What in God’s name was Bill Ayers doing at a Catholic college? What possible benefit could there be to subjecting young, impressionable minds to Ayers’ dishonest self-apologia?
Melanie Morgan lead a large, rambunctious protest outside of the college:
“People aren’t perfect”? Oh honey…….
Shame on St. Mary’s college.
Nice Deb 
Catholic Universities, believe it or not, are some of the most liberal. It’s pathetic.
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What the Main Stream Media did not report is that most of protest mob were old farts that looked like they never saw the inside of the the Saint Mary’s classroom
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It IS pathetic. Do these people have any idea what anarchists like Ayers thinks of organized religion? Why would they invite the enemy into their midst?
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What the Main Stream Media did not report is that most of protest mob were old farts that looked like they never saw the inside of the the Saint Mary’s classroom
What do their ages have to do with it?
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“What in God’s name was Bill Ayers doing at a Catholic college”
Whatever it was, you can be pretty sure he wasn’t doing it in God’s name…
And, what I think Jack means is that the only people who would care about Ayers are old guys who were from that era. His insinuation, I believe, is that there is a statute of limitations on attempted murder and terrrorist activity. He’s wrong about that.
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The university sent Ayers an invite and they paid for his cost. Despite public outrage from some the state and the US Department of Justice is not in a rush to indict and convict Ayers. You must ask why or why not and the answers lies with the rule of law, the due process of law, the rules of evidence and discovery and the problem of time of over 40 years ago. The FBI and the Justice Department has moved on.
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You must ask why or why not
Not really. Nobody here called for an indictment or conviction, so your entire comment is a waste. We just don’t believe that a self-admitted domestic terrorist who has never renounced his past actions should be honored as a guest speaker at St. Mary’s.
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Ayers’ favorite line is “guilty as hell, free as a bird”.
I don’t think attempted murder and bombing the capitol building is something from which I am personally willing to “move on”…
(and before anyone says he wasn’t involved in a murder attempt, his group was making a bomb to use against a military base during a dance. Fortunately for us (and the gene pool), his incompetent cohorts killed themselves instead.)
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Despite public outrage from some the state and the US Department of Justice is not in a rush to indict and convict Ayers.
Wow…maybe because he got off on a technicality a long time ago? Not that it matters, because as Geoff said, nobody is suggesting that he be arrested? He’s a tenured Professor at the University of IL at Chicago…hello McFly?!
Is it possible, Jack, that you aren’t terribly knowledgeable about the subject you decided to debate us on?
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Some points:
Ayers is not running for political office so he is not seeking your vote and he does not need your vote where he works.
Saint Mary’s invited him to come and lecture.
One does not always get justice under our system but one does get the due process of law. Ayers got the due process of law and those unhappy with that must continue watching TV with judge Judy.
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You keep making obvious points.
Our point is that he’s a scoundrel who should not have any influence over our kids. Hence, the protest. See, we still live in a free country where we’re allowed to voice our opinions. Capiche?
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Nicedeb: Saint Mary’s is not a high school nor is is it a public school. Like Harvard, Bob Jones University, BYU, and Stanford it does not have to consider my or your values. The student body at the schools are not your children, but they are young adults
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No they don’t have to consider the opinions of anybody, but they they might want to consider the opinions of their alumni and benefactors who were outraged by it, since there could be financial repercussions.
Again, this is an opinion blog. It’s all about my opinions, and of course St. Mary’s doesn’t have to “consider” what I say. But I would hope that St. Mary’s, as a Catholic institution, would consider the “values” of practicing Catholics, and especially the basis for the objections, because our opinions are valid.
My opinion is that the reprehensible Ayers shouldn’t have been invited to speak in front of impressionable kids – (or young adults). St. Mary’s gave a well known anarchist and propagandist a format to influence the thinking of impressionable young people, who most likely don’t even know the history of the man. Not cool.
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You keep making obvious points.
I don’t know if I agree. They’re strawmen and completely irrelevant, so I never would have thought of including them in this thread.
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The Catholic Church opposes abortion, but I bet it is not a requirement to be a student or professor and the priest never asks before mass. The alums of Saint Mary’s are not in the loop for day to day management of the school. They do not decide as to who gets hired or fired or set the student admissions standards. You can vote your opinion by writing a mad, angry and bitter letter or close your check book. I am sure there are alums that do not side with your point of view and others that do, but the American university is not a very Democratic body.
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the priest never asks before mass.
