Well, it IS true that Democrat Party is defined by “Identity Politics”, not economic populism.  And ti’s the only hope of the McCain/Republican Party that the Obama/Hillary race is defined by the illogiccal idvisions of that particular artifact from the 60’s-70’s era.

“Identity” Politics is intrinsically negative, all the little “identities” in the Democrat coalition hate each other and are only united in their opposition to the White Christian majority.

But when the White Christians become the minority, all the little animosities come to the surface and the entire “coalition” falls apart.

McCain’s only hope is that Clinton mortally wounds Obama, and that the Clintons call in their chits and the Superdelegates elect Hillary over the popular choice Obama, and the convention ends up as divisive as the McGovern convention back in ‘72.

Don’t leave me in mid-stream. I believe that the remainder of the essay was “aborted.”

As a long-tiome Queens resident, I want to learn about how Geraldine got her come-uppance from your mother!

Fastforward to 2008: George W. Bush is President of the United States, 7/9 justices on the Supreme Court are Republican appointees, and from 1994 to 2006 Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress (aside from a few months following the Jeffords defection).

Guess what? Abortion is still legal, but now homosexuals can marry each other in Massachusetts, same-sex civil unions are recognized in Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and same-sex domestic partnerships are recognized in Maine, Hawaii, California, and Oregon. Pornography is more accessible than ever before thanks to the internet.

No one knows how many illegal aliens there are in the United States. Estimates range from 12 million to 20 million. There are 36 million immigrants in America; almost as many that came from Jamestown to JFK. 1/2 of American children under the age of 5 are non-white. Real wages have stagnated for 35 years. The average American family is worse off in 2008 than 1999. The price of oil is nibbling at record highs - in the absence of an oil shock - and Peak Oil is looming just over the horizon. The share of national wealth held by the top 1% of Americans is at its highest level since 1929. The national debt has doubled under George W. Bush.

The dollar is crashing against the Euro and Yen, inflation is hitting grocery stories, and consumer confidence is dropping like a stone. The U.S. banking system is on life support from the Federal Reserve. Billions of dollars are flowing out of America every day: to East Asia for manufactured goods, to finance W.’s stupid Iraq War, to OPEC. Skittish foreign investors are pulling out their capital for various reasons. We’re looking at $150 oil within two years and the worst macroeconomic conditions since the Great Depression. The cherry on top is that conservatives have managed to bust the federal budget too.

But let’s return for a moment to the single issue that Zmirak cares about: abortion. Why is abortion still legal in the United States? It is because of the support for the pro-choice Democratic Party in his native Blue States; the place where his fellow Catholics tend to live. There you have the nub of the problem: Northern Catholics are reluctant to vote for pro-life Republicans because of their horrible economic policies. They’re still voting against them.

That is unlikely to change with religion becoming less salient and economic conditions deteriorating.

@Prozium:

“Why is abortion still legal in the United States? It is because of the support for the pro-choice Democratic Party in his native Blue States; the place where his fellow Catholics tend to live. There you have the nub of the problem: Northern Catholics are reluctant to vote for pro-life Republicans because of their horrible economic policies.”

And you think of yourself as the political realist?  Abortion is still legal because pro-life Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party.  That meant that it was in the interest of the Republican Party, from the rise of the Reagan Democrats on, to campaign on ending abortion, but to do nothing about it.

Scott:

It is time for pro-life supporters to abandon the
Republican Party, and either start a third party,
which would vote with the Democrats on economic
policy (say what you will of the Clintons, on the
economic front their White House tenure each day
looks more and more like a Golden age), and push
for pro-life laws and isntitutions (by the way
economic support of the mother might remove some the
perverse disincentives to child-bearing - the too prevalent practice in the past
of firing a woman when she got pregnant should have
been denounced from the pulpits as being blatantly
pro-abortion)

Or they might try to take over the Democratic party again
But for that you need some sort of political savvy, which
is not given to everyone.

Mr. Zmirak.  Thank you for a wonderful story, which you related beautifully.  You can certainly write, sir.

The Abortion issue is one of the more ready ways our Identity Politicians on both sides of the isle....and they dominate.......employ code to motivate an attention deficit public. The Republicans have it both ways, they can rail against it but shrug and say “gee but it’s the law”.

However, until the larger social construct.....an edifice in a kind of softly enveloped chaos.....decides that abortion is indeed infanticide, nothing whatsoever will happen to reverse the current legal framework. It is part and parcel of the larger surrender to feminist sentimental relativism on the one side and patriarchal cultural violence, including our institutions, on the other. In Grab Ass We Trust.

Your mother sounded great, few any more would violate the social taboo of questioning dignitaries.
If we did so, they would not have such an easy time doing the damage they do.

Adriana, re: 3rd party:

Mr. Z’s article is a good example of the drift of ideology. He chronicles a moment when the Dimmykrats were shifting from the Social Democrat ideology of Franklin Roosevelt to the Cultural Marxism of today, itself tipping over into ethnic and racialist nationalism.  This website (I except among others Mr. Z) is an example of the shift of real conservatism from Burke and De Maistre to Benito (Fascism), Rosenberg (racialist nationalism), Delcassé and Treitschke (ethic nationalism), latter-day Anti-Dreyfusardism (Judeophobia), and Tiso (Clerical Fascism and clerical fascism).  If this is what a putative 3rd party will be, let’s having nothing to do with it.

It’s the Neocons who haven’t changed.  They’re simple the latest label for the Whigs, and the Whig program is the same Hobbesian program as was in 1678:

1. a centralizing and expanding State, with local areas simple franchises of it, with a mythical Nationalism to grant it supposed legitimacy. 
2. control of the currency though a central bank that issues fiat money
3. corporate welfare by the central State
4. opposition to the Catholic Church, and a preference for Latitudianrian ("liberalism") in religiosity.

Sid,

My congratulations, you came up with a man on the Right of whom I had never heard before: Jozef Tiso, I believe is the one to whom you were referring: http://www.ce-review.org/00/11/kopanic11.html.

In the flush of discovery, I am putting him at or near the top of my list of folks to write in come November, alongside a few others such as Hans-Joachim Marseille. I am of course open to other suggestions.

All the best,
Woody

John Zmirak wrote:

“When the landlord threatened to start bringing in tenants on welfare, she told him “That’s blockbusting!” and promised a rent strike. He backed down. A crusader for tenants rights. The most effective segregationist in Queens. Mom was little of both.”

John, abortion wasn’t the only thing your mother was right about.

All of European Christendom is sunk in marxist culture subdued by foreign interests but leave it to Sidney Cundiff to continue to worry about a supposed tide of fascists taking over.  Sid, write another check toe the SPLC and ADL to ensure we have enough watch-dogs around to keep these nasty “browns” in check. 

“just the facts ma’am....just the facts ma’am...whigs worshipping Tiso....just the facts ma’am....Serbian irredentism....just the facts ma’am”....< nurse enters to administer sedative >....another few hours of peace for Taki Mag participants....

Mr Cundiff, I must disagree with the constant fight against, among other issues, “Clerical Fascism”.  By God, we could use some serious “Clerical Fascism” in the world today.

Instead, we’re stuck with THIS:

http://www.christorchaos.com/images/96_Fr_Steve_Kelly_celebrates_liturgy.jpg

Well, hopefully not for long.

