Posted on 11/16/2007 9:07:47 AM PST by dschapin
Fred Thompson and the NRLC
It is interesting that the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) has chosen to endorse Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, a man who once offered legal advice to a pro-choice group, voted against key pro-life issues in the Senate and now espouses convoluted reasons for rejecting constitutional protection of the unborn.
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Recently, Mr. Thompson refused to support a constitutional amendment that would protect innocent life by restricting the availability of abortions. The sanctity-of-life amendment was a core plank in the Republican Party's 2004 election platform, and yet Mr. Thompson said he could not support it, saying his objection stems from his federalist views.
However, in 1995 he voted for a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. If he were concerned about states rights he would have let them issue their own laws on the matter. Also, if Mr. Thompson were concerned about cluttering the constitution with superfluous amendments, he would not have supported a 1997 constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
However, I can respect and count as allies for now those who prefer only to overturn Roe and return the matter to the states.Well said.
Ridiculous. The Times may be building the ramp for a shark jump to join with the rest of the media.
And again, who really cares about endorsements? None of us should. We should, rather, think and study and think some more - for ourselves - not follow what Group A or Council B has told us to think.
Well, you're wrong. My top priority is to restore adherence to the principles I discussed above. And politicians like Thompson (and Giuliani and Romney and McCain and Paul and Huckabee) are unmoored from those principles, as signified by their claim that states have any right to decide the abortion question, and alienate the most important unalienable right of all.
Can you list out the federal programs that fall outside the Enumerated Powers that Mr. Thompson is advocating dismantling?
If the Washington Times thinks Fred`s 100% pro-life Senate voting record in the 1990`s, which gained him two NRTL endorsements in 1994 and 1996, coupled with those consistent pro-life positions he still holds today, can somehow be considered checkered, this article must have been written by a liberal guest editorialist. I can't think of any rational reason for this old conservative newspaper to publish such a sophomoric article.
We've covered all these issues on Free Republic for months on end. Fred`s work for a pro-choice organization in 1991 was minimal. Especially when compared to the work private attorney John Roberts did to assist homosexual groups in the case of Romer v Evans around the same time frame.
The NRTL Committee has spoken. When you look at the top tier candidates, the NRTL`s reasoning makes Fred the logical choice. Methinks the Wash Times won't be backing Fred anytime soon. Something tells me there could be a Mitt Boy or a Huckster in the Times future.
The framers clearly intended that bitterly controversial social issues should be worked out in the ordinary processes of state and local politics. The HLA would plainly flout that aspect of the constitutional plan. Neither a balanced budget amendment nor a flag-burning amendment is remotely analogous.
As originally written the Constitution even left the states free to infringe basic human rights by providing for one human being to own another. It took a war which left hundreds of thousands dead to resolve that matter on a national basis. The framers had it in mind that most issues would be defused with less fuss through a decentralized process of discussion and compromise.
Abortion is certainly a violation of a basic inalienable right. It doesn’t follow, however, that a federal prohibition mandating that abortion be criminal in all fifty states would be consistent with the Constitution’s federal plan nor that it would be a good idea.
Fred is absolutely correct to turn away from the HLA. It can’t pass, and even if it could it shouldn’t. The HLA would only reinforce the great cultural divide that Roe v. Wade opened up.
Roe short-circuited a serious debate we need to have about abortion. If we focus that debate on the HLA and whether abortion should be criminal nationwide the forces of life will lose it. Even if they won they would only empower a pro-choice resistance movement that would mirror the pro-life movement Roe inspired.
The debate we need has to be focused on enacting reasonable, life-saving regulation, state by state. That process can persuade people and help move the culture closer to full appreciation of life’s incalculable value.
Fred is pointing the way here and NRTL plainly understands that. Nobody else in the field of candidates has been able clearly to say that Roe was wrongly decided and must be overturned. Nobody else has record that proves he understands this. That’s where the rubber hits the road in the fight for life.
The HLA is an artifact of a time when the pro-life movement hadn’t yet figured out either the magnitude of the task it faced or the right tools for attacking it. It’s long past time to let it go. Certainly the pro-life movement can’t afford to fall into an idiotic internecine spat over a silly relic like the HLA.
By being belligerent on the subject...you are indirectly leading to abortion not being stopped at all.
The HLA will not pass now. It just won’t.
While you “stand by your principles” your principles will get crushed by the world falling down around you.
It’s no different than the crowd that said Thompson’s SS plan wasn’t good enough because he didn’t say he was going to scrap the whole thing on January 21, 2009, all current retirees be damned. Too bad that platform WILL NOT WIN and even if that candidate won, such a plan wouldn’t be passed.
I am assuming that you didn't read that Thompson had NO problem with signing on to an amendment to save the flag -- just NOT to save a life, as he would "leave that up to the states."
If you wish to return to the 18th or 19th Century, Congressman Ron Paul is your man, and you're welcome to him. If, however, you wish to be a realist and get those things done Federalism-wise that are doable within the current societal conditions, I invite you to join me in supporting Senator Fred Thompson.
The flag amendment was a passable amendment that would not divide our nation (save for a few far-left moonbats.)
I’ve said before that Ron Paul is the perfect Republican candidate...
...for 1880.
For starters, a fetus is not a person under current US law. You clearly don't understand the 10th Amendment or Article 5. For your edification. (Btw, isn't this a new position for you? LOL)
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
That means abortion is a states rights issue. This idea goes back to the beginning of the nation. The Framers/Founders called it Federalism. Something most conservatives and candidate Fred Thompson support. Now, if you want a Reagan style Human Rights amendment added to the Constitution --- which I would support --- you'll have to go through a process that is outlined in the Constitution itself. A process that has been successful only 17 times in our history.
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
“Maybe the editors should add up the dents and dings for all the front runners on the issue of abortion as well as other issues of importance to the majority of conservatives and see who looks least like an acne scarred teenager. I have, and I think Fred looks really good in comparison.”
Done the comparing...and exactly why it CLEARLY makes better sense to support Duncan Hunter rather than waste a minute on the lesser of the four.
Because, virtually all of Fred Thompson's language and stance about being some great "federalist" was borrowed directly from John McCain.
"I’m a federalist. Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states."
- John McCain, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, 11-19-06
Ron Paul and Fred Thompson have an almost identical position in this regard, one that matches that of Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, and Jerry Ford in 1976, which is anathema to the Reagan pro-life GOP platform.
I cannot, and will not, support someone who is completely unmoored from an understanding that no individual, no state, has the right to alienate the unalienable rights to life and liberty.
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Exactly right. I wonder, too, what it is they want.
Fred has had these positions just as long as McCain has. You know better, too.
Your intellectual dishonesty is disgusting. Fred is not "borrowing" a position from McCain. He is advocating a return to the legal framework of abortion law that existed in this country for over 200 years prior to Roe vs. Wade. John McCain didn't invent the position on Goerge Stephanopoulos' show.
For whatever reason, it is apparently necessary to tear down Fred and the NRLC to pave the way for whomever they have decided to endorse. Since they are completely free to endorse anyone they like, one has to wonder why it is necessary to play these intellectually dishonest games.
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