Just How Big Should Our Tent Be?
Should the Republican Party be a “big tent”? Arlen Specter, among others, recently claimed that the tent was getting a bit tight for him to stay inside. I don’t know that anyone is actually arguing in favor of a “small tent,” but some do believe that we are better off with a smaller yet more focused Republican Party.
Yet a Republican Party narrowly focused on social conservatism will have a tent so small that few converts will come inside. I fear that it would be like a much larger but still too tiny to matter Libertarian Party — from which emanates some bruising and pointed arguments between the “incredibly small tent” and the “infinitesimal tent” activists.
A Republican Party that stands for almost everything will be like John McCain’s campaign, with similar results — the base had little enthusiasm, except for Sarah Palin.
But do we really need to make a choice? Sometimes. But now we should focus more on common ground.
Let’s look at abortion. The “big tenters” insist that pro-choice Republicans should feel comfortable here. The more pure factions? Pro-choicers dilute the message and make pro-lifers less inclined to work for Republican candidates. Well, I have a startling piece of news from a recent Gallup poll: there are actually very few pro-choice Americans of any party.
If you look only at labels, it appears that Americans are pretty evenly split: 51 percent call themselves “pro-life” and 42 percent say they are “pro-choice.” But when asked if abortion should be legal under “any circumstances,” “only under certain circumstances,” or “illegal in all circumstances,” only 23 percent answered “legal under any circumstances.” (That position is actually quite extreme even compared to Roe v. Wade, which granted substantial authority to the states to regulate second and third trimester abortions.)
One convinces others to agree with you. Abortion is just like slavery in the 1850′s – either blacks are fully human or not (1850) or fetus’s are human or not (2009). A bigger tent is not what’s needed but a tent that actually follows through in it’s beliefs and that can convince the majority of voters that their positions are better than their opponents. We don’t really need “consensus tenting” but a very strong dose of reality well-reasoned “tenting”. I’d settle for 51 percent pro-life and argue so that it goes to 55% pro-life. And, if that’s the issue that decides the election, I win. Next time we’ll work on the other 45%.
The important thing is to distinguish between what our principles are and the compromises in policy that we have to accept to build a winning coalition. This is true in economics and foreign relations as well.
And it’s just what the liberal commentators want us to forget when they try to split us by telling us what we should stand for.
The Republican Party’s problem is not “big tent” vs. “small tent.” It’s whether to have a tent at all, if “tent” here serves as a metaphor for a set of principles.
The liberals have won one argument with me: yes, the Republican Party is indeed the party of big business. My pastor likes to say that we are defined by our non-negotiables. Practically the only issues that Republicans ever stand firm on, from former GOP senator Arlen Specter to GWB himself, are issues near and dear to the big-business plutocrats. The religious right gets lip service, and everyone else huddling together under the blue sky they mistake for a tent get zip.
Case in point: open immigration & amnesty for illegals. The law & order conservatives were against it. The religious right was against it. The traditionalist conservatives were against it. Enforcing the immigration laws was and is immensely popular. But the Dems like it because it expands their client base, and the Republicans like it because it brings down the cost of labor. So Bush and the GOP were willing to pick a fight with their own voters.
Bush was certainly willing to compromise on whether to appoint a conservative Supreme Court justice. Harriet Meirs? Please. Her virtues consisted of being a Bush crony, and being on Harry Reid’s list of “acceptable” nominees. With a 55-man majority in the Senate, Bush was unwilling to fight for a conservative nominee, and did not nominate one until backed into a corner by his voting base. I don’t know what that tells you, but it tells me Republicans’ first instinct is to prefer fighting their own base than with the liberals.
As a Christian conservative, I’m fine with letting the abortion issue fall to the states. We can deal with the abortion issue there, if we’re allowed to so so. All we need is to have the spurious Roe v. Wade decision overturned. The fabulous “big tent” ought to include conservatives of all stripes. But if someone can look at the Constitution and divine from it a *right* to abort, then it’s hard to imagine what other principles he could have in common with anyone who values the rule of law.
And please, no cheap shots about “trying to impose morality.” That’s what the law is: an imposition of morality. At the moment, the morality that gets imposed is the one defined by liberals. We don’t have a choice about whether morality is imposed. We only have a choice about whose morality is imposed.
I’d like to see the Republican Party take a more pragmatic stance on the abortion issue. For all the rhetoric, none of the recent Republican presidents (Regan, Bush I or Bush II) really cut down significantly on abortion. Even Roe v. Wade says abortion can be regulated in the third trimester, and most Americans agree that abortion should not be available at any time for any reason. Most legislators, except extremists like BHO when he was a State Senator and U.S. Senator, are willing to put some restrictions on late-term abortions. The key is to getting judges who will uphold those restrictions. (Right now, we don’t know Sonia Sotomayor’s views on this subject; she may not be an absolutist like the guy who nominated her.) Even both President Bushes favored allowing abortion under some circumstances. Let’s not make the extreme position (no abortion for anyone at any time for any reason) be a litmus test for party membership or candidate support.
Let’s propose a compromise at least as logical as the Missouri compromise. Supporters of Abortion rights . . . en masse throw their support to the reinstatement (or continuing and broadening the use) of the death penalty for violent crime. For those feeling the least bit squeemish we change the term to “Post-Natal” abortion (much better now, right?). At the same time the Pro Life movement throws their support on the use of fetal tissues, because (due to the compromise) the newly executed (post natal aborted) criminals organs will be distributed to national organ banks for the betterment of the people. No longer will law abiding people die because of the lack of donated organs. Kidneys, Hearts, lungs and livers will arrive freshly harvested to the organ banks ready for the use of the ill law abiding. The only problem will be that some (who otherwise would be in the larder) might choose not to become criminals, easy fix! Lower the threshold of the penalty by degrees so the supply remains constant (so from murderers to violent rapists, to child molesters, and when those numbers start to drop we add bank robbers and people who disobey their parents). The beauty of the compromise is it is at least as morally correct as abortion in the first place (actually probably more so).
Re: Illegals, Dee said: “Republicans like it because it brings down the cost of labor” Please do some fact checking on where the MONEY goes when it comes to which party is getting greased by specific examples of “big business” who are benefitting from hiring illegals. Example – http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/05/national/main539521.shtml but … http://newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=WASHINGTON&st=DC&last=tyson+foods
Yes there are examples of BOTH parties getting contributions from businesses engaged in hiring illegals but let’s see a score card before blaming it all on republicans.
As to abortion there is only ONE issue that seems to separate me from the “hard right”, (even though I am hard right on everything else), and that is the case of violent rape. Forcing a woman to carry a child that she had ZERO choice about conceiving is just as hideous to me as the murder of an unborn; it’s basically like legalized slavery or being forced to sign a contract with a gun pointed at your head. While I am NOT favoring the murder of a child anymore than I would favor the rape of a woman, I likewise do not understand why, in this one special situation, a woman should not be given the option to abort IF SHE CHOOSES TO DO SO?
Does it separate me from voting conservative? No… and I doubt it does many other republicans because the unprincipled ‘ideals’ of the left are far and away more repungnant to me.
We need to have principles. We need to get involved and stay involved. We need to find candidates with principles,get them elected and support them after they are in office,not leave them blowing in the wind by themselves when they take a stand. We need to quit speaking of the former mainstream media as if they are a real news media and giving them that power. They are part of the Obama dreamteam and we have to make them wear the team uniform; Obama policies are their policies,not them supporting his,but them supporting theirs and his. Right now,we’re letting them hit us and our representatives with a steady barrage of bottles and bricks from the stands.
I think I agree with Lee. The Republican Party should stand for Federalism, not different federal laws and regulations.
Let the states decide – that’s how our nation was designed. Personally I would be in support of state bans on elective late-term abortions.
I’d like to see the Republican Party take a more republican stance on the abortion issue. Leave it up to the states.
That’s the problem with christian conservatives right there: they confuse law with morality. They act as if noone can do the right thing if you take away the bible. What a crock. There’s a gazillion things in this world that are legal but aren’t moral. There’s also a gazillion things in this world that re moral but aren’t legal. To conflat ethe two is a major failing of christian and social conservatives.
Richard: there is no such thing as a law whose legitimacy is not based on moral precepts. The entire welfare state, for example, is predicated on the moral system proffered by the liberals. You yourself are offering your own moral code, namely, that it is wrong to “confuse law with morality.”
All you are saying here is, if that morality is based on Christian principles, get it out of here.
If you get to bring your principles to the voting booth, then I do, too.
“That’s the problem with christian conservatives right there: they confuse law with morality.”
They believe the unborn child has an inherent right to life. The same as the Jews and other minorities under the reign of Hitler, and the slaves in pre-Civil War America. It all depends whether you accept their premise.
Please don’t get carried with your stereotyping! “They act as if no one can do the right thing if you take away the bible.” Just exactly who is “they”?
The last time I looked, our country was founded based upon individual rights & obligations. When you start grouping folks and yelling about what “they” do or do not do, you diminish the entire discussion. That is something a community organizer would appreciate.
Reasonable people can honestly differ on issues. Personally, when I see the Supreme Court babbling about penumbras and emanations from the right to privacy, I can’t help but believe that such matters truly fall under the Tenth Amendment and belong to the states and their people, not the federal government, as others have asserted.
As to the law and morality, just where do you think most of our fundamental laws are rooted? You know, the ones about not stealing, not lying and not killing, hmmm?
Safe, legal and rare. In that order. If you make abortion less common, but in the process make it more dangerous, or less legal, you miss the point.
Safety first. Banning specific procedures is poor public policy. Physicians select the best tool for the job. If you take away a safe procedure, you make abortion less safe. Not ok.
Legal next. Any subjective assessment subject to legal review opens the prospect of a lawsuit against the doctor and/or patient. Criminalizing the medical procedures only complicates an already difficult decision.
Rare is the operative goal here. It must be achieved through a reduction in unwanted and/or hazardous pregnancies. Better birth control and sex education are part of the answer. If you reject either, no fair compromise is possible.
Safe, legal and rare in that order.
Peace.
DS
Abortion should not be in the Republican platform at all.
It’s akin to putting prayer in school in the platform.
Why am I not surprised a liberal would want “rare” abortions last in line after safe and legal? Ass-backwards……………again.
FEWER abortions deaths should be the priority not the outcome of making them safe and legal. Twisted logic from a group that values endangered snails over the unborn not surprising.
Wish your “Peace” would extend to humans waiting to be born David S. Unfortunate.
When I was transferred to Colorado back in the 1980s, I sometimes saw bumper stickers that read, “Don’t Californicate Colorado”. A neighbor explained that many Coloradians were tired of Californians who left their state because of high taxes, high cost of living, and big government only to turn around and try to get the same policies enacted here. Many of them proved you don’t have to go overseas to be an “Ugly American.”
I see the Republican Party in a similar manner. If, in attempting to be the big tent, we give up on the ideas that make us Republicans, then we’ve failed. We should welcome others but not give in to demands to become more like the Democrats (to “Californicate” the Republican Party, as it were) in order to grow the party.
Hmm. An 1850 word response
http://riolimbaugh.blogspot.com/2009/06/gee-with-these-guys-on-board.html
to a 770 word stimulus might be a bit what Princess Neoterica of Outer Pajamastán would call ‘unseemly’ if scribbled on a cocktail napkin and thrown down from the peanut gallery.
In any case, _Sobie śpiewam a Muzom_.
Happy days. _Szczęśliwych dni_! [0]
__
[0] Hmm again: “_Giorni di gioia_” sounded a lot better, did it not?
The larger the tent means that more non-contributing citizens are hustled in for their voting skills and not for their return to the common good. It is better to have stronger principles, law abiding, state’s rights, and the enforcement of those laws rather than the exceptionalism, entitlements, and unequal taxation, found in social experimentation. Where did we lose the idea that citizenry need not be earned everyday and substituted with full rights at birth?