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of “fascism”, clerical or otherwise, but, damn!  Something’s gotta give!

Big Mac’s right, the last thing we have to worry about is “Clerical Fascism"…

Mr. Zmirak, I also was raised in NYC in the 70s and 80s and your essay was nostalgic.  However, I believe you are mistaken in stating that Mario Biaggi was a former Congressman from Queens.  I lived in the Bronx and he was my representative there for many years.

Johnt, redistricting.

He represented, at various times, people from the Bronx, Queens, and sometimes Yonkers, I believe.

Thanks Andrew Capp.  Then redistricting is the death of white ethnic politicians in big-city America.

<<redistricting is the death of white ethnic politicians in big-city America.>>

Yes, redistricting is definitely part and parcel of the “ethnic cleansing” of “White America”.

Instead of referring to themselves as Scots, Irish, Poles, etc., many of those ethnics in America today refer to themselves as “White”.  This is especially bad in the South, where we are all pretty much “Scotch-Irish”, and that ethnicity has been forgotten my almost everyone.

“This website (I except among others Mr. Z) is an example of the shift of real conservatism from Burke and De Maistre to Benito (Fascism), Rosenberg (racialist nationalism), Delcassé and Treitschke (ethic nationalism), latter-day Anti-Dreyfusardism (Judeophobia), and Tiso (Clerical Fascism and clerical fascism).”

Wow.  What a sweeping and pompously-phrased accusation.  Anonymous other people on this site (the writers? the people who post writebacks? who?) are guilty of [insert diatribe].  When commenting on the Democrats, why make a gratuitous and vague accusation against people you won’t name?  Plus, De Maistre?  Isn’t he famous for making some (proto-fascist?) very laudatory statements about the role of hangmen in society?  Plus, Tiso was a tragic figure in a very, very difficult situation.  See here:  http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/tiso(n)-1.htm

Caper: Cultural Marxists, following Isaiah Berlin (himself not a Marxist), regard De Maistre (and Maurras) as a Fascist or a fascist.  The rest of us don’t.  See John Lukacs on this.

Caper and Jones:  The Tiso apologists might as well be ‘Dolf apologists, should have the guts to say so, sign their real names—and follow the logical consequence of their ideology and join the National Alliance.

All: For clerical fascism and Clerical Fascism, see the work of Luigi Sturzo and Richard Webster’s The Cross and the Fasces—dated but still the best English work on the question.

Why is it, exactly, that everything I write--even if it’s about local politics in 1980s Queens--somehow ends up sparking a debate about the dead, evil ideology of fascism? What is going on here, people?

“Why is it, exactly, that everything I write--even if it’s about local politics in 1980s Queens--somehow ends up sparking a debate about the dead, evil ideology of fascism?”

Because some of the commenters here can’t wait until they can once again wear the uniform in public.

But, no complaining. This is all part of your Lenten sacrifice. Now get busy on your next gem!

Sid,

I have some good news to report. Today on Wall Street we had the first of the impending major bank failures with the virtual collapse of Bear Stearns. Not even $400 billion dollars in corporate welfare from the Federal Reserve has thawed the credit crunch. The day is fast approaching when America will sink into the Bush Depression. When that happens, Americans are going to work themselves up into a furious rage, possessed by the single thought that “these people have done it again,” and they will cast “conservatism” down into the same fiery bottomless hole that Herbert Hoover and the GOP into in 1932. That will be the magic moment when “spectre of the Browns” becomes a very real possibility.

Prozium,
Your autopsy of the last 14 years of Republican hegemony is well-done, though contrary to your prediction, I think religion will become more prominent in American public life in the years ahead.

It’s your prognosis that is chilling.

I really admired how you finessed the following:

“only two letters away from the word she really meant everyone to hear. A ‘mugger.’”

That’s the way our beloved Queens County was, and gratefully, the way it still is (admittedly a little more circumspectly).

Ah, John, some people cannot stick to the subject.

Or rather they want to go over their pet theories,
whether they are relevant or not.

Notice how your writing on the “new deadly sins” got
sidetracked into a dicussion of race, which one would
think had nothing to do with the subject at hand. But
when one has an obsession, it must be commented on, and
all you can do is bear patiently until they get bored with
it.

John, in all honesty, you are a young full-of-shitter. But your Mom sounds like real people. Your descriptions of her remind me of many of the people in my life who I will always regard as near & dear. You are a lucky guy...and I quess somehow, you earned your luck. Congratulations to you & your family....God Bless to You All.

Sorry, Mr. Zmirak, I fed the troll.

Great story. 
But racism didn’t get us legal abortion.  Quite the opposite.  What got us legal abortion was the same incentive giving rise to the predominant and pervasive anti-racism amongst young, fertile women, that kept and keeps abortion legal: it is in each woman’s perceived best interest to avoid restrictions on mate choice.  Racist or racial, or any ethnically-based policy smacks, to women, of unfairly limiting their opportunity to mate with the best male of their generation available to them.  Think Othello.  (Think also of all those faerie tales of the girl marrying the more worthy poor young man as opposed to the goof who happens to be the son of some neighborhood Duke magnate chiefton; women have their own rules on who is the best guy and do not want that choice compromised.)
Likewise, even your Catholic young women, in significant part, give a pass to abortion.  As statistically insignificant as pregnancy resulting from rape is, not being permitted to abort would, in a female’s probably correct perspective, exponentially increase the devastation to her future prospects of securing a best-possible mate and raising a happy family.  Why?  Because, as she probably noticed, and accurately so I would say, men, especially young men, have and act in accordance with, a disincentive to raising bastards.
(Ubiquitous and perhaps mandatory DNA testing, however, could mix things up to the extent it has the potential to provide the identity of any rapist, which might lead to a reduction in rape (or at least rape induced pregnancies; I imagine they’ll come up with a rape-quality condom).)
Pregnancies fall within a range of desirability from the female perspective.  At one range, an old girl gets knocked up, perhaps on purpose, by a man who’s child she will carry with or without him joining her in wedded matrimony or in any other way --his genes are that good/she’s that old, e.g. a certain unnamed celebrity single-mom raising the child of some other celebrity guy, or mothers of sperm-donor kids.  At another side, is the young girl at the start of her life/career/search who is impregnated by a guy who’s child, either on second-thought or right from the get go, she knows she doesn’t want to carry, e.g. rape victims.  (Somewhere in the middle is the woman knocked up by some joker.  Safe legal abortion is just the icing on the devil’s cake there.)
The young women want the option; the older ones feel for the position of the younger ones; only tough old women like your mother in that scene rise above that.  They vote the option because, though there is small chance of it happening, rape induced pregnancy is so devastating.  Having it legal is like having an insurance policy.
Abortion is legal not because of democrats or republicans or some philosopher but because women and weak men have the vote.

Im a bit confused. Your mother invoked the help of a democrat to clean up?

Do you really think Zirmak, that political partys are what forms rational thought? I happen to think people were able to rationalized a long time ago. Conflating thought with political ideology is...messed up.

Yet I am glad to see you not using past philosophers views, but your own

Sapre Aude!

Scott says, “And you think of yourself as the political realist?  Abortion is still legal because pro-life Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party.

Actually, the pro-life people purged the liberals and turned the organization into a partisan political machine, one that gave everything and asked nothing in return. The pro-life people have been played for saps, and they have played their role well.
Who is it that signed the first pro-abortion laws in the United States? The ones prior to Roe v. Wade? It was the Republican governors of New York and California, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Regan.

The qualification for pro-life begins at inception and ends at birth. Its a canard. Politicians that engage in empire are not pro-lifers just because they say they are.

Its a CANARD.

And would the people here please post links that bolster their argument instead of making generalizations?

Your mother is a heroine.

In 1964 I voted for the pro abortion Barry Goldwater.I should have voted for no one.

In 1968 I voted for Nixon who gave us a pro abortion majority on the Surpreme court.I should have voted for the pro life Wallace or Humphrey.

In 1972 I again voted for old Nixon.I should have voted for the prolife John Scmidt.

In 1976 I voted for that worthless pro abort Gerry Ford.I should have voted for pro life Lester Maddox.

In I980 I worked hard for Reagan who claimed to have changed to strong prolife and We got Sandra Day O’Conner.

In 1984 I voted for Reagan and went to his Inauguration.We got Anthony Kennedy, the traitor.

I 1988 I did the same for Bush and went to the inauguration and got David Souter.The Bush family is 2 faced on abortion.I should have voted for Howard Phillips.

In 1992 I wasted my vote on Bush again and gave him a lot of campaign money and even met him and his wife.Anyone want a couple of pictures?I should have voted for Howard again.

In 1996 Dole need I say more.I should have given Howard another vote.

In 2000 I swore I was going to vote for Pat Buchanan but ended up with Bush.

In 2004 I voted for the courts and backed Bush, even though I had been against the war violently from before it started.I got him trying to pawn off Harriet Miers.

Never again never again,I can’t face God with the vote for another lying Republican on my conscience.

jack, no offense, but you were either stupid or insane to have voted for that string of Republicans 40 years running...Nevertheless, we are all glad you finally learned/sobered up/came to your senses.

Mr. Zmirak where does one go to begin the process of canonizing your mom?

Scott points out that Republicans get elected with the support of pro-life Democrats
and yet do nothing about abortion. Tom Piatak, who grew up white, Catholic, ethnic neighborhoods
in Cleveland tells us why: If Roe v Wade was ever overturned, the issue would go back to the states
where it belongs. Abortion would cease being a national issue which would so aforementioned pro-life
Democrats would drift back to the party of Roosevelt and Republicans do not want this. It benefits the GOP
to keep abortion alive as a national issue by saying you’re going to do something about abortion and never doing anything and the Democrats happily and moronically play along, trapped by their cultural Marxism.

yes, Sean, that’s why I keep telling pro-lifers to
stop voting REpublican. They may cast protest write-in votes
or not go to the polls, but they should stop feeding the beast.

Then, once politicians see that there is a huge block up for grabs,
they might actually do more than promise to earn its votes.

But on the other hand, Jack, Nixon gave us Rehnquist, Reagan gave us Scalia and tried to give us Bork, Bush Sr. gave us Thomas, and Bush Jr. gave us two out of two, Roberts and Alito.  Reagan gave us Kennedy only after trying Bork.  Bush Jr. backed down on Myers, which was a smart move. 

Yes, all these Republicans compromised; Democrats would have given 100% pro-aborts instead of 50/50.  Yes, it is thanks to Republicans that abortion is legal.  But in the case of every Republican who won, he delivered one more anti-abortion vote than the Democratic challenger would have.  In the case of George W., he gave us two more than Gore or Kerry would have delivered.  I know that they’re not serious on ending abortion, but the Republicans’ simply do craft better policies on the matter than Democrats do.  Better policies, less sincerity—it’s an awful mess.

“If Roe v Wade was ever overturned, the issue would go back to the states
where it belongs.”

I for one detest this view, except as a tactical position in order to get some anti-abortion law passed somewhere.  We have a federal constitution that says you cannot be deprived of rights without due process of law.  That is what abortion does.  We know what happened when the nation was half-slave, half-free.  Why would we want it half-murder, half-anti-murder?

Amen.The gross hypocracy.Orwell said in times like these we must overstress the obvious.For once gerladine is right Rev.Wright though inarticulate is not all wrong.See Among the Dead Cities A.C.Grayliong, and The Fire Jorg Friedrich

John Zmirak,

You wrote the following:

“Why is it, exactly, that everything I write--even if it’s about local politics in 1980s Queens--somehow ends up sparking a debate about the dead, evil ideology of fascism? What is going on here, people?”

Because our generation is witness to a measure of cultural degeneracy that previous generations would have found incomprehensible.

People are beginning to reconsider the possibility of racial nationalism because they can see no other way for our culture to reassert itself.  The conservatives have failed and those who followed them are slowly becoming more radicalized.

Tom T:

Racial nationalism will do little for the culture. You might have
your little racial enclaves all watching the same TV. And worse,
TV geared for the lowest common denominator. No culture can
survive the general dumbing down that TV driven popular culture.

What good does it do to cheer for a white starlet insted of a black
or latino one?  You still buy into the belief that the doings of
a starlet are important news.

Race is a poor substitute for family and community. I know, I grew
up in an extended family, and have enjoyed being part of a community.
I accept that members of my family and my community have a claim on me.
What I cannot accept is that a complete stranger might have a claim on
me on grounds of being somewhat connected through the gene pool. That
stranger would have a better chance appealing to my Christian charity.

Race is the refuge of those who do not know what family and community are.

I met Theresa Zmirak when we visited our son in NYC.  He and John were college chums at LSU.  A more gracious hostess one could never meet.  Although she was ill, she made sure that we were fed, entertained and escorted safely back to Manhattan by calling for “her best driver” of (according to John) the Hezbollah taxi company, with whose owner she had a friendly conversation about his mother’s recent kidney operation.  We conversed with the Zmiraks for hours.  She was a most memorable lady!

CC writes that abortion needs to remain an option for a raped girl, because otherwise her chances of getting married would be diminished, since no young man likes to raise a “bastard”.
Let us get the facts straight: At worst an unwanted pregnancy for a woman means 9 months of inconvenience, since she has then the option to give up her baby for adoption. The male partner in such an unwanted pregnancy does not have that option. He will be condemned to care for the unwanted child for the next 18 years whether he wants or not.
This should refute the notion of the “poor woman”. She is the one which has the least to lose in this situation.
Which leads back to the real underlying reason for opposing abortion: It is the deliberate killing of a human being.

@Caper:

“Why would we want it half-murder, half-anti-murder?”

Perhaps because, in our federal system, murder laws have always been state laws, not federal ones?

Mr. Richert, no states have previously been so stupid and evil as to legalize murder.  If a few states here and there decided to make murder (such as school shootings) legal, I think that there would soon be a federal constitutional amendment passed to prevent it.  That sounds stupid and far-fetched, no?  The legalization of abortion probably would have seemed that way to the Founding Fathers. 

