Posted on 02/06/2007 10:43:27 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
“Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes,” Rudy Giuliani once said. “But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.”
Good point, Rudy.
Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mothers womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains?
What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as married couples, whether the resulting arrangements are candidly called “same-sex marriages,” or are semantically papered-over with terms such as “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships”?
Apply the Giuliani Continuum to fundamental issues such as marriage and the right to life, and where does it lead?
Not where conservatives want America to be.
Rudy Giuliani’s observation about the “continuum” running from graffiti to murder was quoted in a piece in the winter edition of City Journal by Steven Malanga. The title of Malanga’s piece neatly encapsulates his argument: “Yes, Rudy is a Conservative — and an electable one at that.”
I believe Malanga is wrong on both counts. Rudy is neither conservative, nor electable — at least, not as a Republican presidential candidate.
As Malanga seems to define it, a politician dedicated to good police work and free-market economics qualifies as a conservative. “Far from being a liberal,” Malanga writes of Giuliani, “he ran New York with a conservative’s priorities: government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, he said, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering. The private economy, not government, creates opportunity, he argued; government should just deliver basic services well and then get out of the private sector’s way.”
But that’s not enough. While advocating law and order, self-reliance, and capitalism is laudable, it does not entitle a politician to a free pass for advocating other causes that are deeply destructive of American society.
While it is always wrong to take an innocent human life — whether on a New York sidewalk or in a mother’s womb — Giuliani is highly selective in applying this principle. In 1999, when he was pondering a run for the U.S. Senate, he was asked whether he supported banning partial-birth abortion. “No, I have not supported that,” he said, “and I don’t see my position on that changing.”
“I'm pro-gay rights,” he also said. Indeed, his position is so radical in this area that as New York City mayor he promoted a city ordinance that removed the distinctions in municipal law between married and unmarried couples, regardless of their gender.
“What it really is doing is preventing discrimination against people who have different sexual orientations, or make different preferences in which they want to lead their lives,” Giuliani said, explaining the ordinance to the New York Times. “Domestic partnerships not only affect gays and lesbians, but they also affect heterosexuals who choose to lead their lives in different ways.”
In other words, preserving a legal order that prefers traditional marriage and traditional families is “discrimination.”
Giuliani’s positions on abortion and marriage disqualify him as a conservative because they annihilate the link between the natural law and man-made laws. Indeed, they use man-made law to promote and protect acts that violate the natural law.
Given his argument that there is a “continuum” between graffiti and murder, you would think that Giuliani would understand the importance of the link between the natural law and the laws of New York City, let alone the laws of the United States. At the heart of Rudy’s “continuum” argument, is the realization that when society refuses to enforce a just law it teaches people to disrespect the moral principles underlying just laws.
The late Russell Kirk argued in The Conservative Mind that the first canon of conservatism is “[b]elief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. … True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls.”
It is simply not justice to take the life of an unborn child. Nor is it justice to codify same-sex relationships so that, by design of the state itself, a child can be denied a mother or a father from birth, which is one thing legalized same-sex unions would do.
By advocating abortion on demand and same-sex unions, Rudy is doing something far more egregious than, say, defacing a New York subway train. He is defacing the institution that forms the foundation of human civilization.
That is not conservative.
Rudy will not win the Republican nomination because enough of the people who vote in Republican caucuses and primaries still respect life and marriage, and are not ready to give up on them — or on the Republican party as an agent for protecting them.
Excellent response!
So, is English not your first language, or are you just stupid?
There is absolutely nothing inconsistent about these two statements.
Terence P. Jeffrey is not the sharpest tack in the pundit box.
Exactly what I was thinking. I would like Newt to be the first name listed if possible. Given the alternative (Hitlery, Obama, Breck Girl) would take it the other way with Rudy first I suppose.
The thought of casting a vote in the GE for the third party or alternative party just baffles the dogsh!t out of me. Some of you people will only vote for a bible thumper and it is absurd.
---"I want Rudy to chief of homeland security in the Gingrich Administration. Let him do to terrorists what he did to criminals in NYC!"---
That would be unlikely, since he'd probably continue his policy of special protection for Muslims.
That doesn't put the PBA issue to rest. It's just sophistry, and almost the same as what the all-out pro-abortionists want. First, there is no documented condition in which PBA is needed to save the life of the mother. The medical community has said so. Second, it's a tiny step rhetorically from "life of the mother" ton "health of the mother," which is a loophole the left has proven you can drive a truck through. Health then includes "mental health," which is anything a leftist shrink says it is.
"In your dream, pal. No Republican can win without the conservative southern GOP vote. Facts is facts!"
And them is the facts! ;)
There you go again. Social security? Medicade or taxes? Immigration? Perhaps you meant the President has little impact on State issues?
You mean Tom McCilntock, the man who has now lost statewide races 3 times?
Regardless of what you think of Arnold, I'm very disappointed in him myself, people who said McClintock was hopeless have since been totally vindicated.
Yes, it is enough.
If you want social engineering, join the party that favors it. It starts with "D" and ends with "rat".
Thank you for your reply.
Yah, and southern conservatives are sure to vote for Obama or Hillary over Rudy because of this, right? /sarc
When did the desire and expectation and requirement for a Republican to be conservative become outrageous and downright offensive to lifelong Republican voters?And why?
"New York has a very large gay population. These people vote. Do you think its smart for a mayor to totally ignore shuch a big voting block? I don't."
You've raised an interesting point. Rudy's entire track record in elections is running for Mayor of NYC, which is among the most liberal places in the country, and a cinch to go Demon anyway. His politics is way out of line for even a moderate Republican (someone like a Bush or a Gerald Ford). Yet some people seem to think, purely on faith, that he can win a national election with his RINO stance.
Just forcing the police in NYC to start enforcing the law does not qualify someone to be POTUS.
I've asked the rudy supporters, but I don't know of any politician who has been elected president after the highest elected office they've held was mayor.
We've had military men with no experience, but has someone ever gone from mayor to president - and 6 years after they last served in public office?
Giuliani has also said that he does not want to impose a litmus test on nominees and is rabidly pro-abortion. Translation: he cannot be relied upon to appoint constructionist judges (who, by definition, would overturn Roe v. Wade). Even if abortion never comes to a knock-down, drag 'em out fight and there are no vacancies on the court (unlikely, but just as a hypothetical here) during a potential president Giuliani's term a pro-abortion president is still bad, because he will still have to deal with abortion issues such as state funding for abortion. Another problem is that it will become increasingly hard to get pro-life candidates on the ticket because the RNC will pick more pro-aborts. Why? They want to win the middle vote and if the pro-lifers will go along with them anyway, why not? The line has to be drawn in the sand now.
1. Opposing a ban on something that is already illegal is not the same thing as promoting that such a thing be legal.
2. In plain English, he said he didn't support a ban "at this time," clearly meaning he at least would be open to supporting such a thing should it become necessary.
If you are still confused, I recommend you buying a copy of this book:
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