There’s a larger archive of them at that domain. I was moved by this one displaying a painting and poem, An Open Letter to the Unconquerable Greeks. And intrigued by this one. I haven’t perused the tenth of these posters probably.
Where has the world gone that gave so much place for posters like this? Nowadays so much of it is nay, nay, America the evil, the guilty, and crazy delusions that we should do things like give our enemies the right of American citizen trials. Uh.. they aren’t American citizens, and they kinda want to destroy our country?
And about that last poster, are folks careful about what they write in war time anymore? Not so many any more, and not so much.
I’m pasting this letter from the Illustrator’s Partnership [edited only to change links to hyperlinked text]. Also following it with my comments is a reply I got from my Congressperson, Chris Cannon (R-Utah) about my letter to him opposing the bill. show
On June 12, three leading textile trade associations announced their support for the Orphan Works bill.
Funny, that’s a 180 degree flip-flop from their House testimony of March 13, 2008. That day a spokesperson from the textile industry testified “on behalf of the hundreds of American companies” who are members of the same three trade groups. She denounced the bill, calling it “unconscionable for Congress to try to impose millions of dollars of costs on individual companies, many of which are small businesses…”
“The proposed orphan work legislation is not a solution to the ‘orphan works’ problem,” she testified. “Instead, it is a blueprint for a radically new copyright law. The inability to distinguish between abandoned copyrights and those whose owners are simply hard to find…is the Catch-22 of the Orphan Works project. This legislation would orphan millions of valuable copyrights that cannot otherwise be distinguished from true orphaned works – and that would open the door to commercial theft on an unprecedented scale.”
Strong testimony. So what happened? Did the bill improve? No, Congress just agreed to exempt textiles from the bill. So now Congress gets their endorsement.
Definition: When is cultural theft on an unprecedented scale not a problem?
Answer: When you’ve been cut out of the problem.
We hope legislators will judge the merit of such endorsements accordingly.
One last irony: the “strong testimony” quoted above was not original to the textile industry spokesperson. It was appropriated verbatim from Brad Holland’s 2006 Senate testimony and used without attribution or citation. You can read the original [here].
Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work
You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act [here].
Please forward this message in its entirety to every artist you know.
My comments:
This is infuriating hypocrisy!
Now about the reply I got from Canon. My letter to him (which I now gather was vaguely scanned by an assistant and filed under “opposed”) specifically countered the oft-cited claim from supporters of the bill - that it supposedly does not endanger any managed copyrights because users of a work would have to perform a “good faith” search for the copyright holder. I went into it in my previous post on this - scan the post for the section of capital letter bullet points, it’s item E. Canon’s reply merely puppets what the drafters and supporters of the bill claim. He writes:
H.R. 5889, the “Orphan Works Act of 2008″ would limit the remedies of copyright infringement if the infringer using a work of art proves that he or she had performed a reasonably diligent search to identify and locate the owner of the copyright, but was unable to do so, or had provided accurate attribution to the author or owner if known. If proof cannot be obtained, then no limitations of remedies are available for the infringer and full copyright infringement penalties may apply.
This isn’t any kind of counterpoint - it’s exactly what my letter to him outlined is not a valid support for the bill (for the reasons I just gave here). His letter gets worse, too -
While it is obvious that the Copyright law needs updating, I simply cannot support a measure that targets or singles out a company such as satellite radio with the intention to shut down the industry as a whole by increasing its fees and negatively impacting its consumers. My position on the Judiciary Committee has given me the great opportunity to advocate technological advances while working to clarify copyright law. I will continue to work with my fellow members of Congress to resolve copyright issues in a way that addresses the interests of both the consumers and the copyright owners.
And that has what to do with the Orphan Works Act? Nothing! This is a typical political evasive non-response - but while Canon is puppeting the talking points of supporters, and he was after all on the committee approving the bill, it would appear he’s going to go right on supporting it - despite the fact that many people I know have written him to oppose it.
Canon mailed the same idiotic form reply to everyone I know who wrote him to oppose the bill.
When is it time to write President Bush and ask him to veto the bill if it crosses his desk? I’m thinking that time is now.
OR: How the Copyright Office Plans to Aid in Mass Infringements
Update May 16th 2008: I read today that the bill was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Aaagh! I had meant to write my Senator, Hatch. Now I’ve written him, and Bennett, too. Here’s the letter I sent them via the Illustrator’s Partnership form. I accidentally left the last sentence referring to the House, but I’ve decided that makes a nice negative contrast to the Senate.
Update May 8th 2008: In a page linked from this entry, today it reads: “H.R. 5889 unanimously sailed through the House IP Subcommittee yesterday..” - that should not have happened.
Today I wrote my representative, Chris Cannon, about this bill. It turns out he is on the subcommittee presenting the bill - and my Senator, Orrin Hatch, is on the Senate subcommittee presenting it to the Senate! Two of my representatives! If you are in Utah and Cannon is in your district, your voice has more power opposing this bill. Anyone in Utah has more power writing to Hatch as well. Here is my letter to Cannon (which you may adapt and use; I’ve slightly revised it from what I sent). I pasted it into the form provided by the Illustrator’s Partnership.
But you needn’t be an artist (or for that matter a citizen of Utah ) to oppose this: every voice is valid in a democracy. Here is a link to write to your representatives on behalf of an artist you know. Please use it. Or use this representative finder and simply write about any reason you dislike the bill. You like independent creative work of any kind. The bill will squash that. So squash the bill. Here is someone else’s sample letter. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.
If you are on FaceBook, you can join the “Artists Against the Orphaned Work Legislation” group (773 members at the moment - they need thousands upon thousands) as a way of letting others take notice (they’ll see the group you joined).
Also, I’ve got interesting words from an uncle who knew Shawn Bentley:
..how did Shawn Bentley’s name get tacked onto this? Shawn has been dead two and a half years. He was a gospel doctrine teacher in our ward [or congregation]. He in fact left two “orphan” girls - orphans in the historic sense given that their father died, even though Becky (the mother) survived. So maybe this was someone’s clever sympathy ploy.. it’s rather disquieting that this is being packaged with the sainted memory of my friend Shawn, thereby making it sort of like a sacrilege to oppose it.
Update May 7th 2008: The Illustrator’s Partnership has now provided a tool to easily send a letter to your government representatives expressing your opposition to the bill. This is the link:
I urge you to use that link and write your representatives.
