Sarah Palin-Personally pro-life, but...?

As I expected, my last post disturbed many who are desperately looking for some reason for hope among the Republicans being built up in the propaganda media as supposed representatives of the intense conservative disaffection that promises to be the decisive force in the 2010 midterm elections.  I suspect that the propagandist are hyping these personalities to serve as "heat sinks" for the vehement tide of anger and dismay against the betrayal of America's moral heart and its constitutional liberty; a betrayal sponsored or tolerated by the leadership in both branches of the sham "two party" system.

Here follows a comment on the article I came across on my Facebook profile page.  I think it typifies the reaction of many goodhearted people who are reluctant to look past the propaganda about her personal views and history to think clearly about Sarah Palin's official actions and public statements on the issue of justice, law and public policy involved in the fight to secure the unalienable right to life of our posterity.     

Anthony Davar Finding enemies in our prolife camp and splitting among strong prolife leaders will only cost us the most important fact: the life of another child. How many abortions were there in United States prior to 1973 vs after? One abortion is too many obviously. Sarah Palin is obviously a strong prolife leader, and with her own life example, has shown without a doubt, where she stands for life! However, as a matter of practical steps to victory, she is smart to go for one step at a time.If the country was on its knees repenting of the evil of abortion, she would be there with us praying for God to turn our hearts to the defense of our children. 

Alan Keyes Anthony Davar: On what grounds do you hold that Sarah Palin is "a strong pro-life leader"? I review both her statements and her actions, and find them in contradiction with the necessary moral logic without which the pro-life position is simply a matter of emotional feeling. Based on this review I conclude that she is not in fact espousing the pro-life public policy position. Without at all addressing the facts and moral reasoning I present, you assert that she is pro-life. Beyond emotional conviction, on what do you base your assertion?
It is obviously not right by law to impose our personal feelings on others, however strongly we feel. This is especially so when dealing with a decision that has deeply personal emotional and other consequences for the individual concerned. So if we reduce the pro-life cause to reliance on personal emotional conviction, we surrender the rational basis for the fight to achieve legal protection for the unalienable right to life of the unborn child.
Sarah Palin's statements and actions are rationally inconsistent with the moral logic of unalienable right which, if true, binds all levels of government and all US public officials to the goal of securing the unalienable rights with which God has endowed our humanity. If we accept her as a pro-life leader we abandon the rational moral basis for the pro-life position. I cannot do this without betraying the principles of liberty, and the will of the Creator God whose authority establishes them as the basis for human justice.
Your rhetoric simply fails to address the facts and reasoning I present. It amounts to saying that she is personally against abortion (about which I have no doubt). But many pro-"abortion rights" politicians say that. The issue before the nation is about law and justice, not personal conviction. Nothing Sarah Palin has said or done supports the view that she is pro-life as a matter of justice, law and public policy. So far as I can tell, she is just a pro-choice politician who turned a laudable personal choice into a seductive, but false pro-life public image. All the choices and statements she has made in her public capacity support this conclusion. If I'm wrong, show me the facts and statements that indicate something beyond the "I'm personally pro-life" position so common among the so-called "pro-choice" promoters of "abortion rights".

Unless Sarah Palin fundamentally alters the views she has enunciated and acted on up to now, I predict that she will disappoint the hope so many sincerely pro-life people are mistakenly investing in her supposed pro-life stand.  I am sure I will pay a price for saying now what others will only realize when it may be too late. I was excoriated starting in 2004 for calling Obama a hard line Marxist bent on destroying America.  That view is not at all so contemned today as it was when facts and reasoning first convinced me of its truth.  Similarly on account of facts and reasoning I and others insist that Obama cease to withhold evidence bearing on whether or not he satisfies the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Office of President of the United States.  For this we are vilified and ridiculed, though many of our fellow Americans now join in this demand.

