I am not presenting much new about the election and the political scientists here have far more information than I do, by profession. However, observing the political scene and responding to the recent posts here, I feel compelled to weigh in. I believe Romney is winning the election. I say that as if it were a continuing process because I live in a state with early voting and despite what polling and the Obama campaign says, pollsters only get to talk to people who will talk to them and get to choose who they poll. That always leaves me suspicious of the results. Is there polling outside of major metropolitan areas? If I believe preference polls, Romney is ahead in our state and that must have an effect on the early voting. In our little county, 150-200 people a day are voting early, according to folks at the BOE.
In addition, the composition of parties and those independents who “lean” one way or another has changed considerably from 2008. That is according to Pew Research, and that report was completed in August before the debates and the turns in the campaign that have been subsequent. The first debate had an enormous effect on public perceptions of Mitt Romney as far as I can tell. The way the Obama campaign has played the game since then has not been attractive; some kinds of aggression appear desperate in politics. Maybe I can dissect what I mean by that later.
Looking at that Pew data, I am impressed by how many people now identify themselves as independent voters. This has to be significant, doesn’t it? Perhaps it is a postmodern issue. Can we talk about it?
October 28th, 2012 | 10:56 am
of course it is romney in a “game change” scenario…only Lawler takes these pollsters seriously and pores over the analyses of the nate silvers and sean trends of the world. in the last week, you go with “the passions of the soul” ..so i am with kate…
as for obama coming back in four years, i like that: he would be the grover cleveland of the 21st century…. and why not?
October 28th, 2012 | 11:12 am
At this point I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind voting for Mitt Romney. The lack of climate change initiatives aside, which President Obama has, facts show, made clear advancements in, with the the Romney/Ryan ticket, we have an as yet “un-determined” economic/jobs plan that “somehow” adds up to 12,000,000 jobs, a tax system with no details (other than that the rich will pay no more than now, which studies show most Americans agree is too little), while adding “trillions” to the military which they have not asked for, all as the social equality and equal rights of minorities (women, visual minorities, GLBT, victims of sexual assault, religious minorities) greatly worsen. Who on earth would choose to vote for this? It certainly isn’t going to ensure American success, peace or prosperity. It certainly isn’t kind. It certainly isn’t forward. And it certainly isn’t Christian.
October 28th, 2012 | 11:19 am
“The lack of climate change initiatives aside”
Dude, the 2000s called–they want their trivial obsession back…
October 28th, 2012 | 11:24 am
Jim, if only Obama were more like Grover Cleveland in his politics.
Jonathan, if Obama were more like Cleveland in his politics, I would vote for him. Being in my right mind, I won’t. Go read the Romney/Ryan issues section of the campaign website instead of listening to the campaign speeches of their opponents. I’m not happy with the Obama version of “forward” and would like to go a different direction. No, not the one you are looking for from Republicans. I don’t see how the rights of your listed minorities are going be detrimentally affected, except that they won’t get more and unequal new ones for group considerations.
What’s your Christianity?
October 28th, 2012 | 1:41 pm
Democrats support, condone, and insist upon a woman’s ‘right’ to abort her child prior to birth for any reason, and that that ‘right’ is protected by the power of the central gov’t.
They’ve codified this position in their party’s platform.
Democrats slaughter helpless, innocent children.
If anyone would care to explain to me how a Christian could be a registered, card carrying, Democrat, I’d like to know.
I should think that voting for any Democrat is a sin?
October 28th, 2012 | 2:01 pm
Regarding your last observation about the growing number of independents, I’m tempted to see a link to the growing number of religiously unaffiliated and the emergence of what we might call the hipster style. In each case there seems to be a striving for a certain form of authenticity which appears to be understood as a kind for romantic individualism undefined by party, denomination, corporate marketing, etc.
One might call it a postmodern concern, but only if “rightly understood.”
October 28th, 2012 | 2:24 pm
Yes, I see that particularly among the young. But not all independents are young. I saw data about that somewhere and I’ll be trying to remember where.
