Okay, this is what I did not like about President Trump:
1. His public lies or fake truths aka, personal truths, like a man saying he’s a woman or my conscience is better than God’s truth
2. The constant chaos and drama
3. His enablement through populism of fringe far right groups who are quite dangerous
4. His disparaging remarks of those close and distant from him and the name calling
5. Compulsive activity with his twitter account
What I liked about President Trump:
1. He was pro-life, engaged the Catholic Church and other pro-lifers and inspired them to help create laws to shut down abortion clinics and limit abortions if not to make it almost entirely illegal. This may have changed many pro-choice minds to become pro-life
2. I liked that he was not a Catholic and thus could not be held to Catholic moral standards but enabled Catholics to be pleased when he was Catholic in his outlook on unborn children.
Okay, this is what I do not like about President Biden:
1. As a Catholic he is trying to normalize disobedience to the Magisterium of Vatican II of which Pope Francis recently said there could be no concessions to Catholics who do this. The disobedience is grave and a mortal sin—abortion on demand even to the 9th month and last moments of pregnancy, infanticide, gender ideology, redefining of marriage and other more subtle disobediences.
2. I don’t like that he is a Catholic, it would not be as embarrassing as it concerns his disobedience to Vatican II’s Magisterium and what Pope Francis recently said that Catholics who do this should be shown no concessions. I would not expect him to be Catholic in this area if he wasn’t Catholic.
What I like about Joe Biden:
1. He is sleepy Joe and no drama Joe and no compulsive behavior on twitter and other social media and he seems like a pleasant great grandfatherly type who has a hard time staying awake
2. He is calm, cool and collected
3. His facelifts, Botox injections, hair transplants and workout routines and proper diet give the illusion of being much younger despite the fact that an aging brain will do its thing. The illusion of being Catholic, though, in the true sense of obedience to Vatican II’s Magisterium troubles me.
And to the Nazis of grammar and spelling—I would love if you would get a life and leave me alone unless you would like to be my free editor which I would like.
31 comments:
Well, you've got a point here. The point being, every president has strengths and weaknesses and we can't rely on pundits, news generators and political parties to be unbiased or even accurate most of the time.
As time goes on, I've looked back at several presidents from my lifetime and changed my mind.
I thought Kennedy was a great president. Now I think he was a struggling president with tremendous weaknesses and never had a chance to reach his potential.
I thought Johnson was a good guy and a so-so president. Now I think he was a so-so guy and a horrible president.
I thought Nixon was a criminal. Now I think he was a fairly effective president in some areas and too loyal to his people and too bullheaded to admit he was wrong about some things. He might had been a better president if he had beaten Kennedy and served in the early 60's.
I thought Ford was an ass. Now I think he was a very good man and never had much of a chance.
I thought Carter was a nice guy and a weak president. My mind hasn't changed.
I thought Reagan was right-wing extremist who only cared about the rich. I now hold him in much higher regard and appreciate how hard he worked at such a late time in his life to try to change the paradigm of how government works.
I thought George W. Bush was another "rich man's president". I now think he was a good guy and a capable president and deserved a second chance.
I thought Bill Clinton was a self-serving profligate. Now I think he was a so-so president and an absolute master at playing his political enemies to get what he wanted. I still think he is a profligate and I've always believed his accusers.
I thought George W. Bush was a decent man and was too nice to his political enemies when in office. Now I think of him as a placeholder president who was just marking time by working with the establishment.
I thought Barack Obama was in over his head and a master manipulator of public opinion. I still dislike him, but not as much as before.
I thought Donald Trump was outspoken, annoying, unpresidential and entirely necessary for the times we live in as it takes an obnoxious man to deal with such an evil entrenched group of careerists as our government "leaders". He managed to keep more of his campaign promises than any other president of my lifetime, especially keeping us out of "stupid wars".
Joe Biden has always been a joke. He's done nothing to change that in my estimation.
But what do I know?
Good post. But what about the grammar and spelling nazis?
I couldn't care less what thay thunk.
Ya, Joe Biden has opened the borders during a pandemic and has issued an order that local communities will not know which illegal aliens have been dumped there. He is a tool of the left and is definitely not pro America.
The only thing Joe has going for him he has the evil, corrupt, national media which is not Pro America on his side. We're now under Red China's thumb again. But Dem politicians will make millions!
