Democracy threatened when people of faith don’t act

Milwaukee Catholic Herald Citizen ^ | 1/15/04 | Abp. Timothy Dolan

[tiki]

On the smoking front, you won't believe what I found today! I have a duty-free shop 20 miles from my house. I can buy real name-brand American cigarettes for 13.00 and then I just have to go into Mexico and through customs and pay 2.40 duty per carton. I can't believe it! I've been ordering on the internet for 28.99.

[american colleen]

$5.40 per pack here! I've been getting "salem" 2 fer 1 since the spring so I can't complain too much. I went up to Quebec this fall and those poor shmoes are paying $7.00 and up - and their money isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

At $15.40 a carton why on earth would you ever quit? (cough, cough)

Sara what are you paying down your way?

[american colleen]

The thermometer never budged off 60 ...

Thanks!! A lot!!! I guess you haven't read the new religious thread rules about being Christian to one another???? ;-)

[american colleen]

New Age! LOLOL!

That was pretty funny. I was surprised warfare didn't break out right there. Sinkspur's reply to it was funny.

[saradippity]

I can get Winstons by the carton for about 32.00 on the reservation,convenience store for 35.00,supermarket for 38.00 and drug store for 42.00.

I have been looking for a poem about the "Smoking Committee" written by one of the staff in my old Human Resource Department in 1986,she was on meds,receiving chemo and it brought out the creativity in her. I've spent the last hour looking for it to no avail. It was prophetic and brilliant,but alas and alack,it is missing.

Someone on "Politeness in Posting"thread mentioned that one of the reasons for the Sidebar Monitor's caution related to how many times people hit the abuse button. I have never been able to understand hitting it,I look at those nasty posts as an oppurtunity to know our enemies,correct some mistatements,evangelize and/or defend the Faith by using the forum to speak the truth,demonstrate true Christian charity and learn a whole lot about the nature and knowledge base of many posters as well as the religion in which they claim membership.And at this level,"Sticks and stones can break my bones,but names can never hurt me" is operative.

I believe,and maybe wrongly,that there are many lurkers who can be influenced by the back and forths on these threads.To ask that we not be picked on i,if I were a lurker would seem not courageous or meritorious but whiney,babyish and silly. What's more I think asking for a thread or comment to be removed can appear to be a defensive move with the intent of suppressing a fact or truth. There is nothing in my Catholic Faith that I would wnat suppressed,even though it might appear to be "hard" teaching.I think one can get a good idea about both the individual posters and the group or religion with which they affiliaate. This whole subject is too big and it's getting away from me.

But let me try to sum this up by pulling from another topic of discussion on this thread,Martin Luther King.Whatever I think of him is beside the point. He said in his "I Have Dream" speech, that "I dream of a world where men will be judged not by the color of their skin but of the content of their character". I thought he succinctly captured a "truth to live by".I too have that dream for it is one of the only things important in this temporal world.

So what happens,the country elevates King to hero status and concomitantly establishes all sorts of rules and regulations and laws that preclude anyone from seeing the content of anyone's character. How can one know that if free speech is suppressed and overidden with "political correctness"? What irony.

I hate to see it necessary to establish politically correct rules on the religious forum. I think it might be far more effective to leave the slurs and bashes on the board and that people just respond to clarify or correct error and/or respond with something like "thankyou for giving me the oppurtunity to see the "content of your character". That just might begin to help realize the full potential of the internet for changing the world for the good of all.

[american colleen]

Damn, sara, I wish I lived near you (of course if it were summertime I'd be saying I wished you lived near me!)!

I have to go pick up our "stray" kitty who was spayed today, poor baby! Then off to pick up two of my nieces who are sleeping over tonight - out for dinner but back in time for the EWTN interview with Mel Gibson at 8 PM. Bill O'Reilly is having Rod Dreher on at 8 PM regarding the great e-mail caper - think I'll watch the rerun of that at 11. I like Rod Dreher and I mostly like B O'Reilly.

Lots o words to say I'll be back later to reply to the rest of this post.

And I am with you about the abuse button... never hit it even once - never even tempted to hit it. It seems from what I've seen on FR that MEN are the biggest whiney babies and have the quickest draw on the abuse button.

[tiki]

My cigarettes are 45.00 at the cheapest place so you can imagine how happy I am to find them for 13.00.

As far as the abuse button, I've only punched it once and that was in news and activism and it was because I was the first one to look at the thread which was pornographic, LOL.

I just rage out loud in the privacy of my own home if I don't like what people write.

[maryz]

I've been ordering a "local" brand from the Indians over the internet at 10.50 a carton, somewhat milder than the Winstons I used to smoke, but it's easy to like something at those prices.

I've never hit the abuse button myself, but a lot of times I've decided not to post on a thread where nasty replies seemed to come too often (not that I'm that "talkative" usually anyway). Though I frequently burn with curiousity about a "post removed by moderator."