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.
This statement is untrue.
This is a great article. I am unsurewho my candidate is just yet, but I will not, regrettably, vote for Mayor Giuliani under any circumstances.
Yeah, the MSN polls are a fraud but a Freeper poll is accurate? Bwhahahaha !!!!
We will probably never see the likes of another Reagan, but there are candidates who are very close to him on the issues. Why write them off at this premature stage, and stampede to a candidate who is basically a Democrat of circa 1975 or '80 vintage? Rudy would be to the left of any Republican Presidential candidate in history!
Ok, you vote for Brownback or Newt in the primary and we'll see if they can win a general election. They are probably the most conservative candidates at this point. You can't count Romney because he's flipped on every issue. Who knows where he stands on the issues. Brownback or Newt against Hillary - they will get their heads handed to them.
If that's true, then you can play Hail to the Chief right now, for Hillary !!
Let's face it, most polls are biased toward whoever is giving the poll. The Freeper poll probably is biased toward the conservative, Republican perspective - just like most polls the Rudy supporters use to justify his popularity are probably biased toward the liberal perspective.
To me, that begs the question, if liberals want to skew polls to show Rudy is in the lead for our side - does that mean liberals want Rudy to be our candidate?
I live in a middle-class family neighborhood, and in 2002 we had 6 or 7 candidates running for Assembly in my district, 6 of whom were gay, including the Republican. (Rosie O'Donnell's brother won.)
Rudy's willingness to make political compromises brought him to the highest office in the city. We needed him; we got him.
In national terms, I don't know what this means, since the issues are different. But I feel that the same general logic will apply if we elect Rudy: We will pay a great price but get a great prize.
For now, I support Duncan Hunter and hope that he will achieve critical mass.
I respect your analysis, but point out that I did not say Rudy did, in fact, have the best chance of winning.
I was commenting on your previous post where you said that the reason some here support Rudy was because he "could win."
I was pointing out that winning is an appropriate factor to consider, but that it was wrong for you to conclude that was the only factor Rudy supporters were considering.
So your "questioning my wisdom" because, according to you, I "don't understand that its [sic] Rudy that has NO CHANCE of beating Hillary," is laughable b/c I have never ventured an opinion on whether Rudy coulda/woulda/shoulda beat the Hildebeast.
I have said, however, that if Republicans don't support the Republican nominee, and the Hildabeast is elected, some of the responsibility for her victory goes to those who refused to vote against her.
I understand the phenomenon of the "stay home" crowd. We disagree on what we think is "appealing" to the electorate at large.
But I still would like you to engage my questions I posed previously:
Do you see a difference between (1) voting for Hillary and (2) refusing to vote for her opponent?
I know you would say "no" so long as you claim there is no political difference between Hillary and her opponent, but that is not my question.
IOW, if you vote for Hillary, and she wins, are you responsible for perpetrating her upon the nation?
Then, if you don't vote for Hillary's opponent, and Hillary wins, are you responsible for perpetrating her upon the nation?
Again, please don't answer with "well, her opponent was just as bad, so it didn't matter." My question is, in the scenarios above, would you conclude that your vote/failure to vote helped cause Hillary's victory?
Rudy outraged liberals for 8 years in NYC - that is something many Freepers seem to forget. They couldn't wait to get rid of him !!
Can NOT and will NOT vote for pro-abortion, anti-self defense candidates.
Rudy is both.
I know the field is getting thin, and the time may come that I can only vote for obscure 3rd parties, like the Constitution Party, but so be it.
.
"does that mean liberals want Rudy to be our candidate?"
I think they do. Then even if Hitlery loses, they still have abortion on demand, an end to gun rights, a weakening of the family, etc. The Left has a long view of history, and they know what they want. Too many on this thread think its all about winning the next election. If Tweedle Dum is running against Tweedle Dee, what difference does an election make?
As good old Barry said, give me a choice, not an echo.
Women like him because he makes them feel safe.
It's all about emotions. Have you ever seen the Star Trek episode wherein the Enterprise visits a planet and one of the crew members brings back a harmless game. To play the game, one wore a headset that projected a video image and the object was to mentally direct a saucer into a funnel. When this was successfully done, the player felt a drug-like rush. Of course, the game turned out to be dangerous and addictive.
The Republicans lining up behind Rudy are similarly hooked on the emotional rush that Rudy gives them. And like "the game," Rudy is also dangerous.
Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation).
Oh, darn! Did I just give away that I'm a Trekkie? ;^)
If it included a provision for the life of the mother, even I could possibly go along with it. This is the position of many Orthodox Jews. It's permissible to save the life of the mother.
Plus it would put a wedge into the whole "health of the mother debate," even for non-partial-birth abortion.
Do you expect us to believe that NYC has a conservative majority? If Rudy "outraged" all the liberals in the capital city of liberalism, how did he ever get elected? Obviously many liberals liked Rudy, and why not. He's a liberal on most issues. He just has some common sense, the way some liberals used to before the anti-Vietnam-War Marxists took over.
No I don't but you need to keep in mind that there are many millions of people who won't vote for Rudy and their reasoning doesn't get that far.
If all you see at the store is stale bread or moldy bread, you won't buy bread that day. That's the way many people think about voting "I see nothing on this ballot for me, maybe next time." There's nothing you or I can do about it short of nominating "fresh bread" for our ticket.
Massachusetts is a liberal state yet it voted for Republican governors, so your theory that a liberal city voted for Rudy because he was liberal doesn't hold water. So is Romney a liberal? He must be, because liberal Massachusetts voted for him !! That theory about Rudy doesn't hold up. I remember how the liberal despised him in NYC, especially his crime-fighting MO, which ultimately worked. And he did support school choice, too.
There is no time when the "life of the mother" requires partial birth abortion (really infanticide), yet Rudy take a stand against that. It's a bogus issue. The pro-aborts then fall back on the "health of the mother" issue, which sounds very similar to the poorly-informed, but allows almost any excuse.
I'll say it again: How can this "great crime fighter" Rudy Giuliani waffle on infanticide? How about it, Rudy? How about it, Rudy-lovers?
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