Do I really have to say it ?
Posted on 06/16/2008 5:52:23 PM PDT by pissant
I know, the Doug Kmiec posts are getting redundant, but he fascinates me as the clearest example among the Obamicans of someone who’s personally captivated by Obama (“Lightworker!”) but intellectually unable to justify voting for him on that basis. The solution: Self-persuasion through argumentation that the most liberal member of the senate is somehow the more responsible choice this year for a conscientious pro-life voter. Read his latest essay and tell me if you don’t have the distinct sense that he’s trying to convince himself of what he’s saying more so than the reader. Here’s my favorite part, which builds on a point he made last month about how Obama and McCain really aren’t all that different on abortion since neither one wants to amend the Constitution to ban it:
Senator Obama’s position accepts the existing legal regime which leaves the abortion decision with the mother — which is all right so long as the mother is persuaded to choose life. Senator McCain’s position would leave the decision with the individual states — which is all right so long as the individual states prohibit abortion.
Since we are assured of neither, neither position is fully pro-life.
In truth, both positions are pro-choice, with the former focused on the individual and the latter focused on the state. Senator McCain’s position is sometimes described as pro-life, but it is more pro-federalism (states being free under the McCain position to decide to permit or disallow abortion as they see fit).
From a standpoint of subsidiarity and prudence, one can make an argument that the Obama position is preferable since it does not arrogate to a higher level that which can be done more effectively below in direct relationship with the mother.
See what he’s doing here? The only way he can justify his vote for Obama on this point is to set up a false dichotomy: With Obama you get legal abortion but determined efforts to talk women out of it and with McCain you get abortion banned in some states … and no effort whatsoever to talk women out of it. It all nets out! Except of course it doesn’t: He has no reason to think McCain would be any less diligent than Obama would in setting up outreach programs to discourage pregnant women from aborting. On the contrary, given how passionate Obama’s base is about this subject, he has every reason to believe he’s blowing smoke. I’m mighty curious to hear the specifics of what Senator Hopenchange has in mind by way of getting women to carry to term, just like I’m curious to hear how McCain’s continuation of “an unjustified war” to try to keep the peace in Iraq would be worse for the culture of life than a pullout that might lead to ethnic cleansing. Which reminds me: Has Kmiec heard yet about the “tactical readjustments”?
Exit comparison. From the essay:
Those who are pro-abortion, as I see it, are those who advocate the practice as a matter of fundamental right or as part of a radical, often feminist, agenda that takes no account of the moral weight or significance of unborn life.
And from the NARAL website:
Sen. Obama is fully pro-choice. In his own words:
“A woman’s ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess. It is not just an issue of choice, but equality and opportunity for all women.
And this guy considered himself a Pro-Life Catholic? The intellectual gymnastics he is performing in order to justify his choice of an intrinsic evil on the grounds of who is more pro-life is astounding.
Reminds me of St. Thomas More’s to his betrayer, “ . . . But for Wales?”
What kind of a blind, short sighted idiot with no convictions do you have to be to go from being a Romney supporter to becoming an Obammymaniac?
Oi vey.
Yeah. He's pro-Life.
The light of a Supreme Court appointment is blinding (although Obama would never pick him in a million years).
Sorry, but this is a total misapplication of the "principle of subsidiarity."
The principle of subsidiarity is that when seeking the proper agency to carry out some good work, the presumption is against doing it through a larger, more distance agency, and in favor of doing it through the nearest, most local, and most voluntary agency possible.
Thus, the presumption with respect to education of children is in favor of the parents. IF NECESSARY, someone the parents hire or enlist. IF NECESSARY, a private school. IF NECESSARY, a government school, controlled by the parents. Etc. The current American system presumes that children will be "educated" by the government--with the Federal Government having a great deal of control and parents having very little.
When it comes to the practice of UNJUST DISCRIMINATION, the principle of subsidiarity is entirely inapplicable.
Unjust discrimination is EVIL. It is not appropriate for ANYONE to practice it.
Setting aside the fact that abortion is homicide, it is evil for a State to discriminate between the born and pre-born; it is evil for the Federal Government to discriminate in this way; it is evil for a woman to discriminate in this way.
The obligation on the part of the individual, the State, and the Federal Government--all three--to refuse to discriminate between the born and pre-born is ABSOLUTE.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, those States which instituted discrimination against the pre-born, starting in 1967, SHOULD have been stopped by the Federal Government. Just as Federal troops were sent to Little Rock, Ark., and Montgomery, Ala., to stop Jim Crow, so Federal troops should have been sent to California and New York to shut down any hospital or abortion clinic where pre-born persons were being murdered.
The Supreme Court knew it could get away with the fraudulent Roe v. Wade decision ("The fetus is not a person within the meaning of the 14th Amendment.") because that was precisely the way the Executive branch has already interpreted it--by failing to treat "liberal" abortion laws as it treated Jim Crow laws.
Anyone but me getting real tired of the marxist democRAT presumptive nominee being referred to as messiah?
I prefer to call him Larry Sinclair’s girlfriend.
Obamamessiah attracts emotionally unstable mentalities (regardless of their IQ).
Here’s another example:
NY Times
Friday 11 March 2005
“.. [Reverend] Cizik said he had a “conversion” on climate change so profound in Oxford that he likened it to an “altar call,” when nonbelievers accept Jesus as their savior. Mr. Cizik recently bought a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle. “ http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9554
Oct. 2006
“..Cizik dates his “conversion” to 2002, when evangelical left activist Jim Ball of the “What Would Jesus Drive” anti-SUV campaign “dragged” him to Oxford, England, for a global warming summit featuring scientist and Christian thinker John Houghton. “I had, as John Wesley would say, a ‘warming of my heart,’ Cizik recalls. “A conversion to a cause which I believe every Christian should be committed to.”
After his Oxford conversion, Cizik returned home, sold his gas guzzler, bought a Prius, and renewed his interest in recycling. He notes that evangelicals comprise 40-50 percent of the “Republican base” and Republican politicians, who “have stymied action on climate change, will “have to listen” if evangelicals become as passionate as Cizik is about climate change.
Promoters of The Great Warming are hoping that other evangelicals will have dramatic conversions to the global warming cause like Cizik. No doubt, many of these new enthusiasts for the planet are full of passionate sincerity. But some seem to see acceptance of disastrous scenarios of global warming, fueled exclusively by human activity, as almost an article of faith, transcending need for logical argument. For them, it has become intrinsically a struggle between noble friends of the earth and wicked allies of the fossil fuels industry. They have adopted climate activism as a new crusade.
Evangelicals are more famous, or notorious, for preaching about the impending End Times. At least that old kind of preaching pointed listeners towards repentance...and God. This new mode of climate revivalism points evangelicals towards a very differently kind of imagined apocalypse, in which the solution is not divine intervention but increased government regulation, reduced standards of living, diminished national sovereignty, and enhanced powers for international bureaucracies. That Old Time Religion now looks more appealing, because it involves God.
Frontpagemag.com. http://vacoalblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/boo-just-in-time-for-halloween-folks.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1975847/posts?page=4#4
Are you surprised?
Yes, frankly. I thought he had some bright folks working for him. He came close to winning the nomination. And he needed a ton of lipstick to get there after his stint as governor.
I’m not. Romney was able to recreate himself as a “conservative” to the media, but he was always a Rockefeller Republican. You can tell the character of a man by the company he keeps. In this situation, its the opposite.
That’s a good point. Maybe you are right.
Whenever the word “passionate” is used you know they are full of it
Do I really have to say it ?
Duncan Hunter has come out for McCain (after the short opprobrius endorsement of the Huckster). Seems even the best of them have got tainted by liberalism this go around.
If the GOP wasn't so busy stabbing each other in the back annhiliating each other this Primary perhaps we wouldn't be in this current predicament now. But it's all water under the bridge.
Sounds like this Mitt's former advisor has come out of the closet as a liberal. Too bad for Mitt. As Scott McClellan proves though once some people are out of a job they will do ahything for a buck.
Romney has bought a houes in Duncan's backyard. He may make a play for Gov. of California. 74.9% of FReepers endorsed him right before super Tyuesday after Fred and Duncan had dropped out. IOW, he passed the most conservative ltitums test there is. He'll make a decent President someday.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.