Original post; April 30th 2008:
When I first read about this, it sounded too extreme to be real.
But I researched this, and it is true.
There is a bill now before Congress which would reverse the fortunes of independent artists, creative enterprises, etc. in the United States of America. The bill would see the Copyright Office formally aiding infringements of copyright.
Your government representatives apparently take the bill seriously and don’t blink at it. I wonder if they were told any of the negative practical consequences of the bill. Reading statements about the bill from the presenting committee, it is seemingly given to help use already “orphaned” art works (no copyright holder known), but, in practical terms, this bill would enable the change of status of millions of contemporary works clearly connected with their author to “orphan“works, free for use for any purpose by anyone, without any practical copyright protection afforded the original author if the author even finds out that their work has been infringed.
Your government representatives should be made to blink at this bill. More than blink. It should be tossed out of Congress without even a vote, and that is what I ask you to ask your representatives to do, if I persuade you, and I’ll provide links to contact them.
Here is an outline of the situation the bill would create. I’ll cite all the sources (including the actual bill) at the end of the entry.
It would mandate the creation of a government-certified database for copyright searches, allowing more than one, or many. The databases would not be government owned; they would be private business-owned and operated.* A search of any one of these databases would determine whether an individual or organization that infringes any copyright can claim “limitations” on penalties for violation of copyright, should the author of the work find the infringement and come against them for their copyright violation.
This is how the situation this bill presents would play out in practice:
An individual or business finds an artwork (of any kind) that they want to use or incorporate commercially. But it has no author name affixed or associated with it. Under that circumstance or even if this individual knows the name of the author but cannot successfully make contact with them, then
The individual may search one of the few, or several, or many privately business-run databases of artworks which this bill will inevitably cause to come into existence (the reason: the databases will require fees to register works in them, and many companies are eager to start up such databases). If the individual doesn’t turn up a connection of the work to its author or is unable to contact the author, then
The individual may file a notice with the Copyright Office of their intent to use the work commercially. Many situations would end here: they would use the work without owing the author anything. Now comes what kills art.
If the author of the infringed work finds out that it has been infringed, and should he go against the infringer for it, the infringer may claim to the court that he made a “good faith” effort to find the author of the work or make contact with him, but never found them to be in connection with the infringed work, or never made successful contact, and therefore
The court will order the infringer to pay the copyright owner only a “reasonable fee” but the infringer may continue use of the work, without limitation, and
The infringer cannot be compelled to pay attorney’s fees to the individual whose copyright he has violated. This is the real death blow to the authors of infringed works, as this current protection - where copyright violators must pay the attorney fees in cases of violation - this is what currently protects copyright most effectively. But under this bill, this protection will be removed by “limitation”. What this means in practical terms is that the author of the infringed work could never afford to go to court against anyone who infringed their work, because the most money they could get out of it would be far less than the attorneys fees which they, the author of the infringed work! - would have to pay.
I’ll list some of the bad practical results of this now with capital letters.
A. Someone else profits from work they did not make, and the author of the work has no means of obtaining any money for it.
B. The market value of the author’s work is diluted by two thirds, since he can’t guarantee exclusive use to anyone on sale or license.
C. No author is afforded any copyright “protections” unless they register, and they would have to do this for every work of art they have ever created, paying a fee to each of several or many databases, and if they fail to register with all of the databases, anyone can pick up their work for unlimited use from a database they might have overlooked. Worse, the databases are not perfectly searchable, and many works properly registered will fall through the cracks. Images not in any database - the vast majority of contemporary images, since they cannot capture every living artist’s every work of art - are also unprotected.
D. With infringing parties filing their intent with the Copyright Office to use a work, the Copyright Office would be keeping a file of individuals they permit to use someone else’s work without any practical limitation; the Copyright Office will aid with infringement.
E. It’s a reversal of copyright protections. Currently if you register a work you can claim damages whether or not the infringer found you or knew you to be connected with the work, but under this bill, your work would not be protected, if the infringer, uh, managed not to find you. Which would be very easy to do when there are two, three, five, seven databases to search - which database won’t find you? The court will hold that up as a “good faith” search. A simple failed search of any database will be enough.
F. With the private, business-run registries on whose contents decisions of copyright limitations hinge, the Copyright Office - or part of the United States government - would be handing control of citizen rights (copyright protections) over to private enterprise. Do you like this? Your rights being given to private business without your knowledge or consent? That you, or an artist you know, will have to monitor private enterprises for the governance of your copyright?
G. Worst, even if an author successfully monitors all of their works of art in all of the databases and pays a fee to each of the many databases for every work of art they have ever created, and ever finds any work to be infringed, the practical protection of their work remains as nonexistent as the above numbered points describe.
H. It violates the Berne Treaty (Convention) an international copyright treaty to which the United States is signatory. Article 5 of that treaty, regarding copyright protections, that:
The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality..
The Orphan Works Act does not protect copyright unless authors do certain things (and then it doesn’t really protect them anyway). It clearly subjects authors to formalities for the exercise of their copyright. It also contradicts articles 11bis, and12, and14, and36 (which reinforces 5). It expressly violates the Berne Convention.
But the bill makes no mention of the convention. Instead the title makes us blubber over would-be orphans (more like the kidnapped children of Pirates!) that Big Company, Inc. would otherwise have to pay to use. Or, else, like, create something all by themselves!
Lastly, it must be pointed out that the Copyright Office seems to have, or breed, contempt for the copyright protections of authors. This was the Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs’ reply to Brad Holland (of the Illustrator’s Partnership) in a meeting where Holland questioned the bill:
Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?
Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!
This all completely assures those who infringe work that they can expect no trouble, while causing those with otherwise sole use of their work unending and excessively expensive trouble, unless they surrender to the involuntary total government/business control of their copyright, hand in their paintbrushes, and surrender their profit to strangers who deserve zero use or money for the work, and go get the MD degree the family always pressured them to get anyway. This bill would be a death blow to independent creative enterprise, and a serious boon - for all ethical purposes - to pirates.
For extra credit, if you’ve read any arguments favoring this bill which seem reasonable, after I cite my sources I will dismantle some which I have read.
Just a firm reminder, since you picked this up already, I oppose this bill. And I ask you to.
The Illustrator’s Partnership is organizing opposition to this bill. They’ll have an opposition “button” soon. I’ll update this page when they do. I am not affiliated with them, but for updates from them send an email with “Add Name” in the subject to mailto:illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com.
Or, the last link in my sources below in turn links to resources to do the same. In writing to your representatives in the House, reference H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008. To your representatives in the Senate, reference S 2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.
Feel free to link to this page or copy the text of it wherever you please - get the word out against this bill. If you live in Utah or have strong ties to Utah, register your disappointment to Orrin Hatch for even allowing this bill on the Senate floor. He is on the committee that witnessed the drafting of this bill (first link in this entry).
SOURCES.
1. The very text of the bill itself. Reading that is the real test. I have, and all of the above logically holds - or rather it is all a logical conclusion about how illogical and nasty the bill is.
3. This article, which as well as corroborating other things, points out the contradiction the bill poses to the Berne Convention the United States is obliged to.
4. This 40-minute interview by Mark Simon, of Brad Holland of the Illustrator’s Partnership, from this page. Mark Simon has stated that he gives this mp3 for free distribution to oppose this bill. Disclaimer: Mr. Simon is drawing conclusions of ill-will and the like against the supporters and drafters of this bill. I make no such conclusions, but I am, frankly, very suspicious of their intentions. This interview occurred some time ago in warning of the legislation, and now (very recently) the legislation has appeared.
(I also don’t like the music in this interview.)
*The language of the bill does not specify that the government will create the database(s). Toward the end of the bill it mentions that the Copyright Office “shall” certify a database; toward the start of the bill it allows for the creation of private registries. That means that private businesses will be clamoring for certification, and there will be more than one, and potentially many, databases.
Since anyone who would make use of your work under this law would have to search for you, just make sure your name is out there! COUNTERPOINTS: Modern information technology and the nature of information itself assures that you have no control over where your work may go. It is very common for photographers and for photographs of paintings to be published without credit. The “hall of mirrors” effect described above produces a great risk of an artist not being found. And even if they find you, they can pretend they tried to contact you and got no response. It would still be a “good faith” search to the court. One failed search in one of potentially several or even many databases would also be a “good faith” search. But that’s beside the point that no one should be allowed to use your work without your express permission. It’s yours to use - it is not - or should not - be the job of the author to survey the the whole nation (world?) to forestall abuse of his work - which abuse this legislation would provide no practical means of stopping even if it were discovered.
The bill says that the “reasonable search determination” should be “flexible enough” to allow artists to make themselves known. COUNTERPOINTS: The many circumstances under which an infringer may not find or contact an author have been demonstrated, and it goes the other way; if the infringer does not find the author, the author is not finding the infringer either. The word “flexible” here operates, frankly, like a red herring. No database could store all contemporary artwork by all artists. Any artist produces thousands of images in one year. There are potentially millions (billions?) of contemporary images that wouldn’t even be in the databases; the image wouldn’t even be identified, and so it would be free to use. No flexibility is broad enough when the doctrine is that on any failure to find, the infringer may still use the work without limitation - which is precisely the doctrine of this bill. There is no such thing as a “reasonable search” because the search could on failure strip copyright protection from a living author without the author’s knowledge. There should be no search. Because the infringer should create a work for their own profit; not capitalize on someone else’s work without paying. That’s the current law. (Okay, it isn’t the law that you have to create anything for profit. It’s just a good idea.) That would no longer be the situation under this bill.
The bill frees millions of orphaned works up for use in educational purposes and works, and the like. COUNTERPOINT: under the 1976 Copyright Act, those works are already free for those purposes. The only purposes to which this bill can apply are commercial copyright infringement.
No one will lose copyright. COUNTERPOINTS: While it would be true that authors still own copyright at the moment they create a work, all practical means of defending that copyright would be removed. A bird without wings is still a bird, but it can’t fly. A soldier without a gun is still a soldier, but he’s extremely hard pressed to actually defend anyone.
Authors of infringed works can claim damages. COUNTERPOINTS: as the above numbered points show, those damages are severely limited by this bill to the point of utter impracticality.
Because of modern information technology, copyright is very difficult to protect anyway. COUNTERPOINTS: While certainly duplication and information spread is very fast and easy these days, current law provides that an infringer must pay the lawyer fees if the author claims infringement and wins. That is a major deterrent to illicit use of other people’s work. That protection would be removed with this bill. Infringement would be a breeze under this bill. And so what if Copyright protections may be difficult? Should we tolerate them becoming far, far worse in one fell swoop - which this would be? Absolutely not.
It was an odd coincidence, after watching so many episodes of the new BattleStar Galactica on DVD, that after I penned that essay yesterday I watched an episode where the abortion debate was raised.
(By the way, I waited five weeks checking three different Blockbuster video stores for the right disc of the right season of BattleStar Galactica to be checked in - there was a conspiracy to keep me from checking out that disc - and then one day my wife brought home the entire season of the show, checked out for far less a price, from the Orem Public Library. Now, as well as for the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum, I have a testimony that the Orem Public Library is true.)
The premise of the show is that the Cylons, robots created by humanity but which betray humanity, wipe out all the planetary colonies and drive and hunt the very small remainder of humanity into space. The entire show is humanity outsmarting, outmaneuvering, thwarting, and seeking to destroy the malevolent forces which they themselves created - while the evolved Cylons who are indistinguishable from humans fool people into David/Bathseba fiascoes.
In this episode (Season 2.5, “The Captain’s Hand”) President Rosylin is presented with a young pregnant woman who stowed away on the fleet command ship (Galactica), seeking asylum from her evil, fanatic, controlling parents to abort a child she apparently doesn’t want and/or can’t support. Rosylin has begun campaigning for re-election to office (she became President de facto as the highest ranking surviving political officer of the human race), and apparently the majority of the fleet is “pro-choice”, and her whole life Rosylin has fought to support the right, as she puts it, for a woman to control her own body. But General Adama reminds her that after the Cylon struck and nearly destroyed humanity, one of the first things she said to him was that “..if humanity is to survive we need to start having babies now.” Adama points to the number of humans still alive which Rosylin has kept on a whiteboard behind her desk since being sworn into office - around 54,000 - and says “That number hasn’t gone up for a long time.” Despite her position on abortion, Rosylin issues an executive order declaring any interference with the birth of a child as subject to criminal penalty - she makes abortion illegal. At the same time, since the executive order occurred after the young woman’s abortion, and the woman had already claimed asylum, Rosylin does not hold the woman subject to criminal penalty, which outrages the religious, fanatical representative from Gemenon. This principled compromise also outrages the eleven of the twelve colonies who support abortion (uh, how reflective of America or humanity would that be in real life - not very - the issue is very divided, and pretty equally). It also opens the way for a former political ally to come out in opposition and betray her in a factioning bid for the Presidency. Not bending to either extreme, Rosylin outrages everyone. Huh. Sounds like prexy Bush, dudn’t it?
