Posted on 11/13/2004 6:05:41 AM PST by cpforlife.org
PRO-LIFE WARNING TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
We believe that abortion is infanticide, and that a holocaust of infants is taking place. We do not believe that there is any other issue on Earth that compares with abortion in moral import. And therefore, there is no policy or combination of policies you Republicans can offer, including perfect tax policies, tort reform, and every other thing that is near and dear to Republican hearts, that matters a damn if abortion is overlooked and allowed to slide by.
We know that this issue has to be settled in the Supreme Court, nowhere else. And we know that the opportunity to put new justices on the court comes once in a decade, maybe, and that the current opportunity to alter the complexion of the court is not going to come again for a generation. Therefore, the real possibility exists that abortion can finally be seriously curtailed, soon, by the Supreme Court changing Roe v. Wade or eliminating it...IF, and ONLY IF, we can get pro-life judges on that court.
To do that, we have trusted the Republicans for years. We just came out and voted for you again this time, in unprecedented numbers, because we are not stupid and we know what is at stake. Not just evangelicals either. The religious CATHOLIC vote went Republican in 2004, and they didn't do it because of trade policy or even gay marriage. Their issue is abortion.
And the overriding issue is abortion.
So, if the Republicans allow Senator Specter to get the Chair of the Judiciary Committee and he blocks pro-life nominees, or if the Republicans do not use the nuclear option to override Democrat filibusters of pro-life nominees, THIS TIME there is no place for Republicans to hide. WE KNOW that you have the power, now, because WE just voted to give it to you. We understand that you can block Specter. And we understand the nuclear option.
And therefore, we most certainly will understand that if you allow the pro-life judges to be blocked, that it will be your political CHOICE to have done so. You CAN put pro-life judges on the bench, if you expend a lot of political capital. This will offend some people - a lot of people. And that is the price you HAVE to pay to get our votes next time. You have to be willing to bet the whole house to end infanticide.
If not, we will not vote for you. We won't go running to vote for the Democrats: they're pro-abortion. We won't go out and form a third party: we're not stupid and know that won't work. We'll just stay home, just like we did in 2000. Except that in 2000 it was out of frustration and neglect, and the lack of belief that anything will change. There was no organized campaign to keep the pro-life vote home in 2000.
This time, it's different. We understand the system, and we know that you have the power. And we demand that you use the power straight down the line to fill the high court and the appellate courts with judges who will protect the lives of babies. Period. This is not negotiable. At all. This is why we voted for you. You have nothing with which to bargain with us, and if you screw us, we will stay organized and we will stay home purposely to destroy the Republican party. Because if you do not protect the babies when you have the power to do it, you are no better than the Democrats...and worse, you will have lied to us.
This means, in effect, that all of those things YOU care most about: taxation, immigration, trade and business policy, deregulation - all of those core issues that come as an economic package, are held hostage to our issue: babies. If you will not protect the babies, we will stay home and let the Democrats destroy everything that YOU believe in.
This is called "Chicken". It is called a "Mexican Standoff". And since we are fired up by the certitude that we are doing God's work in defending babies, we cannot be bought, and you cannot win so much as an election for dog catcher in this country without us.
Therefore, the solution is simple and obvious: give us what we voted for you to do. Give us pro-life judges. Use all of your power to do it. Sweep Specter out of the way: is he worth losing all the rest of your agenda? - because we really will stay home and throw the country to the Democrats if you're no better than they are on abortion, just to punish YOU for having betrayed us. When the filibusters come, and they will come, use the nuclear option to override them. That will poison the Senate, yes. So what? We are talking about babies here. And with our votes, militantly mobilized because we are winning, alongside of yours, in 2006 and 2008 and beyond, even if the Senate is poisoned, you will be able to replace it with a more Republican one.
That there is even a debate going on as to what to do with Specter is alarming, but we have had our hearts broken before, so we'll sit and pray and trust President Bush and Senator Frist and the Republicans to do the right thing.