October 28th, 2012 | 5:08 pm
” In each case there seems to be a striving for a certain form of authenticity which appears to be understood as a kind for romantic individualism undefined by party, denomination, corporate marketing, etc.”
LM, so in other words, Sarte and Heidegger have finally trickled down to America’s youth. One wonders if their unfortunate taste in politics will soon follow.
October 28th, 2012 | 9:31 pm
Jonathan is right.
Brian, once the line has been recently used, further use is lame and hints at a lack of imagination.
Robert, Thomas L. Friedman wrote a rather excellent piece, appearing in the NY Times today, that goes a long way toward answering your question. While there are certainly a host of other issues which also line up to show democrats as good stewards of Christian values, his article is a good start. The article is entitled “Why I’m Pro-Life.
Republicans have far from a corner on the market on Life issues, even with regard to rights of the fetus (which I do support). Why have republicans not resolved the matter after 4 presidents, control of both houses at times and several Supreme Court appointments sine Roe? They had all that in the early 2000s. Nothing.
It’s because they would rather continue to allow abortions rather than risk losing the only platform plank which holds a lock on their largest voting group, evangelicals. The use of an issue at the expense of the lives of the unborn is to me as un-Christian and as unethical a behavior as ever there was.
October 28th, 2012 | 9:44 pm
“despite what polling and the Obama campaign says, pollsters only get to talk to people who will talk to them and get to choose who they poll. That always leaves me suspicious of the results. Is there polling outside of major metropolitan areas?”
Of all the things most annoying about the Conservative mindset, one of the worst is this rhetorical habit of raising questions that could be easily answered by a little reading on the part of the questioner.
Polling is an endeavor where the people who do it go out of their way to tell you what they are doing and why, if you’re willing to read about it. Why? Because polling organizations do not do polling for free. They are businesses who depend upon the reliability of their results to make them a profit, and a Presidential election is one of the major means of advertising their wares. They are not just advertising their accuracy to the ordinary and ignorant, they are advertising their methods to the sophisticated and knowledgable among their private sector clients.
The amount of sheer willful ignorance in venues like this of what happens when people are polled is both overwhelming and appalling. As is the attitude that it is somebody else’s job to correct it.
Many of you are educators. Would you accept this sort of questioning from your students without telling them to first go and find the commonly available information?
The constant flim flam of asking real questions only rhetorically, not because you really want to know the answers, but because you want to discredit any answer not to your taste, is very wearing. And it is intellectually dishonest.
It is also one of the reasons that I call most Conservatives “fact challenged”. There is absolutely nothing in the techniques of pollsters that cannot be understood and comprehended by anyone with a decent college education. And there is no special “expertise” necessary to rationally criticize it, if it deserves criticism, AFTER you have read it. The most any educated adult should need to do is brush up on a freshman textbook of statistics for the social sciences, and in most cases even this isn’t necessary.
So if you really want to know, go look it up. And if you don’t really want to know, don’t bring it up.
There is always more to be said about Fundamental Principles in the Truly General Case that come from the Accumulated Wisdom Of The Past as found in the Canon Of Western Civilization, and, in fact, this is far more interesting to read, because Conservative writers have usually invested some genuine intellectual capital in it, have read the sources, and actually know something about it.
October 28th, 2012 | 10:55 pm
Joseph Marshall, that was very well put. It’s a message that about half the voting public needs to hear every time facts are ignored and conversations involving common sense about common concerns are displaced with nonsense, followed by the ridiculous challenge to disprove all the nonsense in full.
October 29th, 2012 | 5:40 am
To Cheeks: The democrats don’t want women to get abortions, please notice the difference.The democrats and many people who aren’t simply don’t believe that the government needs to be so big that it weighs in on people’s private lives and decisions. This is a strong distinction and in no way is meant to encourage abortions. Just as we don’t want to weigh in on many areas of private decision making, Democrats just don’t think its a government’s place.
October 29th, 2012 | 6:12 am
Mr. Marshall, I assure you I am worth every I am penny paid for expressing my opinion on this blog.
