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.
All of the candidates you and I mention are far to the right of Rudy. No Republican dreamed of supporting abortion or gay marriage in those days. GHWB got elected entirely on Reagan's coattails, after acting loyal as VP, then got in bed with the Demonrat Congress (as RINOs usually do) and screwed us all. The point is, if you want to elect a Republican, and have it actually make a difference to the history of the country and the fate of the world, then choose the closest thing to another Reagan, not another Bush, Romney, Ford, Rudy, etc.
Perhaps you underestimate how popular Rudy is with Freepers.
Rudy is the Republican Clinton.
Women like him because he makes them feel safe.
My neighbor is 70-something. He's voted Democrat all his life and he's voting for Rudy. There are lots and lots of men who will vote for Rudy.
LOL!
So he'll be voting Dem again!
(Sorry, but you made it too easy!)
" Nixon in '68, Ford beat out Reagan in '76, GHWB and GWB were NOT the most conservative candidates out there at the time"
Nixon was the most conservative-SOUNDING Rep. candidate in 1968; he sounded just like Goldwater in '64. That's how he won the nomination. Then he did win the general election.
Ford beat Reagan because all the RINOs, negativists, and country-club amoralists assured us Reagan couldn't win. Ford LOST the general election, which gave us Carter, which gave us Islamofascist Iran, soon to have nukes.
GHWB won his first election, running on Reagan's record. Next time out, running more as his Eastern RINO "bipartisan consensus" self, he lost to Clinton, who then bequeathed us al Qaeda, the rise of China, and scandals aplenty.
So tell me now: Just how does choosing RINO candidates help national security and win national elections?
Good essay. Hannity is a shill for RINOs like Arnold and Rudy. JR called Rudy`s rhetoric last night, "double talk". I agree.
Believe me, coming from a Country that just finally got back to a real Conservative leader (both fiscally and socially and militarily) after 13 years of RED Lieberals, I can assure you, you DO NOT WANT A PURE Socialist Hillary Clinton. It will devestate your country.
I too am a Conservative who cares greatly for the CORE values regarding abortion, traditional marriage values, etc. but if the majority of the population does not value these things, then even getting a pure Conservative in will serve to further divide the Republican Party. I have noticed that the Republican's are willing, it seems, to eat their own and back stab and vote against their President, just to make a point. It must be terrible to be President Bush and to not be able to COUNT on your party to be united. That appears to be one thing the Liberals are willing to do - stay united. And that is how they win a lot of battles. Republicans never seem to learn. Perhaps a Guiliani can bring Republicans together. Perhaps. I don't like his stand on the core values either and I hate his stance on immigration. But he's still better than a Hillary Clinton. In case nobody has noticed, this Socialist Communist b*tch wants to rule the world. CO
Terry Jeffrey is right about Rudy. Alas, he may not be right about Republican primary voters.
I wouldn't support Rudy solely because he might have the best chance of winning (although, since this is an election, one has to wonder about the wisdom of supporting someone who has NO chance of winning).
However, that is quite different from not supporting Rudy solely because he is not on point with me on a single issue.
You are accusing Rudy supporters of reasoning, "The heck with his positions---if he can win, let's vote for him!" That's way too simplistic. The idea is to see how much you can get off your wish list by voting for a guy who also has a chance to win. It's a balance and it's absurd to suggest people who are not single-issue voters want to win even at the cost of ALL their political goals (as in electing the Hildabeast).
IOW, winning the election isn't everything, but it is one thing.
OTOH, those who refuse to vote for an otherwise electable candidate because he can't/won't deliver on some litmus test issue treat *winning* on their issue as everything and *losing* an election as nothing.
Those are the folks who, in practical effect, truly are "voting" for Hillary, not the people who realize that politics involves some compromise and, further, that it's irresponsible and poor stewardship to deliberately throw away one's vote.
Finally, to say people here who don't agree with you would vote for Hillary if she registered as a Republican is not only beyond the pale, but ridiculous, in the fullest sense of the word.
Here's another thing to think about. If we do not all stampede toward Rudy or some other RINOid type, "just to beat Hillary", 2 years before the actual election, but instead actually give support to one of the real conservatives who "can't win", imagine what happens if the latter actual do well in the primaries? We may find out 1) that Rudy can't campaign in middle America and 2) a strong conservative candidate may force the front-runners to the right, even if the conservative doesn't win. The conservative may also end up on the ticket. If conservatives give up and prematurely go for a Romney or Rudy, they will have no leverage at all.
My sarcasm was ever so lost on you. Apologies.
there is no Reagan in this election, and there is no one close to Reagan in this election, so conservatives will have to look for the likes of Brownback and Newt, who don't have a chance of winning a general election.
Reasonable logic and it sounds like common sense to these ears.
You simply don't understand that its Rudy that has NO CHANCE of beating Hillary, so I question your wisdom.
There are people, a whole darn lot of them, who are registered to vote but aren't political the way you and I are. They look at the candidates and if they see someone on the ballot they like they decide to go vote. If it's someone who really inspires them, they go out in the rain, and they bring a vanload of family and friends to the polls. Most of these people are moral conservatives. If there is no one appealing on the ballot they simply take a pass. Not out of spite, not to send a message, not to "get back" at anyone. They simply see no reason to go to the polls. Like it or not, that's the way it is. In recent years they've done a lot of staying home.
With a strong moral man like Reagan on the ticket, they will come out of the woodwork to vote on election day. In these times of a hairline split electorate, the GOP needs someone with some of that appeal. Rudy as the nominee will throw cold water on such people. While Hillary on the other side will be motivating the commie leftists who often stay home in a way John Kerry and Al Gore never could.
Giuliani will never be President.
It's not the authentic conservatives in Congress who are stabbing Bush in the back when he does the right thing, as in Iraq. It's the Washington-insider careerist clique, like Warner and McCain.
Rudy will never unite the Republican Party, because of his extremely liberal social views. I doubt that he is reliably conservative on anything else. He would continue the downslide of the Party, whose present problems are largely due to its having no clear ideals since Reagan and GIngrich left the arena. Just being "against terrorism" is not enough.
Your kind of thinking got us a Dem congress and senate.....and now you want to extend it to the presidential election in 2008?
If you're waiting for the perfect candidate, it's never going to happen. It's always a choice of the lesser of evils.
Yeah, all 14.8% of them, according to the FR poll on the Forum page.
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