Also, we have the 5th amendment, which states that there must be due process.  In all the cases except abortion (and assisted suicide?), the states have willingly made their own murder laws without any need of federal legislation.  But here, on the matter of abortion, the states are in rebellion against the natural law and against the 5th amendment.  Subsidiarity gives local governments a responsibility, not a license.  If the lower level of govt. proves to be incompetent, as so many states would be on the abortion issue even without Roe v. Wade, the higher level of govt. may legitimately intercede.

I’m with Toby Pete & Co. on this one.

If we had TRUE pro-life politicians, they would pass an amendment to the Constitution stating life begins at the moment of conception.  Murder doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be an issue for the states - the federal government CAN impose their will upon the states, according to the US Constitution.

There seems to be more concern here about microscopic embryos than people who are actually alive. Isn’t it true though that the majority of fertilized eggs naturally perish before developing into live-born human babies? What is the moral status of these natural abortions?

<<What is the moral status of these natural abortions?>>

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Abortion does not deprive anyone of the due process of law per se.  The “due process of law” clause in the fourteenth amendment merely requires that there be some legal process, whether by a court or by a state legislature or some other duly established governmental body operating by its established rules. 

Thus, if a state legislature legalized abortion pursuant to its state constitution and the regular rules of its legislative body, there would be no violation of the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. 

To think otherwise is to inject into the due process clause a substantive result orientated perspective. 

And to top it all off, the Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade relied for the support of its conclusion in legalizing abortion exactly the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment! 

Prior to the Roe v. Wade ruling, virtually all the states had laws against abortion, with only the start of a liberalizing trend in one or two states and even there not to the extreme of the Roe ruling.  It wasn’t the states that adopted abortion on demand, it was the Supreme Court, invoking “substantive” due process.

In the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) case in which the federal law against partial birth abortion was outlawed, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the pro-abortion advocates opposing the constitutional basis of the law failed to argue that the Congress did not have the authority to regulate abortion.  The reason Thomas noted this was that therefore the issue that Congress couldn’t regulate abortion was not really presented to the court.  Otherwise, Thomas clearly implied that he would find the law against partial birth abortion unconstitutional but in doing so of course would also find Roe v. Wade unconstitutional and for the same reason:  the federal government has no authority under the constitution to regulate abortion.

Rehnquist,

I did not cite the Fourteenth Amendment, did I?  I cited the 5th.  That is the “easy out” defense; you are using a straw man by bringing the 14th amendment into it.  I specifically did not bring it up, since I figured out in advance what the retort would be.

Secondly, the child in the womb is deprived of his or her life without any legal procedure.  Hmmm, doesn’t that sound what the fifth amendment forbids and what abortion permits?  Furthermore, the issue is not what the situation was in 1973, which was 35 years ago.  The issue is what would be the case today.  *Today* a number of states would retain pro-abortion laws even if Roe v. Wade were overturned.  I support returning the issue to the states only so that some anti-abortion law somewhere may be passed.  Then take the battle to all the state legislatures.  *And* try to pass an anti-abortion amendment, too, if some states keep abortion laws.  Why?  Mr. Zmirak has pointed out that if some states kept abortion legal, then there would be interstate traffic in abortion (and this is already the case for the current legal regulations).  Or, the pro-life states could simply vote the pro-death ones out of the Union.  Point being:  IF states decided to legalize murder, as in drive-by shootings, or Mafia vendettas, etc., it would be appropriate for the feds to intervene to halt the anarchy.  Many here, with their intense love for all things Southern, may object to anti-lynching laws.  Whatever the federal issue, the simply fact of the matter was that local juries routinely proved themselves utterly incompetent to judge their peers fairly.  According to the principle of subsidiarity, power may be delegated to a higher level of govt. when the local one ceases to function.  That is what happened.  If the Southern states didn’t want the feds to intervene, they should have prosecuted lynch mobs.  If the pro-abortion states don’t want a pro-life amendment, they should vote to ban abortion.

Why is it, exactly, that everything I write--even if it’s about local politics in 1980s Queens--somehow ends up sparking a debate about the dead, evil ideology of fascism? #

obsession with race Adriana

Well, because this post was about race; it was a subtle attempt to link racialism with a pro-abortion stance, another example of Zmirak’s “better purity on the abortion issue than purity of race” schtick , and it was also an attack on Ferraro precisely at a moment when she has been Kinsey gaffing (telling the truth, that is)about Obama and his free ride among white liberals. Add to that the conflation of “racism” with fascism with some weak minds. That’s why the comments are the way they are. (Why the conflation of “racism” and fascism I don’t know. Its perfectly possible to have a non-racial fascist state—early Mussolini for example—and a non-fascist racist state , I don’t think Lester Maddox was big into corporatism, the leader principle, or Italian futurist literature).

@Caper, @Andy Capp, @Tobias Petrus:

So, we’re where these discussions always wind up: It’s a bad thing when the federal principle of the Constitution is undermined, except when I’m undermining it.

How, exactly, does that make you any different from the liberals who foisted legalized abortion on the entire United States?  And how does that possibly end up in a situation different from the one we have today, once you’ve conceded that the other side was right to violate the federal principle; they just did it for the wrong reasons?

@Caper:

“According to the principle of subsidiarity, power may be delegated to a higher level of govt. when the local one ceases to function.”

You mean, rather, “According to a widespread modern misunderstanding of subsidiarity, which hijacks the principle of subsidiarity for the purposes of centralization, . . . “

Your argument is much like Adriana’s one about the “need” to act whenever anyone claims there is a “need” to act.  Not surprisingly, in both cases, the central state gets stronger, and every other political entity gets weaker.

So tell me this, in keeping with your modern misinterpretation of subsidiarity, what happens when we all cheer the federal government for taking a matter (abortion) that has traditionally been a state one out of state hands by passing some sort of national murder legislation like you desire, and then the very next Congress overturns that legislation and replaces it with national murder legislation that states that, for the purposes of said legislation, abortion is not murder?

What principle do you then have to stand on?

Your argument isn’t really one of subsidiarity; it’s a natural-law argument.  I’ve got no problem with you making it, but you need to admit that it’s not compatible with the U.S. constitutional system, which, despite the fever dreams of Harry Jaffa and his ilk, was never based on natural law.

Scott:

You misunderstood what the gist of my comment on the “need” to act.

People who perceive the “need” care about it having attended to,
not who is doing it.  If the “need” can be achieved through the
subsidiarity level, they’ll be happy with it. As they will be
happy if it is done through a central government. All they want
is for it be done.

The illustration I gave was having your basement flooded, and
calling a plumber to fix it. In those moments, all you care is
how fast that plumber can get here, and if an inferior plumber
gets there faster than a better, but slower plumber, guess who
gets the job?

The growth of the central government can be traced on the perceived
inability of the local level institutions to deliver.  I am quoting
Norman L. Stamps on his observation that people, rather than
governing themselves, wish to be well-governed, and they expect
results.

The fifth amendment does not apply to the states.  The only way it has been applied to the states is via incorporation through the fourteenth amendment due process clause. 

If abortion is allowed via the due process of establishing the laws, it isn’t a violation of due process.  Period.  That doesn’t mean it is moral.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_(Bill_of_Rights)#Amendment_V

Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is the legal doctrine by which portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights are applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Most of those portions of the Bill of Rights were incorporated by a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Though the Bill of Rights was originally written to limit only the power of the federal government, the Supreme Court has ruled that most of its guarantees protect citizens against state governments. Some have suggested that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment would be a more appropriate textual source of incorporation, but the Privileges or Immunities Clause has not been used to incorporate the Bill of Rights. This has meant that the Due Process Clause was the means by which incorporation occurred.

