I wouldn’t infer a cause-and-effect relationship between it and a lowered respect for innocent human life that leads to an increase in street crime.

dedalus on August 21, 2008 at 7:58 PM

I very much would draw that conclusion. As a culture, New York is not representative of the US as a whole. It has benefitted greatly from strict law enforcement policies which created strong disincentives to all crime under the direction of a certain world-class, though pro-abortion, mayor who will remain nameless.

Wise man,

I think I’ve sobered up now. I was not thinking in terms of a single-issue party such as the Republicans. If we can’t get a single true conservative to be our own nominee, because of the MSM or the lackadaisical US electorate, I doubt any new party could do better. A new party would require all the Newts, Dobsons, Romneys, Malkins, Krauthammers, and Wills, et al. to support it. Never happen. This is not so bad since, when it should ever be time, I’m sure they would all speak up.

Let’s force a real conservative to run (even if you don’t want to).

A side issue, focusing on winning while the Libs bury themselves in Denver. Not much attention is being paid to history and its faculty for repeatition. The Dems are in sync with history’s 40-50 cycle of repeating itself. Recreate 68 is a lot closer to reality than Obombem realizes. His friendship with the Ayres is going to back fire on him as the Dems will self implode.

Yes, I think we’re on the same side of the net with this one. I’m ready for a new Party.
flicker on August 21, 2008 at 7:58 PM

There’s a lot of options as to where we go from here. I haven’t seen anything yet convince me that a radical change is either necessary or possible. Maybe it is, and maybe it can be. I’m just not convinced yet.

If someone would like to try to convince me that it’s time to abandon the republican party, or to start something new that will grow on the vine, and not be an obscure offshoot of where we are now that won’t be an evolutionary/political dead end, then i’m all ears.

The slippery slope is also visible, from what I understand, in violent crime statistics. As the government delegitimize the worth of innocent human life, so does society and soon enough the individual criminals as well.

flicker on August 21, 2008 at 5:52 PM

Then cities like New York should have a higher crime rate than in 1973, but the opposite is true. Roe might be bad law, but I wouldn’t infer a cause-and-effect relationship between it and a lowered respect for innocent human life that leads to an increase in street crime.

Oh course, securing the border. How the government does nothing as cities protect illegals. Why in the hell does the federal government do nothing as sanctuary cities continue to operate illegally.

Leaking classified information such as entering classified documents into the record, or leaking information to others and the press, especially the New York Times. I remember there was a lot of opposition to Reagan by democrats in the congress or senate, such as Ted Kennedy going to the soviets behind Reagan’s back, all sorts of things in the past. And just in the last 8 years with the war on terror. And they seem to be not prosecuted, or in the case with Sandy Berger, get off with extremely light sentences.

And people often mention the case of the two border guards who are in jail who should be let free. While this is not an example of a constitutional matter, it’s part of the long list of things this aren’t just wrong, but criminal.

I see many more unconstitutional-ally or ish things going on in DC.

Okay, what would you add, wiseman?

But they should. (Be challenged.)

wise_man on August 21, 2008 at 5:37 PM

I am not an attorney, but I think that McCain/Feingold is a ham-handed, populist ‘rational’ attempt to remove citizen-organized lobbying from a greedy politariat. The writers of the Constitution, however, according to my understanding, placed a high premium on free, unfettered political speech and they attempted to assure that by including the addition of the First Amendment to that Constitution.

Secondly, I am thoroughly bewildered at how a soldier of note will refuse to close the US/Mexican border to illegal trafficking of humans and drugs. The Constitution requires the government to provide for secure borders and McCain was one of the leading demagogues against closing the border.

This question of being and worth has nothing to do with viability or poverty or mothers’ rights. The question is ‘What is the stuff of this unborn baby? Is it an unborn human being or not?’

The slippery slope is obvious in partial-birth abortion; the often proposed “mothers’ should be free to kill their babies within the first year of life” theory based on mothers’ incompatibility or difficulty in bonding.