I do agree that polling companies, being businesses, want to appear to know what they are doing. Based on results, I don’t see that is always the case. You’ve never seen polls that reported information incorrectly, or to be more precise, were later proved wrong? As in polling prior to elections being incorrect? Well. Shameful of me to be so suspicious of decent business folk, I am sure. Note, however, that in the post above I refer to data based on interviews performed by the Pew Research Center. I’m not dismissing data collection, especially when it backs up empirical evidence.
We’ll see a week from tomorrow who wins. I’m placing my bet.
October 29th, 2012 | 6:14 am
Ms. Bertuch, you’ve got to be kidding.
October 29th, 2012 | 7:18 am
Daniel: Dude, the recent high-profile use of the ancient phrase that I employed was so completely lame and pitiful that any other use of it at this point is clearly 100% satirical. Get a clue, man.
As was recently posted elsewhere on the intertubes, “Al Gore’s Life Has Been In Vain”. Whining about climate change at this point deserves nothing but mockery.
October 29th, 2012 | 7:22 am
Shannon, I don’t think you and I are really able to converse based upon what you’ve written here. I’m sorry and thank you for the effort.
Daniel, thanks for citing Mr. F. However, I was hoping someone who frequents PoMoCon might venture an explanation.
October 29th, 2012 | 8:00 am
Ms. Pitrone. No, not kidding at all. And further information regarding the roe v wade statistics show crime took a sharp downturn 20 years post roe v wade. Furthermore, with the free press taking on their own meaning of ‘free speech’ we have Americans who are getting different ‘facts’ depending on their sources, and it is important that we make choices according to our conscience and not hype and inflamed emotionalism that causes people to make loyalty decisions that go against their good common horse sense. So with Americans actually split on what they believe, rather than in the past, split on how they view the same set of facts, we need to take caution when taking in ‘facts’ to be true to Americanism, not parties.
October 29th, 2012 | 8:04 am
Kate, I suspect that you’re correct in terms of the direction the election is headed. It’s not that the polling is purposefully slanted or missing people, e.g., rural voters, but that there are just inherent limits in polling, especially on the question of who is actually going to vote. We won’t really know that until after people do it. That said, the polls do tell us something.
In addition to the public polling firms that we all know about, the candidates for major office all have their own private polling firms, continuously providing them with updated information. I suspect that what these private firms are reporting is even more in the Romney-Republican direction, just from observing the way that the major candidates for office are behaving. When I heard that Obama had referred to Romney as a “bull******,” I was reminded of when George H.W. Bush referred to Clinton and Gore as “bozos.” That was the moment I realized Bush was probably going to lose, as he wouldn’t say something that dumb unless he perceived that he was going down and was feeling desperate.
October 29th, 2012 | 9:20 am
Germaine, exactly. Desperation makes many people behave badly or out of character. Some of the president’s speeches lately have been right out of “Political Pandering for Dummies”.
October 29th, 2012 | 10:26 am
Brian, okay. But I never before realized lameness to be a lesser degree of satire. Satire usually involves an imaginative play on reality. I don’t see your line as anything save a lame (as you admit) George Costanza-style attempt at being funny. His inability to be funny when trying was in itself funny, even if awkwardly so.
Robert, I did attempt a rather long explanation of my views on your query, on this site. It was made several weeks ago in a blog post, again began by Kate. That post was more on the subject.
As a matter of fact, I’ve written the challenge several times, and so far not one person has accounted for why republicans, many times having the power and support to change the law of the land regarding abortions, have chosen not to do so. Even you, here, sidestep a chance to explain. You’re doing exactly what Joseph described earlier of posing relentless questions, all the while ignoring facts. The facts ignored in this instance are that republicans only care anything about the issue of fetal rights during election seasons, and that in nearly 40 years they haven’t either done their business or gotten out of the way.
October 29th, 2012 | 10:27 am
Well, I’d have to say that I’m worth every freebie comment I leave here and maybe even less. I’m not a betting man, but I am a voting one, and I’ve voted already, so I can relax and enjoy the ride.
Now, as to Pew:
“Over the past four years, the shift in party identification has occurred almost entirely among white voters. The Republican Party now has a 12-point advantage over Democrats among non-Hispanic white voters: 52% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party while 40% identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. In 2008, the balance of party identification among whites was almost evenly divided (46% Republican vs. 44% Democrat). The Democratic Party’s advantage among blacks and Hispanics, by comparison, has remained largely unchanged…..The demographic differences between the Republican and Democratic voters are reflected in current profiles of the two parties’ bases. In surveys conducted in 2012, nearly nine-in-ten (87%) Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters are white, while just 11% are minorities. In contrast, 61% of Democrats are white, while nearly four-in-ten are African American (21%), Hispanic (10%) or another race (7%)…..Men make up a majority (52%) of Republican Republican-leaning voters; among Democratic voters, 43% are men while 57% are women.”
I must say that I am stunned, absolutely stunned, by these figures. My surprise at them is equal or greater to my astonishment that so many Angry, White, Republican, Males live in the Great Red Swath from South Carolina to Idaho.
The change from the great stampede to the Democratic Party after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is positively breathtaking. When, at the signing of that bill, President Goldwater remarked in sotto voce to those next to him that he had given the North to the Democratic Party for the next fifty years it certainly proved prescient, and, doubtlessly paved the way for President McGovern’s well known Northern Strategy.
Figures like Pew’s are absolutely devastating to a Democrat like me. The steady diminishment of non-white and female births and population in America, and the growing dominance of our politics by Angry White Southern, High Plains, and Rocky Mountain Males just dooms our yearning to unseat President McCain to utter oblivion.
How can we even endure when Pew reveals that Democrats and Democratic leaning voters have merely a 5% greater margin among registered voters than Republican and Republican leaning voters.
Yes, the Great Game Changer, foreseen by Karl Rove, is upon us, and while I might make a brave front of it and project an Obama victory against all odds when no money is involved, I am, at heart, a very realistic, fact respecting fellow, and I’m just going to have to decline your bet.
Cowardly of me, I know, not to put my money where my mouth is. But there it is.
October 29th, 2012 | 11:10 am
Brian, that’s satire.
October 29th, 2012 | 12:09 pm
Mr. Eason, given Roe, what can be done? State attempts to limit abortion are fought in courts, must be very carefully worded and are usually limited to informed consent. Changing anything nationally — how? We are not talking about federal legislation that can be overturned. What are you proposing that Republicans can do beyond putting pro-life judges on the SC when possible? They do that.
October 29th, 2012 | 12:47 pm
Daniel: Um, from your most recent comment, it appears you don’t have any idea about the recent resurgence of the “X called, they want their Y back” “joke”, and therefore no idea about what I was satirizing. Which makes your attempt to deconstruct the point of satire breathtakingly hilarious.
October 29th, 2012 | 1:21 pm
Thanks DAniel, and I apologize for not being aware of your past efforts to address the abortion issue. Re: the GOP and abortion I do believe you have a point in that the party has always been guided and directed by the Neos and RINOs and consequently aren’t much better when it comes to killing babies than the commie-Dems. Like Kate says it must be struck down in the SC (Right to Privacy-really???) and banned by the states or at least those states that would ban the murder of these children. The Democrat Party really is the “Party of Death.”
October 29th, 2012 | 1:58 pm
Several of you bloggers on pomocon have yourselves lamented the possibilties. You even regularly argue the need to get enough Justices to overturn Roe. That’s been a big argument for your support of republican candidates, not that this rep presidential candidate would fulfill his promise to do just that.
So, the overturning, by the Supreme Court, is one possibility you folks cite. I doubt that would happen, even with two more conservative appointments.
Another possibilty is a constitutional amendment. There are two routes to take here. Such a proposed amendment coming from Congress is not at all likely. A called convention by the states, though unlikely, has a slightly better chance.
The 50 states have the greatest ability to pass legislation at least severely limiting abortions. You may recall that Roe does not prevent the states from banning abortions after the first trimester. Some states have taken action; others haven’t.
Action at the state level makes the most sense. The Supreme Court has wasted many opportunities to take up and possibly uphold state legislation that would not only take advantage of the original limits in Roe, but to also overturn Roe in its entirety.
The greatest failure of the Right, though, has been in it’s vilification of women who get abortions rather than rallying only toward alternatives to abortion. Where is any attempt to care for desperate women, even among churches, in any great response? More importantly, where is any attempt to change the climate from scorn and humiliation to true concern, followed by true care and support?
A desperate woman need only taste the scorn to be repulsed. But the Right doesn’t quit there. A woman can also notice that the same people rant about cutting off currently available support; not rallying for more.
Don’t take me wrong. I strongly oppose abortion. It should be banned. Democrats should recognize that the party that stands up best for the rights of individuals was dupped into getting on the wrong side of this issue. The problem is that fetuses don’t vote, so neither party cares very much. The republicans have been the more sinister in holding the just side of the issue hostage while a couple million fetuses were aborted.
And since I am on your side, Kate, Robert, Brian, Carl, Pete, Peter…please tell me now how you would go about stopping abortions in this country. Kate, if the republicans haven’t a chance of ending abortions, then why is it even brought up?
I’ll stop spending time pointing out the absence of sincerity
October 29th, 2012 | 2:01 pm
and get on board with any of you when sincerity is manifest by action, even if only beginning with constructive discussion and planning.
October 29th, 2012 | 2:30 pm
Brian, indeed I have seen the resurgence. It’s still lame, not satire. I can’t help but notice how often your posts attack and offend others. Why is that? How is it helpful to any discussion? Even when there is seemingly little or no disagreement among contributors, you seem to delight in tactless attacks. Gotta admit this to be my reason for often steering clear of this site. A site purportedly by Christians should be more respectful than this. Christians do has differing opinions as to how to make our way in this world. I understand the occasional lack of tact; I’m too often guilty. But Brian, where do you stop and draw the line?
October 29th, 2012 | 6:13 pm
Daniel, horrible as it is to say at first glance, there is something I am more afraid of than the killings of 20 million or so unborn babies–and the killings of the likely 10s of million more victims to come–and that’s the killing of the Constitution.
One can argue that the Right to Privacy established by Griswold and Roe has by now done all the damage to our laws it can do, but I suspect there is more Constitution-corroding acid left within it, and, I know the living constitutionalist interpretative theory 100% necessary to maintain it is fundamentally perilous to the Constitution.
And if the Constitution gets corroded into largely being a de facto football of present-day opinion, a fighting culture war becomes inevitable. Not in our lifetimes, but inevitable.
And the really scary thing is that only twenty years ago, a big-tent Democratic Party position that made peace between pro-lifers and pro-choicers was a real possibility. That increasingly seems a fantasy. The pro-life Dems are vanishing. So we’ve got a Democratic Party increasingly dead-set, whether most understand it or not, on gradually but surely painting all minimally-orthodox Christians and all Constitutional conservatives into a corner of no-escape. No escape short of secession and civil war.
So far more rides on the SC overturning Roe, or at least limiting its constitutional damage, than just the killings themselves. That’s what my political science, concerned about the delicate ecosystem that our only comparatively robust political system really is, says.
As for what God does with a nation that allows these killings, I do not like to think… The Roe-overturn hope(or fantasy?) of my social conservatism would still pledge all of us to stand by and let most states continue to allow and encourage abortions, to seek further change via moral suasion state by state, or as you say, by the very tall order of amendment. So, without Roe, the overall rate of killing would be cut, but…
P.S. Daniel, I don’t buy your argument about social conservative demonizing the women who have sought or had abortions. No degree of careful language and no amount of financial support for adoptions and young mothers generally will serve to pacify those offended to the core by my insistence (and yours, right?) on calling it KILLING. Of a HUMAN. I.e., quite logically a kind of murder, even if folks like myself hasten to add that it’s one of lesser degree, and are careful to avoid brandishing the M-word. I know I’ll be accused of demonizing those women regardless.
