The World Without Roe v. Wade
As someone who originally got engaged in politics because of the Life issue, it might sound strange that I am desperately eager for the issue to be rendered moot. Or at least non-partisan. I am always happy, for instance, when pro-life Democrats win—as a good one did recently in my beloved 2nd home, Louisiana. Best of all, he beat Woody Jenkins, the kind of piranha who gives us right-wing nutjobs a bad name. (Imagine Gordon Liddy without the humor—no “Stacked and Packed” calendars for Woody.) I know a good bit about Jenkins because one of my friends used to date his daughter. He told me that on the land that surrounded his McMansion, Jenkins used to keep a few head of cattle—so the place could qualify as a “farm,” avoiding real estate taxes. (I wonder if he applied for agricultural subsidies, too.) Oh, and Woody used his church connections to sign up hundreds of clueless churchgoers as distributors for a network marketing company—building a nice little pyramid for himself along the way. But at least Woody was a good Christian, right? My friend rolled his eyes at this question, explaining: “I don’t know if Woody believes in God. But I know he hates black people.” No wonder Jenkins tried his best to paint pro-life Democrat Don Cazayoux in blackface, to look like Jeremiah Wright. I’m delighted he failed, and that instead of that plastic Oliver North knock-off, we have one more of what this country really needs—a conservative Democrat.
Of course, as others on this site have pointed out, such Democrats once elected tend to “go native” and start toeing their party’s mass-murderous line. Still, this doesn’t have to happen, and wouldn’t happen as often if conservatives weren’t so wretchedly tame and partisan. (Remember when National Review used to criticize Reagan from the right? When Rush Limbaugh savaged George Bush I, and offered initial enthusiasm for Pat Buchanan’s run?) It would be a very good thing indeed if pro-lifers and social conservatives sometimes had the option to choose between two different candidates based on… I dunno, considerations such as their character, competence, prudence, judgment, and all those other “side” issues which our Founders naively thought might come into play in American elections. However, since the Democrats managed their slow but effective purge of social conservatives, and Republicans learned to take “values voters” for granted, this hasn’t been an option for voters like me. Each election, I march into the voting booth with a gun to my head, since life and death are at stake.
It’s worse, in a way. Were the gun to my head, I might feel more at liberty to shrug and say “Shoot!” Instead, it’s to the head of a million or so innocent children. To make a grim jest out of this (and if you can’t joke about national tragedies what can you joke about?), I’ll remind the reader of the famous cover of National Lampoon which read ”If You Don’t Buy This Magazine We’ll Kill This Dog.” That’s pretty much been the theme of American politics for me since the Democrats drove out the Evangelicals and serious Catholics in the 70s and 80s, replacing them with the likes of Geraldine Ferraro, Barney Frank, and Hillary Clinton.
I’ve said it a dozen times, so I won’t harp on how miserable a set of choices we face this year. But now I have friends who are emailing me to remind me that I have a “duty” to vote for John McCain, on the off chance he might just appoint some pro-life justices to the Court. Now I’ve written before about why I’m skeptical this would happen. Apart from questions about McCain’s actual commitment on the issue, it isn’t in the Republican leadership’s self-interest to see the issue of abortion taken out of politics. It’s the carrot that keeps jackasses like me pulling the cart for Halliburton, for the warmongers, cheap labor and open borders maniacs, and all the other groups whose interests dictate dominate what the Republicans actually do when they’re wielding power.
Imagine what would happen without the carrot. The donkey might start looking around, and noticing that the party of “fiscal conservatism” has been living for 8 years on credit cards, running up debts that his grandchildren will have to pay back to China. That the president lied us into a pointless war that we might still be waging in 20 or 30 years, while the next nominee pores over battle maps of the Middle East looking for still more tar babies to tackle. That we face spiraling energy prices and a real environmental crisis from our reckless use of fossil fuels, and the best thing the Republicans can think of is to rape our country’s remaining wilderness to drill for still more oil. (We tried to steal it fair and square, but the Iraqis just didn’t cooperate.) That we respond to a natural disaster by warehousing helpless poor people in trailers reeking of formaldehyde, which is giving them cancer—all to save a few measly dollars, so we can pour it into Cold War era weapons pointed at a Russia which we’re provoking for no good reason. And so on.
So yes, I would very much love to see the carrot taken away, to see the abortion issue returned to the states, and the battle over the sanctity of life fought state by state in legislatures. Beyond saving some unborn lives in “red states,” it would also drain away the resources the Left is currently using to push for gay marriage, affirmative action, and other measures designed to chip away at the bourgeois, Christian America it hates. Even pro-death Republicans should be able to understand this one—think of it as a second front. The soldiers Hitler had to use defending Italy and Normandy couldn’t be used against the Russians.
But the better reason to hope that the pistol will someday be taken away from that poor dog’s head is that it will free up millions of principled Americans from the grim captivity of single-issue politics. Were abortion not a presidential issue, we could have looked at two men like Al Gore (for instance) and George W. Bush and considered: Which of them seems more civic-minded? More concerned about the common good? Harder-working and morally serious? More competent and cautious?
I remember with bitter shame my own reaction to the denouement of the 2000 election, my desperate hope that Katherine Harris would find more hanging chads, that enough alter kockers had voted for Pat Buchanan by accident… all to make sure we had a pro-life president. Other issues paled to insignificance.
And now in retrospect, I can’t help thinking: Would Al Gore have blown off those security briefings about Osama bin Laden? He’s much too anal for that. Gore might not have captured that mass murderer, but he might have intercepted and perhaps prevented 9/11—if only because he didn’t think of the business of governing as a cynical joke, a chance to give jobs to all his incompetent cronies, and to pack our top foreign policy positions with chicken hawks and pathological liars. Even had those illegal aliens managed to hijack the planes, who out there thinks that Gore would have responded to an attack by Saudis based in Afghanistan by invading… Iraq? Never mind other brilliant post-war moves like dissolving the Iraqi army and handing the country to the Shiites (and thus to Iran), then turning around and threatening war with Iran. No, it takes a mixture of anti-government ideology, “gentleman’s C” mediocrity, and callous chutzpah to accomplish policies as crazy stupid as Bush and Cheney have pursued—and then to “Swift-Boat” all us lemmings into re-electing them, so they could keep on herding us over the cliff for another four years. I’m actually impressed.
On the critical issue of environmental stewardship, whether or not Gore gets every detail right, I can’t help admiring his earnest efforts to wake up Americans to the price our progeny will pay for our Humvees and RVs and SUVs. Such farsighted prudence used to motivate conservatives. (Remember when liberals were the reckless, out-of-control, free-spending “what-the-Hell-do-we-care, let’s-try-it” politicians?) Were the abortion issue removed from national politics, we could once again look with an honest eye at which candidate was in fact the better man. In 2000, that decision would otherwise have been obvious. Which is why the Republicans will do their best to make sure we never have such a choice. Instead, they’ll appoint more Souters, and Kennedys, and O’Connors and (if we let them) more Harriet Myers.
It would take a president who’s a deep-down true believer on this issue—a Ron Paul, a Mike Huckabee, even (God help us and millions of innocent Arabs) a Rick Santorum—to defy his party’s interests by actually burying Roe v. Wade. It would take someone who loves innocent life as much as John McCain loves war.
Comments
I think this essay is off the rails. The Republicans are all you say and Roe should be overturned, of course. There is no evidence that Gore would have done any better on 9/11 or Iraq than Bush. Gore was in the pocket of the Israeli lobby his whole political life. What the hell do you think Lieberman was about? His global warming nonsense will break the country if Bush doesn’t get it done first. This country is loaded with hydrocarbons, which would last us for hundreds of of years,if properly used. We had 2 terrible candidates in 2000. It was not apparent that Bush was so bad at the time. The problem this country has is bad leadership and too much government. We can’t drill for oil anywhere but a few states. We can’t use coal gasification, which would use our vast coal resourses. Everything is stopped by people, who want a smaller greener population. These are the people who love abortion. God gave us the world to use responsibly for people. The resourses are almost endless nuclear, gas, oil, water power[ including tidal], fusion, wind, coal, steam power from volcano’s, and who knows what else. Where a billion people lived in 1850 almost seven billion live today. They are far richer, healthier, and longer lived. The doomsayers like Gore and the incompetents like Bush are the problem. The answer for a Christian is to have faith, that the Lord will provide, and go forth without fear.
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The answer for a Christian is to have faith, that the Lord will provide, and go forth without fear.
The Lord is not obligated to satiate the vice of intemperance.
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While I have some disagreements with the climate issue, I otherwise would like to say this was perhaps one of the best articles of yours I have read.
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I am not interested in controversial[tabloid] crap. I want investigative reporting, real news, and not this British tabloidal surrogate crap for news.
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How can one be pro-life when they bleat “Bomb Bomb Bomb”
I find the saving of unborn children a political football the empire uses to divide the cannon fodder masses.
When you stop war and empire then the issue of life will be valid.
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They are far richer, healthier, and longer lived
And deracinated, suicidal, legally drugged-up,drowning in porn and pollution, bread and circuses, fueled by an educational system which fears and loathes God.
So, we go that going for us; which is nice.
Vote republican or else we could really be in bad shape. Vote democrat and everything will magically be solved by socialism.
Paul Simon was tight Laugh about it shout about it when you got to choose, any way you look at it you lose.
Vote for Joe Dimaggio.
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John,
An excellent commentary, as always. Regards, Nicholas
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Good points about opening the political landscape by finishing the Federal Abortion battle.
But honestly, friend, the Gore Agape based on Counter factual historical fantasy is a rhetorical device that furthers not your case.
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It’s a myth that Roe has to be overturned to do anything about abortion. There are other
mechanisms available. Republicans are frauds on this issue.
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Dr. Z I thank for informing me that a racialist got his just reward in Louisiana, or at least the just reward of this life. I didn’t see this in the press.
we have one more of what this country really needs — a conservative Democrat.
What we need is a Jeffersonian/Christdemokraten/Green party. If that’s “conservative Democratic”, I’ll vote for it. But the fact is that the Dimmykrats are a collection of Cultural Marxists and their useful idiots, the Social Democrats (whom Gringos call “liberals").
