Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

No deal, Rudy
Catholic Online ^ | 3/6/2007

Posted on 03/06/2007 5:39:37 PM PST by markomalley

They are saying that the next GOP presidential candidate might very well be a pro-abortion Republican who promises not to push that issue and is strong on other issues.

They hope that pro-lifers will “be reasonable,” not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and go along quietly.

We won’t.

Republicans and Democrats in 1980 took radically different approaches to the right to life. Republicans wrote into their party platform that all abortions should be outlawed. Democrats wrote into their party platform that not only should abortion be legal, but families should be forced to pay for others’ abortions through their taxes.

Democratic leaders have been utterly committed to their party platform. But there’s a movement afoot for Republicans to shrug off this plank of the party platform altogether, and give a pro-abortion politician the reins of the party and, they hope, the White House.

In particular, Rudy Giuliani has become a favorite for president of conservative talk-show hosts, and pro-war and tough-on-crime Republicans. He’s also way ahead in polls like Newsweek’s, though it’s anyone guess what such polls mean so early in the process.

The way the pro-Rudy argument goes is this: For the past three decades, social conservatives have had the luxury of insisting on purity in the Republican Party. Their clout was such that any candidate had to undergo a “forced conversion” before running for national office. But 9/11 changed that. Now, extremist Islam and the war on terror are such all-consuming issues, and we can’t be so caught up with abortion anymore.

Since Giuliani is committed to the war on terror and is a great crisis manager with a track record rooting out the gangs of New York, we shouldn’t demand that he be pro-life, but instead we should be willing to make a deal.

Rudy’s deal: He’ll promise not to push the pro-abortion agenda, and he’ll nominate judges in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Pro-lifers in the Republican Party in return would support him, but keep insisting that the party stay pro-life, and fight our fiercest pro-life battles at the state level, where they belong.

That seems like a good deal, at first blush. We’re well aware that “forced conversions” to the pro-life fold are far from the ideal. Think of the candidacy of Bob Dole in 1996. And it is true that the fight against judicial tyranny is an immense front in the battle for the right to life. Transforming the courts is a prerequisite to victory elsewhere.

But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.

When they ask us to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.

We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We’ve seen ultrasounds, we’ve named our babies in the womb, we’ve seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.

We also see the downside of Rudy’s deal. If pro-lifers went along, we’d soon find out that a pro-abortion Republican president would no longer preside over a pro-life party. The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.

Thus, the Republicans in the 1980s became Reaganites. The Democrats in the 1990s took on the pragmatic Clintonite mold. Bush’s GOP is no different, as Ross Douthat points out in “It’s His Party” in the March Atlantic Monthly.

A Republican Party led by a pro-abortion politician would become a pro-abortion party. Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.

Would a pro-abortion president give us a pro-life Supreme Court justice? Maybe he would in his first term. But we’ve seen in the Democratic Party how quickly and completely contempt for the right to life corrupts. Even if a President Giuliani did the right thing for a short time, it’s likely the party that accepted him would do the wrong thing for a long time.

Would his commitment to the war on terror be worth it? The United States has built the first abortion businesses in both Afghanistan and Iraq, ever. Shamefully, our taxes paid to build and operate a Baghdad abortion clinic that is said to get most of its customers because of the pervasive rape problem in that male-dominated society. And that happened under a pro-life president. What would a pro-abortion president do?

The bottom line: Republicans have made inroads into the Catholic vote for years because of the pro-life issue. If they put a pro-abortion politician up for president, the gains they’ve built for decades will vanish overnight.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abestgopcandidate; abortion; catholicforum; cino; guiliani; homosexualagenda; liberalgop; marksanford; messageboardpost; moralabsolutes; norudy; prolife; rino; rudy; tomtancredo
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 541-554 next last
To: Alberta's Child
"In fact, a look at the electoral map in any given presidential election will reveal that a state's likelihood to vote for a radical pro-abortion candidate is largely a function of its Catholic population."

Post of the day! This is right on the money! Also, just look at the prominent dim politicians that are Catholic. i.e. Kennedy's , Pelosi, etc. Their position on abortion hasn't seem to impact them and I certainly don't see any Catholic publications calling them out.....
81 posted on 03/06/2007 6:23:07 PM PST by martinidon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: BunnySlippers

82 posted on 03/06/2007 6:23:41 PM PST by flashbunny (<--- Free Anti-Rino graphics! See Rudy the Rino get exposed as a liberal with his own words!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
He really rose to the challenge on 9-11, but anyone that ever has an inkling they might run for president should never dress in drag. And it looked like he knew how to put in all on too!

He could get gov of NY though.
83 posted on 03/06/2007 6:25:03 PM PST by RunningWolf (2-1 Cav 1975)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nopardons

There has been plenty of actual debate on these pages of FreeRepublic. What are the lies that have you so troubled?