October 30th, 2012 | 8:37 am
“only twenty years ago, a big-tent Democratic Party position that made peace between pro-lifers and pro-choicers was a real possibility.”
Hmm. Twenty years ago was 1992. Sure, Clinton talked “safe, legal, and rare” but couldn’t make even the slightest conciliatory moves towards pro-lifers. It was far too late. Maybe in 1982 there was still a chance. Certainly in 1972. My theory about this issue has always been that if the Democrat Party had been led by RFK rather than his worthless, drunken, drug-addled, cheating, womanizing, bridge-drive-offing little brother, things would have been very, very, very different.
October 30th, 2012 | 10:24 am
Brian, your faith in RFK, or any Kennedy for that matter, is charming. I remember JFK’s Obamaesque phrase, ‘the New Frontier,’ almost as if it was yesterday.
October 30th, 2012 | 11:10 am
Actually, I have no brief for RFK. It’s my complete and utter contempt for Teddy showing more than anything. Anything that would have minimized his impact on his party or nation would surely be for the better.
October 30th, 2012 | 12:15 pm
What are Republicans doing about ending abortion? We talk about it. Democrats want us to shut up and stop talking about it, saying that talking about abortion offends or wounds women. We don’t stop discussing the issue among ourselves and when it is election time and politicians are expected to talk about their basic principles, exposing their political selves, they talk about abortion because the right to life of the innocent is a basic principle. The way to change the law in a democratic country is to talk about right and wrong on this topic. The country is still divided on the issue and almost 40 years after Roe was supposed to settle the issue, that’s pretty good. That’s how the constitutional amendment would happen anyway.
If pro-life Democrats exerted more influence within that party, the whole effort would be so much easier. They apparently don’t say anything and have no influence within that party. They only complain about Republicans co-opting the issue. This is absurd.
October 30th, 2012 | 1:11 pm
Yes Kate, right on!
However, as Carl has noted there’s now an issue with the idea of the collective sin. The sin of the nation.
One might ask the Germans, Japanese, or the Russians if God deals with the nation.
Is Obama’s election punishment, or one of the punishments for this great offense to God? I think it is but theres also the millions of Americans who have rejected God’s love.
That dog ain’t goin’ to hunt, forever. The note’s coming due, I fear.
I was putting books (you guys remember them?) away in boxes and came across my copy of “John” by Niall Williams, a profound work. I save it.
October 30th, 2012 | 7:22 pm
[...] Romney has it. – Kate Pitrone, PoMoCon [...]
October 30th, 2012 | 7:59 pm
“The way to change the law in a democratic country is to talk about right and wrong on this topic. The country is still divided on the issue and almost 40 years after Roe was supposed to settle the issue, that’s pretty good.”
I’ve never heard the talk about stop over these past 40 years, but I would hardly call the talk persuasive. Unless it becomes persuasive, we will still be divided on the issue until hell freezes over.
October 30th, 2012 | 8:18 pm
Carl, it would seem at least to me that the two cases are somewhat different in their reach. While the majority opinions of both are laid out as standing upon the Right to Privacy, Griswold had within the majority opinion, several differing opinions of degree. Roe seemingly picked up on the Griswold opinion and carried it farther, to the point of proclaiming a new area covered under the Right of Privacy; it for the first time, so far as I know, considered a peron to have such rights even at the expense of the very Right of the Life of another.
In so doing the opinion took liberties with science as though the questions surrounding the inception of life itself had been in someway solved by a mere group of nine men, to the detriment of the life of the fetus. Perhaps that was felt necessary to resolve the matter at the time. Perhaps the timing of the case, by the complainants, was such that developments in science were feared.
There seems a gap to me. Christians had resolved the issues of abortion and contraception early in the infancy of the faith. The conclusions, however, involved much more than notions of sanctity of life and at what point a life begins. Their considerations involved why and whether procreation was good and not evil. (Some heretical sects did believe it evil. No wonder those sects are no longer around.) Was it a means of immortality, a way to carry on the Faith, the only valid reason for sex, or just a fact of nature?
