The Rudy GOP Shifts to the Center [er, plunges hard left

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani often enjoys poll scores above all presidential rivals from both sides of the political aisle. He inarguably projects the kind of appeal normally foreign to most candidates trying to convince voters that citizens matter more than a party’s agenda.

However, that likely centrist advantage in the general election can be kryptonite in the primaries because centrism has so often been antithetical to the ideologues selecting each party’s nominee. But things are changing and Giuliani’s tough stances in defense of moderate positions are continuously embraced by the respondents of all surveys. Republicans have begun demonstrating more acceptance of moderates than have the Democrats, and this is a dramatic shift.

While having parity with the loons of the Right in the 90’s, those on the Left have since morphed into greater episodes of unhinged behavior. Yes, the right-wingers have Ann Coulter. However, the leftovers have Rosie O’Donnell, and she has grown to equal six snapping Coulters.

Let us be candid in the way we measure their respective fringe-like behavior. Coulter wrongfully resorts to name-calling while O’Donnell likens Iran’s taking of 15 British sailor and marine hostages to a cabal arranged by the United States government. Apparently the Baker-Hamilton Commission was right all along when recommending diplomacy with Iraq’s surrounding hostile regimes possessing a vested interest in our demise. We need only talk with the Iranians and look how quickly they’ll kidnap on our behalf! By Rosie’s measure however, we’ll now appear to have lost our influence because President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad let them go – U.S. cabal neutralized.

Back in our own galaxy, hard right elephants are uncomfortable with Giuliani’s progressiveness despite respecting his globally witnessed 9/11 heroism – but they’re not as disquieted as the liberals would prefer. Hard-Left donkeys are paranoid that if he does win the primaries, his centrism will then be unleashed upon its most target rich audience, the general election voters.

This is reminiscent of Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who lost the state’s Democratic primary in ’06 only to win the statewide election thereafter as an independent. The militants rejected him while mainstreamers decisively returned him to power.

Why are the rigid partisans on both sides so frightened? Because even the wing-nuts have learned over the years that a preponderance of polling data illustrates that most Americans are socially moderate and fiscally conservative while being strong on national defense.

A more strangling frustration however will tighten around the Democrats because while the hierarchies of both camps are unnerved by centrists, a Giuliani victory would become a Bill Clinton moment for the GOP. Just as Bill extricated control of the Democratic Party from the far-Left, Rudy would take from the far-Right that similar influence. Republicans would accomplish in ‘08 the broader appeal once enjoyed by Democrats in the ‘90s. This of course was before they succumbed to the authoritarian collectivism of Moveon.org and the pro-Tiananmen Square massacre mentality of International ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War and End Racism).

Mr. Giuliani will nonetheless encounter battles with his own party’s old guard, but it’s a healthy and necessary process. Social conservatives will never come around to his perspective on gay rights and abortion, but will continue admiring his law enforcement prowess, contempt for a legislative judiciary, and zealous advocacy for free trade. He’s also the only candidate who has spoken extensively on the dangers of crossing the separation of powers between the branches, and how Constitutional law outranks legislative law each and every time - regardless of whether or not it’s liked by Congress, the Supreme Court or the Executive Branch.

Yet these are cautionary challenges juxtaposed to the well-grounded nervousness felt by Democrats over Giuliani’s prowess. In a column entitled, “Democrats Should Go After Giuliani – NOW,” popular left-wing syndicated columnist Roland Martin recommends going after the pre- 9/11 Rudy:

He was accused of being grossly insensitive to the family of a black man shot numerous times by the police and his rudeness was the talk of City Hall. (Creators Syndicate, February 16, 2007.)

There is no candidate that strikes fear in the hearts of Democrats more than Giuliani. He has mass appeal, can raise money, has a huge name I.D. and is strong on defense. He talks tough and walks even tougher.

A month later, a quasi-progressive magazine published an opinion piece by Robert Polner entitled, “What an anti-Giuliani add should say,” wherein he supports the need to emphasize the benefits of disparaging the Mayor’s 9/11 credentials just as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did in the 2004 election against Senator John Kerry’s military service. He argues that the Democrats should use the International Association of Fire Fighters’ drafted letter of rebuke:

It blasted Giuliani for his "disgraceful" order of November 2001 that forced hundreds of New York firefighters to stop searching ground zero for the remains of their fallen brethren. (Salon Magazine, March 17, 2007)

Somehow, this scheduling dispute pales when compared to the veteran-turned-activist’s own comments before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he characterized the confessed actions of a minority of soldiers as if they were the atrocities of most:

They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. (Government transcript of John Kerry’s testimony, April 22, 1971, courtesy of C-SPAN)

However, the country will soon see the benefits of Giuliani’s pre-9/11 record. During his tenure, crime dropped, employment rose, the economy strengthened, drug use plummeted, and Time Square stopped being the toilet everyone wanted to flush.

He accomplished what 40 years worth of predecessors could not – he allowed my city to radiate again with pride.

Hope I didn’t ruin any plans you may have had while you waited for me to respond to whether I favor child pornography. I try to be on FR 24 hours a day but I find it damn impossible.

I also find it impossible to believe that some people need to be spoon fed.

I’ll try again.

The First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;”. Pretty straight forward. No and, if, or buts. It is as “absolute” as the Second Amendment. Actually, clearer. On its face certainly “freedom of speech, or of the press” isn’t as open to interpretation as the issue of RTBA and its relationship to militias.

So how can Congress abridge the freedom of the Press to publish any pornography?

But strangely people who accept that the First Amendment can be made to conform to reality argue that the Second is sacred.

In the same way that the Founders could not have imagined contemporary pornography, they could not have imagined the United States in 2007. They could not have imagined NYC. They could not have imagined the multicultural, multi ethnic metropolis. They could not have imagined the NYC subway system.

And as it is impossible that they anticipated that unabridged Freedom of the Press should allow child pornography, so too it is impossible to believe that they would have thought that by the Second they are allowing that in a subway car where they may be pychpaths, sociopaths, criminals, white supremacists, black supremacist, toddlers, grandmas, Jihadists, schools girls, and other assorted human beings, that all can come into that car with weapons concealed under the rights of the Second Amendment.

All the Amendments are equal. The Second is not special. And as I wrote above, while the First, Fourth and others, remain vital to our freedoms and liberty, the purpose of the Second has been superceeded by the fact that the citizen can never again dream of having arms proportionate to those available to the Government.

Now call me a Liberal.

Your parsing is getting so tiresome.

You're just frustrated that the vast majority of members here aren't locking in marchstep behind Giuliani.

For a few bucks a month, you can easily create your own website and you and your misguided Rudy minions can cheerlead Rudy until the cows come home.

Most FReepers do not support Rudy. We will not support him in the primaries, and if he wins the nomination, we will stay home or vote for a 3rd party candidate. This is something you need to simply realize and stop trying to shove your candidate down our throats.

Because we know that the Founders could not have imagined contemporary pornography, and certainly child pornography, in their wildest dreams- or nightmares. We know that it would be absurd to believe that the First Amendment allows anything. So have the courts ruled, and we have readily accepted those rulings, as common sense which overrides- or abridges- Freedom of the Press.

But a video is not speech although it may contain speech. A magazine or book with photos may or may not contain speech or photos.

Printed and spoken speech are protected. The others could be regulated if we chose.

In the same way that national security documents or private medical records are not 'free speech', to be published at any time the press wishes, we could also categorize pornographic images and video. Clearly, the Founders had no such explicit intent to protect pornography although if one wishes to take an absolutist view of the First, it would be consistent that all types of textual pornography would be legal. In fact, this is pretty much the case.

It is a matter of classification. It is only in the last century that we've thrown a blanket of 'speech' over all kinds of things. This is judicial activism, stretching the Constitution to fit the Court's own policy preferences. Just as in Roe where infanticide was injected via a flimsy 'privacy' that had never previously been imagined or construed in the Constitution, the idea of pornography as a form of free speech is a figment of the Warren Court's overactive imaginations.

I would think you would be more disturbed, however, over the convictions from imaginary computer-generated porn. Although repulsive, since these are not images of real persons, they do not depict the actual victimization of a person in a criminal way. So the viewing of actions which did not even occur are criminalized which creates a thought crime, a crime of viewing.

Now that is a law that should make everyone, for or against the law, think hard. The Court has become a little strangely and inconsistent.

However, it does apply to your argument. Obviously, there are certain types of pornography that aren't free speech even though they did not result from the filming of a crime. Therefore, all pornography can be, in fact, regulated similarly.

Another angle that has never been explored to that video in particular can be viewed as a public performance. So if something is illegal on a stage or on the street, it could also be regulated. The current notion of very broad free speech treats all of these as though they are private acts, viewers and performers only as private persons. However, that is not privacy as most people think of it or as the Founders thought of it. Again, we see a legal basis by which we could regulate this form of 'speech'.

BTW, I didn't think you were making an argument for child pornography. Neither am I. I'm actually making the argument for a return to greater regulation of speech.

BTW, I didn't think you were making an argument for child pornography.

I'm thankful for that as that only leaves me as being a "child murderer" of which I was accused a few days ago.

FreeRepublic is so rational and fun these days. Still I long for the good ole days when the worst I was accused of was being an Israeli First traitor to the US.

I didn't think I was making any arguments concerning freedom of speech or press. The mention - of what I thought was a given- was merely an attempt to illustrate my argument concerning the Second Amendment (which is relevant to the on topic of Giuliani).

OH! If that was the case, I take it all back! LOL.

People get touchy when their favorite abridgements of liberty are threatened, don't they?

Me: BTW, I didn't think you were making an argument for child pornography.

I'm thankful for that as that only leaves me as being a "child murderer" of which I was accused a few days ago. FreeRepublic is so rational and fun these days. Still I long for the good ole days when the worst I was accused of was being an Israeli First traitor to the US.

I'm surprised you haven't been shot at dawn. I long for those posts that could dissect an EO right down to its heart in ten minutes after Xlinton signed it. I miss the posters who would rip any legislation to shreds and expose the true Dim agenda, people who could take a news article and find the slyest line of propaganda in the very first read of it. We've lost some good posters over the years. We were more radical then but more effective.

I'd begun to think you were busy with Easter. Or with an egghunt. Then I reconsidered and recalled there was some quaint custom of observing a holiday called Passover. Just a little ribbing. It's funny sometimes to be so majoritarian that you fail to realize that a holiday you celebrate has an older tradition from which it derives.

So happy Passover! Well, if that's the correct term and if it isn't over already (which I suspect it is).

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