Monday, January 26, 2009

What you might want to know if you are thinking of following me on Twitter

{note: I've revised this a little. I'm not too proud of how strident, and uncharitable it sounded after I read it a few days later. I toned it down.} If you are thinking about following me on Twitter, Great. Here is a little about me. I care about having people follow me who are interested in what I am saying, or the same people I am listening to.  I don't care if I have 20 or 20,000 followers if they are just following me to boost numbers - don't we ever learn about bubbles people!  I generally follow if you look like a real person.  The more followers you have, the less likely I am to follow you, unless you particularly interest me.  You'll notice that my profile includes #TCOT #Catholic #Prolife. You will also notice that my Bio says "politically eclectic," if you aren't sure what eclectic means, look it up. Eclectic is not a synonym for conservative. I have varied views, I voted third party 6 presidential elections in a row. I have tended more conservative over the years. I am not, and probably never will be ideologically committed. I have some views that are very inline with the current GOP conservative ideology:
  • I am unequivocally prolife - no exceptions except to save the Mother's life
  • I am pro traditional marriage
  • I am pro family values especially interested in the media
  • I am moderately pro Gun
  • I support concealed carry
  • I generally find merit in arguments for small government 
  • I am opposed to the far left in general
I have some views that most people would classify as liberal.  I have some views that are so far out there that neither party will touch them.  I don't intend to spend most of my time Tweeting about politics.  I am more interested in pro-life and the Catholic Faith.  However, I am interested in politics.  I find the #TCOT movement very interesting.  I am intrested in following what you all are talking about, what the ideas are, and at times throwing out my 2 cents.  I've already noticed that followers drop off immediatly after I post anything that doesn't conform to the 'conservative' ideology.  Fine.  To those of you who are actually mover's and shakers out there, I'd reccommend you listen to me a little.  Not because I actually know anything, but because there are a lot of voters out there who call themselves conservative that aren't lock step, and there's a lot of independents that are eclectic like me.  If you want to sit in a closed chat room and agree with each other about pure conservatism, go ahead, but my opinion is that you're more likely to win elections if you know how to talk to people in the middle. I don't think conservative group think and conformed conservative ideology will help you much in 2010 or 2012 unless the Democrats have as many PR disasters as we've seen the past 8 years 
Posted by Paul at 12:52 AM

5 comments:

  1. M. AlexanderJanuary 28, 2009 at 5:20 PM

    no exceptions except to save the Mother's life

    what would an example of this be?

    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  2. MemoriaDeiJanuary 28, 2009 at 6:36 PM

    Duuude! Hi, buddy. Twitter is just kinda fun, isn't it? I like it..relaxed, whenever, whatever.

    ReplyDelete
  3. PaulJanuary 28, 2009 at 7:42 PM

    Mary, I'm not a doctor so...hard for me to specifically state a medical situation. Occasionally you hear of a case in the news where a pregnant woman sacrifices her life so her child may live. One I recall was a woman with cancer, whose life could only be saved by chemo-therapy which would have killed the baby. She chose to give life to her baby, which I admire.

    The moral principle I am firmer on, although I am not a moral theologian. As I understand it (I'm not Googling it)there are two types of circumstances where abortion could be morally permisible.
    (a) If there are two people and they are both going to die and the only way you can save either is by killing the other, it is morally permissible to kill one to save the other. This one would apply where the fetus is not viable, and the mother is going to die, but could be saved if the fetus was aborted. (No, I don't have the medical example, but even the rarest of things happen on occasion).
    (b) If you can save one person by taking an action, and as an unintended consequence another person might die(?will die? research)it is morally permissible to save the life. This would apply clearly in the case I cited of the woman with cancer receiving Chemo-Therapy.

    What should be clear is that I believe abortion should not be legal except in cases where the mother is actually going to die, and the only possibility of saving her life involves either deliberately aborting the fetus, or an unintended abortion as a result of other treatment.

    Even in those circumstances I admire greatly a woman and a family that chooses to preserve the life of the child if at all possible. However, from what I understand such a circumstance is one where the people involved, particularly the mother, are the only ones who can make such a decision.

    If that doesn't clarify my thoughts, feel free to ask more questions. If you understand things differently, I am open to discussion, but I'd probably just check out Wesley Smith's blog Second Hand Smoke since whatever he says I'll pretty much ditto. If he disagrees with what I've stated here, then I stand down and admit I just got it wrong.

    Thanks for commenting!

    God Bless, Paul

    ReplyDelete
  4. PaulJanuary 28, 2009 at 8:45 PM

    Memoriadei,

    Twitter is fun! My wife says its time consuming, but I just fit in a Tweet here and a Tweet there, and run over to the computer to check for Tweetes every 3 minutes. No time wasted, right?

    ReplyDelete
  5. LeticiaMay 3, 2009 at 4:03 PM

    Paul you NEVER have to abort to save the mother, that is misinformation. That's why the Church doesn't permit it. For example, when a tubal pregnancy threatens the mother's life, you remove the tube. The baby dies, but he was going to die anyway with his mother. BUT you have not ABORTED him. You merely removed his home (the tube which was going to burst and make the mother hemhorrage to death). No way does the Church say the mother must die, just that it's not necessary to chop that baby up to save her.

    ReplyDelete

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