The episode, in my opinion, underscored what Orson Scott Card said of the Science Fiction genre, in his main address at Life, the Universe, and Everything XVII (which symposium I very much enjoyed attending). Card sought to answer the question of why so many prominent writers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy happen to be Mormon. Apparently Mormons have been heavily dominating winners in the Writers of the Future contest for many years - and the contest is run blind. None of the judges know the names of any of the writers who submit, as the names are stripped from the entries before judging. Card argued that Science Fiction often embodies both the American plain narrative style and the American pragmatic hero - the hero who tests and tries things for himself until he finds the best solution - and, Card argues, Mormonism is also an embodiment of both of those, or more specifically, of the Scientific Method in harmony with religion. Mormonism does not ask its followers to simply blindly accept the religion, but to try it out.
“..if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.“
And again in Moroni:
“..And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.“
If you are showing faith in Christ, if you are sincerely seeking Him, if you have changed your life already, if you are experimenting on the word (Card didn’t mention the verses that say that), and you have a sincere desire to follow these things if they are true, God Himself will manifest the truth to you by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you sincerely try Mormon principles and doctrine in your life, Mormonism promises, you will know for yourself whether the doctrines are true. That, Card argues, is the Scientific Method - run tests, try things out for yourself, experiment on a hypothesis until you have an idea whether it seems true or false - that is the Scientific Method in complete harmony with the Mormon religion.
In summary then, Mormons who are raised with these values of pragmatic experimentation find themselves very easily at home in a body of literature where pragmatic experimentation is the norm.
And what pragmatic truth does this episode of BattleStar Galactica unfold to our view? (By the way - I heard asides from Card that he doesn’t like the overt references to Mormonism made in BattleStar Galactica - because the leaders of the 12 colonies are more like the 12 idiots.) When the human race is driven to near extinction by evil robots, abortion is not a good idea
I’ve read an argument from a Democrat-voting Mormon defending Barack Obama’s stance on abortion (I won’t link to it). This argument seems to present Barack Obama’s reasoning on the issue as similar or identical to the LDS (Mormon) church’s reasoning. I don’t think that is so, and I’m posting my arguments against it. I want to seriously qualify that if Obama’s reasoning doesn’t harmonize with church policy (in my opinion) on this point, there are many other questions surrounding the political position about which the church is neutral (otherwise the church would instruct its members to oppose the Democratic party, which it most certainly does not - the Church is party neutral). But this is what I respond to:
Frequently we generalize and think the church is completely against abortion with no exceptions, but that is not the case. There needs to be an allowance for these times and conditions and Obama’s platform makes concession for these times too. In fact he says, “I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don’t make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy.” Which is what the church encourages. If abortions were made completely illegal there would be no allowance for these rare but serious circumstances.
I checked for a reliable attribution of that statement to Obama, and I believe I found at least one (here). (And as for the banner in that web site - just erase the baby brother from the picture. Oh wait, he’s not there. They aborted him.)
Now, here’s my argument. This paragraph pulls Obama’s statement out of context. I do not personally know any “pro-life” person who has said they would oppose abortion in such extreme situations where the life of the mother is endangered or the pregnancy is the result of rape (or incest, or similar extreme situations). So to present this argument as opposing a reasonable “pro-life” position is at best uninformed. On that point, a reasonable (in my opinion) “pro-lifer” of course agrees. It is misrepresentative to argue this as opposing a “pro-life” position. Unfortunately, building up that argument and throwing it down - it is an obvious candidate for a weak argument and can easily be thrown down - leads to the idea that a pro-lifer opposes abortion in extreme cases such as a mother’s life endangered, or pregnancy by rape. As I said I’ve never known a pro-lifer who makes such extreme arguments (and if I did, I’d disagree with them). So I would ask the person making this argument which of their far too liberal friends they have not adequately challenged, to not only swallow but regurgitate such a distortion. Professors at a University? Yo. A University often an unhinged liberal maketh. Watch out.
What’s really baffling - and had me confused for a while - is that Obama’s language does not address those situations at all. Reading this link I found where the quote is cited, the only thing Obama says that could unreasonably be construed as touching on maternal life endangerment or rape is the phrase “..a woman’s medical concerns..” - in this wider context:
“..As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient.”
May I point out that he does not mention endangerment of a mother’s life and does not either mention rape etc., but that he does say “a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient.” I place emphasis on the word “and” because it clearly links “medical concerns” to “personal decisions between a doctor and patient.”
The hysterical brouhaha around reproductive activities and the virtual right to pursue them at all expenses - including the new lives they often create (and then summarily destroy by “abortion”) has often, in what I have read of our nation’s history of any legislation even peripherally having to do with sex - has often linked sex with “privacy” or a “right” of privacy which no court or legislation should invade. Never mind how much the Playboy channel proves that sex can often be regarded as anything but a private affair, and the obvious counterpoint that the children produced by sex don’t only belong to a parent - they have a life ahead of them where they will leave their parents and contribute to society and, hopefully, produce more children of their own - a child is not a woman’s only: a child is a gift to a nation and to the world. To characterize birthing concerns as concerns only belonging to the woman herself is utterly mislead and selfish. Getting back to my point now.. this is clearly rhetoric falling in the line of reasoning where a mother’s right to have a baby or not is her own personal “choice” - for which she also apparently has doctor-patient privileges to discuss whether or how do “abort” her own child. Reagan comes back to mind. Where is the child’s right? As he said, the only folks arguing for a “right” to abort were not themselves aborted.
Obama’s statements clearly play into reasoning that a woman has a “choice” to abort a child for any reason - which does not address the true moral question Obama’s (or Clinton’s or any other “pro-choice” person’s) position raises. Obama is clearly not speaking of extreme cases where abortion may be necessary. He’s simply saying it’s a difficult decision for many women.
