A "Culture of Life"? Are Ya Sure Ya Wanna Use That Term?

This morning, there was a report of Bush calling a Pro-Life rally and urging them to promote a "Culture of Life."

Seems ironic coming from a President who wholeheartedly and unabashedly supports the death penalty.

However, I'm sure that the phrasing "Culture of Life" is a turn on the Pope's indictment a few years ago of American culture as a "Culture of Death." If Bush is going to crib from the Pope, he should take a look at Catholic teaching and then fully model what he describes as a Culture on Life on what Catholic teaching might consider a Culture of Life.

A Catholic Culture of life would most certainly include a halt to the death penalty, which is something the Bush administration would never consider. A Catholic Culture of Life would also include many more social programs than the Bush administration would allow, thus fully supporting all children born to mothers denied abortion and lifetime counselling for those who commit murder. More money would be funneled into Social Security because it would be considered inhuman to reduce or privatize benefits paid out to the elderly and infirmed.

And a Catholic Culture of Life would be none too happy with Bush's idea of giving illegal immigrant workers of rich American families special "right to work" status so that those families would not be penalized for virtually imprisioning and actually underpaying people who want to follow the vaunted American Dream.

But, then again, Bush follows some fundy Methodism that seems to want to take its inspiration from revisionist interpretations of the Old Testament without ever consulting the Abrahamic traditions of Old Testament interpretation that have existed for centuries.

Like any under-achieving intellect, Bush likes to crib from other sources without giving them credit, without following an honest interpretation of the original source, and resorts to revisionism to support his far-flung and iconsistent opinions.

Kind of scary when you think about it. More like a Culture of Mediocrity than a Culture of Life.

--Tish G.
(whose blog is here)