@Adriana:

“You misunderstood what the gist of my comment on the ‘need’ to act.”

Not at all--rather, I may have understood the implications of it more completely than you do.  Here’s why: In any dispute in which the federal government is invoked, or into which the federal government steps, the federal government is going to trump lower states and localities.  That’s simply the way things have been since at least the end of the Civil War.

When you write that “If the ‘need’ can be achieved through the subsidiarity level, they’ll be happy with it,” you’re already assuming that the “need” really is a need.  But what if it is not?  Or what if the perceived “need” is really a symptom of something else?

We all want what we want, and we want it right now.  But as any parent knows, what a child wants is not always what he should have.  And as any person with a well-developed moral sense knows (from examining his own behavior), even the best of us continue to act like children all too often, well into our adult years.

So we decide that we “need” something.  And we decide that we know exactly how that “need” must be fulfilled.  And therefore, even when a lower level of government responds adequately to the real need (and not simply the perceived “need"), and responds in a way that benefits the common good, we decide that our “need” hasn’t been met, because we’re not concerned about the common good, but about our “need.”

But the demagogues in Washington are all too happy to answer any “need,” as long as states and localities are the ones who have to shoulder the burden.

That’s why your comment is a prescription for centralization, whether you realize it or not.

Mr. Richert,

It seems that, according to your argument, that any instance of delegating power to a higher form of govt. is wrong.  Here is what the Catechism says: 

“1883 Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."7 “

I am assuming in every instance (the anti-lynching laws, the pro-abortion laws that NY State would enact without Roe v. Wade) that the state govt. has simply proven its incompetence in that particular issue.  If law and order simply ceased utterly in some state, that would be the result of the failure of local law enforcement.  Yet that very failure would call for federal intervention.  Notice that interesting word “need” in the Catechism.  In case of need, the higher level of govt. should support the lower one and help coordinate its activity with the activities with the rest of society, for the common good.  If the jury system proves so biased (i.e. weak) that justice simply is not administered and murders simply go unpunished, if the local legislatures violate the most basic principles of justice by declaring fetal life outside of their scope of protection, then those local govts. need support (to do the right thing, not its own errant will) and coordination with the rest of society.  You may dismiss this support and coordination as “centralization,” but any honest account of subsidiarity will show that situations can and do arise in which local govts. become swamped in the performance of their duties, whether through the size of the crisis or through their own mismanagement.  Simply because a local govt. once was sufficient to provide the basic functions of govt. does not mean that it always will be able to do so.  When it fails, the higher power may “coordinate” it—interesting word.  In short, if the state govts. refuse to defend my life and that of my family from lynch mobs, I am not going to turn down the assistance of federal agents on a matter of principle.  We are talking about life and death here, not superfluous “needs”; unless you think that the protection of the innocent from murder is a “need” and not a need.

What if the federal govt. then changes the federal law to make abortion legal everywhere?  First off, I am saying that we should do what it takes to reduce the number of abortions in this country.  If keeping abortion laws at the state level will ultimately keep the numbers the lowest, so be it.  If a federal amendment will do the job best, so be it.  Of course I wouldn’t want the issue to be federalized if that would backfire.  I am simply saying that if making the issue federal will happen to work best, then I will not put forth some states-right argument in order to defend New Yorkers “right” to determine whether to punish murderers or not.  Is one particular form of a federal system worth thousands, possibly millions of lives?  Nope.  I would support a federal pro-life amendment.  But preferably all fifty states would ban it on their own. 

You object that the United States govt. is not based on the natural law.  Then it should be.  Fine, I concede your point.  The basis of American law ought to be changed.

“I would support a federal pro-life amendment.”

. . . if it would work best and would not backfire.  There are situations in which this would be the case.  I don’ think that they would happen for some time, though.  For the time being, overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the states would be the best way.  But the states that choose to keep abortion legal are not practicing a “state right” because states do not have the “right” to exonerate murderers—they have the *duty* to punish them.

Miscommunique—last was mine.

stari_momak,

Zmirak has no rebuttal to my point that abortion was illegal when racialists controlled America. On the contrary, legalized abortion coincided with the rise of conservatism. In fact, come to think of it, so did almost every form of degeneracy that comes to mind.

So:  When a local govt. is up to a task, it should perform it, not the higher level of govt.  When the local govt. is not up to the task, the higher level of govt. should intervene to support and coordinate it.  Yet both the locals and the higher level of govt. should work to develop the resources at the lower level, so that it may regain its former functionality.  Once the local level has recovered, the higher level of govt. has the duty to cease intervention. 

I don’t see any misunderstanding here, “modern” or otherwise.  It is literally true.  The fact that someone would abuse part of the truth (the liceity of intervention when the local govt. fails) to deny the whole truth (the principle of subsidiarity) does not mean that that part of the truth actually is false.  It simply means that care should be taken to keep local govts. functioning, to keep central govts. lean, and to make sure that only *real* needs are referred to the higher level of govt., and only for as long as necessary.  Local govts. simply are not omnipotent, so genuine needs for intervention from the higher level govt. can and do arise on occasion.  Their frequency will depend on circumstances.

Prozium—

Abortion also became legal at about the time when the moon-landings took place.  If we destroyed all the moon-rocks we brought back to earth, would abortion be re-criminalized?

Caper wrote:

“Abortion also became legal at about the time when the moon-landings took place.  If we destroyed all the moon-rocks we brought back to earth, would abortion be re-criminalized?”

That had to be about the dumbest thing written on this thread.

Sir, do you have reading comprehension problems?

Tom T.—

I was being ironic (sigh)—Prozium engaged in the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy.  Because event B took place after event A does not mean that B is the result of A.  His account of abortion and racialism is bogus.  Hence my retort in kind.

Abortion was made legal about the same time I was born.

I guess if I committed suicided, or if I was even aborted, then abortions would be illegal, correct?

I mean, that’s the “logic” of this “Prozium” character.

@Caper:

“It seems that, according to your argument, that any instance of delegating power to a higher form of govt. is wrong.”

You’re not talking about delegation; you’re talking about a higher level of government abrogating the authority of a lower level.  And nothing in the passage that you cited from the Catechism condones that; in fact, the passage is arguing the opposite--"should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need.”

Your entire argument is based on straw men: “If law and order simply ceased utterly in some state, that would be the result of the failure of local law enforcement.  Yet that very failure would call for federal intervention.” Returning legislation regarding murder to the states, where some states will undoubtedly have laws that you and I disagree with, is not even remotely close to law and order ceasing to exist.

The rest of your remarks show that, for you, the ends justify the means: “ I am saying that we should do what it takes to reduce the number of abortions in this country.  If keeping abortion laws at the state level will ultimately keep the numbers the lowest, so be it.  If a federal amendment will do the job best, so be it.  Of course I wouldn’t want the issue to be federalized if that would backfire.” That’s not a tenable moral position.

There is an alternative: Return the situation to the status quo ante Roe, and then fight it at the state level.  That is a tenable moral position, rather than empowering the federal government today; the states tomorrow; the U.N. next week . . .

@Caper:

Just to make the point clear, you’re misreading the Catechism re: coordination.  It clearly is talking about “a community of a higher order” coordinating the activities of a community of a lower order with other communities of a lower order.  Which makes sense, of course, because that’s what “coordination” literally means.  What you’re suggesting it means--taking over the functions of that lower order--is something very different.

Capp and Richert,

O.K. I hear you both.

But I think Prozium’s point was that when this country was informed by a racialist white supremacist spirit you didn’t have abortion and these other cultural degeneracies.

Here’s a question for you both.  If white America ever became racialist again, do you think we’d finally be able to outlaw abortions?

“Posted by Tobias Petrus on Mar 16, 2008.

Posted by Caper on Mar 16, 2008.”

I’m sorry--what exactly does this mean?

@Tom T:

“Capp and Richert,”

Not me--I think you mean Capp and Caper.  I made no remark about Prozium’s statement, nor do I intend to.

Mr Richert,

Why the devotion to the US Constitution?  Who CARES what the US Constitution means, or anything else.

Murder is murder, and if some lower level government doesn’t want to enforce, say, a law against murder, then the higher level of government has the DUTY to enforce the law against murder.

To take my own preferred form of government, as an example: if my cousin were to murder some one, and the parents didn’t turn in their child, it would be the responsibility of the family to turn the child in to the appropriate authorities.  I’m not going to either confession or to my grave with the sin of “aiding and abetting a murderer” upon me, even if it were my own cousin!

Why should you expect the Federal Government employees to do so?

Mr. Richert—the miscommunique lay in the name.  The name “Tobias Petrus” went up on the preceding post when the name should have been “Caper.” The problem was on this end, not with the website (sigh again).

@Andrew Capp:

“Why the devotion to the US Constitution?  Who CARES what the US Constitution means, or anything else.”

It’s not “devotion”; it’s simply the fact that, as attenuated as it is, the Constitution is still the framework that defines the relations between the states and the federal government in the United States.

If you want to call for revolution to change that, fine; some of the rest of us prefer to live in the real world.

@Caper:

“The problem was on this end, not with the website (sigh again).”

That’s what I thought you were saying.  So, you’re telling us that you are posting on the same thread using multiple aliases?  I’m afraid I can’t see how that contributes to an honest discussion.

Then again, I’ve never had a problem signing my name to the things I write, so this whole alias thing has always been a bit of a mystery to me anyway.

<<If you want to call for revolution to change that, fine>>

No, not quite.

How about a counter-Revolution?

Anyway, there’s no reason to obey an unjust system; and the US Constitution is one such unjust system.

“How, exactly, does that make you any different from the liberals who foisted legalized abortion on the entire United States? “

Oh, I missed this obnoxious and offensive post of Mr. Richert’s.  How is it different?  Because liberals would undermine the Constitution to murder babies and I would interpret the Constitution (you say undermine) in order to save babies.  I do not place some particular understanding of balancing powers, etc., over the natural law.  I don’t care how well balanced the govt. is if it doesn’t protect human life.  The lives of millions of people is better than some particular understanding of proportional govt.  IF changing our federal system would lead to a more virtuous citizenry (like a less murderous one), by all means, change it.  Hopefully banning abortion wouldn’t require “undermining the Constitution.” And if we pass a constitutional amendment, I wouldn’t be undermining the Constitution at all.  But at the end of the day, the Constitution is a means to an end; if it doesn’t meet the ends, change it.

Mr. Richert --

No, I *accidentally* posted under Tobias Petrus twice.  I do not post under multiple aliases on the same thread intentionally.  That is why I *admitted* to doing it here.  And my business is my business.

“That’s not a tenable moral position.”

The govt. *is* a means to an end.  The end is law, order, peace.  Particular governmental arrangements are means to law, order, peace.  Particular governmental arrangements should serve those ends, not vice versa. 

If I thought that there would be more law, peace, and order under the U.N. than under the current regime then I would try to bring this regime up to speed.  If this regime were systemically worse than rule by the U.N., then I would support U.N. rule. 

“Returning legislation regarding murder to the states, where some states will undoubtedly have laws that you and I disagree with, is not even remotely close to law and order ceasing to exist.”

If a state refuses, on principle, to prosecute some particular form of murders, then law and order does not exist in that realm of that state’s life.  It is *not* a matter of what *I* or *you* disagree with (how’s that for relativism?), it is a matter of the glaring injustice of abortion.

“once you’ve conceded that the other side was right to violate the federal principle; they just did it for the wrong reasons? “

Wow.  The real problem simply was not the violation of federal principle, it was the legalization of murder.  The federal principle is a particular arrangement of this country.  Murder is a sin, simply put.  The violation of federal principle by the pro-aborts was wrong because they did not violate it in order to serve some principle or good higher than the federal principle, they violated it in order to violate an even greater principle—the defense of innocent life.

@Caper:

“How is it different?  Because liberals would undermine the Constitution to murder babies and I would interpret the Constitution (you say undermine) in order to save babies.”

Sigh.  You don’t get it, do you?  The remark wasn’t meant to be “obnoxious and offensive”; it was meant to point out that those who justify undermining the Constitution for one reason don’t really have a leg to stand on when others want to undermine it for the opposite reason.

I once held a public debate on the PATRIOT Act with a legal scholar who both supports the PATRIOT Act and is a strong Bush supporter.  When he argued in favor of expanding the Act (and even admitted that what he supported was “stretching” the Constitution), I asked him whether he’d be making the same argument if Hillary were president.  No, he replied.

So why make them now? I asked.  Because I trust George Bush to do the right thing, he said.

It seems to me that the Founding Fathers structured the Constitution as they did precisely because they didn’t trust any one man to do the right thing.  And that sometimes leads to outcomes that we don’t much like.

Is the American constitutional system the best possible government?  Of course not.  Is it the best that’s ever existed?  No.  Is it (or maybe I should say, Was it) pretty good?  Yes.  Are there elements that are still good?  A few, yes.  Should we abandon those in the hopes that doing so will somehow lead to a more just government?  Maybe, but I’m not convinced--not when it means centralizing power in the hands of such people as George W. Bush, John McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Barack Obama.

SCott:

Who decides if a “need” is a real need or not?

Is there no appeal for the decision?

Is there in your “local control” theory a defense
against local tyrannies?  Or do you think that because
it is local, it is more bearable?

Let’s say that a community approves of wife-beating because
they think that this is a proper way for the husband to maintain
his authority. Of course, they would think that a battered woman
does not have a “need” to be protected because she is being
childlish in nor accepting her natural role as a meek obedient
spouse. 

Or, under Jim Crow, the community leaders would decide that Negros
did not have a “need” to the full protection of the law and were
being childlish and inmanture in not accepting the natural orders
and be subservient to the superior race.

Be careful when you put “need” in quotation marks, because you may
be defending your own privilege and calling it your God-given right.

For that matter, what “need” do Catholics have to worship in public in
a Protestnat America?  Why couldn’t they have avoided that childlishness
that ignore that it was best that they worshipped in private, where no
one could see them.

