Political Hay
An Open Letter to Michael Smerconish and Jennifer Stockman
Reaganite radio talker leaves GOP. Lincoln, abortion, and the GOP.
Well, so long friend.
Michael Smerconish, longtime Reagan Bushie, a colleague in the days of Jack Kemp’s HUD, and now a rock star of Philadelphia talk radio, accomplished author and frequent TV talking head, has unplugged himself from the Republican Party.
The GOP, he insists in a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer that was cross-filed over at the HuffPo, “is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn’t fit neatly within its parameters.”
Really? Huh.
Since Smerc (as a mutual late friend of ours was wont to call him) has brought up the subject, we might as well bring in Jennifer Blei Stockman here. Ms. Stockman, the “Chair Emeritus” of the Republican Majority for Choice, appeared on Sean Hannity’s TV show the other night as part of Hannity’s great Great American Political Panel. Like Michael, Ms. Stockman is pro-choice, and whether they know each other or not, both share some version of the left-wing template here. To wit: the GOP has been consumed by the Religious Right and now is run by a bunch of intolerant crazies who are obsessed with dictating a woman’s choices on abortion and can’t get over the idea of whether, in Michael’s memorable phrase, “two guys hook up.”
So OK. Let’s do the social issue fox trot here.
The problem, Michael and Jennifer, is not, as each of you have incorrectly structured the argument, simply about abortion. Both of you are purveying the same old false religion about abortion — and being “pro-choice” is pretty close these days to a secular religion for some.
Are there Americans aplenty who recoil from abortion, and are “pro-life” because of what they believe is the morally right thing to do? Yes indeed. No argument there. Are these Americans limited, to be stereotypical, to the “Religious Right”? No. Since I suppose it’s relevant to this conversation, I belong, as readers of this space know, to the United Church of Christ, where I also serve as a church council president and board member of the regional church. The UCC — at the national level bureaucracy — is about as far-left as you can get, but our pews are filled with churchgoers of all political faiths and views on those pesky social issues like abortion and same sex-marriage.
Am I personally “pro-life”? Yes. But not, to dust up your stereotype of what this means, simply on the grounds of the abortion issue itself.
A central reason so many conservatives have such strong feelings on this issue is that, plainly put, Roe v. Wade epitomizes precisely the kind of judicial activism that Abraham Lincoln and the founders of the Republican Party so strenuously opposed. In other words, to be even more precise, Michael and Jennifer, to support Roe v. Wade is to support the judicial philosophy that bequeathed Dred Scott v. Sandford (which tried to make slavery a constitutional right), Plessy v. Ferguson (which gave a thumbs up to mandating segregation) and Korematsu v. United States, which blithely gave a nod to the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
This being February and not far removed from Lincoln’s birthday, let’s take a look at his considerable thoughts on this.
On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court, headed by the slave-owning Democrat Chief Justice Roger Taney, handed down its decision. A decision which, as noted and agreed by all today and most at the time, tried to use the Supreme Court to make slavery a constitutional right.
Three months later, in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln rose to deliver a speech addressing the issue specifically. First, Lincoln zeroed in on the 7-2 vote, castigating the fact that “this important decision” had not been made by “unanimous concurrence.” The Court had, said Lincoln, made the decision with “apparent partisan bias” and it was “based on assumed historical facts which are not really true.”
Within a year, Lincoln famously addressed the issue again in his “House Divided” speech, which he delivered at the close of the Illinois State Republican Convention after being nominated for the United States Senate. What was Lincoln’s point in this speech?
Not to re-launch your apparent nightmares about the “Religious Right,” Michael and Jennifer, but Old Abe, rascally religious right-wing nut that he was, used as the basis for his speech a verse from the Gospel, specifically Matthew 12:25.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
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Phluffya| 2.24.10 @ 6:51AM
The Smerc is impressed with his own rise in the Philly media market along with his stints on O'Reilly's No Spin Factor. Michael will be pleased when the Inquirer headlines read,"Conservative Talk Show Host Leaves Republican Party." What do you expect from a cohort of Isaac Garb,who denied the will of the people to force the Delaware River pump to be built?
Grzmlyk| 2.24.10 @ 8:34AM
Well if you want to come out of the closet as a liberal, there's no better place than the odious O'Reilly's "The Factor."
Bill "I'm just looking out for 'the folks'" O'Reilly has got the classic white guilt thing going on, and he bends over so far backward to absolve the Obama administration of any bad intent that he can kiss his own colon. Which he does nightly.
By all means, Bill, you are sooo brave. Which is why you trace the footsteps of other erstwhile "courageous" conservatives like the estimable Ariana Huffington, David Brock and Snarlin' Arlen Specter.
O'Reilly was obnoxious well before he became an Obama apoligist. Now he's an aging gelding in the liberal stable.
Tim| 2.24.10 @ 11:34AM
I've always enjoyed the endless interviews with Al Sharpton-he of the crisp intellect and piercing wit. Then there are the times when he brings in Glenn Beck , puts a bisuit on his nose and watches him catch it.
Grzmlyk| 2.24.10 @ 11:51AM
Absolutely true. I cringe when anyone at Fox interviews Sharpton, as big a grifter as there ever was. And O'Reilly treats him like he was an elder statesman.
And let's not forget O'Reilly's love affair the genius Marc Lamont Hill.
As for the biscuit trick, I figure O'Reilly knows his days as ratings king are numbered and he's hitched his star to Glenn Beck's wagon. Beck, in turn, pays obeisance to O'Reilly to gain "old school Fox News" street cred. It's a quid pro quo that's all about both men maintaining/expanding their empires.
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 1:16PM
If a news organ interviews Al Sharpton for any reason, but especially after some newsworthy incident in the black community (say Katrina, or the Jena criminals), then (imo) that immediately thoroughly discredits said news organ. It's them saying "Yes, we will play the race cards we are dealt" when the entire game is corrupt to the core with anti-Americanism.
loulou| 2.24.10 @ 1:25PM
Even worse, O'Reilly often has a Black Studies "scholar", Mark Lamont Hill who used to be at Temple but was upgraded to Princeton. O'Reilly treats this professor as if he actually has something of value to say.
Doc| 2.24.10 @ 7:02AM
Smerconish built his audience by passing himself off as a conservative. He then had to sell out to get his MSNBC gig, trying to become the new Don Imus after he got canned. I stopped listening to him. He is just another squishy moderate.
Former Marine| 2.24.10 @ 7:29AM
Doc: Thanks for the reinforcement of a conclusion I came to about a year ago. Started listening to the guy who was being labeled as a conservative talk show host but it didn't take long to surmise that at best he was as you say, a "squishy moderate" or at worst a "crypto liberal". You're right again ...he's not worth listening to.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.24.10 @ 7:36AM
The big litmus test for the Democratic Party is secular humanism, of which abortion is only one part. Michael Smerconish and Jennifer Stockman both pass that test with flying colors.
Smerconish is part of that gaggle of TV specialists you observe who are trotted around and peddled as conservatives when in fact they are mostly echo chambers of every other pundit you observe on many channels.
martin j smith| 2.24.10 @ 7:56AM
I do not know these people but they do not sound like a great loss. Sometimes it is better to see someone leave a party than stick around and play games that are destructive. They will now write for the Phil Inquirer, be on MSM TV or radio and be "stars "of the Left. ( or stooges if you will )
Copyleft| 2.24.10 @ 8:12AM
So the fringe right continues to insist there's nothing "fringe" about their willful submission to the crazies of the Religious Reich... and they continue to lose numbers as sensible moderates and sane economic conservatives leave the bloated, dying behemoth.
Well done! Keep steering for that iceberg!
Ryan| 2.24.10 @ 8:21AM
What's "fringe" about being pro-life, in any aspect?
Copyleft| 2.24.10 @ 2:45PM
Check the polling numbers. The fragment of Americans who want to outlaw abortion are a tiny (and fanatical) segment indeed, usually outvoted at least 4:1, sometimes 5:1, by sane Americans.
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 2.24.10 @ 3:33PM
So if shooting police officers was approved by a "majority of Americans" you'd be out there gunning down cops. Public polling DOES NOT make a wrong right. Typical leftist. "If it doesn't affect me, who cares!"
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid!" - John Wayne
FosterBDAV66| 2.24.10 @ 3:44PM
Yes, Mr. MacAlister, that is exactly why your life is so hard.
Your argument is so flawed. It's like the "how do evolutionists explain the beginning of life" attempt at debate. Evolutionists have never claimed to know how it started, only how it diversified.
Just because the bible says you can beat your wife with a rod no thicker than your thumb does not mean you will do it. Or would you? Maybe...
Fascist| 2.25.10 @ 8:19PM
The Fascist government in Italy banned literature on birth control and increased penalties on abortion in 1926, declaring them both crimes against the state.
John Wayne| 2.26.10 @ 4:24PM
That is why my life was so hard. I was a stupid righturd.
STOP LIBERAL HATE!!| 3.4.10 @ 3:53PM
If you can't say something nice, libturd--don't say anything at all.
GW| 2.24.10 @ 4:19PM
So exactly the same amount of people who want abortion to be legal all the time want abortion to be illegal all the time. And 42% want abortion to be illegal at least most of the time. I don't know what you would define as fringe, but I don't think this would be a correct time.
Naive| 2.26.10 @ 5:27PM
Why are most anti-abortion advocates male or old women?
ZerObama| 3.2.10 @ 11:37PM
They aren't. You're not naive, you're a liar.
FosterBDAV66| 2.24.10 @ 3:41PM
Sorry, but you're not pro-life, you're Anti-Choice.
If you got your way, how long before you would be trying to take the vote away from women and anyone else?
How long before you attempt to force doctors to have patients subdued and restrained "for the good of the fetus" when they know the woman wants to abort?
And how soon will you be willing to shell out the money to take care of the unwanted child? You want to make abortion illegal, but as soon as the unwanted child is born you don't give a damn about it.
You're not just anti-abortion, you're anti-women's choice.
GW| 2.24.10 @ 4:23PM
We can play sematic games too. You're not "pro-choice" you're actually "anti-life." No, actually you're "pro-death."
You wanted CBS to not show the most subdued "anti-choice" ad at the Super Bowl which was nothing but a son and his mom joking around...
But why stop at birth? Why not make all "late-term abortions" apply until the kid is 3 years old?
ZerObama| 2.25.10 @ 12:16AM
Why stop at three years? How about a post birth abortion on old Foster right now?
Let's see if he's really serious about that 'pro-choice' rant of his.
Righteass| 2.26.10 @ 4:34PM
I have the righteass to be reactionary and say NO to abortion!
Nobama| 3.2.10 @ 11:39PM
Your lucky baby thanks you for it! Too bad your baby doesn't have a say in the decision to kill him/her.
CHOOSE LIFE!!
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 2.25.10 @ 11:23AM
No pal, I'm pro-GOD's choice. NO ONE, you, me, or anyone else has the right to decide who lives & who dies! That is God's choice ONLY! As for your straw man argument "A woman's body, a woman's choice" that is pure garbage. GOD created us all. Therefore our bodies, women included belong to Him & the child growing inside a woman belongs to Him also NOT the woman. If the argument you're presenting is what you will tell God on Judgement Day when He asks why you helped kill his children, you had better do a rethink before it's too late!
FosterBDAV66| 2.24.10 @ 2:59PM
The current direction of the GOP would make Nixon and Reagan both puke. Neither of them were great Presidents, but they were decent enough, in their ways.
There was a time with the moderates were the party. A time when both sides were willing to work together to make things happen. It seems to me part of how things got so crazy on the Right has a lot to do with Senate Rule 22 which makes it so that one person can bring the Senate to a screeching halt by claiming they will filibuster, (or as Maddow calls it "Tarantinoing" fun one that). No need for them to actually hold the podium and talk and read aloud for hours on end, if not days. No more being able to call a Quorum for a simple majority vote to stop the "Tarantino".
If that was still the way it worked, everyone would have to work together to make things happen. But not since the early 1980s.
Now, if you are a Conservative Moderate willing to reach across the aisle, and mean it, you're labeled as a Leftist.
The Ridiculous Right Reich is now in charge, and where usually the rats jump ship, they are in control, and the sensible people are jumping ship instead.
Centrist, Independent, and happy to give any wing nut the bird and tell them to sit and spin.
FosterB (Life Member of DAV)
Ken (OLd Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 3:53PM
Foster,
Screw you.
Who the heck is DAV...Dumbunnies Against Viability?
Go ahead. Reach across the aisle, and watch your hand bitten off. You are nothing more than a "useful idiot" of the communists, (pardon the shorthand).
GW| 2.24.10 @ 4:29PM
How the hell would you define John McCain? He's for open borders, amnesty, free speech restrictions, "stimulus bills", "global warming" legislation, and infamously insulted conservative Christians in 2000 primaries...........yet he won the Republican nomination just a year ago!
So, if the Ridiculous Right Reich, as you (or your boyfriend Maddow) put it, is in power they certainly are doing a terrible job with it.
ZerObama| 2.25.10 @ 12:18AM
We're kicking liberals' butts big time right now.
Why go wobbly now? Besides, everyone knows that the real fascists are the democrats.
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 8:15AM
Wow there is SO much revisionist Lincoln history in this article I had to stop reading half way through the 2nd page. Lincoln as consensus builder? The man who was elected with the whopping "consensus" of less than 40% of the popular vote? How did Lincoln build this "consensus?"
I guess if you jail state legislatures before they can meet, thats one way to build consensus.
Maybe if you suspend habeus corpus IN THE UNION and randomly jail people who disagree with you, you can build consensus.
I suppose if you exile a congressman who rebuts one of your SOTU speeches, you can build consensus.
Probably if you micromanage the war and change generals the way most of us change underwear you can build consensus.
Funny, but history (the real history, not what we're taught in school) tells us that the CONSENSUS in America in the mid 1800s was secession was an inherent Constitutional right of the States. Even Lincoln's predecessor believed that.
There WAS a consensus among the central union states--to debate secession themselves, until Lincoln started his jailings and shutting down opposition newspapers and the like.
So I guess Lincoln built "consensus" in the same way dictators like Stalin and Hitler did.
And please STOP ALREADY with the "Lincoln as abolitionist" claptrap. Lincoln was a political opportunist, so for every anti-slavery quote you can come up with, I can come up with a pro-slavery/anti-negro quote, like this one from Lincoln,
September 18, 1858-
“I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.”
And if Lincoln was so "anti-slavery" why oh why did his home state of Illinois refuse to allow negro immigration?
Lincoln wanted to keep the new territories slave-free so as to keep blacks OUT. Lincoln was also a champion of repatriation for blacks--not in the Union, but ANYWHERE but--Haiti, Liberia, PR, etc etc. He loved them blacks just so much!
Lincoln the Emancipator? Haha! His own Secretary of State, William Seward, had this to say about the "Emancipation Proclamation,"
"We show our symapthy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
In other words, the EP simply "freed" slave in so-called "rebel" territories but kept them in bondage in the Union. What, your 7th-grade Social Studies teacher never told you that? Lincoln loved the slaves so much that he didn't want to "antagonize" teritories in the South loyal to the Union by you know, freeing them.
One last thing on "consensus," the overwhelming consensus of the time was for gradual emancipation of the slaves. In fact, can you tell me ANY other country in the world that used slaves but resorted to a war to end slavery? (Hint, no you can't). Lincoln wholeheartedly rejected gradual emancipation, he stubbornly refused peace negotiators from tha CSA, and the only "consensus" he was interested in was HIS.
I could go on, but I am probably treading thin ice with regard to getting this post allowed anyway.
Please, enough already with the Lincoln Myth!
Red Phillips | 2.24.10 @ 8:37AM
Thanks for bringing some conservative sense to this supposedly conservative website.
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 8:45AM
You're welcome Red. I simply believe in Truth, no matter how ugly it is. The current Federal Leviathan can be tied DIRECTLY to Lincoln.
FosterBDAV66| 2.24.10 @ 3:46PM
And Lincoln was an original member of the Republican Party, aka: the Grand Old Party.
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 8:39AM
I am going to make a prediction: the angry responses to Crusaders' posts will contain no facts or discernible arguments, and only angry denunciations and name-calling.
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 8:48AM
Thanks SLT. Its funny you know, there is this great uprising and attempt to re-establish the 10th Amendment in some States (and hopefully it catches on in ALL of them). Yet we who call ourselves "Conservative" continue to hold in high esteem the man who OBLITERATED the 10A.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
loulou| 2.24.10 @ 1:29PM
Crusader, we were kind of forced into it, don't you think--what with all the misinformation and disinformation force fed to us in the government schools?
It's blasphemy to suggest that Lincoln was not a god. Plus he was assassinated. That made him untouchable.
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 1:48PM
Loulou yes we were, that's why I do not fault schoolchildren who simply regurgitate what teacher told them. However for an alleged "conservative" website like AmSpec to go along with the Lincoln Myth is IMHO fraudulant and unforgiveable. There was nothing remotely "conservative" about Lincoln.
Neo-libertarian| 2.24.10 @ 9:15AM
Toddard, I think what American Spectator needs is for the medical community to develop an “After Lord” pill. You know how it is when you wake up in the morning after a night of unprotected cognitive debauchery.
maximumrandb| 2.24.10 @ 10:00AM
There's a great amount of truth in what Crusader has written...no need for name-calling, even by those who might disagree.
Derek Leaberry| 2.24.10 @ 11:09AM
Thanks for setting things straight about Abe Lincoln, the scoundrel with 600,000 lives on his hands.
Gerald Stephens| 2.24.10 @ 5:34PM
Ladies, Gentlemen… a moment, please!
I suspect the author’s principle point and central question is one of like contract law. Aside from his assessment of Lincoln, either we have a constitution or a grab rump game of whatever fits then do it. Perhaps if both Lincoln and the Supreme Court had remained a bit more focused a Civil War could have been avoided. And if you allow time for my humble opinion, should we not cease playing the grab rump game there will be another civil war.
Now that appears to be a proposition any conservative might consider paramount.
Gerald Stephens
Hartford, CT
Tom B.| 2.25.10 @ 6:26AM
My Southern Agrarian neo-Confederate friends,
Please cite the exact clause in the Constitution that provides for this so-called "Constitutional right to secession." If you want to make a reasonable appeal, and talk about constitutionalism, why don't you actually turn to the CONSTITUTION, rather than "the-evil-American-Empire-doesn't-teach-this-in-school!" kind of revisionist, conspiracy-laden pseudo-history.
Crusader| 3.5.10 @ 8:40PM
My stupid northern governbment loving fool,
Hpow about the 10th Amendment? How about the Kentucky Resolution of 1798?
How about you, you mindless fool, cite exactly where in the Constitution it says the president has to "save the union?"
Idiot.
lucky | 3.8.10 @ 4:41PM
How about Article VI and the Supremacy Clause ("This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.")? See Federalist 44 for Madison's explanation of that which is incongruent with the "state sovereignty" nonsense coming from the Ron Paul/nutjob wing of the GOP. Madison explained that "...the world would have seen, for the first time, a system of government founded on an inversion of the fundamental principles of all government; it would have seen the authority of the whole society every where subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have seen a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members" if your view was in fact valid. Lincoln alluded to this in his speech given before the Special Session of Congress on the Fourth of July, 1861. Either Lincoln is a RINO and Madison is a crackpot or -- perhaps -- you are.
Dave | 2.24.10 @ 8:23AM
Same deal with O'Reilly: always playing the middle and trying to come off to liberals as balanced and objective. Besides, if he whacks the Left a bit too hard, he might drop a Nielson or two. And for guys like media Billy -- it's all about 'da numbers. That, and how many times Obami may bless him with an appearance on ... The Factor.
Or as he often whines: "I just wanna be faaaair to the President."
Right!
I dropped O'Reilly off my daily check-in list a long time back. And Smerconish? Well, I knew the flush handle on my porcilin palace had a useful function.
GK| 2.24.10 @ 8:25AM
When Smerconish endorsed Obama for president because he thought Obama was the best choice for capturing/killing bin Landen you could see the handwriting on the wall. I think Smerconish was always afraid of the "Fairness Doctrine" and he is positioning himself to the left so he can keep his paycheck coming.
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 8:45AM
"(The GOP) is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn't fit neatly within its parameters."
I just don't see this at all. How has the GOP changed at all in the last 15 years? "Dominated on social issues by the religious right"? I see no evidence whatsoever that the GOP is dominated by religious folk in any way, much less good Christians. As for "narrow parameters" - what are they? I see absolutely no standards at all in the GOP, especially no conservative ones, other than a prerequisite that one can be elected, retain power and defend the status quo and the political/corporate elite. Smerconish is either an idiot or a liar, which incidentally makes him right at home in either major party.
John II| 2.24.10 @ 10:51AM
Hi Tod. As one of my Lenten chores, I promised You-Know-Whom that I would take every opportunity to be agreeable towards my foes. And so I say . . .
Hear! Hear! Hurray for Tod! That's telling it like it is, by God!
There. That wasn't so hard. The other day I smiled pleasantly and nodded graciously to a campus colleague, so to speak, who subscribes to a particularly toxic form of feminism that entails a mixture of prodigious self-pity and ferocious careerism. Now THAT was difficult. But I was awarded by You-Know-Whom when her habitual glare softened momentarily into a bewildered blink.