The slippery slope is also visible, from what I understand, in violent crime statistics. As the government delegitimize the worth of innocent human life, so does society and soon enough the individual criminals as well.

There are three basic answers, off hand, to the ridiculed but poignant question, “What if you had been aborted?”

The first is “I wouldn’t be here to know about it.” But that’s not more a legitimate answer than to say the person you killed died in his sleep, so he’s not here to know about it and therefore feels no harm. No harm: no foul.”

Second is: “Hey, I wouldn’t mind; this life’s not so great anyway.” If this is your answer, it shows an unhealthy depression. There are not only pharmaceuticals, but world views and activities which could help you enjoy your life very much.

The third is: “I wasn’t. So there, I’m lucky. What are you going to do about it? Kill me? Try to kill me now and you’ve got a fight on your hands. It’s a hard world. I’m here by the luck of the draw. And that’s all there is.” This is nothing more than the generic justification for any brutality and murder.

But in the end, abortion only exists because babies are the real Inconvenient Truth.

…but not much wisdom on issues or clarity on the Constitution)
flicker on August 21, 2008 at 5:06 PM

And an example or two of that would be what?

Also, if McCain is so unpoplular with the right (and I am one of those disgruntled conservatives who think he has a populist with a modicom of integrity but not much wisdom on issues or clarity on the Constitution) why can’t we start a new party?

Before I get all the groans: Was Lincoln the first (or first preeminant) Republican Presidential candidate? How did the new Republicans accomplish this? And how might we do this today, without resorting to the Independant Party and its inherent dilution of significance?

This commits a category error. What creates a slippery slope is not some arbitrary scale on which the law picks a point, but a shift in the justification for the law that ends up justifying other, more onerous laws as well.

Take your example of voting age. The principle in establishing an arbitrary point for voting age is “responsibility of the voter.” If we made the age 15, or 22, or some other, so long as we have factual reasons for asserting that that age constitutes a demarcation in responsibility, we have not gone down any slope.

We’d be heading for a slope if we justified a change in voting age, say, on the basis that “16-year-olds are human beings with human rights.” In that case, we’ve shifted the standard from “any responsible citizen may vote” to “any citizen with human rights may vote.” That’s a very slippery slope indeed, because newborn infants are citizens with human rights.

See the difference?

philwynk on August 21, 2008 at 1:52 PM

The question was “Is abortion the epitome of a slippery slope”. My point is that setting the time at which individual rights are conveyed during the reproductive process is something that there is no consensus on in the country. There is a minority of opinion that one-celled fertilized eggs should have full rights and a minority of opinion that partial birth abortion is OK. Setting a point in between does not require momentum in either direction, any more than lowering the voting age or lowering the speed limit does. The question of where the threshold lies in the case of human reproduction is one that has been struggled with for a long time. You can see, for instance, the question pondered in the Book of Exodus.

This is wrong. A large number of states would quickly pass laws allowing abortion in the instances of rape, incest, or endangerment to the mother, and they’d be close to each other (e.g, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, etc.) A much larger number — nearly all — would pass parental notification laws. This would make the blithe transport of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion a crime in most states. Access would be severely restricted, which is why abortion advocates oppose parental notification laws so energetically.

philwynk on August 21, 2008 at 1:52 PM

It could be restricted in some states, but the ability to move from one state to another is trivial.

Doogiesd on August 20, 2008 at 7:45 PM

Sexy and smart. A killer combination.

As far as McCain, how many more ways can he come up with to try and lose this election?

highhopes on August 21, 2008 at 2:21 PM

No, I am saying the base doesn’t necessarily have to take concerns like electability or political feasibility into account. What major leader of the “base” actually holds a political office—on either side? Kos? Malkin? Huffington? Limbaugh?

As a matter of fact, and the Godfather Himself (Rush) even said it, many of the leaders of the base don’t seek office because the exigencies of elected office keep them from being able to say what they feel needs to be said. And I respect that.

