NH PrimaryFollow

Edit: You know what? It's not fair for me to say I don't care and then bait you further.

Honestly. I don't care.

Edited, Jan 14th 2008 11:31pm by Jophiel

/shrug

I assumed Joph's point was that I picked the whole "prayer in school" example, rather then the "I never" part. But whatever.


The basic argument still stands. The things that Liberal leaders make the biggest hay about when swaying people against voting Republican aren't actually platform positions of Republicans at all. We're not for prayer in public schools. We're not against gay rights (we just don't happen to think that marriage, let along gay marriage is a right). We're not for illegalizing abortion nationwide (we're for letting each state or even city set their own laws).

I've given many examples of this. How many more times do I have to do this before people get that most of the Liberal counterarguments against republicans are pure strawman?

McCain said on Meet the Press that he would favor a constitutional amendment banning abortion. He admitted that it wasn't likely but he would be in favor of it which doesn't sound like "Let the states decide" to me. He has also said that he wanted Roe v Wade over-turned so that the government could turn its efforts to making abortion illegal state-by-state. Repealing Roe v Wade isn't some "States rights" issues, it's the half-way point to their final stated goal.

So there's your three front-runners and their stated views on abortion. Doesn't sound like a strong advocating of "States' Rights" to me but I guess you hear what you want to hear.

Er? Sounds like semantic twisting to me. I have no clue what you mean by "no states rights for moral issues", since I can find no quote or position statement by Huckabee that fits that sentence at all.

I'm sorry, but not funding something with federal money is *not* the same as banning it. How many times have I made this same point?

Outlaw all abortions? Yes. I'm sure that's his personal position. Um... That does not mean that he'd actively do that as president, nor does that magically make this the overarching objective of the Republican party on this issue.

We're just trying to stop the manipulation of the law that ACLU lawyers keep using to insist that a state can't deny an 8 month pregnant woman an abortion because she thinks having a child might cause her stress. Seriously. I don't think that's a ridiculous position, and it should indicate to you just how far the pendulum on this issue is swung. Calling a fight against the "right" of a woman to do that the same as "outlawing all abortion" is incredibly false.




Lol. Semantics is everything. The site you're visiting is labeling his position that. But what he actually said was that he'd sign a "Human Life Amendment" if it appeared before him. And let's be frank about this. The only version of such an amendment that's even gotten out of committee was one that simply stated the following:

A right to abortion is not secured by this Constitution.

Um... Is that a federal ban on all abortion? I don't think so. This is actually one of the most strawmanned amendments I've heard of. All that's being attempted is to reverse the assumption that an abortion is a "right". Because as long as that's the current ruling, no state can restrict abortions. Again. The pendulum on this issue has swung in the wrong direction to a ridiculous degree.

I'm pro-choice. However, I don't believe that means that a woman has a right to get an abortion right up until the moment she gives birth. Yet, that's increasingly how Equal Rights Acts are being interpreted nationwide. States are finding that it's impossible to pass any real restrictions on abortions, and in fact very difficult to even avoid being forced to fund abortions. IMO, that's waaaaay too far. That's not "pro-choice". That's "pro-abortion", which I am definitely not.

Are most Republican candidates farther to the "life" side then me? Sure. But right now, that's what's needed in order to correct for the ridiculous position we've found ourselves in on this issue.

And this is a quote from an ABC interview with Mitt Romney on the issue:



Wow! Sounds exactly like the position I've said is the position of Conservatives on this issue.



Again. He was talking about a Human Life Amendment. Which is *not* automatically a ban against abortion. Just because your source calls it that does not mean that's what he was talking about.

Isn't it funny that the whole "OMG! They want to ban abortion at the federal level" argument only works if you get to decide what the language of a Human Rights Amendment would say? Hmmmm...

Meanwhile you ignore the quotes from the candidates where they repeatedly talk about allowing the states to set their own laws. Double Hmmmm...



Sure. A Human Rights Amendment. See the whole "but that doesn't mean a ban on abortion" bit again.




Certainly. But that's the decision of the states. I'd love to see an actual quote here Joph, sine subtle use of semantics can dramatically change the implied meaning there. Did he actually say that "the government" could turn it's efforts to making abortion illegal state-by-state? Or did he say that this would allow states to each do this on their own? The former implies some sort of national effort taking advantage of federal power, while the latter is removing federal level restrictions on the states (which matches the conservative position as I've stated it many times).




The stated goal being to allow the states to make their own laws on abortion. Um... That *is* states rights. The point is that right now, states can't do that and are increasingly being forced via the courts into accepting more and more ridiculous situations in which abortion must be allowed. I'm sorry. This *is* a states rights issue.

