Pro-choice Republicans go public
I never believed that Mitt Romney rejected his pro-choice position because of one meeting with doctors and learning what was done to stem cells. Rather, I thought he had one meeting with political consultants who told him he could never get the Republican nomination unless he was pro-life. …
Today, any Republican who believes, as I do, in a strong national defense and fiscal conservatism, and that limited government is consistent with being publicly pro-choice, knows that if she takes the latter position she will get creamed in the primary. …
As a political matter, being pro-life has not helped Republicans. John McCain lost Catholics by nine points. Romney lost the Catholic vote by two points, even after four years of President Obama’s strong pro-choice position and Obamacare forcing certain Catholic entities to cover birth control.
As a results-oriented matter, the pro-life position cannot prevail. In the 39 years since Roe v. Wade, no pro-life president has overturned it and, because that ruling is constitutionally based, no member of Congress can overturn it via legislation. Even Republican-appointed justices would have a difficult time overturning Roe after four decades because of the conservative philosophy of upholding precedent. If Roe were overturned, each state would decide the issue, and, presumably, local politicians would vote their constituents’ position. Many states would approve abortion, so pro-lifers would not attain their goal of outlawing the procedure.
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For the most part, the sins of the Christians in the past were the direct result of government control of said religions and of the members. Those governments, knowing what the bible said, compared to what they wanted the people to believe it said, kept the people from finding Christianity on their own through forced illiteracy, making it crime to be able to read and write and thus find answers in the bible on your own. Thus, christian crimes predominantly have been the direct result of men not following the bible. Thus, Christianity does not bear any direct blame for the deaths that these men perpetrated. In fact, since they deliberately worked outside of the bible for their own ambitions, I would argue these men too had to be atheists.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 11:51 AM
Morality is a construct of the mind, it doesn’t exist on it’s own.
Pablo Honey on November 30, 2012 at 11:51 AM
All of this started because someone posted a bible verse and then went on to say that the Bible is ‘very clear’ in the matter of abortion. My only response was that it doesn’t matter what the Bible says because the Bible is not the law of the land and that to try to form public policy based on the bible was no better than what the theocrats do. This in the mind of MelonCollie makes me an idiot.
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 11:52 AM
You’re the one who’s dense and you have no idea why…but everyone else here has worked that out. No one is interested in your point of what Christians may have done in the past.
But get this through your thick head.
All life deserves protection, so legislation that protects life inside the womb is justified. Period. Whether you believe in God or not.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 11:52 AM
I’m done with you. You can’t even read. Just read the post. There’s no parsing necessary. My words are clear.
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 11:53 AM
This in the mind of MelonCollie makes me an idiot.
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 11:52 AM
NO. Your hate-filled posts, railing against Christianity, exposed you as a Liberal Troll and an idiot.
kingsjester on November 30, 2012 at 11:53 AM
Christianity was never responsible. In fact, all of those atrocities were at the behest of men who must not have believed in God. As the bible has no writing that would make what they did acceptable to God.
They did these things by keeping the words of the bible secret from those they used it to control. Very much outside the Bible and Christianity.
Thus, all the stuff you blame on Christians was done at the behest of Atheists.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 11:54 AM
The fool says in his heart, there is no God.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 11:54 AM
No matter how deep you plant your head in the sand, you will never be able to escape the fact that Right and Wrong were not invented by cricket-brained, penny-ante moralists like yourself.
And someday more likely than not, you are going to suffer the punishment for your refusal.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 11:54 AM
Then there’s no such thing as morality, just personal preferance and social convention. The latter is not binging on the former and each of which can change with the wind.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 11:54 AM
You’re leaving? Good.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 11:54 AM
Science says otherwise. Are you going to argue against your God Science?
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 11:55 AM
Get this through your thick head. The majority of Americans disagree with your view on abortion. Abortion will not be outlawed. Ever.
