Posted on 11/13/2004 6:05:41 AM PST by cpforlife.org
PRO-LIFE WARNING TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
We believe that abortion is infanticide, and that a holocaust of infants is taking place. We do not believe that there is any other issue on Earth that compares with abortion in moral import. And therefore, there is no policy or combination of policies you Republicans can offer, including perfect tax policies, tort reform, and every other thing that is near and dear to Republican hearts, that matters a damn if abortion is overlooked and allowed to slide by.
We know that this issue has to be settled in the Supreme Court, nowhere else. And we know that the opportunity to put new justices on the court comes once in a decade, maybe, and that the current opportunity to alter the complexion of the court is not going to come again for a generation. Therefore, the real possibility exists that abortion can finally be seriously curtailed, soon, by the Supreme Court changing Roe v. Wade or eliminating it...IF, and ONLY IF, we can get pro-life judges on that court.
To do that, we have trusted the Republicans for years. We just came out and voted for you again this time, in unprecedented numbers, because we are not stupid and we know what is at stake. Not just evangelicals either. The religious CATHOLIC vote went Republican in 2004, and they didn't do it because of trade policy or even gay marriage. Their issue is abortion.
And the overriding issue is abortion.
So, if the Republicans allow Senator Specter to get the Chair of the Judiciary Committee and he blocks pro-life nominees, or if the Republicans do not use the nuclear option to override Democrat filibusters of pro-life nominees, THIS TIME there is no place for Republicans to hide. WE KNOW that you have the power, now, because WE just voted to give it to you. We understand that you can block Specter. And we understand the nuclear option.
And therefore, we most certainly will understand that if you allow the pro-life judges to be blocked, that it will be your political CHOICE to have done so. You CAN put pro-life judges on the bench, if you expend a lot of political capital. This will offend some people - a lot of people. And that is the price you HAVE to pay to get our votes next time. You have to be willing to bet the whole house to end infanticide.
If not, we will not vote for you. We won't go running to vote for the Democrats: they're pro-abortion. We won't go out and form a third party: we're not stupid and know that won't work. We'll just stay home, just like we did in 2000. Except that in 2000 it was out of frustration and neglect, and the lack of belief that anything will change. There was no organized campaign to keep the pro-life vote home in 2000.
This time, it's different. We understand the system, and we know that you have the power. And we demand that you use the power straight down the line to fill the high court and the appellate courts with judges who will protect the lives of babies. Period. This is not negotiable. At all. This is why we voted for you. You have nothing with which to bargain with us, and if you screw us, we will stay organized and we will stay home purposely to destroy the Republican party. Because if you do not protect the babies when you have the power to do it, you are no better than the Democrats...and worse, you will have lied to us.
This means, in effect, that all of those things YOU care most about: taxation, immigration, trade and business policy, deregulation - all of those core issues that come as an economic package, are held hostage to our issue: babies. If you will not protect the babies, we will stay home and let the Democrats destroy everything that YOU believe in.
This is called "Chicken". It is called a "Mexican Standoff". And since we are fired up by the certitude that we are doing God's work in defending babies, we cannot be bought, and you cannot win so much as an election for dog catcher in this country without us.
Therefore, the solution is simple and obvious: give us what we voted for you to do. Give us pro-life judges. Use all of your power to do it. Sweep Specter out of the way: is he worth losing all the rest of your agenda? - because we really will stay home and throw the country to the Democrats if you're no better than they are on abortion, just to punish YOU for having betrayed us. When the filibusters come, and they will come, use the nuclear option to override them. That will poison the Senate, yes. So what? We are talking about babies here. And with our votes, militantly mobilized because we are winning, alongside of yours, in 2006 and 2008 and beyond, even if the Senate is poisoned, you will be able to replace it with a more Republican one.
That there is even a debate going on as to what to do with Specter is alarming, but we have had our hearts broken before, so we'll sit and pray and trust President Bush and Senator Frist and the Republicans to do the right thing.
Screw us, though, and we will turn on you and your whole agenda will go down the drain with the blood of the babies you wouldn't put your power on the line to save.
The easy solution, the win-win solution, is to BE as pro-life as you campaigned as being. Just do it.
I apologize for the length of this post. But it needed to be said. The Republicans do not seem to get it. They need to understand that we are more committed to saving babies than we are to the fortunes of the Republican Party. That Specter is still in play demonstrates that too many of them do not take this seriously.
Rather than test us, what you guys should do is simply cave, now, and give us what we want. Do that, and you wont hear from us again - there will be no creeping theocracy in America - because this is about the only religious issue that Catholics and Orthodox and Evangelicals AGREE on.
Evangelicals may not have turned out in bigger numbers for Republicans this year...
...but Catholics did. For the first time ever, actually, unless I'm mistaken.
And yeah, they were very much appealed to from a pro-life angle.
I'm not totally on the other side here, don't get me wrong. I am -very- pro-life, I don't think it's overheated to compare it to a Holocaust, etc. But I do recognize that there are other issues as well, and I don't think inter-party threats like in this thread serve a useful purpose.
