dagblog - Comments for "Praying for Nino, and Planning for What's Next"

Yes. It may simply be a nice

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 19:11:19 +0000

Yes. It may simply be a nice thing. And perhaps it only benefits me, by helping me to let go of anger toward the deceased. But even so, I would recommend that.

Thanks for the reply. I

CVille Dem — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 19:08:25 +0000

In reply to And we've just run into the

Thanks for the reply. I guess it is just a nice thing to do for the departed, and I admire you for being able to include him in your prayers.

And we've just run into the

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 17:56:00 +0000

In reply to Sorry, I just don't get it.

And we've just run into the Catholic and Protestant divide. Catholicism has a very long, very deep tradition of intecessory prayer: prayer for others' souls. The Protestant Reformation largely does away with that, and many Protestant denominations have no room for it at all.

My religious upbringing is Catholic. And since Justice Scalia was also Roman Catholic, it made sense for me to speak in that idiom. (I would be less comfortably publicly declaring that I was praying for the soul of someone who didn't believe in that, even if I felt very strongly about them.)

I don't want to wade much further into these religious waters, or even particularly to defend my own tradition's approach. I will say that one of the things that I take away from my specific denomination's teaching about the afterlife is that people don't sort cleanly into the saved and the damned; there's a middle ground in between, where some, and in my own thinking probably most, of us fall.

Sorry, I just don't get it.

CVille Dem — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 17:52:17 +0000

In reply to Praying for Nino, and Planning for What's Next

Sorry, I just don't get it. Why should anyone's prayer for another person's mercy influence God? Scalia had 79 years of life and nothing any person can say or do should "change God's mind" about him.

Thank you you for such a thoughtful essay on the spectacle we have coming our way. But regardless of the politics of this, it seems to me that if any objectivity entered into this it is obvious that the President who is currently in office is the one who should make this nomination.

Firstly it is (of course) in the Constitution. But beyond that, a sitting President will already have a vetted short list of potential Supreme Court appointees as well as staff in place to move the process forward. A newly installed President has a very steep learning curve, and unknown immediate challenges to deal with. She/he also has hundreds of appointments to make, and all of those people have their own learning curves as well. Who can argue without being disingenuous that the above is not true?

As Ramona has said elsewhere, the GOP simply believes that President Obama never really was the President...not just that he didn't deserve it; they really believe his Presidency is NULL. Astonishing how much they got away with. I read somewhere today that Republicans evidently think that a black President only gets to serve 3/5 of a term! I don't think they even gave him that much.

Astonishing, Doc. Thanks.

Oxy Mora — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 16:16:20 +0000

In reply to Praying for Nino, and Planning for What's Next

Astonishing, Doc. Thanks.

Much food for thought here but I'll take on the connection to McConnell. Whereas Scalia obstructed much of the progressive cause, he could never in my mind have been called a non-contributor, so one has to conclude that he was an accomplished obstructionist---it's at least a legacy commanding some respect.

He seemed to me a person who could walk into a room and within 10 minutes half the men would want to punch him out and the other half would think he was funny as hell. I have had friends like that, and usually I was entertained by them, mainly because they were quick and smart. McConnell seems like a different breed of man,and,obstructionist. I would call him "the walking dead obstructionist."

Much of what we have been discussing here has been how do the Progressives change minds and get things done and as we have gone along, Sanders approach seems more ungrounded to me and that the reason why is that it's the other party which needs to change.

McConnell should ask himself...where has the obstruction gotten us? He has a chance to become a statesman and not just a selfish pol who will be forgotten the day after he dies.