"Freedom is about Authority" ... according to Rudy.

NY Times Archives ^ | March 20, 1994 | NY Times

[malibu2008]

We can all glean more into the mind of Rudy Giulani with this babble ....

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do." - Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani

[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]

"You have free speech so I can be heard." - Giuliani

[ Another interruption. ]

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison warned us about people like this. We should chase such tyrants off the stage - the sooner the better.

[malibu2008]

Go home Rudy - we have seen right through you enough.

[Snickersnee]

What’s that? (Sniff, sniff) Toast!

[showme_the_Glory]

Rudy for mayor. (or warden)

[rintense]

I can NOT believe this guy has an R behind his name. I also can not believe how many voters with Rs behind their name are falling for this crap.

[dynoman]

Amazing.

He’s committing political suicide before our very eyes.

[TomGuy]

I don’t think Rudy is going to play well in fly-over country.

His NE liberalism is a bit much, no matter how much he tries to dance around the issues.

If he has another stumbling appearance as he did at the last debate, his candidacy may be in deep trouble.

The next debate should start thinning of the herd.

[rockinqsranch]

I want to see this guy’s numbers shattered on the ground like a piece of dropped and broken pottery. He isn’t a Republican, not a Conservative for certain. He cannot be the nominee of the Republican Party as that would redefine forever whom Republicans are. Not Conservative. That means then that Conservatives would have to rebuild a new Party that could or could not succeed, however think about the damage Liberals could wreak in our Government until the Conservative Party (whatever that would be) could become viable, if at all.

[Wings-n-Wind]

He's got it backwards....
This is softball-sneaky fascism!!

There remains not a scintilla of a chance of voting for Rudy G...

[FredHunter08]

“I want to see this guy’s numbers shattered on the ground like a piece of dropped and broken pottery. “

Absolutely. He needs to be made an example of.

[GuineaRabbit]

He sounds just like BJ Klinton. During an interview with 20/20 or somesuch other MSM tripe he said “the purpose of the government was to limit the rights of citizens”

I guess all those old coots like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin had it all wrong when they said the purpose of government was to protect the rights of its citizens.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Give me a break you Rudy haters. Rudy brought more law and order to NYC by enforcing the law more efficiently. That brought freedom.

[Lurker]

Rudy brought more law and order to NYC by enforcing the law more efficiently.

Great. So make him the Chief of Police.

But this putz has no business anywhere near the White House.

L

[FredHunter08]

“Rudy brought more law and order to NYC by enforcing the law more efficiently”

A dictator can make the streets safe.

“That brought freedom.”

I’m not sure you know what that is.

[JennysCool]

Say what you want about Rudy, but anything from the Times, even the archives, is suspect in my book. There's no way of telling what their agenda was that particular week. Or day, for that matter. Or hour.

[trisham]

Yeah, Giuliani stinks. Unfortunately, your guy stinks too.

[RKV]

Like some other posters, I wonder why we tolerate this guy putting an "R" behind his name. For contrast let's see what the one of the Founder's had to say about freedom...

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."

Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

[cripplecreek]

Rudy seems to think that NYC is a microcosm of America. It isn’t. Sure you’ll find some elements of everything from the back woods of Maine to the beaches of Hawaii but NYC is a primarily eastern urban center and not very representative of the nation as a whole.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

He’d make a great running mate for Hillary.

[NapkinUser]

On President Bill Clinton: Shortly before his last-minute endorsement of Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election, Giuliani told the Post's Jack Newfield that "most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." -Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, Wayne Barrett.

The Real Rudy Giuliani:

From Human Events:

Rudy's Strong Pro-Abortion Stance

As these comments from a 1989 conversation with Phil Donahue show, Rudy Giuliani is staunchly in favor of abortion: "I've said that I'll uphold a woman's right of choice, that I will fund abortion so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right that others can exercise, and that I would oppose going back to a day in which abortions were illegal.

I do that in spite of my own personal reservations. I have a daughter now; if a close relative or a daughter were pregnant, I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views ...

Donahue: Which would be to continue the pregnancy.

Giuliani: Which would be that I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman - my daughter or any other woman - would be that in this particular circumstance [if she had] to have an abortion, I'd support that. I'd give my daughter the money for it."