That said, I'm just trying to inform you that attempting to claim that the pro-life vote "isn't needed" isn't accurate, either. There's constituencies we could afford to thoroughly piss off, but the pro-lifers aren't one of them.
Qwinn
NO..
Why must you all insist on attacking people whose opinions and tactics differ from yours?
If I don't agree with the slash and burn techniques that you propose, I'm nonchalant?
"I'm here discussing the WARNING from the PRO-LIFERS (as if you speak for all of us) to the GOP."
It is a simple warning, "keep your word". You seem to be arguing against that, although not with any clarity (or honesty, at least in the case of your false claims about me).
Now for your false claims about me (see 271), any retraction?
"Why must you all insist on attacking people whose opinions and tactics differ from yours?"
Pot. Kettle.
Aha, we make progress. WHEN is abortion NOT evil (in your mind and, if you have a theological or philosophical basis for your claim, can you cite them please)?
Pro-life bump!
Thanks for making my point for me.
"We'll just stay home, just like we did in 2000."
They almost put Gore in the White House and lost the pro-life movement all the conservative judges and advancements we've achieved for the last four years. And instead of hanging their heads in shame and learning from what their mistake almost cost us, they are bragging about it and promising to do it again.
Bump for later...
"(and you are obviously not my "ally")"
Really? What am I then? An "extremist"? A "nutjob"?
I thought she was agreeing with your post to Narses, but I could've been wrong.
LOL
Yeah, that's what Bob Dole and Bush 1 said...
You are correct about the Catholics, from what I have read; "droves" is how I've seen it described. :-)
But my point to the "do what I say or we'll leave" people is that the time is fast approaching when that will simply be an empty threat; this country moved solidly to the right, as Peggy Noonan said, on November 2nd.
And not all of them moved there because of the abortion issue.
My other problem, of course, is that the rabid pro-lifers demand that the GOP listen to them, all the while objecting to most other "groups" that may come into the "big tent."
And you will do exactly WHAT if things don't go your way?
There are many abortion deaths --- more than ever --- today. The abortionists are allowed to cover them up. How many uterine perforation deaths or DIC deaths or vaginal bleeding deaths are from abortions but that isn't listed on the death certificate. How many post-abortion sepsis are not listed as post abortion but just sepsis.
There is a difference between the past and now.
Several differences.
In the past, there was no clear Senate majority, House Majority, a Republican President, and an ill Supreme Court Chief Justice.
The last time a Republican President got to name a justice to the Supreme Court, it was the pro-choice David Souter.
More importantly, we just had an election.
And something very different happened in this election: the Catholic Church, all the way from its leaders in Rome, broke out abortion as an issue trumping other political issues, and essentially (if subtly) directed Catholics how to vote.
That never happened before.
I note that the Republicans during the election were pushing a lot harder. Many wanted the Church to make a public spectacle out of denying John Kerry communion because of his pro-choice stance.
Well, the election was a week ago now.
And on the day after election, the Republican who is slated to take over the Senate Judiciary Committee says that he's not going to permit judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Nothing like the pro-life, organized Catholic vote every turned out in any election like this time. And it was abortion that caused the Church to mobilize like that. And it was Catholic numbers, in particular, that clunked down on the scale alongside of the long-fighting Evangelicals on the issue, and provided the margin that carried Bush and the GOP over the top.
And then, THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION, Specter arises, and the Republican pro-life stance - the REASON millions turned out to vote the day before - is suddenly negotiable, suddenly in the balance with what? Senate seniority rules.
Some folks have characterized what I wrote as a threat. It is not that at all. It is a completely realistic assessment. The Catholics came out, for the first time in that magnitude, because their Church committed itself POLITICALLY in an American election. The Evangelicals came out. They voted pro-life because the Republican Party made pro-life promises. And ONE DAY LATER it's all negotiable again.
It ain't gonna fly.
What you hear here is agony. Real agony of people who committed themselves with belief to a party, and see that party already, a day after the election, ready to compromise on abortion because of a mild political bind.
I do not have the power to keep anybody from the polls.
I merely report the truth: if the Republicans do not fulfill their pro-life campaign promise, they are going to discourage millions of voters who trusted them.
Arlen Specter is symbolic of the struggle between Republican Politics As Usual, and the new voters who came out to put the Republicans over the top.
Republicans are OUT OF THEIR MINDS to think that they can start backpedaling on a key point THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION.
It's nuts.
Suppose Bush named Kerry as the new Defense Secretary? That would be the equivalent slap in the face.
Snap out of it, folks!
There's no need to get angry at each other. There's no reason to fight.
Send Arlen Specter to another job, and the issue will pass for now.
Approve the pro-life judges, and there will be no problem.
We're not fighting about this here because of what I wrote, but because of what a Republican Senator said. He caused this problem, not us. He needs to be moved aside.
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