Journalist Brian Williams quizzed Presidential candidate Rick Santorum at the debate last night on how he reconciles being Catholic which means he should care for the poor with being a dirty filthy Republican who doesn’t think Big Government is the answer to everything. (I’m paraphrasing.)
Insert Santorum home run here. His final line is awesome. He says he wants to limit government “not to save money but to save people’s lives.” For me, it was the best moment of the debate.
Update: A column in National Review by Jim Lacey touches on a similar subject asking why liberals are assumed to have the moral high ground when their policies seem to destroy lives everywhere its tried. It’s worth a read.
September 8, 2011 at 6:05 pm
It is our personal responsibility to take care of each other, not fob it off on some faceless governmental entity. There is absolutely no teaching in the Catholic faith that says "Let somebody else take care of my responsibilities". And encouraging a system that is fiducially irresponsible, as these programs are, and are structure to encourage personal irresponsibility, is not Catholic.
Nobody is saying that we don't need to take care of people. What they are saying is that it's not legal, moral, right, or good that the Federal Government do it.
September 8, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Wow! I have to say that I have not been impressed with Santorum as a Presidential candidate and I didn't catch this debate but… with that said, this was a GREAT answer.
Best I have ever seen him.
September 8, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Honestly, I think that I'd take him over Perry. Every time I've heard him speak he knocks one out of the park, though he hasn't gotten as much press.
September 8, 2011 at 8:03 pm
I can't watch the vid (my issue, not the site's!), but all he needed to say was subsidiarity is a Catholic principle.
September 8, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Some of the best things said in the debate were from Ron Paul, despite the media's best attempt to paint him as an outsider (even though he has set the tone for the whole debate, not to mention Perry's parroting his policies in his book Fed Up…written AFTER Ron Paul wrote End the Fed.
Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyex8HH6B4c
Oh, wait…should I not post this?? Are you going to call Ron Paul an idiot again?
September 8, 2011 at 10:02 pm
"Are you going to call Ron Paul an idiot again?"
Has he stopped being an idiot?
Kidding… kinda…
September 8, 2011 at 10:25 pm
"Qualifies as being poor" is not the same as being poor. Compare our "poor" with any other developing country, and the trailer parks of this land would be like the last days of Versailles.
I think the highlight of the debate was Rick Perry's answer on the topic of capital punishment. Superb.
September 8, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Proud Hillbilly, I have been reminding the catechists in my parish for years that nowhere in Scripture does it say that charity can be delegated. To the contrary, the message is very clear that it is a personal obligation.
And as surrogates go, the FedGov is arguably the worst possible substitute for our personal efforts.
September 8, 2011 at 11:42 pm
That "debate" was a sham, a blatant attempt to annoint "frontrunners" and marginalizing others by arbitrarily giving Perry and Romney most of the time and attention. They are frontrunners because they have been deemed frontrunners by the almighty media who Know Best. It is election tampering and it is such a joke. Perrys approaches to Dr Paul during commercial breaks appear downright threatening. Why on earth this practice of lefty media shills "moderating" conservative debates?
Hopefully Dr Paul will simply fundraise for money to buy airtime to spread his message and bypass the MSM kingmakers.
September 9, 2011 at 1:53 am
I still say it's a shame that McCotter is not included in these debates. He is at least as serious and credible as Ron Paul. Yes I know his support is below their threshold for inclusion but that threshold was 1%. When he reached 1%, they changed it to 2%.
Listen to his interview on The World Over and I think you'll be very impressed.
September 9, 2011 at 2:58 am
I love Rick Santorum. I wish he was a front runner.
September 9, 2011 at 3:13 am
Some of the best things said in the debate were from Ron Paul
Yeah, the best part was when he suggested that the border fence could be used to keep Americans from fleeing to Mexico in order to pursue a better life. He is sooooooo smart.
Perrys approaches to Dr Paul during commercial breaks appear downright threatening.
I love you Ron Paul supporters. No, really, you guys are a never ending source of amusement.
September 9, 2011 at 4:00 am
Rick Santorum is a superb leader and speaker, someone able to engage his opponents on difficult topics, rather than most whose skill is limited to eluding tough questions. He is head and shoulders above Perry and Romney. Most of all, he is a credit to the Catholic faith.
