56 posted on 10/16/2004 12:00:10 PM PDT by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
George Bush's Pennsylvania Treason
I have often asserted that, for the pro-life movement, the only practical distinction between the Democrat and Republican parties is that one is an enemy who will stab us in the chest and the other is a friend who will stab us in the back.
Tuesday's Republican primary in Pennsylvania proved my point. Hard-core abortion enthusiast Republican Arlen Specter was being challenged by pro-lifer Pat Toomey for the U.S. Senate. As the incumbent, Specter was predicted to win easily. But as Election Day approached, the polls clearly showed that Toomey was closing in fast and had a legitimate shot to pull off an upset.
That's when the GOP's power brokers pulled out the heavy guns. President George W. Bush personally rushed to Pennsylvania and implored Republicans to get behind the candidacy of ... Arlen Specter. Equally amazing, Pennsylvania's other senator, Rick Santorum, also chose to walk away from his long-espoused pro-life principles. He joined Bush on the campaign trail and urged voters to defeat the pro-life challenger. Should committed Pro-Lifers vote for Petrouka in order to help Kerry win, or to send some ineffective signal to the GOP, or to comfort their consciences--knowing that if Kerry wins, the Cause will be much worse off than if Bush is re-elected, if not completely lost with Kerry.
This view is widely proclaimed by the majority of protestant and Catholic leaders who refuse to hold government accountable to the U.S. Constitution. Pro-life isn't any more a priority for Bush than it is for Kerry. It is impossible to overstate that the fundamental purpose of government is to protect innocent human life, and that Roe v Wade is an unlawful, unconstitional opinion, not a Law that Congress passed and the President signed!
This is the direction of the Republican Party, if Christian conservatives continue to vote Republican, right or wrong.
GOP should terminate the Christian right=The Hill.com= October 22, 2003
It is about time that the Republican Party realizes that the Christian right is doing to it exactly what the radical black Rainbow Coalition of Jesse Jackson did to the Democratic Party in the ’80s — making them unelectable. Their embrace is the kiss of death. It is not that the religious right is wrong. Right or wrong, it gets in the way of so much good that the Republican Party could achieve if it were not in the Christian right’s grasp.
Will the Republican Party escape from the embrace of the pro-lifers so that it can nominate candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?
ABANDONMENT OF GOP CONSERVATIVES... MAY COST BUSH THE ELECTION taking Dick Morris's advice:
But in a repeat of the 2000 GOP National Convention in which the President’s theme was his pledge to form a new Republican Party that was more liberal and "inclusive" in outlook, Convention planners have stacked the convention with a lineup of what Phyllis Schlafly, the leader of the pro-life Eagle Forum, called "aggressively pro-abortion speakers." Among these are liberal GOP ideologues such as former NY Mayor Rudy Guliani, Republican National Committee Finance Director Lewis M. Eisenberg CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, NY Governor George Pataki and ultraliberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has openly supported the right of anti-Bush protesters to attempt to disrupt the GOP convention and embarrass the President.
So, we have come to demand that America’s leaders make good on this guarantee. We have come to demand that President Bush act immediately, together with the leaders of the House and Senate, to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the subject of Abortion, and to change the law to protect America’s unborn children.
They have the right to do this, under the Constitution of the United States.
"....Hope once lay in the making of new appointments, but the failure of ten consecutive appointments by four Republican Presidents to change the direction established by the Warren Court has shown this hope, too, to be unreliable. Rule by judges can certainly be solved by abolishing judicial review, but the real problem resides less in judicial review as such than in the Court's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment as a text without any definite meaning. That problem could be solved either by returning the Fourteenth Amendment to its original meaning or by giving it any definite meaning, thus making it a judicially enforceable rule." http://committeeforjustice.org/contents/news/news100103_commenta ry.shtml#graglia
Your one vote has the same power to affect the results whether you vote for a major or minor candidate, but a vote for the candidate you respect and agree with gives you the expectation of a better outcome. If you are like me and do take the time and effort to vote, you should put your X beside the candidate you think will be the best president, not the one most likely to beat the guy you dislike. The myth of the wasted third-party vote is just that – a myth. If there is a wasted vote, it is the one cast futilely against the candidate you dislike in an attempt to swing the national election.