84 posted on 03/06/2007 6:25:22 PM PST by Siobhan (Pray, pray, pray,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: mylife
"I dont know why we fear her"

Because there could be some terrible accidents and Arkancides that befall other Democrat candidates prior to the primaries. That's why. LOL!

85 posted on 03/06/2007 6:25:53 PM PST by penowa (NO more Bushes; NO more Clintons EVER!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: StAnDeliver
It's ugly, and I don't like fighting with FRiends. I understand the desire to win, I understand the importance of the WOT. However I get the impression their own views are rather myopic in that they don't see the larger historical persective, how electing a man, however eloquent, however likeable, with Giuliani's character deficiences effectively sanctions the very worst of Western culture - the very things that make the WOT worth fighting in the first place.

I an shocked by what someone posted earlier (may have been you) about the U.S. building or helping to build Iraq and Afganistan's first abortion clinics. That is precisely the kind of thing we do not want to spread; it represents our dark side, something we need to be curtailing on our own soil, not sharing with the world. Is that, BTW, what others falsely equate to "women's rights" for Muslim women?

If our vision of the world is one where every country executes 1 out of every 5 children, we need to do some serious introspection and refactoring.

86 posted on 03/06/2007 6:26:37 PM PST by Lexinom (Duncan Hunter - the electable answer for the WOT and border security. www.gohunter08.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: penowa

I see that as a good thing L0L


87 posted on 03/06/2007 6:27:16 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 85 | View Replies]

To: Siobhan
Knowing a person's personal and public history is one thing.
I might know that John Doe cheated on his taxes one year.
I might know that John Doe saved a drowning man.
I might know many many things about them. But knowing what is in their soul is the ability of God alone.

If you don't like Rudy for his politics that's fine. But don't try to kick God off his throne so that Siobhan can sit there to pass judgment.
88 posted on 03/06/2007 6:27:22 PM PST by Artemis Webb (Be a REAL conservative. Stay home and pout so Hillary can win!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: Gop1040

Perhaps I can help you find some huge graphics.

Paging Operation Rescue...


89 posted on 03/06/2007 6:27:44 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (Public Employees: Honor Your Oaths! Defend the Constitution from Enemies--Foreign and Domestic!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; annalex; ...


90 posted on 03/06/2007 6:28:04 PM PST by Coleus (Roe v. Wade and Endangered Species Act both passed in 1973, Murder Babies/save trees, birds, insects)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom

That was very well stated and well rationalized


91 posted on 03/06/2007 6:28:45 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

Basically, I like Rudy very much, but I agree that this is a real problem.


92 posted on 03/06/2007 6:29:14 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mylife
They use two boogeymen to scare us into voting for Giuliani: Hillary and 9/11. BINGO!

As the little men behind the curtain showed us when they ran Bob Dole, they'd rather forfeit the presidency than deal honestly with people of conviction.

93 posted on 03/06/2007 6:29:16 PM PST by TomSmedley (Calvinist, optimist, home schooling dad, exuberant husband, technical writer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Artemis Webb
No, Artemis. You are simply wrong.

God bless you.

94 posted on 03/06/2007 6:29:43 PM PST by Siobhan (Pray, pray, pray,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: Artemis Webb
Sorry but you can't judge "the state" of someones soul from their behavior. Or are you inserting things in The Bible that are not there? Oh...I know, there is a chapter and verse where the Lord grants special insight to Pyro7480 to see men's souls! Gosh I must have missed that part.

No need to be flippant. If you're so concerned about people talking about Rudy's soul, then let's look at his conduct. Are you condoning his beliefs on many social issues?

95 posted on 03/06/2007 6:30:33 PM PST by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: flashbunny

: )


96 posted on 03/06/2007 6:31:24 PM PST by stephenjohnbanker (Misery loves miserable company.......ask any liberal. Hunter in 08!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: areafiftyone
"First of all I'm a Roman Catholic"

Clearly not a very devout one, if you support abortion... And since Rudy's your man, you do support it indirectly anyway if not directly.
97 posted on 03/06/2007 6:31:57 PM PST by babygene (Never look into the laser with your last good eye...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: mylife

No, it should "undermining" the WOT etc. Tired, long day, but thanks for the kind word.


98 posted on 03/06/2007 6:31:59 PM PST by Lexinom (Duncan Hunter - the electable answer for the WOT and border security. www.gohunter08.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 91 | View Replies]

To: Lexinom
However I get the impression their own views are rather myopic in that they don't see the larger historical persective, how electing a man, however eloquent, however likeable, with Giuliani's character deficiences effectively sanctions the very worst of Western culture - the very things that make the WOT worth fighting in the first place.

Exceptionally well said.

99 posted on 03/06/2007 6:32:17 PM PST by Siobhan (Pray, pray, pray,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: nopardons

But you and your and your ilk post lie after lie after lie, as though it were fact, because you are incapable of actual debate.
-----
Said with no mind whatsoever to the facts. Nice try. Debate does not change fact.


100 posted on 03/06/2007 6:32:58 PM PST by EagleUSA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 541-554 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson