The other day I saw on Twitter an article about a Canadian case where a father was forced by a judge to address his daughter as a boy because that is what his daughter claims she is – a boy. This was, naturally, a minor child. It caused a lot of outrage but the real issue here isn’t whether or not a kid should transition or whether a parent should accept such a thing. These are important issues, of course, but the most crucial aspect of it was the judge ordering the father to do something he believed to be wrong – in this case, lie about his daughter’s gender. And that, really, is the point of the whole exercise: to force the lie. Either tell a lie – that your daughter is a boy – or be held in contempt of court and go to jail…where you won’t be able to do anything for anyone, least of all your daughter who is being destroyed before your eyes. But, also, if you agree to say the lie then you’ve just lost the most important thing you can be for your daughter: someone who is fearlessly honest. If you’ll lie about something like that, what won’t you lie about?
Another case that caused some comment was the Utah Senate’s vote to de-criminalize polygamy. From the article:
Sen. Deidre Henderson stood on the Senate floor Friday and asked her colleagues to reconsider a decades-old state law classifying bigamy as a felony and making implied criminals of the state’s polygamous residents.
Rather than deter or eliminate polygamy, the Spanish Fork Republican said, the state code’s threat of harsh punishments had driven polygamous communities underground; cut families off from jobs, education and health care; and given rise to a subculture that gives predators “free rein to prey upon vulnerable people.”
Note how our Conservative Republican is busy Conserving…we have to legalize polygamy because if we don’t let these weirdos do what they want, they’ll be weird. Argument sound familiar? You have heard it before. Its the way Conservatism cements Liberalism…because the real reason they are doing this is because SSM became legal and once that was done, there was no argument to be made against polygamy except the same arguments used to attack SSM…it is against Natural Law (which Conservatives are supposed to Conserve). But we jettisoned that with SSM…and by “we” I mean “we Conservatives”. Not all of us, of course, but a large enough number that made the imposition of SSM a bipartisan event in the United States.
And we were all so happy about it, weren’t we? Love is love, right? Two men. Two Women. Three Woman and a Man. A 40 year old and a 15 year old…hey, wait! What are you saying? No one is advocating for that! You insane, mean spirited bigot! The very idea!
But, you know its coming. I’m sure if I dug around enough I’d find serious scholarship arguing for no age barriers, or at least much lowered age barriers. I won’t look for it because I don’t really want to see it – and if it doesn’t exist at this moment, it will in a short while. And you know it. And the argument which will be made – and eventually by Conservative Republicans Super Conserving Conservatism – is that if we don’t lower the age bars, we’ll be giving predators “free rein to prey upon vulnerable people.”
But still in all that, the worst aspect of it all is that we are not being asked to tolerate, but to actively approve. That’s the real problem here: we definitely live in a post-Christian world which not only lacks a mechanism to enforce morality, but wouldn’t even agree most of the time on what is moral – but it isn’t enough, for those running the show, that we who still retain the old morality to live and let live. No: they insist that we participate and approve. We Christians are rather back to square one, as it were: just waiting to be rounded up and led to the arena to provide dinner for the lions. Because it is going to be like that – the Christians of 100 AD made no effort to stop the storied infamies of 1st century Rome. There was no demand that the Games be cancelled or that the licentiousness be curbed…and yet still the Roman world went mad against Christians and tore them to pieces…because they wanted the Christians to approve of the Pagan lifestyle. When such approval was withheld, off the Christians went to provide bloody entertainment to the offended Pagans. Do you get it? Your lack of immorality offends.
So, what to do?
I’m not sure – but I am inclining towards those who simply want a divorce. That the portion of America which believes a person can change their gender separates from that part of America which doesn’t believe such a thing can happen. It would take some sorting out – how much territory each side gets; divvying up the national debt and military assets; will people have a period of time where they can move freely from America I to America II (and vice versa) with immediate full citizenship status? My guess is that we’d vote by county – and if a majority votes for America I, they are America I…America II, America II. It would make for a bit of a chopped up America II (the Left side) as they have majorities in far few counties but that could be address by negotiation…which would also be a drawn out process.
But, if we don’t divorce, we’ll have to fight. One thing I can’t see is us staying together and at peace when the two sides differ not just on trivia like forms of government, but on basic things like “2 plus 2 equals 4”. For our citizens who really think that “genderfluid” is a thing, 2 plus 2 equals whatever the hell they want at the moment. I’d rather we divorced – because if we fight, then the losing side doesn’t get to live in the America of the winning side. And I mean, at all.
Blogs For Victory 
Kurt Schlichter has written 4 novels about this very subject — the country splitting apart into The United States of America and The People’s Republic of North America. I just finished the fourth in which the west coast portion of the PRNA is on the verge of collapse, and U.S. forces decide to re-take it.
In reality I don’t see it working like that, mostly because the division of geography would be next to impossible. The far Left has minority presence pretty much everywhere except major metropolitan areas. We’ve already ceded those areas to the Left, and they’ve made hash out of most of them. In fact, most everything they touch turns to sh*t. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s definitely NOT giving them MORE territory to destroy.
So, what to do?
Well I think you all know where I stand. I have been lectured and scolded many times for voicing my opinion on this issue lol.
Re: the incrementalism of SSM and gender fluidity over the last couple of decades, what we are now realizing is that not only did liberals infect our educational system and federal government, they also infected the Republican Party. I think it’s fair to say that people like George Bush, John McCain, Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, etc, etc. …. the defenders of conservatism at the time were in reality all liberal Democrats. None of them had the spine, the principles, the integrity, or the desire to mount an effective defense.
So, what to do?
Well I think you all know where I stand. I have been lectured and scolded many times for voicing my opinion on this issue lol.
I completely understand your anger and frustration with people who are either purposely, or simply out of ignorance, trying to destroy the greatest experiment in self government in the history of the world. That said, I think you and I are on the same page in that the last thing we want to do on this earth is harm or worse (I’m trying to be as tactful as possible here) another person simply because he or she disagrees with us. Now if they take that disagreement to the next level where they attempt to force their view and values (or lack of values) on us, then gloves off — no hesitation.
I am not typically one who lets dishonesty and stupidity go unchallenged. Particularly when that dishonesty directly impacts the country I love and the country in which my children will raise their families. I will defend that with force … every time.
This is a MUST read:
I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years. But this experience made me realize how out-of-touch my party is with the country at large.
https://gen.medium.com/ive-been-a-democrat-for-20-years-here-s-what-i-experienced-at-trump-s-rally-in-new-hampshire-c69ddaaf6d07
Great article. I found this paragraph especially interesting:
Unfortunately, what she’s describing is NOT a two-way street. I’ve tried the same thing with (I started to say “friends” on the Left, but I no longer have any friends on the Left) acquaintances and even strangers on the Left, and the conversations almost always end the same way. They exhibit their “tolerance” by being intolerant of everything I believe. I get called all kinds of names that don’t come close to defining who I am. I have NEVER heard a Conservative tell someone, “you shouldn’t have the right to say something that I disagree with or that offends me.” Leftists routinely say things like that. Even among people I largely agree with, I find myself often saying, “I never looked at it that way.” I virtually NEVER hear a Liberal say that — about anything.
I also liked what she said about progressive Democrats living in the bubble and having no idea how badly they will go down to defeat in November … I agree with her on that one
You cannot simply divide the country into left/right sections with any expectations of “success”, however you may define it. For one, we are not in a one or two situation divide. There are literally dozens of “key” issues that we’d have to focus on to clarify which side of the divide you fall. With so many issues we’d be fractured into multiple subdivisions, many of which would be unable to cope or survive without collaborating agreements with other subdivisions. Even then it would only be a matter of time where what we once called the USA would crumble to the powers of the rest of the world, unable to really defend ourselves. In essence you’d be “giving up” and waiting for the inevitable. As old as I am, I’m not ready to give up, nor do I lack faith in God to handle the situation, IF I/we do our part, and that does NOT entail tucking tail & running away regardless of the seeming hopelessness.
I don’t think any who post here regularly are oblivious to the harsh push the left has made in recent years to the point where they no longer even attempt to hide or camouflage their efforts. While we do see people fawning over the left, the ugliness of what they push is in my opinion, waking many more up to the fate of the they will face if the left is allowed to control our direction. That ugliness if allowed, will extend far beyond our physical & mental wellbeing to our very souls.
I see a multitude of signs that God has not forsaken us. How many believed Trump would be elected President of the US a few short years ago? And even then, how many believed he would become the most pro-life president in modern times? How many believed he would govern as a conservative? How many believed he would somehow walk away stronger from the vicious attacks he has sustained? How many believed he would actually strengthen the US and in doing so actually strengthen the resolve for other countries to step up and push back against an evil that walks freely among them? We have new beneficial collaborative agreements with several countries and NATO allies. We are seeing up rise in countries controlled by tyrants and communists. People in Iran and Hong Kong are revolting against their leadership. Great Britain and Israel are reasserting their independence.
I see many signs that the black community are waking up to how the destructive policies of the left have negatively affected them. I see signs where feminists are starting to question policies the left pushes which are actually detrimental to women. We see many high-level judicial positions being filled with constitutional judges. The affects of the shift in that arena will take hold and be felt for some time to come. Strangely we’re even seeing some Republican politicians starting to grow some backbone and find their voice instead of always cowering when called out with Alinsky’s rules. There appears to be a shift in the voting demographics where the left is pursuing votes from illegal immigrants, realizing they are losing their grip on blacks, women & Jews. Even many previously avowed Democrats are questioning their allegiance. When the Democrat party as a whole actively states there is no room in their party for pro-life people, or anyone else who objects to the party’s platform issues creating exclusivity, where are they to turn?
There are literally dozens of signs where God is at work and will continue if we diligently pray for His intercession. The solutions provided will almost certainly involve sacrifice. But most all good things do.
Great post, and there tens of millions of us who feel the same way.
And even then, how many believed he would become the most pro-life president in modern times? How many believed he would govern as a conservative?
Add me to that category. I was skeptical of Trump to say the least but obviously preferred him over Hillary. And my oh my was I surprised. From the very beginning when he didn’t hesitate one second to move the Israel embassy out of Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I definitely took notice and thought how refreshing it was to have someone in office actually do what they campaigned on. Since then Trump has exceeded my expectations and is already the best conservative President maybe ever. He is in the process of solidifying the judiciary and with another 4 years, he can really solidify conservative principles into the American narrative and more importantly the agenda.
jdge1, you say There are literally dozens of “key” issues that we’d have to focus on to clarify which side of the divide you fall.
I suggest that we start with ignoring all issues except that of jurisdiction of authority. That is simpler, and it is easier to discuss without too much emotion—except when a Lefty sees the trap lying in front of him and gets hysterical to try to distract from it.
Issues are incredibly divisive, and allowing issues to chart our course means we are locked into increasing emotionality that amplifies divisiveness. That is why I have been so passionate about the idea of slamming the door on nearly all issues except the core of true political discourse—how to best govern the nation.
That should be the only NATIONAL discussion. Literally, the only national discussion should be the one about the choice between a federal government restricted as to size, scope and power with most authority left to the people or one in which most power is consolidated and placed in the hands of a few, with no restrictions on the expansion of federal authority and little left to the states or to the people. Every other issue is either an indication of political ignorance (on the Right) or fear of the public starting to examine the dangers of consolidated power in the hands of the elites, on the Left.
But, in the vein of God’s ongoing protection of this nation, the masks are slipping, the disguises are being cast aside, and the true agendas of the Left are now not only being admitted but flourished and touted as goals. As recently as the Obama years anyone who uttered the word “socialist” was shouted down, ridiculed, accused of being a conspiracy theorist, etc. In a very short time that word is waved as an ideal for the nation, is openly promoted as the ideal direction for the nation. The Right could never have gotten this concept so openly linked to the Democrat Party, but they have done it themselves.
Now we need to take advantage of that. That means identifying the word, linking it not just to a nation (“Look at VENEZUELA!!!”) but carefully describing it regarding its political structure. The Left is still promoting socialism as just more free stuff, and it is up to us to point out that the free stuff is the bait in the trap.
Bickering drives people away, which is why the Left is so intent on bickering all the time, about everything. They know this noise turns people off and makes them less likely to listen to the messages. That is why I wish the Right would adopt a bold new approach and publicly commit to focusing not on Identity Politics, not on bickering, not on attack politics, but on simply speaking to the people in a calm and reasonable way outlining the structure of the two opposing political systems. and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each. The key here is explaining that people who are wildly at odds with each other on important issues such as abortion, gay marriage and so on can and should still be on the same side when it comes to deciding in which arena those issues must be decided. We should open our arms to those who agree on Constitutional governance even if we think they are profoundly wrong on many important issues.
We need to peel away the layers of noise to get to the core of what we should be focusing on. That is, winning control of the legislature and presidency so laws can begin to be passed to unwind the disastrous policies put in place over the decades, carefully entwined within the architecture of every agency in our government. To achieve that, we need votes. We need the support of more people To get that support we need to appeal to those of us who are disgusted with the antics and viciousness of today’s Democrat Party but we also need to appeal to people who haven’t thought it out that far but just know that “politics” has become so distasteful that they are shutting down. We need to provide an alternative to ugly politics, to hate-driven politics, to spite politics, to destructive politics, by removing those elements from our appeal and saying “Let’s talk about the best blueprint for governing this nation. We think it is the Constitutional model, and this is why. We think the other model is destructive and this is why.”
So we should make it a public commitment to turn our backs on identity Politics, reject personality-based politics, and focus on the political structure that will continue to make us stronger, healthier and happier. ISSUES should for the most part be firmly established as state and local matters, and at the national level we should limit ourselves to the ISSUE of following the 10th Amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Repeat it, define it, explain it and defend it. Shift the discourse away from personality and identity to analysis of the benefits of governing this way, get the votes to firmly establish a 10th-Amendment-based national government, and agree that the emotional issues have to be fought out at the state or local level.
Amazona, in most situations I agree with you regarding how we approach issues. There is no question the federal government has expanded way beyond what the founding fathers envisioned by a magnitude of 1,000. And the approach you suggest would likely dial down the animosity, bring people back to the table, and open the door to more rational discussion. There will be difficulty getting there as turmoil, victimhood, entitlement mentality, distrust, etc… are the lifeblood to keeping the left in power. That however should not prevent us from our pursuit of a constitutional governance.
The key here is explaining that people who are wildly at odds with each other on important issues such as abortion, gay marriage and so on can and should still be on the same side when it comes to deciding in which arena those issues must be decided.
So, how would you determine which arena the issue of abortion should be decided in? The Declaration of Independence states: All men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words recognize a moral boundary that government must never violate if it is to retain legitimacy. The right to life is not rights granted by man but by our Creator, universal and unchanging. When the right to life is questioned and stripped of value, especially for those formed at conception and those near their end; no one will be truly safe for we will have set in motion radicalized unfettered arbitrary deciders of all life.
I would suggest one of the primary sources of our divisions today lies in our radically divergent understanding of rights. The left speaks of rights in very different terms talking about the right to gay marriage, health care, pay, education, and so on. Their definition of “rights” has become infinitely malleable. Though I differ considerably from the left on how to approach most of these things, returning them to the state as laid out in the constitution and as you suggested would be ideal. However, I find no value or have any interest in ceding the abortion issue to the states. Science proves that the unborn child is a unique, living individual. The fact that s/he has reliance to complete formation and survival beyond birth does not change the fact that God created this life and that child’s existence should never be put to the whims of inconvenience. A brokered network of varying state dictates as related to life allows for an injustice where none should exist. Without life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless.
I would suggest one of the primary sources of our divisions today lies in our radically divergent understanding of rights.
That’s exactly right and the Left has been quite successful in promoting the “rights” that they can manufacture and decree from the State. That too is a trap. If our rights derive from Government, then it is they who we depend on. And while JDGE accurately mentioned that without Life … Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are meaningless it should also be mentioned that thru the Left’s determined efforts to restrict Life and Liberty …. the Pursuit of Happiness is not a given.