September 9, 2011 at 3:27 pm
But he comes across as a real "Legislator" (as opposed to leader or executive) and he also, unfortunately, comes across as angry, arrogant and whiny – did I spell that right?
His foreign policy/defense policy has gotten a bit stronger and he seems good otherwise on matters that matter like abortion, etc. His personality is just in the way.
Side note: I loved Ron Paul a couple days ago saying, doesn't Iran have a RIGHT to build nuclear weapons? OH…. MY…. sheese.
It slays me that so many people think Iran and other Muslim countries are motivated to hate us because of our actions as opposed to what their religion teaches. Paul has NO CLUE what their religion teaches. He doesn't care. Why should he when it is so much easier to just blame ourselves?
In order for the 12th Mahdi to come, the "Little Satan" and the "Great Satan" MUST be destroyed. While the average Iranian citizen may or may not be down with that, the rulers believe it and act accordingly. They are not trying to get nukes to intimidate us, to influence us, to get us to change our policies.
NO NO! They are working on nukes to NUKE us. First Israel, then us. And he is worried about it "not being fair" that every country doesn't have their own nukes? Ugh. (Deterrence – DOES NOT WORK with these people – they WANT to die!)
In a way it makes sense though. In his world, people will be able to walk down to the grocery store, grab some heroin off the shelf, pick out a prostitute and then not even feel a thing when the blast wave hits. Rant ended.
Paul Zummo may find these folks entertaining, but I can't wait for this election to be over, just so I don't have to listen to this bunk anymore.
As usual there is no perfect candidate. Why should we expect there would be? I am afraid we may just end up with Romney. Oh well. He'll still be infinitely better than the current POTUS.
September 9, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Moast Catholics [clergy and lay] forget or ignore the third pillar of social justice, subsidiarity. This tenet is found in various Pope's messages [start with Pope Leo XIII, "a Catholic cannot be a Socialist or Communist"]and Sacred Scripture [we are to take care of our brothers and sisters].
JM
September 9, 2011 at 6:42 pm
"Yeah, the best part was when he suggested that the border fence could be used to keep Americans from fleeing to Mexico in order to pursue a better life. He is sooooooo smart."
– I'm pretty sure a wall down the middle of Germany was what made so many people in the GDR (German Democratic Republic otherwise known as East Germany) commit suicide in greater numbers than any free country. They couldn't leave, and if they tried, they'd be killed at the border, unless they were successfully smuggled out. Walls are scary things because you never know which side they will be used to oppress. Read history. This stuff has recently happened. And you call Ron Paul an idiot…
"In a way it makes sense though. In his world, people will be able to walk down to the grocery store, grab some heroin off the shelf, pick out a prostitute and then not even feel a thing when the blast wave hits. Rant ended."
– That's not his point at all. Are you really that obtuse? Do you listen to anything he has actually said or written? His WHOLE POINT is that these kind of decisions ought to be State decisions, not the decision of the Federal Government. The Federal Government has very specific powers delineated within the constitution, and nothing more. When taken together with the 10th Amendment, which reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," it becomes clear that our current set-up is in gross violation of the constitution, a document which every politician swears to uphold upon taking office (but most of them, obviously, do not). But then you probably don't care about that, because you've already made up your mind without ever facing the facts. Good luck living in reality.
September 10, 2011 at 1:12 am
"Isn't the government my brother's keeper?
September 10, 2011 at 3:12 am
I'm pretty sure a wall down the middle of Germany was what made so many people in the GDR
The fact that you're using an allusion to Communist Germany is pretty much all I need to know about where you're coming again.
Again, you Paul supporters are the best.
September 10, 2011 at 4:07 am
Have you read anything about the lead up to Communist Germany? There are plenty of historical connections. Stop being Ad Hominem (which is a logical fallacy) vis-a-vis your sarcastic comments about "you Paul supporters are the best," and actually deal with the facts. When you are ready to debate on a logical level, let me know.
But then you can just choose to remain in the sphere of logical fallacy.