We live in a society that values form over substance, and desperately searches for a hero to talk about and write about, as after all, it sells newspapers!
Ted Kennedy, his life and his death, are a perfect example of this flawed system of ours. Ted Kennedy was and is not a hero. From a pro-life perspective, in fact, he is one of the greatest villains of all time.
Forget about Chappaquiddick, womanizing, drinking to excess, and contributing to the decadence and depravity that has enamored our societry for the last several decades. As a Catholic, he ignored their core value of respecting human life from conception. The Catholic Church is clear about this issue and unlike what many people think, the church teaches that abortion or supporting abortion rights is a mortal sin.
The real hero in the Kennedy family was unequivocably Eunice Shriver.
Inspired by her love of God, her devotion to her family and her relentless belief in the dignity and worth of every human life, she worked without ceasing,” said the family’s public statement. “She was a living prayer. ... She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more. She founded the movement that became Special Olympics, the largest movement for acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities in the history of the world.
Nevertheless, journalists failed to connect the dots between Shriver’s fierce activism on behalf of children facing disabilities and her commitment to defending the lives of the unborn, including babies with Down syndrome and other genetic flaws. This doesn't sell newspapers!
I hope that the priest at Ted Kennedy's funeral mass will have the gumption to point out Mr. Kennedy's fatal flaw as it related to the unborn, but I won't hold my breath! Even the Catholic Church is pressured by politics and a concern for turning off their constituents.
If you haven't yet joined the Pro-Life Forum at Gather, please do so now.
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Comments: 249
And he really was bi-partisan. He has decades of legislation that he started and he shared with Republicans that improved the lives of the average people. Like Eunice Shriver, he will be praised for years to come as somebody who helped make America a nicer place.
And yes, he was for women's right to choose so they wouldn't be legally regulated as property. Of course. So your throwback club won't praise him for that. Oh well.
http://www.feministsforlife.org/
As a woman, I am insulted by the implication as I would strongly support women's rights for equality. However, nobody has the right to take an innocent life.
And as for the thousands of abortions performed since 1973, the thing for which Ted Kennedy is responsible is that the mothers didn't die, too. Far too many women did before Roe v Wade. Conservatives care nothing about them.
Plus, when that particular piece of legislation, it was favored by the upper class (and even conservatives)! They were tired of having to send their wayward daughters offshore to take care of their "little problem".
Unfortunately, this time he's likely almost right. Back when it happened, the story was that Daddy K pulled Teddy out to avoid the scandal of the pending investigation and its likely outcome. Later, Daddy's money, in the form of a "substantial" donation got Teddy back in.
Whether that's true or not, I can't say, but I CAN say that it's true... Teddy was suspected of cheating at the time he initially left Harvard.
Act of 1964, the Violence Against Women Act, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the deregulation of the airline industry, the elimination of the poll tax, or the reduction of the voting age from 21 to 18 that you feel is the best example of "everything wrong in America"?
Yet - who are you to judge what God has given us - the Godself in each flawed human being (you, too) who ever was. Because we are all flawed. We're all workin' on it. We make progress, we backslide, we do the best we can.
First, I didn't say that his support of those programs made him great or respectable. I asked Marilyn which of them she felt was the best example of "everything wrong in America".
But in the event that you could name dozens of senators who supported those programs (please feel free to do so if the mood strikes), can you also name dozens of senators who were elected by their constituents nine times, wrote over 2500 bills, over 500 of which became law?
Kennedy was nothing more than a name with money.
Maybe you'd be more impressed if he'd received Gather Points for all that writing.
"And, I'm sure that if I looked at those 500, I'd probably have opposed more than half. "
So what? Are you saying that Sen. Kennedy should have refrained from doing his job (legislating) because you didn't approve of the results?
Are you opposed to Meals on Wheels, Marilyn? Or any of the other things I mentioned? Are those the things that you believe made Sen. Kennedy an "icon of everything wrong in America"?
Is that your view as a self-proclaimed Christian, Marilyn?
Pointing out reality doesn't make me less of a Christian, Wil.
What you're pointing out isn't reality, Marilyn. It's your personal opinion. Your opinion that Ted Kennedy is nothing more than a name with money. That doesn't sound like a very Christian view of a fellow human being, Marilyn. But I guess that's not surprising, since you don't really seem like much of a Christian to me. A Fred Phelps, Mark Dice or a Steve Anderson kind of Christian, maybe.
Ahh, running out of logic, so the term fool is used. Namecalling gets you zero points, sir. Better go look in the mirror and do some soul searching, yourself, don't ya think?
(This was one of the teachings about karmic return - involving knowledge that humans return to earth school many times, and keep working on lessons in many ways. The main lesson here: Courageous Compassion)
The point I was making was one of breeding and tact my dear. It takes someone with a cold heart to bad mouth anyone so soon after their death. The man has family and friends for the love of God !
I would like to add that God sees all the unborn who perish as well as the mothers and the doctors and nurses and he loves them as well. If you as a Christian have a problem embracing those who you think have sinned then you dear one, have a very big problem !
May God bless you with love and prayers
There is no doubt that Bush and Cheney were bad, but this clown had many more years of corruption under his belt.
Still, I can appreciate the accomplishments he has made as a US Senator even if his agenda was not one I supported. To survive in the political form that long is amazing. As for what he has done in the past, it is history. He is gone and as a US Senator can no longer do any more harm in that capacity, sure his previous actions will continue to have implications even after he is gone, but at least we address those with a hope of success.
As for his death, that is a personal thing, not political. His funeral is a time of mourning for his family whom I'm sure will miss him, not for pushing a political agenda. You see, the great thing about Catholics is we treat the loss of life as a loss of "life", which is something we respect whether you are 90, 40, 10 or unborn. Whether you are a priest, a politician, a police officer, or in prison, we still respect life. This also makes it easy to attack us and have it appear as though you "won" when you really haven't.
With this being said, as a citizen I wish he has been removed from office years ago but as a Catholic I would never celebrate his death even if it was the only way to remove him from office. Let those who choose to celebrate his death do so on their own conscience.
The newsworthy note of his death should be the sorrow in cancer taking yet another life.
I do, however, think that the first person he'll run into in the afterlife is a young lady named Mary Jo.
There's plenty, plenty, plenty of good child-saving work to be done by people of all faiths and nations, and the sooner people join in the helping, the better for everyone.
As far as his character is concerned, I would offer that I wasn't at the bridge that night and neither were any of us. We can speculate all day long and it means nothing.
The other complaint is that he drank too much...and? the point is?
I've always believed him to be hard working, patriotic American who had a different philosophy than then one I adhere to. Senator Kennedy was a flawed person who tried to do good as he saw it.
Senator Kennedy's ability to work across party lines and achieve real results through the art of compromise is alone worthy of respect, respect he earned from many in the Republican party.
Was he flawed? Of course. Who among us is not?
It helps to remember to spend our time looking at our own imperfections and deciding not to dump them on others (witch-hunting).
All family systems have great tasks covering their development over many generations, and they have smaller tasks set for each individual generation. Judging a family without knowing its sacred task and the various initiations they must go through in order to master it - well, how does one do that?
Jugding a family with, say, a 10,000-year task by the appearance of one generation would be something I wouldn't care to do. Not for Jan's or Jane's or anyone's family. I'm actually still hoping to discover what my own family's greater task is.
I do know that any individuals or groups incarnating on this planet have entered a school for the mastery of Courageous Compassion. How long does that mastery take, I wonder? Many lifetimes, it seems. Because Earth is also a planet of Trial & Error learning, a planet of Karmic Return, and a planet which changes paradigms fairly frequently. In one century a family will go by the standard, say, of the harem, and of natural/herbal abortions of unwanted pregnancies. In another century a family will have to find a way to keep going in spite of witch-burnings and forced conversions of all sorts. In yet another century a family might have to make choices about monagamy, when before its choice involved polygamy or harem lifestyles.
It's all about finding Truth underneath all its sacred disguises.
Give God a break, will ya?
Just a reminder that the Roe v Wade and Casey decisions which legalized abortion were decided by Republican majority courts.
Not one member of Congress from either party pushed for a Constitutional amendment that would have overturned these rulings. Neither did Reagan or his two Bush disciples.
Therefore, before any of you far right geniuses criticze Kennedy, take a good look at your own political heroes.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Your body has died in other lives, and you will discard it in this life as well, when the time is right.
There is life with a small "l" and Life with the big "L".
Consider your own soul's path, and the love you need to feed yourself in order get your heart to expand enough to encourage others to live the "big L" Life.
Love is the only thing - the God Thing - that changes anything for the better, truly.
You can bomb us with words, with hate, with material destructive force - but only Love actually changes things for the better.
Turns out each time we 'just missed' Saddam.
After the fall of Baghdad we discovered 'scorpion' the contact on the ground was linked to Chalabai the man who wanted to head up the new Iraq government, (and of whom our CIA kept warning the Pentagon was bad news from the get go.) We were most likely bombing his opponents into oblivion.
But WE THE PEOPLE decided it was ok for Bush to call for the strikes and we would accept the 'collateral' damage.
Gee, maybe some unborn babies were in their mothers wombs at the time and perished. NOW can we feel sorry and shame?
Opening one's heart to praise the God, the Divine Spark, that is in each human, is an act of Truth.
You need to do your homework as you are way off base. Casey was clearly decided by a CONSERVATIVE Supreme Court.
And I agree fully w/ David Marcucci's comments.
When we encounter charisma, which is divine energy pouring through a person or group, we are influenced by it.
To learn to handle being a carrier of charisma is not easy. Some do better than others.
when that accident occured according to the news reports. Was he to be
blamed for the baby's death too ??
Which is in fact a partisan opinion.
Ted Kennedy was a GREAT senator. He was a man who always fought for the downtrodden, the working man, the disadvantaged.
Was he a perfect man? Of course not. In his hour of testing, he was tried and failed. He spent his life trying to make up for that one fatal moment. He had a love of drink and women, and was not a perfect husband or father.
But he didn't need to work, he could have devoted his life to mindless hedonism. Instead he fought to make life better for millions of Americans.
I don't give a damn about the fetal supremicist and their anti-abortion positions. That's just more evidence that they want to control women's bodies, regardless of any challenges the person might have. That's REAL Naziism.
You're obviously a fetal supremicist.
There is no middle ground.
False praise, or blather - that's compost, eh?
Who judges Truth from falsehood? Truth itself (and we use Time in that formula) shows us the way sometimes many years after an incarnation has ended.
Judge not lest ye be so-judged in your own next incarnations.
Edward Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne (his brother Robers assistant) were in a car accident in 1969, when Kennedy drove over the side of a small bridge called Dike Bridge, on Chappaquiddick Island, a smaller island located next to the larger Martha’s Vineyard.
Unfortunately, the car sunk after the crash, and while Kennedy was able to swim safely to shore, Ms. Kopechne was trapped in the vehicle and subsequently died. The major problem with this incident was that Kennedy failed to report his accident, Mary Jo’s death, or even to contact the police for help until the next morning. In fact, Kennedy did not report the incident until after the car was found, which to many suggests he might not have reported it; but the car was discovered a few days later.
He was a neighbor and a friend whose faults were greater than any of my other friends yet, there was always something so easy to forgive about that man who inspired sincerity and patience in others. Some folk give more to others and have little self control for vices of life. I know that Ted gained a sobering grip on his behavior late in life and I am just as sure that he is not the only person on the planet who is or was a late bloomer. So call him what you will he has helped millions and is loved by many world leaders and many in the GOP.
As I write thousands are paying their respects to him and the family as his body lay in repose before services this evening.
People can change and be forgiven. Dr. Nathanson is a perfect example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Nathanson
I am not sure Kennedy ever really changed. He just got better at hiding his indiscretions.
KENNEDY: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution. Writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government. And the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is and is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy."