‘Shut Up, or Else’ Works – Until it Doesn’t

Townhall.com ^ | May 9, 2022 | Will Alexander

[Kaslin]

It’s no shock these days that when liberals and leftists don’t get their way, they ignore facts, shrug off civilized debate, and revel like spoiled children in hyperbole, intimidation, threats of violence, and actual violence. Given how dangerous this stuff is, they’ve ignored history, too.

“Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized,” wrote journalist Walter Lippman in The Public Philosophy (1955). “They are only precariously civilized, and with us there is the propensity, persistence as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures.”

Democrats have butchered that lesson, today. The abortion kerfuffle is just the latest example. But as much as they scream about protecting America’s marginalized groups; their “shut up, or else” tactics are the same ones that pro-slavery Democrats used for decades before the Civil War: Threaten the anti-slavery side with violence so they keep quiet.

Many did, especially politicians, because pro-slavers were dead serious about using votes and violence to protect their right to own men as property. So, even in the early 1800s, no matter how deep the anti-slavery sentiment was, the sentiment that hung heaviest in the air was “shut up, or else.”

That was until Representative James Tallmadge broke his silence in 1819 by proposing that Missouri – next in line to join the Union – be “born free.” The response he got was like what you’d expect today if someone proposed, say, overturning Roe v. Wade.

On the most extreme right (I’m using “extreme” in the pure sense of the word, not as a leftist would to tarnish the right), all abortion from conception on is murder, and murderers and those who aid and abed them should be tried and punished the exact same as if they had purposefully shot someone in the street. On the extreme left, abortion-on-demand from conception all the way to birth - and in some cases even after - should be legal and performed without question in every circumstance. To both sides, ironically enough, a fully developed 9-month-old baby who happens to be inside the womb about to be born exists on exactly the same moral plane as a 2-day-old zygote.

To most Americans, however, the issue is much more nuanced. Sadly, there’s no denying that these extremes use the margins to demagogue the issue. Less than 2.5% of abortions are due to rape, incest, or to save the mother's life, and yet those situations are magnified by the left as if they represent a majority of abortions. On the other side, less than 1.5% of abortions occur during the third trimester, and the overwhelming majority - more than 85% - occur in the first, and yet third trimester and partial-birth abortions, as gruesome and morally reprehensible as those are, are magnified by the right as if they are far more commonplace.

While the vast majority of Americans in polling believe abortions should be allowed in cases of rape, incest, and medical necessity (assuming for the sake of argument that those actually exist), a telling majority also don’t believe abortions past 20 weeks should be allowed. Bottom line: The further along a pregnancy goes, the more uncomfortable people tend to be with legally terminating that pregnancy.

Yes, abortion is murder and yes, life should be protected by law. However, there is wide disagreement on when exactly, from conception to birth, that life begins. There is also understandable discomfort with the kind of police state it would take to actually enforce laws against abortion from conception onward. If laws don’t make sense to most people, they won’t ultimately be followed and they won’t last.

For far too many, it seems there’s no room for the nuance that should be allowed here. Most on the right argue that life begins at conception. Others believe it doesn’t actually begin until blood flows through the fetus’ circulatory system, at around seven weeks, and they have an interesting point. If ‘life’ begins at conception, why can a zygote or an embryo be frozen indefinitely? In 2020, an embryo that had been frozen for 27 years resulted in a healthy baby girl, again pushing the limits on what science thought possible for cryopreservation. Currently, there are more than a million embryos frozen in the United States alone, some of them decades old. What if they last 100 years? From the Christian perspective, do these embryos possess souls that exist in heaven if they are destroyed, or are they just *potential* life? Does dropping a test tube filled with them make the dropper a mass murderer? These are just a few of the many questions people have on the issue, and not all who have such questions are baby-killing psychos.

Regardless of where you and I stand on the issue, whether you think abortion is murder or a macabre form of birth control, whether you think taking the Morning After Pill after a rape is on the same moral plane as a partial-birth abortion, the post-Roe task will be to appeal to the people and get something passed legislatively. Sadly, however, what we will see in the wake of Roe will be extremes from both sides continuing to drive the issue.

In many states, the 15 weeks that originally got Mississippi in legal hot water will seem like the epitome of moderation. In Louisiana, abortion from conception onward will be classified as a homicide, and mothers could likely be prosecuted right along with any physicians who assist. On the other hand, in California, abortion will be enshrined in the state’s constitution as a fundamental right up to the point of birth and perhaps even beyond.

Going forward, conservatives will continue to rightly and righteously point to fully-formed dead babies in California trash cans while leftists will make a national martyr out of the first teenager to be charged with a felony for taking the Morning After Pill after a rape in Louisiana. Instead of settling down, the division will only continue to grow.

I’m glad Roe looks like it's going down. I want to see as many babies saved as possible, and it’s certain that this will result in that. However, I would also like to see laws passed with nuance, compassion, and understanding that protect life while at the same time having the capacity to maintain the support of enough Americans to make it politically impossible to ever go back to the leftist extreme of the past 50 years again. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen for a long while.

[Organic Panic]

The most disgusting thing about the democrats’ position is the glee and pride they take in abortion. They love it. What kind of group would take pride in “shout your abortion” and openly brag about it. And they love the power of forcing people who find it reprehensible to pay for it through tax dollars.

