Posted on 11/13/2004 6:05:41 AM PST by cpforlife.org
Evangelicals may not have turned out in bigger numbers for Republicans this year...
...but Catholics did. For the first time ever, actually, unless I'm mistaken.
And yeah, they were very much appealed to from a pro-life angle.
I'm not totally on the other side here, don't get me wrong. I am -very- pro-life, I don't think it's overheated to compare it to a Holocaust, etc. But I do recognize that there are other issues as well, and I don't think inter-party threats like in this thread serve a useful purpose.
That said, I'm just trying to inform you that attempting to claim that the pro-life vote "isn't needed" isn't accurate, either. There's constituencies we could afford to thoroughly piss off, but the pro-lifers aren't one of them.
Qwinn
NO..
Why must you all insist on attacking people whose opinions and tactics differ from yours?
If I don't agree with the slash and burn techniques that you propose, I'm nonchalant?
"I'm here discussing the WARNING from the PRO-LIFERS (as if you speak for all of us) to the GOP."
It is a simple warning, "keep your word". You seem to be arguing against that, although not with any clarity (or honesty, at least in the case of your false claims about me).
Now for your false claims about me (see 271), any retraction?
"Why must you all insist on attacking people whose opinions and tactics differ from yours?"
Pot. Kettle.
Aha, we make progress. WHEN is abortion NOT evil (in your mind and, if you have a theological or philosophical basis for your claim, can you cite them please)?
Pro-life bump!
Thanks for making my point for me.
"We'll just stay home, just like we did in 2000."
They almost put Gore in the White House and lost the pro-life movement all the conservative judges and advancements we've achieved for the last four years. And instead of hanging their heads in shame and learning from what their mistake almost cost us, they are bragging about it and promising to do it again.
Bump for later...
"(and you are obviously not my "ally")"
Really? What am I then? An "extremist"? A "nutjob"?
I thought she was agreeing with your post to Narses, but I could've been wrong.
LOL
Yeah, that's what Bob Dole and Bush 1 said...
You are correct about the Catholics, from what I have read; "droves" is how I've seen it described. :-)
But my point to the "do what I say or we'll leave" people is that the time is fast approaching when that will simply be an empty threat; this country moved solidly to the right, as Peggy Noonan said, on November 2nd.
And not all of them moved there because of the abortion issue.
My other problem, of course, is that the rabid pro-lifers demand that the GOP listen to them, all the while objecting to most other "groups" that may come into the "big tent."
And you will do exactly WHAT if things don't go your way?
There are many abortion deaths --- more than ever --- today. The abortionists are allowed to cover them up. How many uterine perforation deaths or DIC deaths or vaginal bleeding deaths are from abortions but that isn't listed on the death certificate. How many post-abortion sepsis are not listed as post abortion but just sepsis.
There is a difference between the past and now.
Several differences.
In the past, there was no clear Senate majority, House Majority, a Republican President, and an ill Supreme Court Chief Justice.
The last time a Republican President got to name a justice to the Supreme Court, it was the pro-choice David Souter.
More importantly, we just had an election.
And something very different happened in this election: the Catholic Church, all the way from its leaders in Rome, broke out abortion as an issue trumping other political issues, and essentially (if subtly) directed Catholics how to vote.
That never happened before.
I note that the Republicans during the election were pushing a lot harder. Many wanted the Church to make a public spectacle out of denying John Kerry communion because of his pro-choice stance.
Well, the election was a week ago now.
And on the day after election, the Republican who is slated to take over the Senate Judiciary Committee says that he's not going to permit judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Nothing like the pro-life, organized Catholic vote every turned out in any election like this time. And it was abortion that caused the Church to mobilize like that. And it was Catholic numbers, in particular, that clunked down on the scale alongside of the long-fighting Evangelicals on the issue, and provided the margin that carried Bush and the GOP over the top.
And then, THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION, Specter arises, and the Republican pro-life stance - the REASON millions turned out to vote the day before - is suddenly negotiable, suddenly in the balance with what? Senate seniority rules.
Some folks have characterized what I wrote as a threat. It is not that at all. It is a completely realistic assessment. The Catholics came out, for the first time in that magnitude, because their Church committed itself POLITICALLY in an American election. The Evangelicals came out. They voted pro-life because the Republican Party made pro-life promises. And ONE DAY LATER it's all negotiable again.
It ain't gonna fly.
What you hear here is agony. Real agony of people who committed themselves with belief to a party, and see that party already, a day after the election, ready to compromise on abortion because of a mild political bind.
I do not have the power to keep anybody from the polls.
I merely report the truth: if the Republicans do not fulfill their pro-life campaign promise, they are going to discourage millions of voters who trusted them.
Arlen Specter is symbolic of the struggle between Republican Politics As Usual, and the new voters who came out to put the Republicans over the top.
Republicans are OUT OF THEIR MINDS to think that they can start backpedaling on a key point THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION.
It's nuts.
Suppose Bush named Kerry as the new Defense Secretary? That would be the equivalent slap in the face.
Snap out of it, folks!
There's no need to get angry at each other. There's no reason to fight.
Send Arlen Specter to another job, and the issue will pass for now.
Approve the pro-life judges, and there will be no problem.
We're not fighting about this here because of what I wrote, but because of what a Republican Senator said. He caused this problem, not us. He needs to be moved aside.
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