The Death of Right & Wrong: Epilogue

FrontpageMagazine.com ^ | April 22, 2003 | Tammy Bruce

[Flipper4]

In 1994 I was in my fourth year as president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW. I had also served on the National NOW Board of Directors. It was a year I remember, for several reasons. It was the year O. J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, and the year my town was hit by the devastating Northridge earthquake. It was also the year Ronald Reagan announced to the nation that he had Alzheimer’s.

Ronald Reagan was hated, and still is, in the feminist-establishment circles in which I grew up. That milieu subsists on enemies and hatred. I took my cues from the women around me, women I admired. They were strong and confident, and they knew. They knew who was out to get us. They knew who was determined to throw us back into the Dark Ages. They knew Reagan was evil.

I tell you this not as an excuse for my past actions but as a further illustration of what I’ve been discussing throughout this book--the way malignant narcissism is spread. You see, the seed of my politics, the politics I espouse now, were already manifested in my voting for President Reagan 10 years earlier. I liked him, and I believed he had the best interests of Americans in mind. During my involvement with NOW, however, what took over was my need to be accepted, the romanticization of my "victimhood," and the power I could achieve by following the models of the women at the top. Those women were happy that Reagan was sick, so I would be, too.

The conditioning of the Left Elite works so well partly because the people attracted to that camp are looking for family, they are looking to belong; consequently people like that--people like me--are easy pickings. My emptiness compelled me to cheer when a decent man who followed his principles was struck down by an unforgiving assailant. Alzheimer’s had done what many feminist leaders fantasized about doing themselves, if only they could get away with it.

Today, I am still pro-choice, and I still support fetal tissue research. But I now realize that those who disagree with me also have good points. I hope they reflect on their position as often as I do on mine, because both camps are on the razor’s edge. I have made my commitment to women and reproductive freedom, while my compatriots on the other side of the fence, mostly because of their religious faith, have made a pact with what they call the unborn.

We will have to agree to disagree, but only now do I consider those on that other side decent people--as decent as I, but with a different focus. Ronald Reagan is one of those decent people, but in all the feminist establishment’s mirth about his illness, never did they consider, never would they consider, the humanity of the man. Some may have made sympathetic public comments, but, like Madelyn Toogood, the woman who beat her little girl in a parking lot, they were simply looking around to make sure no one was watching before they returned to privately declaring that Reagan deserved to suffer.

By now, you may not be surprised to learn that in certain gay and feminist circles, bottles of champagne wait in refrigerators to be opened when Reagan dies. I write this on the night Nancy Reagan appeared on 60 Minutes II. Mike Wallace interviewed her about the former president, their marriage, and their history. Watching the show, I remembered why I liked Reagan so much--old footage of an early interview with Mike Wallace, at the time Reagan announced his first candidacy in 1976 (I was 14), deeply moved me and reminded me what great leadership was to come...

During the interview, Mrs. Reagan disclosed that she’s not sure her husband recognizes her anymore. Long ago he had stopped recognizing his children, but he always knew her. Now, it seems, he doesn’t. There was a deep sadness in the woman’s face. It was the "long goodbye," as she called it. The Reagans, like so many other people, had probably approached their Golden Years trusting, assuming, that memories would be shared, and laughed and cried about. For Nancy Reagan that doesn’t exist. She hasn’t said goodbye to her husband because "he’s still here," but the welling of tears in her eyes revealed a wounded, sad woman. I found it heartbreaking to see, as would any decent person of any political persuasion.

Part of my life, however, is still reflective of what I call my "old" life--my years of leadership in the feminist establishment and involvement in the gay-rights movement. This night, those two lives collided. As I cried after the interview because of the sadness of it and my own guilt and shame, I checked my phone messages. There was one from a gay male friend, whom I see infrequently these days but with whom I share some fun and important activist memories. He had been watching the same interview, but he was cheering. "Woo hoo! It looks like we might be opening up that champagne sooner than later! I hope you were watching the Dragon Lady on 60 Minutes tonight. I suppose with Alzheimer’s, he’s not suffering anymore, but it sure looks like she is! There is a God after all."

I had never thought of my friend as an indecent person, just as I never thought of myself as one. But he really hates those two people and wishes them awful things. He believes he’s in the right and they’re wrong. He also believes that the questions that divide them are moral issues about life and death. The difference, however, is that I think it’s safe to say neither Nancy nor Ronald Reagan ever had a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for a gay man or a feminist to die. The Reagans, I’ll bet, don’t hoot and holler at someone else’s pain.

Mrs. Reagan’s humanity illustrated by counterpoint the soullessness of the Left. We, the Feminist and Gay Elites, inflicted on society narcissists’ biggest crime of all: We couldn’t see beyond our own interests and desires. We became indecent in defending our principles.

While I don’t hold out any hope for the damaged Left Elite I’ve exposed for you in this book, I know that we as individuals can overcome and reject what the Left demands of us--the abandonment of right and wrong, the banishment of decency and integrity, the rejection of what the Reagans, both of them, represent.

We can instead do our best to live honest lives, replete with the discomfort of shame, the difficulties of personal responsibility, and the joy, the genuine happiness, that only right and good can bring. We will have the reward of being better people.

[Democratic_Machiavelli]

I read her earlier book "Thought Police" and loved every page (she even cites FR's source documents). She's one of the few people from The Left I respect and admire.

[fporretto]

I may be stepping into a hornet's nest here, but I feel I have no alternative.

I'm as ardently pro-life as anyone can be, as a matter of personal choice. But I believe that laws that would ban all abortions would be unenforceable, for two reasons:

1. Enforcement would violate Fourth Amendment guarantees against search without probable cause.
2. The number of women who sincerely believe that they have an absolute right to control their own bodies in that fashion is large enough and dispersed enough to resist the law effectively, just as was the case with Alcohol Prohibition, and just as is the case with the War On Drugs.

Now, a lot of people would support even an unenforceable law against all abortions on the grounds that "at least it would send a message that abortion is wrong." But that's the most destructive way of sending a message known to history, and here's why:

1. Unenforceable laws are still laws, and can be used, with the right combination of citizen envy and prosecutorial corruption, to hurt people. Moreover, they're usually used to hurt people selectively, which contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.
2. Unenforceable laws create pressure to violate those rights which block their enforcement. Sometimes the pressure succeeds in puncturing a right, and the long-term consequences of that are potentially catastrophic. One excellent example is asset-forfeiture, which has turned the War On Drugs into a scramble for booty among police departments and district attorneys' offices.
3. Unenforceable laws tend to weaken respect for all other laws, and for lawmaking itself.
4. Unenforceable laws elicit corruption in law enforcement, in proportion to the size and wealth of the violator community. Alcohol Prohibition engendered immense corruption among the police of the major cities, as has the War On Drugs.

So, in campaigning for political restrictions on abortion, we have to be careful not to craft laws that are unenforceable. The price of such laws is too high.

What sort of anti-abortion law would be adequately enforceable? Probably one that banned the practice entirely after about 20 weeks' gestation. At that point, the baby is noticeable, it's emitting brain waves, and it's viable outside the womb. Moreover, there's all the probable cause anyone would need to suspect a woman of childbearing years who schedules a D&C and arrives for it with a swollen abdomen.

That's just my rough cut at the matter. Others with more medical knowledge and a better appreciation for the progress of gestation could undoubtedly do better.

The goal, at this point in time, must not be simply to get a law passed. The goal must be to reduce the number of abortions performed as dramatically as possible, always with due respect for rights, the requirements of the law, and the maintenance of public civility. Only after we've rebuilt the "culture of life" of which President Bush has spoken, which was once assumed without thought but has been grievously damaged these past fifty years, will it be possible to contemplate reducing abortions to zero -- and at that point it's likely that censorious social opinion, rather than the law, will be the most effective finishing tool.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[ClearCase_guy]

She advocates that because the Mother didn't reject Baby Connor, the child is countable as a human being

Is this a Velveteen Rabbit world? A stuffed animal can become real, if it is loved enough. And a fetus can become human, if he is not rejected by his mother? Oooooooh! Magic!

[MHGinTN]

In your palace of reason, has it occurred to you that even the most pro-life among us at FR wouldn't ban all abortions ... there is a rare need for the procedure to save the life of the woman, as in ectopic pregnancies, but even then, the focus of correct medicine should be to try and save BOTH alive human individuals.

[oyez]

Her book should be a good force aganst the movement the claims that those that believe in good and evil are bigoted and stupid. The Left Elite can celibrate the sickness and death of a noted person or defend murder of the unborn because the value of life dosen't reach as high as it does with the 'bigoted and stupid". As the Left Elite get more powerful life becomes cheaper. Citizens can be locked up with out due process because of the moral positions. People become undesirable because of core beliefs. Civil rights becomee unrecoginizable. Before long entire families disapear. All because tradidional standard have been replaced by a varible new order that exist to presevere and empower the Left Elite. The "bigoted and stupid" have seen this kind of thing happen before.

[Scothia]

I think it's important to bear in mind where this woman came from. Years and years of conditioning and disconnect on some of these issues.....that takes time to get your hands around and I can't imagine it's always easy.

As a former hippiecrat, I know that a personal journey towards a different worldview sometimes takes many years. I was never proabortion or "prochoice"--indeed, that's the issue I left the Dems over, as they were unwilling to let me have a voice as a prolife woman--but I had my own errors in reason that did not miraculously transform into right thinking, but rather evolved, molecule by molecule. I think we should give Tammy Bruce that, and encourage rather than disparage her for not being 100% where we'd prefer her to be.

[Scothia]

I know she practices lesbianism, but she sure looks like she may have been a male at one time. Does anyone know if she has ever been through mutilation surgery to become a woman?

I was disappointed in you for this rather tasteless post, especially when I've seen some sensible, intelligent ones from you elsewhere. Unfortunate that you didn't remember that not all thoughts ought to be made public. It was a cheap shot, and one unworthy of FR.

Aside from that, I don't agree with you. There are quite a few high-profile women--Greta Van Sustern, for example--whom I would consider looking more mannish (whatever) than Tammy Bruce.

[arthurus]

1. Unenforceable laws

Such laws are not unenforceable. They are imperfectly enforceable. Laws againat murder are imperfectly enforceable as are laws against theft and and those against double parking. Laws against abortion will reduce abortion to a great extent as legalization increased the incidence tremendously. Your reasoning would preclude ALL laws.

[Dimensio]

I think that part of it is simply groupthink. Members of the left-wing are told that Reagan is to be hated and reviled, so he is hated and reviled without question.

[woofie]

With this book I believe the author will be villified by her friends ...It will move the ball further along the court and she will be forced to come to grip with reality

[Dimensio]

In your palace of reason, has it occurred to you that even the most pro-life among us at FR wouldn't ban all abortions

While I won't claim that this is a majority position, I have seen one or two FReepers expressing exactly that sentiment.

[RooRoobird14]

You know, every time the subject of abortion comes up, the pro-abortionists always throw out the "Passing laws won't stop it" argument.

SO WHAT????

We have laws against murder, rape, pedophilia, assault and battery-------and those laws haven't stopped those crimes, either.

The laws aren't about "stopping" anything.They're about protecting as many innocent lives as possible, and seeking justice for those we couldn't protect.

I'm glad to see that Ms. Bruce isn't taking the same ghoulish (and evil) position N.O.W. has taken: that Conner Peterson really wasn't murdered because he really wasn't a person in the first place.

[fporretto]

Arthurus, to call a law "enforceable" is not to say that one is guaranteed to catch all violators. An enforceable law complies with the constraints on law we call rights, a condition which I assume requires no further comment, and is within the power of the designated agency to enforce.

For example, there were once laws against gambling of any kind, in just about all the states. Those laws proved unenforceable by virtue of a sufficiently large community of determined violators, against which no government could muster enough police power to get the upper hand. The same proved true for Alcohol Prohibition and other, less well known cases.

By your logic, there could never be such a thing as an unenforceable law, as long as we could catch and prosecute even one violator. Though the dividing line is a matter for dispute -- just how much resistance to a law makes it unenforceable? -- there's no question that the concept is valid. We've had many costly demonstrations.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[bmwcyle]

I think she is very brave but comes up short on morality herself. She is so close on so much but Tammy needs to take one more step. She will then stop calling herself a liberal.

[Scothia]

With this book I believe the author will be villified by her friends ...It will move the ball further along the court and she will be forced to come to grip with reality.

Methinks the gay activist friend with the champagne waiting to toast the death of Reagan won't be inviting her over for quiche anytime soon.

[anniegetyourgun]

I agree with you on the Van Sustern comment. However, my question still stands. Sorry to disappoint you with my legitimate question. I had heard that once about her and have always wondered if it was true or not.

[anniegetyourgun]

I didn't state an opinion. I stated a fact and asked a question.

[anniegetyourgun]

See 36 and 37.

[Rummyfan]

She never mentions that in her book. In fact, given her opinions of transgendering surgery espoused in the book, definitely not!

The book is a very good read and a good insight into the motivation of the Left.

[anniegetyourgun]

Thanks for that info. Now I'll be able to dispel that rumor next time I hear it. I do wonder, however, how she could condemn such a practice while holding to such an open position on 'orientation.' That seems hypocritical.