@Caper:

“The violation of federal principle by the pro-aborts was wrong because they did not violate it in order to serve some principle or good higher than the federal principle, they violated it in order to violate an even greater principle—the defense of innocent life.”

But now you’re back to the intractable problem, which parallels the problem with Adriana’s remarks: There will always be someone who believes that the principle he’s trying to uphold--say, “gay marriage"--is an even greater principle than the federal principle.

Once you’ve said, “To hell with the federal principle” for one thing--even something as horrific as abortion--you’ve lent legitimacy to his dismissal of the federal principle.

And for what?  There is a reasonable solution that is much more likely to happen and, thus, would save more innocent lives--return the matter to the states, where most states will do most of what you and I both desire, and then fight it out in the states that don’t.

@Adriana:

On the one hand, you claim that you’re not trying to justify further centralization, but simply explaining that it can happen if local and state governments don’t respond to felt “needs”; on the other hand, you use only examples that assume that the federal government would have to step in, because the local communities (in your examples) are completely united in their wrongdoing and incapable of doing the right thing.

@Caper:

“And my business is my business.”

Indeed.  Thank God for subsidiarity.  And now, I’ll leave you to your business, and go about mine instead.

Let’s say that you return the question of abortion
to the States.

Some states will forbid it.  Some will accept it,
and use taxpayer’s money to subsidize it.

So an unborn child’s right to life depends on the
geographical accident of where his mother happens to
be living.

Why does this sound like moral relativism to me?

I can understnd doing it piecemeal as a tactic, if ther is reason
to believe it would be more effetive that way.

But to do it because subsidiarity is a supreme good, then we should
remember how the Church itself decided that there were other things more
important that subsidiarity when, instead of trusting the local authorities
to settle the problem, called on a Crusade against the Albigensians.

@Adrianna:

“Is there in your ‘local control’ theory a defense
against local tyrannies?  Or do you think that because
it is local, it is more bearable?”

Or how about, because it’s local, it’s on a human scale, and therefore changeable?

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a village of 2,000 people, but I’ve never understood why people want everything to be a federal matter.  And before you protest that you don’t, but that you’re just trying to explain reality, ask yourself this: Which elections are you most likely to vote in--federal, state, or local?

@Adriana:

“But to do it because subsidiarity is a supreme good, then we should remember how the Church itself decided that there were other things more important that subsidiarity when, instead of trusting the local authorities to settle the problem, called on a Crusade against the Albigensians.”

And if the Church were the federal government, or even if the federal government were anything that might remotely be called Christian, you might have a point.  But the president is not the pope, and George W. Bush is no Innocent III.

Scott:

No, but it proves that the Chruch does not consider
subsidiarity to be a supreme good - that there are
other considerations that trump it.

Or how about, because it’s local, it’s on a human scale, and therefore changeable?

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a village of 2,000 people, but I’ve never understood why people want everything to be a federal matter.  And before you protest that you don’t, but that you’re just trying to explain reality, ask yourself this: Which elections are you most likely to vote in--federal, state, or local?

Well, that is your experience, Scott.

But I wonder if the people under Warren Jeffs could
say the same - the young girls married off as plural wives
to old men, the young men expelled so that they would not
compete against the old men.

Somehow, it being on human scale did not make it changeable. It
took a Federa prosecution to stop it.

I agree, when it works, it is great. But when it is broken, how, unless
invoking a greater power can it be fixed?

@Adriana:

“Well, that is your experience, Scott.

But I wonder if the people under Warren Jeffs could
say the same . . . ”

See what I mean about the examples you choose?  Seriously, Adriana, which experience do you think is more widespread--mine or theirs?

There’s a reason that people say that hard cases make bad law.

Hard cases make bad law, but also remind you that
you need safeguards for when they happen.

After all, you do not have a fire in your home everyday,
but that is not a reason not to pay for insurance or
supporting a fire department.

Unless you can show that there are safeguards for when things
go wrong, then accept that the Federal Government will be the
safeguard of last resort.

@Adriana:

“Unless you can show that there are safeguards for when things go wrong, then accept that the Federal Government will be the safeguard of last resort.”

And thus, you’re saying exactly what you claimed earlier not to be saying--that centralization is inevitable.

Centralization is inevitable when the local institutions
are deficient. You cannot blame the central goverment for filling
a vacuum that should not have been there in the first place.

The question is how to keep local insitutions responsive and
functioning.  Or to have a mechanism in place to reform them when
needed. If such mechanism does not exist, then centralization in
inevitable.

What I do not countenance is keeping bad institutions or corrupt
management in order to defend local control. Local control or
subsidarity is NOT one of the Cardinal Virtues, but a means to
achieve them. And as such, should be abrogated when instead aof
Virtues it promotes Vices.

Amen, Adriana, amen!

@Adriana:

“Centralization is inevitable when the local institutions are deficient.”

Now we’re just arguing in circles, because as I pointed out repeatedly above, there’s always somebody who believes that local institutions are deficient, because they don’t meet their felt “needs.” And you’ve stated that, in that case, centralization is inevitable.

So, in other words, you’re saying that unless some local community can meet some mythical, magical situation in which everyone in the community feels that his “needs” are met, then centralization is inevitable.

Mr Richert,

I believe what we are getting at here is the notion of wars can be fought over ideology.  Do they really happen?  Do people actually kill one another for something else other than money, that is, political control, natural resources, etc.?

If, for example, the Federal Government of the USA declared abortion to be murder, and California collectively decided “no, it will remain legal here, and we will remain a tax paying member of the USA”, would the USA Federals Government invade California, not to control resources, mind you, but to control ideology?

I see your point: supporting a centralization brings us to the same point from which the “neo-conservatives” operate, that being “might makes right” - ideology can and should be imposed upon people, against their will; bringing “democracy” to Iraq is appropriate because “we” have decided “democracy” is best, and “we” feel some sort of “ownership” over the ideology of Iraq and, presumably, the world.

Scott. Do not be so prickly.  Sure there are always going to be
people disatisfied, but in practice the threshold is quite high before\
we talk about centralization. Most people *do* prefer working at the
local level, but then they also understand when the road to reform is
blocked at the local level, and that they need to appeal to a higher
authority.

What you want is to cut off their appeal to a higher authority because
to do so would bring the evils of centralism, and to call them
“whiners” and “crybabies” no matter how serious their complaints.

You remind me of that priest who adviced the incenst victim who
was pouring out her bitterness at her situation to “Honor her Father
and Mother”. Principles are fine, but you got to recognize when
enforcing them means condoning evil.

I have no use for Geraldine Ferraro. But given your penchant for impugning the character of anyone to your right on certain delicate issues why don’t we give your readers some full disclosure? Former Louisiana Governor Mike Foster, proud grandson of one of the

Do you like to remember the fact that Governor Mike “Arm the Unborn” Foster, proud grandson of Murphy “White League Night Riding Redeemer” Foster, on whose ancestral sugar plantation Oak Lawn, (wonder what strange fruit besides haunting Spanish moss might have hung from some of those stately ole Live Oaks ‘round there back in the day?) you supped on what I presume was a fine spit roast cochon de lait while entertaining Roy Fletcher (nice break from Camelia, and Dixie no doubt)was meanwhile, maybe at ole Roy’s crafty counselin’, paying several thousand dollars for David Duke’s voter list? Did you resign in disgust when Leslie Jacobson, a Foster supporter, of the New Orleans Jewish Community voiced hurt in the Times Picayune. 0r maybe you resigned in disgust when future Senator Mary Landrieu went after Foster for paying good money for Herr Duke’s voter list during the second debate in 1995?

