Doug Groothuis is a friend who wrote a blurb for my book. But I have some difference with him politically. To wit:
Conservatives care about the poor. But they think that a "privatized" compassion is better than one that enlists the government. They think that trickle-down economics works. I think that this is not the case.
Bush had zero foreign policy experience and zero military experience, (except for a questionable brief stint in the Guard) and he showed it by expending our energy in the war on terror against a dictator who of whom there could surely be a great deal said against him, but who was no friend of Al-Qaeda and had no WMDs. McCain want to continue the Bush policies. Obama wants to change the focus in the war on terror to the truly dangerous terrorists who plotted and carried out the 9/11 attacks.
As for abortion, I differ with the platform of my party on this matter, in that I would welcome a reversal of Roe. But were that reversal to occur, it would probably save the lives of two fetuses in the state of Mississippi. If we want to abolish abortion, we are probably going to have to make a large step in the direction of socialism in order to care for the children who would otherwise be aborted. Republicans aren't willing to do that, so their defense of life rings hollow.
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As for abortion, I differ with the platform of my party on this matter, in that I would welcome a reversal of Roe. But were that reversal to occur, it would probably save the lives of two fetuses in the state of Mississippi.
Actually, it would place the decision back into the hands of the people. Then we wouldn't have to fight over it so much, considering we voted on it. Ironically, the ire of the right is that left-leaning judges took our choice away.
large step in the direction of socialism in order to care for the children who would otherwise be aborted. Republicans aren't willing to do that
Strawman argument. It wasn't needed before and it's not needed now. Republicans have more children than Dems and adopt more frequently. Dems have to stop taking in so many dogs and cats and take pity on more humans instead.
I like that you see Roe v. Wade as needing overturning. If the Democrats want to have a president again (and this time they WILL lose again) they need to loosen up on this issue. That's not because of some tyrranic conservative majority. It's because of Ultra-sound. People can see what they're killing.
Vic,
Though I don't agree with you on everything, on this issue, I completely agree. I've been reading Doug's blog and a few of his books for years now. I've listened to his whole courses on apologetics attentively. I was appalled to hear him say, inter alia, violently yelling things such as, "It is a sin to vote for John Kerry!" to the attendants of his apologetics class during 2004. His fervent support of extreme right-wing views has always caused me alarm, and his omnipresent "pro-life" views and Republicanism is disturbing.
Personally, I think he's (and so many others) are completely blind to the fact that conservative Republican policies have contributed to more abortions than anything else. They don't realize that ending Rowe v. Wade won't stop abortions, but only stop safe, legal abortions. How pro-life is it to force a woman to have a dangerous, violent abortion? How pro life is it to think that, as a result of dangerous abortions, many women's reproductive organs--and thus their ability to bear "life"--will be irrevocably ended. "Pro-life"? Please. More abortions are had by the poor, uneducated, and minorities than anyone else. So how do Pro-life conservatives respond?
By instituting policies that reduce help to the poor (financially, e.g. violent anti-welfare stance); reduce/eliminate funding to public schools (pro-vouchers, etc.); reduce funding for sex-ed (abstinence-only policies have failed miserably; resulting in a jump in teen pregnancies, among other consequences), ignoring the pitiful, enormously expensive health care system, and generally giving the finger to the poor and minorities. Republicans seem to be hell-bent on eliminating the resources for families that help to ensure that children can be raised in loving, safe, healthy homes. It seems that they only care about the pre-born; once the kid is out, everyone is on their own, it seems.
Who is more likely to have an abortion than a poor, desperate, uneducated woman who had to drop out of highschool, with five kids who thinks that prayer and "being on top" stops contraception?
Voting for Republicans results in abortion-promoting policies. Douglas Groothius and millions more don't understand this.
Socialism is a failed and unfree philosophy, my friend. It undermines personal responsibility and real charity. The state becomes the arbiter of economics and always fails.
The main reason why abortions occur is that people do not value human life and will not sacrifice for the protection of it. The main reasons are not economic, but moral. Further, there is no fear of breaking the law by having an abortion, since we have abortion on demand. If Obama gets in office, God forbid, we will have tax funded abortions across the board, etc.
If we recriminalize abortion and teach the sanctity of life, this can change. If we freeze Roe in place forever, this will not happen in any significant sense apart from a massive revival that changes the hearts of millions. Until then, we need the hand of the law to prohbit what is desperately evil: abortion on demand.
It's important to keep the rhetoric on these important issues from overheating. This is something reasonable, intelligent, Christian (or non-Christian) people can disagree about.
VR: "It's important to keep the rhetoric on these important issues from overheating."
Have you even been listening to yourself lately?
Please! Get off the politics: you don't do it well ... and politics-mode appears to bad for you, personally.
Most of us are socialists about some things and non-socialists about others. I am a socialist about police protection, and so are most people. I don't think road-building should be privatized.
We don't vote directly for Supreme Court justices and you aren't supposed to ask directly in confirmation hearings how someone will vote on a specific issue. So you have to look for a particular kind of conservative justice, an "originalist" in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Presumably there is a legal argument (as opposed to merely a moral one) for overturning Roe as having fabricated a non-enumerated right. But originalism is a package deal; it may give us results we like in the case of abortion but not give us results we like in other cases. It would, for example, be difficult to make a case for Brown vs. Board of Education on originalist grounds.
Overturning Roe, as Jim says, will give the issue back to the people. But from what I can tell the present state of the people's opinions is that there is a pro-choice majority. And there will be fierce arguments over it.
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