Daniel Philpott, a political science professor at Notre Dame, writes movingly of the events of last Sunday, when the University of Notre Dame hosted President Barack Obama as it's commencement speaker. I have included a portion of the text below, but please follow the link and see what our good friends at ilsussidiario.net are doing these days:
When
I got home, I went upstairs and read Obama’s speech, which had just
been posted on the internet. For eloquence and tailoring to local
circumstances and culture: give him an A! The point that he made best
was one about charitable argumentation and debate, not demonizing the
other. I certainly agree with that, and this part brings up his grade
somewhat. But on the quality of its reasoning, I am afraid I cannot
give the speech a passing grade. Already that evening, a blog entry on
the site of the magazine America, which does not at all have a
reputation for being a foe of Obama, called it a paean to relativism.
Since we cannot settle our differences, let’s learn to talk about them.
That is very important, to be sure, but Mr. President, you forgot about
one small thing: justice. The leaders of the great justice movements,
Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Lincoln, the 19th century suffragettes,
were good at being charitable and well-reasoned but they didn’t stop
with simply talking about differences. They demanded change -- an end
to unjust exclusion. Obama spoke of the civil rights
movement. Of course, he has every right to, and I was as moved as any
American on the night that he was elected when I thought about how far
we have come in race relations. But there is great irony here, for he
is radically committed to upholding laws that exclude an entire class
of persons from their right to life. Can anyone imagine Martin Luther
King saying we disagree deeply about our differences but that the
important thing is that we learn to talk about them charitably -- and
leaving it at that? No, he said: I have a dream. And he demanded
justice for those excluded. Obama’s reasoning is remarkably similar to
the reasoning that Douglas offered to Lincoln in the famous debates of
1858: this is a moral and religious issue which cannot be resolved, no
one is asking you to approve of slavery, only to let the states decide
for themselves, etc. Obama’s speech included what I thought were rather
small and uncertain measures to get the numbers of abortions down. If
they do, then great. We'll see. But he failed to confront any of the
real questions. If the unborn are persons, then is it not a fundamental
injustice to have laws that allow us to kill them? And if they are not
persons, then what are they? For that matter, if they are not persons,
then why are you so concerned about getting the number of abortions
down? Why be committed to protecting a mere blob of cells or flesh?
This is excellent. Thanks for sharing, Stephen!
Posted by: Christina | May 20, 2009 at 09:27 AM