Posted on 03/06/2007 5:39:37 PM PST by markomalley
They are saying that the next GOP presidential candidate might very well be a pro-abortion Republican who promises not to push that issue and is strong on other issues.
They hope that pro-lifers will “be reasonable,” not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and go along quietly.
We won’t.
Republicans and Democrats in 1980 took radically different approaches to the right to life. Republicans wrote into their party platform that all abortions should be outlawed. Democrats wrote into their party platform that not only should abortion be legal, but families should be forced to pay for others’ abortions through their taxes.
Democratic leaders have been utterly committed to their party platform. But there’s a movement afoot for Republicans to shrug off this plank of the party platform altogether, and give a pro-abortion politician the reins of the party and, they hope, the White House.
In particular, Rudy Giuliani has become a favorite for president of conservative talk-show hosts, and pro-war and tough-on-crime Republicans. He’s also way ahead in polls like Newsweek’s, though it’s anyone guess what such polls mean so early in the process.
The way the pro-Rudy argument goes is this: For the past three decades, social conservatives have had the luxury of insisting on purity in the Republican Party. Their clout was such that any candidate had to undergo a “forced conversion” before running for national office. But 9/11 changed that. Now, extremist Islam and the war on terror are such all-consuming issues, and we can’t be so caught up with abortion anymore.
Since Giuliani is committed to the war on terror and is a great crisis manager with a track record rooting out the gangs of New York, we shouldn’t demand that he be pro-life, but instead we should be willing to make a deal.
Rudy’s deal: He’ll promise not to push the pro-abortion agenda, and he’ll nominate judges in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Pro-lifers in the Republican Party in return would support him, but keep insisting that the party stay pro-life, and fight our fiercest pro-life battles at the state level, where they belong.
That seems like a good deal, at first blush. We’re well aware that “forced conversions” to the pro-life fold are far from the ideal. Think of the candidacy of Bob Dole in 1996. And it is true that the fight against judicial tyranny is an immense front in the battle for the right to life. Transforming the courts is a prerequisite to victory elsewhere.
But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.
When they ask us to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.
We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We’ve seen ultrasounds, we’ve named our babies in the womb, we’ve seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.
We also see the downside of Rudy’s deal. If pro-lifers went along, we’d soon find out that a pro-abortion Republican president would no longer preside over a pro-life party. The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.
Thus, the Republicans in the 1980s became Reaganites. The Democrats in the 1990s took on the pragmatic Clintonite mold. Bush’s GOP is no different, as Ross Douthat points out in “It’s His Party” in the March Atlantic Monthly.
A Republican Party led by a pro-abortion politician would become a pro-abortion party. Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.
Would a pro-abortion president give us a pro-life Supreme Court justice? Maybe he would in his first term. But we’ve seen in the Democratic Party how quickly and completely contempt for the right to life corrupts. Even if a President Giuliani did the right thing for a short time, it’s likely the party that accepted him would do the wrong thing for a long time.
Would his commitment to the war on terror be worth it? The United States has built the first abortion businesses in both Afghanistan and Iraq, ever. Shamefully, our taxes paid to build and operate a Baghdad abortion clinic that is said to get most of its customers because of the pervasive rape problem in that male-dominated society. And that happened under a pro-life president. What would a pro-abortion president do?
The bottom line: Republicans have made inroads into the Catholic vote for years because of the pro-life issue. If they put a pro-abortion politician up for president, the gains they’ve built for decades will vanish overnight.
> How does he differentiate himself from the others on those?
He has, under extremely difficult (most would have bet up front: impossible) circumstances, brought law and order to the streets of New York City, no mean feat.
He has, in one of the most tax happy municipalities on the face of the planet, reduced the tax burden.
He has shown, time and again, that on these issues he will go head to head with whomever he must, and that he will prevail.
Would that the same could be said of ANY other politician. Even Reagan chunked the fiscal responsibility test.
It is one of the great ironies (and shames) of the time since Ike that the only times the federal budget was balanced were under democrat presidents.
"The Roman Catholic Church is against capital punishment too. If you're a Catholic does that mean you must oppose it too?"
Yes I do oppose capital punishment.
Illegal immigrants from Mexico get public housing, food stamps, free college tuition, affirmative action on citizenship, daisy chain their relatives in for Social Security, swell our prison population, etc., etc., ad nausea...
The welfare plantation for illegals is good for business? If you are in the business of socialism?
Bump and ping
Abortion and capital punishment are at different levels. If you're a Catholic, you're free to disagree with the current stance of the Church. It's isn't dogma. Abortion is murder, and intrinsically evil. The Church teaches that you must hold this view to be a faithful Catholic.
Dear Rudy,
Pro-lifers WILL NOT BUDGE!
Regards,
"Sun" former embryo
Matthew 7:18-20:
> It's from the article, first I'd heard about it. Do you
> know for a fact that it is untrue? Just asking.
I know it's illegal to use US government funds for that purpose, and I know that the only reference on the web to it is an obviously spurious (and poorly faked, at that) "washington post" article that doesn't exist at the washington post site.
Good to see you!
Blessings to you and your family. Hope all is well. Have a Holy, Holy Lent and Easter.
The question of capital punishment has not been settled dogmatically or within the ordinary Magisterium. It is possible to hold differing views while being mindful of the guidance of the Holy See on this issue.
Were a definitive determination for the Catholic Church to be made it would come from the Pope normally in one of the legal forms he has at his disposal to address the Church and define the teaching. This has not happened yet in this juridical form.
Wow,(((Hugs)))
Precisely so, Pyro. Succinctly stated and well said.
"One presumes you are not calling the author of this website -- who has incisively expressed his beliefs on the four longest Giuliani threads this month (here, here, here, and here) -- a "disruptor".
You're darn right I'm calling JimRob a disruptor. It's his website and he is entitled to do anything he wants but he's still a disruptor.
(You aren't the worst Jim)
:o)
God bless you, dear friend. The Lord send you every blessing for a holy Lent and a joyful Easter!
Mark? The statement should be sourced or qualified. voltaires_zit does not believe the U.S. is legally capable of funding development of an abortion mill in a foreign country. Either A) the statement is false, or B) the construction of said institutions happened under the purview of the U.N. We need to be intellecutally honest in making claims like these.
Most of what has been posted to Fr, against Rudy, from the beginning, has been 1/2 truths, lies, and things blatantly taken out of context and then twisted.
You don't like him? Fine.....just don't use lies to make your case against him.
And the thing that heads this thread, posted to news, is NOT news at all, but a Catholic site on line, that people post to. It's as though someone tool a single post from a FR thread and used it as a "news" article to head a thread, on another website.
Someone who needs conservatives' votes, and goes out of his way to get them, will have some disincentive to stabbing his constituents in the back, especially if he has any desire to be reelected.
It is wonderful to see you!!! I hope you are very well indeed and that many blessings and graces come to you this holy Lenten season.
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