The geas is upon the worshipper, not the priest. The Church is quite clear that one should not take Communion if one is not in a state of reasonable grace. Abortion is specifically identified as “intrinsically evil” and is considered a serious sin, so confession and penance are required before Communion.
You can vote your opinion by writing a mad, angry and bitter letter or close your check book.
…or by writing a blog post. Which she did.
And there are many other forms of letters that are acceptable, most of them with less redundant descriptions.
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If I am wrong I stand corrected. It was the official position of the Roman Church that the earth was flat and Darwin was wrong. There are many out there that still oppose Darwin and think Genesis should be part of any university education because after all they see it as theory and if it was good enough for Jesus it’s good for Joe the Plumber.
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Obvious (non) points=strawmen. And he persists.
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The keywords here are reasonable and grace and there is not a necessary connection in light of belief and practice of these two words as to their context.
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The keywords here are reasonable and grace and there is not a necessary connection in light of belief and practice of these two words as to their context.
Worry not – they’ve been well-defined by the Church.
And the Church says that it never opposed Darwinism. It’s the Anglican Church that recently issued an apology to Darwin.
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Going direct to the university with a letter works far better than a blog because this blog is not the front page of San Francisco Chron or any major newspaper
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Geoff, can you get into AoSHQ?
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Thanks, for the advice, Jack.
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It is not well defined because as any logician knows grace and reasonable can not be connected.
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No, I can’t get to any mu.nu sites.
Going direct to the university with a letter works far better than a blog because this blog is not the front page of San Francisco Chron or any major newspaper
You must have mistaken this for something other than what it is: a forum for Nice Deb to write about whatever evokes her muse. This isn’t some libtard activist site.
It is not well defined because as any logician knows grace and reasonable can not be connected.
You’re about a millenium late to this argument. Suffice to say, the Catholic Church has laid out the ground rules for attaining and losing grace explicitly for its followers. By “reasonable state of grace” they mean that you can’t have committed a serious sin without confession and penance. And yes, they have a list of serious sins, so that’s covered too.
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I should clarify that “reasonable” is my term, not theirs.
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Again this is not a logical based construct but a faith based one. There is no rational connection between grace and reason unless you place faith on the table
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How can you prove or disprove using a logical construct that grace and reason are connected?
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I did not know that the Catholic Church owns the rules of logic – like gravity and math they should be universal
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ND: Ace’s backup site is working.
jack: I don’t know what you’re getting at, but it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with what I said, or with William Ayers, so I’m giving up. If you want to debate fundamentals of Catholicism with someone, you’ll have to find a real Catholic.
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If you follow the thread it can be summed here:
Ayers is a killer and has not repented for his crimes
Ayers guilt has little to do with the due process of law but more to do with his attitude of his writings and his public statements
Ayers is not American, he is not religious and is a Communist
Since he is one or all of the above and even more he must and should be banned and shunned from speaking in public, and should not be given a soap box to speak such as Saint Mary’s
If he is given a soap box at a university he will harm our
children and it is the duty of elders to protect children from harm because they might get an idea in their minds that is not like those of the elders that oppose Ayers….heck they might become Communist, anarchist, killers and bomb throwers and stop going to church
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Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn adopted
Chessa, their son, from Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert.
David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin couldn’t raise their little acorn to grow up to be a murderous anarchist because they were sitting in federal prison for their
part in an armed robbery that sent good men to their graves.
Both were WeatherUnderground members, although the robbery (armed robbery of a Brinks armored car in the parking lot of the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County) was performed in the name of the Black Liberation Army.
I lived in the area and had to endure seeing the protest petitions EVERY TIME Kathy Boudin came up for parole. Why she didn’t get life without possibility of parole (like David Gilbert) is beyond me.
Incidentally, this entire thing might not have happened if Kathy Boudin managed to NOT survive the famous Greenwich Village Townhouse explosion where WeatherUnderground members (including Bill Ayers’ girlfriend Diana Oughton) were killed building a bomb filled with nails – to be set off at a DANCE(!!!!) at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Sorry for being long-winded. Just hoping maybe the smartest guy in America (pres) happens to read this and can get schooled on his “college professor” buddy.
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I wished I knew whats going on with this rattle and bile, but I think the real story is much deeper than what I’m reading here. It’s more than the 45 year old events. They are bigger than Ayers. I think people have framed their feelings, their passions, beliefs around a particular time not only in our past but also people, events and beliefs of that past and now they project those into the big now about such men as Obama and some of the more current passions, beliefs from life styles, politics, film and entertainment to education and child care.
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Jack. It’s really not that complicated. Bill Ayers is a self described communist, and anarchist who was friends with Obama. He’s also totally unrepentant about his past terrorism, and is in the process of rehabilitating his name by rewriting the history of his deeds with the Weathermen. Canada recently had the good sense to stop him at the border from entering their country.
American colleges and universities, should have as much sense. It’s asking a lot, I know.
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Deb:
I understand your point of view and concern. What I do not get is why Ayers. You and I know that there are VIP men and women that did horrible things but they are not in jail/prison and those that did got only a slap on the wrist, others got a medal, a promotion, a pardon or a brand new career. Life is not fair, justice and the law is not always good. I get it on a very personal level but I move on. Look I had a brother that was made a cripple and suffered major head injury until he died last year…the law gave the guy 5-10 years and he did 3-5 years. My uncle was shot dead in the back after arguing with a man. Deb, I moved on and it was not easy to move on. Being angry and bitter is a dead end. The man that killed my brother died years ago. The man that killed my brother is also dead.
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How would you feel if the guy who shot your uncle in the back, never repented, and was invited to speak at venues where he could tell a dishonest, whitewashed version of the story, and perhaps have influence over young people?
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Deb, I could have gotten even with the man that beat my brother, but I refused to be corrupted with evil. The gent lived in my community and I gave him only compassion until the day he died. He became a well respected, upright and God fearing man years before he died. He never gave my family any apology, but he did try to explain the rage of his youth
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I’m really sorry about your brother, but you didn’t answer my question.
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Deb:
I meet people as to where they are in life, but always with compassion in their anger, their rage, their hate, ignorance and stupidity. When I met the man who beat my brother I treated him with the dignity and respect reserved for human beings. He was shocked he thought I was going to kill him. He tried to explain his past and the devils of his own past. Here was a man now married with family and I’m sure they and his friends had their own point of view of him. He was after all a deacon of his church. I did not try to ruin him with charges, debate or argument.
I met him as to where he was at his own station in life. MLK and Jesus never demanded an apology, never forced people to repent, or explain their actions. Some people are ethical, moral and emotional retards.
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You still didn’t answer my question, Jack.
At any rate, people have the right to be protest Ayers in his rehabilitation and propaganda efforts.
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Deb:
I’m not sure what answer you can or will accept. You have the right to protest Ayers, you have the right to disagree with him, feel anger, bitter and vindictive. At the end of the day you and I both know that he will have his day job, he will continue writing books, people will attend his lectures and read his books and people who feel like you will give him a bigger soap box. He is now a media celeb not because of what he is today but because of what he did 45 years ago that makes people like you very angry and bring attention to it. He is not going away simply because you do not like him no more than Henry Kissenger, Karl Rove and David Duke. Ayers sales media, he sales books, lectures, conferences, class rooms.
My sense of compassion enable me not to waste my energy fighting losing battles, wars and debates with people when the condition is all but negative. You will not change Ayers and he will not be converted to your point of view. Waiting for him to repent is like waiting for W Bush to become a Moslem. MLK and Jesus had the good sense to accept people where they were and move on or just be silent. Rush Limbaugh is not on a mission to convert Liberals or Independents, but keep Cons on course. The same with Ann Coulter. Both of these media pundits do not cater to Liberals or Independents, they preach to their base.
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Well, good for you, Jack. I have no compassion for Ayers or his ilk because they’re ruining this country. You can turn the other cheek if you like…that’s your prerogative, but please allow those of us to willing to fight propaganda with the truth to do so.
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Deb:
Compassion is not turning the other cheek – it is resistance with out attachment to anger, hate or being vindictive or being bitter. It is accepting people where they are with out being corrupted with anger or shouting.
You Deb and Ayers and about a differing ideologies. You think that he is wrong and you are right in absolute terms. In the end you hop that you can get a ME WIN and an AYERS LOSE. Such fights never end that way. It’s like some people who deny the mass murder of the Jews or that believe that slavery was a good thing. They get on talk shows, write books, teach and a few get elected office. The Communism vs Market Economy debate has been around for over 85 years and is going to here when we are both gone, so I do not debate about it.
Feel free to fight Ayers at any time
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Thank you Jack. I will also feel free to feel righteous anger, when it’s appropriate.
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In the end you hop that you can get a ME WIN and an AYERS LOSE. Such fights never end that way.
OTOH: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’
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