Why did Charles Murray call abortion “justifiable homicide”?
Murray, for instance, sees the morning after pill as completely acceptable, even though Catholics do not agree, but a third-trimester abortion is unacceptable in almost every instance. Night and day. The easiest , says Murray, are cases in which the health of mother is in question. But Murray is also sympathetic in instances when the fetus has serious health problems — brain stem problems “not Down’s Syndrome” but something that “constitutes severe damage.” Here again, he notes, the age-old problem arises: who exactly makes these calls?
As a practical concern, Murray believes the political problem (after stressing that he’s not an expert on these sorts of things) is the inflexible position across-the-board on abortion — and on gay marriage. I am sympathetic (on gay marriage), but rarely do I hear a cost-benefit analysis when Republicans discuss these shifts. Has Murray thought about all the votes lost when Republicans change course?
Of course he has. “A week before the [CPAC] speech, I was at an off-the-record event and a well-known political commentator heard me make similar remarks,” Murray says. “He himself is pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage. He told me, ‘Politically you are wrong. Republicans will suffer in all fifty states. They will alienate social conservatives.”
Murray says he’s unconvinced by this argument. He turns to his own four children, people who have an “affection and allegiance “ for the ideas of the Founders — they’re not “raging lefties” – who wouldn’t even entertain the idea of voting for Mitt Romney.
“What I am saying is that there is a large body of people who philosophically and temperamentally are not Democrats; they are wide open to the kinds of arguments I made,” he goes on. “They are alienated because of these issues. Take those issues away from the Republican Party, stand foursquare behind free enterprise and deregulation and lower taxes, and you’ll find that a lot of people would want to vote for that party.”
Blowback
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Do you really think that the House of Reps would go for it?
I doubt it.
It is within the aristocracy that this line of reasoning flourishes.
Saltysam on March 21, 2013 at 9:27 PM
No, that pretty much defines them as “raging lefties”, whether they realize it or not.
Count to 10 on March 21, 2013 at 9:36 PM
I’ve been saying this all along. The social “conservatives” know, deep down, that it’s all true, too, and I think that accounts for a big part of the reason why they’re so quick to attempt to discredit it. After all, if the Republican Party pushed social issues out of its agenda and suffered electorally as a result, that would reinforce the supposed importance of social “conservatives” in the GOP coalition and only strengthen their position and influence. If, on the other hand, the GOP ditched the socons and realized a massive influx of otherwise-conservative voters who had previously been turned off by the heavy presence of social issues in the party platform, that would be the final nail in the social “conservative” coffin. They know this. They know they’d be out on their asses, and all their bluster about starting a third party would never amount to a damn thing. And so, they string the GOP along, to the detriment of both it and the country, just to prop up their failed ideology at the national level.
Armin Tamzarian on March 21, 2013 at 9:45 PM
I agree. Romney didn’t even touch gay marriage, abortion, or any of those issues. Instead he ran on economics, economics, economics and lost.
Punchenko on March 21, 2013 at 10:00 PM
For some reason I thought it read Charlie Murphy! Where’s Prince?
journeymike on March 21, 2013 at 10:05 PM
I love the ignorance that is displayed here. Some of the most social conservative voters come from the south.. THe GOP’s most loyal base of votes.
Neither party is fiscally conservative anymore.. So get rid of the social platform and now all those lower and middle class social voters can choose from two socially liberal parties that spend a lot but ones gives out freebies.. Watch the south go blue and the north STAY BLUE.
melle1228 on March 21, 2013 at 10:14 PM
They discredit it because they know, deep down, that it’s political suicide to chuck out the social issues and the last bloc of reliable conservative voters.
Gays, “womyn”, and minorities are never going to flock to the GOP — never.
Why change parties when it is the Democrats who gives you everything including benefits, special protections, and free reign to knock the evil white man who has been “oppressing” them?
Why vote against your self interests when “A” will give equality of outcome and “B” will only give you equality of opportunity and make you work for it? These folks know who will give them a leg up and what party controls the best corners of American society.
And you’re never going to win the kids since the gays,”womyn”, and minorities run the media and most of the education in this country.
So, again, what does the GOP have to offer that the Democrats are not already offering and then some? Will the GOP’s welfare and affirmative action special rights be better than what the Democrats are offering?
Punchenko on March 21, 2013 at 10:23 PM
Belief in a hard work ethic, not demonizing business, and contributing to the economy (all things that impede the growth of the social welfare state) are not values exclusive to social conservatives.
mintycrys on March 21, 2013 at 10:26 PM
I never said they were.
What I said was and let me reiterate it for you:
NEITHER PARTY IS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE. BOTH parties have been spending like drunken sailors. So there is no fiscal reason to vote for Repubs. Take away the social issues and now you have too socially and fiscally liberal parties but one gives freebies like free healthcare. Gee, if I am a middle class LIV voter in the South who am I going to choose?
melle1228 on March 21, 2013 at 10:35 PM
*two
melle1228 on March 21, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Hopefully Charles Murray’s poor kids can sleep with one eye open. The god-complex homicidal types are typically the ones busiest excusing past or future actions.
For further reading see: Manson, Charles
viking01 on March 21, 2013 at 10:55 PM
WTF? Think about it. They’ll vote to tank the economy to vote for the party of death when abortion is never going to be outlawed by legislation and, at worst, if it were overturned by SCOTUS, it would return to the states to decide for themselves. Murray’s children are federalism and reality morons.