I'm glad you admit that you have a problem and that you need an editor. Acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step toward fixing it.
It's not Rockette science, you know...
Trump did not inspire anyone to shut down abortion clinics. That works has been going on at the state level for decades, beginning back when Trump was pro-abortion.
Trump's pro-life stance is highly selective. First, he is in favor of abortion under certain circumstances, those being rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother.
Second, aided by his "Catholic" attorney general, Trump approved the execution of 13 individuals, the most prolific executioner since Grover Cleveland.
Third, the idea that Trump, because he is not Catholic, is not bound by "Catholic moral standards" is preposterous. Your so-called "Catholic" moral standards are understood by the Catholic Church to be universal. They apply to every human being, regardless of his or her religious affiliation or non-affiliation.
Presidential Distortion....and Anonymous @ 11:46 AM. I am in agreement with you both.
Father, I admire you for "putting yourself out there" and agree with almost everything you have said as well.
I say this, not in Donald Trump's defense, but as a former New Yorker, understanding how business types in NYC operate gives some insight into why he acted they way he did and said the things he said. I like to think I don't say or act that way, but you would have to ask my friends.
A@12:26, perhaps you are not pro-life and don’t operate in those circles as democrats tend not to do so. Just got to pro-life cardinals, bishops, priests and laity, and they will educate you.
However, pro-life or not, you would have done well on this blog, to call out President Biden who touts he is a practicing Catholic who nonetheless rejects the Magisterium of the Catholic Church as codified in the Vatican II documents, moral principles enunciated that must in obedience be accepted by all Catholics and others of good will, the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception throughout pregnancy, the true nature of human beings created in the image of God, male and female He created them and a sacramental system that requires Catholics to be in a state of grace to receive. Rejection of the Magisterium of Vatican II Pope Francis tells us, we can show no concessions to those Catholics who are disobedient, like President Biden who does so publicly not privately.
So, please, please rewrite you comments to explain why President Biden is to be shown to concessions for his rejection of significant portions of the Magisterium of Vatican II—Vatican II was not just about liturgy after all .
A@12:29–yes indeed, President Trump is Mr. New York City in Temperament, culture and braggadocio. I know some of my relatives up there that are similar and their accent too! :)
Language nazi was a term I first heard a friend use maybe 15-20yrs ago. I used the term 5-10yrs back on some comment somewhere, and the very fact I said that N-word had numerous respondents crying in their Wheaties that someone would DARE be so offensive, and my thoughts then and now regarding that was that they really had no life at all minus the instant keyboard rage.
I make small screen mistakes on a regular basis, and simply do not even see them when doing a quick scan of text before posting, as text is micro, eyes are not what they were formerly, and the mistakenly bought progressive lenses focus sharply only in one sweet spot and less distinct everywhere else.
As goes the famous quote from Kelly's Heroes, "Sieg Heil, Baby."
Of course Seinfeld had the soup nazi in his show which was all about Jewish comedy.
Anonymous K at 12:26 PM,
Trump’s abortion position is far better than the Dem’s who permit killing the baby as it comes down the birth canal and Obama’s vote as an Illinois state senator to not provide care to a baby who survived an abortion.
I rather doubt they could do soup nazi today in this modern age where all which matters are "feelings...oh oh oh feelings", and everyone's feelings hanging from sleeve just dying to be bruised, the poor dears.
"So, please, please rewrite you comments to explain why President Biden is to be shown to concessions for his rejection of significant portions of the Magisterium of Vatican II—Vatican II was not just about liturgy after all ."
If there was any way to understand your idiosyncratic, "...is to be shown to concessions for his rejection..." you might get a re-write.
However, "...is to be shown to concessions for his rejection..." make no sense whatsoever.
While I might be doing that, you might be finding a way to explain your preposterous assertion that, because a person is not Catholic, he/she is not bound by the moral teaching of the Church. Are there other moral teaching Trump and other non-Catholics are not bound by? Murder? Lying? Sexual assault? Fornication?
By the way, Trump has said he could murder and not lose any votes, and he is guilty of lying, assault, and fornication. Are you giving him a pass on these, too? Please, please explain why Catholic moral teachings are not binding on non-Catholics.
For something to be a mortal sin, since you do not know this, and thus for you or Trump or me to be held accountable, three things are necessary: 1. Serious matter; 2. You know that it is wrong; 3. You do it with full consent of the will and usually with forethought and planning (such as an abortion).
So, yes, moral principles that are ignored and not followed, that is serious matter. However, one is not culpable in moral law, if one does not know what the Church teaches, is not Catholic, so it is off he radar screen. It is a moral wrong but not a mortal sin.
I am surprised you did not know this. It is a part of the Magisterium of Vatican II which to reject we can show no concessions to you or President Biden.
Trump is history, you should get back to Biden and the teachings of the Magisterium of Vatican II which he knows well--he rejects these: abortion and infanticide as a grave evil and sin against humanity, embraces an ideology of marriage opposed to the moral law, promotes gender ideology. But of those his abortion and infanticide stance cries to God for justice. Pope Francis said no concessions should be shown to those who reject the Magisterium of Vatican II which President Biden clearly does, knows he is and does it with full consent of the will and with considerable forethought and planning so much so that he wants to codify these grave immorality into civil law. So talk about that please.
The knee-jerk, almost infantile obsession with "correcting" anyone who has anything remotely positive to say about Donald Trump suggests that the derangement syndrome hasn't gone away with the coronation of Shanghai Joe!
I'm still waiting for an explanation of "...is to be shown to concessions for his rejection..."
Then, you might get a comment on Biden.
The moral law, as you don't seem to know, is written on our hearts. No, a non-Catholic cannot be given a pass on committing grave sin because he/she is unaware of the teaching of the Catholic Church.
"Trump is history," you write. So why do you continue to bring him up?
Your heart as your brain, rather, not to make it so personal, so let us substitute Biden’s, are both prone to atrophy due to the disorders of both original and actual sins.
Give it a rest, Father. He's not worth your time. He's just jerking your chain.
Sophia here: In addition to those already mentioned and many other very important things I like about President Trump I'll mention these 2:
1) He reversed President Obama's attack on Conscience Rights of healthcare workers.
2) He reversed President Obama's directive to schools re transgender policies under penalty of the loss of federal funding.
And conversely 2 of the many things (all his executive orders)I don't like about President Biden are these:
1) He reinstated the assault on the Conscience Rights of healthcare workers.
2) He reinstated the directive to schools re Transgender policies.
And Fr McDonald, I have to admit that referring to President Biden as "calm, cool and collected" is one of the best reframes for moderate senility I have ever heard. But having said that, let me hasten to say that I do not hold him responsible for that-in fact that's one of the few things about him for which I have a lot of compassion. He is just a victim of an accelerated aging process.
Presidential Distorian
You deserve a gold star for correctly writing 'I couldn't care less'. An alarming number of Americans say 'I could care less' which actually implies the opposite.
I have a terrific new idea: Donald J. Trump was the best president ever; he was truly wonderful—so wonderful indeed that we should suspend the Constitution and install him as King for Life to be succeeded by others in his dynastic line of succession. Those pesky elections are so unreliable and such a waste of time and effort, after all. Oh, my bad, I forgot—somebody already had the idea.
I know that most, if not all, here will disagree with me. And I know what the official position of the Church is regarding Roe v. Wade, which I must obediently accept—a position of principle the Church probably must adopt if it is to champion the value of all human life from conception to natural death, as it must.
But in practice, I cannot see how the war over abortion will ever be won on the political or legal battlefield. Instead, it must be won elsewhere—in the battle for hearts and minds, the battlefield on which I choose to fight rather than the political or legal one. And this battle must be waged with facts and truth—all facts and the entire truth, not just selective facts and partial truth. The following article is not perfect by any means, but it is a decent start in illustrating the only type of approach that promises to produce tangible and lasting results (but you have to read the_entire_article to get the point):
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/the-things-we-cant-face/600769/
Lord Randolph Churchill famously described William Ewart Gladstone as 'an old man in a hurry'. Gladstone was 82 when he became Prime Minister for the fourth time in 1892. Joe Biden is unlikely to serve a second term and might be another example of what can be a dangerous breed.
I would be inclined to attach the same description to the current occupant of the Chair of St Peter, who is the same age as Gladstone was when he eventually retired.
So Trump was "entirely necessary" for the times? Democrats, ironically, might agree, especially in Georgia, where under his presidency they picked up 2 congressional seats, 2 US Senate seats, a Biden win, gains in the State Legislature and majorities in several traditionally GOP counties in metro Atlanta. They might actually miss him...now Biden will face the 2022 midterms and we know midterm cycles generally are not good for the president's party. It probably took a Trump presidency for Democrats to make big gains in Georgia.
And speaking of president, someone I spoke with told me Tom Cotton, senator from Arkansas, is planning on running for that office. I don't know if we are ready for another president from that state (I was not impressed with Clinton), but hey, I guess it is not too early---the Iowa caucuses are just 3 winters away!
Anonymous 2,
The war on abortion would have been won if bishops had done their job in 1974 and made it clear that a politician could not claim to be Catholic and support infanticide. Biden and his ilk would not have dared to have defied the Church in those days when there was a real chance he would not have won re-election if the bishops had put the full weight of the Church against politicians like him. Recall, that when Cardinal O'Connell of Boston in the 1920s put his foot down on a contraception bill being introduced into the Massachusetts legislature, it was withdrawn. In stark contrast to O'Connell, Cardinal Medeiros did nothing with Senator "Oldsmobile" Kennedy, and hence, Roe v Wade became one of the principal financing tools for the Democratic Party, and Planned Parenthood now controls the US through Joe Biden, fake catholic extraordinaire. Your views would be welcome at the National Anti-Catholic Reporter
The suggestion made by Anon at 10:43 that the influence of the Church on civil politics would have been the same in 1974 as it was in the 1920's (or 1940's) is emblematic of the traditionalists' inability to acknowledge reality. The influence that bishops had in the earlier 1900's was significantly diminished by the 1970's.
I wonder if the reference to O'Connell is in error. The poster may be referencing the actions of Cardinal Cushing who opposed a repeal of a Massachusetts law prohibiting contraception. Note that, however, 17 years later, Cushing, by then a cardinal, did not oppose a similar repeal. (I could not find a reference to O'Connell/Contraception and would appreciate it if Anon 10:43 could point me in that direction.)
Anonymous at 8:22AM,
The Church still had significant influence when Roe v Wade came out in 1974.
Here is the scoop on O'Connell:
O'Connell favored a highly centralized diocesan organization, encompassing schools, hospitals, and asylums in addition to parishes. He wielded immense political and social power in Massachusetts, earning him the nickname "Number One".[2] For instance, he was responsible for defeating a bill to establish a state lottery in 1935, and for defeating a referendum liberalizing state birth control laws in 1942.[2] The only politician who had anywhere near O'Connell's political clout was Governor (and future U.S. President) Calvin Coolidge, but even Coolidge picked his battles carefully, preferring to ignore the Archbishop whenever possible. In the years leading up to the Second World War O'Connell became a powerful force for the neutralists in trying to keep the United States out of World War II in the pre-Pearl Harbor era.
Cushing was a squish and a Kennedy tool
8:22AM,
The fact that the Church still had a lot of power in 1974 is that fake Catholics like Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, etc. originally ran for office claiming to be pro-life until Planned Parenthood ordered them to stop the pretext or lose $$$$$
The “what if” question is all rather academic, unfortunately. That was then and this is now and, as Anonymous at 8:22 a.m. observes, we must deal with reality.
Ironic, too, given that some here (i.e., TJM) fault me for being an “academic” more at home in the faculty lounge than the “real world.”
More on O'Connell:
"But even as he exerted this public influence, O'Connell was concealing a scandal. In the 1910s, his priest-nephew and another priest of his household were secretly married to women in Boston and New York, and they were embezzling money from the archdiocese to support their double lives. O'Connell knew of this but failed for seven years to do anything about it until he was forced by Rome to remove the two from the priesthood in 1920. Boston's priests, other American bishops, and some local politicians had known the story, but deference to the cardinal's authority left them reluctant to go public with the story. Ordinary parishioners never learned of the underside of local church administration. The city's newspapers-it's not clear how much they actually knew-were unwilling to take on the leader of the region's largest church: With a word from him, circulation might drop overnight. After Rome cracked down, O'Connell continued to exercise power locally, but his authority within the national and global church itself was finished. Not until the 1980s did the full story come to light, thanks to the opening of archives in the Vatican and elsewhere."
Maybe the kind of influence O'Connell had is not to be sought or used by Catholic clergy.
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