Now, if you concur with Foster’s defense that it would have been against his religion-Whiskeypalian “of coss"-to condemn Duke, so be it. But if that’s the case, should you be so quick to play the race card on Geraldine, who may have been playing it on behalf of the Clinton’s but nonetheless spoke truth in our age of identity politics, not to mention the other big SPLC card against Andy Capp and others time and time again?

If you did resign in disgust, I retract my words entirely. You are a fine scholar and I have learned many valuable things here from your work.

The Foster campaign put an end to the political career of David Duke--who’d been a serious contender four years before. Foster went on to be a good governor, with excellent relations with the black community--he had majority favorable ratings from black voters, unlike most white governors. I guess he fooled that vile crook David Duke, didn’t he?

No, I didn’t resign, because I didn’t even hear about those events until after the campaign.

If white America ever became racialist again, do you think we’d finally be able to outlaw abortions?

That’s a great question, first of all because it admits that America was racialist, indeed white America would have been a redundancy to most Americans fifty years ago. I don’t know the answer. I do think that abortion and the decline of white America are related by some underlying factor—like maybe the denial of biology, which of course the extreme Catholics here, in common with the Left wing, seem to enjoy doing.

I’m sure Geraldine got more black votes than H.W. in 1984 as well. If Cleo Fields had won that race, you could say that he put an end to the career of David Duke. Or maybe it was David “I’m No Spitzer” Vitter who beat Duke and Treen for Bob Livingston’s House seat? Maybe it was the Justice Department who nailed him for ripping off mail order customers who didn’t get their copy of Mein Kampf or whatever. And I don’t think Foster “fooled” Duke on anything unless he wrote the Wiz a hot check for that list of people whose votes he wanted to court but whose views you presumably would consider unfit for airing here. And indeed, some of them may be unfit.

For the record, I never was implying Murphy J. Foster IV or whatever edition he numbers is a closet Kluxer. Hell, he got his law degree at Southern. And try to put the Duke of Bucktown on me. I cut my teeth as a high school volunteer for John Breaux in 1986 versus Henson Moore, who put out some bogus vote suppression flyers in North Louisiana that even the Reagan DOJ had to investigate.

However, I don’t think it passes muster to say that “hunting where the ducks are” to borrow a turn of phrase from “Straight Shootin’” Barry on his Southern Strategy in ‘64, when those ducks are swimming in waters polluted by Dukeoids who you excommunicate here, is an effective dodge just because Big Daddy Foster had some good polls from Bernie Pisonant on his standing in the black community when he headed back to the duck blind in 2003.

And how exactly is referring to New Orleans as a “jungle” in his debate with Cleo any less of a code word than “mugger”?

And for that matter, was Jesse Helms hands ad verus Harvey Gantt “vile” racism? For the record, I say it was nothing of the sort and fair game on reverse racism of affirmative action.

It just frankly bothers me that in your book landed gentry can stoke latent racism of the po whites-which is how the big wheels who truly ran the clan operated- and then expiate for it once in the guvnha’s mansion by telling the white waist-coated bow tied help what white trash those people are. If they’re vile racists, an honorable man doesn’t court their votes as Reagan did at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980.

And no I don’t believe that everybody there had blood on their hands, but if mugger is a code word in the context of Tawana era Dinkinsville, then “state’s rights” was sure as hell a code word for something more than the takings doctrine in piney woods Mississippi a decade and a half after Chaney, Schernwer and Goodman got lost behind a dam six feet under with their faces caved in.

It’s Holy Week, so I guess I’ll wrap in the spirit of the great Flannery O’ Connor, who put a pox on both houses of the Citizen’s Councils and SCLC, and just agree that we can agree we’re all sinners desperately in need of the ultimate mercy we commemorate this Friday.

I must add that Ms. O’Connor’s reservations about SCLC, best I can recall, were rooted in Communist infiltration of that organization and a refusal to spit on her own community, even as an Irish Catholic in red dirt Middle Georgia. This is the same spirit that animates Mr. Capp’s worldview.

If Geraldine Ferraro weren’t a liberal Democrat, it wouldn’t have been such rank hypocrisy for her to use racial code words.

What’s more, we’re not talking about something like segregated lunch counters here. We’re talking killing babies, folks. Heck, the whole of Jim Crow was a fart in a bathtub compared to legal abortion, which Jesse Jackson was right (long ago) to call “black genocide.” Of course, it’s white genocide too.

Mr. Zmirak,

As long as abortion has come up, do you think that a pro-life amendment to the federal constitution would ever be worth
it under some circumstance, or do you think that it must (and I am using the word in its full imperative force)
remain a state issue?  Thank you.

Amen to your last reply. Peace.

I think that the most PRUDENT way to reduce the number of abortions over the LONG run, while retaining respect for the rule of law, would be to work state by state. Not out of “federalist” principle; subsidiarity clearly allows for central authority to step in when fundamental rights are violated. (That’s my problem with the Confederacy, by the way.) But from a PRUDENTIAL point of view, I fear that an attempt to impose pro-life laws from “outside” on states that vigorously resist it would result either in the break-up of the country (not the worst thing), or worse in the imposition of laws that would be flouted and ignored--and then repealed. Like Prohibition.

Thank you VERY much, Mr. Zmirak.  I wish that you had intervened earlier.  Yet I understand
that you are busy and are writing too many posts to follow every debate closely.

@Adriana:

“What you want is to cut off their appeal to a higher authority because to do so would bring the evils of centralism, and to call them ‘whiners’ and ‘crybabies’ no matter how serious their complaints.”

<i>"Most people *do* prefer working at the
local level”

Really?  Have you taken a look at the docket of your federal district court?  Or, for that matter, have you asked yourself the question I asked you earlier: Which elections are you most likely to vote in--federal, state, or local?

The problem here is that, when describing local situations, you always use examples that show that local communities are oppressive.  Then, when you wish to deny that your “solution” promotes centralization, you fall back on “most people.”

Yet it doesn’t take “most people” or even a few people to elevate something to a federal case.  It takes only one person--and you have stated repeatedly that, if someone has a “need” that isn’t being met, it’s appropriate for a higher level of government to meet it.

I’ve simply pointed out that there will always be someone who has a “need” that a lower level of government won’t meet.

Oops.  Screwed up the formatting.  The first and third paragraphs in my comment above are quotations from Adriana; the second and fourth (and all subsequent) paragraphs are mine.

One last point that I’ve held off mentioning until now, just to see where everyone would go with this.

I find it absolutely fascinating that everyone who has argued in favor of a version of “subsidiarity” that would wipe out what last little bits remain of our constitutional federalism has also complained, in various threads on this site, about the damage wrought by the federal government.

Yet somehow, that same intrusive federal government that gave us Roe is now supposed to be the salvation of unborn babies.

Let me know how that works out for you.

@John Zmirak:

“Not out of ‘federalist’ principle; subsidiarity clea