Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:49am

Shea Plays Race Card on Death Penalty

 

Mark Shea has been trending left for quite a while and now he is using the favorite tactic of the contemporary left in this country:  race baiting.

 

but it’s totally not about race or anything and if you notice that it is you are “playing the race card”. The Death Penalty: Because the Magisterium is incompetent to teach about faith and morals when American white conservative sacred cows are involved.

 

Have you no sense of decency left Mark?  Of course, it has long been known around Saint Blogs that in the heat of controversy Mark Shea will use any stick to wield against those on the other side, no matter how dirty and unfair the stick is.  Back in 2013 Shea offered a public apology for his bad behavior and I congratulated him on it.  Go here to read my post.  One aspect of apologies is amendment of behavior and, regrettably, since that apology Shea has gotten worse in his public behavior, and the above putrid insult by him of Catholics who hold to the teaching of the Church for almost 2000 years as racists, is beneath contempt and is about as low as one can go in American contemporary discourse.

For 33 years I have engaged in adversarial relationships every day of my professional life as an attorney.  I have always tried to never use unfair arguments and I have always attempted to treat my adversaries with respect.  Sometimes I have felt that this has put me at a slight disadvantage occasionally with attorneys who have a win at all costs mentality.  However, my success record in litigation has been rather good, and I have the added bonus of being able to look at myself in the mirror when I shave.  I think that what I have done as an attorney is a good rule to follow in blogging, whether other bloggers do so or not.

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Paul W Primavera
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:10pm

Here is a simple line of reasoning: if more capital crimes are committed by members of one race versus members of another race, then more people of the first race would and should receive capital punishment than the people of the second race. But the imposition of capital punishment is being done not because of race but because of the commission of a capital crime. It is sad that more members of one race may commit more such capital crimes than another. I do not say that that is for certain the case. I have not done a statistical study. But nevertheless, the punishment is done for the crime, not the race.
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Now here is the thing: if we want fewer people of that particular race to receive capital punishment, then we have to find a way of ensuring that fewer people of that race commit such capital crimes in the first place. So the right question to ask is this: why do so many more people of that race commit capital crimes than people of other races? Find that answer and fix that problem, and then the supposed inequitable imposition of capital punishment on members of that race will decrease.
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BTW, does Mark Shea pray and work for the cessation of criminal activity which would obviate the need for capital punishment in the first place, or would he prefer to show mercy to the criminal instead of justice for the victim?
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PS, I am NOT a racist (unless you count the fact that I love the human race of which I am a member). Indeed, while by accident of birth the melanin of my skin cells is white, that of my wife, being Filipino, is a light brown.

trackback
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:14pm

[…] Fr. Matthew P. Schneider LC, Prj YM Culture War Considerations – Emma King, Ignitum Today Prominent Blogger Plays Race Card on Death Penalty – Donald R. McClarey JD, TACth Pita Priest’s “Pastoral” Slap Down at A Funeral – […]

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:36pm

Mark who?

FYI, in 2004, there were 1.3 million US abortions of innocents and 59 death-penalty executions each after numerous years of appeals and other delays.

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Liberal catholics’ enthusiasm for forcing on the USA Catholic (recently rewritten) death penalty teaching would be commendable. Except, where is their zeal for forcing an end to the most pressing pro-life issue: abortion?

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:42pm

The death penalty is slanted even further in its application against men than any racial or ethnic minority Mark Shea cares to name. Yet Shea commits an act of omission regarding that obvious-to-the-most-casual-observer misandristic sexism. Truth doesn’t fit Shea’s feminist-driven narrative.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:45pm

I think the race obsessives would argue that makes you the worst kind of racist Paul.

And if Shea is going to play the race card, he should do so proudly, instead of sulkingly. Either it’s about race or it’s about playing the race card. Make an argument and defend it.

Jay Anderson
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:45pm

“I have the added bonus of being able to look at myself in the mirror when I shave.”
***
Is that an explanation for the size of Mark’s beard?