[GaltAdonis]

Bears Repeating -

“Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been
civilized,” wrote journalist Walter Lippman in The Public
Philosophy (1955). “They are only precariously civilized,
and with us there is the propensity, persistence as the
force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under
neglect or temptation, to our first natures.”

[alexander_busek]

[...] and murderers and those who aid and abed abet them should be tried and punished [...]

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

If ‘life’ begins at conception, why can a zygote or an embryo be frozen indefinitely? In 2020, an embryo that had been frozen for 27 years resulted in a healthy baby girl, again pushing the limits on what science thought possible for cryopreservation. Currently, there are more than a million embryos frozen in the United States alone, some of them decades old. What if they last 100 years?

By allowing for such excesses (creating thousands of times as many embryos as are actually "needed" and freezing them in "doomsday" vaults for indefinite periods of time), our society has aided and abetted such morally ambiguous and even tortuous circumstances to arise.

Regards,

[JesusIsLord]

However, there is wide disagreement on when exactly, from conception to birth, that life begins.

It's interesting that your article references slavery. The treatment of unborn children has some parallel to the political mindset that came up with the Three-fifths Compromise. This was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the counting of slaves in determining a state's total population. This count would determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives and how much each state would pay in taxes. The compromise counted each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives.

If Mary, the mother of God and the Jews that surrounded her were liberals, Jesus would have been aborted. We know that scientifically, the fetus or zygote if you will, contains the same number of chromosomes as you and I, i.e., he or she is human.

The Lord through scripture offers us His view of unborn children:

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.

Psalm 139:13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

Job 31:15 Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?

Isaiah 49:5 And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—

Isaiah 44:2 Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.

Isaiah 44:24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,

Psalm 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Galatians 1:15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,

Luke 1:41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,

Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

[Elsie]

What kind of group would take pride in “shout your abortion” and openly brag about it. And they love the power of forcing people who find it reprehensible to pay for it through tax dollars.

This similar one...

---

Psalms 12:8 The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.

Isaiah 3:9 The look on their faces testifies against them;

they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.

Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.

================================================

2 Peter 2:13b Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight.

They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.

================================================

Ezekiel 16:49-50  "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

 Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

 

---

 

We are living in a Genesis 19:9 world...

 

"Get out of our way,” they replied.
“This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge!
We’ll treat you worse than them.”
They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

 

 

---

---

What kind of a people are we;

that we allow men dressed in womens clothes

to pervert the minds of little children?

---

 

Psalms 12:8 The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.

Isaiah 3:9 The look on their faces testifies against them;

they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.

Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.

================================================

2 Peter 2:13b Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight.

They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.

================================================

Ezekiel 16:49-50  "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

They were haughty and did detestable things before me.

 Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

 

---

 

What kind of a people are we;

that we allow men dressed in womens clothes

to pervert the minds of little children?

---

 

[Elsie]

[alexander_busek]

The most disgusting thing about the democrats’ position is the glee and pride they take in abortion. They love it. What kind of group would take pride in “shout your abortion” and openly brag about it. And they love the power of forcing people who find it reprehensible to pay for it through tax dollars.

May I kindly suggest to you that you not dwell on your disgust, or that you at least attempt to suppress any open expression of it. It can sometimes lead to moral posturing.

Not that I wish to insinuate that you, personally, might be susceptible to that.

Rather, we conservatives should ask ourselves: What convoluted emotional responses motivate someone to "proclaim" and "celebrate" something like abortion? What tortured inner logic is at play here?

After all, we don't publicly announce having our hemorrhoids removed. We don't urge others to post accounts of having their gall bladders removed. We don't shout to the heavens the fact that we are reliant upon stool softeners.

The answer, of course, is shame. Not the mild embarrassment we would suffer if mentioning to a friend that we couldn't go horseback riding for a couple of weeks because we recently had, say, an anal cyst removed. Not the considerate discretion that we would exercise when not trumpeting to the world that the erectile dysfunction was only temporary... No, it's profound shame on their part that paradoxically compels them to pretend that it's something that they are proud of.

Regards,

[Elsie]

...our society has aided and abetted such morally ambiguous and even tortuous circumstances to arise.

It seems that it has...

[higgmeister]

I caught it too.

As Boon said to Otter, "Forget it, he's rolling."

[GaltAdonis]

True.

But a solution to that problem has been provided.

[yawningotter]

Abortion is a rite, not a right.

[MayflowerMadam]

“...aid and abed...”

“Abed”?

[higgmeister]

I caught it too.

As Boon said to Otter, "Forget it, he's rolling."

[null and void]

Sadly, it’s too long for a tagline...

[jimfr]

It appears most people twist and don’t understand that the concept of a slave being 2/3 rds of a person. It was the equivalency of a person. They were not persons; they were property in the southerners eyes.
The proabortionists also do not say the unborn as a person while the prolife see the unborn as a person.

[bert]

Then as now, the Loyalist population of Massachusetts followed the lead of England

[Gaffer]

Shut up, or else..... The left’s version? Twitter, YouTube, Facebook et al....

[drSteve78]

Scarlet Letter shame. Interesting