And with regard to SSM, they’d vote to tank the economy so that a small percentage of the population can recharacterize sodomy as marriage?
Great.
BuckeyeSam on March 21, 2013 at 10:59 PM
Just because neither party is fiscally conservative doesn’t mean that there aren’t huge swaths of voters that identify with the concept and purpose behind fiscal conservatism. A small percentage of those people will vote Democrat on occasion, and then recoil in shock when they discover what happens when you vote for Democrats. The vast majority of the others? They would never vote for Democrats on fiscal issues outside of the 2008 anomaly on account of the media’s concentrated 2004-2008 campaign to paint Republicans as profligate spenders (which they certainly were) and Democrats as the party of tightening the purse strings. If the moonbat left thought that Obama and Democrats would be more responsible with the spending of taxpayer dollars, they wouldn’t have voted for him, regardless of the color of his skin. And yet they did, because they knew that he was lying, and they knew that the media was lying to those rubes in flyover country for the greater good. They knew that he would spend more. They argued during election cycles that Republicans spend more, sure, but even Democrats think Republicans spend less, because, historically, Republicans have been the only thing holding Democrats back from spending EVERY RED CENT upon which they could lay their avaricious paws.
As long as people still hold the popular notion that the Republican party is the one that spends less, there will always be a place for fiscal conservatism there because the people decide who will represent their wishes, and what better way to express this than to use open and free elections to remove establishment spendthrifts and replace them with candidates (preferably younger ones) that threaten to be as obstructionist as possible when it comes to spending? We’re in the information age now. We may have had an excuse ten or twenty years ago for being ignorant of the state of our politicians, but not anymore. Our Congressman are the most vulnerable they have ever been, and more seats are in play than ever before because of the proliferation of information. The media no longer exerts complete control over the narrative because we have more choices from where to receive news and information than ever before.
Running crappy populist foot-in-mouth candidates isn’t going to cut it anymore. Parties respond to electoral signals, whether they want to or not. Making a 3rd party won’t do anything except elect Democrats. We can still gut the GOP. We’ve already damaged the Republican establishment plenty already, such that they’re fighting like cornered animals, looking like the flame that burns most violently before it dies and leaves a phantasmal trail of smoke in its wake. They won’t last much longer. They’re afraid that we are no longer a lock for their votes, so they go looking to the left for more votes. It won’t work. They’ll either lose to a Democrat or lose to a more conservative primary challenger, both of which present better opportunities for us in the long run, since running against a Democrat presents a much clearer choice than fighting against an establishment Republican who can just tack a little to the right to peel off enough votes to shut down the challenger. If the district is such that a Democrat wouldn’t win in the first place, that is the most fertile ground for successful primary challenges because those electorates aren’t uncomfortable with moving more to the right. The 2010 elections weren’t so much a repudiation of liberal politics as it was a shot across the bow of the complacent establishment GOP. Having no challengers to the right made them lazy and willing to go along with Democrats far too much for the electorate to forgive them for, and they found out the hard way.
You can keep repeating that neither party likes fiscal conservatism, which is true in part due to aging establishment conservatives who lived and worked in a more liberal age, but banging the drum that the social conservatism fight is the only one worth fighting is rather reductionist.
mintycrys on March 21, 2013 at 11:06 PM
Again, you make assumptions and put words in my mouth. I was originally responding to a poster who said that all social conservatives should just leave the GOP..
I never said that social conservatism was the only fight worth fighting. In fact, I am as rabidly fiscally conservative as I am socially conservative. They go hand in hand for me. The only reason I got involved legislatively socially is in response to the Democrats pushing federal legislation and judicial fiat on to me. See I haven’t pushed issue like abortion and gay marriage federally. I was quite happy to live in my very conservative state and vote on them state wide. It was Dems who take those choices away from me. My choice to become a socon is in direct answer to them.
Again, my whole liine of response was to Armin who maintains if we just kick out the socons, Repubs would just be winning elections up and down the United States. Given how the state of the republican party that is at best naive at worst ignorant.
melle1228 on March 21, 2013 at 11:23 PM
These are called members of the Libertarian Party, Charles. ‘Large body of people,’ I think not.
Robert_Paulson on March 21, 2013 at 11:58 PM
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on March 22, 2013 at 12:34 AM
Now THAT was funny.
CW on March 22, 2013 at 7:25 AM
Dang dude, that was a nice one!
snoopicus on March 22, 2013 at 9:00 AM
The GOP just isn’t moderate enough! That’s why we keep losing, dangit. It’s all those far right social conservative extremists like John McCain and Bob Dole and Mitt Romney that keep bringing us down!
Oh, wait…
Shump on March 22, 2013 at 9:08 AM
So you don’t like social conservative and you also want to tell the Pope how to run his religion. LOL
melle1228 on March 22, 2013 at 9:15 AM
In other words, they’re willing to flush the country down the tubes (by not voting for a “socon”) in order to secure their hedonism. These are not serious people, or they are lying.
GWB on March 22, 2013 at 9:46 AM
Amen.
First, there *would* be lots more folks voting for Republicans – because they would be Democrat-lite (moreso than now). But, they wouldn’t be “otherwise-conservative”. Not by a long shot. But I have to ask the question: What “heavy presence”? Seriously. There are like two, maybe three planks that I know of that are “socon”. One is to defend against a redefinition of marriage, another is to prevent the murder of children in utero, and a possible third is to stop bashing religion with the power of government. I ask again, what “heavy presence”?
GWB on March 22, 2013 at 9:54 AM