As for the abortion issue, it is a bloody flag. I vote that it be made exclusively a woman’s issue as they are nearer and dearer to the subject. Whenever a man sermonizes about the agony of what should be a woman’s decision or claims to have a hot-line to God about the creation and viability of life, I wonder about his labor pains.
Truer words could not have been spoken (Re: #19 JED)… “The larger the tent means that more non-contributing citizens are hustled in for their voting skills and not for their return to the common good.”
This is exactly how Obama was elected and why we are now paying a dear price.
> Abortion should not be in the Republican platform at all. It’s akin to putting prayer in school in the platform.
An obvious difference is that when someone is not allowed to pray in school, nobody dies.
@21. Reformed Trombonist:
Laws against abortion cost lives, true. But prayer in school is already allowed, why would that be an issue?
Peace.
DS
Mike B, is the innocent life inside the womb sacred or not? What does the method of conception, including violent rape, have to do with anything?
Never mind; I’m twitting you because your comment demonstrates what few pro-lifers admit: they are motivated at least in part by a desire to limit women’s sexual behavior.
#23 — Never mind; I’m twitting you because your comment demonstrates what few pro-lifers admit: they are motivated at least in part by a desire to limit women’s sexual behavior.
This is true.
For instance, the anti-abortion crowd screeches about embryonic stem cell research: it’s killing a human life. On the other hand they’re OK with contraceptives.
An IUD scrapes a cluster of cells which is the same as the stem cell blastocysts.
Stem cells = killing; IUD = contraceptive. Hmmm.
It’s this logical inconsistency that is the telltale here; look at the Klavan “murder in the court” thread to see evidence of what you speak of. Many or even most of the anti-abortion crowd are basing their arguments on the supposed poor morals of the females who get abortions. The argument isn’t for “life” at all. It’s about control of behaviours.
Meanwhile.
The promise made here by the states rights arguers is that once things get kicked to the states, big government goes away. Rubbish. What you get is 50x the arguments because in every state there will be anti-abortion crusaders who will never rest until all possible abortion is stopped. There will be thousands of laws preventing everything from out of state procedures to out of state medical licensing to interstate travel of pregnant females that will do little more than clog up the court system and wind up being kicked back to the SCOTUS eventually regardless.
Not only is the states rights argument dishonest, it’s also a poorly thought out, upside down invitation to more civil unrest.
Surely the GOP doesn’t really need this to get elected.
“For instance, the anti-abortion crowd screeches about embryonic stem cell research: it’s killing a human life. On the other hand they’re OK with contraceptives.”
Actually, no. Pro-lifers are pretty consistently in opposition to IUDs and other contraceptive methods that prevent implantation of a fertilized. They do not object to use of condoms, for example.
There is a serious inconsistency problem out there, but it is in the crowd that claims to be pro-choice–but gets squeamish about abortion for sex selection, for example (as even Senator Feinstein agrees is wrong).
“The promise made here by the states rights arguers is that once things get kicked to the states, big government goes away. Rubbish. What you get is 50x the arguments because in every state there will be anti-abortion crusaders who will never rest until all possible abortion is stopped.”
And you get pro-abortion crusaders who will never rest until all possible abortion is legal and tax-funded.
In practice, most states would limit but not prohibit abortion, because there is an overwhelming majority that, quite inconsistently, doesn’t want abortion prohibited, but finds the use of it as secondary (and even primary) birth control repulsive.
Some states would certainly leave abortion legal and loosely regulated, and I would expect that pro-abortion advocates would spend a lot of money on bus tickets and airline tickets to help poor, pregnant women go to other states to have abortions.
“Better birth control and sex education are part of the answer. If you reject either, no fair compromise is possible.”
Where, exactly, is birth control and sex education not readily available? I support both, and that includes “abstinence best” education–which encourages minors to wait, but also teaches about what to do if they don’t wait. The example that I linked to above concerning the wedding dress that wouldn’t fit should make your hair stand on end–this wasn’t an inability to obtain birth control, but a complete unwillingness to use it.
“That’s the problem with christian conservatives right there: they confuse law with morality.”
Actually, that’s a problem with all non-anarchists. Liberals want it to be illegal to discriminate in employment against homosexuals; they see it as immoral to make such distinctions.
Show me a law that doesn’t impose someone’s moral code. Laws against murder, robbery, rape–all of them impose a moral code. You just don’t notice it because you agree with that moral code.
#25 — Actually, no. Pro-lifers are pretty consistently in opposition to IUDs and other contraceptive methods that prevent implantation of a fertilized.</i.
Oh please. The only thing that the anti-abortion crowd seems to consistently agree about is the claim of a lack of morals of both the pro-choice advocates and those who get abortions, and the only reason they can promulgate this is because it’s not provable. Anything with data gets them/you stomped and you know this.
Proof is simple: your ability with statistics is amazing. According to the poll you quote 77% of the people are OK with abortion. It’s a matter of what limitations (if any) are placed. Your take is upside down. There is NO “overwhelming majority” of pro-life. None. There is a majority who are battered and confused and reckon that some limits may be reasonable. Unless you can define what limits this “overwhelming majority” agrees upon, you have nothing.
Therefore “abortion is murder” argument is limited to 23% of the respondants. 77% don’t agree that it’s murder. So much for the entire pro-life argument. The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY doesn’t think it’s murder. That’s what the data says.
Stick to the unprovable or at least a subject you understand. Math isn’t it. You will fare better.
“It’s about control of behaviours.”
Of course. That’s what ALL laws do: they attempt to discourage behaviors that the society has decided are immoral or destructive.
If the laws in question were an attempt at preventing extramarital sex, then they would prohibit extramarital sex (as a number of state laws still do–like Idaho). Attempting to prohibit abortion merely says that if you want to have sex and not carry a child to term, you need to use effective birth control.
For a confused teenager, or a rape victim, this is a bit much to ask–which is why a lot of people who say that they are “pro-choice” are prepared to restrict abortion, but make allow it for rape victims and for minors. But no adult in this country who engages in consensual sex is in a position to claim that she didn’t have the option of using birth control.
Anyone else notice how the liberals are desperately trying to make abortion a litmus test for the GOP? I, for one, won’t abide it. Bush was pro-life but NOT ONCE attempted to make abortion illegal. All of this angst from the left is just them trying to shrink our “tent”. As we currently suffer from Obama’s failing economic plan and his Muslim ass-kissing parade around the globe, we’re definitely going to need a bigger tent not a smaller one.
Shall we continue to allow the liberals to box us in on abortion as they are currently trying to do? I vote we define ourselves, define what issues are important to us, define what battlefields we’re willing to die on and let liberals continue to follow the pied-piper to their own determent.
G Alston: I disagree.
First – states are constitutionally prohibited from creating laws concerning instate travel and commerce – like MA presently trying to collect sales taxes from residents in NH.
Second – the 50x debates and competition is exactly what our founders wanted, that is why they passed the 10th Amendment. Its limit on central power is why liberals ignore it.
If you really want to see civil unrest, watch as East and West coast liberals try to impose their (lack of) values on the heartland.
#30 — But no adult in this country who engages in consensual sex is in a position to claim that she didn’t have the option of using birth control.
Condoms can break. Your position, summed: “sucks to be you.”
#31 — Anyone else notice how the liberals are desperately trying to make abortion a litmus test for the GOP?
That’s your imagination working overtime. Lefty sites don’t talk about abortion outside of people trying to subvert the right (e.g. activists attempting to upset the status quo) or dimwits shooting doctors.
Meanwhile the abortion subject is here in this article. QED.
#32 — If you really want to see civil unrest, watch as East and West coast liberals try to impose their (lack of) values on the heartland.
Abortion ban attempt was STOMPED in heartland red state South Dakota. Liberals? Please. You’re dreaming of phantom menaces.
“Oh please. The only thing that the anti-abortion crowd seems to consistently agree about is the claim of a lack of morals of both the pro-choice advocates and those who get abortions, and the only reason they can promulgate this is because it’s not provable. Anything with data gets them/you stomped and you know this.”
Huh? There’s an enormous range of opinions opposed to abortion, all the way from Catholics who oppose birth control other than “rhythm method” (also known as parents) to fairly secular sorts who find abortion an inefficient form of birth control.
“Proof is simple: your ability with statistics is amazing. According to the poll you quote 77% of the people are OK with abortion. It’s a matter of what limitations (if any) are placed.”
Uh, no. The poll shows that 75% of Americans want abortion to be limited in one way or another. That’s hardly “OK with abortion.”
“Your take is upside down. There is NO “overwhelming majority” of pro-life. None. There is a majority who are battered and confused and reckon that some limits may be reasonable. Unless you can define what limits this “overwhelming majority” agrees upon, you have nothing.”
That’s why your side has to use the courts to strike down abortion restrictions passed by the states? Because you have this overwhelming majority in favor of abortion?
“Therefore “abortion is murder” argument is limited to 23% of the respondants. 77% don’t agree that it’s murder. So much for the entire pro-life argument. The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY doesn’t think it’s murder. That’s what the data says.”
Your rage is showing–but that’s all. The overwhelming majority wants abortion restricted in one way or another. That’s hardly a pro-choice majority. By definition.
“Stick to the unprovable or at least a subject you understand. Math isn’t it. You will fare better.”
You are the one who is arguing that an overwhelming majority is OK with abortion–and yet you won’t allow the people or their elected representatives to pass laws restricting abortion. And why is that?
#28 — Show me a law that doesn’t impose someone’s moral code. Laws against murder, robbery, rape–all of them impose a moral code. You just don’t notice it because you agree with that moral code.
Laws against murder and rape are less about morals than that of order and survival; e.g. it would not immoral to kill Hitler, Stalin, or SS camp guards at Dakau. Yours is a false argument.
Your key phrase “impose” is key here. Almost all people agree rape murder robbery etc is bad. There’s nothing being imposed. It’s universal agreement.
Only 23% think abortion ought to be verboten. “Impose” now fits.
“#30 — But no adult in this country who engages in consensual sex is in a position to claim that she didn’t have the option of using birth control.
Condoms can break. Your position, summed: “sucks to be you.””
Condoms can break. I’ve had one failure in one my whole life, although fortunately, it wasn’t a tragedy. My wife and I weren’t ready for kids yet, but if it had happened, it wouldn’t have been a disaster.
We do know a couple with a condom failure whose marriage plans were moved up a bit. It wasn’t the end of the world.
But guess what? That’s not the cause of the enormous number of abortions going on in this country. As the Los Angeles Times article I linked to above pointed out, some people are just too lazy to use birth control–they don’t even try. Abortion is simpler.
If you don’t think that abortion is murder, fine, I’ll buy your claim that you don’t believe it. But reducing your support for abortion to convenience is rather like arguing that armed robbery should be okay, because it is so darned inconvenient to get a job–and you don’t have to kill the clerk everytime you rob a store.
Abortion ban attempt was STOMPED in heartland red state South Dakota.
A complete ban on abortion was stomped. A ban with some exemptions would likely pass in 40 of 50 states–or Roe v. Wade (1973) wouldn’t be a litmus test for Democratic nominees to the Supreme Court.
Laws against murder and rape are less about morals than that of order and survival; e.g. it would not immoral to kill Hitler, Stalin, or SS camp guards at Dakau. Yours is a false argument.
You might want to look at a dictionary, or the penal code of your state, and see what “murder” is defined as, so that you don’t make these false statements.
Your key phrase “impose” is key here. Almost all people agree rape murder robbery etc is bad. There’s nothing being imposed. It’s universal agreement.
Wrong again. If it was a “universal agreement” then there would be no murders, rapes, or robberies. Clearly, a minority of Americans believe that it is perfectly okay to commit murder, rape, and robbery. It’s a small minority, so we can get away with imposing overwhelmingly majority will, but there is no “universal agreement.”
I agree that as long as a sizable minority disagrees, imposing a ban is probably going to create more problems than it solves. But don’t pretend that all laws represent “universal agreement.” They don’t. And liberals especially shouldn’t use that as a goal, since the vast majority of liberal policies are, at best, supported by slim majorities–and often not even that.
