Sticking to one’s principles ought to be the norm, not an exception, because principles are foundational to one’s entire system of beliefs, and therefore, giving them up should be unconscionable.

My principles include belief in God as the Creator of all life; in the sanctity of human life such that depriving one of life without just cause is unlawful; that every life is worthy of the protections of the law from conception, since every life is created by God. Abortion is anathema to those principles.

On the legal perspective, the Declaration of Independence is the source. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

If I don’t “stick to” those principles, I am denying my foundational beliefs. That, I will not do. You are welcome to believe differently, but I will not vote for, nor promote someone seeking election to office who denies those principles, and tells me to “get beyond” them.

paulsur eloquently covers the other points against Rudy.

The only candidate in the field who has shown an inkling of understanding jihad in total is Mitt Romney. Will he have the courage to stand by this understanding and support laws that help us create a society free of it’s threat remains to be seen.

Does anyone else find it strange that we’re even having this discussion? No one, not even the supposedly pro-life George W Bush or the GOP controlled 109th Congress, did anything with regards to abortion. For that matter, no Democrats have even tried to do anything about abortion. The issue is important to Americans, but politically it is radioactive; no one in power has even made noise any about abortion in the last 6 years. No candidates want to even touch the issue, much less discuss making new and unpopular laws about it.

Yet here we are, discussing abortion, the most irrelevant issue to current American politics. And yet almost no one finds it curious that the Right has stepped through the looking glass and allowed the Left in the media to shape OUR internal dialogue!

I wish we on the right had a similar organ to manipulate the meme and force Democrats to start talking about… oh, Slavery Reparations or some ridiculous nonsense.

Can we just get a gag order slapped on this man? I’m tired of listening to him.
What a moron. Gregor on April 16, 2007 at 4:17 PM

Gregor never disappoints: you expect boorish ignorance, you get…boorish ignorance, and the mature patience of a third grader. Some of you Comrades of Gregor, although Less Dense, will nonetheless get the Pantsuit elected

I suggest a truce: Many of you like Thompson and other Real Conservatives: so do I. So, work on getting your guys ahead during the primary season. But if by next Feb. Rudy is the best or only chance to defeat Hillary, give up your Ideological Purity and work to defeat a woman who will create real evil as POTUS

But – what, then, is to be the punishment? We’re not talking about “counceling and compassion” for a mistake. What, please tell me, is to be the punishment in America for women and their doctors who commit murder by abortion? Why is this question being avoided like the plague? It is being used by the Left as a powerful fulcrum with which to displace the credibility of the Right, so I think it should be resolved, and soon.

Preview feature PLEASE!!

The below is from Captain’s Quarters blog [excellent by the way] normally I would just link over to the post, but I wanted to give this a wide viewing as possible. This might partly fit into a posting on another blog on Townhall, and the back and……

Some jerkoff reported took a monster shot at Giuliani, just like they do on Chris Matthews every night, and our fair leaders he bit. I can’t say I’m too happy about it.

Look, I don’t want to whitewash our candidates, but we need to defend them better than we are right now. I will not take defeat in 2008, regardles of what every MSM outlet will do to ensure it.

I agree — I wish Rudy and the campaign would not do the “throw women in jail” bit.* Pro-lifers are not pushing for that, and it is just — understandably — making pro-lifers irate when they read/hear that stuff.

But I don’t think it’s enough for Rudy to let other candidates divide up the social conservatives, as if he were saying, “Not mine, but not worried about it.” He’s got to make socials understand that he hears and respects what they’re saying, and he wants their vote because he’s largely with them — and it can’t be BS. If it is, he’s toast.

*No link at NRO to that statement, but it’s at this Ann Althouse post.

preach on, spmat, preach on ;)!

Fellow Republicans shouldn’t use the MSM’s shorthand when describing or addressing each other. — Bryan

Right, nor should they be sucked in to adopting PC values and PC terminology when framing the debate.

But a “religious conservative”? Not so sure. Perhaps it’s a semantic issue.