Understatement of the year: the decision to end a life is a difficult one. Well, unless you are an islamofascist or a soldier in Iraq trying to stop islomofascists from campaigning anymore to send airplanes turned into bombs through American skies. What does Iraq have to do with Al-Qaeda? May I draw your attention to the fact that an organization calling themselves Al-Qaeda in Iraq is still alive and kicking in Iraq, although thankfully our brave soldiers are frustrating them. How does the name this organization gives itself not have to do with Al-Qaeda? (Anyone who buys this “we toppled the towers” hysteria, I will point blank tell them they are not thinking rationally.) The Al-Qaeda trainees who made the decision to crash the planes - they were indoctrinated with an entrenched hatred of Americans, brainwashed into thinking of Americans as amoral, unworthy creatures who have no right to live. Throw in the promise of an unending sex romp with a few dozen hot soon-to-be former virgins in the afterlife, and it’s an easy sell. Also relating to a decision to kill: what do the American soldiers who are out to prevent Al-Qaeda and other islamofascists from destroying American lives and freedom go through? Easy. Pull the trigger on all of them - fight them, or in ten years 9/11 will look like child’s play. Every faithful soldier knows this. Is it traumatic to kill any human, even when they clearly are part of an army out to destroy America - and the democracy America is slowly encouraging in Iraq? Absolutely. A great many soldiers suffer post-tramatic stress disorder (and, gratefully, I’ve heard, our nation is waking up more to that fact and getting returned soldiers the help they need to cope with it).
Barack Obama is okay with aborting a child for any reason any woman would do so. That includes reasons as stupid as the mother being impoverished and living in a cardboard box. I’m serious. That’s not a reason to end a human life, but it is a scenario that modern reasoning often finds justifiable to terminate a human life. Okay, and.. what about adoption? What about the many thousands (millions?) of children born throughout the world in any given year in equally desperate situations but who live good lives? (It comes as a revelation to so much of modernity that a life can be worthwile even without wealth or even basic shelter.) I love the reply Ann Coulter witnesses her father gave her when, as a kid, she related that scenario in asking her father if that would justify an abortion. His reply: “I don’t care. A life’s a life.” Amen. There is no more concise and accurate rebuttal than that.
Look wider at the “pro-choice” cause. More than 34,000,000 million Americans have been reported as “aborted” since 1972 (add up the numbers on that page) - which is far more than the number of Americans lost in all previous American wars combined, while pro-lifers endlessly puppet these illogical lines about “choice”. The “pro-choice” movement is not properly identified as toleration of silent infanticide - standing by while the class of “babies” is unendingly slaughtered. Nobody should be at war over it - killing abortion clinic doctors is a seriously bad and misled thing to do - but the legislative war against the “pro-choice” movement should be far, far more intense and broad than it is. Abortion is doing a far better job destroying American life than Al-Qaeda has reasonable hope to - but Al-qaeda surely would destroy all American lives, given the chance. I realize this comparison may distort pro-lifers as just out to kill babies. That’s stupid. They mean none of that. But unfortunately, their collective means of misled tolerance have in very fact meant more cost of American life than all other American battles combined. Heaven shudders at the bloodbath, my friends.
But the question of abortion is more complicated than that. There are arguments it should be decided per State by State constitutions. I know Democrats who happen also to be Mormons who think it is and should be so. I disagree with them. The first lines of the Constitution of the United States declare “..Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” as inalienable rights. Arguably, the right of life is not universally protected under the United States federal government.
There are arguments that would seem to refute this - or maybe they actually do - but as far as proposing legislation I don’t care. If those arguments hold up, we need to change the legislation that allows them to hold up, in my opinion. Whatever litigious mess got it through our heads that it’s okay for a State to approve killing a fetus in any circumstance - we need to reverse that mess. Because it is not okay, morally, in most of the situations where States in our nation allow it. And in my own opinion, any candidate with a “pro-choice” position offers no hope of overturning that litigious mess.
Because I believe extremist Islam poses a far greater danger, I could vote for a strong pro-war candidate who was also “pro-choice”. I’m fortunate in that regard that McCain is both pro-life and pro-war. And as I’ve said before, Obama and Clinton both speak of “withdrawal” - but that is a euphamism for surrender to an enemy who, if not stopped, would do everything within their then expanding means to literally destroy the United States of America.
And Obama and Clinton both know that, whatever else they say. They can promise immediate withdrawal, but they know they can’t really offer that. One meeting with a war cabinet would scare them silly out of the decision. McCain not only knows that, but he says it, too.
This excellent essay by Orson Scott Card (link) really gave me pause. Here’s that link again. If you are a Republican who goes along with common Republican reasoning on immigration, this may be a particularly relevant read. I have said some things at this blog about amnesty vs. naturalization which made basic assumptions that Card’s essay there turn on head. And I think he’s right.
There is not an essay in Orson Scott Card’s “World Watch” columns at ornery.org which I would not recommend - especially to avowed Democrats, because Card divides asunder the hypocrisies (such as in this essay) and off-the-wall illogic of the current Democratic party. It seems to me that most of the flurry toward Democratic candidates hinges on disgruntlement about the war. If that is the case for you, please read Card’s comments on that, also.
The Democrats use the word “withdrawal”, but they all know it’s a euphemism for surrender.
My previous entry gives reasons I could never support Clinton or Obama (because of their stance on partial birth abortion). Here are a few more reasons I wouldn’t support Obama: he has the most liberal record in the Senate. He is farther left than anyone else in the Senate. Also, his church swears to a creed of black nationalism. Here is one link about that (which points out Obama’s spiritual advisor affiliates with terrorists), and here is another. If sympathy for a position that simply returns the worst of white racism is your definition of spiritual, Obama is your man.
John McCain is the only pro-life candidate seriously in play. If Clinton or Obama are elected, they will likely have a turn to appoint a few judges to the Supreme Court - and they will appoint activist judges who will tighten the bulwarks against reversing Roe vs. Wade. (How common is the knowledge that the victor in Roe vs. Wade has since decided it was wrong?) Obama and Clinton both favor having a “choice” for partial-birth abortion - sticking a needle of poison into the skull of a baby as it is being born.
If McCain comprehends the wrong of abortion, it’s easy he may comprehend the issue of the life and survival of our nation - and of the Iraqis we have pledged to help build a new nation - a lot better than whichever Democratic opponent he’ll face. (I say this because something I read frightened me regarding McCain’s foreign policy approach. But his policy has to be better than Clinton’s or Obama’s. And regarding that linked article, the landscape has changed since then - Romney has unofficially endorsed McCain as our hope toward winning the war.) McCain can be talked to if the citizens cry loud enough. He’s been against building a border fence, but pledged he would. I doubt it would happen in four years, but he has to take steps. The first would be firing one of his staff in particular.
