Posted on 01/20/2010 6:33:01 AM PST by milwguy
The Constitutional position should be the conservative position, i.e., that Roe v. Wade was an egregious case of judicial activism. The federal courts have no business striking down state laws that restriction or forbid abortions.
As a Christian and a person who believes that abortion is the killing of a child, I would certainly lobby for and support the most restrictive legislation possible in my state. Conservatives, though, need to be “pro-choice” in the sense that we allow state legislatures to decide the rules for abortion in the various states. It’s my understanding that this is approximately Scott Brown’s position — and I freely admit I could have misunderstood that.
Let's start with a list of "conservatives" who are pro-choice? Can you name even one?
Conservatives need to run this fall on non social issues. Economy, healthcare, deficit, and national security are all issues that will win the support of independants. Abortion, gay marriage, etc. are issues the left will try to draw the right into arguing, because while the vast majority of the country is fiscally conservative, support our military, and want less gov’t involvement in our lives, the people in the middle are much more evenly divided on social issues.
I work on the very liberal east side of Milwaukee, and if you take the social issues out of the national conversation, you would be surprised at how many around here are conservative in their views. Gays don’t like high taxes any more than straight people, but the left has convinced them that social issues trump everything else.
Brown won yesterday by taking the social issues away from Coakley by downplaying them, by making his campaign about keeping us safe, by being the 41st vote against health care, and by running as an outsider. It is a template conservatives across the land can use in November if they refuse to get bogged down by the social issues.
He’s not a liberal, but he’s also not a conservative. Mainstream Republicans are against gay marriage, too.
Look - this was a magnificent outcome. But everyone’s throwing roses at his feet and grooming him for 2012. And if you really think he’s an authentic conservative, everyone here is going to be magnificently disappointed when he turns into a moderate and drags the GOP further away from its roots. I’m hoping he goes the other way, but he’s no Sarah Palin... yet.
...and somehow the hollywood and left coast types can’t find anything funny to ridicule about Obama.
“But everyone’s throwing roses at his feet and grooming him for 2012.”
I could not support him for POTUS and therefore I hope he is smart enough to NOT run.
I think the important thing to understand is that he is center-right on the rest of the issues facing us AND that a person of that persuasion that was also pro-life was simply not going to get elected in Massachusetts.
We need some incisive analysis of this situation by some expert like maybe Sam Tanenhaus (author of The Death of Conservatism) to explain this situation to us simple folks.
Good post........
You and I are on the same page.
I absolutely hate abortion.
But until everyone agrees that life begins at conception, the Constitutional approach is to let the individual sovereign states decide instead of relying on imagined penumbric emanations.
As I posted last night, Brown is the 41st vote against 0bummerCare.
I don’t care if he’s an axe murderer.
Good advice.
Good analysis.
The Brown upset likely has shown Obama as weakened to members of Congress, and will hopefully embolden them to embrace sanity.
One can dream.
Great article by VDH! Thanks for posting.
Obama has never been ‘tested’ in a real election where ideas are seriously debated. McCain barely layed a glove on him. Obama won the Illinois senate seat after the Republican exploded in a sex-scandal. Before that, his road to the state-senate seat in Illinois was cleared for him. Because of this, I don’t think Obama has developed any personal reality-checks by which he can test his political ideas.
Just look at the mis-steps:
1. Going to Europe to get the Olympics at the 11th hour without any apparent groundwork being laid. Result: failure. Embarrasing failure.
2. The Copenhagen Climate Summit. Result: No treaty because of insufficient groundwork being laid. Result: no treaty & a burgeoning anti-treaty Beijing/New Delhi Axis. Royal screw-up.
3. Going to Mass. to campaign for Coakley in an 11th hour attempt to “save Ted Kennedy’s seat from the infidel Republican”. Result: a 7-point loss for the Democrat candidate & the permanent loss of the fillibuster-proof senate majority.
There are other examples, but these are the glaring ones. Many more we won’t know about due to Media complicity with the Obama agenda.
Obama should join the cast of “Saturday Night’s” Not-Quite-Ready-For-Primetime-Players. The title fits.
Well said.
*sigh*
Brown's win is a HUGE prize for conservatism. If you can't acknowledge that, then you seriously need to wake up, FRiend.
Or... Continue to be a 100%-er and keep enabling Liberal incrementalism.
It's as good as his We the People. Ray gets it.
Abortion is not the only issue in the world.
As long as Brown does not push to increase abortion (by, for example, advocating public funding of abortion or mandating abortion training in MD programs), I'm not going to complain about him.
If he strongly pushes for reduced government spending and taxation, if he's for reducing government regulation strangling the economy, if he's for energy independence via nuke and coal, then I'll be happy with him.
I like that people are using that term “double down”. However, Obama, Pelosi and the other Rats are doubling down on Obamacare other idiotic ideas while they have five unmatched cards, and they know the other players are going to call their bluff.
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