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We recently got this missive over the transom at The American Catholic which made my day:

It’s really unfortunate to read a Catholic publication so full of hateful speech and uncharitable thought and partisan bigotry. Jimmy Carter is many things but he is not, nor has he ever been, a bigot. To denounce Carter and Obama in these crude ad hominem assaults  doers nothing to advance rational discourse, does nothing to propagate the faith, does nothing but drive deeper wedges into a society already torn by  ideological  zealots.  The editors of the American Catholic are far more Catholic than they are Christlike and far more Republican than they are American.  Your screeds are  reminiscent of the rants from the South in the tragically blind days before the Civil War.  Step back and think of the damage you are doing to the grace and coherence of  what once was known as Christian doctrine. 

I am sincere in my contention that it made my day.  Praise rarely elicits anything other than a brief moment of pleasure.  Criticism, even off the wall bitter criticism, provides an opportunity for thought and for fisking!

It’s really unfortunate to read a Catholic publication so full of hateful speech and uncharitable thought and partisan bigotry.

My heart bleeds for you correspondent although I do wonder why you didn’t go elsewhere on the vast internet to relieve your offended eyes.

Jimmy Carter is many things but he is not, nor has he ever been, a bigot.

Such statements are much more convincing if not framed in an ex cathedra fashion.  I have provided evidence, here and here, to support my contention that Carter is an anti-Catholic bigot.  You on the other hand have risen to his defense with only a declarative statement.

To denounce Carter and Obama in these crude ad hominem assaults  doers nothing to advance rational discourse, does nothing to propagate the faith, does nothing but drive deeper wedges into a society already torn by  ideological  zealots.

I rather suspect that the main concern of our correspondent is Obama and not the reputation of the peanut farmer.  As for ad hominem assaults, I do not think our correspondent understands the term.  The criticisms set forth at TAC in regard to Obama are based upon facts and actions, not insults.  Our society is not riven by ideological zealots but is rather riven by differences over major public policy questions like abortion, the national debt, etc.  Attempting to pretend that those divisions do not exist certainly does not further the cause of rational discourse.  When we address politics of course our goal is not to propagate the faith, since we do not confuse our religion with our politics.

 The editors of the American Catholic are far more Catholic than they are Christlike and far more Republican than they are American. 

 In regard to being more Catholic than Christlike, we rather believe that the Catholic Church is the path to being more Christlike.  As to being Republican, although most TAC contributors are conservatives of one stripe or another, I believe that I am the only self-proclaimed Republican.  As my writings about Mitt Romney aka the Weathervane and Ron Paul (R.Pluto) aka Doctor Delusional indicate, being a Republican does not grant a politician immunity from my observations.  It of course is no doubt a shock to our correspondent but Republicans are Americans too.

 Your screeds are  reminiscent of the rants from the South in the tragically blind days before the Civil War. 

I assume that our correspondent somehow missed my numerous posts on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War which have made me the True Blue Yankee of Saint Blog’s.  I guess I missed where TAC has called for chattel slavery and secession.  Of course this comment was not meant to be taken seriously and was merely a historically illiterate insult.

Step back and think of the damage you are doing to the grace and coherence of  what once was known as Christian doctrine.

It is always good to end on an amusing note, and I assume that was the intent of our correspondent.  When one looks at Christianity today one finds many Christian denominations, the Episcopalians for example, in headlong rebellion against the doctrines that have guided their churches.  Within the Catholic Church, we have many who act as if the Church was invented in 1965 and everything that came before must be pushed down the memory hole.  TAC stands against this trend. 

 

 

 

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Paul W. Primavera
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 7:11am

Well done, Donald, well done!

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 7:57am

Two demurrals:

1. Terms like ‘bigot’ and the like are often used improperly. Two questions to ask: is your antagonist immune to contrary arguments and evidence (and in Carter’s case, my guess would be ‘not abnormally so’); and is there so much malicious chaff in an antagonists statement that one cannot have a productive discussion (of which I have a recent example in someone I encountered in a forum like this whose opening salvo was the contention that the Catholic Church had ‘covered up’ ‘pedophilis’ ‘for millenniums [sic]’.

2. We are riven by programmatic disagreements, but I think you underestimate certain novel aspects of our situation. Robert Bork has said that in his experience there was a sea change in the quality of political discourse around about 1981. I think there was another around about 2001. Consider the public treatment of George W. Bush. I will wager you that a content analysis of his public papers would reveal him to be among the least rhetorically confrontational men in presidential politics in the last 40-odd years. His actually social views might be properly described as ‘Rockefeller Republican ca. 1962’. He belonged to the United Methodist Church. And yet he was occasionally spoken of as if he were a vitriolic Spanish falangist. It was all very strange. The whole Sarah Palin discourse has been downright bizarre. (I am aware that you do have something of a complimentary phenomenon in the use of phrases like ‘the Obama Marxist regime’).

cthemfly25
cthemfly25
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 10:04am

Hmmmm….”so full of hateful speech” as in “hate speech”. I think I see where your latest critic is heading— No speech for thee but only for me.

Tito Edwards
Admin
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 10:15am

I didn’t even know you were a Republican Donald!

I’m an independent, but I lean Catholic first, Conservative second.

Go Santorum!

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 12:19pm

routinely referred to Republicans as fascists.

Routinely referred to Arthur Vandenberg and Thomas Dewey as fascists? Can you locate an example? I can imagine him referring to Joseph McCarthy or one of his enablers that way; McCarthy’s stock and trade was cynical rabble rousing, smears, and fantasies.

I think Robert Bork was referring to the disposition and behavior of ‘official Washington’, especially Congress. As a public official of consequence before and after 1981, he does have an informed opinion on the matter. I do not think the King quote demonstrates what you think it does, for the following reasons:

a. Goldwater was not responsible for the opinions of people who voted for him, but his campaign did corral much of the uglier aspect of political society in this country. His motives were not their motives. King’s statement needs editing. It is not wholly false.

b. I would refer you to Jody Powell’s reminiscences of his time as press secretary. He was repeatedly purturbed and baffled by the habit of members of the Congressional Black Caucus of meeting with the President at the White House and then issuing a denunciation on the steps of same. Characterisics of rhetoric and an understanding of manners can be subculturally particular. One needs to remember also that King was a wholly extraparliamentary figure. One might also compare King’s public statements with Al Sharpton’s.

That aside, I was reading newspapers fairly regularly between 1981 and 2001, and, no, I do not think it was like that. A great deal of vitriol was lobbed at Ronald Reagan (Bork was referring to that), but Reagan was a far more challenging figure than George W. Bush. Michael Kinsley wrote a great many snotty columns attacking papa George Bush, but the adolescent class cut-up’s babble was about as bad as it got. (Dan Quayle got a raw deal, though). As for Mr. Clinton, the worst of it was by a crew of imaginative conspiracy-spinners (Vincent Foster was murdered, etc.) who wrote books distributed by obscure (vanity?) presses.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 26, AD 2012 1:59pm

I would not defend Lyndon Johnson’s ad campaigns.

I think Ross Barnett represented something surpassingly ugly about American political life. I would not compare it to Johnson’s ad campaigns; it was on an entirely different register. Barnett’s constituency was ensconced within Goldwater’s larger constituency, not because Goldwater had any interest in maintaining Southern caste regulations, but because Goldwater’s understanding of federal-state relations was more congruent with executing Barnett’s program than was Johnson’s view. What the implications of that would have been had Goldwater been elected in 1964, I cannot imagine.

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