Your comments on
her relationship to her vows were appropriate as far as they relate to her rights to
exist and to think independently. They do not, however, constitute a justification for
an override of the rights of others, nor for an abuse of accepted social
standards--IF this was what she did.
But do you think she has the right, as head of a religious order, to set standards for her private organization based on her beliefs and expect others who want to take advantage of the services she offers to, to put it baldly, do it my way or hit the highway?
This is an issue with many religious groups (and even non-religious groups), and will get to be more so if Bush manages to push through his very ill conceived, IMO, program. (OTOH, some government involvement with the religious private sector is inevitable and probably beneficial. He just doesn't know the appropriate limits. But that's another issue.)
The Boy Scouts-gays issue is a clear example of this. Whether you think the BS are right or wrong, do they have the RIGHT to decide who can be a member of their group and what principles they will espouse? Or should government force them, if they want to exist at all, to comply with the moral standards that government approves of? The Salvation Army is an organization that I think does a tremendous amount of good. But they also clearly make certain demands on people to attend their services; if you don't want to attend their services, find somewhere else to stay or eat. Okay? Not okay?
For those who say not okay, let's put it this way. Should the Democratic Party be required to admit, assuming they want to join, David Duke and his ilk to membership? Should they have the right to say "if you want to join our party, you have to agree to support certain things and oppose certain things"?
If the answer for them is yes, I submit that the answer for MT is also yes.
That still doesn't resolve the question I've raised several times, still without answer: is there any evidence that MT ever forced people to suffer unwillingly and unnecessarily because she believed it was good for them?
As to some of the other stuff, like accepting money from Keating, as I said before, I will wager that California didn't return the tax money he paid to the people he "stole" it from. Or make his employees return the "stolen" wages they received from working for him. How many politicians returned the donations he made to them? Etc. Not all his money was stolen. Was what he gave her stolen or not? Who knows? I don't. Hitchens doesn't. That, IMO, is a red herring.
As for Papa Doc, as I recall the Hitchens article mentioned things she said in the early 1960s. Let's not forget that Papa Doc was democratically elected in 1957, and for a while there was hope that he would bring peace and prosperity to Haiti. He led a popular regime outside of the primary power groups. The U.S. Marines even intervened in 1959 to support him against a coup attempt by Cuban gurerillas and Haitian exiles. It was not until later that the true nature of his dictatorship was recognized. I don't know specifically what timeline Hitchens was referring to, but if he is taking praise she gave to Duvalier during the years of hope and condemning her because he later was shown to be brutal and violent, that's not ethical journalism. Again, we need specific facts before we condemn. |