The practices of both abortion and contraception were seen by Christians as sinful, mostly because of the notion that both were acts against nature. The gap seems to have come along in the late 19th century and throughout the 20th. Some of those issues continued to exist, but others were now as relevant. We’ve increasingly moved away from agrarian societies dependent upon large families. Advances in medicines have greatly decreased infant mortality. The world’s population seems too large to adequately feed all of us. And people live longer.
I believe those issues naturally became relevant before science got around to better determining the likely beginning of life, and before drugs were found to actually prevent conception rather than stop conception. The church, to a great degree, had long ago included both abortion and contraception as one issue, as there was no plausible way of distinguishing whether drugs were abortive or contraceptive in use.
The gap has now closed. We know what drugs prevent conception. We know that the fetus feels pain, so as to clarify that there is some cognitive form of life in every viable fetus. Now we can clearly say that feticide is the killing of life. You are correct. I too call it murder. (I use the word “viable” because doctors, in their infinite wisdom and lack of sensitivity, consider even the “evacuation” of naturally deceased fetuses from the womb to be abortions. Man, did my wife and I have an issue with that when told of her second miscarriage. The loss of life was heart-breaking. The label of abortion made it even worse. That should be changed.)
Mine may be a different view on whether these cases challenge the foundation of the Constitution. Like the many varying progressions made in the sciences, especially with regard to technology, the Constitution is holding up pretty darn well. I believe, like the Roe case illustrates, our legal code rarely can foresee necessary protections. So society usually addresses issues only in reaction.The Constitution allows for it. It also allows for correction.
My argument with regard to winning the debate involves not only the harshness of many conservatives, but the lack of any “plan” put forward by conservatives toward bettering the lives of those in trouble. The hashness is all over the radio dial. A certain TV network on the one hand critiques the mores of the world, and on the other panders to the vices of a decadent society. It’s confusing to me; it must be to our young and impressionable as well.
The harsness isn’t one-sided. Many liberals have adopted the notion that a person can somehow escape conscience when only wished, as though sins don’t weigh on the soul. Many liberals like me, however, have not adopted such a notion. Did my party leave me behind? No. Is there room for me to express my opinions without giving up my value to others in the party? Yes. They’ll just have to learn to be as open-minded as they pretend to be. And I assure all that I express my opinions to liberals. I even express my opinions to my church, the PCUSA.
Kate is wrong, I think. Conservatives do talk about it. They talk about how with just two more justices the Court will finally be able to do something about Roe; how we simply must elect “our guy” in order to bring this nation back to God, as though conservatives have figured Him out.
This democrat most assuredly doesn’t want conservatives to stop talking about abortion; talk while you work, for once. Talk up the value of all life, even the livelihood of the woman who feels desperate enough to consider an abortion. Talk up the value of the lives of the young and poor, who make up the majority of un-wed parents and the majority of would-have-been parents, except for an abortion. Talk up excellent programs like Head Start, which realizes $9 for $1 allocated it, which brings impressionable and vulnerable children into safety from surroundings that surely limit their lives and their abilities to be productive members of a better society, rather than “takers” or criminals in a rogue society. Talk about the child after he’s been born as though his life still matters. Talk about how to make his born life better, rather than talking about taking away his educational funding, his medical coverage, his subsidized lunch. And for Heaven’s sake, stop talking so much about sending him to fight a war for your freedom when that’s an obvious lie! Want another war? Send first the five sons of the SOB who advocates the next war. Stop sending mine instead of his or your’s!
Conservatives certainly do and should talk. They just don’t realize how void their talk is of building a morally upright society. Al Franken, who I realize you all must hate, devouted a chapter in a book toward abstinence, a favorite issue of the far-right. His chapter exposed quite well that the talk didn’t in any way match the walk. He merely asked several prevalent conservatives to share their “abstinence stories”. The point is that if conservatives want society to move toward better mores, then the argument has to be practical and proven attainable. How ’bout any of you? Anyone care to share their abstinence stories?