Worse yet, Giuliani even supports partial birth abortion:

"I'm pro-choice. I'm pro-gay rights,Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. "No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing," he responded." -- CNN.com, "Inside Politics" Dec 2, 1999

It's bad enough that Rudy is so adamantly pro-abortion, but consider what that could mean when it comes time to select Supreme Court Justices. Does the description of Giuliani that you've just read make you think he's going to select an originalist like Clarence Thomas, who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- or does it make you think he would prefer justices like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy who'd leave Roe v. Wade in place?

Rudy's abortion stance is bad news for conservatives who are pro-life or who are concerned about getting originalist judges on the Supreme Court.

An Anti-Second Amendment Candidate

In the last couple of election cycles, 2nd Amendment issues have moved to the back burner mainly because even Democratic candidates have learned that being tagged with the "gun grabber" label is political poison.

Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani is a proponent of gun control who supported the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban

Do Republicans really want to abandon their strong 2nd Amendment stance by selecting a pro-gun control nominee?

Soft on Gay Marriage

Other than tax cuts, the biggest domestic issue of the 2004 election was President Bush's support of a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani has taken a "Kerryesque" position on gay marriage.

Although Rudy, like John Kerry, has said that marriage should remain between a man and a woman, he also supports civil unions, "marched in gay-pride parades...dressed up in drag on national television for a skit on Saturday Night Live (and moved in with a) wealthy gay couple" after his divorce. He also very vocally opposed running on a gay marriage amendment: His thoughts on the gay-marriage amendment? "I don't think you should run a campaign on this issue," he told the Daily News earlier this month. "I think it would be a mistake for anybody to run a campaign on it -- the Democrats, the president, or anybody else." Here's more from the New York Daily News:

"Rudy Giuliani came out yesterday against President Bush's call for a ban on gay marriage. The former mayor, who Vice President Cheney joked the other night is after his job, vigorously defended the President on his post-9/11 leadership but made clear he disagrees with Bush's proposal to rewrite the Constitution to outlaw gays and lesbians from tying the knot. "I don't think it's ripe for decision at this point," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I certainly wouldn't support [a ban] at this time," added Giuliani..."

Although Rudy may grudgingly say he doesn't support gay marriage (and it would be political suicide for him to do otherwise), where he really stands on the issue is an open question.

Pro-Illegal Immigration

As Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics has pointed out, Rudy is an adherent of the same approach to illegal immigration that John McCain, Ted Kennedy, George Bush, and Harry Reid have championed: "While McCain has taken heat for his support of comprehensive immigration reform, Rudy is every bit as pro-immigration as McCain - if not more so. On the O'Reilly Factor last week Giuliani argued for a "practical approach" to immigration and cited his efforts as Mayor of New York City to "regularize" illegal immigrants by providing them with access to city services like public education to "make their lives reasonable." Giuliani did say that "a tremendous amount of money should be put into the physical security" needed to stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming across the border, but his overall position on immigration is essentially indistinguishable from McCain's."

That's bad enough. But, as Michelle Malkin has revealed, under Giuliani, New York was an illegal alien sanctuary and "America's Mayor" actually sued the federal government in an effort to keep New York City employees from having to cooperate with the INS:

"When Congress enacted immigration reform laws that forbade local governments from barring employees from cooperating with the INS, Mayor Rudy Giuliani filed suit against the feds in 1997. He was rebuffed by two lower courts, which ruled that the sanctuary order amounted to special treatment for illegal aliens and were nothing more than an unlawful effort to flaunt federal enforcement efforts against illegal aliens. In January 2000, the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, but Giuliani vowed to ignore the law."

If you agree with the way that Nancy Pelosi and Company deal with illegal immigration, then you'll find the way that Rudy Giuliani tackles the issue to be right down your alley.

Conclusion

Despite all of his charisma and the wonderful leadership he showed after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is not a Reagan Republican. To the contrary, Giuliani is another Christie Todd Whitman, another Arlen Specter, another Olympia Snowe. He's a throwback to the "bad old days" before Reagan, when the GOP was run by moderate Country Club Republicans who considered conservatives to be extremists. Trying to revive that failed strategy again is likely to lead to a Democratic President in 2008 and numerous setbacks for the Republican Party.

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