Quote:
Originally Posted by ptownrob
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I see two major problems though:
1.) The revolution of the "Right," which started thirty years ago with Christians being told they should "infiltrate" locally and work their way up the system, and politically, as that power began to indiscriminately exclude anyone other than the narrow "moral" platform of the so called "values voters."
I grew up (in NY) with the age of Rockefeller, I campaigned for Lowell Weicker, and I remember many moderate-conservative Republicans who ran for and won office because they were concerned about taxes, government and providing government services as "leanly" as possible.
It was only after Reagan, and I certainly place the blame squarely on men like Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Rush Limbaugh and the like, who began to preach that up is down, fact is fiction. You are with us or with the terrorists. Republicans really had no place to go, and the right extremist wing just kept building up its power.
2.) The rejection of the powers that be in the Republican party to accept any one, or any idea, that does not fit into the ideological purity of the extremists who now control the party. Why was government sticking its nose into Terry Schiavo's life? Why couldn't conservatives be Republicans and still support environmental responsibility (Drill Baby Drill!)?
Why couldn't some accommodation for a mother's life be included in an anti-abortion platform. Are Republicans aware that, in its extremism, pro-life positions in the Catholic Church and the Baptist conventions require the doctor to sacrifice the life of the mother to save the baby- EVEN if the baby has little chance of viability? Talk about goverment intrusion into private lives.
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Regarding point 1: The "revolution to the right" began more as an
semi-rural/rural-versus-urban backlash, with urban residents clamoring for (and getting) "entitlements" mainly paid for by semi-rural/rural America. "Right-Wingism" began outside the cities, grew outside the cities, and continues to center itself outside the cities. Even today, "Left-Wingism" is still predominately an urban phenomenon.
Regarding point 2: I find it strange that most who are pro-abortion are anti capital punishment. It's a peculiar irony that condones the killing of a being whose only "crime" is being conceived and unwanted, yet a convicted rapist-murderer should be allowed to live until "natural death" because his/her crime(s) apparently are not as serious as the crime of being conceived and unwanted.
The problem of abortion has always been "when" should it occur. During the first trimester, the second, or the third? How about within three months after birth, or six months, or any time up to age 18 years? Where is the bright line and who should choose it? Who at what age or circumstance should be subject to any individual deciding whether they live or get tossed in the HazMat bin? And if it's all right to dispose of a being with a beating heard and viable synaptic function prior to delivery (natural, C-section, full term or early), why not the same for a being with a beating heart and viable synaptic function residing in an old-age home? In both cases, the being is an inconvenience, drawing down on family resources, and creating emotional strain on family members. Hasn't that been the pro-abortion criteria for its position?
When the state decides life-and-death criteria - whether for children in the womb, criminals, the aged or the infirmed - we all lose, sooner or later. Kill them all or kill none - the justification used for any one of them is and has always been the same for all of them. We just seem to want to be selective in our application for whatever the reason.
Government intrusion into private lives in any manner - especially life itself - is political by virtue of being "government" intrusion. One would think we would have learned a lesson from the Nazis, the Sunni in Iraq, and others who used life deprivation as a means for eliminating unwanted from their dream societies. We, though, practice life deprivation with societal justifications which are no less abhorring for the one whose life is lost.
What an irony!