But it is those very exigencies that are the reason sometimes the base has to be told “no.”

“The base is single-minded and has no grasp of political strategery. You can’t count on them.”

Sekhmet on August 21, 2008 at 2:04 PM

So the base can’t be trusted to choose the candidate? We have to rely on some group of political elites to determine that handing off the nomination to a left of the party crowd like McCain’s cadre was done for our own good? Why stop there? Why don’t we just get a group of Dems and Reps together in a sealed room and let them tell us who the new leader is by releasing white smoke from the Capitol dome?

2006 did not send the message “Ignore your base at your peril.” It sent the message “The base is single-minded and has no grasp of political strategery. You can’t count on them.”

Sekhmet on August 21, 2008 at 2:04 PM

In a nutshell.

Didn’t Webster establish Roe as settled in terms of federal jurisdiction? So far federal courts have denied even reasonable (in my view) efforts to limit abortions.

I have always found it interesting that neither the pro-life nor pro-choice movements have discussed Webster much. It certainly was a huge political issue when the case was before the high court.

I assume it was because neither side liked the ruling. It states that abortion is “the law of the land”, but also makes no allowances for expanding the reach of Roe by the courts.

a capella on August 21, 2008 at 1:49 PM

I tend to agree. This is not 2000 or 2004, where the name of the game was to get your base more excited than the other guy’s base. Conservatives, while still important, cannot expect to be courted this year in the same way they were in previous elections.

2006 did not send the message “Ignore your base at your peril.” It sent the message “The base is single-minded and has no grasp of political strategery. You can’t count on them.”

1)

If the issue were pushed back to the states, enough of the largest states would quickly pass legislation protecting abortion that the net effect wouldn’t seem to leave acccess much different than it is today.

dedalus on August 21, 2008 at 11:02 AM

This is wrong. A large number of states would quickly pass laws allowing abortion in the instances of rape, incest, or endangerment to the mother, and they’d be close to each other (e.g, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, etc.) A much larger number — nearly all — would pass parental notification laws. This would make the blithe transport of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion a crime in most states. Access would be severely restricted, which is why abortion advocates oppose parental notification laws so energetically.

2)

Most laws exist on slippery slopes–voting age, tax rates, speed limits, etc.

dedalus on August 20, 2008 at 9:54 PM

This commits a category error. What creates a slippery slope is not some arbitrary scale on which the law picks a point, but a shift in the justification for the law that ends up justifying other, more onerous laws as well.

Take your example of voting age. The principle in establishing an arbitrary point for voting age is “responsibility of the voter.” If we made the age 15, or 22, or some other, so long as we have factual reasons for asserting that that age constitutes a demarcation in responsibility, we have not gone down any slope.

We’d be heading for a slope if we justified a change in voting age, say, on the basis that “16-year-olds are human beings with human rights.” In that case, we’ve shifted the standard from “any responsible citizen may vote” to “any citizen with human rights may vote.” That’s a very slippery slope indeed, because newborn infants are citizens with human rights.

See the difference?

Is the GOP abandoning conservatism, or is it that in the 2000s, with a “base”-centric election strategy, expectations of what was politically achievable were set too high, and now there is a “correction?”

Sekhmet on August 21, 2008 at 12:00 PM

Bar was set too high and human nature being what it is, many began demanding their issue was most important. Oars flailing in all directions and the boat drifted aimlessly. Gentle,moderate course corrections tend to be more effective than yanking the wheel violently left or right.

I’m done with you.

Good bye.

wise_man on August 21, 2008 at 1:45 PM

I get more childish with each post. Amazing.

Speculating on the speculation is as much accurate as predicting the weather tomorrow. But it is fun. Have at it.
wise_man on August 21, 2008 at 12:47 PM

and you replied with:

Now I’m confused. May we speculate, or are we being LYING LIARS WHO LIE ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN?!?
misterpeasea on August 21, 2008 at 1:30 PM

I’m done with you.

Good bye.