It would be nice if all we had to do was to sit down and have a rational conversation with the Left about the Constitutional structures of Government and where decisions and power are best centered but I think we are well past that. Remember, to many on the left, State’s Rights are a dog whistle to RACISTS. I think we need to keep winning and SHOW them how it’s done rather than tell them how it’s done. While Obama famously said that he had a “phone and a pen”, Trump has insisted that Congress do their job and give him actual legislation that he can sign and cement into law. We need to string together more years of this type governance for it to resonate, hence the Left’s unhinged efforts to stop it.
To clarify my thinking of the Left … I think one thing we are all overlooking is their malicious intent. These are not just uninformed people with different political views. These are people with strong authoritarian streaks who are willfully and maliciously dishonest. I can tolerate simple dishonesty and ignorance evidenced by the fact I watch MSNBC quite a bit, but where I draw the line is with their intent. These people (Democrat/Media/Deep State Complex) are knowingly and willfully lying with bad intent. They want to control the levers of a centralized government at all costs and will do anything to achieve it. Do not underestimate them …
It took us decades to get to this point, and it is not going to be reversed overnight, or even within a decade. The Left—and by this I mean the International Left, represented these days by people like Soros—–plays the long game. Our situation now is the result of decades of carefully applied strategies, of incremental creep of acceptance of one concept after another, and our only hope is to adopt that same approach to weeding out those concepts.
I think we are getting sucked into seeing THE LEFT as a monolithic entity, but in the United States at this time that is not the case. When we talk about the Democrat Party now being the party of the Left, we are right to some extent—its leadership has been taken over by the International Left and its mid-level representatives like Pelosi, Schiff, AOC and so on. There is no appealing to these people, there is no strategy for changing any of them. Whether they are motivated by ideology or mental illness or love of power or just plain old spite and malice, they should be considered part of the political landscape and accepted as such.
But in the tiers of Left-leaning Americans below this level, there are literally millions of people who are not ideologically driven, who are accessible to rational thinking if approached not in a strident evangelical way that says to them “You are wrong and we are here to change you” but in a way that says “Let’s set aside our differences for now while we work on what should unite us, which is agreement on the structure of our government. This is really what we should be talking about, not letting ourselves get dragged into the weeds of hostility and hatred and personal attacks.”
I truly believe that there are millions of people registered as either Democrat or Republican and probably most who call themselves Independents who are so sick and tired of the bickering, the name calling, the viciousness, the nonstop hysteria, that they would welcome a calm and rational request to set aside the noise and furor, and the respect inherent in treating them as rational well-meaning people. Right now there is no place for them to go. The Democrat Party is now fully invested in its take no prisoners approach, which is turning off huge chunks of its membership, but rational Democrats are afraid of the Right because of the successful demonization strategy of their leadership, so they are floundering.
For all the talk about war with the Left, you are forgetting just how wars are fought and won—that is, only partially on the battlefield. Wars are won by cutting off the supply lines of the enemy. Wars are won by analyzing what the enemy needs to continue to fight, to continue to be a threat, and then depriving the enemy of that support. So why are we fussing about the top tiers of the Left, the invisible and anonymous generals and the middle management represented by politicians, when without the support of the masses they will crumple and collapse? Why are we letting ourselves be distracted by the numerically insignificant but quite visible and vocal haters and troublemakers? Why are we letting ourselves be controlled by the Complicit Agenda Media efforts to convince us that these people actually represent all Democrats?
From a two-year-old story on political registrations: “….some of the states with registered Democrat advantages, like Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, have been functionally Republican at the presidential level for at least 15 years, said Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of the Crystal Ball.
That could be good news for the Republicans in the upcoming election, a sign that just being majority Democrat does not mean voters are in lock step, said the report which highlighted the growth of independent voters.
But it also noted that as the nation becomes more partisan, declaring party membership is an affirmative political stand.
“With the growth in independents, many voters seem to be saying to the two major parties: ‘a pox on both your houses,’” wrote Cook.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/2018-democrats-lead-gop-by-12-million-registered-voters
This is only one of many sources of data telling me that there are literally millions of voters up for grabs, now floating around in a no-man’s-land of distasteful options. What I am saying is that we should stop fretting about the leadership of the Left and its stranglehold on the media, giving it such a loud voice and emphasizing its power, and start working on cutting off its supply lines.. We should be the attractive option. We should be the haven for the disaffected, the disenchanted, the disillusioned. We should go back to being the Big Tent Party, where there is room for people who don’t always agree with each other on their issues but are bound together by a shared vision of the basic structure of our government and commitment to the Constitution.
How do you do that? In my opinion, you first do that by analyzing what is making these millions of people feel alienated and without desirable choices. So, again in my opinon, if we look at the Dems who feel this way we are probably going to find them driven away by the sheer nastiness of their party, by its sudden lurch into publicly supporting radical Leftist agendas combined with its obsession with destroying Donald Trump and its general combativeness. Its leadership is not only not likable, it is distasteful and unpleasant. BUT—it has been very successful in demonizing the Right, leaving the disenchanted no place to go. So, if that analysis is correct. what can we do?
I suggest we step back from the combativeness that is driving people away from the Democrat Party and announce that we have seen the inevitable result of Identity Politics and find it corrosive and destructive and disrespectful of the intelligence of the people, and we have chosen to move away from it to focus not on personalities or identity but on what really matters—which is defining and choosing the best blueprint for governing the nation. This would open up vast swathes of appeal, to nearly every demographic within the current Democrat and Independent groups, as well as giving some focus to the legacy Republicans who don’t really know for sure why they are Republicans.
This would open up a dialogue in which, for example, we could say that expecting people to believe that a commitment to Constitutional governance is somehow associated with judging people by the color of their skin is insulting and demeaning, essentially telling them they are not smart enough to realize that the two have nothing in common.
This would open up a dialogue in which we could work on the acceptance of demonizing people on a personal level just because they have different opinions or perceptions. Of course, to do this we would have to stop doing it ourselves.
This would open up the opportunities to gradually and with some subtlety address the insidious strategy of propaganda, pointing out how manipulating context can change the meaning of a sentence, how editing can convey a false impression, with the message that the only reason people lie is because the truth will hurt them, or at least not get them what they want, which is why the truth is the first victim of Leftist strategy.
I’m a political junkie. I am very big on ideology. But I also understand that few if any people will join a group that is not friendly and welcoming. Spook wrote not long ago about choosing a church because it was friendly and welcoming. Its core message was probably the same as that of the churches he did not choose, but he and his wife decided they wanted to be part of that particular congregation because they liked it. But here we have the Republican Party, the representative of the form of government we believe is the key to the future of our Republic, wanting more people to join us but not being very pleasant or welcoming, and demanding that people set aside ISSUES that have been important to them for years just to be let in the door.
I am just saying we can change our approach without sacrificing our ideals, simply by slightly modifying our appeal. That is, telling people by example that we are the party of acceptance, of tolerance of different ideas and issues and beliefs as long as we agree on the core matter of where we decide the legislation that governs how those issues and beliefs are addressed.
Back to the war analogy—what would happen to the Democrat Party if we seriously interfere with its supply lines? That is, bleed off a few million registered Democrats and a few million Independents, taking with them their votes and their money? As a short-term goal, say for the next 20 years or so, wouldn’t it be enough to reduce the Democrat Party to an outpost of shrill screeching rage appealing only to people who want an identity based on shrill screeching rage, but without power?
And….let me point out that this is the strategy now being applied by Donald Trump. He is defending himself against the middle management of the Left, but at the same time he is appealing to the disenchanted by being friendly and funny and accessible, and more important he is quietly dismantling the support system of the Left by bleeding off federal agency power and influence. We can send out the Nuneses and Jordans and so on to defend ourselves in that arena of conflict, we can still have the media pundits on our side present facts and unravel Leftist lies, so we are not conceding defeat when the middle management of the Left, its politicians, attack us. But the party itself should, I believe, formally and publicly adopt an entirely new approach to the citizenry.
JDGE1, you ask: So, how would you determine which arena the issue of abortion should be decided in?
That is a thorny area of discussion. First of all, I am so thoroughly adamantly passionately against abortion that I am sure you and I are on the same page there. I find it so abhorrent, so morally despicable, that I don’t even use the word “woman” to describe the people who kill their own babies. I call them “gestational creatures” because as a woman I refuse to consider them deserving of the respect I have been taught since childhood is associated with true womanhood.
And I completely agree that The Declaration of Independence states: All men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words recognize a moral boundary that government must never violate if it is to retain legitimacy. The right to life is not rights granted by man but by our Creator, universal and unchanging. When the right to life is questioned and stripped of value, especially for those formed at conception and those near their end; no one will be truly safe for we will have set in motion radicalized unfettered arbitrary deciders of all life.
But we have to play the cards we are dealt, and our hand has been dealt by decades of incremental whittling away at the concept of respect for life and the growing conviction that the personal whims of the selfish should hold sway over everything else. We aren’t going to change that overnight.
Unfortunately, while the Declaration of Independence made that statement about the inherent right to life, it was not codified in the actual rule book of how the nation must be governed—the Constitution—-so we are stuck with the problem of it being clearly an inspiring and motivating belief of the Founders while it remains, officially, just an indication of a belief without the power of law. Personally, I think it should be considered as part of the whole, part of the ruling documentation of the land, but technically it is not.
So we have several problems. One is that the inherent right to life is not codified within our Constitution. In fact, it has been determined to be legally subjected to the rule of legislated law, as in the matter of capital punishment. To be consistent, if we are to claim that the right to life is inherent and guaranteed by our rule of law then we have to say it applies to all, including the most vile and vicious among us. (By the way, I am OK with that. While I support capital punishment, I would trade it for abolishment of abortion and I can see the logic in that argument.)
If I am going to take a stand as an originalist, regarding the Constitution, then I have to admit that not codifying the inherent right to life within it means it is a philosophy that guided our Founders but is not specifically included in the final draft of the formal rule of law for the country. I happen to believe that they felt it was so obvious, having been identified as a motivating philosophy for the establishment of the nation, it didn’t need to be specifically addressed again—but without specificity it remains unsettled constitutionally. Not unsettled morally, or philosophically, but in strict constitutional application.
That leaves two options. One is a Supreme Court ruling finding that the specific reference to a crucial aspect of the founding of the nation being the formal recognition of the right to life places it in the context of constitutional authority. One is a formal amendment to the Constitution. Absent either of these, I have to reluctantly state that a federal law banning abortion would be an expansion of federal authority beyond that referred to in the 10th Amendment—or might be seen as such, but valuable anyway as it would lead to a SCOTUS challenge that might bring about the first option I mentioned. The right to life IS a specified, identified right referred to in a foundational document, and the 9th Amendment does say that the Constitution does not address all rights inherent to man, so it is reasonable to link the specific reference to the Constitutional acceptance of some rights not identified.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Ninth Amendment was James Madison’s attempt to ensure that the Bill of Rights was not seen as granting to the people of the United States only the specific rights it addressed. In recent years, some have interpreted it as affirming the existence of such “unenumerated” rights outside those expressly protected by the Bill of Rights.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/ninth_amendment
(Many would try to use this argument to expand the non-enumerated rights to a laundry list of other agendas, but I think a good argument could be made that the right to life is present in the document stating why this nation was being founded, and therefore is reasonably included, while others are not.)
What I am getting at is, for the time being, it would be an incremental step toward addressing the human rights issue of abortion to get it out of Roe v Wade, and into state authority where at least it can be argued without the implied imprimatur of Constitutional authority and approval. And it would greatly help establish the GOP as the Big Tent Party to remove abortion as an issue demanding agreement before being able to be a Republican or vote for Constitutional governance—which is a definition for voting against the Democrat Party.
It’s not an either/or. It’s more of a “let’s do this on this level, while simultaneously working on the other level in another arena of authority”.
And I do believe that, given the success of the radical Left in making abortion seem to be what it is not, presenting it as just an innocuous aspect of “women’s reproductive health”, any major legislative change has to be prefaced by a serious effort to change that perception. We are making progress in that direction, with the medical and technological advances that show us the DNA of the baby present at conception, the new ultrasounds that actually show us facial features and the human behaviors of the unborn as they play with their toes and suck their thumbs, the ability to determine that the unborn feel pain, the video in that movie showing the baby trying to get away from the tube that eventually crushed it and sucked it out of the uterus and so on. This is a battle that has to be fought on many different fronts: moral, scientific, human rights, legal and emotional.
I just saw a meme that I liked …
Not all Angels play the Harp and sing.
Some are called to battle.
I hope to be one of those Angels called to battle
For the last 5 weeks I’ve been participating in a cardiac rehab program following a minor heart attack on January 6th. Yesterday another one of the participants asked me what I thought of Michael Bloomberg. Before I could answer, another participant, a lady (I use that term loosely) said, “he’s an arrogant, condescending prick.” I almost fell off the exercycle I was laughing so hard. She looked at me and said, what?” I told her I could not agree more, and then we all laughed.
Isn’t it great to see what people think outside the bubble?
Hope your rehab is going well….
Well, I haven’t had another heart attack, so I guess it’s going well. My next appointment with my cardiologist is not until August, so it wouldn’t appear that he’s all that worried.
That is good news, Spook.
Hope your rehab is going well….
Ditto. Take care Spook
President Trump pardoned more high-profile convicts: the financier Michael Milken and the former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik blares the pearl-clutching NYT.
But….did he pardon any terrorists? Or campaign contributors?
Or is he just consistent about prison reform, which includes treating non violent crimes with different sentencing standards? Is the TImes happy with reducing penalties for drug dealers but not for financiers? And if they are going to take a stand against leniency for people who lie to Congress or the courts, maybe they ought to poll the Dems in Congress and a bunch of highly placed people in the FBI and DOJ to see if they agree this should be considered the basis for long prison sentences.
Jes’ sayin’…….
BTW, on January 17, 2017, Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea (sic) Manning, who stole and sold classified information, among 64 pardons and 209 commutations which included commutation of 109 life sentences. On his last full day in office he commuted the prison sentences of 330 federal inmates, particularly drug offenders. Obama did so, as one of his final acts in office, in order to reduce what he viewed as overly harsh punishments.
I guess that was OK. At least it was less offensive than Clinton pardoning murderous terrorists to pander to a voting bloc Hillary needed in her run for the Senate in New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executive_clemency_by_Barack_Obama
And more unsettling news from the Democrat Party:
A delegation of Democratic senators reportedly led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) held a secret powwow with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, where Pompeo was an official speaker.
The meeting was not officially sanctioned by the U.S. government and appears to have been held in secret to avoid media scrutiny. State Department officials have been clear that they did not play any role in facilitating the meeting or backing it.
What did they promise the Iranians? This exactly is what I mean by “malicious intent”. The Democrats are actively and willfully subverting this President and tearing at the fabric of this country … they should deemed enemy combatants.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/pompeo-slams-democrats-for-secretive-meeting-with-top-iranian-official/
State Department officials have been clear that they did not play any role in facilitating the meeting or backing it.
Well, isn’t that special? What about laws prohibiting citizens from engaging in government or political negotiations with foreign governments? Why are we so willing to look the other way when people like Carter and Kerry openly engage in policy discussions with representatives of other nations? What about Vindman going to the Ukrainian government and telling them to ignore Trump because he didn’t have the authority to make foreign policy?
It’s way past time we crack down on this flagrant effort to undermine our president’s authority by going to other nations to try to establish back-door deals or erode confidence in our true elected administration. The domestic subversion of the #RESIST movement and its ugly cousins is bad enough, but taking it to the international level and working to undermine policies and agendas of the president must be illegal, especially when undertaken by people in our government who have an implied authority due to their status.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/subversive
Subversive definition, tending or intending to subvert or overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established or existing system, especially a legally constituted government or a set of beliefs.
The Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. The intent behind the Act is to prevent unauthorized negotiations from undermining the government’s position
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act
It’s murky waters, as the definitions are a little vague and no one has ever been convicted of violating the Logan Act. But that does not mean it can be ignored, and maybe it is time to dust it off and whap some subversive legislators and washed-up former officials upside the head with it.
Meanwhile, the Left is melting down over Guiliani talking to foreign leaders, though he is an envoy of the president conveying the president’s wishes and taking information back to him. They don’t even try to be consistent.
So let me see if I have this right. Our government can’t stop a virus from spreading but want us to believe they can stop the climate from changing. Do I have that right?