Tebow to appear in Focus on the Family commercial during SB XLIV

Abortion is life or death. For some people, that trumps anything and everything else

 

Yeah . . . well . . .

Batshit crazy.

 

They just don't believe that federal spending is the answer, policy-wise.

I guess I just don't see pro-life people as these raging hypocrites. They believe something strongly that is certainly a reasonable position, and I respect the hell out of that.

 

Exactly.

To them it's a matter of responsibility and owning up for your actions.

Don't punish the kid for being conceived. He/she wasn't irresponsible.

Don't punish me by taxing me to help pay for your kid. I wasn't irresponsible.

Sounds a little harsh, but it's an entirely reasonable position. No need to demonize those who believe it.

 

The moment that we can get the Olbermann Democrats and the Limbaugh Republicans in the country to both realize that the other side on most issues has a reasonable point but you think a different course is the better choice is the moment that we begin to make some kind of progress.

Or, at the very least, that the other side's aims aren't always nefarious. Maybe they're wrong, and - shock of shocks - it has nothing to do with them having a lesser character than you.

 

I'm not trying to demonize anyone who believes it. I am, however, criticizing people who use a candidate's stance on abortion as a way to decide who to vote for, as if Rep. Joe Blow is going to turn over Roe v. Wade tomorrow when he gets to the House.

 

That I agree with. The only person who has the pull to get it overturned is the president because he makes the Court appointments, although I guess you could argue that Congress has to approve the appointee.

I guess people could argue that it's a reasonable proxy of their "values" and that's why they vote on that issue. In other words, they don't have the patience to sift through some of the more complex policy issues, but trust that a candidate who is pro-life or pro-choice like them will make agreeable votes across the board.

 

Which takes me back to my earlier point: people in this country, generally speaking, are civically stupid.

 

The Court has a long history of voting with the general cultural zeitgeist. Convince enough people, elect enough anti-abortion officials, and you'd find RvW in much more peril than it is now.

It's not as easy to look at the depth and nuances as it is to say "haha those guyz r dum," but it's worth it to get an accurate picture of the world.

 

You raise a great point. As much as people like to raise hell about the "activist Supreme Court" that has unlimited power despite being unelected, it almost never goes against public opinion at the time. The one exception currently is First Amendment religious issues. A majority of Americans probably don't understand why there shouldn't be Christian prayer in public schools, but the Court is never going to budge on that, at least as presently constituted.

There have been some other examples throughout history, such as the pre-FDR series of cases in which it protected "liberty of contract" under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, essentially incorporating laissez faire economics into the document. Roe v. Wade is often compared to those cases by its detractors, and they make a good point.

But the members of the Court didn't get there because they're stupid. They realize that they have to maintain their legitimacy to the American people, and if it really seems that there's a groundswell against the Roe v. Wade decision, it'll probably get overturned. "Changing social mores" has always been a boilerplate defense to overturning old cases.

 

By the way, if we're operating from the premise that life does not begin at conception, but viability or some other stage, I think that Roe was rightly decided. I think that it overreached some in its details, but those have largely been corrected since then in other decisions.

 

This is a dangerous road to go down. Don't punish me by making me pay for your kids' public schooling. I wasn't irresponsible and I don't have any kids. Don't punish me by making me pay more for my share of public roads. You have six kids, you should pay more because, theoretically, you have more kids on the roads or you use them more to tote them to all of their activities. Oh yeah, and because you choose to live out in the yahoosville suburbs, you also should pay more for the roads because you're on them more. See how that works? Once you go down that road, it gets a lot more complicated.