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.
The Lame Duck Legacy of Joe Biden: Will it be World War iII?
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Joe Biden's dementia is downright dangerous. Throughout the Ukraine/Russia
conflict, he has stated over and over what the U.S. won't do to escalate
the war...
11 hours ago
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24 comments:
What exactly is your view of Palin's pro-life stance?
I ask, because it is in no way clear to myself. I cannot understand your reasoning on the subject, given that you frequently choose to start from the premise that calling for the direct reversal of Roe v. Wade is somehow pro-abortion. As you have never provided a reasoned justification for this very odd premise, I am left uncertain as to what you can possibly mean by the terms "pro-abortion" and "pro-life".
I regard the Roe v. Wade decision as a travesty against the letter and spirit of the Constitution. If overturning that decision is to be regarded as pro-abortion, then I am forced to be pro-abortion, because I cannot go against the Constitution Considering that I will undertake even the entire destruction of the nation in defense of the Constitution, that some will consider me "pro-abortion" for adhering to the princples of limited, federal government is of small concern to me.
chiu-chunling:
I focus on the reason in principle for overturning Roe, not simply a declaration that it should be overturned. There are legalistic arguments for overturning Roe that have nothing to do with the defense of the child's unalienable right to life. Respect for unalienable right is however, the key issue for justice and liberty. The pro-choice politicians (whether they're pro-choice for individuals, like the most of the Dems, or pro-choice for state governments, like Paul and Palin)disregard the major premise of all unalienable right- i.e., that it is based on a choice made by the supreme authority of the Creator God, and therefore not justly subject to the choice of human individuals or governments. In the face of an unalienable right human beings have an obligation to respect it, not a choice. Of course they may disregard their obligation, and act unjustly. However, it's absurd to suggest that such a wrong action is a matter of individual or states' rights, since there can be no claim of right when the action chosen is fundamentally wrong.
Of course, people may simply abandon the notion that there is a basis for right and justice that supersedes the whims of raw human power. In that case, however, we are abandoning the rule of justice that our liberty is based upon, and with it the rationale for government based upon the consent of the governed. No politicians willing to do that will ever have my support, no matter what label they claim.
I just ask that you reserve judgement. She has been a champion of pro-life legislation and championed for parental notification in Alaska. She has the best chance in fighting for the unborn. Let me ask you this, Whom has a better chance fighting for the unborn? a woman that has stated time and time again she choosea life over abortion or a old white man with no absolute argument. There are several arguments that she can clean up before her eventual run...I would love to see a Palin/Keyes ticket.
also I see that you are waiting for her to make a grand statement against abortion. I believe she will and will prove you wrong. God bless you Amb. Keyes
As I understand it, then, you are saying that the fundamental design of federal government laid out in the Constitution is flawed because the diffusion of authority between the various levels and branches of government does not represent a valid means of protecting the fundamental rights which are the express purpose of the Constitution.
I cannot agree to this view. I regard the dispersal of power as an absolutely essential part of any scheme to truly secure the life, liberty, and enterprise of humans living in society. I see no justification in the history of the human race for believing that concentration of power can ever lead to anything but corruption and tyranny.
In the particular case of laws concerning abortion, I think that we both can agree that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would represent an immediate and dramatic defeat for those who promote abortion. But you conclude that this would only be a tactical victory, because the decentralization of the power to regulate abortion would require ongoing battles in the remaining states which would not immediately impose sufficient restrictions on the practice. Instead you prefer to fight a single, dramatic battle on the national stage.
I see no plausible scenario by which you could hope to prevail in that spectacular battle, but let us leave that aside. I am more particularly concerned that, merely by choosing that grand stratagem, you injure the cause of protecting innocent life by associating it with the tyrannical over-reach of the current Federal government, which has entirely renounced the Constitution as a binding document restricting the consolidation of all power in the central government.
I further believe that, even were you to somehow nominally win the battle to restrict abortion at the Federal level, the actual implementation would be far from satisfactory. Indeed, given that most of the really egregious practitioners of abortion already operate far outside the law, it is almost certain that nothing would change without a dramatic shift in the attitude of the bureaucracy which actually administers the burden of Federal law. And if that attitude does shift as a result of your efforts, I believe it would most probably shift towards further indifference or outright hostility towards innocent life.
