Posted on 03/06/2007 5:39:37 PM PST by markomalley
They are saying that the next GOP presidential candidate might very well be a pro-abortion Republican who promises not to push that issue and is strong on other issues.
They hope that pro-lifers will “be reasonable,” not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and go along quietly.
We won’t.
Republicans and Democrats in 1980 took radically different approaches to the right to life. Republicans wrote into their party platform that all abortions should be outlawed. Democrats wrote into their party platform that not only should abortion be legal, but families should be forced to pay for others’ abortions through their taxes.
Democratic leaders have been utterly committed to their party platform. But there’s a movement afoot for Republicans to shrug off this plank of the party platform altogether, and give a pro-abortion politician the reins of the party and, they hope, the White House.
In particular, Rudy Giuliani has become a favorite for president of conservative talk-show hosts, and pro-war and tough-on-crime Republicans. He’s also way ahead in polls like Newsweek’s, though it’s anyone guess what such polls mean so early in the process.
The way the pro-Rudy argument goes is this: For the past three decades, social conservatives have had the luxury of insisting on purity in the Republican Party. Their clout was such that any candidate had to undergo a “forced conversion” before running for national office. But 9/11 changed that. Now, extremist Islam and the war on terror are such all-consuming issues, and we can’t be so caught up with abortion anymore.
Since Giuliani is committed to the war on terror and is a great crisis manager with a track record rooting out the gangs of New York, we shouldn’t demand that he be pro-life, but instead we should be willing to make a deal.
Rudy’s deal: He’ll promise not to push the pro-abortion agenda, and he’ll nominate judges in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Pro-lifers in the Republican Party in return would support him, but keep insisting that the party stay pro-life, and fight our fiercest pro-life battles at the state level, where they belong.
That seems like a good deal, at first blush. We’re well aware that “forced conversions” to the pro-life fold are far from the ideal. Think of the candidacy of Bob Dole in 1996. And it is true that the fight against judicial tyranny is an immense front in the battle for the right to life. Transforming the courts is a prerequisite to victory elsewhere.
But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.
When they ask us to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.
We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We’ve seen ultrasounds, we’ve named our babies in the womb, we’ve seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.
We also see the downside of Rudy’s deal. If pro-lifers went along, we’d soon find out that a pro-abortion Republican president would no longer preside over a pro-life party. The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.
Thus, the Republicans in the 1980s became Reaganites. The Democrats in the 1990s took on the pragmatic Clintonite mold. Bush’s GOP is no different, as Ross Douthat points out in “It’s His Party” in the March Atlantic Monthly.
A Republican Party led by a pro-abortion politician would become a pro-abortion party. Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.
Would a pro-abortion president give us a pro-life Supreme Court justice? Maybe he would in his first term. But we’ve seen in the Democratic Party how quickly and completely contempt for the right to life corrupts. Even if a President Giuliani did the right thing for a short time, it’s likely the party that accepted him would do the wrong thing for a long time.
Would his commitment to the war on terror be worth it? The United States has built the first abortion businesses in both Afghanistan and Iraq, ever. Shamefully, our taxes paid to build and operate a Baghdad abortion clinic that is said to get most of its customers because of the pervasive rape problem in that male-dominated society. And that happened under a pro-life president. What would a pro-abortion president do?
The bottom line: Republicans have made inroads into the Catholic vote for years because of the pro-life issue. If they put a pro-abortion politician up for president, the gains they’ve built for decades will vanish overnight.
Thank you for your graciousness.
Something's gotta give. If all this hype about Rudy actually translates into primary votes, we're gonna get Rudied right out of here by election day.
> Explain why Rudy's anti-gun lawsuit and his sanctuary-
> city actions should not be considered disqualifiers?
Two reasons:
1) No single position should be a "disqualifier". If politics is reduced to single issues, all you're guaranteeing is a long, slow disappointment.
2) How long do you think Giuliani would've survived in NYC politics if he mirrored your positions on every issue? He'd be muttering to himself with an old copy of "Soldier of Fortune" in a Bronx loft by now. That's not a knock on you. It's a knock on NYC politics, but if you disqualify Giuliani because of it, you're essentially ruling out ALL experienced executives from ALL urban areas as leaders. That is NOT a prescription for success.
--that the Constitution was written to direct the national direction, not to herd subgroups into servitude to another group which takes the reins of government on occasion;
--that once a human being is alive, they have -according to our Declaration of Independence- the right to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
--that taxation must have a legitimate reason else it is socilaims on the march through our pocketbooks;
--that the federal government is tasked with protecting -not taking care of us in every aspect of life- us collectively;
--that each individual has the right to own property which the government may not declare theirs for purposes of distributing wealth via taxation changes due to property siezures with redistribution in mind;
--that the individual sovereigns of this nation (that's us via We The People) have the right to keep and bear arms for our defense of self, family, property and beliefs; that a person's particualr religious beliefs are protected from government directing so long as those beliefs do not infringe upon the religious beliefs of someone else;
--that patriotism is an honorable thing, not to be confused with denigrating our volunteer military for political empowerment;
--that the social institutions which uphold a civilization ought not be subtended by interests groups wishing to change the historical and fundamental nature of the institutions in order to embrace degenerate factions within the nation demanding to be accepted based upon thier sexual proclivities;
--that we the people have the ... well, surely you get the picture, even you! MOST people at FreeRepublic are conservatives. We are not following Jim's lead, we are FreeRepublic, we are the lead, friend, each of us, in step with Jim in his vision, because we have the same vision.
But it is important. I'm also checking out why the interim government reopened these clinics with so much opposition from every Afghan political party.
You'll have to ask them. I just offered an answer to your first question. But you would be profoundly naive to ignore the role of the Black church in politics in America. Where do you think Hillary and Obama spent last Sunday? It wasn't Denny's.
So you do have a point?Other than picking out a name any name.If not than you have a grudge.
> However I don't support any 60% candidates during the primaries
Fair enough, especially if somebody closer to your views is in the race.
But, what is a problem, and has been happening a LOT, is demonizing Giuliani and trying to cast him as Hillary who wears a skirt slightly less often.
Lame eating of one's own like that is not very productive.
I would consider the Second Amendment my first and foremost issue, along with rule-of-law. Rudy's lawsuit showed he has no respect for either.
I recognize full well that I can't expect everything I'd like from a candidate. But I see no reason to support a candidate who goes so strongly against my most important beliefs.
2) How long do you think Giuliani would've survived in NYC politics if he mirrored your positions on every issue? He'd be muttering to himself with an old copy of "Soldier of Fortune" in a Bronx loft by now. That's not a knock on you. It's a knock on NYC politics, but if you disqualify Giuliani because of it, you're essentially ruling out ALL experienced executives from ALL urban areas as leaders. That is NOT a prescription for success.
Who forced Rudy to file the lawsuit, and if he felt he was forced into it, why has he not since apologized?
If Rudy had been absolutely 100% anti-gun, how would his actions have differed from those he actually took?
Maybe for some, but not for me. What really troubles me about Rudy is that he doesn't understand why the Second Amendment is our best defense against an enemy within. Its purpose is to empower every male of fighting age to be an agent to protect this country.
Remember, it wasn't the military that brought down the only plane on 9-11. It wasn't the police that caught the DC sniper. It isn't the police that turn in the most criminals. It's the responsible law-abiding citizen who is the key to keeping us free. Rudy wants to disarm that citizen, leaving the old, weak, or infirm to rely upon the government to protect them.
Tens of millions of people died in the last century for the mistake of turning in their weapons. Rudy himself may not be a threat to tyrannize us, but, were they elected, any socialist leaders thereafer would have us at their mercy. That Rudy doesn't understand this or doesn't care renders him unqualified as our principal Constitutional officer. Period. He not only shouldn't be nominated, no responsible citizen in this Republic should even consider his candidacy.
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This following observation not be universally true, but I believe it to be generally accurate: From what I have seen here on FR, the bulk of Rudy's supporters are women, usually urban and suburban residents. This is no surprise. Women are less capable of physically defending themselves, unarmed. They are statistically less likely to be competent owners of a firearm, even here on FR. They grow up expecting their fathers to protect them. Now, in the latter days of fatherless and single female households, the only "father" available to do that job is government. Accordingly, they go looking for a figure that they belive will provide that protection, Second Amendment be damned, their fears must be assuaged. They have no idea or concern for the dangers they are inviting.
So only the people who are "in step" with JimRob share the conservative vision?
What, precisely, does it mean to be "in step" with JimRob? I'm trying to get a feel for *how* "in step" you're talking about. Do you mean, like, *lockstep*?
I can assure you I agree completely with the vision statement of FR.
However, that does not mean that you or I, or you and JimRob, and JimRob and I, or fill in the blanks, will not from time to time have serious differences and debates on what constitutes and how to implement that conservative vision.
Otherwise, why not ask JimRob to write out his detailed political platform and have everybody pledge their fidelity to it hook line and sinker?
I doubt he would even consider anything of the sort. After all, he started a site for the express purpose of debate. Yes, there are boundaries. But debating within those boundaries does not mean that I do not share FR's values.
And wow--you surely went to a lot of trouble with that post. Did you actually believe that that lecture might be helpful?
OMG! Did you finish elementary school? Can you not complete a sentence and have it make any sense? What is your major malfunction?
Since Roe V Wade became law, we've had more Republican presidents than Dem ones, and Roe is still the law of the land. Abortion is also a topic that most Americans have way down on the list of what's of major importance.
What those who are attempting to take completely out of context,the burlesques skits, the vast majority of Americans have understood and NOT been turned off by, for more than 300 years. Hairy Leg Shows, especially for charity, have not only been a staple of American culture, from colonial days to the present, but have, during that time, drifted through all social strata. This means that most people understand exactly what Rudy did and that it is c completely disassociated from anything even remotely akin to homosexuality and/or cross dressing.
N.Y.C. and N.Y. state have had pretty strict ( when compared to other parts of this country ) gun laws for at least 100 years.
Rational debate is what we're supposed to engage in. When it crosses that line, which it has and then some, FR is turned into a vile caricature and doesn't do anything but drag this site down.
Hey, everybody, Carry_Okie is really Dr. Phil!
It shouldn't be.
Hey, I agree. I've been a prolife advocate for a long time, and don't like abortions in Afghanistan any better than here at home. And I don't want my tax dollars used to fund them. But I have a rising index of suspicion any more when I read a claim that doesn't seem right. Too many allegations flying around from the antiwar/ antiAmerica crowd to take some things at face value.
Hillary has just got them running scared, and in their terror-filled frenzy they are liable to do anything.
This Rudymania is just a phase here on FR. Once the primaries are over, conservatives will move on and get back to fighting the good fight. We're a hardy lot, and NO ONE is going to be pushing us around. Especially on a site meant for CONSERVATIVES.
I actually think this particular debate is healthy and refreshing. I'm glad to see people actively standing their moral ground, and not sheepishly following "the party line."
If we lose, we lose. If we win, we win. But we shouldn't have to give up our life-long held convictions in order to keep the boogeyman out of the White House.
No, it shouldn't.
Second, I think we need to be able to state why we think a candidate is not acceptable as cogently as possible and be able to provide an alternative without simply posting the bumper sticker of said alternative candidate.
For a Catholic in solidarity with Pope Benedict and Mother Angelica, for example, Giuliani is impossible. It is important to take that into the calculus of who is viable even though it is far more important to consider the Protestant pro-life voters as well as the NRA voters in the country. Giuliani will have a very difficult time erasing his record and putting forward a new image.
It would be possible for someone like Fred Thompson to be supported especially if he chose a pro-life Vice-Presidential candidate (that would need to be someone either from the Great Plains, Mid-Atlantic, or California to balance Thompson's southerness). In some ways he would not be ideal for anyone on single issues, but based on his voting record might be more ideal for everyone than anyone else.
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