To Vote, Or Not To Vote by Linda Schrock Taylor
The Sons of Liberty list four options:
1) Continue to vote for the Republican Party candidates. Maybe we won't end up with a Democrat – or maybe we will. Either way, the Republican Party learns once again that they have the conservative vote no matter what they do.
4) Vote for a third-party candidate.
The pamphlet points out that Option 1 has already been discussed and points out that a vote for the Republicans will assure a drive off the same cliff, but at a speed within the posted limit. They believe that Option 2 should be dismissed as not lending itself to rational discussion. Regarding the last two options, they have this to say,
Option 3 is based on the assumption that anyone would notice that people were not voting. It is also based on the assumption that the parties would know why people were not voting. Not voting at all simply means that the political strategists ignore you. Being ignored is not our intent.
Option 4 is what we believe to be the best choice at this point. The objective is to show that there are votes available that the Republican Party will not get until they change their ways. The objective is not to find and support a third party candidate who can win an election. For the foreseeable future, that just is not going to happen. Instead, the objective is to demonstrate to the Republican Party that voters will leave the party if they are not represented by that party. The working assumption by the Republican Party has always been that conservatives have nowhere else to turn, and that they are pragmatic enough to not "waste their vote" by voting for a third party. Our objective is to show that assumption to be false.
Again, the point of this option is not to find a third party with any chance of winning, but that the voters "take a long range view and sacrifice in the short term if needed. We are working for future generations, not for ourselves."
The Sons of Liberty end with, "The only important point in making your decision is that your vote must be clearly seen as one that the Republicans should have gotten. Choose your party/candidate wisely." They list conservative political parties: Libertarian Party; Constitution Party; America First Party; and the Southern Party.
Hmmm…"your vote must be clearly seen as one that the Republicans should have gotten." Yes, I think that it is time that we, in the words of Murray Rothbard, "ride herd" on any candidate, and the party as a whole, for "waffling" and for betraying America. We voters have been taken for granted – for far too long. We have gone with our interests misrepresented or un-represented, since that long ago era when the various political parties "were dominated by a firm ideology to which it was strongly committed." When political parties again truly and honorably represent the real wishes of the people, then and only then, should we again loyally support one particular party.
So, I will vote in the next election, but the Republicans have definitely lost my support. I will go to the polls and cast my votes for candidates from one or more of the four conservative groups listed. I will be sure to inform every Republican fundraiser of my decision, asking that they convey my message accurately to their supervisors. Why, I will even send each Republican caller a copy of my Letter to Ken Mehlman, should they profess an interest. Yes, I am relieved to finally have a voting strategy! Lets look at recent history:
Ronald Reagan, as governor signed the most permissive abortion laws in the nation at the time. Should a Christian have trusted him with their vote? Did he do everything he possibly could in defense of life in his first term to deserve a Pro-Life Christians’ vote for reelection?
Chapter 1 -- Sandra Day O'Connor
The official nomination sparked a noisy public debate. Most of Reagan's deeply conservative supporters opposed O'Connor; her record, said right-wing Republicans, showed an alarmingly liberal tinge. And because she had taken a moderate view of abortion when she served as an Arizona state legislator, antiabortion activists vowed to fight her confirmation. "We feel we've been betrayed," asserted a spokesman for the Life Amendment Political Action Committee. The Reverend Jerry Falwell, leader of the fundamentalist Moral Majority, said all "good Christians" should think twice about Sandra Day O'Connor.
Kerry will secure the Roe position on the SCOTUS for 20 - 30 years.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."'
"That sentence is constitutional law, written by three sitting Justices, two appointed by President Ronald Reagan, one appointed by President George H.W. Bush. And that sentence, from Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), has now evolved from the aberration it seemed when first uttered into an ingrained element of our jurisprudence, its bedrock authority invoked just this past term to buttress the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas.
....Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush appointees make up seven of the nine Justices on the Court...we have to thank this same Court for finding unconstitutional a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion, for approving racial preferences in a public-university law school, and for discovering in Lawrence v. Texas a constitutional right to sodomy.
The problem may reside in only two or three of those seven appointees. But the solution, clearly, does not rest only in electing Presidents or congressmen of one party as opposed to another. Altogether, such attempts to restrain the "imperial judiciary" have not fared well in the recent past and cannot be counted on to do better in the future." http://committeeforjustice.org/contents/news/news100103_commentary.shtml#BENNETT
MichNews.com: Should Catholics Vote For 'Dubya'?
But Janet M. Thompson of the Fides Foundation (http://www.fidesfoundation.org/), also fed up with Catholics who vote for pro-abortion candidates, would not recommend that faithful Catholics vote for Bush. Why? Because Bush is not unconditionally pro-life; he allows for exceptions. And to not a few faithful Catholics, that's pro-abortion.
Writes Janet: "There is no explicit Magisterial teaching giving the moral 'green light' to the faithful to vote for pro-abortion candidates..The notion of 'choosing the lesser evil' is simply not valid - one may never licitly choose evil. As Pope Paul VI stated, 'Although it is true that it is at times lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it..'
"Appealing to 'proportional cause' to justify voting for pro-abortion candidates is erroneous; whatever good may have been gained from such a practice is far, far outweighed by the evil, not only the killing of the innocent, but the steady deterioration of the moral fabric of society - moral compromise does not build strength, it only spawns greater compromise.
"Given the above, the liceity of voting for pro-abortion candidates cannot be conclusively affirmed by the application of those principles so often appealed to; therefore, the only certain morally licit recourse is to the Fifth Commandment, 'You shall not kill.'"
So for whom will Janet vote in November? Certainly not John Kerry; and not George W. Bush, either.
Perhaps Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party. Asserts Peroutka on his website, http://www.peroutka2004.com/:
"I am 100% pro-life, all nine months, no exceptions. In fact, I am so pro-life, that if elected I promise that abortion will end my first day in office.
"As President, I would advocate a total ban on all abortions and a total ban on any federal funding of abortions, here or abroad.
"As President, I would do everything in my power to end the national disgrace of abortion, starting with a formal acknowledgment of the legal person-hood of every child from the moment of conception. I would appoint U.S. Attorneys - by recess appointment if necessary - who will enforce the Fifth Amendment requirement that no person be deprived of life without due process of law.
"It is, by the way, within the power of the President to end abortion tomorrow, as I would do my first day in office. Don't let alleged 'pro-life' Presidents tell you differently. The President has an obligation under Article IV, §4 to ensure to each member State that it will be republican in form of government. Any action that is not republican in form will be utterly resisted to the grave if necessary under a Peroutka Presidency. Abortion was made 'legal' (more correctly, the prosecution of abortion was made illegal) in these United States by judicial fiat, which is anti-republican in form and in violation of the Separation of Powers and Article I, §1 of the Constitution vesting all legislative power of the Federal Government in the Congress. In an American form of government, 'all laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.' Marbury v. Madison. Most certainly, anti-Constitutional court decisions are not binding.
"Thus, under my presidency, Roe v. Wade will not be enforced, and the member states of the Union could again open their criminal codes and begin the prosecution of the doctors and parents who would contract for the murder of an unborn child without fear of reprisal from the Chief Executive."
Sounds good to me.
Editor's Note: The views expressed by the author in this article do not necessarily reflect those of MichNews.com.
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Matt C. Abbott is the former executive director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee and the former director of public affairs for the Chicago-based Pro- Life Action League. He is also a contributor to Cruxnews.com, RenewAmerica.us, MichNews.com, IllinoisLeader.com, AmericanDaily.com, ChristianNewsToday.com, Catholiccitizens.org, "The Wanderer" Catholic newspaper, TCRNews2.com, Catholic.net, Catholic.org, and CatholicExchange.com. He can be reached at mailto:mattcabbott@CatholicExchan ge.com
After this damn election I hope we can find mutual Pro-Life topics to discuss.
And here’s one: It's not so much the fault of politics that our culture is in the rotten shape it's in. It's the fault of traitorous, as well as spineless Christian leaders who never properly educated their flocks—and parents their children—on the sanctity of life and the just role of government.
Askel, I finished The McHugh Chronicles. I think McHugh caused more damage to the Respect for life than any TWO politicians including Bush the 1st and Kissinger.
Would you agree?