Posted on 02/19/2012 3:53:59 AM PST by EternalVigilance
America's Party ratified its 2012 Platform in national convention yesterday, making an already-great conservative document even better, with the expansion of its solid property rights plank and the addition of the Equal Protection for Posterity Resolution as its primary pro-life language. Text included below for your consideration.
meta-
prefix meaning 1. "after, behind," 2. "changed, altered," 3. "higher, beyond," from Gk. meta (prep.) "in the midst of, in common with, by means of, in pursuit or quest of," from PIE *me- "in the middle" (cf. Goth. miþ, O.E. mið "with, together with, among;" see mid). Notion of "changing places with" probably led to senses "change of place, order, or nature," which was a principal meaning of the Gk. word when used as a prefix (but also denoting "community, participation; in common with; pursuing"). Third sense, "higher than, transcending, overarching, dealing with the most fundamental matters of," ...
One other point:
I have said again and again to our people across the country that I couldn’t care less whether the Republican Party lives or dies. I only care about whether the Republic lives or dies.
Many times, from the very inception of America’s Party, I have referenced George Washington’s strict warnings in his Farewell Address to the dangers of party or regional factionalism, and the absolute need for Union around principle.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
*excerpt*
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
*end excerpt*
Likely... I noticed it looked like there had been a forum there but that it was unavailable.
It would be helpful to me, if you are willing, to enumerate who of the remaining four Republican presidential nominees does not "live up" (and consequentially does not get your support) and why.
I'll tell you ahead of time, my expectation is that your response, unless you simply refuse to answer the question, will allow me to demonstrate how your actions are counter-productive to your stated ideals.
I can’t support any of them.
The first obligation of the oath of office, no matter what office it might be, is the equal protection of the God-given, unalienable right to life of every person within your jurisdiction.
All of the current Republican candidates for president have promised to sign legislation which violates that sacred imperative right out of the gate, ie “fetal pain” legislation that defines babes in the womb as persons, and then allows them to be killed.
Even Blackmun, in Roe, admitted that if the child is a person, OF COURSE they are protected by the explicit provisions of our Constitution.
In other words, the lawless laws these folks are pushing are in fact worse than Roe.
Now, go ahead and explain to me how in order to live up to my ideals I have to compromise them, and how you are actually forwarding my ideals by supporting those who betray them.
And, just to keep the conversation on point, let's repeat what "my ideals" are, exactly:
"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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
I'm admittedly ignorant about "fetal pain" legislation. Before I fully respond, I'd like to know specifically what legislation and promises you are referring to.
"In other words, the lawless laws these folks are pushing are in fact worse than Roe."
Please don't take this as anything more than two insignificant and unsolicited criticisms:
Firstly, "lawless laws" seems self-contradictory. I think I know what you mean, but as is, I don't think it communicates effectively what you want it to.
Secondly, as I'm pretty sure at least two of the four candidates are, at the very least, somewhat pro-life... In that light, the "worse than Roe" characterization seems (again, at the very least) exaggerated.
It means they're codifying the killing of innocent persons. Which is lawless, and obviously unconstitutional.
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." - the Fourteenth Amendment "An unjust law is no law at all." - Augustine "We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.'" - MLK, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law." - the Fifth Amendment
I'm pretty sure at least two of the four candidates are, at the very least, somewhat pro-life...
"Somewhat pro-life" is an obvious oxymoron. The individual is either alive or has been killed. You can no more be "somewhat pro-life" than you can be "somewhat pregnant." You can no more be "somewhat pro-life" than you can be "somewhat faithful" to your spouse. You either is, or you ain't.
In that light, the "worse than Roe" characterization seems (again, at the very least) exaggerated.
It's worse than Roe in two MAJOR ways: A) It is the codification, or the passage into the positive law, of inequality, while Roe was merely a court decision in a particular case. Big difference. And B) It is the codification of the the killing of innocent persons, which even the Roe court admitted was explicitly unconstitutional.
I think I got what you meant, but I think that the phrase "lawless laws" is vulnerable to ridicule, and another choice might be more effective in conveying your position. Just my opinion, and I realize I'm giving you advise you didn't ask for... so take it for what it's worth. But it WAS meant to be constructive.
"Somewhat pro-life" is an obvious oxymoron."
I have to disagree with you there... and as I'm figuring out your position on the matter... I'm genuinely surprised (to put it, very, very lightly). I think I'm actually a little in shock, and I'm not just saying that to be melodramatic.
You seem to be taking the position that because these "fetal pain" laws, only prevent SOME abortions, but not ALL abortions, that they are WORSE than Roe v Wade because you believe that by failing to ban all abortions, that they are positively asserting that some abortions are legitimate, and by extension, those who support such laws are pro-abortion.
I hope I'm just wrong, and that I'm not really figuring out what you believe here, because it's literally making me sick to my stomach... The consequences of that distorted logic is devastating.
And, I should tell you this is not where I was intending this conversation to go. I think I need to let my initial emotional response pass and think about it a while before I decide how I should respond.
Thank you for being so courteous in this exchange.
If there is anything that you think may help clarify your position on this "fetal pain" law issue... please post it, especially if you think I'm misinterpreting your position.