As I have mentioned before, it is my intention to witness the destruction in detail of the unconstitutional apparatus which now presumes to arrogate the governing power over America in flagrant violation of the plain language of the Constitution. So perhaps this argument is of limited value. But I do wonder what reasoning you follow in deciding that the abrogation of the design of limited Federal government could serve to effectively protect the innocent. I do not see any evidence the thing is possible, but perhaps my outlook blinds me to what is there to be seen.
If I may be so bold, chiu chunling, for someone to simply call for the reversal of Roe does not automatically confer pro-life status upon them. May I suggest you view a 4D video of a preborn child, just to put the "issue" into perspective. Or, at least substitute slavery for abortion, then make the argument you are personally opposed to slavery but it is an issue best left to the individual states. Abraham Lincoln's position, by the way.
Can you honestly expect anyone to take you seriously when announcing your political opposition? Discussing federal versus state constitutions puts the cart before the horse and ignores the substance of the argument. Which is, of course, the defenseless child.
I would also suggest going to theamericanview.com and listen to John Lofton's interview with Judy Brown of American Life League. While not precisely analagous to the issue at hand she makes an excellent point in regards to accepting at face value the claims of those who purport to be pro-life and the end result of compromise.
Thirty-six years and 50 million+ deaths later, it is clear the weak-kneed, soft-pedal approach is an abysmal failure. Forget for a moment the legalisms and focus on first principles. The logic flows from there.
conservativerob,
Sarah Palin elevated a judge who at one point sat on the board of Planned Parenthood. How any supposedly pro-life, Christian Conservative could look at anyone who supports a murderous, genocidal organization such as PP, and come to the conclusion she did is beyond me.
If you suggest that as governor she was obligated to promote this otherwise "qualified" person, you have made Dr. Keyes' point.
If you agree she was in error, then check-mate.
chiu_chunling: The US Constitution's arrangement of powers is not static. The powers distributed balance and check (that is limit and restrain) one another. The power left to the states is to act as a check (limit and restraint) against abuses of power by the government of the United States. The power of the US government (which acts for the whole Union) is to act as a check (limit and restraint) against abuses of power by the states. In Federalist 9 Hamilton quotes Montesquieu to make this point: "If a single member should attempt to usurp supreme authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great an influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped, and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation. Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty."
The key point here is the dynamic interaction and mutual constraint which the parts exert upon the whole and which the whole (acting through the government that represents their Union) may exert against abuses in any part. Neither the Union government or the state governments are expected to remain passive in the face of abuses of power. Indeed, for the Constitution to function properly, their active resistance against such abuses is essential (preferably by means the Constitution provides.)
One flaw in many analyses that purport to defend the States' right and obligation to defend their residual sovereignty and resist Federal abuses is that they neglect the concomitant right and obligation of the Union government against abuses by the States.
And you seriously believe that the balance is too far gone in the direction of the state governments?
chiu_chunling: No. But in order to maintain balance you must at every moment respect its requirements, letting every component of the whole play its necessary role in the result, not shifting all one way or another. I staunchly defend the states' residual sovereign powers under the Constitution, while also asserting the Federal government's Constitutional responsibility to guarantee respect for the principles that unite and constitute the whole. This is not some choice between one and the other. Both must operate appropriately at all times to maintain the balance that secures our rights and lawful freedoms.
I do not understand why the state governments are to be regarded as less competent guardians of innocent life than the national government when the entire history of legal abortion in the United States demonstrates exactly the opposite. As I have mentioned several times (a point which has never been answered), if abortion is to be considered murder, then it is unambiguously a matter for the state legislation to address. Whether one restricts the view to abortion or expands it to murders generally, the weight of the evidence suggests that the national government is utterly incompetent to address either threat to innocent life.
Dawg_em:
The body that selected judges chose 2 horrible candidates. She had to choose either one. Now if you want to get in the schematics of proper Governorship than we can do that. I am sure there would be a different uproar if she ignored the Alaskan constitution, something she followed with a fine comb. Yes, there can be a better system in place and a changed system but until then we cannot have a purist debate arguing whom is more pro-life than another, it has to stop. Why would the National Organization of Women hate her so much, I am sure it isnt because of her looks. I believe she is the only person, being a woman, that can properly use the bully pulpit to drive abortion from our shores. If you think a man is better suited for the job in power let me know, feminists will scream bloody murder.
I am unapologetically pro-life, except when the LIFE of the mother is in jeopardy and I have no problems supporting a Palin/Keyes ticket because I know my conscience would be clear voting for a Pro-God and Pro-Life ticket.
I've always wondered what it would be like to have a clear conscience.
Well, I must admit that most of what I've seen tends to persuade me that Palin is pretty much the genuine article. But I'm not really in the market for an honest to goodness American. If anyone knows where to find a couple of spare advanced tactical cyberneticists, though....
I jest, but if you do find any, let me know.
"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." (Keyes)
This argument, along with all others being made, has been dismissed. It only takes one ill-advised argument to pull down the rest of the valid ones.
We the people
When as a nation we throw out all standards of deacency, morality, and virtue is it any wonder that justice in any form should not be far behind? It was stated that PP clinics are for the most part close to inner cities would it not be correct to say that the populations of inner cities have lost their sense of deacency? Does PP not go where the money is? The truth is when decent people do nothing evil will prevail. I have said it before and I will say it again, Americans are a nation of spoiled children. We didn't care what was happening twenty years ago because we were too bust enjoying our wealth and social status in the world. I don't believe America can borrow themselves out of debt any more than a drunk could drink themselves sober, but if the evil that controls America and the world would just realize how easly Americans could be luled back to sleep with prosperity jobs would soon flood back to America. Not many people give comments to what I have to say, because the truth really hurts. If Americans would turn from their wickedness and repent the LORD GOD would save this country. All we would have to do is be still and let HIM. No government has given justice and never will. No government has ever given power they have gained back to the ones it was taken from and never will. Our only hope is Yeshua (Jesus). We need to pray these "last days" will be shortened, in other words we as a nation don't get what we deserve.
conservativerob,
You obviously know more than I concerning the selection process in Alaska. As a "purist" I would love to see a politician refuse to confirm "the lesser of two evils" and simply demand a qualified candidate be submitted. Perhaps that's just naivete` on my part.
As for purists, I would submit that NOW falls into that mold. They have a pure blood-lust and any hint of a curtailment to their desires will get them to stand on their hind legs and roar. We must be careful not to base our estimation of success on the reactions of the radicals. As an example, the Stupak amendment to the health care bill does absolutely nothing to prevent taxes from being spent for abortions. If we listened to the shrieks coming from the left instead of reviewing the actual language of the amendment we would be tempted to come to the conclusion it was a good bill.
Listen, conservativerob, I'm not trying to get into a p!@@!$g contest to see who is more pro-life. I've been engaged to one degree or another in this fight for 30 years. I've seen the failure of compromise. The "purists" on the left refuse to compromise. Why should we?
Finally, please explain something to me. How is it that someone "being a woman" can more "properly use the bully pulpit"? And no, I don't think a man can necessarily do a better job. It's not about gender. And if someone suggests to you a man can have nothing to say about this, then might I suggest you respond by saying something like, "Even a good chauvinist would oppose half of all abortions."
For the life of me I don't see why anyone would care what the feminists scream. Unless, of course, one is a feminist. Claiming to be a pro-life feminist seems oxymoronic to me. But hey, what do I know.
conservative_rob: The provision you cite is more an excuse than an argument. Both the Alaska constitution and the US Constitution affirm the requirement to respect the unalienable rights of the people. (cf. Article I of the Alaska constitution, which mainly reiterates the requirements of the 14th amendment to the US constitution) The Alaska governor can simply refuse to appoint a judge he or she believes will act in violation of this requirement. The judiciary cannot force the executive to act contrary to his/her conscientious conviction as to what is constitutionally required. This is especially the case where the Executive's appointment power over the Court is concerned. Since in this instance a particular requirement set out in one portion of the Alaska constitution conflicts with a general requirement set out in another, the Chief Executive has the prerogative to act according to his/her conscientious belief as to what the governor's oath of office requires.