To my mind, holding out until victory in the war hangs on the same principle of valuing all life - do we finish the job of aiding the Iraqis in establishing a new nation of independence, no matter the cost, or do we retreat and value the lives of those we began to save less than our own lives?
(How common also is the knowledge that Saddam Hussein enacted genocide on Iraqis? Nuke questions aside, that is the main reason I supported ousting him.)
Do we value the life of a mother over her child? Will we terminate the birth of a new nation underway?
I recently heard arguments for universal health care that seemed maybe okay. Then I went back and looked at some things that convinced me against it. The following part of an argument I’ve quoted before most convinces me against universal state-provided health care.
I know health care is expensive. That’s why I’m focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how you do that? You do it with conservatism! I’m by no means out of touch on this. If the health care industry were priced like every other industry is on the patient’s ability to pay, then we’d fix the problem, and that’s the direction we have to head in.
But if we’re going to keep this notion that everybody’s entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society. You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don’t depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn’t want to be obligated. I didn’t want to be dependent. I didn’t want to owe anybody. I don’t buy into insurance plans because it’s a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don’t have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that’s conservatism again. People are much better than they know. They have much more potential than they know. But when you’ve got a Democrat Party and a movement telling them they suck, telling them they can’t get anywhere because the deck is stacked against them and the people stacking the deck are Republicans and so forth, then you are diminishing the country; you’re diminishing the future, and you’re destroying people’s lives.
……
The health care problem in this country is getting worse, while people are voting on for people who are making it worse because they hear these people saying, “I’m going to fix it.” Well, the people in charge of fixing it have no interest in it getting fixed, because if it gets fixed, you don’t need them. You can rely on yourself. This health care debate is one of the most infuriating things I witness every day, because I get so sick and tired of people buying hook, line, and sinker a lie. “I’m going to get everybody covered. I’m going to make sure everybody gets health insurance in this country. We’re going to make sure it’s not just the rich.” It doesn’t happen, does it? When you have government telling private industry how to operate, this is exactly what you get, and it’s going to happen in energy. It’s already happening in a number of other industries, too. It’s happening in the auto industry…
I’ll add to this. I recently read that the top ten poorest cities in the United States have been governed only by Democrats for the past thirty years. Democrats repeatedly promise this and that measure to raise folks out of poverty, which never happenss, but the next time around folks think maybe it will. Lucy lifts the football every time and you still fall flat on your back. No one says what needs saying: your wealth is your responsibility, so go to work. Of course genuine misfortune can prohibit that. But many poor people work 8 or 10 hour weeks when they could work 40. I suspect lack of motivation generated by welfare dependency. Why work if someone else will pay the bill? I think it was on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show I heard this - kids who know they have a large inheritance don’t work and study as hard. (I would like at this point to declare my forgiveness toward my grandparents for dropping tens of thousands of dollars in my lap when I was only a kid. Yeah, the money didn’t stick around long - but I must also credit my own foolishness. Which I also forgive.) When kids don’t know they have an inheritance, they buck up and study and work harder.
If you are rich, stamp out any suspicion in your kids that you are generous by being a chore-driving pig of a parent. Well, be a nice pig and give them ice cream every now and then. By the way, the LDS church has one smart solution to welfare dependency: welfare recipients work in the orchards, canneries, farms and distribution centers that produce the goods they themselves receive.
State health care is welfare. Someone else gives you what you could earn yourself. It takes away working motivation, dragging workers out of the economy, producing less taxes from less work, giving the government less money to subsidize people’s laziness, and the vicious cycle goes downward until somebody thinks it’s a good idea to say that some people deserve taxes and some don’t, and heck, the rich deserve a lot more taxes - and what do you have? An economy that only thrives because America happens to be exceedingly ingenious despite all the retarded “equality” legislation that strangles everyone, and despite most of the middle classes seeing a whopping forty percent of their income go to government programs that do nothing for anyone other than exist as a mirage that something is getting done.
Who thinks universal health care is a good idea? Hillary Clinton is more religious about it than she is about defeating extremist Islam. Except that she isn’t religious about defeating extremist Islam. For all I know Barack Obama thinks state welfare is a good idea, but I’ve tried not to really pay attention to him or to Clinton.
I guess I have to now, because people swallow their balogna philosophies wholesale.
What a way to exit. I’m with him. He’s absolutely right to stand on the most important principle our nation is questioning - our survival. Michelle Malkin copies this transcript from the speech - and I copy it from her -
I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues…(audience boos) but I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq… And I agree with him on eliminating Al Aaeda… If I fight on in my campaign all the way to the convention, I want you to know that I forestall the launch of a national campaign.
Crowd: “NOOOOO!”
Frankly in this time of a war, I cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror. This isn’t an easy decision. I hate to lose. …Not just about me…I entered this race because I love America. I feel I have to now stand aside. We cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism.
What’s the best thing about this? The goodwill it’ll earn him among the party establishment for not dragging out the primary? The fond memory it creates in the mind of the base of a man willing to sacrifice his own ambition to support victory in Iraq? The venom it’ll draw from the left about him using the war as political cover for his own failure? Or the fact that it backs Huckabee into a corner by framing the continuation of his own campaign as effectively furthering the Democrats’ plans for withdrawal?
In this chat with a coworker I comment on the current revision of this Wikipedia article on the Laffer Curve - involving economics (this was an offshoot of discussion about game theory, which is work-related - I find, two paragraphs into the article:
(12:27:18 PM) Alex Hall: “..Critiques commonly point out that socialist states, such as the U.S.S.R., have been able to derive revenues at a 100% tax rate, though they would have derived more if tax rates had been lower.”
(12:27:35 PM) Alex Hall: Oh, good. I’m glad communists can get higher taxes from rates lower than one hundred percent.
(12:27:42 PM) Alex Hall: !
(12:27:45 PM) MoD: hehe
(12:27:49 PM) Alex Hall: Can you believe that?
(12:27:53 PM) Alex Hall: Ah, Wikipedia.
(12:28:18 PM) MoD: Probably has something to do with people earning more or something
(12:28:47 PM) Alex Hall: Maybe. I haven’t investigated that. I think I’ll go home and see if MY LIFE produces any MOTIVATION which might produce any TAXES.
(12:29:01 PM) MoD: hehe
(12:29:11 PM) Alex Hall: LOL what a joke.