Screw us, though, and we will turn on you and your whole agenda will go down the drain with the blood of the babies you wouldn't put your power on the line to save.
The easy solution, the win-win solution, is to BE as pro-life as you campaigned as being. Just do it.
I apologize for the length of this post. But it needed to be said. The Republicans do not seem to get it. They need to understand that we are more committed to saving babies than we are to the fortunes of the Republican Party. That Specter is still in play demonstrates that too many of them do not take this seriously.
Rather than test us, what you guys should do is simply cave, now, and give us what we want. Do that, and you wont hear from us again - there will be no creeping theocracy in America - because this is about the only religious issue that Catholics and Orthodox and Evangelicals AGREE on.
Oh I agree. When trying to communicate with people we don't know, we ought to speak so that we cannot be misunderstood. How you misunderstood the question I asked is beyond me, but you did. Therefore, the failure to make my question as simple as it needed to be for you is mine. I overestimated your abilities. Mea Culpa.
Dear Cold Heat,
"Bush will protect life to the limits that he has. He cannot and did not advocate overturning Roe."
Under Roe, the unborn can be afforded no protection in law at all. Thus, if President Bush meant to protect the unborn in law, but with Roe in effect, his words would be meaningless, even contradictory, and he would be a liar.
But, I don't believe that President Bush is a liar.
He has clearly signaled that he believes Roe was not the work of "strict constructionists," and has said that he favors "strict constructionists" for the court.
"Roe protections exist because of public demands for it."
No, that is counter-factual.
Roe exists because seven jackasses on the Supreme Court, in 1973, demanded it.
At the time, abortion was illegal in the vast majority of states, and the pro-abortion legislative movement had already pretty much peaked. Thus, in terms of actual political processes using democratic means through state legislatures, a substantial minority of folks had managed to significantly loosen laws regarding abortion in a minority of states, even getting nearly to abortion on demand in a few states.
And they'd lost their momentum to take it further. Thus their turn to the courts.
Even today, Cold Heat, if Roe were overturned, abortion would be mostly illegal throughout pregnancy in most of the states, as pre-Roe laws would again have effect, and post-Roe laws written to take effect once Roe was overturned, would take effect for the first time.
And in 40 states, late-term abortions would be significantly restricted.
As for changing social mores, it is important to change the law to reinforce those changes. The law, whether we like it or not, is a teacher. I can't add up all the people who have told me abortion should be legal because... it's legal. Ack!
I can't add up all the people that have told me, well, if it were illegal, then it should be illegal. I don't know what to make of that sort of reasoning, but there it is.
Changing the law will help to change hearts and minds.
As well, it is required of a just society to protect the lives of innocents in law.
sitetest
When I start calling people "butchers" and saying they are covered with blood because they disagree with me on tactics - not on the end game, but on tactics - get back with me on that.
Source: GOP Debate on the Larry King Show Feb 15, 2000
Again, I can't disagree. I'm just not sure it's the most important thing. Maybe I'm seeing the entire issue as a three-legged stool sort of thing.
If GWB has the opportunity to change those "limits" with SC appointments and fails to, then Republicans are dead meat for a generation.
What's the MOST that would be expected if strict interpreters were nominated? The issue would go back to the state LEGISLATORS. That would simply level the playing field for pro-lifers and pro-deathers.
"...saying they are covered with blood because they disagree with me on tactics..."
Where was that done? If you are referring to my post, you grossly misrepresent what I said.
EV, anyone who didn't agree 100% with you was "reiterating Obama/media talking points". Unfortunately, those who said Keyes was campaigning badly were proven correct, and I don't think too many people were overjoyed about losing that Senate seat so badly.
Has it ever occured to you that you might not hold the "keyes" to all political knowledge & wisdom, and that in fact you might be wrong from time to time?
It amazes me that such a group can lead so many naive Illinois Republicans astray, and then turn right around and blame those they had just sabotaged.