This is by far and away the single biggest problem in the conservative movement. This is a dead issue. No one is going to change this law, and yet abortion continues to be some idiotic barometer in GOP primaries and leads to moron candidates like Mourdock and Akin.
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Morality is not a “thing”, it is a function of a mind.
Pablo Honey on November 30, 2012 at 11:56 AM
But you just tried to say murder and stealing are wrong. Under the above statment this isn’t true. So, which is it.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 11:56 AM
This is a meaningless statment which just says there’s no such thing as morality. so what makes murder and stealing “wrong”? Under you position there’s no such thing as ‘wrong” its just a function of the mind.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Propaganda has worked for a while. But the children being raised today say Abortion is wrong and they will have the political power to change it some day.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM
My response to Pablo Honey applies to you as well.
You come on this thread and attack someone who quotes a Bible verse. There are plenty of other comments that don’t use the Bible to support pro-life policies.
Right is not determined by a majority held view.
But I’m the one with the thick head.
ROTFL.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 11:59 AM
Frankly, that’s super. But, do you really believe that? I mean, most kids these days seem to have swallowed the enviro-nonsense in addition to all of the crap the education system had been imparting on prior generations. Do you really think today’s school system is cranking out a majority of socially conservative citizen’s?
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 12:01 PM
“Pro-choice” is a myth. It isn’t a real choice when a woman feels like her only viable alternative is to kill her child.
There’s a popular liberal saying that “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” Actually, if men could get pregnant, there would be lengthy paid maternity leave, flexible hours for parents of babies and young children, on-site daycare centers and nursing rooms at all major workplaces, and children would be welcomed everywhere. The fact is, we don’t support real choice for women; we still expect women to be like men if they want to have successful careers, which means not getting sidetracked with a pregnancy – especially an unplanned one – and not acting like motherhood matters or produces different needs as workers if we do have children.
Abortion should not be necessary or desirable. Unplanned pregnancies should be supported and the mother encouraged to have the child and give it up for adoption. There should be no ridicule or stigma to doing this; in fact, the birth mother should be praised. It’s 6 months of being fat and inconvenienced for her, but means an entire life of possibilities for the child and a family for the adoptive parent(s).
There is only one thing in the world a woman can do that a man can’t, and that is to have a baby. And the one power a woman has over a man is the power to grant or withhold her sexual favor. Yet somehow the so-called feminists have convinced women that their “equality” depends on giving up these powers, and then they wonder why real equality hasn’t happened in the 50 years since the introduction of The Pill. I have never understood this.
rockmom on November 30, 2012 at 12:01 PM
The only thing that’s a construct of the mind is the ability of one lone fool – like yourself – to define sweeping matters such as Right and Wrong while being willfully ignorant.
Neither you or I have any more authority to define such things any more than a five-year-old boy with a popgun has to order around a platoon of veteran Marines. Less than that, in fact. “Invent your own morality” inevitably leads to sorrow and DEATH.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 12:02 PM
Good points, good perspective.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:04 PM
On Abortion they came to their own conclusion, against the teaching from the propaganda enforcers called teachers. So, yeah.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 12:05 PM
While I have serious qualms with a lot of the stated goals of the feminist movement, to think that no progress in terms of equality have occurred in 50 years is a little bit of a stretch, don’t you think? Can you imagine this being published today?
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dimcl/wife.jpg
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 12:08 PM
Maybe YOUR kids came to that conclusion, but I doubt most of today’s youth are aligned. Have you set foot in a University lately?
kkaneff79 on November 30, 2012 at 12:09 PM
Have you looked at recent polling that shocked the leftosphsere on the question? The children today are the most pro-life group in the country.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 12:17 PM
That would be good news. And kids should be pro-life…actually, they should just be kids and enjoy their innocence.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:22 PM
I think they are talking about the 18 to 29 year old group. I’m getting old I guess.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 12:25 PM
For the most part yes. But the painful fact is that our culture is getting wickeder by the day and sheltering them until young adulthood is no longer a realistic option.