And now back to class preparation antecedent to another Marx Brothers movie this evening.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 2.24.10 @ 3:41PM
SLT, being from the Philadelphia area, I can tell you he's both an idiot & a liar. I am not alone in this view either. His show's ratings are in the toilet here in the Delaware Valley. He's no loss either.
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid!" - John Wayne
mike| 11.3.10 @ 7:25PM
Smerconish is very irritating, I turned him off months ago because he is a big bore
FosterBDAV66| 2.24.10 @ 3:54PM
Toddard, which party was it that wanted to enact a test to see if any candidate was worthy of receiving party funds? A list of ten items of which they could not have an opposing view on more than 3?
It wasn't my party, the Independents.
It wasn't the DEM.
It wasn't the Green party.
Most of those against abortion are Christians on the right, and not anywhere near moderate. Notice I said most.
All the Good Christians I know have no desire to make the USA into a Christian Nation and force their beliefs onto everyone else through the Government. You do know the difference between being a Secular nation vs. a Christian Nation, as well as the difference between being a Christian Nation and a Nation of primarily Christians, right?
peterike| 2.24.10 @ 9:00AM
Smerconish is taking the Kevin Phillips route, the traitors route to media success and fame. The MSM always showers love and attention on Republican traitors -- those who "have grown" in their roles. And the media is always ready to showcase a "conservative" talking head that will come on and, as the night follows day, bash anything and everything conservative. It's a long standing route to success, and getting into all the best cocktail parties. This social pull is very powerful, and affects everyone from Supreme Court justices down to little twerps like Smerconish.
He may have actually convinced himself that he believes what he says he believes. On the other hand, he may get a sick feeling in his stomach every morning when he looks in the mirror and knows he's sold his soul for forty pieces of silver.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 2.24.10 @ 3:46PM
Smerconish doesn't have a conscience, so I doubt he feels sick when he looks in the mirror each morning. He KNOWS he's right too. Just call his radio show & challenge him on the direction the Obama administration & the Democrat majority in Congress are taking us in. It's almost entertaining to listen to him become unhinged & defend his "messiah".
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid!" - John Wayne
maverick muse| 2.24.10 @ 9:09AM
"perhaps more importantly ignored the critical nature of building a moral consensus on the social issue in question -- in this case slavery. Political consensus, Lincoln believed, was an important and necessary component in bringing about lasting political change, of settling political conflict. That consensus, of course, in the American system, meant letting the American people decide -- not judges. Decisions reached at the ballot box or in the legislative arena would over time ensure that whatever the political goal, the results would in fact be accepted by the American people. "
Excellent! This made me think twice, given what is accepted by the American people today.
Roe v Wade of 1973 has become part of this era's established psyche, as if it were legislation. Given the majority of America's population NOT being involved in civics, and the large proportion of illiterate high school graduates or drop outs, all they care to know is peer street cred from the school of hard knocks from which so many still fail to learn.
On the opposite side of our cultural spectrum are the college graduates and elitists determined to live their lives as free of responsibility as humanly possible. They are not about to change their minds or their habits to please anyone. And they currently hold the majority in our government, and in Western global governance. Ironically, it is they who provide Islamofascists the target to paint Western civilization as the great satan to be exterminated. Simultaneously, they are isolationists who provide the national opportunism for Jihadi terrorists via PC.
So long as ignorance provides the Marxists with fodder for more social power or credibility,
"What we got here--is a failure--to communicate."
A Tea Party Leader| 2.24.10 @ 9:11AM
The Smerc has been a latant Liberal. Prior to his debut on radio he was a slip and fall lawyer suing doctors. He was an attorney for the advocates of “The Pump” years ago. That referendum to stop the Delaware River Pt. Pleasant pumping station from extracting water from the river and sending it inland was overwhelmingly defeated in a ballot initiative. (His mother just happened to be a real estate agent in Central Bucks County where a building binge soon ensued.) They appealed it to a Fed Judge Isaac Garb who threw out the whole thing and let the pump be built. He refuses to discuss this when it is brought up. The Smerc defends judicial activism.
Smerc’s two favorite political figures are not Reagan and Bush. They are Fast Eddy Spendell (The mayor of PA) and Snarlin’ Arlen Specter. Figure that one out for yourself. I predicted he’d endorse Obama. As he slid down the “moderate” slope, I predicted he would be what we call a Rendell Republican (self explanatory). It would not surprise me to hear he re-registers Democrat before the primary deadline so he can vote for Specter on the Dem ticket. (He dislikes Pat Toomey intensely.) Like Specter, he seems to have moved to his true home.
I quit listening to him long ago when the talking points he regurgitated from the left started and he began advocating some of them. He also has some stupid book club he spends too much time on. His celeb status seems to have swelled his head and addled his senses.
Daniel| 2.24.10 @ 10:51AM
I stopped listening to him when the naked picture of him came out in Philadelphia magazine. Bald, fat guys his age should be legally required to keep their clothes on at all times. EEEWWWW!
maverick muse| 2.24.10 @ 9:16AM
"It can only seem to others that your insistence on keeping Roe in place is because, like Roger Taney, you fear that the American people would reject your views at the ballot box."
...not to forget the immediate ballot box of personal profit from advertising sponsors.
maverick muse| 2.24.10 @ 9:52AM
Justice Benjamin Curtis, one of the two dissenters in Dred Scott v. Sandford:
"Political reasons have not the requisite certainty to afford rules of judicial interpretation. They are different in different men. They are different in the same men at different times. And when a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean."
While delivering that message to liberal Republicans who eschew the supremacy of our original Constitution that stipulates the separate balance of powers (and how to legally amend), across the board within the Republican ranks, tell that to Mitt Romney's base of support promoting faith in revisionism through destruction or denial of historical records.
That point regards the paramount and intrinsic value of original meanings, perpetually understood without revising either historical setting or original definition, especially rebuking perversion of legitimacy. To amend a meaning in order to avoid amending a law is fraud and sabotage of the Constitution's integrity.
The stability of the United States always resides in the strict adherence to our Constitution. Otherwise, domestic turmoil spins out of control as the balance of Constitutional powers is disturbed through the extension of separate powers vying in office for what belongs to another in practice, establishing unconstitutional "precedence" as if that would legitimately amend the Constitution without adhering to Constitutional protocol.
james| 2.24.10 @ 9:53AM
Please do a follo-up in a couple of months on Smerconish's ratings. If he did this just for numbers then he's a bigger fool than we think. No one - and I mean no one - listens to liberals on the radio.
That's why my guess is that he just fell asleep and the Philly Pods got him. He's gone now. RIP.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 2.24.10 @ 3:55PM
James, Smerconish's radio show ratings dropped 45% in the Delaware Valley between election season 2008 & January of 2009. I can't speak for his syndicated ratings elsewhere, but the idiot is dead in the water in liberal Philadelphia & the surrounding counties. His ratings have not improved & have only gotten worse. RINO Bill Bennett's boring "Morning In America" blows him out of the water now on a near daily basis. Smerconish also stays away from politics as much as possible. If he loses anymore listeners in the Delaware Valley he'll be essentially talking to himself & the sycophants who surround him in the radio booth.
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid!" - John Wayne
Doctor Right| 2.24.10 @ 9:59AM
Smerconish is a poser with zero influence outside of Philadelphia. And ironically, without the influence of real radio Conservatives like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin, he wouldn't even have that.
Really...Who cares? No one listens to Libs on the radio. He just ended his career.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 9:59AM
Has anyone here read "The Guns Of The South"?
...or the Turtledove series "American Empire"?
Both of these fictional works examine some alternative "histories" of the North American continent, in which the South was successful in seceeding.
Personally, I am glad race-based slavery is in the history books instead of in our time.
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 10:30AM
Ken, haven't read either but is it safe to glean from your post that the alternative "histories" contained within had slavery existing well into the 20th century? I guess the thing about fictional, alternative "histories" is they are just that, someone has an agenda and creates a "history" to suit it.
The fact is at the time of the War Between the States less than 25% of Southerers owned slaves. Slavery was dying out in border States due to enlightenment and technology. Further, Nullification was being used by NORTHERN States to refuse to comply with the FEDERAL Govt's Fugitive Slave Act, further putting a damper on slavery. IMHO slavery--if left unchecked--would have died out by the turn of the century at the latest.
The BEST thing that could have happened would have been for the seceeding States to remain the CSA. Remember, they seceeded not over "slavery" but over high tariffs which the South paid more of than the North. VA, TN, AR and NC didn't seceed until Lincoln amassed his Army (without Congress' consent, BTW) to invade the Deep South.
Anyway our Founders viewed secession as a good thing, something which would reign in Federal (National) government which was overstepping its Constitutional bounds. You could write an alternative history that we would not be here today--with high taxes, unsustainable debt, special interests, an activist judiciary, a near-worthless dollar--if the South had not been attacked and forced to return to the Union.
IMHO not only would slavery have ended by 1900, but most if not all of the seceeding States would have rejoined these (not "the") united States of America once the Fed resumed its proscribed limited powers and States' rights were again assured them.
Nobody's longing for a return to slavery, but a return to the Founding principles of these united States of America before Lincoln fundamentally changed them (hmmm where have I heard that before?)
Petronius| 2.24.10 @ 10:51AM
Tex
We do have race based slavery right now as all taxpayers are in thrall to this gang of urban parasites. The Community Reinvestment Act is "reparations" .
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 10:16AM
Forgive me Am Spec editors. This column is a must read for every American we can get it to.
http://www.americanthinker.com.....t_the.html
Mattled| 2.24.10 @ 10:30AM
He's on in my market on a major talker. HAve only listened to him once.
Prefer Bill Bennett.
Michael Smerneverlistentonish.
maverick muse| 2.24.10 @ 10:40AM
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 8:15AM
Your historical points again substantiate the necessity of rebutting revisionism in order to uphold our Constitution's integrity.
Though Lincoln faulted Constitutional Civil Rights and Legislative powers as you point out, he none the less did make Jeffrey Lord's point, whether or not made as an opportunist. Namely, a judicial decision does not equate to legislation.
You are right that educators today teach revisionist curriculum designed to further the corruption of historical documents and pervert vocabulary definitions.
Your examples are accurate quotes regarding public opinion leading up to and during Lincoln's presidency. The only thing I would add, though, is that when Lincoln said he knew no one who actually believed in pure racial equality, that reflects his era and is his admission that no one he knew wanted to grant blacks equal social status with whites. Without larger context, was he admitting his own bias, and/or was expressing frustration with society's consensus? He made his point that he did not have political support to alter social norms. Your points remind everyone that no one is perfect, and that presidents (after Washington and John Adams, examples of exceptions establishing precedence for the integrity of Constitutional Supremacy) do practice opportunism to advance their political agendas. Our problem today is that those in government, all branches, are manipulated by their own majority consensus as members to ignore the Constitution. Rule of Law might gets plenty of lip service from Republican leadership applying lipstick on a neoconservative pig.
Your comments support this article's point that the separation and respect for Constitutionally limited and balanced powers is nothing to be dismissed, whether ignored by the public or abused by any of the three governing branches.
Thanks for making your distinctive point, that public consensus is a beast, today armed with corrupt revisionism and ignorance.
martin j smith| 2.24.10 @ 10:46AM
How to know you read a troll: When they call you stupid, or use terms religious right or reich,or"fringe groups .. those sorts of things. Or they call you "childish " whatever. They are who they are. The Left oriented methods are always filled with insults to when you read a bloger whpo goes that route its a troll!!
Copyleft| 2.24.10 @ 11:32AM
Oh, you mean like "libtard" or "demwits" or "pea-brained libs" or "communists (pardon the shorthand)" or "dirtbag marxist"?
Yes, those folks are definitely short on intelligent discourse, which is why they get that in return. Thanks for pointing it out!
Doctor Right| 2.24.10 @ 11:56AM
No, terms like "Libtard", "Dimocrat", "Communist", and "Obow-ma" are not insults. They are accurate descriptions of the left...And funny, too!
Copyleft| 2.24.10 @ 1:01PM
A predictably hypocritical dodge... you just won me a free lunch from my coworker!
Thanks again, wingnut.
ZerObama| 2.25.10 @ 12:23AM
Tofu and bean sprouts again, libturd?
ExtremeRightFascist| 2.26.10 @ 4:05PM
You are righteass. Do whatever you want with it.
Lets eat that libturd now!
LIBERALS R INSANE| 3.2.10 @ 11:41PM
Liberals love to kill.
UNDECIDED| 3.4.10 @ 2:08PM
You are stuck in the love-hate loop. Transcendence is only for those able to see beyond that vicious loop. I am undecided regarding abortion, you certainly do not convince me one bit.
SAY YES TO LIFE!| 3.4.10 @ 2:27PM
Nice try, liberal! There's nothing transcendent about abortion.
Killing is wrong--admit it!
lehrue stevens jr.m.d.| 2.24.10 @ 12:01PM
Smerc was on air in our town briefly-not well received-fit better with deceased Air America.Miller should replace O'Reily. About the only thing worth watching on that show.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 12:18PM
Crusader,
I can find no fault with your historical conclusions.
I have read thousands of pages of American history of the period. I have tried to weigh and balance the arguments and opinions from perspectives all around the issues of that period. (heh) they will be argued forever).
One thing is clear to me though, the "Union" was being torn apart, or perhaps a better term, "unraveling around the edges" due to several economic reasons.
The fact remains, "slaves as property" were a pretty big "asset" on the balance sheets of the 25% of southerners who did own slaves.
I do believe in his heart of hearts, Lincoln believed saving the (entire) Union overwhelmed every other motive.
That brings us to today:
The Union is again boiling today due to government "stealing" assets from the 25% or so successful Americans.
If we cannot settle this at the ballot box...gulp!
Pittsburgh Pete| 2.24.10 @ 12:20PM
Will the pro-choicers ever discuss how they leave women with one more right than men? Where is the man's right to choose? Shouldn't men be able to declare a virtual abortion at some point?
Get the kleenex and diapers ready, they'll be wailing over that one.
ColinFoy| 2.24.10 @ 12:41PM
Re Crusader: Excellent post! If you haven't already done it you may want read H.L. Mencken's treatise excoriating his Gettysburg address as so much double speaking crap. Lincoln was a silver tongued lawyer and mass murderer of the highest order. The southern states had a constitutional right to secede.
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 1:17PM
Have you a link, Mr. Foy?
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 1:19PM
Never mind - found it.
S.L. Toddard| 2.24.10 @ 1:20PM
"The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Nothing else precisely like it is to be found in the whole range of oratory. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous.
But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination—"that government of the people, by the people, for the people," should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary."
- HL Mencken
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....3308/posts
loulou| 2.24.10 @ 1:26PM
Smerconish and Stockman, you are free to leave the party. NOW!
Ross Kaminsky | 2.24.10 @ 1:27PM
Jeffrey,
You don't have to be "pro-life" to be against Roe v Wade. Nor, going in the other direction, does a dislike for Roe mean someone should necessarily then be anti-abortion.
I, for example, am pro-choice but against Roe. Roe represented the Court torturing the Constitution to get to an outcome they predetermined. Even though I don't mind the result of that outcome, I cannot support the decision because if I do then I lose the moral high ground from which to criticize other constitution-torturing sessions which create outcomes I don't like.
I would also point out that your statement of "pro-choice" really being anti-choice applies at least as well, probably better, to the "pro-life" movement, at least to those in the movement who would simply like to replace Roe with a federal prohibition on abortion.
All of this should be left to the states.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 2:44PM
Having been "responsible" for sending fine men into harm's way, while I appreciate Mr. Menken's thought......he was merely a commentator.
Every single President of these United States has had to swallow his heart, and make horrible worse versus worst decisions.
(With the exception of Willy Clinton of course, who simply kicked the can down the road.)
Conversely, Obama takes responsibility...FOR NOTHING, while he tries to take us into tyranny.
We must stop this agenda.
Beeblebrox| 2.24.10 @ 10:21PM
Conservatives don't care if you call us "anti-choice" when it comes to individual civil rights. People who want to own slaves should not have the choice to do so. I'm for laws to deny them that choice. Sorry, you're not going to convince me to be pro-choice on slavery.
I'm anti-choice when it comes to choosing pedophilia, murdering of the born and soon-to-be-born, abuse of animals, and a long list of other things that I don't think people should have the choice to do. Again, sorry, you will never convince me to choose to allow any of the above immoralities.
But then, this is a semantical debate. It's a matter of your POV. I'm actually pro-choice on who has a voice. I want slaves to have the choice to not be a slave. I want children to have the right to choose not to be exploited. I think people should have the right to choose whether they want to live or not.
Those of you who favor abortion are simply playing word games when you claim some absolute right to "choice". If such a principle even exists (which it obviously does not) then you would be for school choice, tax choice, drill for oil choice, private property ownership choice, and health care provider choice.
But most of you don't want others to have that choice so kindly cease the sophomoric lectures about the "right to choose".
It's lame.
ZerObama| 2.25.10 @ 12:28AM
Great post, thank you.
Why don't liberals ever talk about the baby's choice? After all, the little ones have the most to lose.
YesToChoice| 2.25.10 @ 9:17PM
Maybe the baby's choice is to not be born. I guess, we'll never know. What I know is -- The sperm went for the egg.
If it is an unwanted baby, due to either financial or emotional strain, or even worse, sexual violation, the humane thing to do might be to interrupt the pregnancy. Therefore, the mother (or both parents) should be able to choose to have the baby or not.
Do you want children to starve and suffer?
Say NO to moralistic tyranny!
YestoChoice| 2.25.10 @ 9:50PM
You sure like the choice to play with semantics.
From my POV, consensual abortion is not murdering.
Say NO to moral tyranny!
Margie| 2.25.10 @ 10:20PM
You forget one very important thing, dear person whose Mother chose to let them live. That one very important thing is this: "Thou shalt not murder." Ex. 20:13.
Those who consider murdering the unborn ought to consider their latter end.
YesToChoice| 2.26.10 @ 3:16AM
Thanks Margie, I do appreciate your post.
Certainly, my mother let me live. And I am grateful for that -- Most of the time. However, it was an accidental(she was wearing an IUD) and unwanted pregnancy.
Although, she had already done an abortion at a some what recent past, she surely did not want to have another one. Besides, my parents at that time, had the emotional and financial means, and their family support to take in account.
They were responsible and fortunate. Something that can not be said for all of us.
"Thou shalt not murder." -- Does not read abortion is murder. If someone kills a person and that person did not want to die, then is murder.
A fetus, in the other hand, according to laws of nature, is not yet a person. Therefore, if it does not have abilities to form either moral standards or dualistic views as an individual, it can not suffer.
Please, don't get me wrong -- Abortion is a serious matter, and it should not be taken lightly. In fact, it should be avoided, if possible. Not just from a moral point of view but from a health perspective. Physical and psychological scars that can lead to further complications and implications, are highly probable.
Nonetheless, people will do abortions if they can, regardless if it's legal or not. The problem is that illegality breeds criminal activity. Black markets and unsafe environments for those who choose to have one, is way worse than if it is a legalized practice.
My question still remains -- Why bring more children into the world if they are gonna suffer?
ZerObama | 2.26.10 @ 3:39AM
My question to you is--how do you know who is going to suffer? You're not God even if you pretend to be and your smug, snotty attitude is unattractive.
You democrats felt the same way about enslaved blacks--you dehumanized them, too.
No one has the right to kill another, including a pregnant woman. Possessing a uterus does not give a woman a license to kill.
ZerObama | 2.26.10 @ 3:43AM
YesToLIFE!
Beeblebrox| 2.26.10 @ 9:57AM
@Yestochoice.
Your reasoning, what little I could find of it, completely breaks down if it is taken even one step towards its logical conclusion. Killing people because they are going to suffer!!! Seriously? So YOU and your fellow travelers are now the arbiter
of who lives and who dies based upon some, what, bureaucratic definition of what constitutes suffering?
You say: "If it is an unwanted baby, due to either financial or emotional strain, or even worse, sexual violation, the humane thing to do might be to interrupt the pregnancy." Humane for whom?
I find a number of dishonest and even monstrous "hedge words" here.
First, "interrupt" is a euphemism for killing the fetus. You also say "might be". Of course, in your world view, "might be", is giving someone the absolute right to murder the fetus if they so choose.
But more importantly, you argue that someone has the right to kill another human being if that other human being is causing "financial or emotional strain," or was the result of " sexual violation". This definition could apply to a 5 year old just as easily as to a fetus.
So let's just say that the mother had the means, emotionally or financially, to care for a child when that child was born but then, a few years later, she didn't. Your argument justifies killing the five year old since the definition still applies.
As for sexual exploitation, let's say the mother was date-raped, decided to have the child anyway, but then later, when the boy was 13 and unmanageable, decided that she didn't want the kid anymore. Why not "interrupt" the 13 year old's post-pregnancy phase using your argument that he was conceived as a result of sexual abuse?
