Posted on 02/06/2007 10:43:27 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
“Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes,” Rudy Giuliani once said. “But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.”
Good point, Rudy.
Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mothers womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains?
What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as married couples, whether the resulting arrangements are candidly called “same-sex marriages,” or are semantically papered-over with terms such as “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships”?
Apply the Giuliani Continuum to fundamental issues such as marriage and the right to life, and where does it lead?
Not where conservatives want America to be.
Rudy Giuliani’s observation about the “continuum” running from graffiti to murder was quoted in a piece in the winter edition of City Journal by Steven Malanga. The title of Malanga’s piece neatly encapsulates his argument: “Yes, Rudy is a Conservative — and an electable one at that.”
I believe Malanga is wrong on both counts. Rudy is neither conservative, nor electable — at least, not as a Republican presidential candidate.
As Malanga seems to define it, a politician dedicated to good police work and free-market economics qualifies as a conservative. “Far from being a liberal,” Malanga writes of Giuliani, “he ran New York with a conservative’s priorities: government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, he said, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering. The private economy, not government, creates opportunity, he argued; government should just deliver basic services well and then get out of the private sector’s way.”
But that’s not enough. While advocating law and order, self-reliance, and capitalism is laudable, it does not entitle a politician to a free pass for advocating other causes that are deeply destructive of American society.
While it is always wrong to take an innocent human life — whether on a New York sidewalk or in a mother’s womb — Giuliani is highly selective in applying this principle. In 1999, when he was pondering a run for the U.S. Senate, he was asked whether he supported banning partial-birth abortion. “No, I have not supported that,” he said, “and I don’t see my position on that changing.”
“I'm pro-gay rights,” he also said. Indeed, his position is so radical in this area that as New York City mayor he promoted a city ordinance that removed the distinctions in municipal law between married and unmarried couples, regardless of their gender.
“What it really is doing is preventing discrimination against people who have different sexual orientations, or make different preferences in which they want to lead their lives,” Giuliani said, explaining the ordinance to the New York Times. “Domestic partnerships not only affect gays and lesbians, but they also affect heterosexuals who choose to lead their lives in different ways.”
In other words, preserving a legal order that prefers traditional marriage and traditional families is “discrimination.”
Giuliani’s positions on abortion and marriage disqualify him as a conservative because they annihilate the link between the natural law and man-made laws. Indeed, they use man-made law to promote and protect acts that violate the natural law.
Given his argument that there is a “continuum” between graffiti and murder, you would think that Giuliani would understand the importance of the link between the natural law and the laws of New York City, let alone the laws of the United States. At the heart of Rudy’s “continuum” argument, is the realization that when society refuses to enforce a just law it teaches people to disrespect the moral principles underlying just laws.
The late Russell Kirk argued in The Conservative Mind that the first canon of conservatism is “[b]elief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. … True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls.”
It is simply not justice to take the life of an unborn child. Nor is it justice to codify same-sex relationships so that, by design of the state itself, a child can be denied a mother or a father from birth, which is one thing legalized same-sex unions would do.
By advocating abortion on demand and same-sex unions, Rudy is doing something far more egregious than, say, defacing a New York subway train. He is defacing the institution that forms the foundation of human civilization.
That is not conservative.
Rudy will not win the Republican nomination because enough of the people who vote in Republican caucuses and primaries still respect life and marriage, and are not ready to give up on them — or on the Republican party as an agent for protecting them.
Stuff like this is quite misleading, sometimes grossly misleading.
"Supports" abortion on demand? Even MRS BILL CLINTON's positions have some nuances that can't be captured in a chart like this.
Not helpful.
"...The War against the Islamofascists is MUCH more important than any social issue - our very survival is at stake."---
Replace "Islamofascists" with "Communists" - it's the same song we hear every time. "How can you think about those issues when we might not be around next year...blah blah blah..."
There will always be people out there who mean us harm, always. That does not mean we give up everything important to us out of fear.
We've already seen this B.S. before:
1.) Proclaim that our issues don't matter in a "time of war."
2.) Declare perpetual war.
I didn't buy it then, I don't buy it now. You surrender YOUR issues, I'm not surrendering mine.
Maybe Rudy will have an epiphany and realize how great a sin abortion is. Prayer works wonders.
No, Rudy is not Arnold. For one thing, Rudy is a much more accomplished and experienced *politician.* And we need someone who knows how to play hard ball with the Rats.
As for "how well THAT's coming along," I dunno, didn't Arnold just get reelected big-time? Is that chopped liver in a state like California?
Another shortsighted poster who fails to understand that the internal threats to our free republic and our constitution are far more dangerous than any possible external threat.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln
Giuliani's personal life v. MRS BILL CLINTON's personal life?
Ha, no contest.
No worries, mate. It won't be purty, but it won't be fatal, either. Except, of course, the Perfect Conservatives get in a huff and refuse to vote.
As I commented a few posts back, I merely posed a question that I see posed routinely here at FR. Are attackers attacking because they are afraid of the attackee?
When Obama's alleged schooling at a madrassa came up, it was suggested by more than one poster here that Hilary was behind it, because she was afraid of his popularity.
Said the same thing. Thanks.
Rudy and McCain are struggling to be the Democrats choice for the Republican nomination.
I respect anyone voting their conscience, I just don't always see how helping to elect someone like MRS BILL CLINTON doesn't burn on one's conscience something awful.
Obama's a closet muslim and the fact that when he visits his stepmother's family in Indonesia he is allowed to pray in a mosque that bars non-muslims will eventually come up.
Oh, this is rich for the "teach the GOP a lesson" crowd by not voting in a way that stops MRS BILL CLINTON. I do wish the Perfect Conservatives would put their feelings aside, think of the long-term consequences of having a liberal president, such as MRS BILL CLINTON, and vote accordingly.
I'll have the American people to blame for that. I got to spend two tours in Iraq watching LBJ II work his magic back here. I loved risking my life to guard the Syrian border, while he didn't have the moral courage to guard our own. I won't bother to list his many, many other flaws. I will not vote for the lesser of two evils anymore. Our candidate doesn't have to be perfect in every way, but Rudy is more than I can handle.
"every poll out there says Rudy would trounce Hillary in a general election"
It's awfully early to be basing strategy on a bunch of MSM polls almost 2 years ahead of the election. I can remember when forgotten people like Edmund Muskie and George Romney were front-running candidates for President. And polls much closer to the election showed Michael Dukakis leading Reagan by double digits!
This bears repeating again and again!
Personally, I almost stopped reading at the title, "Rudy a No-Go." Oh, really? I've only recently become more opento voting for Rudy, but, like you, it's an insult to my intelligence to claim that Rudy is not a serious candidate or a formidable nominee.
Ok, then don't whine when you have Hillary at the podium in charge of immigration and fighting terrorism. Good luck with that. A Democrat-controlled House/Senate and Hillary - now there's something to think about !!
Does four years of Hillary not weigh on your conscience in this situation? I'm asking honestly.
If you know, as you say, that you are throwing your vote away, does it not bother you that you failed to do whatever was within your power, regardless of whether it worked or not, to stop Hillary?
Does the fact that you threw away your vote and, therefore, helped Hillary get elected not effect how you "put your head on the pillow at night"?
I'm really trying to understand this.
I'm trying to think of an analogy here and all that is coming to me is---sorry, not meaning to be inflamatory--but Pontius Pilot. He threw his vote away; he washed his hands of the matter and left it to others. He walked away and said "whatever you guys do is your problem; I won't be part of it." Was he responsible, at least in part, for what happened or not?
If you TRULY think that the mayor of New York is a bigger threat to us than the jihadists - you have a lot of nerve calling ME "shortsighted".
If you really think that Rudy Guiliani is a bigger threat to our survival than a nuclear Iran is - you need to seek professional help.
True, but if the election were held today, Rudy would beat Hillary, no doubt about it. And polls do have some credence, or did you forget the 2006 Congressional polls? And Dukakis never ran against Reagan, he ran against Bush !!
'Even MRS BILL CLINTON's positions have some nuances that can't be captured in a chart like this. '
Yes, the Clintons were so nuanced they could even play with the meaning of the word "is." The real question is: Do we want a so-called Republican who can't even come down unequivocally against infanticide? How can anyone even regard Rudy as a "crime fighter" (one of his few claims to fame) when he won't oppose this atrocity against helpless babies?
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