Last night I watched ABC around 9:30 to try to follow emerging Presidential Primary results (tragic to be watching ABC’s coverage, yes, but my internet connection wasn’t available). They brought on Huckabee via satellite interview, glowingly fawned over him (following the orders of their favorite party in doing so - now they’re just roping him along to steal votes from Romney) - and they swallowed unchallenged his incredibly deceived line that he’s run one of the most civil campaigns anyone has seen in a while (read my disagreement about that here) - then provided extensive coverage of Clinton and Obama, and covered McCain’s speech claiming he’s the front runner (it has to be said he has about twice the delegates pledged to him now that Romney does - which simply baffles me. The man is simply not a conservative. And Huckabee would like to rewrite the Constitutation to align with his personal religious whims! Romney is the only conservative running!) They had signs sliding on and off the bottom of the screen saying who won what states, and though it was hard to follow them, I gathered Romney had won maybe five or six states (including Utah at 8o percent - I can’t imagine how that happened ) - I had a hard time tracking it. Along with that they had longer heads-ups displaying pictures of candidates with a list of won states underneath them. As I said, from watching the sliding displays I knew Romney won five or six states, but how many states were listed under the picture of Romney? Two - Utah and Masachussets, the states in Super Tuesday he has close ties to. And how much coverage time do they devote to any interviews or footage of Romney? Virtually zero. A few pictures and short clips, interspersed with long clips and coverage of every other candidate in play. And they list only two of the five or six states he won. Virtually zero coverage of Romney and blatantly displaying his gains as far less than they are.
Tell me mainstream media isn’t biased against Romney! The candidate that the liberal mainstream media is blatantly biased against is the candidate that conservatives should be blatantly biased for! Romney has pledged to stick it out to the convention! Rally for him! He’s the only conservative in play!
[Update: if you wandered here by clicking my trackback at MichelleMalkin.com, IMO this post may work for igniting one of the gaseous issues emanating from NYT’s fat penumbra, but you may wish to read my post favoring Romney and opposing McCain and Huckabee (link).]
Three blogs I’m seeing relay and question a story in the New York Times: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, The Autopsy - it’s probably all over the place.
this is a subtle variation of the “He’s too perfect to be real” criticism. We rail politicians because they are flawed, and then when one who lacks those flaws comes along, we rail on them anyway. Whatever.
The irony is that the allegation that Romney is disingenuous is itself disingenuous. Shouldn’t a candidate identify what he has that folks want? The assumption is that if someone says what wants to be heard they must have made it up just for the sake of being well-received. There’s as much basis for that as there is for believing they genuinely held the position before advertising it. Between the two choices is a path of either cynical negative bias or basic trust in the goodness of other people. Without any hard proof for either as valid, why not risk or put faith in the better option?
CALLER: When a man of your wealth — yes, your wealth — no matter what happens, you can afford it. What about guys like me out there? I’ve had years where I’ve made big six figure and years that I haven’t, and all in all me and my wife are fairly financially stable, but do you know how expensive life is, or how much it costs to pay for health care, and why…?
RUSH: Yes, I damn well do because I do pay for it myself!
CALLER: Well, exactly.
RUSH: Let me tell you something.
CALLER: But when I talk about your wealth —
RUSH: No, no, no. Let me tell you something about this wealth business. I’ve been broke twice in my life. When I was 31 years old, I was making $17,000 a year. I have been fired I forgot how many times. Seven times! So I’ve been there. This constant refrain that I’m “out of touch,” is just bogus. That’s another thing that really bugs me: this movement within the Republican Party to claim that the middle class is in great suffering and pain. I understand if you own a house, and your value of your equity in your house is plummeting, that you’re worried, and I understand that totally. What you need to hear is the truth of why it happened, so that you can make plans in the future. These are cycles, and everybody in every country and every society goes through them, and ours are not nearly as bad as people around the rest of the world are. I know health care is expensive. That’s why I’m focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how you do that? You do it with conservatism! I’m by no means out of touch on this. If the health care industry were priced like every other industry is on the patient’s ability to pay, then we’d fix the problem, and that’s the direction we have to head in.
But if we’re going to keep this notion that everybody’s entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society. You can talk about my wealth, but let me tell you something, sir. I don’t depend on anybody else for anything, and it was one of my objectives when I grew up. I didn’t want to be obligated. I didn’t want to be dependent. I didn’t want to owe anybody. I don’t buy into insurance plans because it’s a hassle! Now, I know a lot of people don’t have that freedom. I used to not have that freedom, either. But I do now because I worked for it — and if I can do it, a lot more people can do it than think they can, and that’s conservatism again. People are much better than they know. They have much more potential than they know. But when you’ve got a Democrat Party and a movement telling them they suck, telling them they can’t get anywhere because the deck is stacked against them and the people stacking the deck are Republicans and so forth, then you are diminishing the country; you’re diminishing the future, and you’re destroying people’s lives.
……
The health care problem in this country is getting worse, while people are voting on for people who are making it worse because they hear these people saying, “I’m going to fix it.” Well, the people in charge of fixing it have no interest in it getting fixed, because if it gets fixed, you don’t need them. You can rely on yourself. This health care debate is one of the most infuriating things I witness every day, because I get so sick and tired of people buying hook, line, and sinker a lie. “I’m going to get everybody covered. I’m going to make sure everybody gets health insurance in this country. We’re going to make sure it’s not just the rich.” It doesn’t happen, does it? When you have government telling private industry how to operate, this is exactly what you get, and it’s going to happen in energy. It’s already happening in a number of other industries, too. It’s happening in the auto industry…
—-
Given that, and with Romney winning Michigan (yay!) largely due to connections to the state and his track record for reviving faltering industry, and his promise to revive Michigan’s faltering auto industry - I gotta ask what Romney plans to do to revive the auto industry in Michigan. He favors privatization of health care and insurance - not making health care a government responsibility, which in my opinion, and in agreeing with this transcript here, is the only realistic and positive approach.. how do you encourage a private commercial sector like the auto industry without subsidizing? I’m going to look into that..
[Update 02/12/08: An essay by Orson Scott Card may have changed my mind about immigration. Things I say in this entry about that I now think are probably erroneous or worse.]
There are various/ reasons I support Mitt Romney’s run for the Presidency.
[Update: I have moved paragraphs of fading relevance - since they concern /candidates who are either fading or have dropped out of the race - to the end of this entry. I’ve also added a bit more against McCain and for Romney.]