ThanksMo on April 16, 2007 at 8:20 PM

It’s not semantic. Your argument about Reagan not being a religious conservative is faulty in a number of ways. For starters, Reagan regularly hacked off both libertarians and agnostics. Ayn Rand disliked him because of his religious rhetoric and his stance on abortion, as did a number of other libertarians. Second, just because Reagan avoided hacking off swaths of agnostics and libertarians, that doesn’t mean he was their model candidate.

Reagan was and is, however, the religious right’s model candidate. Why? Not because Reagan was a passionate preacher of the gospel, but because he was a good man who loved his country, loved God, believed in the sanctity of life (and didn’t play word-games with it), understood and appreciated the Heritage of our nation and wanted to defend it with all his might. He was a conservative, he was religious, and he was a religious conservative.

If there’s a political marriage in the offing, it will be one that features a shotgun

.

Who needs a shotgun wedding when you can have an abortion?

Rudy isn’t going to beat Hillary if he keeps reminding over half the party that he’s so much like her. Just exactly who needs to “get over it” is the question along with exactly who wants to win in 2008. If November 2006 wasn’t reminder enough maybe Rudy needs to look very hard at his stance on illegal immigration, gun control, government spending and government financed abortion because 2/3rds of the GOP feels strongly about one, several, or all of those issues and Giuliani is missing the mark badly on all of those issues. The assumption that the voters need to conform to a candidates views so he can win is 180 degrees out of phase and I seriously doubt that it’s going to be a winning plan for Giuliani or the GOP. Don’t blame me for staying home in 2008 if this is the best the GOP can offer.

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

The people already decided that marriage is somethihng a man and woman do. It’s THE COURTS that are overruling the people. The people have no choice but to force the issue away from the courts.

If the courts would let the people have their soverignity via the legislature, then there would be no problem.

So you are wong.

i could just pronounce reagan as a nonfactor in one arrogant declaration as you did with goldwater.

jummy on April 16, 2007 at 8:16 PM

Except that Reagan actually won his election (both!), actually defeated the Soviets, and is the Republican party’s most beloved President since Lincoln.

Um, yeah.

Regardless, Reagan was and still is the standard by which all religious conservatives hold potential candidates. If he’s the standard, how is it that religious conservatives are wack-jobs?

spmat on April 16, 2007 at 8:05 PM

I have searched my post in vain for a reference to religious conservatives as “wack-jobs,” and I’m fairly sure I never used this pejorative. (If I were to do so, I’d be maligning most of my family!)

My point was mainly that many “religious conservatives” as we think of them these days aren’t highly thought of by the more liberatarian or agnostic conservative types–but Reagan is. He didn’t infuriate those less religiously inclined, as some “religious conservatives” do today (witness the vitriol on this board for social cons!). So, of Reagan: religious? Yes, in his own fashion. Conservative? Of course. But a “religious conservative”? Not so sure. Perhaps it’s a semantic issue.

spmat on April 16, 2007 at 8:08 PM

I see what you’re saying. I for one am happy that Rudy realizes the complexity of issues such as abortion. I don’t think it’s an issue that can be simplified in a pithy comment. I’m tired of campaign slogans and talking points. I want real debate and Rudy is engaging it.
By taking this approach he’s already got some center lefters (like me) rooting for him in the early stages.

Please try to make the argument that Reagan was not a religious conservative. Don’t forget to allegorize the “city on a hill” speech.

spmat

why bother? i could just pronounce reagan as a nonfactor in one arrogant declaration as you did with goldwater.

But lately he’s had to do damage control on things taken out of context.

He’s taken out of context because he constantly says things requiring lots and lots of context. He’s not a wonk at a conference. He’s a candidate. He needs to learn how to do that on a national level in a party whose base rejects significant portions of his policy positions.

God’s honest truth: growing up in my very social con household in the Bible Belt, my family, though huge admirers of Reagan, sometimes wondered with furrowed brow if he was “a true Christian.”

ThanksMo on April 16, 2007 at 7:54 PM

Not convincing. By any reliable metric, Reagan was a religious conservative. Abortion, the culture war, the necessity of our heritage as a Christian nation, reliance on God, etc.

Regardless, Reagan was and still is the standard by which all religious conservatives hold potential candidates. If he’s the standard, how is it that religious conservatives are wack-jobs?