Alan Simpson Says We Have "Rocks for Brains" [? Republican wing of the Republican Party]

National Republican Coalition for Life ^ | 6-20-03 | rnclife

[Iowegian]

Sorry, disregard my last response, I misread you.

[PaxMacian]

You were right on the 'human' part though. I usually write it that way.

[Nick Danger]

described pro-life Republicans as "steely-eyed zealots trying to inflict their personal views on others."

I think that has been a very effective argument for a long time, but I now think that Simpson is on the losing side of history.

I usually stay out of "abortion threads" because all the arguments have been heard a million times and none of them matters anyway. This has been a generation-long war of words among people whose positions are set in concrete.

What's new here is — I think — a change among people who, until now, have been non-combatants in this war. They don't really know which side they support. They see merit in the arguments of both sides. Since they are mostly apolitical anyway, they don't have a lot of energy on it one way or the other... so they ignore it. Whether a candidate is for or against abortion is not a decision-flipper for them.

I see that changing, but for reasons that have less to do with abortion per se than a general unease about where this culture is headed. The notion that women have become a force for death is not one that goes down easily in the West; it's creepy to us that we see mothers killing their children and leaving babies in dumpsters. The Hindus have a goddess, Kali, who represents death and destruction... but that is not a theme we in the West are comfortable with. There is probably no bullet-proof logical argument that associates the presence of abortion in a culture with women sending their children into the lake to drown, or strangling them in the bathtub, but the right hemisphere of the brain has no trouble seeing the connection: devalue life, and you will get death. Teach enough women that children are theirs to kill, and some of them will do it.

I think this scares people on some gut level, and the concern trumps all forms of argument. What Simpson said above about "personal views" might be true, but this would not be the first time this society has stomped on some people's personal views to prevent some larger horror. Somewhere out there are people whose personal views include the practice of human sacrifice. Abortion is starting to look more and more like what would happen if we let the human sacrifice folks practice in public... which we don't.

When life begins, where a woman's privacy rights lie... all of that matters less to people than a general sense that their culture is healthy and stands for good things. Babies in dumpsters are neither a sign of cultural health, nor a Good Thing. Just thinking about a mother holding her own child's head underwater until it drowns startles us almost into nausea... it is that foreign to what we think we stand for as a people. There's just too much of it now to write it off as a level of deviancy that is inevitable in any collection of 300 million people. No, something very creepy is loose in our culture.

I think Alan Simpson will be picking up his beach chair and running for higher ground before too long; this is a tide that is going to keep coming.

[gatex]

He also supports gun control -- he appears to be the complete liberal.

He was on a gun control program with Tom Brokow and one of the things he said was "No one needs a magazine as long as my leg, -- and I have long legs."

[MHGinTN]

I would have thought the paradox of conceiving a new individual human being juxtaposed with the unnatural court appointed right to kill such newly conceived individual human beings would have settled in to the American psyche by now (after thirty plus years!), but it appears the tide of dehumanization has afforded the hellish choices plenty of room to built upon specious reasoning. Liberty trumps LIFE ... or should that be libertine trumps LIFE? Well, the next phase is the unfettered exploitation of individual human beings at their earliest age, even going so far as to conceive copies for harvesting demanded tissues and perhaps organs. 'Slouching to Gomorrah' comes to mind.

[Twinkie]

I'm sure Simpson is probably not reading this, but the
"right" to choose to murder is actually as rock headed a
theory as anything I've ever heard. Killing babies is
the true injustice of our day and many people are as blind
to it as they were to other REAL injustices of their day.

[rhinohunter]

Yes, I am personally opposed to dumping toxic waste in the city park. However, WHO AM I to impose my version of morality on anyone else? That's why I believe we need to stop legislating toxic waste disposal. Let's leave this deeply personal issue to our individual conscience.

[rhinohunter]

A former U.S. Senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson

[ex-snook]

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughtful comments.

[ex-snook]

Your picture is worth a thousand words! Hey let's make that many thousands. Second your Toomey support.

[tlb]

I recall when not enough good words could be said here complimenting Senator Simpson as he told the world about Al Gore selling his vote on Gulf War 1 for a few minuters of TV time. The RINO tag is tossed around too freely sometimes.

[Tall_Texan]

Simpson was one of the media's favorite Republicans because, once he tossed out a few corny phrases, he typically would not hold fast with the conservative line. He was their John McCain before the "enlightened" John McCain emerged.

He has "Orrin Hatch Disaease" - he talks a good game at first but ultimately withers and caves. Frankly, there are few Republicans left in the Senate that aren't RINOs. The real conservatives have all moved on. What's left are the Squishies - witness their impotence despite being in the majority.

[ex-snook]

"Senator Simpson as he told the world about Al Gore selling his vote on Gulf War 1 for a few minuters of TV time."

Seems like Simpson also has his price for TV time. I'm sure whatever Gore did it is dwarfed by Simpson.