My view of Sarah Palin's supposed pro-life stance, and the danger involved in following her leadership,  is similarly based on facts and reasoning.  I will hold to it until one or the other clearly compels me to do otherwise.  Experience has taught me that even among those whose pro-life hearts espouse the self-evident truths that make us free, when it  comes to politics the factual standard of truth often gives way to personal feelings and expedient calculation.  Given the crisis we are in, I can only pray that at some point they will realize that this neglect of the requirements of truth is the very reason America's liberty has reached the crisis point.  Before a people finds leaders willing to act in truth, they must become a people willing to submit their own judgments and decisions to its demands.

Is Palin’s lead a pitfall for the pro-life cause?

I was not at all surprised to hear that Rudy Giuliani has lately expressed views that welcome the rising prominence of Sarah Palin in the GOP. Giuliani is the archetype of the politicians who wear the Republican label but staunchly support the pro-abortion agenda. Of course, he imitates the pro-abortion Democrats by using the "pro-choice" label to dress his position in deceptively American garb. The use of that term is one of the most clever rhetorical ploys in the history of American politics. If the slaveholders had thought of it, people like me might still be doing stoop labor for no wages. After all, what could be more American than choice? Isn't that what freedom is all about?

Actually, no; not in the sense of the political liberty the American people have up to now enjoyed. Our liberty is based on the idea of unalienable rights articulated to justify our nation's assertion of independence from Great Britain. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Unalienable rights give rise to opportunities for choice, but in a context that first takes account of the standard of justice from which the claim of right derives. Human life involves certain actions and inclinations that, as a rule, tend to support and preserve it, both for individuals and for the species as a whole. This rule is the result of determinations made by their Creator, whose will thus constitutes the standard for their actions. As they accept the gift of life and perform the actions necessary to sustain it, their respect for the Creator's rule sets the standard for their action. Right action preserves and perpetuates human life. Wrong action damages and destroys it. People are in the right when they act rightly. Should others, without cause or provocation, seek to interfere with their action, they have the right to resist and to defend themselves against that interference.

The concept of unalienable rights thus arises from respect for the rule of the Creator. People acting rightly (i.e., in conformity with the rule) act on the Creator's authority. They may use in defense of their actions whatever powers they possess in consequence of that authority. Their physical, mental and emotional capacities may all be brought to bear to enforce (that is continue with) their right action. These capacities include the ability to discern and choose among different courses of action that achieve the desired result. As they do so, they have a right connected with and arising from their respect for the Creator's rule.

In and of itself, therefore, choice is not a "right". Rather it is a consequence of the conformity to right. Yet the capacity for choice is part of human nature, which is to say the way human beings have been fashioned by the Creator. People have the capacity for choice. But they only have the right to do as they choose when they have used that capacity in accordance with the Creator's rule. Put simply, their choice does not involve a right when what they choose to do is fundamentally wrong.

Government exists because God made humanity with the capacity to do wrong, i.e., envisage and set our sights on a different course than the one that is, on the whole, compatible with the possibility of human existence. In light of this capacity, the purpose of government is to limit and/ or repulse the effective action of wrongdoers, thereby securing the rights (i.e., right courses of action) of those who respect the Creator's will.

This logic is the basis in principle for the pro-life rejection of the superficially potent argument that a woman may do as she chooses when it comes to taking the life of the child in her womb. Her freedom to choose does not extend to violating the Creator's demand of respect for the child's unalienable right to life. God's demand of justice limits individual choice. But it also limits how those entrusted with the powers of government may legitimately (i.e., lawfully) employ them. This is the substantive basis for the concept of limited government. The limitation does not arise from ideological whim, or from social or historical circumstances. It arises from the same determination of the Creator's will that sets the stars on fire and the courses in which planets revolve around them.

Just as the individual's choice is limited by the Creator's determination of what harmonizes with the possibility of human existence, so the use of the powers of government is limited to actions compatible with the aim of securing the unalienable rights of human nature (i.e., those connected with actions and inclinations compatible with the decisions of the Creator that make our existence possible.) No government (including the State governments of the United States) may, in law or action, justly depart from this aim by violating or tolerating the violation of the unalienable rights of anyone subject to its jurisdiction.