Yes, it's also an issue that will allow anti-abortionists to pass laws supporting their position, but as I keep saying over and over, conservatives do not define themselves by issues alone, but by the methods of power. How do we decide the rules we live under is important to us. And "judicial fiat from the federal level" does not sit well with conservatives. My personal position on abortion is less important then my position on how we should determine which side "wins".



Yes. None of which hold a direct "federal ban on abortion" position. That's why that's a strawman argument. Your "side" transforms any position that attempts to remove protections for abortion "rights" into a position to "ban abortion". Heck. You even argued that giving states the right to set their own laws on abortion was just "half way" to the "real goal". Isn't that you putting your own assumptions into the issue?


Yes. I think it is...

Q: Thompson and McCain both talk about leaving abortion to the states, the way it was before Roe vs. Wade ever became the law of the land in the first place. Why isn't that good enough?

A: Well, it's the logic of the Civil War. If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong. Again, that's what the whole Civil War was about. Can you have states saying slavery is OK, other states saying it's not? If abortion is a moral issue--and for many of us it is, and I know for others it's not. So if you decide that it's just a political issue, then that's a perfectly acceptable, logical conclusion. But for those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can't simply have 50 different versions of what's right.

Source: Fox News Sunday: 2007 "Choosing the President" interviews Nov 18, 2007
Q: If hypothetically, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the Congress passed a federal ban on all abortions and it came to your desk, would you sign it?

A: Let me say it. I'd be delighted to sign that bill. But that's not where we are. That's not where America is today. Where America is is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade and return to the states that authority. But if the Congress got there, we had that kind of consensus in that country, terrific.

Source: 2007 GOP YouTube debate in St. Petersburg, Florida Nov 28, 2007Yes. Yes, it is. My mistake. It was from ABC This Week:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask one question about abortion; then I want to turn to Iraq. You're for a constitutional amendment banning abortion with some exceptions for life and rape and incest.

SEN. MCCAIN: Rape, incest, and the life of the mother, yes.No, what's funny is how hard you fight to deny these direct quotes.From McCain's website:

This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level.

Huh. McCain talking about how government must find ways to strengthen the people trying to end abortion on the state level. You know, the government he's attempting to become the Chief Executive of.

Feel free to parse that to say some glowing thing about States' Rights instead. Or say it only applies to special amendments not mentioned in their quotes. Or whatever rationalization you need to make to convince yourself that they're not in favor of ending abortion nationwide and making it part of their campaign.

Edited, Jan 15th 2008 10:35pm by Jophiel

Funny. Isn't it?

You can pick and choose a snippet of an interview out of context and find pretty much anything Joph. The broader point (which you ignored) is that a federal ban on abortion (period) is *not* a conservative platform position. That's not what we're fighting for at all. It's not even on the radar (as several of those quotes pointed out). Yet that's the "boogieman" pulled out every single time there's a major election.

I'll also point out that Romney qualified his position as "if congress passed it" (and) "if we had that kind of consensus in the country".


That's the point I keep trying to get across to you. Conservatives are not about imposing their personal ideological views on everyone from the highest federal level possible. That does not mean that each one personally may wish to pass a specific law or other. But the criteria for doing so is exactly what Romney mentioned "consensus of the people". If 99% of the people want abortion banned, then they'll pass such a law. But as long as it's more like 40%, they're not going to push for that or anything close to it. That's the whole "contentious social issues resolved at the lowest level possible" thing I talked about earlier.


Huckabee is a different animal. And as I've pointed out several times, isn't really a conservative when it comes to social issues. He's religious, but that's not the same as conservative. His approach to pushing his agenda is very much a liberal approach (hence his statements about pushing morals). And even he didn't say there were no "states rights" for morality. He said that we shouldn't have 50 different sets of wrong and right. You may choose to interpret that to mean that on all moral issues, he'd push for federal laws to impose those morals on all states, but he could just as easily be talking about a purely social movement (ie: getting the very "consensus" that Romney was talking about).


There's a huge difference between passing federal laws, and working with all states to make their laws match a particular moral position. And it's not clear from the quote which Huckabee was talking about. I tend to agree with you that he'd likely be willing to use federal power (but I've stated repeatedly that I dislike many of Huckabee's positions for more or less exactly that reason). But let's be clear, Huckabee sees himself as the abortion equivalent of an abolitionist. He sees abortion as an issue very similar to slavery. The civil war reference was not an accident.


Conservatives would prefer to work through the state and local governments, not act unilaterally from the federal level. That's the default. That's not to say that the occasional issue or candidate may not hold a slightly different viewpoint, but those are the exception, not the rule.

He's gonna take that out of context, y'know.