You see, Yestochoice, your logic doesn't hold up even one itota. Unless you actually believe it is okay to kill a child, or any dependent (e.g. an adult mentally retarded individual) using sexual violation, emotional, or economic distress" as an excuse, then you have backed yourself into a corner. The only thing you can do is qualify your position by containing the right to murder another human to how old it is. At that point, I want you to explain to us how old you think a child should be before it is not okay to murder it.
Once you have made that position known then I further want to know how you come to that number. And of course, since your argument has now down to one of the age of the potential victim of your ideology as the only viable (no pun intended) rationale for the abortion, then it doesn't really matter whether the mother had emotional, financial, or other reasons for the abortion does it?
The problem with your position is that science is making it possible for a baby to live outside the womb at earlier and earlier stages but still it CANNOT rescue a child from problems like Downs, and other physical or mental issues AFTER birth. Your position is one that applies to people OF ANY AGE.
So now you are going to be judge, jury, and executioner on who lives and who dies based upon their value to the family or society in general.
Well, isn't that special.
If that's the case, I would be careful about guarding your own societal usefulness, Yestochoice. Ultimately your own ideology results in people who are useless (to society or family), those with an infirmity, or those who are burdensome to others, having their lives "interrupted" (as you so blithely advocate.)
No one should be allowed to have such power over other people.
YestoChoice| 2.26.10 @ 1:38PM
You have completely twisted my words for your righteousness to be insulting.
Suffering will happen when a person can
distinguish pain from pleasure.
A fetus is NOT yet a person -- it can NOT suffer.
A born child IS a person -- it can suffer.
I can certainly be wrong about the above statemen. I have the modesty to admit it so.
What I am certain about, is:
-- We know slaves don't want to be slaves;
-- We know when people want to die or not;
-- We know animals don't want to be held in captivity;
-- We know children want to play and be loved;
We DO NOT know if a baby wants to be born. And until we can know that, I am in favor of legalization.
YesToChoice| 2.26.10 @ 1:57PM
What I have noticed is that a majority of 'PRO-LIFE' advocates are either male or old women. Interesting!!
Yes to Live with Dignity!
NO TO LIBERAL ARROGANCE| 2.26.10 @ 3:15PM
Oh, I see; you liberals get to decide that only those lives who have 'dignity' (and of course, only liberals can define dignity, right?) should be allowed to be born. Megalomania much? I wonder if God knows He's got competition.
You democrats said the same thing about black slaves. You have no soul.
And they say liberals are tolerant.
NO TO HUMAN ARROGANCE| 2.26.10 @ 4:50PM
Pardon me, the righteous reactionaries are the ones that can define dignity, or decide if born humans are suffering or if they will suffer or not.
Excusez moi, mrs.or mr. I know what 'GOD' wants according to what my interpretation is.
NO TO LIBERAL ARROGANCE| 2.26.10 @ 3:22PM
You are lying when you say babies in the womb cannot feel pain and suffer. There are many sonograms of abortions that prove the babies are suffering terribly.
Your smug, self-serving lies may make it easier for you to sleep at night--but you know abortion is hideously painful for the innocent angels being torn from their mothers' bodies. I know you know.
You will be judged one day.
NO TO HUMAN ARROGANCE| 2.26.10 @ 4:39PM
daah!!!
NO TO INSOLENCE| 2.26.10 @ 4:57PM
I did say I could be wrong about that statement.
Why is the baby suffering is the question? Maybe it does not want to suffer anymore and the best thing to do is to let him go.
I did not say abortion is enjoyable. It hurts physically and psychologically.
NO TO ARROGANCE| 2.26.10 @ 5:23PM
Can you show me a sonogram where you can CLEARLY see that the fetus is suffering during an abortion. All I can find is anti-abortion propaganda.
Besides, there is no evidence or technology to verify if a fetus wants to be born or not.
All we have is a mother, and she has the right to choose.
NO TO LIBERAL CRUELTY| 2.27.10 @ 1:34AM
Who gave the mother the right to kill her baby? You?
Sorry, I'm just not sufficiently impressed by your wisdom or your authority to concur. You have neither.
So self-serving!! What you call 'propaganda' is the truth that makes you feel uncomfortable. You want to feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you mindlessly bleat "CHOICE" to all those who are unfortunate enough to be within earshot of your meat-headed stupidity.
There is ample evidence that babies suffer terribly as they're being ripped from their mothers' wombs. It's obvious, unless of course, you are so cold-hearted and dead inside that you are blinded to their cries of terror and pain. Seems to be a special talent of liberal monsters like you.
"There is none so blind as those that will not see."
YestToChoice| 2.27.10 @ 12:56PM
Instead of using insolence for arguments. Give me a link to a sonogram that has a straight and close up camera shot. How difficult is that?
Can you even have children?
YesToChoice| 2.27.10 @ 1:03PM
'You will be judged one day.'
Heck! I am being judged already.
beeblebrox| 2.28.10 @ 9:46PM
YTC wrote:
"Give me a link to a sonogram that has a straight and close up camera shot. "
This is, of course, sophistry because it has been shown scientifically over and over that there is ZERO difference between the ability of the child to feel pain 1 minute before leaving the womb and one minute after. Unless you liberals are the types who believe that leeches cure dysentery and that there is something magical about the birth canal that it gives a baby the ability to feel pain once it passes from the mother's body, then may I suggest you open a book or just use some common sense for once in your lives.
I mean seriously, you want us to post a link to a sonogram that proves an obvious truth??? This is of course, pointless. We already realize that you people are impervious to logic.
The reason that slavery and abortion are two identical issues is that:
a.) they both victimize the innocent.
b.) Democrats have, at one time or another, approved of both.
And by the way YTC, I'm not judging anything but your scientific competence. Your eternal soul can only be judged by the One who created you and then gave your mother the good sense not to abort you.
YesToChoice| 3.1.10 @ 2:35PM
What is the obvious 'truth'? That there is no sonogram that shows a fetus expressing pain through an entire abortion?
At any case, no one said abortion is 'magical' or painless. Which is why it should be avoided if one can.
If unbiased sexual education and spirituality (not religion) be emphasized in schools, abortion would not even be such an issue.
Victims are only victims if they can express it some how - slaves can do it so. Innocent is the one whom can not be proven guilty. A mother can not be guilty if she chooses to have an abortion out of compassion. She has been raped, is uneducated, penniless, jobless and alone - Africa is a perfect example where children - mostly offsprings due to rape - are dying of starvation. Having a choice to not bring a child into such predicament is a selfless act. You have to be highly cynical and crude to give her a moral lesson out of self-righteousness.
Your common sense is neither, that common nor it makes that much sense.
To open a book is very subjective. Most authors, either from traditional science or religious groups, think to hold 'the truth'. I do not trust those who think to hold an absolute truth.
BTW, leeches can and are used medically. Just because it can not be found in a bottle at a local pharmacy does not mean it is not effective.
LOVE BABIES--DONT KILL| 3.2.10 @ 4:04PM
You are the bloodsucking leech, YTC; you are an infected pustule. What a miserable human being (?) you are.
I only hope and pray that you are unable to have children; someone like you would surely hurt the children that somehow escaped your obsession with killing them.
YesToChoice| 3.2.10 @ 6:55PM
Wow! If those words of yours or not coming out of hatred and intolerance, I don't know what it is.
Honestly, you should get some help!
It is not enough to use such motto as 'projection is a pillar of leftist thought' you have to abide to it.
Also, just because you think 'GOD'S VOICE' is on your side does not mean it's true.
Angelo| 3.2.10 @ 11:18PM
YesToChoice, I was holding a mirror in front of you. Indeed, the 'Pro-Life' supporter was looking at its own image in the mirror.
Angelo| 3.2.10 @ 11:42PM
'I only hope and pray that you are unable to have children;'
It seems as if you are praying to the Devil. God does not approve that kind of talk.
Janie| 3.2.10 @ 11:48PM
Angelo, you mention the Devil--a close friend of yours? A lot closer than your relationship with God, I'm sure.
Janie| 3.2.10 @ 11:46PM
YTC, I don't think the Pro-lifer is a Leftist--so the motto doesn't apply to him/her. A little slow tonight?
Just tryin' to help out, ya know?
Angelo| 3.3.10 @ 1:12AM
Thanks Janie, I don't need or want your help. I don't think you are very trustworthy. In fact, I think you are the Devil himself. Go back to hell where you belong.
Janie| 3.3.10 @ 5:17AM
Someone sounds a bit unstable tonight--must be the full moon. Any minute now you're gonna start howling.
YesToChoice| 3.3.10 @ 1:05PM
Thanks Angelo,
When arguments of pro-lifers are flawed and limited. The only way out, for some of them, is to spazz out and get all close and personal.
Gladly, I am partially immune. As long as the attacks are only within this virtual discussion, I will be safe.
Janie,
'Projection is a pillar of leftist thought' motto would be used by a right winger as an attack to a left winger. A way to protect and hide themselves from left wing arguments.
When a right winger loses emotional control, for lack of strong reasoning, they can not avoid but to fall in contradiction to their motto. So, yes Janie -- It perfectly applies to him/her.
A CHOICE TO KILL IS HATE| 3.4.10 @ 1:21AM
You're wrong, you are NOT SAFE! You will be punished for your hatred toward the most innocent among us.
You'll see.
Angelo| 3.4.10 @ 2:13PM
Actually, you will get what you deserve. If now your life is good, watch it when comes crumbling down to pieces. The easiest thing for you to do will be to blame others. In the end you will know it was YOUR OWN FAULT!!!
STOP LIBERAL CRUELTY!| 3.4.10 @ 2:24PM
Actually, Angelo, ABORTION IS YOUR FAULT!
Hell beckons you--enjoy it!
YesToChoice| 3.4.10 @ 7:12PM
When one has a lack of intelligent arguments -- Insolence, personal attacks and words that are clearly meant to hurt a fellow human being during a discussion only makes them look emotionally unstable and unreliable. No one would want to give an emotionally unstable person their trust to care for an adult much less a child.
If the God, of whatever belief system one wants to follow, does not tolerate abortion and will punish those followers that go against their faith, it is the followers responsibility to abide -- Those that are not part of it, NOT their problem.
If you want to live in a Totalitarian regime of a Religious kind, in your home, family or community, fine, it's your choice -- if others don't want to be part of it, it's their choice -- We live in a free country.
Go ahead lose your temper, waste your time and say whatever you want -- It will only make you look foolish.
LOVE DON'T KILL| 3.28.10 @ 3:54AM
You are so blinded by your selfishness that you have become stupid.
I pity the poor baby that may some day be aborted by you. Your feelings are hurt by cross words, yet you don't care at all about killing a child--what foolishness! You're such an arrogant fool.
Yes to choice? Whose choice? Certainly not the child's--and there's the rub; you are taking the child's choice to live away because you are selfish, cruel and heartless.
