Yay! A party!

There are three equal and seemingly contraditory critiques I frequently make of our system:
1) The fact that the media and the mysterious “Party bosses” basically pick candidates (e.g., everyone knew in 2007 that 2008 would be Obama v. McCain).
2) The fact that we don’t use the party system and the electoral college the way they were intended.  Parties were originally literally “parties”: people would gather at salons to discuss politics.  Candidates would go to those meetings, and people would vote based upon character and knowing the candidates. Since it was impossible for everyone in the country, even then, to personally meet even the candidates for US Senate, much less President, Senators were elected by state legislatures and Presidents by the electoral college.  We’re also supposed to be “parties” in the sense of emphasizing common cause.
3) That Socrates said democracy can only work by conscription.
Let’s put all those together.

We live in an age when anyone can talk to anyone through email or social media.  Delegates should not be mysterious figures but people we know.  Voters should have to join the parties they want to support and meet the delegates who will represent them.

Imagine if candidates did old-fashioned door-to-door canvassing, or its online equivalent (not these annoying spam messages).

Most importantly, imagine if, instead of sniping at each other with negative campaining and “debates,” candidates had to focus on their credentials and their positions.  What if all voting was based upon ISidewith.com and a simple resume?  And then, what if the primary gave options for where you’d like a candidate to serve, so for example, Ben Carson as Surgeon General or Secretary of HHS; Carly Fiorina as Secretary of the Treasury; and so on. People would choose the candidates they felt were truly best qualified and best representing them, while also voting or the cabinet roles.  Then, when the general election comes along, it would be a unified alliance versus a bitter, divided group of factions reluctantly voting for the “lesser evil.”

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How can anyone accept the Gospels and not be Catholic?

How can anyone read the Gospels and not be a Catholic?

Where does “The BIble” come from? The Catholic Church.

Where do the titles of the Biblical books and authorship assignation come from? The Catholic Church.

Where do Bible verses come from? Medieval Catholic monks.

Matthew 7:21 kills “sola fide”

John 20:30-31 and 21:24-25 not only kill “sola Scriptura” but tell us that the things John tells us about Jesus are particularly important.

Matthew 16:18, Luke 22:32 and John 21:15-19 establish the role of Simon Peter (Greek “Petros,” Aramaic “Cephas,” meaning “bedrock”; first recorded use of Petra/Petros or the gender neutral Cephas as a proper noun in either language).

Genesis 3:15: God promises “enmity” between Satan and the Woman, whose seed will destroy him.

Luke 1:28: Gabriel greets Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant (Rev 11:19-12:1; remember how those pesky chapters and verses were inserted by medieval Catholic scholars? The original Greek runs together) as “full of grace,” something impossible if she had the stain of sin. Until a few centuries ago, all Christians agreed that Mary was free from personal sin; they only disagreed on questions of original sin, when the soul is created, and whether Mary was free from original sin. Under the Old Law, anyone with sin who touched the Ark of the Covenant would die. If Mary had sin, how could she bear God Incarnate in her own body?

Luke 1:43: Elizabeth calls Mary ‘Mother of my LORD,” “Mother of God.”

Luke 1:45: Elizabeth says Mary is blessed for trusting in God’s word, a blessing Our Lord repeats in Luke 11:28, saying that Mary’s blessing is more than just biological

Luke 1:48: Mary predicts that all generations will call her blessed

Luke 2:35: Simeon predicts that Mary will participate in Christ’s redemptive suffering “that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare.”

John 2:4-5: Jesus, echoing Gen 3:15, calls His Mother Woman, and says His time has not come, referring both to her need to act first and to His “time” in John being His glorification on the Cross.

John 19:26: Echoing His earlier statement (cf. Luke 8:21) that anyone who hears His Word is His “Mother and Brother”, He assigns His Mother to John, in front of John’s biological mother, making John His Brother and Mary the Mother of all who believe in Him, ,so that those who were “servants” and “friends” (Jn 15:15) can now be “brothers” (Jn 20:17).

Thus, when He asks Peter, in the Greek translation, if Peter has the Agape love of a Servant (Jn 21:15) Peter replies that he has the philos love of a brother, and after asking three times to help Peter repent of his sin, Jesus tells Peter that if he loves Jesus as a brother, he will die for him (Jn 21:18).

At the Resurrection, Jesus commissions the Apostles to forgive sins (Jn 20:23).

Then there’s John 6, 1 Cor 11; Mt 26; Mk 14 and Lk 22. As someone put it, when Jesus says, “This is the New Testament,” He isn’t holding a book; He’s holding a Chalice. 1 Cor 11, by the way, is the only time St. Paul in any of his letters tells a Gospel story in detail.