Yes, most Illinois Republicans are stupid or misguided, unable to see the truth and light, and you and your cronies are right...*rolling eyes*
"Maybe I'm seeing the entire issue as a three-legged stool sort of thing."
You are correct.
The fact is that our culture and our laws are out of sync. Primarily because our 'law' was imposed by fiat, not by the normal process. Technology has let us all see that they are BABIES not lumps of tumorous tissue. Our demographic changes (includsing Catholic inmigration and the aging of the hedonists of the WWII/divorce at will generation) and 30 years of killing off of the children of the left all combine to craft this moment in time. It is the LAW leg of the tripod that is out of synch, it is time to fix that.
Dear Amelia,
I'm fine with the three-legged stool analogy. Certainly law is just one leg.
But a stool with two legs only doesn't work very well.
Protecting the unborn in law is vital.
Roe must go.
sitetest
I can give you quotes where Bush has said the platform is not what he believes.
My opinion of the so called platform is the same.
I do not pay the slightest attention to it. It is bogus and a political piece of crap. As is the Democrat platform.
You cannot use it as a lever. You have tried before and failed every time.
That is why I believe these planks should be removed.
About half of the party is either pro-choice or neutral on this issue, perhaps much more in the neutral category.
If you were to garner enough support for your side on this issue, you would only succeed in fragging the party and losing the entire issue.
Allow this to proceed as it has. Changes are coming gradually and are documented and real.
If you get aggressive again, the exact opposite effect will occur AGAIN!
Learn from the history of this topic. Realize that you cannot force changes like this. If you continue to pursue this aggressive posturing, you will lose. You will also put the issue back twenty years and eliminate all the progress made thusfar.
I can guarantee it.
"What a bunch of nutjobs."
Well said. The comments on this thread by the zealots offer ample proof of this.
Having read the WHOLE thing, the obsession with which this small minority (and it appears as only a half-dozen or so continuous posters) approaches the issue seems to crowd out all logic, all sense, all proportion. One wonders just how such obsessive singlemindedness was created in their minds, and what sustains it.
We are told that the vast majority of Americans do not favor legalized abortion; yet, it exists, and no amendment to the contrary has even a ghost of a chance of passage.
We are told, piously, that because of abortion, our nation might deserve to be conquered by Islamist barbarians.
We are told repeatedly of "millions" of "butchered babies", and some are accused of aiding that "butchery" by simply holding a differing opinion on the subject; an example of attempted thought control with hyperbole beyond equal.
We are told that ANY divergence from the most extreme, far-out position is to be the same as a "mass murderer" or (laugh) "serial killer".
We are told that Alan Keyes' loss in Illinois was NOT his own fault, it was OURS.
We are told that viewing this or that website, or reading this or that pamphlet, or book, will change our minds completely...yet, abortion is still legal.
We are assured that women who have abortions MUST enjoy it(!).
We are presented with arguments which actually support, in principle, those who murder abortion providers, blow up clinics, and generally behave in as depraved a manner as is attributed to their victims.
We are assured that, JUST THIS ONCE, a "litmus test" and an "activist judge" who "rewrites laws" would be "A-OK!".
One of the many reasons I am not "prolife" as is commonly defined here is the abysmal conduct and frankly insane behavior of the more extreme factions of that movement. They put the fiery sword to all the decent, caring people who honestly work for change of hearts and minds.
This ridiculous "demand" should further help to marginalize them. As do all their "efforts".
"About half of the party is either pro-choice or neutral on this issue, perhaps much more in the neutral category."
Nonsense. Either GW and the GOP keeps their word or they don't. If They do, the GOP will continue to govern. If he fails ("Read My Lips"), they will be a minority party again.
Again, thanks for illustrating my point.
Well said.
What you said.
With this one single statement, you have exposed your true feelings.
You want judges who legislate from the bench to "teach".
Therefore, you are essentially saying the same things the liberals offer, but on the other side of the issue.
Both are just as incorrect and dangerous to the republic.
Both are massaging the constitution to affect social changes.
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