In general, the notion that the Chief Executive must simply "obey" Court decisions that he/she believes require the Executive to act in a way that conflicts with his/her constitutional duty is self-evident nonsense. It destroys the separation of powers and makes the judicial branch the supreme authority over all laws and actions of government, establishing a dictatorship of the judges.
As I understand it, Sara Palin was briefed on, and rejected, this essential understanding of the responsibility of the Chief Executive. She chose to follow the views of those whose in the legal profession whose self-serving error has been responsible for the judicial tyranny from which we now suffer in just about every area affected by government action. In this regard the deficiency of understanding she showed is not confined to the issue of respect for the unalienable right to life. It goes to the very nature of the mechanisms that make the concept of limited government a reality.
In an era when the survival of constitutional self-government is precisely what is at stake, it is impossible safely to approve a supposedly conservative leader with this defect of constitutional understanding.
chiu_chunling: Neither the state governments nor the US government can safely be left to themselves as the guardians of our rights and liberties. The Federal system, and the system of checks and balances (established among the branches of government and between the states and the Federal government), are intended to assure that one set of guardians is checked and guarded by another at all times. The answer to your question, therefore, is that no level or branch of government is to be left alone with unchecked power to abuse our unalienable rights. The key attitude of the Founding generation was its distrust of unguarded power. It is impossible to understand the US Constitution without keeping this in mind.
http://ms-my.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=55469398434
This is a good article explaining Palin's decision. It says in short that the Alaskan system is flawed and it doesnt matter what the elected officials want- they basically do what they want. I know this will not be sufficient for most here, but I believe Sarah Palin is really the only politician now that can successfully defend life as a mother. How can a pro abortion woman argue against a pro life mother...you tell me.
I think that Dr. Keye's last argument deserves serious consideration. Even though it is clear that the intrusion of the Federal government on the states' regulation of abortion (based on Roe v. Wade) has not had any positive effect, and that it cannot be trusted to do any better until after much or most of the Roe v. Wade generation has passed away, it would not fundamentally damage the scheme of limited government for the Federal government to establish jurisdictional or procedural rules limiting the ability of states to declare certain categories of homicide to be entirely distinct from murder.
To actually go further and outlaw abortion entirely from the Federal level would require a Constitutional amendment, but this is both precedented and reasonably consistent with Constitutional principles.
However, I still fail to see how one can characterize as 'pro-abortion' the attempt to remove the basis for the current national government's active support of abortion and disparagement of state legislation restricting the practice. Even if success in actually using the Federal authority of the national government did not hinge on waiting for a generation of American voters to pass away (and outright killing them would probably fundamentally break America, whatever the pretext), it seems reasonable to first clear away the rubbish from where you hope to put a foundation for any good work.
I am also not disposed to remove the power of the people (and their locally elected representatives) from the equation so neatly. You (rightly, in my view) disparage Palin's unwillingness to challenge the judicial power with the popular mandate she received through election. Yet you neatly ignore that this same popular mandate might have any importance in regulating failures by the state governments to consistently protect innocent life. This seems...inconsistent.
Palin is (by her own--repeated and sincere--admission) not well qualified to serve as a strong executive acting in hostility to the other branches of government. The case may be made that only a person unwilling to use the executive office in such a manner should be trusted to do so, but I agree with Palin's self-assessment that she is really unqualified rather than merely reluctant. She did not feel confident she could challenge the legal process itself without overstepping the bounds of the law, which is reasonable given that she really is just a concerned mother (celebrity aside).
But putting Palin aside and speaking of a hypothetical democratically elected executive officer, facing such a decision in the future, wouldn't it be much less ambiguous if there were a strong popular movement concentrating on the composition and structure of the state governments to independently rouse the popular mandate? I think that, if there had been a significant public outcry (one that did not originate in her own offices) over the choice Palin was presented between two unacceptable appointees, she might have been encouraged to challenge the legitimacy of the process. I don't know how well it would have gone, she's hardly a policy or legal theory wonk, but she might well have tried if the public called for it.