Sarah Palin appears to be pro-choice for State governments. (I invite readers to review the arguments I have made in this regard in Sarah Palin: Already Compromised? and Palin's Choice: an Afterword) Yet just as the principle of unalienable right places a limit on the individual choice of the mother it also limits the choice of the community of individuals (civil society) acting by means of the State governments. Except for the just demands of that principle, the intimate, personal consequences of the decision about pregnancy would favor giving moral priority to the mother's choice, not that of State legislators otherwise unaffected by its result. Herein lies the grave danger connected with identifying 'pro-choice for States' politicians as acceptable champions of the pro-life cause. They step away from the solid ground of principle provided by the Declaration of Independence reliance upon unalienable rights. By doing so, they set the stage for the ultimate defeat of the pro-life position. Sadly this also undermines the argument that the consent of the governed is the sine qua non of governmental legitimacy (lawfulness). For unless it respects requirements of right action, government based upon consent contradicts the Creator's rule, and so cuts the ground out from under the just demand it claims to represent.

Let Rev. Manning be heard!

Here is this week's WND.com article, Let Rev. Manning be heard!   Are the Obama forces now openly seeking to abuse law enforcement powers to intimidate and silence an outspoken opponent?  As always, feel free to return here for comment.

Obama's Real Bow

Obama apparently doesn't realize that the occupant of the office he lays claim to is supposed to represent the sovereign people of the United States.  At newsmax.com the following picture accompanied a story reporting his clearly deliberate bow to the Japanese Emperor Akihito.

Given the decidedly outraged reaction to his bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, there's no way this new affront is anything but a deliberate repudiation of respect for the republican form of government (of, by and for the people) established by the Constitution of the United States.  Given the cult of personality Obama worshippers have tried to promote since he won the 2008 election, we can be forgiven for suspecting that the Narcissist in Chief shows such respect for monarchs because he aspires to be what George Washington wisely refused to become- King of the United States.  Unlike Washington, of course, he has done nothing that remotely suggests he is worthy of such preferment.  But also unlike Washington he appears to believe that ambition for power is the only qualification required.  In this he resembles both Caesar and Napoleon, two historical figures who succeeded at the task Obama has undertaken- the destruction of a republican form of government in their respective countries.

As a matter of pure political calculation, however, one has to wonder at the outward appearance of stupidity involved in this latest insult to the people he's supposed to represent.  Even someone as blinded by his own self-image as Obama has to realize that his critics will pounce on this obviously deliberate reiteration of humiliated sovereignty. 

I think he not only realizes this, he means to provoke it.  Obama's bow to the Saudi King was a reflexive expression of homage to a figure he revered on account of deeply inculcated religious feeling.  It therefore  revealed Obama's allegiance to Islam.  From his insane waste of American lives in Afghanistan to his literally fishy reaction to the Ft. Hood episode; from his shutdown of Guantanamo to his decision to offer terrorists the propaganda platform of a civilian trial in the very city they assaulted; from his surrender of U.S. economic sovereignty to his determined and obvious efforts to drive the U.S. to utter bankruptcy; Obama's policies and actions are leading more and more Americans to question whether his true allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States and to the the people whose will and nationhood it represents.

This substantive issue of allegiance inevitably came to mind as people thought about the implications of his bow to the Saudi King.  Given Saudi Arabia's role in supporting the brand of Islamic fundamentalism that promotes the recruitment of Islamic terrorists like Major Hasan, these implications are intensely troubling.  The bow to the Japanese Emperor is a deliberate ploy intended to take the focus away from the issue of religious and political allegiance and put it on formalities instead.  The appearance of stupidity in the bow to Emperor Akihito covers the shrewdness of Obama's real bow, which is in fact to the requirements of the continuing deception that hides his deep betrayal of his oath and of America's trust.