What I see in many of the more widely recognized conservatives are men who carouse as much as any other (think Dubya, Limbaugh and the Newt); Sunshine Patriots who ducked military service long ago, only to advocate service in war by others (think Dubya, Cheney, Chambliss, Wolfowitz, Frist, Hastert, Rove, Ashcroft, Lott….Romney); men who pacify middle-class mobs by proposing to cut-off those of even less fortune, even children.
I stand by my argument that conservatives are too harsh in their rhetoric toward the very people they claim to want to save from sin. Carl, you recently posed a question about how anyone could profess to be a Democrat and a Christian. You may not see it that way, but I believe I just answered (in part).
And Carl, I thank you for your tolerance and most of all for your willingness to make a very substantive argument. It was not lost on me. I apologize for getting a little worked up (my ears are actually hot), but I do hope that all understand that my passion is for the issues, and not toward disrespect of people who differ with me.
October 30th, 2012 | 9:07 pm
My theory about this issue has always been that if the Democrat Party had been led by RFK rather than his worthless, drunken, drug-addled, cheating, womanizing, bridge-drive-offing little brother, things would have been very, very, very different.
Your theory stinks. Edward Kennedy was not the leader of the Democratic Party, formally or informally, and as late as 1976 he was unwilling to put his imprimatur on legal abortion. George McGovern and Jimmy Carter were good family men, and Carter was unwilling to endorse legal abortion without qualification. There was a shift in elite culture most foul, typified by Harry Blackmun and five or six others.
October 30th, 2012 | 9:09 pm
I’ve never heard the talk about stop over these past 40 years, but I would hardly call the talk persuasive.
Take your fingers out of your ears.
October 30th, 2012 | 10:24 pm
On the issue of overcoming Roe, here’s a link to the most interesting and original article that I’ve read for quite some time on the issue: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/06/5516/
It’s called “Abortion and the Limits of Philosophy,” and it’s written by my friend Jon Shields. Here’s the blurb:
“Unlike civil rights advocates of the 1960s, pro-life and pro-choice activists can be ambivalent about their causes because they are torn between their reason and their sentiments.”
October 30th, 2012 | 10:34 pm
With regard to what Carl was saying about the changes in the Democratic party on abortion, here is a great citation on that. Nossiff argues that liberalized aboriton laws were passed in states like New York because the Church heirarchy did not have a Democratic party machine to coordinate with as it did in Pennsylvania, where such laws were defeated. The democratic party has completely changed to a top-down, national ideological party, as opposed to the bottom up, local, and practical party it used to be in the old days, back when my grandpa made speeches to support JFK’s presidential run
Rosemary Nossiff. 2001. “Abortion Policy Before Roe: Grassroots and Interest-Group Mobilization.” The Journal of Policy History 13: 463-478.
October 31st, 2012 | 12:05 pm
Kate, you started something good.
October 31st, 2012 | 4:10 pm
Daniel, very glad about that, though I have been too busy to keep up. I’ll have to read through the comments with care later.
Conservatives have been attempting to find ways to influence the national conversation, about abortion among other things. You segue into military service; I have five sons and two of them are in the military and will make careers of national service while one is now a veteran. We no longer have a draft and I think we should appreciate the liberty of voluntary military service. If we had a draft and those men you castigate for not having sons in the military had kept them from it, I would sympathize with you. Politicians who support the military get my support, depending. Ted Kennedy supported military spending because a good portion of that money was spent in Massachusetts.
Head Start — the head start is gone by sixth grade, apparently and kids who started in Head Start are as likely to be high school dropouts as those who were not. I’m not impressed by the program, which is not excellent if it’s results evaporate so quickly. If it worked as touted, I’d be delighted. It doesn’t.
Sex ed. in schools does not seem to be working to prevent teen pregnancy and abortion. Complain about abstinence programs all you like, the other programs are doing no better a job.
The more I respond to you, Dan, the more depressed I become. But conservatives talking into the wind of current social conditions are probably wasting their breath. And yet, if there is no push back, if we say nothing, then where does society go? We persuade who we persuade and I was a radical leftist who was persuaded to go in a different direction. So I believe it happens and that people are persuaded. I don’t know what to do about everyone else.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact