Posted on 12/09/2002 7:26:49 PM PST by MitchellC
I often find radio show host Neal Boortz a pleasure to listen to. He proclaims himself a Libertarian, but even while I'm not an LP member (I'm "UNA," actually) he usually spends most of his show time railing against socialism and other tyranny abroad and in favor of capitalism and smaller government. Neal continually employs what I reckon to be good logic and intelligent arguments when dealing with most issues.
However, today on his website's news section, Neal had me shaking my head in disbelief after reading a section where he praised Suzanne Terrell's defeat to Mary Landrieu last week. It was a good thing, Neal reasoned, that since the Republicans now have control of the Senate, a person so consistently anti-abortion as Terrell should not have a spot in the Senate.
Says Neal:
"Any woman – any person, for that matter – who would, as Suzanne Terrell did, say that she would oppose an abortion even in the case of rape simply doesn’t belong in public office. There may be a place for her in the Priesthood, where she can’t use the police power of government to impose here extremist morality on women who are victims of brutal rapes, but certainly not in government."
Until Neal, or anyone else, can reveal what it is that is "extremist" (in a negative sense) about defending an innocent human from being killed - which is exactly what criminalizing abortion would do - then any argument in favor of keeping abortion legal falls apart.
"Mary Landrieu won by head faking her constituents into believing that she was actually a conservative* without all that abortocentrist baggage. Given the choice, I would have voted for Landrieu .. .and then toss my breakfast. There was not enough at stake to vote for a woman who would put a gun to the head of a pregnant woman to force her to have a baby she didn't want to have."
I admittedly haven't heard any argument by Neal beyond the above as to why abortion should remain legal. In my defense however, being that I've been a fairly regular listener to the show for a couple of years now, it seems to be because he doesn't offer one (or doesn't like to engage in this subject in-depth), since I figure I would have come across it by now.
But on this subject, Terrell was being far more consistent than Neal is. If one unborn fetus is a human being, then the same is universally true of all fetuses. This isn't a decision left up to a third party - or even a first or second party - to make. And if one human being by their very nature is deserving of having their "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" secured, then everyone else who shares that nature is also just as deserving, whatever stage of physical development they may be at, whatever location they may be in or whatever the circumstance of their conception, however "brutal" we may want to redundantly describe it.
This is the consistency which Terrell seems to have and Boortz and others seem to lack, not some grand metaphysical argument dealing with the existence of the human soul. It does not require membership to any "Priesthood" to determine whether or not a person is a living human being or not, only the most elementary science in the form of human observation. Nor is there anything that could seem like a 'shadow argument' to this alleging for anything beyond the physical world. This is simply avoiding the traps that await us when we subject such things to democracy; the traps that Neal Boortz is usually so good at picking out and identifying.
Today balding old libertarian radio show hosts may be considered human beings, but in ten or twenty years, who knows? Some of us may be asking why the government should hold a gun to society's head and force us to continue harboring a perceived burden we may not want to have.
A reason I brought this here.
We don't get Boortz in DFW any longer, and I don't miss him.
Because he believes these things, he's also rather openly opposed to religious conservatives. It's not uncommon to hear him spout off about Bible thumpers, etc.
He's better than Limbaugh when he is savaging liberal socialists but he is equally venomous when he goes after social conservatives.
These comments are not out of character for him.
On matters of governance, he's right more often than not. But he can't resist going off on anti-religious tirades and his support for homosexuals (saying that it is natural) took its toll. It seemed to me that he loved nothing more than jamming his thumb into the eyes of Christians.
Boortz is good, but Limbaugh he ain't.
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Do you agree with many supporters of Marx that the needs of some amount to an entitlement to be supported by those more capable? A woman who is raped has no choice and you would force her into involuntary servitude in order to provide for the needs of another. That is not a position that can have moral support in a world that places value on the rights of an individual to chart their own course. To take responsibility for themselves and for those they choose to include in their lives, not those that you or others wish to force them to support.
Laws against rape have never succeeded in eliminating rape. If rape is illegal, it will only take place in back alleys, under unsafe conditions. Rape is one of the most personal decisions a man can make. Certainly a man has the right to do as he chooses with his own body. To those who feel that rape should be illegal, please, don't rape.
I hope you aren't so lax on other forms of murder as well.
Rarely does the one being aborted get to choose.
The fact that so many alleged "conservatives" feel that this form of cruel slavery is just fine is evidence that some take "that 'ol time religion" a little TOO literally.
In my life, I've known TWO women who have endured violent rape. NEITHER would have considered carrying a child thus begot to term, regardless of ANY laws in place, although thank God neither concieved. To even THINK of using government power to FORCE that on them only compounds, and reignites, the injury they suffered. It would be, as I said, Evil to do so. Do not be so quick to slap a pat "answer" on those situations. I DO say these things while angry, but with respect.
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