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I wouldn’t be so quick to commend Gore for his work. He lives in huge mansions and develops ways that he can profit on climate change by setting up funds to broker pollutionn credits. His family made money in oil and now he has mastered the art of making money on pollution.
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While generally I am skeptical of anyone who is the candidate of movement conservatives, I have met Woody Jenkins on a few occasions and have found him to be a generally decent man. He was a supporter of Pat Buchanan in the past.
I’m sorry that you find him “racist” for trying to tie his opponent to Barack Obama (I should also mention he tried to tie her to Nancy Pelosi) but I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
I think it is well established fact that most relatively conservative democrats end up “growing” in office due to the influence of party leaders like Pelosi and Obama. Yes the same thing can be said of Republicans as well, but there is nothing wrong with pointing that out.
My guess is that Don Cazayoux may be a decent legislator, but he may grow out of his stances on guns, immigration, and yes, abortion.
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Are you suggesting that Woody Jenkins is personally racist, or that his campaign was racist? I found that a cheap shot, especially in the current political climate of hyper PC enforcement. I think you owe us and Mr. Jenkins a further explanation. What could your friend’s allegation that he “hates black people” possibly mean? I have lived quite a while, and I have met very few people that actually hated black people. Does this mean he held attitudes that the PC police would consider bigoted? Did he hold attitudes reasonable non-PC people would consider bigoted? (The former being very different than the latter.)
If the attempt to tie his opponent to Jeremiah Wright was a bit of a stretch, then fine, condemn him for stretching the truth. But we don’t need conservatives mounting the PC high horse with drive by allegations of racism. We should leave that vile dirty work to the SPLC.
Here is a litmus test. If any statement on race makes Sid Cundiff happy, then it is WAY too PC.
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American political parties were never meant to be ideological vehicles and yet
since the 1960s the baby boom generation has pushed them into becoming European-like
politcial parties based on race, class and ideology. The New Left refused to tolerate
the Dixiecrats and had nothing but scorn for liberal Republicans like Jacob Javits
(back in 1974, Allard K. Lowenstein was so determined to take on Javits in the U.S. Senate
race in New York that during the state Democratic Party convention of that year he was
practically screaming at labor boss Victor Gottbaum saying “Let me at Javits!
Let me at Javits!” as if though he were a cartoon character ) while the New Right allied itself with the GOP, refusing to support
conservative Democrats finanically while the radio talk show hots and punidts were attacking
them on the airwaves and in print.
Another conservative Democrats was elected to Congress last night as Travis Childers won
a special election in Mississippi. Yes, there’s always that fear they’ll get Potomac fever
once they get to Washington but perhaps if conservatives would actually support such
Democrats with money and a good word or two maybe they won’t need to go native. And likewise
maybe if the Daily Kos crowd wouldn’t look to kill off dying Liberal Republicans like
Lincoln Chaffee in the northeast, then there could be more Liberal Republicans and more
diversity and fluidity in our politics and more accountability as well. It’s good to have
conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans around to keep the parties honest.
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The following document is the key to what happened, or at least what didn’t happen, on 9/11. There is no reason to think it would have been issued under Gore.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2251277/intercept-proc
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I spoke to Woody at length about immigration. I got the impression that he had a very good understanding of the problem of both legal and illegal immigration and how to fix it. All Cazayoux has said is that he’s against “amnesty” and is for border security and punishing employers--which everyone says. So far as he tied the issue to race, was to mention all the charitable work he does in Latin America.
About the only accusation that I’ve heard of his racism is that one of his lessers almost bought David Duke’s mailing list. Of course Duke got the majority of the White Vote so it’s not like everyone on there is a Klansman, and he had always criticized duke. That’s pretty little for someone who has been involved in LA politics since the bad old days when the state went for George Wallce.
I have no problem going after conservative Republicans, but I would think that there should be more objections than “my friend says he hates black people”
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Sounds like what I’ve been saying for some time: stop being played on this issue.
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Funny, but when I met Woody Jenkins (at the YAF convention in 1973 in Washington, DC), *he* was a pro-life Democrat. I only talked with him for a brief time, but he seemed a decent enough fellow.
(I was introduced to him by a friend of mine, who later run unsuccessfully for national chairman of the Libertarian Party. The three of us, joined by left-leaning Washington Post columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman, sat down to lunch together and spent the hour running down the fed’ral gummint. Ah, good times.)
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A brilliant and iconoclastic essay, truly showing that Taki’s is for independent conservatives.
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“I don’t know if Woody believes in God. But I know he hates black people.”
In other words, he is like every member of the Congressional Black Caucus (just in reverse).
Ever notice how Zmirak always claims to have known a white skinhead or confronted a white racist?
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Hey look at me. Look at me. I may be a conservative, but I’m certainly no racist like some conservatives. See, I’m denouncing racism. See. That proves it.
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Is this the Southern Poverty Law Center blog?
I’m sure Zmirak would consider me a racist, and I’ve been to American Renaissance conferences, but I’ve never met a skinhead in my life.
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