A Radical Whig in Chattanooga
June 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Let’s not forget Chuck Baldwin over at the Constitution Party. He’s much closer to Ron Paul’s positions than is Bob Barr, and he has never had to have a change in heart, as did Rep. Bob Barr. However, either is preferable to the McManiac or Obama Bomb Iran.
the legendary Bill
June 10th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
The so-called conservatives ( what have they conserved? ) haven’t made out well throwing all their eggs in the Republican Party basket..After 8 yrs of McManiac Roe v. Wade will still be the unconstitutional law of the land..Why? the Repubs like to have it as a national issue that they can smack around every 2-4 yrs..McCain doesn’t care about the trade deficit ( doesn’t even understand why it’s important to correct )..doesn’t care about the budget deficit or he wouldn’t be so eager for Empire..He doesn’t really want to even be president, he wants to be Commander-in-Chief ( same mentality as Bush ) and can’t wait to bomb somebody…And if he can climb up on some rubble, hug a fireman and then begin his bombing campaigns that’s even better-” we can use that..oh, yeah..have the Toby Keith playing in the background…”
Green Politics
June 10th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
And yet polls show almost a dead head for president. Either the polls being reported are purposely skewed or a certain segment of the American population are rather dim. I’m not saying Obama is the cure, but there is Barr, a Green – anybody but more of the same…
Bob Bogus
June 10th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
“…or a certain segment of the American population are rather dim.”
That’s rather generous. The Amerikan electorate is nothing more than brainwashed sheeple with heads of mush.
Lester Ness
June 10th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
After which the Rod Parsley types take over! Imagine living in Puritan Massachussetts or Brigham Young’s Utah. Of course, it will all be God’s punishment for too much sex, for not building a Temple in Jerusalem, etc.
Lester Ness
Sam
June 10th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I’m a Republican. I hate Obama. I can’t vote for MccAin. I’ll vote for Barr or Nader. Just tell me who’s more viable, please….
Give Peas A Chance
June 10th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Did you all call Congress today, which was NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY TO CONGRESS TO STOP AN ATTACK ON IRAN????
If you didn’t the toll-free number to call your House representative and two Senators will still work for another week, SO GO FORTH AND CALL CONGRESS AND TELL THEM:
* NO ATTACK ON IRAN
* GET ISRAEL AND AIPAC OUT OF U.S FOREIGN POLICY
TOLL-FREE NUMBER for Congress, which again will work for the next week is:
800 788 9372
If you didn’t call Congress today, call tomorrow and demand that the U.S. not attack Iran, and that Israel, and its lobbies, GET OUT OF U.S. foreign policy decisions RIGHT NOW.
jack
June 10th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I saw Barr on Glen Beck he is very impressive, I love Baldwin as well. Choices, choices, what to do? Barr has an outside chance to win with Richard Vigerie raising money for him and a general disgust with the terrible choices of both parties.
John Lowell
June 10th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Not at all excited about Barr. He would seem to have all the authenticity of a Mitt Romney. And there is the matter of the check. It is said that Barr, who before and since advertised himself as pro-life, paid for an abortion allegedly performed on his former wife in the 1980s. What seems particularly curious about the whole affair is Barr’s reluctance to come clean as to whether he had, in fact, signed a check to pay for the abortion. Insisting in an interview with Larry King in 1999 that he never “encouraged” anyone to have an abortion, Barr refused to answer a question of King’s relating to the existence of such a signed check. Below is the text of the relevant portion of the exchange:
KING: And what is the story on the abortion question?
BARR: That — that is something that I will not go into beyond what I have said in our statement today, Larry. It’s unfortunate that people go into these thing, but I will not other than to say I have never, ever encouraged or forced anybody to get an abortion. I would never do that.
KING: How about the printing of a check, though, your signature for the abortion?
BARR: Well, here again…
KING: I mean, that seems prima facie as they might say in legal terms.
BARR: Some people may go into these things — when you’re married to somebody, Larry, you have joint accounts. You have insurance plans and so forth. But I have never encouraged, condoned or forced somebody to have an abortion.
As a matter of moral theology, what is at stake here is whether Barr is formally complicit in an act of murder. Likely much more important to Barr, however, is whether or not he is to be considered a twenty-four carat phoney. It is always possible, of course, that he might be both.
jack
June 10th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Baldwin is the best choice I agree. but if Barr has a chance to make some real trouble I will vote for him.