Why didn't they? Because abortion is currently a Federal issue, and the vast bulk of the pro-life movement squanders it's time and efforts on the futile (and dangerous) attempt to impose a ban without undoing the critical damage that Roe v. Wade has done to the Constitutional structure of the national government. Well, perhaps you see a different answer to that question, or believe that directing the focus of pro-life activists towards regulation at the state level would have hurt the chances of raising popular opposition to the judicial appointment process in this case.
By the way, on reviewing this discussion, I find that what superficially appears to be merely a cryptic comment by blairqdebord is actually a series of links to various "chatvideo.me" sites, several of which have sexually suggestive prefixes (like 'sex').
I don't believe that comment makes any valid contribution to this site.
Also, I'm starting to feel a little peeved at Yahoo, and not just because they're a bunch of leftist geeks.
chiu_chunling: Thanks for the heads-up re blairqdebord...etc
By the way, excellent examination of Chris Matthew's revealing assessment of West Point as an "enemy camp", though it can hardly be called a Freudian slip. A Freudian slip is when a person inadvertently lets slip a truth that they consciously suppress. But the hostility liberals feel towards the Constitution and any who feel loyalty to its principles can hardly be considered subconscious in any way. I do not believe there are many far-left Americans who are really sufficiently self-decieved about their hatred of America's genuine founding precepts. Some may be sufficiently deluded to imagine that those precepts are not specific to the genesis of American freedom or do not represent a valid basis for human society, but they can easily consciously recognize those principles in theory and action, and their emnity towards all who preach or practice such ideals is not suppressed.
After the betrayal of the Bush era bailout I knew I was already through with the GOP. But I stayed in just until after the election so I could vote because I was afraid I would be re-registering too late to vote. All this hype about Palin and her alleged conservatism, I knew I had to take a look at her. So what does she say? She actually said the thing I used to reject Democrats for, which was the opposite of a Ronald Reagan response, that she was "personally" aginst abortion and thought the "states" should decide. Hold on a minute. Think about what she was saying. The "states" ought to decide whether a person ought to be deprived of their life. That is unconstitutional being as the statement of purpose in our Declaration states that we and our posterity are guaranteed our God given Right to Life (as well as liberty and the persuit of happiness.) Also the 14th amendment says the state shall not deprive any human being of life without due process. That is why in Roe v Wade the court had to claim that pre-born babies are not human. I also read in a newspaper article that Palin told a pro-life group that she thought about aborting her son Trig and it directly quoted her as saying it. Does that sound like she is "personally" pro-life? Palin also appointed an individual to an important position in Alaska, during her governorship, that was pro-abortion and once served with Planned Parenthood. Once I saw Palin's views on abortion it was enough to convince me the Republican Party had lost its vision. So after my 26 year membership I left and never looked back.
For those who claim that the Republicans only need to consider the economy and fiscal conservatism, I can only assume you do not study the Bible or think it is relevant. The Scriptures clearly reveal the reasons God chose to judge unjust nations throughout history, including Isreal and Judah but also other larger nations like Egypt. These nations fell in ancient times because of their sacrifising children to their pagan gods. In our culture we choose to sacrifise our unborn to the gods of convenience, materialism, etc. We also choose to sacrifise our kids and teens to the gods of materialism and convenience when we put them into socialist propagandist state run schools for the sake of free day care to earn more money for more material posessions rather than raising our own children. There were other reasons for judgment and God's wrath on a nation as there are with America. But this is one of the biggest. One of the first signs God chose to judge these nations was with economic crisis. So people, if you want to see our economy improve then think about the moral issues of our day and how they directly relate to our rejection of God and particularly within our educational institutions. Sarah Palin, no thanks, I voted for Alan Keyes and did not regret it in the least. Why would I vote for the lesser of two evils when I do't want to vote for evil at all?!
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