The state of the race: Democrats and the moral life of our country | National Catholic Reporter

The state of the race: Democrats and the moral life of our country | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: We have a system of public schools and universities older than the Constitution.  It's a little late to object.  Indeed, widening the funding net so that all schools and universities are covered would be a good thing, except for those that you could call Republican Academies (like Ave Maria University).  As for health care, having had my life saved a the NIH Clinical Center, I can assure you that public health care in the United States is a national treasure.  Even my personal Medicaid is channeled through decent HMO and I have no complaints, although I wonder what it would be like to see a UPHS doctor all the time.



Hillary's personality is not a problem.  People talking about it is - but at least we are talking about Trump too. She has been pursued a right wing conspiracy ever since she helped take down Nixon (when she was dating Clinton, by the way) - and even then, they had big plans.  Luckily, they had the ability to see those plans through.



Abortion is not a major flaw for the Democrats except for the extent that they play the game.  They have to because of the old guard in their ranks who remember the days before legal abortion - so this will always get lip service. The truth is, however, that they should point out that the GOP and the USCCB have no plays on the issue - although the Democrats would certainly increase the Child Tax Credit to about 12 times its current size.  It's the pro-lifers who would object because they would see this as subsidizing sex and abrogating personal responsibility.  So who is really pro-life? By the way, there is no gene for being gay.  Epigenesis happens in the first trimester at the hormonal level.



I wish Kaine would drop the concience clause approach to abortion and instead explain why abortion in Europe, where rights are not sacrosanct, and America are two different things - and that even a 14 week ban would preserve 90% of abortions.    As far as Hyde, it will never survive Single Payer healthcare.



Calling Catholics a swing vote is a real whopper.  We are a bell weather because we are large and we represent the public as well as anyone, both left and right.  As for libertarianism on abortion and pelvic issues - whenever there is less then the unanimity of Rousseau, the alternative is to either do nothing or have some kind of police state that violates the moral freedom Aquinas explained when he defined free will as the attraction to the good (God) as filtered by the intellect in an imperfect world.  The divine right to rule, therefore, is not for kings but for everyone.  The Democrats give their weight to the individual while the Republicans give their's to the tyranny of the mob -even a mob led by the local bishops.  Luckily, federal judges outrank bishops, even if the Catholic vote swings in state elections.



I agree about poverty, where the Democrats and Republicans are switched on government action, as I stated above. On that issue, the GOP could not be more wrong and the bishops lack of focus on this issue as an issue is shocking.