Only 23% think abortion ought to be verboten. “Impose” now fits.
Wrong again. Only 23% think that abortion should be prohibited under all circumstances; there’s another 52% say that it should be prohibited under some circumstances.
If you want to argue that 75% shouldn’t be allowed to impose their will on the minority, make that argument. But then the rest of the liberal agenda goes away, much of which doesn’t even enjoy 51% support.
#36 — Condoms can break. I’ve had one failure in one my whole life, although fortunately, it wasn’t a tragedy.
TMI, dude. TMI!!!
#34 — There’s an enormous range of opinions opposed to abortion… [snip]
Which is precisely my point. 23% oppose abortion. 22% think it’s OK period. The right of a woman to have an abortion is agreed upon by 77%. The “opposition” by the remaining 50% is detail work, defining what limits there ought to be (if any.) Limits and opposition aren’t the same thing.
For that matter I myself am staunchly pro women’s rights and pro-choice yet figure that abortion _of convenience_ after 5 months* or so ought to be disallowed. I am NOT in opposition to abortion. (Note the “of convenience” bit.)
Of course, the real world data is that abortions after 5 months are about 1% of all procedures, and if 1% of that number was “convenience” I’d be shocked. I don’t really have a lot to be opposed to. Not in the real world. I would be “opposed” to about 0.1% of all procedures. That’s hardly opposition of note.
What you are doing here is targeting 1% of all procedures and then twisting the data interpretation to make it appear that these are not medically necessary but strictly convenience, therefore anyone who agrees that abortion _of convenience_ after 5 months ought to not happen is anti-abortion.
(*I picked 5 months since this seems to be a low limit for preemie viability.)
#37 — I agree that as long as a sizable minority disagrees, imposing a ban is probably going to create more problems than it solves.
Which is why this subject doesn’t belong in the tent. There will **never** be agreement. Politics is about consensus, not finding interesting new ways to disenfranchise those who disagree.
A movement is about teaching and persuading. A party is about getting elected. You seem to conflate these goals.
#37 — I agree that as long as a sizable minority disagrees, imposing a ban is probably going to create more problems than it solves.
Which is why this subject doesn’t belong in the tent. There will **never** be agreement. Politics is about consensus, not finding interesting new ways to disenfranchise those who disagree.
Except that there is agreement–overwhelming agreement–that partial birth abortion should be unlawful. And there is overwhelming agreement about parental consent for minors having abortions. So why should Republicans take no position on those laws?
We have some areas where there is widespread agreement that the government can and should restrict abortion–and where there are few voters that would ever vote Republican who would be turned away by it. Why should we work on agreement with the 22% that believes in abortion on demand?
You have also made it clear that you are one of those “anti-choice” voters. Why are you therefore arguing for abortion on demand as a Republican Party position?
For that matter I myself am staunchly pro women’s rights and pro-choice yet figure that abortion _of convenience_ after 5 months* or so ought to be disallowed. I am NOT in opposition to abortion. (Note the “of convenience” bit.)
Why is five months magic? Because of viability? Would you care to defend why it is okay to kill a three month fetus, but not a five month fetus? If viability outside the womb is the only criterion that defines this, then you seem to be arguing that if you can survive without life support, you have human rights, and if you can’t, you don’t.
Of course, the real world data is that abortions after 5 months are about 1% of all procedures, and if 1% of that number was “convenience” I’d be shocked. I don’t really have a lot to be opposed to. Not in the real world. I would be “opposed” to about 0.1% of all procedures. That’s hardly opposition of note.
So what principle are you using here? You have already acknowledged that you are anti-choice; you support prohibiting abortions of convenience at five months. You admit that it is a tiny fraction of abortions, and it is. So why would you argue that laws that you support, along with the vast majority of the population, are something that Republicans should run from?
Politics is about consensus,
On what planet? The number of public policy issues on which there is “consensus” is pretty small. There’s no consensus about appropriate marginal income tax rates, use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” for terrorists, or thousands of other current issues. If you want the government limited to passing laws for which there is consensus, I can live with that. Liberals can’t, and won’t. If Republicans are limited to supporting laws for which there is consensus, you are engaging in unilateral political disarmament.
#40 — Why is five months magic? Because of viability?
No. Because by 5 months you’ve already figured out you’re pregnant and already made your choice. It’s not illegal to be stupid, but there are cases where it ought to be.
#39 — Except that there is agreement–overwhelming agreement–that partial birth abortion should be unlawful.
And
#41 — So why would you argue that laws that you support, along with the vast majority of the population, are something that Republicans should run from?
Ummm… how about because late term abortion for the sake of convenience is already illegal. Even in the Tiller case KS law prohibits late term procedures except for specific reasons. The anti-abortion lobby is misrepresenting this tiny fraction to argue a straw man. This is because —
#36 — As the Los Angeles Times article I linked to above pointed out, some people are just too lazy to use birth control–they don’t even try.
…the anti-abortion argument essentially devolves to the 1960′s birth control pill culture war against perceived (and sometimes real) promiscuity. It’s not about protecting life. That’s a lie. I’ve illustrated this. You’re doing little more than replaying that scratchy 60′s record called “religion vs technology.” News flash: the culture war is over. You lost. We still have the pill and we still have abortion. And it will be thus. Technology *never* loses.
That of course is the other reason this silliness doesn’t belong in the GOP’s tent. Fighting a rearguard action against technology in a technologically dependent society is even less clever than the church thinking they could take on that upstart Galileo.
#42 — The number of public policy issues on which there is “consensus” is pretty small.
Consensus on what can be agreed upon i.e. compromise.
If Roe v Wade is reversed – and as a matter of law it is a horrendous decision – abortion becomes a local matter, ceasing to be an issue that defines one party or the other.
It puzzles me why pro-choice conservatives would be frustrated with the Republican Party based on its rather weak and ineffectual efforts to reverse RvW. And there is no evidence that this is the case.
>> #28 — Show me a law that doesn’t impose someone’s moral code. Laws against murder, robbery, rape–all of them impose a moral code. You just don’t notice it because you agree with that moral code.
> Laws against murder and rape are less about morals than that of order and survival; e.g. it would not immoral to kill Hitler, Stalin, or SS camp guards at Dakau. Yours is a false argument.
It’s a false argument only if there is no moral value to acquired by order and survival. I.e., somebody out there who makes laws thinks that order and survival are “good”.
#40 — Why is five months magic? Because of viability?
No. Because by 5 months you’ve already figured out you’re pregnant and already made your choice. It’s not illegal to be stupid, but there are cases where it ought to be.
So you are proposing to make it illegal at five months not because there’s something immoral about it, but because a woman who can’t make up her mind should be punished for it? Huh? If there’s nothing immoral about killing a five month fetus, why make it illegal?
#39 — Except that there is agreement–overwhelming agreement–that partial birth abortion should be unlawful.
And
#41 — So why would you argue that laws that you support, along with the vast majority of the population, are something that Republicans should run from?
Ummm… how about because late term abortion for the sake of convenience is already illegal. Even in the Tiller case KS law prohibits late term procedures except for specific reasons. The anti-abortion lobby is misrepresenting this tiny fraction to argue a straw man. This is because —
If it’s already illegal, how was Tiller doing what he was doing? Quite a number of states have attempted to ban partial-birth abortions, and the courts consistently struck down those laws, until 2007, when the Supreme Court, on the narrowest of grounds, upheld Nebraska’s ban.
#36 — As the Los Angeles Times article I linked to above pointed out, some people are just too lazy to use birth control–they don’t even try.
…the anti-abortion argument essentially devolves to the 1960’s birth control pill culture war against perceived (and sometimes real) promiscuity. It’s not about protecting life. That’s a lie. I’ve illustrated this.
Uh, no. You’ve illustrated that people that claim to be pro-choice aren’t consistent in their support for abortion. And the notion that a ban on abortion is really a cover for opposition to promiscuity makes no sense. All the wind would be taken out of the sails of the pro-lifers if abortion were indeed, “legal, safe, and rare.” But the fact is that abortion remains astonishingly common not because of promiscuity, but an unwillingness to use birth control. There are too many men who are too selfish and lazy to use condoms, and too many women who are unwilling to use the pill or insist that their partners use condoms.
Yes, condoms break (although rarely enough that this can’t be a common cause of unwanted pregnancy). The pill sometimes fails (although quite rarely).
If people are promiscuous, that’s their problem. Abortion, however, is the problem of a third party.
#42 — The number of public policy issues on which there is “consensus” is pretty small.
Consensus on what can be agreed upon i.e. compromise.
You really do need a dictionary. Consensus: “An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.” Compromise: “A settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions.” They are not the same thing.
Now, if the pro-choice extremists would “make concessions” it would deflate the arguments of pro-life extremists.
1. Allow states to prohibit partial-birth abortions, except to save the life of the mother.
2. Allow states to discourage abortion by making the process somewhat complicated and uncertain as to result (as was the case in a number of states, such as California, before they liberalized their law in 1969).
3. Completely end government funding of abortion.
I suspect that if states were allowed to adopt such restrictions, there would be a substantial reduction in abortions–perhaps as much as a 50% drop. We know that pregnancies increased by about 20% after Roe v. Wade because there was no longer the need to be careful–abortion was available as backup birth control. You would see large numbers of people in the middle disinclined to accept further restrictions, if there was at least an attempt to discourage abortion, instead of making it a sacrament of the left.
If Roe v Wade is reversed – and as a matter of law it is a horrendous decision – abortion becomes a local matter, ceasing to be an issue that defines one party or the other.
It puzzles me why pro-choice conservatives would be frustrated with the Republican Party based on its rather weak and ineffectual efforts to reverse RvW. And there is no evidence that this is the case.
The reason that pro-choicers oppose reversing Roe v. Wade is because returning this matter to the states means that probably 45 states would immediately prohibit partial-birth abortions, and probably 30-35 would prohibit second and third trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother. I suspect that at least a dozen–perhaps as many as 25-30 states–would adopt some standard for first trimester abortions that would put the burden on a pregnant woman to establish that there was a good reason for the abortion.
It would vary from state to state, but, I doubt that, “I don’t think a baby would fit under the wedding dress” would be sufficient reason for an adult who has been sexually active for many years–and never used birth control. “I keep forgetting to take my birth control pills” wouldn’t fly–especially for someone who has already had three abortions. (The two examples from that Los Angeles Times article I linked above.)
In many states, “My daughter is 15, didn’t fully appreciate the risks” might work. “I was raped” would work just about everywhere. “My daughter is 12, and didn’t realize that she could get pregnant,” would likely work–and the 25 year old that got her pregnant would soon be sitting in prison (perhaps for life). “The amnio test shows that the child is going to have Tay-Sachs, and die an excruciating death after a few months of an excruciating life,” would almost certainly work.
#48 — Now, if the pro-choice extremists would “make concessions” it would deflate the arguments of pro-life extremists.
Defending the status quo is extremism. Check.
#47 — If it’s already illegal, how was Tiller doing what he was doing?
Read KS law. Read up about Tiller. I don’t know what you *think* he was doing. Abortion _of_convenience_ (this is your argument, remember?) at a late stage is already illegal in KS, and your handwaving doesn’t make it untrue. Everything that’s available that’s reliable says that Tiller was doing only that which the law allowed, and the law had restrictions.
You’re venturing into hysterical assertion, and I think it’s up to you to prove your case.
Thing is, you CAN’T prove your case. Hysterical assertion is the only thing the anti-abortion movement has going for it.
There are too many men who are too selfish and lazy to use condoms, and too many women who are unwilling to use the pill or insist that their partners use condoms.
So? That’s none of your business, and yet you claim your argument isn’t based on promiscuity. There’s the whole hysterical assertion* daemon again.
It also has precisely zip to do with late term procedures.
(*If defending the status quo is extremism, then regarding the emotion-only arguments you’re using are intended to change it, I’m free to characterise them as hysterical assertion. Two can play this. You want to back off the extremism claim now?)
…(perhaps allowing abortion for rape, incest, or severe fetal defects)…
This is what abortion should be used for.My stand against abortion stems from a human perspective than a party line perspective.Seriously how can humanity advance if we are aborting babies before they even breath life?Ever see Battlestar Galactica (new version)?Sure its fiction but what happens if humanity is in that situation?By the same token humanity will not advance if everyone is gay either.We are bound by the Constitution to insure that those who are (ahem) gay,have rights just like we do.No arguement or debate there.The marriage question is a debate thats ongoing.Im for civil unions personally.
Correct me if im wrong but isnt marriage originally a religious practice?And if it indeed is,then how can athiests be married if they dont believe in religion?Just asking!:D
To comment about the article ,(sorry i got sidetracked)i was impressed with Cheney for sticking to his principles.It must drive the Left batty that after 8 years he hasnt changed.This has caused me to pause and rethink about moderating a conservative view considering who are enemies are.I dont see jihadists lightening up.Islam must turf violent aspects of their religion or it will go the way of the DoDo-extinction.
#48 — Now, if the pro-choice extremists would “make concessions” it would deflate the arguments of pro-life extremists.
Defending the status quo is extremism. Check.
Here’s the “status quo” that you are defending, from Justice Kennedy’s opinion in 2007 that barely upheld Nebraska’s law:
Nothing extreme there. check.
#47 — If it’s already illegal, how was Tiller doing what he was doing?
Read KS law. Read up about Tiller. I don’t know what you *think* he was doing. Abortion _of_convenience_ (this is your argument, remember?) at a late stage is already illegal in KS, and your handwaving doesn’t make it untrue. Everything that’s available that’s reliable says that Tiller was doing only that which the law allowed, and the law had restrictions.
Hmmm. Bill O’Reilly interviewed one of Tiller’s patients who described a late-term abortion at age 13. No mention of a medical reason for it. Remember: you are defending a practice that you have already said should be illegal.
There are too many men who are too selfish and lazy to use condoms, and too many women who are unwilling to use the pill or insist that their partners use condoms.
So? That’s none of your business, and yet you claim your argument isn’t based on promiscuity. There’s the whole hysterical assertion* daemon again.
What people are doing sexually is none of the government’s business. It is the government’s business when they decide to kill a baby because they are too lazy to use a condom.
> Now, if the pro-choice extremists would “make concessions” it would deflate the arguments of pro-life extremists.
How about simply a concession that there is nothing in the Constitution safeguarding a right to abortion?
If defending the status quo is extremism, then regarding the emotion-only arguments you’re using are intended to change it, I’m free to characterise them as hysterical assertion. Two can play this. You want to back off the extremism claim now?
Look, even most Democrats in Congress draw the line at partial-birth abortion. I have a good friend who is strongly pro-choice, and even he compares partial-birth abortion to something that might have been done at Dachau, with the doctor using scissors and a vacuum to suck the brains of the fetus so that the head collapses.
A bit more from Justice Kennedy’s opinion:
If this starts to make you think of the brainsucking sequence in the terrible movie version of Starship Troopers, then I think Justice Kennedy achieved his goal. Doesn’t it make you proud to be an American?
How about simply a concession that there is nothing in the Constitution safeguarding a right to abortion?
The problem is that the same miraculous reading of the right to privacy also protects a right even more important to the left: the right to homosexual sex.
Not too many years ago, I moved (politically) from being a moderate pro-lifer to a moderate pro-choicer. What prompted this move was something discovered coming from the pro-life camp.
About 5 years ago I read an exchange between J. Goldberg and R Ponnaru over at The Corner at NRO. In a post from Goldberg, he asked what should the punishment be for those convicted of an illegal abortion, if/when most abortions currently legal became illegal some time in the future.
Ponnaru responded, stating that based on conversations he had with various people (legal academics, theologians, etc.)over the years, punishment for abortion providers would combine 2-5 year prison sentences along with fines ranging from $10K to $25K. Women who testified for the state against the medical personnel would be given immunity from prosecution.
That was it.
Several things in Ponnaru’s response jumped out at me:
1. How can one refer to abortion as murder, yet seek relatively light prison sentences for said murder? The rhetoric being employed by some pro-lifers didn’t match the punishment.
2. Why should the woman be granted immunity for her testimony? After all, the abortion would not have happened had she not chosen it. So why should she be given a pass, especially given the fact that the “murder” was her choice?
3. Why did he omit the punishment for women who didn’t turn state’s evidence? Perhaps it was just an oversight on his part, but it seemed like a mighty big oversight.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me that most pro-lifers want little, if any, punishment brought upon women who would have an illegal abortion. Conversely, they seem to want abortion providers punished to the fullest extent of the law, whatever it might be. This is based on the exchange I read 5 years ago and everything I’ve read since.
IOW, it seenms that the “can’t compromise”, “personal responsibiltiy” pro-life political faction will happily settle (aka compromise) on lesser punishments for women vs. the medical staff in order to get abortions restricted. They will hold women less responsible for the illegal abortion than they would the medical staff.
If you can’t punish the women the same as the medical personnel in an illegal abortion case, then it would seem to me that there would be injustice in the law due to the unequal punishments.
Certainly, I can’t support a legal regime that would heep most, if not all, the punishment on the medical personnel, leaving the women with little or no punishment. There’s already enough injustice in our laws.
Re #59 Randy B: And did the lives of the unborn ever once factor into your decision? It seems you’ve forgotten them in your quibbling over the punishment for the perpetrators.
I guess in your world 2+2 = 5? If that’s how you sleep at night so be it. I’m one of those unlucky people that’s got a conscious to contend with. Shame we weren’t all given one at birth.
@47. Clayton E. Cramer:
Tiller was performing abortions in accordance with the law. There are cases in which the life and health of the mother may require procedures that otherwise would not be permitted. Tiller and his accusers had their day in court. Tiller prevailed.
If it were not about opposition to promiscuity and controlling sexual behavior, getting the morning after pill approved would not have been so arduous. Part of making abortion rare is providing better secondary contraception – because as well as know, condoms and pills are not 100% reliable. “Pro-life” groups were the biggest opponents of this type of contraception. Come again?
Yes, Abortion often is the problem of a third party – generally a Doctor. The claims of a fetus are not what you make of them.
Peace.
DS
> Certainly, I can’t support a legal regime that would heep most, if not all, the punishment on the medical personnel, leaving the women with little or no punishment. There’s already enough injustice in our laws.
I don’t understand how any of that changes the basic premise of the anti-abortion cause — namely, that killing the baby is murder.
Construct a syllogism based on that, and you’ll see what I mean.
1. “I was once pro-life.”
2. “But I heard a couple of National Review guys advocate light sentences for women who abort their babies.”
3. “Therefore…” What? The baby is no longer a human being worthy of protection under the law?
Just wondering how. The. Hell. That. Follows.
If it were not about opposition to promiscuity and controlling sexual behavior, getting the morning after pill approved would not have been so arduous. Part of making abortion rare is providing better secondary contraception – because as well as know, condoms and pills are not 100% reliable. “Pro-life” groups were the biggest opponents of this type of contraception. Come again?
Because the morning after pill is an abortifacient. At least the pro-lifers were consistent in their position that life begins at conception.
“If people are promiscuous, that’s their problem. Abortion, however, is the problem of a third party.”
Yes, Abortion often is the problem of a third party – generally a Doctor. The claims of a fetus are not what you make of them.
You do realize that if you kill a fetus in California–except with the mother’s permission–it’s murder? See Cal. Penal Code sec. 187. A fetal death is treated exactly like the death of a baby.
>> How about simply a concession that there is nothing in the Constitution safeguarding a right to abortion?
> The problem is that the same miraculous reading of the right to privacy also protects a right even more important to the left: the right to homosexual sex.
It does not therefore follow that Republicans and conservatives are obligated to concede these so-called rights.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me that most pro-lifers want little, if any, punishment brought upon women who would have an illegal abortion. Conversely, they seem to want abortion providers punished to the fullest extent of the law, whatever it might be. This is based on the exchange I read 5 years ago and everything I’ve read since.
Perhaps because they are more interested in making abortion rare than in punishing people?
If you persuade one doctor to do stop doing abortions, it has far more impact than persuading one woman to stop having abortions.
> Tiller was performing abortions in accordance with the law.
What if conservatives were to respond, “Well, we are *personally* opposed to killing abortion doctors?”
It comes back to that morality thing, doesn’t it? That’s just not the way conservatives play the game. Nor should they.
Part of making abortion rare is providing better secondary contraception – because as well as know, condoms and pills are not 100% reliable.
Certainly they aren’t. But here’s the real question: why is it okay to kill a baby because he or she is inconvenient? What makes it okay to suck the brains out of a fetus at eight months, but not okay to suck the brains out of a newborn? It’s an arbitrary boundary, for sure. But perhaps you would care to articulate why one is okay, and the other is not.
If it were not about opposition to promiscuity and controlling sexual behavior, getting the morning after pill approved would not have been so arduous.
If this was the case, then there would be strong pro-life opposition to condoms and other contraceptive methods. (Contraceptive: preventing conception; not disposing of the embryo afterwards.) And yet, I think I have met one pro-life activist in my entire life who was hostile to contraception. That’s not a very logical position if the goal is “controlling sexual behavior.”
I will agree that there is one area where pro-lifers are strong on “controlling sexual behavior.” They are horrified that so many girls as young as 12 and 13 are getting abortions–and Planned Parenthood does its best to make sure that the men who impregnated them don’t suffer any legal consequences.
David S: Any “Peace.” wishes for the murdered unborn?
You are a hypocrite.
Several things to remember about big tents:
1. You see them in the circus
2. They are full of clowns
3. They’re usually full of s#!t
If men could get pregnant, you know conservatives would be pro-choice across the board.
Ronald Reagan once said, “A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.”
As I recall, Ronald Reagan was able to build a pretty big tent.
.
> Look, even most Democrats in Congress draw the line at partial-birth abortion. I have a good friend who is strongly pro-choice, and even he compares partial-birth abortion to something that might have been done at Dachau, with the doctor using scissors and a vacuum to suck the brains of the fetus so that the head collapses.
Is it the gruesomeness that ought to render it illegal? Or is there a principle in there somewhere? Something to the effect that innocent human life ought not to be taken?
How can that principle apply to protect the life of someone who practices such horrors for a living, and not protect the babies being killed?
With each abortion committed, the aura of the sanctity of human life takes another beating. Today, it is the deranged individual who kills an abortionist in a bizarrely reasoned quid pro quo. Tomorrow, the gulag or the work camp, perhaps. Germany didn’t start out one day from out of nowhere and decide they were going to start exterminating Jews. It took a number of ideas, over the course of most of a century, to play themselves out for that to happen. A society that anguishes over whether to protect a first-trimester fetus is probably not susceptible to the logic of holocaust. But when we start deciding to kill the weakest members of humanity, because it’s convenient and because they can’t hit back, we already know where that sort of logic ends.
I defy anyone to spend an hour at http://www.abortionNo.org and still insist that murdering the baby because of incest is allowable. Having said that I would temporarily work with those who want to restrict abortions as a way to save the most near term while continuing to try to change people’s minds about the rarer cases.
I beg Republicans to open the tent on this. Because this social issue was made into a political one, it has closed us off to many in my demographic; Republican who doesn’t want social laws; i.e. gays or abortion.
And don’t call me a Republican-lite. Fewer laws and govt interference, and self-responsibility are what our party stands for.
I fully support all of you who are against abortion. But you have to show the same tolerance, despite our mutual disgust of abortion. Choose your battles please, and save this one for personal, not government jurisdiction.
#58 — The problem is that the same miraculous reading of the right to privacy also protects a right even more important to the left: the right to homosexual sex.
Oh, my. There was no knowing wink at the camera.
(Next thing is, why, them durn homos are gonna be lined up at the courthouse lookin’ to get hitched! Uncle Jed! Get in the truck and let’s hightail it ‘fer we gets jumped!)
Pop quiz: how many anti-abortion posters on this thread managed to include snarky commentary about moral behaviours of those who get abortions and/or the left in general? How many pro-choice posters have commented thusly? Does this tell us anything?
(Actually, no, it won’t tell YOU anything; it’s a rhetorical question directed at lurkers. Don’t answer.)
Air2air, I don’t understand why something cannot be a social issue *and* a political one.
Maybe you see the battle lines on the right as being between the social conservatives and everyone else. I just don’t see it that way. I’m as anti-abortion as anyone on this thread, and I do consider myself to be a religious conservative. But from a public policy perspective, at the federal level, the only thing I advocate is to remove that spurious reading of the Constitution that defined abortion as a constitutional right. Let it fall to the states. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable position, and a moderate one. Or if it is not moderate, then how far have the strict constructionists fallen!
But if we concede to liberal Republicans that maybe Roe v. Wade has a point, we won’t have the principle of “strict constructionism” anymore. There’s more at stake, in other words, than abortion.
(I’m confident that pro-lifers would prevail at the state level in all but a few states.)
But the real issue is, when will Republicans realize that the anti-liberal coalition needs not just to be built, but to be maintained? For too long, they have come around every election year, hat in hand, and tried to energize the various factions of the right by demonizing the Left. Hey, you know, sometimes the Left deserves it. But then the Republicans themselves are more than happy to forget who voted for them and try to pander to the liberals. Big tents, and all that. It’s an insult, frankly, to the people who vote Republican.
Sometimes, it takes more than lip-service. Sometimes, it means allowing the more conservative Toomey to defeat Arlen Specter in the primary, rather than to rush in to assist Specter with personal appearances and party money, and consequently showing disrespect to the religious conservatives and strict constructionists who voted for you (and by the way, how did that turn out?).
Sometimes, it means not trying to avoid a debate in the Senate about constitutional interpretation, but relishing the opportunity and taking the initiative.
Sometimes, it means not raising steel tariffs because you know it’s economically counter-productive to do so.
Sometimes, it means opposing illegal immigration (against the corporations’ interests) and taking the initiative to defend ordinary Americans and their children from federally-subsidized multi-cultural brainwashing.
All of these issues and more are very important to several different brands of conservatives, including my own brand — but Republicans could not be bothered to articulate and defend these positions. They’d rather send the pusillanimous Sen. Graham out to call their own voters a bunch of bigots. They’d rather throw in the towel by appointing judges who appear on the Harry Reid short list. They’d rather spend money contributed by people who abhor everything Arlen Specter stands for, on protecting a powerful incumbent.
How did these guys get control of the Republican Party, anyway? And why do we let them set us on each other? Now that the Democrats have kicked their butts — the fruits of betrayal — it’s time for conservatives to warm up their kicking legs.
Religious conservatives and economic conservatives and law & order conservatives and national defense conservatives and traditionalist conservatives and libertarian/conservatives and strict-constructionist conservatives should not be fighting with each other. We should be united. We should be kicking the butts of establishment Republicans for botching their assignments and steadfastly refusing to take the fight to the liberals.
Face it, fellows: not every “conservative” cares as much about your pet institution under attack as you you do. As a religious conservative, boy, am I ever aware of this. But politics is about coalitions, and if there’s one thing that will never work, it’s giving one of your important factions the idea that their votes aren’t valued. Most of the calls for a “big tent” are simply a call for one of more of the factions to tolerate perennial betrayal.
Here’s a novel idea: let’s try defending our principles, rather than apologizing for them?
Let’s take the pointy end of our shoes, shall we, and take careful aim at the rear end of the GOP itself. We can work out the details about who gets what once we get power. There’s another way to make a big tent besides surrendering our principles. For a change, we can try winning the debates.
screw the tents, “let the madam rule!”
The answer is pretty simple – politicians should articulate their principles and make their case and then let the voters decide. What bothers me is when a politician sets their principles based upon their polls, tacking left or tacking right depending upon the national mood, like the Democrats have done on national security issues. I do agree with the article that there is the potential for a broad consensus on abortion issues – for example a 20th week limit. However, I believe that a lot of conservative abortion opponents have not thought through the difficulty of trying to write and enforce a law that bans the procedure and can not be easily circumvented, yet still allows medical exceptions and protects individual privacy.
Lee Dise, you use the term “Liberal Republicans” towards my side. To reiterate, I don’t want government involved in bedrooms or uteruses. I take offense at the use of the “Liberal” label which is about the lowest thing that can be said of anyone.
Abortion is indeed a social and personal issue that nobody is qualified to legislate for others. Pro-Life beliefs, though understandable, are a deeply held personal moral code. Government does not deal in morals.
I advocate a big tent because politics is an imperfect science in an imperfect world. We must win elections first and split hairs later. Nobody on this thread will ever have their minds changed by a party platform, since we are all light years beyond that childishness.
If men could get pregnant, you know conservatives would be pro-choice across the board.
Oddly enough, the most vigorously pro-life people I know can get pregnant. Now, it’s true that women are among the most vigorously pro-choice–but also the most vigorously pro-life. (It often depends whether they have children of their own or not.) My experience is that most men simply don’t develop the wild passion on either side of this that women do.
Is it the gruesomeness that ought to render it illegal? Or is there a principle in there somewhere? Something to the effect that innocent human life ought not to be taken?
The gruesomeness makes people cringe in horror, because it is no longer an abstraction: “a little clump of cells.” It’s a head, a body, legs, arms, and a brain being sucked out. I would like a deeper, more principled response. But I’ll take victories where I can get them.
#58 — The problem is that the same miraculous reading of the right to privacy also protects a right even more important to the left: the right to homosexual sex.
Oh, my. There was no knowing wink at the camera.
(Next thing is, why, them durn homos are gonna be lined up at the courthouse lookin’ to get hitched! Uncle Jed! Get in the truck and let’s hightail it ‘fer we gets jumped!)
Pop quiz: how many anti-abortion posters on this thread managed to include snarky commentary about moral behaviours of those who get abortions and/or the left in general? How many pro-choice posters have commented thusly? Does this tell us anything?
It’s a simple statement of fact. The same bogus interpretative model that found a privacy right somewhere under the 14th Amendment for Roe v. Wade also got used for Lawrence v. Texas and Palko v. Connecticut. I don’t think that there is any value to sodomy laws, or laws prohibiting birth control. I would vote against either of these laws if they came before me for a vote. But just because a law is stupid doesn’t make it unconstitutional.
@16. AThinkingPerson:
“Why am I not surprised a liberal would want “rare” abortions last in line after safe and legal?”
Why indeed. Apparently you would be happy to focus on making abortions rare without regard for safety or legality? That’s abusive of the rights of women, and not the proper role of the state.
“FEWER abortions deaths should be the priority not the outcome of making them safe and legal.”
Making abortion safe and legal is a critical component of comprehensive public health policy. The alternative is killing women for the sake of religion – something I thought America was working to prevent throughout the world.
Abortion is not pretty, but it is necessary.
Peace.
DS
I beg Republicans to open the tent on this. Because this social issue was made into a political one, it has closed us off to many in my demographic; Republican who doesn’t want social laws; i.e. gays or abortion.
Who made this social issue into a political issue? The Supreme Court–by claiming that the Fourteenth Amendment had some magical privacy right that limited state authority to regulate abortion in the first trimester. When Roe v. Wade was decided, five states had already substantially liberalized abortion–and even those states that theoretically had strict limits on it were not enforcing the laws. Oregon, for example, in 1970, had 199 abortions per 1000 live births–in spite of a prohibition on abortion except to save the life or health of the mother. I suspect that without Roe v. Wade‘s interference in what has traditionally been the state’s authority to make decisions, we would be pretty evenly split today on which states were loose and which were strict.
And don’t call me a Republican-lite. Fewer laws and govt interference, and self-responsibility are what our party stands for.
If you want less government, I commend you. But only if you are serious about it. My experience is that most of those who say this really mean, “Unless it means passing laws that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination.”
I fully support all of you who are against abortion. But you have to show the same tolerance, despite our mutual disgust of abortion. Choose your battles please, and save this one for personal, not government jurisdiction.
What laws do you consider appropriate for government, not personal jurisdiction? A consistent anarchist position is fine; it won’t win elections. A principled position that murder is wrong–but abortion isn’t murder–well, I can appreciate that, even if I disagree. But let’s not pretend that abortion is somehow “different” from the other moral issues where liberals believe that the government should exercise full power: anti-discrimination laws; environmental laws concerning private property; gun control.
#77 Lee Dise – Great post! I was about to post the same thing. Dang! Now I gotta think of sumthin’ else! Okay. I done thunk.
This whole argument is silly. This whole divide within the Pub ranks over this issue is a fight started by the Dems. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.
I accept Moderates into our ranks. Let’s define Moderates, shall we? They are those who separate from party orthodoxy on one or more major issues. That means we have things in common… a lot of things. We work together. Understand, though, if you’re a Moderate, you don’t get to lead the party.
Whenever we’ve allow this, we get a mess. Reagan was a Conservative, and the party grew. Bush 41 raised taxes, and we got beaten by Clinton. Bush 43 spent like a fool. He did bailouts and bigger government. So, we got beaten by Obama. Each time, the party has shrunk, not grown. When we choose Moderates to lead, the party shrinks.
One more thing: a committed Moderate is an oxymoron. A committed Conservative is a redundant statement. That’s why Cons are the base of the party. Without us, the Party would die a lonely, well-deserved, unlamented death.
> Abortion is not pretty, but it is necessary.
I’m sure the ancient Canaanites thought it was necessary to throw babies into the fire for Baal.
> I take offense at the use of the “Liberal” label which is about the lowest thing that can be said of anyone.
Air, if you think being labeled “liberal” is a bad thing, then obviously I wasn’t talking about you.
It just hit me what sort of distinction we should draw.
If there are Republicans who favor abortion rights, but they still call themselves Republican, there must be other issues on which they agree with other conservatives on, and which are more important to them than being on the abortion side of the divide.
But being pro-abortion is a liberal position, and places them in diametric opposition to other important factions in what needs to become the conservative coalition.
So here’s the deal: are your sentiments in favor of abortion rights important enough for you to make common cause with liberals, to add votes to their factions, and money to their coffers on this one issue?
If so, then you are “liberal lite”, and I say, find room in the other tent.
Liberalism is cohesive in a way conservatism cannot be. Liberalism simply means tearing down the institutions of society to make way for the Greater Day. All institutions are under attack, all of the time, and liberals don’t have to be careful or precise with the wrecking ball: if it’s standing, they need to knock it down.
Conservatives, on the other hand, rally around their pet institutions and cry out for help from the other conservatives who are crying for their own institutions. But the fact of the matter is that often they don’t care about the institutions favored by the other conservatives — or, care as much.
This is where maintaining the coalition is important: we have to care about one another’s institutions if we are to survive as a political force. If we don’t, the liberals will separate us, pen us up, and eat us alive.
So maybe you don’t really care if abortion is practiced or not, and really wish the religious right would shut up about it. Fine, then ask yourself this: when you get upset about your the attack on your pet institution, whether it’s the Constitution, or fiscal sanity, or law and order, or national defense, would you like some help? If you want help from religious conservatives, you should be willing to help them. And this goes for religious conservatives, too: try to understand what liberal economics and liberal jurisprudence is costing this country, and see the big picture.
You don’t see liberals making this mistake. I’ve heard black folks, for example, grumble about how liberal white women, not racial minorities, are getting favored status and set-asides — but somehow their complaints are stifled before it becomes a public issue. (As Thomas Sowell said once, there hasn’t been any injustice committed against American blacks in four hundred years that justifies preferential treatment for white women.) Liberals seem to do just fine with their “small tent” — that’s because they’re united. We should take a cue.
I once was ‘pro-choice’ then I had to finally face myself and admit the scientific fact that it wasn’t my body I was choosing to abort but a distinctly unique human-being with his or her own distinctly unique set of human DNA.
For some 43 years of living under the ‘tent’ of pro-choice I realized that I cannot live the remainder of my life under an illusion based upon a false premise.
If there was ever a position more ‘anti-science’ it is the pro-choice abortion position; science has proven that a human being is a clump of cells from the beginning of life to the end of life and nowhere in between does a human being exist as only 2/3rds human.
Slavery was defeated once and will be defeated again; a female has the right to her own body however she does not have the right to own another human being.
@87. Lee Dise:
“I’m sure the ancient Canaanites thought it was necessary to throw babies into the fire for Baal.”
Thanks for demonstrating a complete lack of perspective, and no concern whatsoever for your fellow citizens. If you can’t tell the difference between medical necessity and human sacrifice, you’ve already passed through the rabbit hole. Abortion is necessary because without it, women die needlessly. Unless you want their blood on your hands, you should open your eyes.
Peace.
DS
“Abortion is necessary because without it, women die needlessly”
Which woman dies needlessly? The one she chose to abort or herself?
I am personally opposed to abortion. Do I want to see it banned – no. Do I consider myself pro-choice – no. However, as I have previously stated, I am old enough to remember botched back-alley abortions with reproductive organs so terribly mangled that the young ladies were never able to have children. That will happen again if abortions are completely outlawed (or trips to Juarez and Tijuana, or Europe for those whose families can afford it).
But more to the point of the “big tent” discussion, I have already formally left the party because of right wing zealots who want to wrap themselves in a flag of conformity. If you can not see that it take at least one more vote than fifty percent to win an election, folks “you ain’t gonna do it.” Stop arguing about purity and start trying to figure out where you can find a leader the majority of Americans can follow. We may not agree on everything, but this nation is essentially a center right in its political orientation. The fight of purity may end that because your children are being taught be center left to left wing extremists. They listen to their teachers more than they listen to you. Many have been lost already because of the poor quality of education they receive. They can’t think for themselves and only parrot what they learn from their teachers. There are more important issues that you need to address. Get to it.
A teensy tent . . . itty bitty wittle tent. You don’t need any liberals inside. You don’t need any independents. You don’t need any blacks or Hispanics or gays or Jews. Don’t need no young people. You don’t even need that many women. All you need is . . . “this chair.”
I agree with George #93. Lee Dice, I totally understand where you are coming from. I agree that it is horrible, bad, and wrong. It is the most disgusting thing going on in our daily lives. I support those with strong convictions on the matter.
But you propose two solutions: Stand by your guns on the issue; and leave it up to the states. Well, one of those tents is closed, and one is open.
Leaving it up to the states does not divide our party with a wedge issue. Forget for a moment what issue it is; if it divides us it loses elections.
The notion of “winning elections” is a target. It implies a despicable erosion of core beliefs in order to achieve an end. It is reprehensible to us because it asks us to drop our hard-won convictions.
But it is also the real world, where conservatives live.
I’m pro-life, but as far as I’m concerned the abortion debate is just a distraction right now. The issue hasn’t moved appreciably in nearly four decades, and it’s not about to move in the next several years. There are better things to focus on: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
#92 — Which woman dies needlessly? The one she chose to abort or herself?
Abortions happen, and they will happen with or without your approval. They will happen in the same numbers, even if it is against the law.
That will happen again if abortions are completely outlawed (or trips to Juarez and Tijuana, or Europe for those whose families can afford it).
Flights outside the US to good clinics are cheap. Oh, and it usually costs more to fly to San Francisco than to London. One of those funny oddities.
Outlaw abortion and women will fly overseas. Some victory.
If there are Republicans who favor abortion rights, but they still call themselves Republican, there must be other issues on which they agree with other conservatives on, and which are more important to them than being on the abortion side of the divide.
Good lord. Can you be any further afield? Republican vs Democrat is largely a battle about economics: dems think government should be involved; reps don’t. This same thinking generally applies to social issues as well, with the argument being over the level of government involvement.
Social conservatives are a wrench tossed in the works and live in a different world; they concentrate on trying to control their fellow man’s behaviours via government control. Their belief in statism puts them as brothers of the left, not the right.
As long as the social conservatives are welcomed into the republican party, the GOP will continue to trumpet a schizoid message. If anyone ought to go shack up with the left, it’s the social conservatives.
The difference between dems and reps? Whether government ought to be involved.
The difference between dems and so-cons? Which issues are more important for government to control.
G Alston #97 – could not agree with you more. Well said.
> Thanks for demonstrating a complete lack of perspective, and no concern whatsoever for your fellow citizens
I’m quite comfortable with the analogy between abortion and child sacrifice, to the point where it really isn’t much of an analogy. Child sacrifice is abortion without medical technology. Most abortions that happen today are for convenience (e.g., unwanted child). I have to assume a certain percentage of people in the ancient world of the Amorites and Amalekites didn’t want their babies, either. Child sacrifice was their method of dealing with that.
> If you can’t tell the difference between medical necessity and human sacrifice, you’ve already passed through the rabbit hole.
Since you bring up “perspective”, what percentage of abortions are performed from “medical necessity”, if we define that as necessary for the physical health of the mother?
> Abortion is necessary because without it, women die needlessly.
And this is true of all, or even most abortions? Somebody in this discussion lacks perspective, but it doesn’t appear to be me.
> Unless you want their blood on your hands, you should open your eyes.
Don’t you hate the way those religious right people use inflammatory and provocative language to make their point? Oh well. I just did a quick Google, and one site says that 93% of all abortions are for reasons of convenience (e.g., unwanted children). If I spot you the 7% due to incest, rape, and medical necessity, can we talk about the remaining 93%?
> But it is also the real world, where conservatives live.
The “real world” is the world where we allow liberals to continue tampering with the Constitution and make it say whatever they want. If you don’t want to roll that back, then we’ve already lost the war, and there’s nothing else to say.
You never win political battles by surrendering to “reality”. You win political battles by changing reality. There’s an odd asymmetry here between liberals and conservatives. Liberals are defeatists in economics and foreign policy, but energized and gung ho about achieving their ends in the political world. Conservatives are the other way around: gung ho about enforcing our will in the world and with our economic prowess, and oddly defeatist when it comes to the political battles.
> Good lord. Can you be any further afield? Republican vs Democrat is largely a battle about economics: dems think government should be involved; reps don’t.
That is your perspective, sir. Mine is different. With some types of conservatives, economics is all-important — but as I stated earlier, it is not just the economic institutions that are under attack by liberals, but *every* institution. You happen to care more about the economic issues? That’s your prerogative. But if you’re going to fight the liberals on economic issues, you’re going to need allies.
The liberal assault on our institutions is full-throated and floored, in overdrive. The Constititution. The law. Property rights. The Church. The family. National defense. Free enterprise. Law & order. You name the institution, it is under attack by liberals. This goes well beyond the bounds of economics. When they start taking kids away from their parents because they’re too fat, or arresting you for not wearing a seat belt, or hauling you in front of a college tribunal because you said something that offended the P.C. police, your economic policies aren’t going to save us.
If you want the religious right’s help in fighting for your economic freedom, you’re going to have to consider their perspective and help out where you can and so far as your conscience permits. Otherwise, I have three words for you: the liberals win.
99 — If I spot you the 7% due to incest, rape, and medical necessity, can we talk about the remaining 93%?
If you posit abortion is murder therefore wrong then there is no abortion that can be allowed, period, and that’s it. If you posit that *some* abortions are OK but others aren’t, you’re abandoning the “abortion = murder” stance and offering a negotiation.
It is either murder or it is not.
Up in the thread via my pop quiz I asked how many on your side were simply trying to make the case that the subject is merely about perceived lack of sexual morals, and you just slammed the button.
You’re much better off trying to argue that ALL abortion is murder and is non-negotiable. Offering negotiation does little more than spell out your prude level.
Sure you can be like the others of your persuasion and posit some vague theoretical justification to allow abortion in situations you accept — i.e. murdering due to rape is OK because… because why? Because you think so?
Ultimately the only thing you’re doing is trying to make the case as to why society ought to hand you the keys for controlling the lives of people you don’t know. You’re lobbying for the right to control others via government (i.e. the law.)
Not going to happen, skippy.
It’s not happened for nearly 40 years, and it’s not going to happen in your lifetime. One day someone really bright will forward a meaningful argument and perhaps in that case the subject will be revisited. That someone won’t be you.
Nowhere in the constitution is there a right to abortion.
And forcing a woman to have a baby that will die within seconds of being born is horrible. Just horrible.
#102 — The “real world” is the world where we allow liberals to continue tampering with the Constitution and make it say whatever they want. If you don’t want to roll that back, then we’ve already lost the war, and there’s nothing else to say.
You’re arguing that the founders lived in a bubble and technology hasn’t made any progress. The question to ask is what the founders would have made modification to if they had the technology to know now what they didn’t then.
In 1776 gays were about 2% of society, and most folks thought that these were weaklings who chose to participate in certain behaviours. (Some present day neanderthals still think this.)
In the modern world it’s clear that people don’t choose to be gay, that this is physiological. Whether by childhood virus or hormone imbalance in the womb or genetic luck, we haven’t nailed the exact causes, but we *do* know it’s not a choice.
Given that, would the founders go out of their way to deny gays much of anything? Of course not.
The liberals aren’t tampering with the constitution. If anything they are interpreting what they think the founders intended if they knew what we do. In that sense, it *is* a living document, not a piece of paper, and that *is* what the founders intended.
And yes, where it concerns social issues, you have lost the war. It’s been over for 40 years.
#103 — Nowhere in the constitution is there a right to abortion.
Nowhere in the constitution is there a prohibition against abortion.
#60, #62, #65
Thanks for proving my point.
#60 Sorry to see that my “quibbling” upsets you. I take it you would approve of harsher punishments for medical personnel as compared to the woman in an illegal abortion situation. Never mind that it’s the woman that is responsible for any abortion (legal or illegal) occurring in the first place.
Also, how are things up there on the cross?
#62 The fact that you can’t understand my reasoning and conclusions is your problem, not mine.
#65 Thanks for an honest answer. It’s clear what your goals are and that you would gladly let women off the hook with little or no punishment (as compared to the medical personnel) for an illegal abortion if you had your way.
Sorry, but I can’t abide with your notions of “justice”.
Folks, the opposition is loving it. Purity is great, Lord Obama is on high, nothing else matters.
Peace out.
#101 — The liberal assault on our institutions is full-throated and floored, in overdrive. The Constititution. The law. Property rights. The Church. The family. National defense. Free enterprise. Law & order. You name the institution, it is under attack by liberals.
This is the claim made by the “us vs them” crowd. The dreaded liberals are your fellow Americans. And despite the dreaded liberals and the assaults you claim are and have been happening, somehow the US is the world’s only superpower, and immigrants are still dying to come here.
In your eyes perhaps this happens only due to heroic effort by the unthanked conservatives.
In my eyes your claims are exaggerated; it’s because of the efforts of everyone.
The liberals aren’t after your church. When your church burns down at the hand of liberals, you have a claim. Until then, you do not. e.g. if you can’t post the 10 commandments in the courthouse, GREAT. That means the muslim neighbourhoods don’t have a legal precedent to impose their brand of lunacy. Sure, I never saw the harm in posting the commandmants so long as we had a more homogeneuous society, but as we grow and acquire more immigrants, we endeavour to be as fair as possible to all. Thus losing the 10 commandments in a courthouse is not “yet another liberal attack” but rather a means of protecting you and your interests.
(Yes I understand you didn’t initiate anything about commandments; this is merely an example that I’ve heard recently about ‘them damn liberals.’)
I could go on, but clearly you’re locked into a position that permits little else but antagonism, and refutation point by point would serve very little purpose.
Overall my point remains: social conservatives have more in common with the liberals they despise than republicans. If you think you’re appalled by this, you ought to see what happens when I post this comment on the liberal boards.