IMHO, when they hit middle-school age is time for some introductions into what’s going on with the world at large, if they haven’t already been exposed to same.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 12:26 PM
OK – that makes more sense.
I have a hunch that young adults who are pro-life tend to stay that way.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:27 PM
Very true, that season can’t last forever, but I wonder if it’s too short. Kids are starting to take on responsibilities earlier than they used to. Then we also hear complaints that 20- and 30-year olds are kids in adult bodies.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:32 PM
No insult intended to you – I’m sure you hear both ideologies a lot – but both of those are illogical nonsense.
In the pioneer days kids took on hard physical responsibilities at a very early age. As for the “Peter Pan” complaints, these are usually from busybodies with ruffled feathers or women complaining because the culture they fashioned – plus their sexual irresponsibility – has made married life a poor deal.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 12:36 PM
For sure – in agreeing with your first point, I would propose that having those responsibilities was OK because they were part of creating a solid family unit and beneficial to the larger community.
My reference is generally to kids who are in broken homes and have to help with parenting or assuming other tasks that they wouldn’t have had to bear, when solid families were more prevalent.
For the second point, hopefully you are correct, but our society doesn’t encourage people to grow up like it used to – so I find it a bit more believable. But I agree that it shouldn’t be taken seriously if it all comes from malcontents.
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:45 PM
Ohhhh-kay. I see what you were getting at. Agreed!
Well I’ll be honest and say it ALL doesn’t come from malcontents. But the vast majority of it seems to, from my experience.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 12:46 PM
The problem with the position taken by Toensing is she’s arguing that Republicans should abandon deeply held moral convictions solely for the purpose of increasing political power. Apart from the specific issue of abortion, it’s this mentality that’s gotten the country from the largely insolveable mess we are in now. This is the Washington mentality which has largely destroyed us.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 12:47 PM
22044 on November 30, 2012 at 12:51 PM
When it comes to fighting conservatives, liberal republicans are fearless warriors. When it comes to fighting dems they become scared little squeaky mice.
If the mods make the Rs a pro choice party then a competitive 3rd party will quickly come about. I guarantee the end of the republican party if they continue down this route.
Amnesty, taxes, life of the unborn… and down the sink hole of history they go.
BoxHead1 on November 30, 2012 at 12:51 PM
~gasp~ You mean a party should stand for something other than power for power’s sake? That’s quickly becoming heresy.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 12:59 PM
so much delusion. everybody was strongly christian 300 years ago and and stuff was way more violent than these days where atheism is professed in the open by millions.
I do think atheism leads to less violence just because there is no belief in afterlife but by itself its not the cure to violent tendencies in human nature.
but to believe that everything bad christians did, it was because they were really atheists its just drinking koolaid.
nathor on November 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM
so much delusion. everybody was strongly christian 300 years ago and and stuff was way more violent than these days …
nathor on November 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM
huh?300 years ago life was harder. Europe had constant wars, true. But the number of people butchered under modern secular rule far out paces what was done even in the savage 1600s. I think you are looking at the last 30 years of relative peace as you measuring stick. That’s an itty bitty stick you’ve got.
BoxHead1 on November 30, 2012 at 1:08 PM
What possible basis do you have for such an inaccurate statement. More people have died violently at the hands of government in the last hundred years (via war and repression) than the 1000 years that preceded them combined.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 1:08 PM
No, people 300 years ago were bullied into appearing God fearing by people who wanted power over them. Those people, like today, look to find positions of power, and being a “man of God” was a powerful position, and made more powerful if you were not in fact a believer in God, but of your own self interest. Charlatans.
Because so few people could read, it gave large leeway for the “man of God” to get his will done rather than God’s. That is not Christian in any way, even though done under the pretense that it was.