😉

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 2:46pm

PS: The number of US black unborn babies aborted each year is disproprtionately high in relation to the percentage of blacks in the US population. If that isn’t racism I don’t know what is racism.
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Mac,
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Growing a beard was my solution to having look at myself in the mirror.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 4:03pm

Unlike you Donald, I was once removed from a courtroom by the judge in a citizen’s arrest case…and I made the arrest and was on the state’s side. But the defense lawyer accused me of strangling the defendant…whereupon I went into him verbally because I sensed an inaccuracy….strangulation varies from country to country and I spent time in foreign jungles where what I did meant hello.
Be that as it may, Shea knows who pays him into his tin cup and how to keep on the Catholic speaker circuit. That John Paul II audience wants total catechism and Pope adherence….with any creative sensationalism left outside those two venues….ergo the Shea endless ad hominems outside those venues while having endless submission to the CCC and each Pope. Creativity here…submission over there. It results in pan infallibility of each Pope and catechism article which is kind of rampant anyway….though Francis has begun to end that in traditionalists. Both John Paul II in EV and Benedict on preemptive war quoted the catechism as though it was the Bible which neither of them did as to the actual Bible on the death penalty as to Romans 13:4. Lol….maybe Protestants are not 100% wrong about us and the Bible.
If Shea goes against the CCC or the sitting Pope, he’ll be working for money at something else as time goes on. I sense he doesn’t want that. Corapi went against Canadian Bishops…never against the catechism or the sitting Pope…ditto Bill Donohue…the money came in.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Wednesday, March 11, AD 2015 11:45pm

Shea’s leftism is becoming more obvious with each new blog post. In the past few years, he has shown he’s a radical on immigration, the death penalty, and homosexuality. How long can the Catholic organizations that use his talents(?) continue to employ him in good faith?

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 6:45am

A sure sign that Mark and those who pushed the editorial line are losing the debate. Comments on those sites are clearly against abolition. Generally they are well argued and consistent with Catholic teaching.

I see that in my Diocesan paper also. There have been numerous editorials against the death penalty. Letters to the editor have been reasoned and persuasive others in the community.

Truth is a powerful thing. Just as those who have pushed the anti-family and homosexualist positions in the last Synod are losing ground, so those that push for the abolition of the death penalty. That because it is a position that is contrary to natural law and Revelation.

The Holy Spirit is moving. Just not the way many would like.

Steve D.
Steve D.
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 9:03am

If you read Shea’s facebook posts on an regular basis (and I don’t recommend it if you value your sanity), you’ll discover the guy has always been a flaming Seattle lefty. Yes, he likes to hide it because of the pro death stance of Demonrats, but he’s on record saying that he’d have no problem voting for progressives if it wasn’t for their prochoice views. And yet he claims to be conservative? Laughable. The guy regularly posts links from the DailyKos, HuffPo, Salon, Media Matters and the like to trash conservatives, and if you point out the unreliability of these sources, he’ll cry genetic fallacy! His regular commenters or even more looney….by their fruits ye shall know them.

Jay Anderson
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 9:36am

“Mark Shea has been trending left for quite a while and now he is using the favorite tactic of the contemporary left in this country …”
***
I haven’t read Mark’s blog in years, but I do catch glimpses of his Facebook posts from time to time. And Don’s assessment (as well as Steve D’s assessment in the previous comment) seems about right. Mark’s Facebook page paints the picture of his leftward lurch far more tellingly than does his blog. Mark does little more than parrot talking points of the political left, trafficking in the left’s usual character assassination, guilt by association, and simplistic caricatures (often based on lies or misrepresentations) of those with whom they disagree. These days, his most ardent followers and commenters on Facebook seem to be fairly limited to such left-Catholic ideologues with axes to grind as Morning’s Minion and Dan Conway. Mark’s commentary is virtually indistinguishable from theirs.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 10:07am

*shrug* I stop listening to folks when they feel the need to lie to make their case. So he added another lie– it’s sad, and rather embarrassing since he is a public face for Catholicism, but he’s not going to persuade anyone who wasn’t already on his side.
So it’s just… sad. Lies with fallacies piled on top.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 10:37am

Mark does little more than parrot talking points of the political left, trafficking in the left’s usual character assassination, guilt by association, and simplistic caricatures (often based on lies or misrepresentations) of those with whom they disagree.

Yet another sign of how left he is. As the saying goes

Guy McClung
Admin
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 11:14am

Allow me to play the very real race card: Since Roe, tens of millions of dead babies. Of those over 55% were babies of minority mothers. Over 17,000,000 dead Black babies. Over 12,000,000 dead Hispanic babies. Planned Parenthood Mega-Death Center in Houston TX most days killing a majority of Black and Hispanic babies; and the new Death Center of Planned Parenthood being built in San Antonio [and currently with inadequate zoning certificate] somedays will kill 20 Hispanic babies. These are not white American sacred cows-these are God’s own precious infants. Guy McClung, San Antonio

Maggie
Maggie
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 12:38pm

I met Shea some years ago and was not impressed at all. And he has indeed been turning left and more than that, he just likes to have someone to attack and have controversy. I do not like him. Never read him. Not impressed years ago and have nothing to do with him now.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 4:38pm

Comments on those sites are clearly against abolition. Generally they are well argued and consistent with Catholic teaching.