Eugene Costa
June 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Dennis Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush, June 9, 2008:
http://chun.afterdowningstreet.org/amomentoftruth.pdf
So far only one media outlet has bothered to report it.
JustAsking
June 10th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I’m not a fan of Barr’s — he’s a hypocrite, although I do love his latest stance, which is trying to repeal the “Patriot” Act. I don’t intend to vote for him, but I have to ask, “If abortion is murder then what is war?”
Abortion is a woman killing her own child; war is people like myself, who are opposed to all forms of violence, having our tax dollars and the blood of our fellow citizens, used to kill innocent children who were obviously wanted by their parents.
McCain killed untold amounts of innocent Vietnamese children, and yet he will no doubt follow the GOP line on abortion. The hypocrisy of the GOP (including Barr, if he did indeed pay for an abortion) is stunning.
WAR IS MASS MURDER.
VOTE ALL OF THEM, DEMS AND REPUBS OUT, IF THEY SANCTION AN ATTACK ON IRAN, AND IF THEY DON’T STOP THE ISRAEL LOBBY FROM KILLING US ALL.
truthfool
June 10th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
It was bomb Pakistan
Toth
June 10th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Yeah, that too. But perhaps you managed to miss Obama’s glorious victories in the foot-licking contest over at Aipac.
“I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.â€
Obomba it is.
stephen
June 10th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
nader was at 6% in AP poll the other day.
anti-neocon
June 11th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Barr will be on the ballot in every state, and Nader only a write-in in several, so you decide who is the more viable, Sam.
anti-neocon
June 11th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I’ll call again today, this time about getting the Israeli lobbies out of the foreign policy decision making, and also bring up drop the sanctions against Iran, because they too are doing much more harm than any possible good.
anti-neocon
June 11th, 2008 at 1:59 am
The mass media is so fourth reichish.
MetaCynic
June 11th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Was it George Bernard Shaw who observed that “100% American = 99% village idiot”?
lester1/2jr
June 11th, 2008 at 6:29 am
the change has to come in the beltway. the leaders don’t listen to the people. needs to be from inside the machine
Piers
June 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am
“We need to get the hell out of Iraq. Do you hear (my calculated campaign rhetoric which means nothing because I’ll continue to vote in lock step with the neocons, kowtow to AIPAC, and play the American people for the fools that they are)?â€
George Voinovich is just testing the waters to see which words will get the voters to bite. Other politicians will follow once the most effective bait for 2008 is determined.
John Lowell
June 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Stalin is said to have observed that “the death of one person is a tragedy, but the deaths of millions is a statistic”. While one remains uncertain as to whether Joe made this remark with the intention of providing an apologetic for his own crimes or in an uncharacteristic moment of empathy, one thing remains clear: The murder of one person is indeed a tragedy and that all mass murder can never be anything but the mass tragedy of multiple individual murders. And these are not mutually exclusive, as some would have it, rather they are mutually informing. As Mother Theresa once offered, peace begins in the womb. A callous soul that can carry off the murder of its own children without qualm easily can treat the mass murder of war as Joe Stalin’s statistic. But when all life is treasured war becomes an unimaginable horror.
Will Blalock
June 11th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
People (Voinovich) are starting to wake up to what
they have done to themselves and America by treating
Ron Paul so shabbily.
The have laughed the American Revolution out of
the public square and emboldened our enemies.
The neocons cringed in anticipation to see how America
would react to their quashing the last gasp of reason in
national politics and main stream media.
They are now rushing to fill the void that has opened
between our ears.
God help America.
Welcome back, Justin.
Will Blalock
June 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Justin, as a side note let me say that I’m glad to
see you posting on your own website.
In my opinion you should toss takimag overboard
for the same reasons you recently tossed Obama.
What dribble.
richard vajs
June 11th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
The one clear unmistakeable trend is that America is on an unsustainable path. Our dollar is trash, our military is a weak copy of the Nazi Wehrmacht, and our national purpose is mush. We are going down bow first. Both the Democrats and the Republican “smart guys” know this. We can’t afford financial security for our masses, we are bound to lose any war with people of principle, and our wealthy have one foot out the door. The political class know that what they promise cannot be delivered – there is no money for Obanma’s “change”, and we will never get “Victory” out of abusing the Muslims. Neither political party wants a mandate. They don’t want to win by 60 or 70%, they want to win by 50.9%, so they can milk the system up until cataclysm forces a change. Neither wants to be officially in charge when that happens; in the ensuing murk, they will look for their main chance.
This country needs a dramatic change. America is like a patient with a heart disrhymia that is unsustainable. It needs to be shocked into a new rhythm, before it goes flat line. Ron Paul, Nader, Barr or whoever is the only solution. For myself, my vote will go to the candidate that comes closest to telling AIPAC to go piss off.
George Whitfield
June 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I am impressed by Bob Barr and have decided to support him. He is for expeditious withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and for talking with Iranians. He will be on the ballot in at least 48 states, maybe all 50. See: http://www.bobbarr2008.com
JustAsking
June 11th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I completely agree that anyone who can murder their own child via abortion has lost their moral compass.
I volunteered with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity at Kalighat, the famous “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta, India. I also saw her leper colony near Calcutta, and her orphanage in Calcutta, as well as her organization in Agra, India.
I should write a book about it, but suffice it to say that Mother Teresa took in tens of millions that could have paid for state-of-the-art-medical facilities for all of her homes, yet her organization kept the people they were supposed to be helping in the worst conditions possible so that they could be used for fund-raising opportunities. Where all those tens of millions?
Mother Teresa was no saint.
And her (and the Pope’s) opposition to condoms probably killed at least a few million women and children in Africa, India, etc., through AIDs.
andy
June 11th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
The basic problem is that both major parties have basically the same foreign policies. They both support an interventionist foreign policy for the USA. The TRUE difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is only very small. We need NEW PARTIES that TRULY represent the people. Once the now-rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency, its over for the USA and its Washington elites dreams of empire. Its just a matter of time. The collateral damage is going to be brutal.
John Lowell
June 11th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Oy, and you were doing so well when you started. I mean, really, just how much calumny do you really expect a serious person to buy in a couple of written paragraphs, young man? That a calculating Mother Theresa conspired to do less for people in her care than she might have simply to keep money rolling in? Check. And we have all of this, of course, on the sanctity of your personal word, right? I see. And you’re sharing this with us now because we really need to understand just how much better you grasp the needs of the poor and those with AIDS than either she or the Pope did? That’s reassuring. Sure you didn’t catch the nerve damaging form of leprosy when you visited that colony?
Toth
June 11th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
And I do not agree that abortion is murder. It isn’t that simple. In fact it’s a very, very difficult and complex ethical dilemma, with many angles and grey areas. It needs to be treated in a sophisticated and adult manner, not for sloganeering or using it as a political tool to harvest the fundamentalist vote.
John Lowell
June 12th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Toth,
With all respect to you, abortion is only “a complex ethical dilemma” to those that want to have them, those that want to perform them or those that otherwise seek to profit from them. Because the question transcends the mere ethics of the psychological order and is rather more a moral question, it requires sophistication of a type not usually evident even in adult conversation. One needs to grasp what it means to be a person, and in my experience, apart from experienced theologians, few do. That one consideration understood properly and abortion becomes a chilling horror with all the complexities removed.
Toth
June 12th, 2008 at 7:53 am
And with all respect to you and your amusing eloquence, you are dead wrong. If I am to understand that your stance against abortion hinges on your being able to understand what it means to be person, as according to you besides yourself and experienced theologians almost no one can, then I restate my argument that we need to treat this difficult subject in a sophisticated and adult manner and add the word serious to it.
JustAsking
June 12th, 2008 at 9:12 am
This reply is directed to John Lowell, so unless you’re interested in what it was really like to volunteer with Mother Teresa in India, you can skip this post.
The conditions at Kalighat, the much photographed “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta, and Mother T.’s flagship, were HORRIBLE. The ones at her home in Agra were worse. And yet even at that point, 1990, Mother Teresa had tens of millions at her disposal. And at that point the dollar was very strong against the rupee, so that figure in real terms should have been multiplied.