> I could go on, but clearly you’re locked into a position that permits little else but antagonism, and refutation point by point would serve very little purpose.
If antagonism is a tone, big guy, please deal with the mote in your own eye.
Abortion = Lefties murdering Lefties.
That’s a good thing.
> If you posit abortion is murder therefore wrong then there is no abortion that can be allowed, period, and that’s it. If you posit that *some* abortions are OK but others aren’t, you’re abandoning the “abortion = murder” stance and offering a negotiation.
Maybe I should have remembered to specify “for the sake of argument.” But I don’t think that matters, because it doesn’t change my point. My antagonist in that post was outraged that I wanted to deny the right to what, in his eyes, is a necessary medical procedure. If such abortions comprise only 6 or 7% of all abortions, however, it’s hard to see why he was getting so exercised.
For the record, however, killing isn’t murder if it’s self-defense, and I think aborting out of medical necessity probably falls into that category. At least, some percentage of such abortions.
> Up in the thread via my pop quiz I asked how many on your side were simply trying to make the case that the subject is merely about perceived lack of sexual morals, and you just slammed the button.
I hear straw man goes nice with a fine whine.
> Sure you can be like the others of your persuasion and posit some vague theoretical justification to allow abortion in situations you accept — i.e. murdering due to rape is OK because… because why? Because you think so?
Maybe you should wait for me to make an argument before answering it, but that would be less vague and theoretical.
> Ultimately the only thing you’re doing is trying to make the case as to why society ought to hand you the keys for controlling the lives of people you don’t know. You’re lobbying for the right to control others via government (i.e. the law.)
I think anyone who favors certain laws, and I’m sure that group includes even you, is in favor of controlling the lives of people one doesn’t know. I think that’s why they’re called “laws.” I can’t think of a law that does not fall into that category. As for *which* laws you speculate I would be in favor of (again, assuming you want to be less vague and theoretical), you can ask me what they would be… or you can continue to put words in my mouth.
> One day someone really bright will forward a meaningful argument and perhaps in that case the subject will be revisited. That someone won’t be you.
Please let us know when your Nobel Prize comes in.
> You’re arguing that the founders lived in a bubble and technology hasn’t made any progress. The question to ask is what the founders would have made modification to if they had the technology to know now what they didn’t then.
Well, pardon me, I had assumed you were some sort of a conservative. If you think the Constitution is some sort of a Rorschach test, then why are you lecturing me about wanting to project my personal beliefs on everyone? If the Constitution means something objective, it is the authority. If it means nothing until someone regards it subjectively, however, then the interpreter is the authority. Poof. There went “original intent.”
So why don’t you specify which parts of the Constitution have been obviated by technology? Freedom of speech? Religion? Right to not self-incriminate? The part about the three branches of government?
And then, please specify why it couldn’t be taken care of by the amendment process as specified in the Constitution, rather than divined from the SCOTUS pulpit out of whole cloth?
> In 1776 gays were about 2% of society, and most folks thought that these were weaklings who chose to participate in certain behaviours. (Some present day neanderthals still think this.)
So then, if you had written the Constitution, it would take these, uh, facts into account? Well, at least now we know what the standard for Constitutional interpretation is: whenever we need to know what it really says, or should have said, just ask G. Who knew constitutional law could be so simple?
> Given that, would the founders go out of their way to deny gays much of anything? Of course not.
Not with your expert coaching.
> The liberals aren’t tampering with the constitution. If anything they are interpreting what they think the founders intended if they knew what we do.
It must be nice to be a primary source. If you want to know what the Constitution means, don’t bother reading what the founders wrote, which by the way is a voluminous amount of material. Much easier to ask a liberal what he would have written had he been a founder. Or better yet, ask G. Hey! G. is right here! Wow! All that Constitutional knowledge, right here for the asking!
> I could go on, but clearly you’re locked into a position that permits little else but antagonism, and refutation point by point would serve very little purpose.
It might be amusing to hear what you consider a point-by-point refutation. But you could just save a lot of trouble by simply pronouncing me, “Wrong!” It saves a lot of time and, after all, you’re a primary source.
> Overall my point remains: social conservatives have more in common with the liberals they despise than republicans.
Well, we do when you say we do, so it’s settled. Personally, I don’t see it, since you have as much as admitted that the written text of the Constitution doesn’t mean a whole lot to you. But I don’t have to see it, I just want to bask in your presence for a bit.
#112 — It must be nice to be a primary source. If you want to know what the Constitution means, don’t bother reading what the founders wrote, which by the way is a voluminous amount of material.
So why is is that in a country full of demonstrably clever lawyer types and legions of genius IQ’s and so on that the Roe v Wade ruling after nearly 4 decades has not been successfully challenged as the gross misinterpretation of the constitution you claim it to be?
Ummm… because it’s not. QED.
#92 — Which woman dies needlessly? The one she chose to abort or herself?
Abortions happen, and they will happen with or without your approval. They will happen in the same numbers, even if it is against the law.
Seriously? You think that if abortion is illegal that it won’t change the number of abortions? I guess the laws don’t do anything at all–and you shouldn’t care whether abortion is illegal or not.
The fact is that laws do change behavior. That’s why we have laws, and why those who disagree with those lies try to change them.
If you make something illegal, you will get the following results:
1. It will not be advertised.
2. Many people, out of fear of arrest and trial, will not engage in that activity. Not all, of course, but many.
3. The cost will go up dramatically.
4. Rising cost and limited advertising increases profit margins, and attracts some less than attractive players.
I won’t claim that banning things solves everything. There is a point at which regulation is counterproductive, because it creates a black market. But pretending that banning something doesn’t change the frequency is delusional.
Outlaw abortion and women will fly overseas. Some victory.
If you really think that outlawing abortion won’t change anything, then you should have no objection to a complete ban. You know full well that for those who are wavering, making it illegal will make it more difficult to find–and some will choose not to abort. Some will choose backstreet abortionists, or the use of the coathanger. These are tragedies, no question about it. But it isn’t like birth control isn’t readily available–unlike in 1960.
Social conservatives are a wrench tossed in the works and live in a different world; they concentrate on trying to control their fellow man’s behaviours via government control.
Anyone who isn’t an anarchist is trying to control their fellow man’s behavior. Show me a law that doesn’t do that.
If men could get pregnant, you know conservatives would be pro-choice across the board.
That will happen again if abortions are completely outlawed (or trips to Juarez and Tijuana, or Europe for those whose families can afford it).
Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, abortion would not be “completely outlawed” in much of the U.S. Some states, like California and New York, wouldn’t change anything. And the crowd that believes that abortion under all conditions is wrong simply isn’t the majority required to pass such a comprehensive ban. At most, there will be limitations and discouragements written into law in most of the country.
Leaving it up to the states does not divide our party with a wedge issue.
And what you know? That’s the position of just about all social conservatives: overturn Roe v. Wade, and let the states pass their own laws, reflecting the values and concerns of their people.
Thanks for demonstrating a complete lack of perspective, and no concern whatsoever for your fellow citizens. If you can’t tell the difference between medical necessity and human sacrifice, you’ve already passed through the rabbit hole.
Which medical necessity are you referring to? Even the Catholic Church reluctantly accepts the validity of abortion to save the life of the mother.
The real issue here is abortion on demand vs. abortion because of medical necessity. You know full well that the 800,000+ abortions a year aren’t because of medical necessity.
99 — If I spot you the 7% due to incest, rape, and medical necessity, can we talk about the remaining 93%?
If you posit abortion is murder therefore wrong then there is no abortion that can be allowed, period, and that’s it. If you posit that *some* abortions are OK but others aren’t, you’re abandoning the “abortion = murder” stance and offering a negotiation.
It is either murder or it is not.
Negotiation or compromise doesn’t mean that you think the other guy is right; it means that you are getting what you can out of the situation. If the net effect is to reduce the number of abortions from 800,000 to 80,000, that’s an improvement. It’s not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than nothing at all.
So why is is that in a country full of demonstrably clever lawyer types and legions of genius IQ’s and so on that the Roe v Wade ruling after nearly 4 decades has not been successfully challenged as the gross misinterpretation of the constitution you claim it to be?
Someone doesn’t really understand how the courts work, I guess.
If men could get pregnant, you know conservatives would be pro-choice across the board.
Then explain why a majority of women are anti-choice.
#112 — Well, pardon me, I had assumed you were some sort of a conservative.
I’m a republican. I vote anti-left and have done so for more decades than I’d care to admit to. On the other hand “conservatives” are just as much the enemy. Both groups seek to limit liberty and freedom. That you can’t see this isn’t surprising.
Conservatives commonly attempt to reframe and redefine so as to push their brand of totalitarian thought. Telling women whose birth control failed “tough luck, you have no rights, and you’re a walking incubator whether you like it or not” is instead recast by ostensibly altruistic self-appointed guardians as “caring for the unborn, speaking for those whom are unable.” Goebbels would be both green with envy and flushed with pride if he were alive to see the US social conservative movement.
You and those like you are totalitarians, and you hide this from yourselves. That’s why you’re the only ones who can’t see it. And you never will.
Overall my point remains: social conservatives have more in common with the liberals they despise than republicans.
If you mean that social conservatives believe that government performs a useful function, yes, they have that in common with liberals. And moderates. And socialists. And libertarians. The only group that doesn’t believe that government performs a useful function are anarchists.
In 1776 gays were about 2% of society, and most folks thought that these were weaklings who chose to participate in certain behaviours. (Some present day neanderthals still think this.)
Your ignorance of history never ceases to amaze me.
1. We have no idea what the percentage of homosexuals was in 1776. There are no surveys, and the only evidence of homosexuality that survives from the period are executions for buggery. (Pennsylvania, being fairly liberal, stopped executing homosexuals in the 1780s.)
2. The “crime against nature” (as it was commonly described in law books) wasn’t regarded as a sign of weakness, but depravity.
Telling women whose birth control failed “tough luck, you have no rights, and you’re a walking incubator whether you like it or not” is instead recast by ostensibly altruistic self-appointed guardians as “caring for the unborn, speaking for those whom are unable.”
They have all the rights that they had before and after the pregnancy. They just don’t have the right to kill someone else because they had a birth control failure. (And you are ignoring how much of this isn’t even birth control failure, but refusal to use birth control.)
#124 — Your ignorance of history never ceases to amaze me.
Homosexuals tend to be about 2% or so of any population anywhere in the world. As near as can be determined this is a constant and has been. It’s one of those little hint things that says it’s not a choice.
Stick to history. Neither math nor science is for you.
Here is how to make the tent big again: Announce that on social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, the GOP’s position is only that this type of issue should be decided in state legislatures, not in any court. However, we remain adamant on the subject of small government, low taxes, and strong national defense. This will open up some light blue states and tempt some fiscally conservative Democrats to switch.
> If men could get pregnant, you know conservatives would be pro-choice across the board.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that you’re right. Would *they* be right? or wrong?
There is no right nor wrong in this issue IMHO.
> So why is is that in a country full of demonstrably clever lawyer types and legions of genius IQ’s and so on that the Roe v Wade ruling after nearly 4 decades has not been successfully challenged as the gross misinterpretation of the constitution you claim it to be?
> Ummm… because it’s not. QED.
Help me out here, G. Which well-known logical fallacy is this? Is it argumentum ad verecundiam, or argumentum ad populum? I have to admit, I’m a little envious that I never thought of using this argument against liberals: the status quo is always right, because it’s the status quo. I’m ashamed I never thought of this one.
Of course, it is a possibility that folks like, say, Aristotle, only referred to constructions like this as “logical fallacies” because technology had not advanced very far in ancient Greece. I’m sure that Aristotle would have approved of your argument had he only known how cleverly you would one day employ it.
Sorry folks, I let the heat of the argument get the best of me. I apologize, G. From now on I resolve to stick to the issues and not get sidetracked on anything else.
What is it with these Republicans. One moment they’re teabagging. Now they want to pitch a big tent?
#124 — Your ignorance of history never ceases to amaze me.
Homosexuals tend to be about 2% or so of any population anywhere in the world. As near as can be determined this is a constant and has been. It’s one of those little hint things that says it’s not a choice.
You better have some sources for that. I’ve seen a variety of studies done measuring homosexuality, and there is actually a bit of variation. Of course, in some places, the percentages are much higher. San Francisco Dept. of Public Health in the 1990s used 11% of the male population in S.F. and 4% of the female population as gay or bisexual. British studies of homosexual incidence tend to show somewhat higher percentages of men who have ever had homosexual sex than studies in France or the U.S. And I’ll be curious to see your citations to studies of homosexual incidence in the Muslim world, in Japan, in Mongolia, and in Africa.
There is a recent study of changing rates of homosexual incidence in the U.S. 1988-2004 in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality.
Sorry, your claim that the rates are fixed just got blown away.
G Alston – I keep track of people’s posts, their trend and tenor. During the election, you claimed to be Independent. Now you claim to be Republican. Some of us do pay attention, y’know.
The 2% of people being gay is pure assumption on your part. In prison, they are almost 100% gay. In countries where polygamy is legal (many Islamic countries), it’s more like 25%, because those 25% can’t get wives, because the rich men have more than their share. A poor man has no chance at a wife. (So, he becomes a suicide bomber, or somesuch.) There is no “constant”.
Conservatism is by nature, a Big Tent. It is the same thing for everyone. One size fits all. We care not your color or background. Our tenets are beneficial to all, equally. People who walk away from the Party because of those darned rigid Cons have just been drinking the Dem Kool-Aid. Seriously, you disagree on one issue or two, and you walk away? Bull. Those who claim this are full of it. More Dem propoganda.
The 2% of people being gay is pure assumption on your part. In prison, they are almost 100% gay.
Mr. Malone, you don’t understand gayspeak. I have been repeatedly told by homosexuals that men who have sex with men aren’t necessarily homosexuals (like one of Matthew Shepard’s killers). They have this funny definition of homosexual: those gay men that they approve of. The men who have sex with men that they don’t approve of, because they aren’t progressive enough, are really heterosexuals who like to have sex with men.
Here is how to make the tent big again: Announce that on social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, the GOP’s position is only that this type of issue should be decided in state legislatures, not in any court.
Uh, that has always been the social conservative position. Some members of Congress have almost certainly with good intentions introduced bills that would impose social conservative positions on the states, but that’s hardly necessary or wise.
The Constitution leaves purely intrastate matters of general welfare (such as marriage, abortion, sexual morality) to the states. Most states will choose to regulate these matters in a traditional way; a few will not. Some will pass laws that I find foolish (sodomy laws, for example) or abhorrent (lowering the age of consent to ten), but as long as the voters are free to vote the idiots and rascals out, that’s enough. That’s federalism.
#130 — I have to admit, I’m a little envious that I never thought of using this argument against liberals: the status quo is always right, because it’s the status quo.
That’s tautological and not what I said. Nice try. If a ruling is wrong it ought to be provable. Failure to prove it suggests the ruling is right. No different than engineering.
#133 — You better have some sources for that.
AND
#134 — The 2% of people being gay is pure assumption on your part.
Dr. Greg Cochran, an evolutionary specialist, has interesting stuff to say about this and footnotes the 2% sources. I would have never guessed that this was not common knowledge among people whipping up the troops re policy in a public forum. If you publically advocate a party position on gays then you ought to have some expertise on the matter. If I can clobber your position, wait until the gays get hold of it.
#134 — During the election, you claimed to be Independent. Now you claim to be Republican.
Registered as independent, votes for republicans. Big deal.
Seriously, you disagree on one issue or two, and you walk away?
Who’s walking? We’re all fixing to get the living crap taxed out of us by technologically illiterate global warming luddites who want to set back industry by 150 years. This is what we need to fight. Meanwhile you guys are _still_ fixated on meaningless leftover social issues from the 60′s that you have already lost.
Let’s be honest. You’re not going to ban abortion on demand. It’s not going to happen. You know it. I know it. Gays are going to be getting married in your state; it’s a matter of when. You lost the culture war.
I’m asking you people to stop wasting bandwidth and concentrate on the important stuff (and issues you can actually win on.)
People who are vocally strident against gays/gay rights tend to be gay or at least have sexual issues.
People who are vocally strident against gays/gay rights tend to be gay or at least have sexual issues.
You mean like people who are vocally strident against racism and homophobia tend to be racists or homophobic?
Dr. Greg Cochran, an evolutionary specialist, has interesting stuff to say about this and footnotes the 2% sources.
Give a citation. Even people that lean to the view that genetics plays some part, such as Dr. Francis Collins (who headed the U.S. Human Genome Project), argue that it is merely a predisposition, and there must be some substantial environmental factor, based on twin studies.
Let’s be honest. You’re not going to ban abortion on demand. It’s not going to happen. You know it.
Even though 75% of the population of this country opposes abortion on demand? If so, how can we ever hope to win on issues where we only have 60% of the population on our side?
I know it. Gays are going to be getting married in your state; it’s a matter of when. You lost the culture war.
Why? Because you say so? Look, only 40% of Americans support gay marriage–down from a couple of years ago. It’s not at all clear that we have lost the culture war, so much as that people like you want us to lose it.
Even though 75
Who’s walking? We’re all fixing to get the living crap taxed out of us by technologically illiterate global warming luddites who want to set back industry by 150 years. This is what we need to fight.
Agreed. And guess what? Social conservatives agree with you about the importance of this–unlike John McCain and the rest of the “big tent” leaders.
Meanwhile you guys are _still_ fixated on meaningless leftover social issues from the 60’s that you have already lost.
That’s why California, one of the most liberal and historically pro-gay states–voted to overturn the California Supreme Court.
That’s why every state except Arizona where the voters had a chance to vote down gay marriage–have done so–and sometimes by very dramatic margins.
If that’s something that’s a sign of “already lost” then we’re ahead of where the McCain wing took us.
@99. Lee Dise:
“If I spot you the 7% due to incest, rape, and medical necessity, can we talk about the remaining 93%?”
No. Because this is about privacy and dignity as well.
Peace.
DS
#140 — Give a citation.
You get your own; I’m not the one whipping up the troops claiming that homosexuality is a choice, you are. You ought to be able to prove it. I’ve been MORE than kind enough in giving you the name of a source who also cites the figure.
Even though 75% of the population of this country opposes abortion on demand?
Ahhh, you’re resorting to your laughable interpretation of statistics and validity. 75% of the population thinks that a restriction or two *may* be reasonable, and this is a poll taken after frequent wild claims are being made about late term abortions mispresenting the frequency and the reasons AND further wild claims that these are things not regulated or restricted.
This isn’t the same thing as saying 75% oppose abortion. It’s not even close.
By the way, just tell the people the truth that late term abortions are in fact regulated and restricted and THEN take the poll. The numbers will change. You won’t like them. Your side requires lies and obfuscation and misrepresentation to make any headway at all. In the light of day, you lose.
It’s not at all clear that we have lost the culture war, so much as that people like you want us to lose it.
It’s not clear? To all but diehard innumerate culture warriors it is. The original salvos in the culture war were about the pill. Your side lost. The fallback? Roe v Wade seems pretty clear. Schools handing out contraceptives seems pretty clear.
Yours is reminiscent of the claims regarding “abstinence education.” That turned out pretty much as those of us who oppose the culture war nonsense had predicted: it doesn’t work. Wow. Big surprise.
Look, only 40% of Americans support gay marriage…
There are always fluctuations when the culture warriors are raging about their nonsense. Big deal. This is no more significant than your claimed 75% blip. These aren’t meaningful. What has any meaning at all is the trend (linear regressions are your friend.)
Your entire anti-gay marriage screed requires that being gay is a choice, and you do not and will not listen to data suggesting otherwise. The truth must be ugly to you. This is why your side has lost every battle in the culture war. EVERY BATTLE. Your side has never won. Not once.
Currently: six states and counting legalising gay marriage; the numbers are going up. You’re going to lose yet again. Enjoy.
#141 — Agreed. And guess what? Social conservatives agree with you about the importance of this–unlike John McCain and the rest of the “big tent” leaders.
Perhaps you didn’t understand. McCain believed and spoke as he did because some of what appears to be nonsense is the truth: we do affect our planet. (Not enough to dismantle civilisation, but that’s another story.) Unlike the left he advocated building nuke plants (less CO2) which is rational. Energy and properity are interlinked. Nothing and I mean NOTHING correlates to prosperity like energy.
His adding Palin was the worst possible blunder, refocusing the discussion from important and sane stuff (energy and foreign policy) he could win with to sheer irrelevancy (e.g. gay marriage) that is already a lost cause. Yeah it got a few extra votes from that so-called bible thumping “base” but wound up losing the swing vote, which is far bigger than the base wants to even think about.
No. Because this is about privacy and dignity as well.
If it’s about privacy, why are we required to fund it?
THERE IS SOME REAL HOPE FOR A CHANGE
Moderates aren’t buying Obama’s act!
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/americas-political-reformation-is.html
You get your own; I’m not the one whipping up the troops claiming that homosexuality is a choice, you are.
If you had read what I wrote (instead of responding to the voices in your head), you would know that I don’t believe that it is a choice, at least not in the sense that “I would prefer strawberry, not chocolate.”
75% of the population thinks that a restriction or two *may* be reasonable, and this is a poll taken after frequent wild claims are being made about late term abortions mispresenting the frequency and the reasons AND further wild claims that these are things not regulated or restricted.
This isn’t the same thing as saying 75% oppose abortion. It’s not even close.
By the way, just tell the people the truth that late term abortions are in fact regulated and restricted and THEN take the poll. The numbers will change. You won’t like them. Your side requires lies and obfuscation and misrepresentation to make any headway at all. In the light of day, you lose.
You are the one that claims that abortion on demand enjoys widespread support–when 75% of Americans support restrictions of one sort or another. Exactly which ones enjoy support varies a good bit. But your claim is demonstrably false. There is great discomfort with abortion on demand even from those who call themselves pro-choice.
You claim that pro-lifers lie about this. I have seen some examples. But who has control of effectively all news media in this country? Your side. And you can’t get the abortion on demand percentage above 23%?
The truth must be ugly to you. This is why your side has lost every battle in the culture war. EVERY BATTLE. Your side has never won. Not once.
Currently: six states and counting legalising gay marriage; the numbers are going up. You’re going to lose yet again. Enjoy.
Except that several of those were imposed by the courts–and we’ve had some recent major victories.
Currently: six states and counting legalising gay marriage; the numbers are going up. You’re going to lose yet again. Enjoy.
Are you counting the one that you just lost–the most liberal, pro-gay state in the U.S.?
I’m done arguing with you.
134. Marc Malone . . . “I keep track of people’s posts, their trend and tenor. During the election, you claimed to be Independent. Now you claim to be Republican. Some of us do pay attention, y’know”
Another paragon of creepy observeillance, courtesy of our very own trunk sniper, Malvo.
Okay, here’s a citation… I count ONE, thats one Woman in this whole Circle Jerk. You all are powerful Men. Why don’t you Morans let an actual Female ( who has the responsibility in the end of Bearing….or not an actual child) have a few moments of clarity. I only say this because I know what you really want. Barefoot and pregnint little conservative dolls who do and say your littlest bidding.
Not Kidding.
You all are powerful Men. Why don’t you Morans let an actual Female ( who has the responsibility in the end of Bearing….or not an actual child) have a few moments of clarity. I only say this because I know what you really want. Barefoot and pregnint little conservative dolls who do and say your littlest bidding.
Huh? Not really. My wife is who raised the idea of kids at first. (It wasn’t on my list of plans when we got married.) We had two, timed for her convenience and wishes.
@145. Clayton E. Cramer:
“If it’s about privacy, why are we required to fund it?”
Medical decisions are always private. Is that news to you?
Also, you aren’t required to fund it – that’s 100% voluntary.
Peace.
DS