I have known persons who were raped and who were raped incestually, both of whom carried their babies to term and whose children have grown into productive, beautiful adults with full lives. The very sad thing is that each of these women were pressured to abort their babies. Knowing their children as I do, I thank God they did not succumb to the pressure, some of which came from Church members.

Whether or not something is legal, we still have our choices. You can still choose to punch my lights out unprovoked, even though battery is against the law and you may well be arrested for it. No one–by making battery illegal–has removed your ability to choose it as a course of action. But in a civil society we have laws designed to discourage, and yes, punish those who commit violations of those civil laws. Laws preventing the murder of innocent unborn children will never prevent every woman who wants to from seeking out someone to kill her baby, but having the laws on the books will deter many women and many doctors from that unfortunate course of action. And a civilized society requires that we protect life, not legally sanction the shedding of innocent blood.

Now, if you choose to punch my lights out, please feel free to exercise your agency–and make your own choice whether or not to do that. The choice is yours, law or no law.

#230

Dan (#116), I like you and enjoy talking politics with you a lot. But you are really kidding yourself if you think you’re a moderate. Just embrace who you are.

Under different circumstances you’ll find I really am quite moderate. But I feel so strongly that we should never have gone into Iraq, that we need to start getting out, and that we need to stop having such a childish foreign policy. What America used to stand for is fundamentally at odds with the practice of torture and am still shocked to hear conservatives (who used to criticize the Soviet Union for these very same practices) now feel perfectly justified to use them. These are extreme times, Clark, and I will take positions that look extreme. They are not. They are quite moderate.

Mark IV:(#123) As for their stand on civil liberties, the Patriot Act is child’s play compared to the authority given to the DEA, IRS, and ATF bureaucracies, which violate the rights of innocent citizens every day of the week.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. In the great scheme of scandalous government expansion over civil rights the computerized taping of Americans on foreign calls to suspected terrorists is way down the line. The militarization of the police (how often are SWAT teams used to handle warrants with no-knock raids?) is vastly worse and arguably affects many people – including innocent people killed. Then there is the confiscation of property during drug charges – often before the trial. Then there are all the other civil rights violations associated with the ‘drug war.’ And let’s not forget ‘campaign finance reform.’ Then there were the huge discrepancies in how punishment for cocaine was metted out depending upon whether it was meant for snorting or smoking. Then there was the expanding of discovery laws for sexual harassment which the guy who got them passed then didn’t like when applied to him. (So he lied under oath about it) Ugh. Better stop before I get mad.

danithew (#127) We’ve seen a variety of approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – everywhere on a span from a full-court press interaction to basically ignoring what is going on in that arena. It doesn’t really seem that being interactive or not made much difference, one way or the other.

Yup. I think far too many people delude themselves that’s there is an easy answer here. The problem is that the people on both sides have to be prepared to accept peace. They aren’t. At least the Israelis are finally starting to realize that the settlements may not have been the best idea. But the Palestinians are basically having a civil war amongst themselves anyway with no indication that enough want a real peace.

The other big problem in the middle-east is that I just don’t think most governments there want peace. It provides too much opportunity to point the masses at something other than their own situation.

queuno (3129) the sooner we ostracize the nutjobs on the extreme right and extreme left, the better off we’ll be.

Someone quick explain to me how Obama came to be seen by so many as a centrist rather than on the left wing of the Democratic party? He’s a great speaker and avoids too much controversial. It’s made easier by his being in the Senate for basically no time. But look at his policies. He’s not a centrist. I’ll at least admit that on many, many things McCain is a centrist. Heck, I’ll even concede Clinton as being far more of a centrist than most Democrats who have run. But Obama?

Dan (216) reforming welfare was definitely one of Bill Clinton’s best actions in office.

This we agree with. I’ll give him credit for NAFTA although blame for the way small farmers in Mexico were handled which (in part) created the immigration problem we now face.

I was probably being euphemistic when I used the words “No one with any sense”

In the same way that you consider that all non-Democrats are either hoodwinked idiots or stormtroopers in the evil industrial-military complex, I have my own ideas about Democrats.

For the most part they are either motivated by entitlement programs, identity politics or are simply loopy head-in-the-cloud dingbats who get distracted by substance lacking blather about air force bake sales. I might add, not one of them could wrap their mind around the most basic of economic principles.

No one with any sense would want to hand the keys of the free world to neophyte Obama because he “hopes” that thing will get better.

I have sense, or are you arguing that I don’t? Are you arguing that everyone who has to this point voted for him does not “have sense?”

Liberalism in the US is built upon a foundation of victim classes. Economic victims, race victims, gender victims, sexual preference victims, the list goes on. This vicitmhood is so ingrained in their ideology, they aren’t just going to give it up while finally conceding that their economic policies of wealth redistribution harm everybody.

Nice strawman. Fits perfectly in conservative ideology. But alas, like all strawmen, it is false.

I’m not a rape victim – but it seems obvious to me that there are a number of factors that might make “abortion” necessary from the potential mother’s perspective. I’m certainly not saying there should be an abortion every time in those situations – but it should remain an option.

No woman impregnated via rape should be obligated to walk around with the rapist’s seed for nine months.

I did in fact once know a woman who chose to bear the child that resulted from a rape. I never learned the details of that rape – whether she knew the rapist or not, etc. I certainly respect her choice. But I’m grateful she was able to make that decision for herself. It makes a world of difference in such cases when the woman can make her own decision.

John O’Sullivan isn’t the “main dude” at the National Review, he is an editor-at-large.

His Obama conservative poison-pill argument, that it would diminish the race problems in the US, be more favorable to cohesion, and would then pave the way for the electorate to concentrate on fiscally conservative policies which will improve the overall condition of the US?

The big problem with his argument is that while Obama’s race and One America rhetoric might affect race issues in the US, it certainly won’t correct them and in the mean time he is still a class warfare socialist. Where is the upside?

Liberalism in the US is built upon a foundation of victim classes. Economic victims, race victims, gender victims, sexual preference victims, the list goes on. This vicitmhood is so ingrained in their ideology, they aren’t just going to give it up while finally conceding that their economic policies of wealth redistribution harm everybody.