As for atheism being a contributor to peace? Sure, if peace comes about by destroying everyone and anything that stands between you and peace is peace, sure, works great.
Abortion, 55 million dead, just in America. How many did the Christians kill again? I think the numbers amount to far fewer than 10 million. The crusades, which is the big argument amounted to 1.5 million. Witch burnings, a couple thousand.
Good luck arguing that Christianity is a massive killer.
astonerii on November 30, 2012 at 1:17 PM
1)more people died because there was more ppl to die. its better to look at % of ppl killed upon an invasion, for example, how many % of the population of a given area was killed when christians invaded in the crusades in the middle east or in south france.
2) apart for some rare massacres of clerical ppl, the connection between atheism and population deaths is not direct at all.
nathor on November 30, 2012 at 1:27 PM
It wasn’t published then.
Fallon on November 30, 2012 at 1:32 PM
i agree, but take that conclusion to the very end and understand that christianity was formed and defined by such men. and when I mean defined, it for example, in the compilation of the bible itself.
why it was not the christian way? nowhere in the bible it says that you should read and interpret the message by yourself!
what you talk about? the only thing atheism can be truly guilty of destroying is ppl’s faith(or delusions), mostly trough persuasion.
55 million dead fetuses is not exactly fault of atheism or done by atheists alone.(nice to see you keep calling a very large section of the electorate murderors).
there is no real massacre directly attributed to atheism but to ideologies that also contained atheism. however, the massacres made explicity by christians in christianity name existed and killed whole population. no to mention the whole intolerance of christianity that did not allow any other form of belief and managed to generally suppress dissenting tough for many centuries.
its not a big killer today, i give you that,
nathor on November 30, 2012 at 1:46 PM
Mitt Romney lost Catholics because Catholic Hispanics, who are pro-life, voted for Obama anyway. Romney’s biggest gains were with white Catholics, whom he won by nineteen points.
Damian G. on November 30, 2012 at 1:54 PM
I’m not arguing one way or the other on the subject at hand… however, though you might find the life of Charlemagne interesting.
Neither of us can possibly know if Charlemagne was a true believer or not, but he certainly professed to be so. I know someone (not sure if it was you) mentioned in a prior post that no one was converted at the point of a sword, which in fact is not true. Charelmagne converted many people at the point of the sword. When he conquered a town he would make everyone convert to the Christian faith or be executed as a heretic. Not only that, but he then outlawed all forms of pagan practice, with the punishment being death to any caught practicing any pagan rights. There are numerous cases of him following through on that threat, particularly in the northern areas of what is now Germany where the Saxons would often say they were Christian converts but then practice pagan rituals (mostly Norse practices) when his armies weren’t around.
However, he did not hide his biblical faith from the masses. In fact, quite the opposite, he was one of the first european kings to promote education. He was also the first to have the Bible translated into languages other than Latin (primarily into an early form of French and an early form of Germanic), so that it might be read by the common person. That actually put him at odds with the church, in that the clergy did not want the public at large being able to interpret the Bible for themselves, feeling that was solely the domain of the clergy to do so.
Just pointing out historical facts, because I find ancient and biblical history fascinating.
gravityman on November 30, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Please show me anything to suggest that anything close to the percentage of the populations exterminated under the atheist governments of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot (just to name three) were killed during Crusades or during the entire middle ages. And I’m not sure why percentages would be anymore relevant than raw numbers anyway. Also, the Crusades were prompted in retaliation to the Muslim slaughter of Christians which was occuring in the middle east, especially modern day Turkey, and threatening Constantinople. I point that out not to defend them but to distinguish them from the wholesale political slaughter commited by the atheist governments.
tommyboy on November 30, 2012 at 1:59 PM
1)more people died because there was more ppl to die.
Genghis Khan killed nearly 50 million.
filetandrelease on November 30, 2012 at 2:21 PM
that would be equivalent to 1 billion these days.
nathor on November 30, 2012 at 2:24 PM
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