But, even if they did save some, Americans didn't used to make Utilitarian arguments concerning such matters. They made moral and constitutional arguments.
Our Constitution, which every officer of government in this country, at every level, and in every branch, is required to swear to God to support, absolutely, imperatively, explicitly requires equal protect for every person.
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.""No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."
It's not optional, and no class of persons is excepted.
Just keep the oath.
“protect” should have been “protection.”
A gross distortion of what I've said over and over again, by the way.
These sorts of bills, which have been codified by "pro-life" Republicans across the land over the last decade, define the child in the womb as a person, and then spell out how and when these persons can be killed. Again, immoral, and blatantly unconstitutional.
Again, dead wrong. These bills prevent no abortions whatsoever. Quite the contrary is true. They help assure that the child-killing holocaust will continue right up until the time God's righteous judgment falls on our national head.
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." -- Thomas Jefferson
I have to assume (since you did not provide it) you mean the Susan B Anthony List Pledge, which by the way was apparently not signed by Romney. Not that it matters to me, but you should modify your claim for the sake of accuracy.
Further, I have to assume the promise you refer to is this: "...advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion."
You've stated explicitly that the legislation "defines babes in the womb as persons, and then allows them to be killed"
Can you show me where in the legislation this definition occurs? Have you even read what they promised to advance and sign?
If you haven't read it, is it even possible for you to make the claims you you have regarding what it defines, what it allows, and what it would prevent?
"They don't prevent any abortions. That's one of the fatal flaw in your assumptions.
It seems to me it is YOUR assumption that they don't. It also seems to me that the only fatal flaw in this discussion is in your logic. Somehow you've equated codifying the protection of some-but-not-all unborn with "codifying the killing" of others. That is INSANELY distorted.
You further defend your position stating that "You don't stop abortion by sacrificing every moral, constitutional and legal argument against abortion from the get-go. It just plain doesn't work. We have forty years of such stupid, unprincipled tactics from the "pro-life" industry to prove it. "
What you fail to notice is that "every moral, constitutional and legal argument against abortion" you claim has been sacrificed, has in fact been around the whole time and has no more succeeded than what you characterize as the stupid, unprincipled tactics from the "pro-life" industry. In your own words, "It just doesn't work.
Wrong. Romney also supports the same “fetal pain” legislation. It’s on his website.
You’re deluding yourself if you think the “pro-life” industry has been making the arguments I’m making for the last forty years.
And Romney supports the “fetal pain” legislation, even though he didn’t sign the Susan B. Anthony pledge. My comments were accurate. It’s right on his website. Go look.
You know, your real problem is that you refuse to truly face up to what the only moral, constitutional and legal arguments are against abortion. That’s why you’re having a hard time tracking.
Even the pro-abort lawyers arguing in Roe admitted that their case would fall apart if the “fetus” or child is a person. So did the pro-abort majority, in the written opinion. Everything turns on that question.
Is the child a person, or not? What say you? If you say NO, you agree with Blackmun, and I’m not sure you’re on the right website. If you say YES, the questions get really simple, really fast. Every civilized person will admit that it is immoral to murder innocents. Everyone who can read can figure out that such an injustice is blatantly unconstitutional. And if it ain’t constitutional, it ain’t legitimate, or legal.
Read the legislation yourself. Read the similar “heartbeat” legislation that is being pushed by the same crowd. Read the Texas Code, which almost a decade ago explicitly recognized the personhood of the child, and then in the next breath allows the abortionists to kill said persons. Read the 2005 “Lacey Peterson” law which was passed by a “pro-life” Congress and signed by a “pro-life” president. Again, it recognizes the personhood of the child, from its biological beginning, and then explains how you can “legally” butcher them.
If what you say is true:
"Even the pro-abort lawyers arguing in Roe admitted that their case would fall apart if the “fetus” or child is a person. So did the pro-abort majority, in the written opinion."
and the legislation, as you say "defines babes in the womb as persons" then by your own assertion, Roe's case should fall apart.
But you would argue that I'm missing your point, specifically that the law codifies the definition of a person, then allows those in that definition to be killed... YOUR ENTIRE POSITION "turns on that".
BUT YOU HAVE YET TO DEMONSTRATE the very foundation of your assertion, namely that the legislation defines ANYTHING, much less that it "allows" killing of the "persons" that it's defined.
Can you show me where in this legislation (1) ANYTHING is defined, and where or how it (2) "Allows the killing" of those defined as Persons?
Further, can you explain to me how YOUR ENTIRE POSITION on this matter does not "turn on" those two objectively verifiable issues, and why you should not be expected to offer SOMETHING in terms of documentation to back up those two, so far, absolutely baseless assertions?
Also, I would really love to hear your explanation of how a law that makes some abortions illegal, doesn't prevent any abortions.
From http://www.sba-list.org/2012pledge:
"The following candidates refused to sign the pledge: Gov. Mitt Romney, Gov. Jon Huntsman, Gov. Gary Johnson."
Romney also supports the same “fetal pain” legislation. It’s on his website.
So post the URL.
Incidentally, I've looked and been unable to find it myself.
"I will advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion." -- Mitt Romney, NRO, June 18, 2011
Which, as I said, is also on his own campaign website:
http://mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/06/my-pro-life-pledge
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