At Kalighat, volunteers and nuns had to use their feet to stomp the laundry clean, when the organization had the money for washing machines. They did not provide gloves despite that AIDs had hit India, and yet we were handling feces and blood and other body fluids all day. I bought my own gloves.
Sister Luke, who was the nun in charge, had a favorite saying, “This is not a hospital, it’s a home for the dying.” Anyone who made the slightest bit of recovery was placed back out on the street. Literally, right back out on the street in front of Kalighat.
The “beds” were cots, the heat and humidity were intense, but there was no attempt to try to cool it down. The toilet facilities were beyond primitive.
When someone died, if they were Hindus their bodies were placed on shelves in the kitchen, which was also primitive beyond belief, so that they could be burned. If they were Muslim or Christian they were placed in a very primitive morgue, next to the kitchen to wait for burial. They did try to bury the Muslims the same day, but that was often not possible. Bodies would lay there for days and the stench was unbearable. It was all very appetizing — NOT.
I was there for three months.
There was one volunteer doctor who came in once a week. The organization could have easily afforded a full staff, and a full hospital.
In Agra, Mother T’s home was next to Saint Mary’s church (I’m pretty sure it was St. Mary’s — it’s been a long time). The nuns there were very sweet, as opposed to the ones in Calcutta, who had a blase attitude. But the conditions — my God!
Abandoned babies were placed out on blankets, flies crawling all over them. Mentally ill children were chained to iron beds. There was donated medicine from overseas but the nuns couldn’t read the labels so had no idea what to do with it. I was pressed into service to read labels in German but my German wasn’t up to it. I was the only western volunteer there, but I could only stay a day.
The point being that Mother T could have afforded to buy medicine in India, where it was cheap. She could have given those kids proper beds, and hired people to take care of them and the babies.
The leper colony was horrible too. Massive, dark, tomb-like communal bed/living rooms, little to no medical care. The lepers who could, wove cloth on primitive looms. However the lepers seemed the happiest, because they had food and a roof over their head, and some of them had some income. But again, so much could have been done for very little of Mother T.’s millions.
BTW: Leprosy is not easily transmitted, and even at that point was curable. I also worked with lepers at a street clinic in Calcutta called Dr. Jack’s. There too, the lepers were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met — they are so grateful for human contact.
Mr. Lowell, if it’s any consolation, a few years later, in the U.S., I was trying to find a hospice for a teenager living on the street who was dying of AIDS. The only organization that would help was Mother T.’s Missionaries of Charity.
I don’t pin the blame on Mother herself, although she could not have been blind to how her organization was run. But it was her philosophy, in my opinion, that only through suffering can salvation be achieved. Sadly, her organization used that motto, and thousands of people who could have died in comfort or been saved physically, suffered as a result, when the money was there to do a tremendous amount for millions of people.
John Lowell
June 12th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Toth,
Since who you might be murdering is indeed a person when you consider having an abortion, you can comfortably bet that sophisticated, adult and serious treatment of the matter would require knowing what a person is before proceeding, eh? You might even want to give the person a name. And if you don’t know what a person is with certainty beforehand there is always the possibility of educating yourself into sufficient sophistication, maturity and seriousness to claim a meaningful understanding of it. The matter isn’t as arcane as you might suspect, you know, its all in whether you care enough to want to make an effort with yourself. Now if you prefer to do your murders anonymously and at arms length, then all that’s required is a blindfold, a butcher, and a certain callousness of spirit.
Toth
June 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Ah, but that’s already better. Now we’re down to the question of when or at what stage of development we decide we call an embryo “a person.” Here we can differ hugely and that is one of the most important things what I meant with “grey area(s).” Some might take an extreme standpoint and say the moment a sperm cell unifies with an egg cell it’s a person, since it has then all the DNA and the full potential to become a human being. Would you call that cell a person? After the first mitotic division, second or the eight?
Very few would even want to take into consideration this point of view since it would mean that all healthy women who are not completely devoted to celibacy are certified mass-murderers. So there has to be a number of cell divisions at which point you decide you can speak of “a person” and perhaps even after cell-differentiation sets in and morphogenesis is in full swing or perhaps even later when the results first become visible to the naked eye.
Personally I would take the formation of the central nervous system and the onset of what we call consciousness as critical to the moral argument. Now this is difficult enough, since we even still do not fully understand what consciousness is, except that the English language is deceptive on this point in that in reality it is a verb and not a noun, let alone that there would be a clear demarcation on that front. I agree with your qualification of murder at some point insofar that there is a line you can pass in time at which point you could call it that with sufficient justification. But the real question to my mind is where that line lies.
However you made your point clear, I hope I did mine too, even if I lack your linguistic talents. You will strongly disagree with me and I with you on this point and since this sideshow might be only of interest to you and me I will end my part here.
Eugene Costa
June 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
The one clear unmistakeable trend is that America is on an unsustainable path….
Drivers, start your wheelbarrows. Alas, all the dislocation of Weimar, with none of the fun.
John Lowell
June 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Toth,
Oh, I wouldn’t get overly excited about framing the question of what a “person” is solely in terms of biology, Toth. While the notion of “person” assuredly includes both biological and spiritual aspects, it surpasses conceptions that are purely substantialist and limit themselves to these considerations. Neither is the “person” simply a “soul”, and for the very same reason. It is rather an ontological reality in its own right, one related to substance as existence might be to essence. So it can be said that while there is no human substance that is not personal, there is also no human person that is not substantial. The one presupposes the other. Yet you bring us the very curious notion that somehow human biology needs to qualify somehow before being considered personal. From the very moment of conception we have extant a highly individualized gene structure that is fully alive and involved in a dynamic of its own yet, somehow, this is not enough for you. For you, for some terribly arbitrary reason, biology must be capable of supporting consciousness in order for it to be considered personal! For all intents and purposes, that is to make the claim that essence constitutes existence, when, in fact, things are quite the other way around. Logically, there is a “who” before there is a “what”. And that’s only the principal flaw in what you bring us.
Kenneth
June 12th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
John,
I don’t wish in the slightest to be drawn into the abortion imbroglio, but your seem to have a rather peculiar notion of personhood. Personhood is not noumenal; it exists vicariously through material phenomenon, and it is precisely for this reason that the question of biology is of such significance. A “who” is only ever instantiated as a “what”, and cannot be ontologically divorced from it, so, ignoring for a moment arguments on the subject that do not rely on the contingent proposition of fetal personhood, the timing that the “what” acquires the “who” is a relevant point of inquiry. “Who” suggests some degree of sapience; we wouldn’t attach the label to fungi heavily involved in an ontogenic “dynamic of their own”. However, I could be off base. You will have to delineate what is meant when you contend that personhood is an “ontological reality in its own right”.
Lester Ness
June 12th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Right in Long Dong Silver or Captain Beefheart or Donald Duck.
Corkey
June 12th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
“All are sinners and fall short from the grace of God”. I am against abortion.
There is no such thing as degrees of sin regardless of what John Lowell believes. How do you reconcile anti abortion with pro war anyway?? Isn’t that what Bush The Chimp is?? Is killing an 18 year old any different than killing a fetus??
Any of the independent candidates is better than McCain or Obama regardless of the abortion issue. I do not agree with everything Bob Barr stands for but he is way better than the two other idiots from the major parties. If you don’t vote for Barr, than vote for Baldwin but cut this abortion circle jerk shit, will ya.
Lester Ness
June 12th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Voinovich — one of the many corrupt governors of Ohio.
Lester Ness
John Lowell
June 12th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Kenneth,
I have absolutely no idea as to how it is that you may have drawn the conclusion from what I’d written above that I believe person to be “noumenal” or that it is in some way “divorced” from substance. To the contrary, I said quite specifically:
“So it can be said that while there is no human substance that is not personal, there is also no human person that is not substantial.”
And as existence is prior to essence – “esse” as act to “esse” as substance, if you prefer – “who” is therefor prior to and constitutive of “what”. There is further no necessary nexus between person and sapience. As person is most precisely understood as “relation”, as an orientation of being, so to speak, all that is absolutely necessary to fulfill the requirement is a certain receptivity, in itself a passive quality.
Now, as to person being an ontological category in its own right, I’d noted above that most concise definition of person is “relation” and that “relation” is an existential phenomenon. It is therefore to be contrasted with, say, substance or accident which have rather to do with essence.
anti-neocon
June 12th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Thank you Justasking and Corkey for having the nerve to tell your experiences and philosophical differences from John Lowell and other theologians, mainly male, who idolize Mother Teresa, wanting indeed to see her canonized, and put down women who have abortions in a very derogatory manner.
Kenneth
June 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
John,
I cannot fathom what is meant by “personal” in your usage, but your schema seems, quite frankly, a total inversion of everything logic would dictate. Since “who” is an identity, not a thing, its existence supervenes upon the “what”. The assertion that “who” is ontologically posterior to “what” implies a reification of “who”. You define a person as a “relation”, but of course relations only operate in the presence of a material substrate, though the latter does not necessitate the former. This is the source of my conclusion. I hazard more than a guess that I have misunderstood you, but you will have to produce some sort of argument for the thesis that “who” precedes “what”, otherwise your post will remain a haze of verbiage to me.
John Lowell
June 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Kenneth,
Is it your purpose here purposefully to misunderstand what I’ve written, son, or is it that you’re simply trying to create an impression? If either, I haven’t got the time to waste on explanations, frankly. You write, “The assertion that ‘who’ is ontologically posterior to “what†implies a reification of ‘who’”, yet I’d specifically indicated that “who” is prior to “what” ontologically. And if my “schema seems, quite frankly, a total inversion of everything logic would dictate”, I’d suggest you explain your superior kind of logic to the editorial board at the Thomist. So, in conclusion, I guess we’ll just have to settle for my post remaining “a haze of verbage” to you. You’ll forgive me, but in the circumstances I feel no further obligation to satisfy you.
Eugene Costa
June 12th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
“If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.”
Captain Beefheart
Kenneth
June 12th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
John,
I do not aim to create an “impression”, whatever is meant by this. Apologies for the misuse of “posterior”, I meant “anterior”. A slight error of lexigraphy on my part that seems to have fatally tainted my entire post. So your reading of my post may be forgiven. But if you should come back to this, mentally substitute “anterior” for “posterior” and see what results.
John Lowell
June 13th, 2008 at 7:05 am
JustAsking,
There are two things that come across to me as indisputable about you, JustAsking: (1) A poorly concealed and virulent hatred of Catholicism and a purpose to do it injury on the one hand and, (2) a superciliousness born of a kind of if-they-only-knew-how-much-better-I-grasp-what’s-right-and-moral-than-they-do arrogance on the other. How are we to explain the underlying spiritual poison, son, a lifestyle that brings you into conflict with Church teaching? Why I’d almost guarantee that. And if I’m right, don’t you think the honest thing to do would be to disclose that? In any case, what’s next, a book and an attempt to cash in on your “experience”? While you’re deciding, here’s a suggestion for you: Next time you presume to sit in judgment of the Church, it’s agencies and its religious in their attempts to serve others make sure to put on your bedsheet, you’ll be easier for the uninitiated to identify.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Perhaps John Lowell should accept Toth’s term “consciousness” as “soul” and explore what that does to his argument?
John Lowell
June 13th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Lawrence,
Consciousness – awareness, reason, however you may express it – is a property of the soul, or life principle, but it is not exhaustive of that concept. Will is another such property. The two of them, as aspects of the soul, count for the spiritual substance that coinheres with our biology to make up what we call a human being. The soul is the form of the body and the body the form of the soul, they mutually inform one another and make us what we are. And this composit human substance, considered as act, is what makes them personal, they are “in relation”, so to speak. One accomodates the idea of consciousness quite readily. It has no impact on what you regard as my “argument”.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
John: I think you missed my point (which was quite simple) in your mangled Platonism and Neoplatonism transformed into its 21st-century thalidomide rendition. I simply meant that Toth was substituting “consciousness” for what you meant by “soul.” Consequently, when is the soul part of the person, and Toth’s point was that it entered at the point of consciousness (which can be discussed as it is complex), that’s all–unless Toth wishes to correct my interpretation of his words. Please dialogue with us instead of wrapping us in confusing word-play.
John Lowell
June 13th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Lawrence:
And you talk of my mangled, Platonism/Neoplatonism transformed into its 21st-century thalidomide rendition! Believe me, son, my lack of clarity couldn’t possibly compete with yours. First af all, mine is a more a 20th century von Balthsarian/Thomism than anything else and that, if it has a debt to the ancients, is more to Aristole by far than Plato. And you should know that we don’t do theology here the way that you might fix an electronic device, by slipping in replacement modules – this time the consciousness module – when needed. So, in sum, if you’re having a hard time keeping up with the lexicon, go spend a little money on an education.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Whenever I hear a Thomist deny the impact of Plato and Plotinus on Aquinas — despite the flow of Aristotelian works during that time into Aquinas’ purview — I realize that it’s a case of deep denial.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 11:45 am
PS: I don’t think Aquinas would have said (as you did) that the “body is the form of the soul” is the reversible sense you have written. As to your other point, perhaps I should add mangled thalidomide Thomism into the mix (mea culpa for lack of comprehensiveness). Unlike your statements, mine are completely understandable (you seemed to have no trouble) and require no explanation to give them meaning.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 11:46 am
correction: “in” the reversible sense
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Dear Anti-neocon, Justasking, and Corkey: I find John Lowell’s defense of suffering (via Mother Teresa) to be confusing especially since he is a self-proclaimed Thomist. Above all, Aquinas (John must know this) disagreed with the view (shared by Manichaeans) that we as humans are only souls trapped in bodies and that the tangible world around us is of no account. On that score, Mother T was still drinking at the poisoned well of Augustine (who himself was a Manachaean and never really shook it). Augustine sidetracked Catholic (western) theology in a number of ways (free choice, the ability to persecute heretics, and the proper relationship of man with the physical world). While I am fascinated with theology and am not a believer, that does not make me hostile to any church. Frankly, I find Aquinas to be an improvement over much of what surrounds me. Unfortunately, all of us are not certain about what constitutes consciousness, the soul, the ability to choose, etc.
John Lowell
June 13th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Lawrence,
“PS: I don’t think Aquinas would have said (as you did) that the “body is the form of the soul†in the reversible sense you have written.”
If I’m going to have to keep giving you tutelage regarding Aquinas, his sources and his interpreters, I’m going to have to send you an invoice. This from Joseph Ratzinger’s Eschatology, Death and Eternal Life, p. 149, after he had dissected in an immediately earlier passage the particulars of Aquinas’ anima forma corporis:
“And so we come at last to a really tremendous idea: the human spirit is so utterly one with the body that the term “form” can be used of the body and retain its proper meaning. Conversely, the form of the body is spirit …”
Ratzinger, of course, was at the time the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church’s chief theologian. Today, he’s Pope Benedict XVI. I’ll let you grapple with him as to what Aquinas may or may not have had in mind.
Lawrence
June 13th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
You’ve proven my point. Ratzinger is not Aquinas. Instead, he is making a rhetorical point, not a theological one. What I said stands, and you will not find your statement in Aquinas, notwithstanding your tremendously huge and pendulous tutelage.
John Lowell
June 13th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Lawrence,
A major theologian speaking specifically in this work as an interpreter – got it – interpreter of Aquinas and in a context dealing with the very question on theological anthropology you raised and his remarks are rhetorical? Ratzinger is simply making speeches? You entertain! He’s telling you precisely what it is that’s in the theology of Aquinas, Lawrence, but for some reason – probably ego – that would seem too much for you to bear. Truthfully, sir, you are both a most obvious poseur and a collosal waste of my time. Please, no more.
Corkey
June 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Aquinas and Augustine and even Mother Teresa are irrelevant. All that is important is the testimony of Jesus Christ who forgave the adulterer (but told her not to sin again), rebuked those who accused her and proceeded to give the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest speech of all time.
The simplicity of Christ is a wonderful thing. I really don’t care what these well meaning churchmen said, all I care about is what JC said. He is the King of Kings and thats the bottom line. All who believe on him and repent are saved no matter what. There are no exceptions here.
Mother Teresa is not saved for what she did, she is saved by her faith and her good works are a manifestation of her faith. Get it??
Kathleen Kotalik
June 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am
When is Congress going to stop sitting on their thumbs and do something about the Day Traders that are jacking up the price per barrel of oil so that gas prices are out of site? I heard comments that “over in Europe” they have been paying high prices at the pump for years. If they like us just accept this and not fight I don’t feel sorry for them . Why are we waiting for the “next” election to do something? People are losing their jobs from one end of the country to the other. Its sad that here in the United States,people must make a choice between food and travel to a job. WAKE-UP people, now is the time to do something>