You mean he did not delete them and insult the posters?

I’d have told you a decade ago that Shea needed an editor. The regrettable demise of much of the Catholic press since then has deprived him of the services which were once provided by Brian St. Paul.

I suspect that seeing his utterances as the work of a political intelligence is mistaken, except insofar as one can regard portside politics as the miasma of the inner life of troubled people. Political language can be a mode of expression for the problems of aging, or failures in daily life, or for long-standing character and personality defects. (Something more manifest in feminism than in other sorts of discussion). It does not have to be, but it often is. It can also be an exercise in status games and a reflection of anxieties in those games (Rod Dreher, I’m looking at you).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, March 12, AD 2015 4:41pm

I met Shea some years ago and was not impressed at all.

There are stories of him having rude confrontations with vendors at book fairs and the like. That would make an impression.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, March 13, AD 2015 5:57am

“You mean he did not delete them and insult the posters?”

I was referring to sites promoting the editorials. However, I am sure he deleted comments, insulted posters and banned them. I don’t read Mark anymore. Don’t want to cooperate with evil.

Mary De Voe
Friday, March 13, AD 2015 6:46am

All capital one murderers must be put to death. If some racially counted murderers escape because of skin color they must be put to death, too.

Tom
Tom
Friday, March 13, AD 2015 8:24am

Shea’s point is wrong, as usual, race really is not a factor in the death penalty: http://seeking4justice.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-study-race-of-defendants-no-factor.html
Many such race-baiters mention a numerical discrepancy between a race’s proportion of the population and that race’s representation in the criminal justice system; but such a crude metric only tells us there is a different rate of incarceration and sentencing, it does not explain why there is a difference, and without evidence of the “why” there can be no rational claim of racism as the reason for the disparity.

It’s all simple logic and basic reasoning, but sadly Shea is not a thinker, he’s a mere agitator, hence the rapid descent to ad hominem when he is challenged.

The Deuce
The Deuce
Sunday, March 29, AD 2015 5:20am

If you read Shea’s facebook posts on an regular basis (and I don’t recommend it if you value your sanity), you’ll discover the guy has always been a flaming Seattle lefty
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Can confirm. If you think Mark’s extreme on his SJW And Hating Life blog and you haven’t seen his Facebook, you haven’t seen anything yet. He’s an absolute fanatic there, with discourse about on the level with Bill Maher, though with more SJW hypersensitivity and even rarer moments of common sense or logic.
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The guy regularly posts links from the DailyKos, HuffPo, Salon, Media Matters and the like to trash conservatives, and if you point out the unreliability of these sources, he’ll cry genetic fallacy!
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Which is ironic, given how fond of he is of using guilt by association himself, and how often he smears writers for articles that he turns out not to have even read.
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My favorite is when he accused Ben Stein of advocating eugenics, by embellishing on an embellished Rawstory article about an embellished Right Wing Watch article about an article that Ben Stein had written. When people linked to the actual Ben Stein article and showed how ridiculous the claim was, Mark suddenly deleted his post like a coward, without any comment or apology for his libel. And he learned nothing, as he has continued to do the same thing repeatedly (eg. libeling Matt Walsh for his article on suicide, which he also didn’t read. I’m sure there are more recent examples, but Mark’s blog is worthless as anything other than a near occasion to sin, so I don’t read it anymore).
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His regular commenters or even more looney….by their fruits ye shall know them.
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Had one far-left fanatic named Andy Simons (who Mark says goes to his parish) insist at length that Catholic teaching does not say that abortion is murder. Mark came in to agree with him on that claim and insisted that “Andy is fully pro-life.”
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The same whackjob also argued against anti-abortion laws, absurdly bemoans that pro-lifers “refuse to work together with Democrats stop abortion,” etc. But try to argue that more welfare isn’t good for lowering the abortion rate, and Mark will accuse you of literally murdering babies. Mark isn’t really pro-life himself, imo, and he’s trying to deflect his shame by loudly and frequently accusing others.

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