Thursday, November 30, 2006

Joe Lieberman

Have patience, I know that Senator Lieberman is Jewish - let me explain.

My main point is that it would be hard for a "good" Catholic to not be Moderate. They must be into charity and giving to the needy. Yet, they must be pro-life. Similarly it would be hard for a "good" Conservative to not have abandoned portions of the Church - because of the need to be compassionate and to be charitable to the poor. Likewise, it would be a hard for a "good" Liberal to not have abandoned part of the Church because of abortion and because of homosexuality.

That's one of the comical parts of life to myself. Conservatives consider all Democrats to be Liberal and Liberals consider all Republicans to be Conservative (or Neo-Con, more recently). Both sides have completely forgotten that there are "moderate" factions to both parties.

Now, that Joe Liebermann "lost" the primary but won the election doesn't and didn't surprise me in the slightest bit. Nearly half of all Connecticut voters (45%) are registered Independant whlie only one-third are registered Democrat. (This would mean that around one-fifth are Republican with the remainder being Libertarian, Green, and "Other".) Now Lieberman narrowly lost the Primary - 52% to 48%. That's not that big of a deal especially since only one-third of the Connecticut voters could participate. So that a good portion of the Independants and Republicans came out and voted for the incumbant is par for the course.

I live in Delaware (one congressman) and for a decade and a half we had the "big four" - Senator Roth, Senator Biden, Congressman / Governor Carper and Governor / Congressman Castle - two Democrats and two Republicans. Now, together, the "big four" had over 150 years of statewide elected experience. Translation - Delaware loves incumbants. (Since that time Tom Carper was challenging Bill Roth and Roth passed out *twice* while campaigning. Delaware voters came back saying "We love you Bill, but its time to retire.")

Now the Lieberman / Lamont election revealed one big thing to me. First, after the election when Ned Lamont was celebrating his victory he got on the stage with a bunch of other people, mostly politicians. Of that group the vast majority were Liberal - there were very few Moderates of any flavor. This told me that, almost assuredly, Joe Lieberman would have a fourth term. Both because of Liberal versus non-Liberal reasons as well as because of incumbant sentiment. In fact after the election a Liberal said that he didn't understand how Lieberman won as an Independant - "Because he's an incumbant".

And this is not to say that Speaker-Elect Pelosi and that Senator Kennedy aren't good Catholics, but I question, strongly question, how often they attend mass or any other religious servcie.

Now as far as homosexuality is concerned, I really don't care what you do in the bedroom, as long as if and when I'm there that there is a doorway through which I can exit. Recently America magazine, a Jesuit publication, quoted the USCCB in a meeting during mid-early November (November 27 issue, page six), when they said that feeling / having homosexual lust is not wrong but, and I'm rephrasing here, for a guy to pick up another guy or for a girl to pick up another girl is sinful. Me, I'm a bit more conservative than that, I do consider "lust" to be a sin. Or rather, while lust may not be directly a sin, it certainly can lead to further and greater sins.

take care,

Jay

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