A sadly accurate conclusion. I thought the movie was brilliant satire; unfortunately it is becoming true as we post.
President Camacho at the wheel of the Presidential limo
Posted on 03/13/2009 1:32:40 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
Once again we are supposed to believe that Michael Steele had a slip of the tongue. This time in an Interview with Gentleman's Quarterly magazine which included the following exchange:
"The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion," he said. "My mother chose life. So I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other."Interviewer Lisa DePaulo asked: "Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?"
Steele replied: "Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice."
DePaulo: "You do?"
Steele: "Yeah. Absolutely."
DePaulo: "Are you saying you don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade?"
Steele: "I think Roe v. Wade — as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter."
DePaulo: "Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?"
Steele: "The states should make that choice. That's what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide."
Twice before on this site (look under the topic GOP failure) I have discussed Steele's departure from the pro-life stance. Yet in a way not clearly in evidence before, this interview reveals the insidious character of the argument Steele represents. According to this argument, individual choices are not subject to interference by the Federal government. Rather you state the case for one side or the other, and let the individual decide. The problem is, of course, that matters of justice, of right and wrong, always involve individual choices. The choice to rob, lie, cheat and murder are all individual choices. The choice to rape, kidnap and enslave another is an individual choice. The choice to serve or not to serve someone in a restaurant, on account of their race, is an individual choice. Obviously the real issue is not whether individuals are free to choose between right and wrong. That's been clear since Eve made her fateful decision to eat the forbidden fruit. The issue is when and whether they have the right to choose as they do.
American liberty is founded on the premise that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. This premise is not a statement about human aspirations. It's a statement about right and wrong. An unalienable right can be transgressed by individuals and governments, but the premise of liberty forbids the assertion that those who transgress they have the right to do so. Right is not on the side of government when it commits or tolerates murder, theft and terror against the innocent. Individuals and laws that do so are inherently unjust, and powers used in this way are not lawful powers.
Steele consistently maintains that issues, like abortion, that involve respect for unalienable rights, are properly decided at the state rather than the Federal level. But the premise of liberty makes no such distinction. Respect for unalienable rights is required of human governments at any and all levels, because the just powers of all such governments are derived from the people's exercise of those rights. As the Federal government only has the powers delegated to it by the states, so the state governments only have the powers delegated to them by the people. But the "unalienable" aspect of each person's rights means that such rights cannot be given away, not under any circumstances. What the people cannot rightly give, the states cannot rightly claim.
But the premise of liberty includes the notion that "to secure these rights governments are instituted among men." Though government cannot claim the power to transgress against unalienable rights, the foundational purpose of government entails the obligation to preserve and respect them. No government powers are just except those derived from the only source consistent with this obligation, which is the consent of the people. Clearly however, the idea of consent based on respect for unalienable rights does not mean that the people have the right to do whatever they please, since they cannot rightly do anything that alienates (contradicts or surrenders) their unalienable rights. In this sense, government of by and for the people, is limited government: not only limited by the terms of its constitution, but by the purpose and terms of its institution or establishment. Liberty therefore is not identical with a simply unlimited freedom to choose. Individuals are free to choose actions that violate unalienable right, but they cannot claim the right to do so.
When, in their individual or collective capacity, people choose to violate unalienable rights they transgress liberty. Since liberty is its essential characteristic, this transgression effectively abandons the republican form of government. When an individual commits this transgression, it is a criminal act. When a government commits this transgression, it is an unlawful government. Under our constitution the supervision of this transgression when committed by individuals, has been left to the states. But if and when a state or states neglect this supervision, the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, section 4) explicitly requires that the government of the United States guarantee a republican form of government in each of the states. Like the guarantor of a loan, it must intervene to make good any deficiency in the states' respect for its requirements. Michael Steele's assertion that the states have the exclusive right to decide the issue of abortion is therefore incorrect. They should have the opportunity to decide it (which is one of the reasons the Roe v. Wade decision was prudentially wrong) but if they decide, by action or neglect, in favor of committing or allowing the violation of unalienable right, the Federal government has the Constitutional obligation to intervene. On abortion it may be sensible, after so many years of misplaced respect for the unlawful Roe v. Wade decision, to make this obligation clear to all the states by Federal legislation in some form. This could help to avoid miscalculations that might disrupt our civil peace. For this reason I think that such legislation, including a Constitutional amendment may be prudent. However, our reasoning here makes clear that it is not legally or Constitutionally necessary.
Finally, I think it's time we all stopped pretending that Steele's persistent advocacy of the "pro-choice" position is an accident, or a slip of the tongue. I believe these episodes are purposeful. His actions are meant to assert the fallacy that it is pro-life to be pro-choice. But this means accepting the position that at some level the choice to murder an innocent human being is consistent with respect for the unalienable right to life. Except we embrace the noxious position that right and wrong choices are equally just, this is not and can never be a pro-life view. Except we abandon the whole idea of unalienable right, this is not and can never be a view consistent with American liberty.
I think that Steele and the people he represents have gotten away with this disingenuous effort to warp, distract and mislead the pro-life movement for long enough. This issue is vital to the survival of America's free institutions. People of conscience deserve a frank and purposeful debate about it, not a sly attempt at argument by inadvertence. To that end I challenge Michael Steele to face me in such a debate, in a venue open to scrutiny by the general public. Though the courage to debate is not the test of truth, it may be a test of true conviction. I claim to be pro-life because I have stood that test, against Barack Obama, Alan Dershowitz and others. Why should pro-life people accept Steele's protestations of pro-life conviction if he refuses to do so?
For more current writing from Alan Keyes, please visit www.LoyaltoLiberty.com!
Then we can hear the dems shouting what racists the republicans are because they got rid of a black chairman
I admire the man and I sent him money when he ran against Obama, whom he debated; but he lost against Obama. His high-minded language flies above the heads of too many of today's dumbed-down citizens. Blacks reject him because they as an overall group are suspicious of education; they tolerate it in Obama because he affects the dropped 'g' and other ghetto slang when he is pandering to them. Keyes exudes an air of intellectual superiority that I know he has earned and that conservatives admire him for; but liberal dummies don't like it. It saddens me greatly. But as a movement, conservatives need to think more strategically.
I think it was Rush who said the Republicans can’t out-liberal the liberals. The RNC needs to figure that out.
I totally agree with what you said; but as a matter of strategically reclaiming our nation, conservatives have to come to terms with the reality that today's young and even middle-aged voters have never known a world without easy legal abortion. We cannot afford to try to "go back." We must find ways to go forward, and those ways may be by increments, legally and politically.
Only when you have gotten someone's attention and heart can you convince them that what they take for granted might be a bad, bad thing. Perception is everything in politics, as the last election clearly showed.
I do think they are unalienable everywhere. Everywhere - including China.
I, however, will accept incremental progress toward that goal from where ever I can get it.
If righting a legal wrong creates, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, actual places to live in the US that revere these inalienable rights, then it will only bring more pressure on places that don’t have such rights.
There is a psychic cost of abortion that redounds to everyone living in a place that condones such crimes against humanity. This has been seen in Germany, the South during the Civil War. The transgressions of a few have been codified unconstitutionally such that every citizen in the US is responsible, by fiat of 9 people.
Correct the legal error, and there will be a great many that can vote with their feet and live somewhere that respects those rights.
That’s better than the status quo - it removes the stain of murder from over half the State Houses.
You, however, want it all, and want it now. Not only an unrealistic expectation, but a self-defeating one - in that it strengthens the resolve of your opponents.
But Obama didn’t out-talk him.
For me, at least... and just off the top of my head... there are 3 current issues that should be left to the states.
1. Abortion
2. Marriage (gay or not)
3. Flag burning
I could go on, but it’d be on issues that aren’t as ‘hot button’ as these.
You can’t stop a holocaust by compromising with it. If that was possible, it would already have ended, since this has been the approach of the “pro-life” “leadership” for the last 35 years.
Some of us aren’t buying it any more.
The only way to stop evil is to fight it with every ounce of your strength.
I likened it to fingernails on a chalkboard yesterday, LOL!
1. Abortion
Do you want the states to have the "right" to ban guns?
If your answer is "no," why do you consider the right to life to be inferior to the right to protect life?
This is a nonsensical position.
Trademark that!
Because the right to bear arms is specifically stated in the Constitution. The right to life is not, and as it is not spelled out in the Constitution, the states get to decide... not Washington.
Steele practicing his run for president?
A sadly accurate conclusion. I thought the movie was brilliant satire; unfortunately it is becoming true as we post.
That is how it has always been.
Free speech?
Judicial incorporation.
Due process?
Varies by state.
Trial by jury?
Varies by state. Different size juries, different offenses subject to petit jury trials, different grand jury requirements for trying a suspect, etc.
SLAVERY?
13th Amendment.
The right to peaceably assemble?
Judicial incorporation, with some residual state variations.
The only way you can think that is if you ignore the Statement of Purpose of the Constitution, or if you think babies are not persons.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to...secure the Blessings of Liberty to...our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
"No person shall ...be deprived of life...without due process of law..." - Fifth Amendment
"No State shall...deprive any person of life...without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." - Fourteenth Amendment
Legal in some, not in others; what really unhinged this country was the marketing of the Pill, and a little-known Supreme Court decision just before Roe that made it legal for doctors to prescribe the Pill to unmarried women. It was couched in broad language of non-discrimination between the married and the unmarried. That decision was then used like a shoehorn to dismantle every other legal distinction of marriage, such as the rights of hotels or apartment owners not to rent rooms to unmarried couples, and many other applications of the sex-drugs-rock'n'roll revolution.
Up until the Republicans lost it, around 2005-06, the right to life candidates were winning almost everywhere, except in the most liberal states.
Even in California, a majority of black voters voted against gay marriage even as they voted for Obama.
That’s why the Democrats have to twist the language, and talk about choice instead of abortion. Because most voters do NOT favor abortion. If McCain hadn’t been such an idiot and given Obama a free pass on this issue, but had told the American people what Obama stood for—killing babies after they are born—then he would have done a lot better at the polls.
If you paint yourself into a corner because you’re too stupid to notice, then sooner or later you have to walk out over the paint.
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