[kahljorn]

"I like Cuomo, he's an intellectual who had a hard time figuring out how to be a politician. I actually just had to write a tediously long paper on one of his races, so bleh. "

I agree that he's an intellectual, I love his stances. Like when he talks about the seperation between what we believe is morally right and wrong and the laws that may be developed based on it, and how those laws themselves have political, economical and social ramifications that we can't necessarily resolve or understand by morality alone. That we should analyze what laws we're going to create, because they will actually have a REAL LIFE EFFECT that has absolutely nothing to do with morality itself. Seems realistic, to me.
The idea that politics and laws of the governing body actually shape the intellectual and moral bodies of it's populace, to me, should be the forefront to all forms of government. What does a government govern? A nation. What is a nation? A bunch of people. The reason government was established was to protect these people, and furnish a functioning establishment- through economy, morality, philosophy and whatever means are necessary to preserve their lives and functional, happy, existence. Isn't that what everything boils down to, really? Trying to survive? Everything after the effect just has to do with the extent of comfort involved in life, and the desire for society to become "perfect".
In some senses morality itself could be said to be society's struggle to survive. What is good for society is deemed moral, those things that are non-destructive and perpetuate a reverence for life and a shedding of our animalistic tendencies. Whereas what's immoral is those actions that are bad for society, what is selfish, animalistic and inherently "Natural", what will make ME survive best? The line between morality, in some ways, lies between survival of society and survival of the individual, prosperity of society versus instinctual preservation and glorification of the self.

"In some cases people might have been forced to go elsewhere to have abortions and that might have eased a few consciences, but it wouldn’t have done what the church wants to do—it wouldn’t have created a deep-seated respect for life. Abortions would have gone on, millions of them."
That's a pretty beautiful statement.

"Better than any law or rule or threat of punishment would be the moving strength of our own good example, demonstrating our lack of hypocrisy, proving the beauty and worth of our instruction."

Everything before that statement was great, but I thought that summed it up pretty nicely.

"We should understand that whether abortion is outlawed or not, our work has barely begun: the work of creating a society where the right to life doesn’t end at the moment of birth, where an infant isn’t helped into a world that doesn’t care if it’s fed properly, housed decently, educated adequately, where the blind or retarded child isn’t condemned to exist rather than empowered to live"

"We come together in worship as companions, in the ancient sense of the word, those who break bread together, and who are obliged by the commitment we share to help one another, everywhere, in all we do and, in the process, to help the whole human family. We see our mission to be “the completion of the work of creation.”"

Anyway sorry for the quotes i just enjoyed them alot.