Gingrich and the GOP’s destructive, crypto-leftist moderates

The headline reads "Newt Gingrich warns of 'destructive' GOP primaries".

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted disaster for his party if the conservative wing of the GOP continues to field independent candidates to the right of the party's nominee. "If we get into a cycle where there are tea parties and there are conservative third-party candidates, we will make [Nancy] Pelosi speaker for life," Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, calling the practice "totally destructive."

There is a telling confusion in this POLITICO.com piece that should be carefully pondered. Gingrich's quoted words discourage conservative third party candidates. But both the article's headlines and the thrust of the former speaker's reasoning suggest that conservative candidates in Party primaries, are bad for the GOP. Which is it?


The answer should be easy. Since the Party's primaries are supposed to allow voters to decide the GOP candidates, Gingrich surely doesn't mean to suggest that conservatives should not run in the primaries. After all, at the primary stage there is not yet a party nominee to oppose, so they aren't being destructive. But there is a candidate preferred and backed by the GOP leaders. (In Kentucky, for example, that's Trey Grayson.) Does Gingrich mean to suggest that even at the primary stage, conservatives should simply accept whatever RINO the leadership pushes? I suspect that he does, though in the context of the race in NY's 23rd district, his words could be otherwise construed.

Of course, the outcome in NY's 23rd District doesn't support the notion that fielding conservative candidates is destructive. On the contrary, it reveals the truth. Support from GOP leaders like Gingrich gives crypto-leftists like Scozzafava (or for that matter, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney) the clout to thwart the election of good conservatives. What appeared in the three way race in New York is actually the ongoing reality of the situation within the GOP itself. The GOP base is conservative. A solid majority of voters in that base want candidates who oppose abortion, support the God-ordained natural family, favor limited government, free market economics and respect for the Constitution of the United States as written (not as fabricated by elitist judges.) But the GOP leadership favors blank slate mediocrities. They can then write them up as conservatives for the primaries, while secretly assuring that once nominated they will run and govern as 'moderates' (a term that refers to their dilution of conservatism, as I make clear in How GOP party bosses betray grass roots.) These anti-conservative leaders pretend that they favor 'moderates' because conservatives are unelectable. In fact, as we saw in NY's 23rd district, they favor moderates in order to make sure conservative candidates don't win elections. This is the goal and purpose of their "moderate" inclination. 

This reality within the GOP is the reason I feel sorry for people who think that they can somehow reclaim it from within. I constantly get emails and other communications from sincere conservatives, deeply concerned to stop the slide into socialism, suggesting that Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin or even Michael Steele and Romney will somehow join forces with conservatives like me to restore the GOP to its principles. They haven't yet realized that the GOP leadership is now dedicated to the goal of making sure that real conservatives become obsolete. The greatest fear of the GOP leaders now is that the intense rejection of Obama's national socialism will somehow catch fire enough to lift up real conservatives to replace the phony, manipulated, sham that presently uses conservative voters to put crypto-leftists (wearing the Republican label) into power. Since Reagan left office, this has been the main purpose of the GOP party machinery, perfected in that regard by the shrewd maneuverings of people like Karl Rove.

The Politico article refers to the GOP's "center-right" coalition. This is quite simply deceitful. The GOP consists of a conservative majority being ruthlessly exploited and betrayed by a tiny, parasitical, crypto-leftist minority that relies on pro-abortion money to create a media megaphone that drowns out the voices that speak to and for the conservative heart of America. Sadly, Newt Gingrich now seems determined to speak for this minority, and its successful abuse of the decent conservatives who, but for the abuse, would join together to save the Constitution and our liberty. While people like me work to revive and restore the republic, they have apparently cast themselves as the undertakers of its demise, content to prepare the body for viewing by carefully preserving the outward appearance of life until the time comes to fulfill Khrushchev's boastful communist prediction, "We will bury you."