Palestinian Demographics on The West Bank
Haaretz, Israel's most widely circulated newspaper.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.532703
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"Thomas Aquinas On American Conservatives Continual Commission Of Sin"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/thomas-aquinas-on-american.html
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Dear John,
Pope Francis understands proportion and perspective.
The Christian right does not.
Christian conservatives are certain that every battle has to be waged as a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil.
It's not that way and to believe so is to participate in the Manichaen heresy that arose in ancient Persia/Iran and remains a perpetual temptation for Christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
No one can be absolutely good.
And it is calamitous when politicians advocate absolute goodness.
Insistence on absolute goodness is the very best way to fail at achieving the good that is within our grasp.
Thomas Merton nailed it:
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Thomas Merton
I encourage you to check out other Merton quotes at http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html
And, "Thomas Aquinas On American Conservatives Continual Commission Of Sin" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/thomas-aquinas-on-american.html
Pax tecum
Alan
Rick Santorum compares himself to Nelson Mandela fighting against the ‘apartheid’ of Obamacare
On last night’s O’Reilly Factor, Rick Santorum compared Obamacare to apartheid, then called Obamacare “cool” because it will help Republicans win in 2014.
“Nelson Mandela just died,” O’Reilly said. “I don’t know if you’re aware. Ninety-five years old. Nelson Mandela — I spent some time in South Africa, he was a communist, this man. He was a communist. But he was a great man anyway. The sacrifices he made for his people were just stunning. But he was a communist. A great man, but a communist.”
“I would never attack Nelson Mandela,” O’Reilly continued. “I told Bishop Tutu, who’s like that too, but I told him ‘I respect you.’ Why can’t you guys in the Republican Party bring that to the forum?”
“Well, Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice,” Santorum replied. “And he was willing to pay a huge price for that. And it’s for that reason he — he — he is mourned today, because of that struggle he performed. But what he was advocated for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice.”
“I would make the argument,” Santorum continued, “that we have a great injustice going on too, in this country, with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives, and Obamacare is front-and-center in that.”
“And I agree with [O'Reilly's] talking points earlier, that the center focus of the 2014 election must be Obamacare and all of its aspects,” he concluded.
“And the cool thing about Obamacare is that it’s not only bad for the economy, not only bad for people’s health, it’s also bad for freedom of conscience — it’s also bad for a whole variety of issues that will energize all across America.”
Watch the entire exchange from The O’Reilly Factor below.