You'll see if God judges you for your cruelty. You'll see--some day. I truly pity you.
mike| 11.3.10 @ 7:37PM
TO yestochoice,,, I hope that you are unable to have children
Crusader| 2.24.10 @ 4:37PM
Ken, while I agree that Obama and his agenda need to be stopped, I can not give Lincoln one ounce of credit for anything he did. There would be no Obama (and there would not have been a Wilson, TR, or FDR) without Lincoln first consolidating power in the Exec Branch and using the power of the federal government to forcibly deny States their inherent constitutional right to seceed.
Speaking of secession, Lincoln was so against it but it sure didn't stop him from carving out W. Va from Virginia in 1862 did it?
Every time someone says "Well Lincoln had to 'save the Union'" I ask, "Under what authority?" Where in the Constitution does it forbid States to seceed or allow the Executive Branch to prevent them from seceeding? In fact my original post was slightly wrong, not only did Lincon's immediate predecessor find no Constitutional authority to "save the Union," but the FIVE presidents who served (all from the North) immediately prior to Lincoln ALL opposed the War between the States on Constitutional grounds.
My final question to Lincoln sympathizers is simply if Lincoln had to shred the Constitution in order to save it, is it even worth having in the first place?
Lincoln was one of the original "wealth redistributors." When the South balked, he went to war so his railroad buddies (primarily) would benefit from the high tariffs imposed on the South. There was a reason the CSA Constitution explicitly forbade federal monies for "internal improvements" as Lincoln called them.
Bottom line for me is it is all about consistency. If folks who call themselves "conservative" can forgive Lincoln for his dictatorial usurption of power and shredding of our Constitution, then IMHO they really have no leg to stand on when Obama does it. The fact that Lincoln had an "R" after his name doesn't excuse his heinous disregard for our Constitution, not to mention the "Rs and Ds" of 1860 were a lot different than the Rs and Ds of today.
And we haven't even talked about the total war Lincoln waged against the women and children (and slaves) of the South, the government-sanctioned rape of the women of New Orleans allowed under Lincoln, and the 12 years of punishment and extortion--ooops I mean "Reconstruction"--that Lincoln's ideological successors imposed on the South. Oh, and the fact that the 14th Amendment never was ratified per the Constitution, as Ohio and NJ withdrew their ratification of it in the face of the criminal treatment of the South by the National govt. AND the argument that can be made that without "Reconstruction" there wouldn't have been a KKK.
martin j smith| 2.24.10 @ 4:39PM
These two folks sound like political opportunists. I really believe in the tradition of Colin Powell or Arlen Spector. They are who they are essentially Democrat Left stoogies with no real ideas of their own except one: How to make a good living by being asccepted in the M
Thom| 2.24.10 @ 6:24PM
While I take Mr. Lord’s larger point at face value that judicial fiat does not solve anything I hope Mr. Lord at least appreciates Crusader’s points that consensus via force of arms for the wrong reasons does not either. With the South being out numbered better than 3 to 1 and out sourced by better than 5 to one and those are the best ratios the South could get against the North, the outcome was never in question only the cost to the Republic. I believe I can step out on a limb a bit by pointing out that the decedents of those Black African slaves are bought lock, stock and barrel more today by the same political party that supported slavery in 1860 and the institution of slavery, as it was known then. Clearly the Democrat Party knows something about slavery and “slaves” that the Republican Party hasn’t learned as of yet. Perhaps the deep thinkers in the Republican Party might revisit an old object lesson about the value of things given freely that should be earned. It is a common practice among many that have been “freed” of their victimhood to turn right around and embrace that which they grew accustomed. That and 619,000 dead Americans was a pretty steep price to pay in the 1860s for essentially setting in motion where we are today.
I would further add that when it was convenient for the North to look the other way, say around the 1770-1790’s time period it was the North begging the South to come join its little dust up in the North East corridor. Slaves who fought were granted their “freedom” under the Continental Congress. That probably worked out better than giving a group of people who had never known the concept of “freedom “and its attendant responsibilities in their own societies a “gift” for which they were ill prepared to appreciate. That and the generational loathing you find in the South even today for the outcome and aftermath of the Civil War is something we as a Nation still haven’t come to terms with in my humble opinion. Someone of the times, who would have had an appreciation for his times, said something to the effect that a Union held together at the point of a Sword was no Union at all.
When I look at what government takes of my pay check in all its sorted and distorted ways while a simple majority of the able bodied population pays next to nothing of the tax burden I have to wonder what Union did that Lincoln save? The “New Lincoln” certainly believes he can do better and perhaps he will depending on how you define doing better than Abraham Lincoln.
There are 22,000 mostly unmarked/unknown graves for Union soldiers buried on top of Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Most are buried several to a plot of land and identified only by the number of unknowns soldiers buried in that plot. I would venture a guess that if all the dead of that war were to spend a week alive today, most would be repulsed by the outcome of what they lent a hand in bringing about today. “State’s rights” is a vulgar phrase to many today but it is the “several states” that are being destroyed by what Lincoln opened the door on 145 years ago and some are starting to realize that. Clearly, no sane person would want the institution of slavery to exist today but then I look at my pay check again and the amount of taxes hidden in every good and service I buy. Slavery like being “poor” is as much a state of mind as it is a condition of servitude. From my perspective slavery is alive and well in much of this Union. I hear the new Lincoln is going to set things straight……
No disrespect Mr. Lord but while Lincoln was dealt a poor hand of cards he also had a hand in making that deck of cards stacked in his favor on the battlefield not as prescribed in the Constitutional amendment process. The New Lincoln is attempting to use the same overwhelming force he has in Congress at the moment to accomplish the same Lincoln like transformation of the relation of government to governed. If we excuse Lincoln the First we have no principle on which to stand against Lincoln the Second. He does have the “power” as described in the Constitution even if he rules against the will of a majority today. Consensus after all is a relative term and be it 59% or 60% of Congress, the New Lincoln clearly has a consensus of duly elected officials on his side, just as Lincoln the First had. If we are to remain a Republican form of government perhaps the “several states” need to become something other than just whores and pimps for the Federal Government and we stop worshiping a man who made some deadly decisions that have had far reaching negative consequences that even he could not have foresee in his day. He did open the door to an all powerful central government approach and many others have followed the path he laid out. We may yet reap what Lincoln the First sowed.
Liberal Reader| 2.24.10 @ 7:34PM
Mr Lord --
This is a fine piece, as usual. But you make an odd point in it.
You write that a "central" motivation for conservative opposition to Roe V Wade is that it represents "judicial activism."
You're probably right. (I'll take your word for it.)
But anyone with this motive has integrity problems.
Conservative justices snatch power away from voters regularly. Consider, for example, the recent Citizens United case, one that vies with any decision of the twentieth century on the radical judicial activism scale.
Abortion is wrong because it is the taking of a human life. The law should protect the unborn for the same reason it should protect the born.
Citizens United is based on the notion that the government can designate a non-human entity a PERSON, a fallacious and morally despicable idea.
Only a human being can be a person. Human being-ness begins at conception and lasts until death.
A corporation can no more possess Constitutional rights than can a squirrel or a screwdriver. The founding fathers never imagined such an idea, and for so-called "originalists" to propound such a falsehood is an absurd and grievous and farcical error.
Liberal Reader| 2.24.10 @ 7:41PM
Just to clarify, I propose the following:
Constitutional rights only extend to persons; only human beings can be persons. The government cannot designate any entity to be a person for the same reason it cannot revoke personhood.
To claim, as the law has done for about 100 years, that a corporation is LIKE a person in certain limited respects seems fine with me, or at least it did back when our country understood the difference between a simile and a positive claim.
But to confer personhood upon a non-human entity is monstrous.
It denigrates what it means to be human and should rouse the ire of any pro-life person.
Thom| 2.24.10 @ 8:23PM
Liberal Reader, as others have pointed out in numerous other posts, the Constitution does not limit its definition of “rights” to a human being. Legal entities are allowed for and protected in numerous ways as part of general “property rights”. By definition, the rights described in the Bill of Rights are all “individual” rights including Freedom of the Press but they also protect the right of individuals to band together for political purposes thus Political entities (in fact or practice) would have no rights under your concept. Likewise the entire “Press” of today is a collective of corporations of one form or another and you can’t say on one hand that my corporation has no rights to political speech while giving free reign to mega corporations like ABC, NBC, CBS and all the lesser cable versions of same. It should go without me having to say this but if “government” can pick and choose who it feels has collective speech rights then there are is in effect no free speech rights but mere privileges for those most connected to the power structure. We see how that works today between what some people think is the “press” and the government. The days of the Town Criers , Public Squares and alike are all gone. It takes masses of money to do retail politics at the National level and giving free reign to one legal entity (Media corporations) and restricting others who have less Constitutional protections was blaringly unconstitutional on its face.
Liberal Reader| 2.24.10 @ 8:39PM
You CAN say that the "press" has rights different from corporations -- even if the press is itself sometimes incorporated -- because that right is spelled OUT in the Constitution. Just because the NY Times and Fox News have special protection does NOT mean Exxon Mobile should.
Thom| 2.24.10 @ 9:04PM
LR, Exxon Mobile can buy ABC tomorrow and get the same rights as they have under your thinking. Mickey Mouse bought ABC so do you think Mickey Mouse doesn't benefit from that?
Liberal Reader| 2.25.10 @ 8:20AM
I disagree with you here, Thom, but actually I think you were right above and I was wrong about a few things.
First, I shouldn't have written that "constitutional rights" extend only to persons.
I meant was are sometimes termed "core" freedoms.
Certainly the constitution gives special recognition of political organizations and press outfits. No question.
But the founders' experience of a political organization was The Sons of Liberty. They did NOT consider the East India Tea Company as endowed by its Creator with certain natural rights, and among them ... and so on.
Corporations have always been free to lobby the government; corporations are considered especially entitled to influence the government on laws that affect their business. This should not be expanded to include a "core" right to free speech as if the corporation were a person, because a corporation is NOT a person. It is simply a legal arrangement.
Thom| 2.25.10 @ 5:28PM
LR, that still leaves your “core” argument the same in that legal entities don’t have rights. Freedom is just a euphuism for a certain kind of right in effect. There are as many different definitions of “freedom” as there are people. All “press” organizations, be they mega media outfits or sub chapter S sole person entities are legal entities and subject to much the same laws as those real persons you speak of. If a legal entity breaks a civil law they pay for that; if they break a criminal law someone goes to jail no different than you or I. You are making an argument that the granularity of “rights” should be restricted to individual exercise and I submit that would in effect end the exercise of “rights” as we know them. The Bill of Rights does not limit what individuals or groups of individuals can do but limits what government can restrict in its duties. The Constitution is already turned upside down in my humble opinion and diminished, what you suggest would make the enumerated documents mere words for academics to argue over. In practice I don’t see how you target “rights” as you see them without killing the patient.
ZerObama| 2.25.10 @ 12:39AM
Lib Screeder/Jeremiah, you're just pissed off that thugocratic unions, corrupt billionaire communists like Soros and Marxist media outlets like NYSlimes and MSDNC can't dominate the campaign donations game any more.
Get over it, loser.
Fascist| 2.27.10 @ 1:43PM
Have you noticed that no one really cares for what you have to say? I care! You are great!
ZerObama| 3.2.10 @ 11:50PM
Thanks, Bonehead!
Fascist| 3.3.10 @ 1:13AM
I have got a bonehead just for you, dear...
ZerObama| 3.3.10 @ 5:04AM
Promises promises.
Fascist| 3.4.10 @ 1:38PM
I knew you always wanted a bonnerhead. I know where you live. I will give it to you.
ZerObama| 3.4.10 @ 2:11PM
In your dreams, freak.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.10 @ 7:43PM
Crusader,
Thom,
Thank you both for your expositions here. A LOT of food for thought.
The true irony is that the "South" has indeed "risen again". Add in much of the west except California.
One thought, and I would appreciate your thoughts on it.
The "Constitution" was ratified to "create a more perfect Union.....".
Pe-dating the constitution of course was the "Declaration of Independence" in which we read the words: "All men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights....."
Are black men and women human beings or not?
After a long life, spent all over the world, my answer is "yes".
Let's play "what if" for a moment. If the "slave economy" had been recognized as a sin by WE southerns...and had we moved to figure out how to lift the black people up and allow them to be "human beings", the "causus belli" (probably miss-spelled), would not have been present for a war between the States.
Thoughts?
Thom| 2.24.10 @ 9:02PM
Ken, many have tackled this question so I won’t pretend to be the final word. Of course “blacks” were human beings but they were also “property” and “property” in their native societies. Indentured “servants” were also a form of “property” under existing concepts of contract law in the colonies. Slavery in all its forms has been around since the beginning of time and still exists in various forms in the world but no one is willing to go to the extent Lincoln was to stamp it out.
As to your “slave economy” I’m a believer in what the industrial revolution would have done to make the “economy” part unviable within 20 years. The South had no industry to speak of so where would they have gotten the mechanized farm equipment that would have made most slave labor both unprofitable and uncompetitive on the world market? The North. The South only had one meaningful “cash” crop and that had competition on the world market even in the 1860s. I don’t think the Confederacy would have been able to sustain itself for very long on just one crop and no industrial basis to diversify. Historians like Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen feel otherwise and are in the camp that says slavery as an institution had to be destroyed by external forces but I respectfully disagree with them on that point. Other Nations got out of the “trade” and “practice” without inflicting what would be nearly 6 million dead on today’s population. By the time fighting broke out, the South had had to endure several decades of ridicule and scorn coming from the North all the while enjoying the benefits of what would have been Wal_Mart prices of cotton back then. When the North found it convenient to find a backbone via other sources of raw material outside the South it also forgot the social compact signed into law in 1787 which left the “slavery” question untouched. We know why that was done then.
Should the South have come to its senses, certainly but again the events of the 1860s had a bit of history long before and fanned the flames of mistrust and eventually hatred that was going to run its course I suspect. Given what a slave cost in those days, it was no small matter to simply do the right thing and “free” someone that had little capacity to live up to the responsibilities that went along with that freedom or any other place to live or skill on which to make an honest living for the most part. If the South had “freed” the slaves, most would have ended up as hired hands for the same “master” paying room and board and having nothing at the end of the day to show for that. Over time I believe things would have improved if the South had found its “own way” vs. what we have today with the Party of Slavery and their descendent “slaves” back together like ticks on a Hound Dog. I certainly don’t believe the outcome of the Civil War was a win-win situation for anyone, particularly the former “slaves”. As I remember, a group of former slaves took our concept of Republican government back to Africa and tried to make it work there. How did that work out? Just “freeing” people is only the first step to true freedom and as most of us know, “freedom” isn’t free and that lies at the center of many of our social problems today. Freedom and responsibility cannot be divorced from one another and we have that in spades today across a wide front of issues to the determent of many and maybe most of us eventually. I do see much of our current woes rooted in the outcome of the Civil War.
Dan| 2.24.10 @ 8:20PM
One knew Snmerconish was going left when he denounced McCain and praised how he thought Obama would handle the war. And anyone who has watched O'Reilley could see him posturing more and more to the left, willing to always give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Smerconish and O'Reilley both in love with their own voice and both phoney.
Jerry M| 2.24.10 @ 10:12PM
The only people worth listening to on O'Reilly are Brit Hume, Laura Inghram and Glenn Beck. The rest of his show is silly stuff like body language and the culture warriors. Juan Williams is a joke. O'Reilly is constantly ignoring the reality of who Obama is and what he is trying to do to the country. He is always pimping in the hopes of someday getting Obama for an interview. It has been a long time since I have watched any more than about fifteen minutes of his show.
AFLAC| 2.25.10 @ 12:16AM
Smerc lost me early on with his obvious drivel on how good BHO would be for the country....Cough...Cough...sorry I just threw up in my mouth saying that!!!
This revelation from him is nothing surprising and maybe we here in Philly can only look forward to his media demise along with his on air "Yes" man and women!!!
Its America Smerc...I will defend your right to say it but I believe even more that its every Amercians right not to listen if we so choose..... Let me know how that is working out for you!!
Larry | 2.25.10 @ 4:19AM
Let's see, Crusader is upset because Jeffrey Lord sees Lincoln as a "consensus builder." Well, in fact JL never really said that. What JL said that Lincoln believed was that disputes that are essentially political in nature and substance should be resolved politically, rather than using the Supreme Court to settle such disputes by reading into the Constitution rights that do not exist. That said, you distort what was really said, and what Lincoln believed about the subject.
Let us look at the "historical record" you cite. As of the day of Lincoln's inauguration, seven Southern states had already "seceded" from the Union; four more followed by the end of the first month of Lincoln's presidency. Of course, there were many who said "let them go." There were also many others who were ready to help their cause, so divisive it was.
What is a President, sworn to uphold the very Union he sees dissolving before his very eyes, going to do? At that point, "consensus" on the issue of secession is pretty much shot. Like Fort Sumter was shot at on April 12, 1861. At that point, you have war. Well, what we today call war; the legal problems of Lincoln's "rebellion" as he originally referred to it were things he later rued, I suspect. Lincoln did in some instances try to have it both ways. But in an atmosphere of war, I hardly blame him for that, even if in the end he made a few mistakes handling some of his political opponents. The idea of criticizing the "consensus builder" notion of Lincoln is rather fanciful, only because it is irrelevant both in the context of this article as well as history. Lincoln never got a chance to build the kind of political consensus he hoped for.
noname| 2.25.10 @ 9:05AM
He voted for Obama. No one will be impressed by his intelligence or his switch.
Deidre| 2.25.10 @ 1:22PM
I stopped listening to Smerconish when he said he was going to vote for Obama because Obama promised him he would hunt for Osama bin Laden. What a twit.
David| 2.25.10 @ 1:28PM
What a great read. It would have been better if you had addressed the moral aspects of the issue.
I have always thought the same arguments in support of or against slavery could be used in the abortion debate.
This was a nice refresher and summary of the legal aspects of the issue.
Fascist| 2.25.10 @ 8:22PM
The Fascist government in Italy banned literature on birth control and increased penalties on abortion in 1926, declaring them both crimes against the state.
It's A Child Not A Choice!| 2.26.10 @ 3:46AM
LiberalFascists are responsible for the slaughter of 50 million babies in America.
Fascist| 2.26.10 @ 3:26PM
I agree! Not a choice!
Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum, although some scholars claim that fascism has been influenced by both the left and the right.
Where do you stand in the political spectrum?
It's A Child Not A Choice!| 2.27.10 @ 1:42AM
Facism and Marxism are two sides of the same 'tyranny coin'. Right and left don't matter, tyranny of the State is our enemy.
I stand for the individual whose rights and attendant responsibilities come from God.
DOWN! with big government.
YesToChoice| 2.27.10 @ 1:17PM
Want to go into the duality route:
'GOD' and 'EVIL' are two sides of the same 'tyranny coin'.
I stand for individuals right for open and civilized discussion.
Down! with government that has 'God's Voice' on its side.
Fascism| 2.27.10 @ 3:36PM
Some words from Hitler:
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the *Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
* You may replace it with: leftist thoughts.
CHOOSE LIFE--DO NOT KILL| 3.2.10 @ 4:09PM
Hitler was an atheist, too--the reason that killing comes easy to people like YOU.
Mao and Stalin killed hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century--they were atheists like you, too.
Atheists like you are a threat to humanity.
YesToChoice| 3.2.10 @ 6:43PM
Bombs, hate threats and murder are from 'PRO-LIFE' advocates.
It is difficult to have a discussion when one can only see black or white.
Made up and locked(without a key) minds are the threat to humanity.
BTW, Hitler was NO atheist. There is plenty of evidence to support that. In any case, how do you know if someone is or is not an atheist?
LOVE BABIES--DON'T KILL!| 3.2.10 @ 11:54PM
What hate bombs? You mean the ones that fill your tiny mind?
Hitler worshiped the occult (devil) like you--look it up. What about the hundreds of millions of innocent people slaughtered by your fellow atheists, Mao and Stalin? Nice dodge.
"Black and White?" Racist.
Fascist| 3.3.10 @ 1:30AM
Some words from Hitler:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these *Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)black and white.
*You may replace it with: Leftist Thoughts
JESUS LOVES YOU!| 3.3.10 @ 5:08AM
So, you believe Hitler, the man who killed millions of people? You take his word for it?
Only a gullible fascist like you would believe your hero.
YesToChoice| 3.3.10 @ 1:22PM
Racists are the ones whom only see others as either 'Black' or 'White', instead of Humans. It is certainly applicable to: The My Way (white, 'pure', 'god like') or the Highway (black, 'devilish', 'impure') of a hypocritical Pro-Lifer.
Fascist is giving us a perfect example of someone who (in this case a Nazi leader) uses 'God' as an excuses to react violently. That reminds me of ordinary religious fanatical pro-lifers, and Bush with his 'God bless America' motto to promote war.
YesToChoice| 3.3.10 @ 1:28PM
I am not an atheist. My spirituality is easily attacked and judged by a western religious person, which shows their lack of spirituality. It is way easier to be religious than spiritual.
KILLING IS NOT LOVE| 3.4.10 @ 1:17AM
SURE! Your "spirituality" is DEVIL WORSHIP!
Spirituality takes absolutely NO EFFORT at all--all you have is verbal diarrhea--smells like it, too.
Brainless Marxists like you don't have a soul or a conscience, that's why you love abortion.
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater| 2.26.10 @ 12:19AM
Smerconish is catching so much heat for bailing on the GOP in Nov 08 and voting for Obama. I think he's just embarrassed by it, especially now that Barry has turned out to be such a disaster as pres. At this point he can either offer up a mea culpa or go full liberal. True to form, he takes the easy way out by becoming a lib and then giving the standard "litmus test" and "religious right" lefty talking points. Coward. Good riddance.
Bird| 2.26.10 @ 3:29PM
Most of the current Conservative Republican Party affiliates and sympathizers are a religious self-satisfied pillar of society. Their righteous indignations, and anxiety about possessions and pretensions, their ingrained habits of blaming, despising and condemning are due to lack of peace and mental clarity.
ZerObama| 2.27.10 @ 1:48AM
On the contrary, Bird--hatred comes from the you on the Left. Why else would you people support and condone the slaughter of 50 million innocent babies? Not a lot of 'peace and mental clarity' there, doofus.
Liberalism is a mental illness.
Projection is a pillar of leftist thought.
YesToChoice| 2.27.10 @ 1:37PM
You agree with a rightwing (conservatives) and - Passionately - disagrees with a leftwing.
What happened to left and right don't matter?
Misusing God's name and will for personal attacks is a sin.
Don't forget -- You will be judged too.
ZerObama| 3.2.10 @ 4:14PM
Left and Right DO matter--an atheist like you using God's name to further your hatred toward unborn babies is a HUGE sin.
I know I will be judged that's why I defend innocent babies in the womb, moron.
You sound mentally ill; perhaps you won't be judged so harshly because of your insanity.
YesToChoice| 3.2.10 @ 7:15PM
Yes, it matters only when it corresponds to your belief system.
Unless you volunteer at a woman's shelter, children orphanage, or will financially support(directly) mothers and their born child, so the abortion is avoided, you have NO leg to stand on.
LOVE THE BABIES!!| 3.2.10 @ 11:56PM
I've done ALL THREE, loser. Have you?
All you can do is fight for the slaughter of millions of innocent babies.
GOD WILL JUDGE YOU.
Angelo| 3.3.10 @ 1:43AM
One day is not enough!!! Besides, you are probably lying. You are the Devil - To love is not part of your practice.
LOVE THE INNOCENT BABIES| 3.3.10 @ 5:14AM
I am telling the truth, libtard--unlike you immoral liberal atheists, telling the truth REALLY matters to us pro-lifers.
Killing innocent babies doesn't come easy to us like it does to you. We believe in an after-life.
PROJECTION IS A PILLAR OF LEFTIST THOUGHT--Angelo is proof!
If anyone is the devil--it would be a pro-abort monster like you.
YesToChoice| 3.3.10 @ 1:07PM
Angelo,
Even if it is true it does not absolve him/her from being self-righteous and egocentric.
YesToChoice| 3.3.10 @ 1:30PM
Facts for the cynical pro-lifer, which might make some feel proud:
There you go some facts 'Pro-lifers' may feel proud of:
The majority of anti-abortion violence has been committed in the United States of America.
[edit] Murders
In the U.S., violence directed toward abortion providers has killed at least eight people, including four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort.[5]
* March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest. He had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue in the summer of 1992. Michael F. Griffin was found guilty of Dr. Gunn's murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
* August 21, 1993 Dr. George Patterson, was shot and killed in Mobile, Alabama, but it is uncertain whether his death was the direct result of his profession or rather a robbery.[6] [7]
* July 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside of another facility in Pensacola. Rev. Paul Jennings Hill was charged with the killings. Hill received a death sentence and was executed September 3, 2003.
* December 30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts. John Salvi, who prior to his arrest was distributing pamphlets from Human Life International,[8] was arrested and confessed to the killings. He died in prison and guards found his body under his bed with a plastic garbage bag tied around his head. Salvi had also confessed to a non-lethal attack in Norfolk, Virginia days before the Brookline killings.
* January 29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed. Eric Robert Rudolph, who was also responsible for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, was charged with the crime and received two life sentences as a result.
* October 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot to death at his home in Amherst, New York. His was the last in a series of similar shootings against providers in Canada and northern New York state which were all likely committed by James Kopp. Kopp was convicted of Dr. Slepian's murder after finally being apprehended in France in 2001.
* May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed as he served as an usher at his church in Wichita, Kansas.[9]
[edit] Attempted murder, assault, and threats
According to statistics gathered by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), an organization of abortion providers, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.[10] Attempted murders in the U.S. included:[5][11][12]
* August 19, 1993: Dr. George Tiller was shot outside of an abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas. Shelley Shannon was charged with the crime and received an 11-year prison sentence (20 years were later added for arson and acid attacks on clinics).
* July 29, 1994: June Barret was shot in the same attack which claimed the lives of James Barrett, her husband, and Dr. John Britton.
* December 30, 1994: Five individuals were wounded in the shootings which killed Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols.
* October 28, 1997: Dr. David Gandell of Rochester, New York was injured by flying glass when a shot was fired through the window of his home.[13]
* January 29, 1998: Emily Lyons, a nurse, was severely injured, and lost an eye, in the bombing which also killed Robert Sanderson.
[edit] Anthrax threats
The first hoax letters claiming to contain anthrax were mailed to U.S. clinics in October 1998, a few days after the Slepian shooting; since then, there have been 655 such bioterror threats made against abortion providers. None of the "anthrax" in these cases was real.[11][14]
* November 2001: After the genuine 2001 anthrax attacks, Clayton Waagner mailed hoax letters containing a white powder to 554 clinics. On December 3, 2003, Waagner was convicted of 51 charges relating to the anthrax scare.
[edit] Arson, bombing, and property crime
According to NAF, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, property crimes committed against abortion providers have included 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing, 1264 incidents of vandalism, and 100 attacks with butyric acid ("stink bombs").[10] The first clinic arson occurred in Oregon in March 1976 and the first bombing occurred in February 1978 in Ohio.[15] More recent incidents have included:[5]
* December 25, 1984: An abortion clinic and two physicians' offices in Pensacola, Florida were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people (Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins) who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."[16][17][18]
* October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. He was later sentenced to 60 months in prison.[19]
* May 28, 2000: An arson at a clinic in Concord, New Hampshire on resulted in damage estimated at US$20,000. The case remains unsolved.[20]
* September 30, 2000: A Catholic priest drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic after learning that the FDA had approved the drug RU-486. He pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard.[21]
* June 11, 2001: An unsolved bombing at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington destroyed a wall, resulting in US$6000 in damages.[19]
* July 4, 2005: A clinic Palm Beach, Florida was the target of an arson. The case remains open.[19]
* December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The device missed the building and no damage was caused. In August 2006, Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison, and Dunahoe to one year. Hughes claimed the bomb was a “memorial lamp” for an abortion she had had there.[22]
* September 13, 2006 David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and then started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions, however Edgerton is not an abortion clinic.[23]
* April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device after evacuating the building. Paul Ross Evans (who had a criminal record for armed robbery and theft) was found guilty of the crime.[24]
* May 9, 2007: An unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[25]
* December 6, 2007: Chad Altman and Sergio Baca were arrested for the arson of Dr. Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque. Altman’s girlfriend had scheduled an appointment for an abortion at the clinic.[26]
* January 22, 2009 Matthew L. Derosia, 32, who was reported to have had a history of mental illness [27] rammed a SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota.[28]
CHOOSE LOVE CHOOSE LIFE!!| 3.4.10 @ 1:09AM
Unlike you, I condemn ANYONE who kills another human being--I believe NO ONE has that right.
YOU SUPPORT AND CELEBRATE 50 million innocent babies ripped from their mothers' bodies--WHO is the REAL MONSTER here?
Better get down on your knees and beg GOD'S FORGIVENESS while there's still time.
HELL beckons you; can you feel the heat?
Angelo| 3.4.10 @ 1:36PM
YOU ARE THE NASTIEST PERSON I HAVE SEEN IN THIS WEBSITE. YOU HAVE NO CONSCIOUS CONSIDERATION TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. YOU ARE ANOTHER HYPOCRITE. YTC, NEVER SAID TO 'LOVE' ABORTION YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS SAYING THAT. YOU BITCH FROM HELL. GO FUCK YOURSELF CUNT.
CHOOSE LIFE LIBS!| 3.4.10 @ 2:19PM
WOW!! What ugly hatred!!
Now I know how the babies must feel around you liberals. Obviously, I've struck a nerve, Angelo, you must feel the heat!! Beg for God's forgiveness and perhaps your miserable soul can be saved.
In the meantime, take your meds--STAT!
Even better, ELECTROSHOCK might be the way to go for you!!
Hate kills, Angelo.
lucky | 3.8.10 @ 5:56PM
First, the KKK was a southern segregationist response rather than a national party response. Second, it's ironic that segregation was one of the "states rights" issues which led Falwell, et al, to found the Moral Majority and Religious Right and so on as a response to SCOTUS decisions like Brown; they wanted federal funding of their schools but they also didn't want to let in non-white children. Third, it's also ironic that so many Religious Right segregationists -- descendants of the supposed "Democrat" Klan -- supported Barry Goldwater in '64 because he was one of the few Republicans to oppose the Civil Rights Act passed earlier that year with the help of moderate/liberal "RINO" senators like Minority Leader Dirksen (amazing how revisionist history from the Religious Right now lauds bipartisanship they so venomously opposed). Finally, whereas the Religious Right used to block school entrances, today they want to block clinic entrances -- and like in the days of yore, they've been impeded from acting on these "choices" via legislation aimed at expanding rather than curtailing freedom. They still use the same failed "states rights" argument that failed in the 1860s and again in the 1960s.
Mr Lord, you're not "pro-choice" for wanting "states rights" to limit personal freedom and civil rights as if constitutional protections are something for the states to chip away at (the Tenth Amendment isn't license for that, it expressly forbids it). You're just a garden variety authoritarian.
Nobama| 3.28.10 @ 4:05AM
Lucky, you democrats created slavery and fought a war against a republican president to preserve it.
You democrats created Jim Crow laws, segregation and lynchings against black men: And YOU call Lord an authoritarian? That's rich! Liberal, thy name is hypocrite.
Since when is killing another person a civil right, moron?
BTW--Robert Byrd--democrat senator, was a Grand Kleagle or recruiter in the KKK. Convenient that you omitted that juicy little tidbit. Nice history re-write, creep.
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