First I’ll say why I don’t support McCain. McCain’s campaign finance reform bill had loop-holes in it which, as had been predicted by many critics, opened the way for parties to receive far and away more exorbitant financing to a degree where private interests can virtually pocket a party. Thanks to McCain’s bill, private radically liberal institutions have been able to gain great control over the Democratic party (so, by the way, unless you intend on casting a surrogate vote for George Soros, don’t vote for Hillary Clinton). (I confess not knowing whether the measure has had a similar corroding effect on the Republican Party). McCain’s position on cutting taxes is to cut them after cutting back government, which is like asking a drunkard to cut back on whiskey after he has stopped drinking. No fat government gets lean before giving money back to citizens (and citizens who retain more of their money produce more money and taxes besides). McCain’s amnesty position on immigration is a threat to the right of sovereign rule of law. When a foreign national is made a citizen – or not even made a citizen - without paying the price, we import a citizen who gives nothing back for the price of import (and the price of import is paid against our will, besides). The protections and benefits of citizenship come with a price - freedom is not free. When freedom is given without a price, freedom is bound, and in this case, bound to the exports, apathy, and eventual controls of other nations. We want immigrants, but we want them to pay the price for American citizenship.
Now I’ll attack some of the attacks against Romney. His conservative social stances are erroneously slammed as flip-flopping by folks who seem to think that the only motivation any politician could have to change his mind is a buckle to peer pressure and not any genuine change of thought. This hard-line cynical criticism has the benefit of being both unprovable and seemingly reasonable. It is only logical if we assume from the outset that we should simply trust one group over another without even perusing the logic of what either has to say. Dismissing one man’s word simply because another man alleges he is lying is not a logical basis of ascertaining whether the man is telling the truth, but that is precisely what every liberal writer and speaker I have encountered does in regards to Romney. Yo. Truth test, folks. It may make a convincing smear, but we aren’t out to form our judgments around the most convincing smear. We like logic. I hope. Logic usually places more trust in the experience and belief of a person witnessing it - not in the witness of their enemy. Both these points are driven across much more strongly than I have put it by Ann Coulter, in this article which I recommend a read of. Coulter also raises the critical point that the Republican candidate the generally liberal MSM fawns over is precisely the candidate we should reject, and explores other fallacies behind the “flip-flopper” allegation against Romney. Amen to that. And is the MSM favoring McCain? Read this contrast of AP reporting of McCain vs. Romney. It’s jaw-dropping. Also recommended: this rallying cry for Romney from NRO’s Mark R. Levin, which among other things very clearly reports the facts of McCain’s very un-presidential contempt and personal verbal assaults on Romney. Romney has never attacked a political opponent’s person, only their position, which is perfectly fair and right to do - it is a contest of record and philosophy. McCain’s attacks make a hypocritical attempt to draw hatred against Romney as among the very wealthy classes - among whom reside McCain himself. No president would lead America well by encouraging class contempt (and by pretending he is not something which he is - rich). Also, McCain blatantly lies about his record and statements on several issues. Here’s a loosely abridged excerpt of Levin on it (click “show” to read it):
McCain is an intemperate, stubborn individual.. I could see his personal contempt for Mitt Romney roiling under the surface.. why? Because Romney ran campaign ads that challenged McCain’s record? Is this the first campaign in which an opponent has run ads questioning another candidate’s record? That’s par for the course. To the best of my knowledge, Romney’s ads have not been personal.. the same cannot be said of McCain’s comments about Romney.
Last night McCain.. resorted to a barrage of personal assaults on Romney that reflect more on the man making them than the target of the attacks. McCain now has a habit of describing Romney as a “manager for profit” and someone who has “laid-off” people, implying that Romney is both unpatriotic and uncaring. Moreover, he complains that Romney is using his “millions” or “fortune” to underwrite his campaign. This is a crass appeal to class warfare. McCain is extremely wealthy through marriage. Romney has never denigrated McCain for his wealth or the manner in which he acquired it. Evidently Romney’s character doesn’t lend him to cross certain boundaries of decorum and decency, but McCain’s does. And what of managing for profit? When did free enterprise become evil? This is liberal pablum [or trite, meaningless platitude] which, once again, could have been uttered by Hillary Clinton.
And there is the open secret of McCain losing control of his temper and behaving in a highly inappropriate fashion with prominent Republicans, including Thad Cochran, John Cornyn, Strom Thurmond, Donald Rumsfeld, Bradley Smith, and a list of others. Does anyone honestly believe that the Clintons or the Democrat party would give McCain a pass on this kind of behavior?
.. how can anyone explain [McCain’s] abrupt about-face on two of his signature issues: immigration and tax cuts? .. [he] led the battle not once but twice against the border-security-first approach to illegal immigration.. He disparaged the motives of the millions of people who objected to his legislation. He fought all amendments that would limit the general amnesty provisions of the bill. This controversy raged for weeks. Only now he says he’s gotten the message. Yet, when asked last night if he would sign the [same bill] as president, he dissembles, arguing that it’s a hypothetical question. Last Sunday on Meet the Press, he said he would sign the bill. [Me: is that straight talk? One week he say’s he’s “gotten the message” against his bill, the next he says he’d sign it, the next he waffles on the question? No way. He’s clearly either hiding or undecided on his real position, or else he woudln’t change it every week]. There’s nothing straight about this talk. Now, I understand that politicians tap dance during the course of a campaign, but this was a defining moment for McCain. And another defining moment was his very public opposition to the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. He was the media’s favorite Republican in opposition to Bush. [My note: mainstream media is by and large liberal. Maybe that’s common knowledge, but..] At the time his primary reason for opposing the cuts was because they favored the rich (and, by the way, they did not). Now he says he opposed them because they weren’t accompanied by spending cuts. That’s simply not correct.
Even worse than denying his own record, McCain is flatly lying about Romney’s position on Iraq. As has been discussed for nearly a week now, Romney did not support a specific date to withdraw our forces from Iraq. The evidence is irrefutable. And it’s also irrefutable that McCain is abusing the English language (Romney’s statements) the way Bill Clinton did in front of a grand jury. The problem is that once called on it by everyone from the New York Times to me, he obstinately refuses to admit the truth. So, last night, he lied about it again. This isn’t open to interpretation. But it does give us a window into who he is. [Me: he’s someone capable of flat lying!]
Of course, it’s one thing to overlook one or two issues where a candidate seeking the Republican nomination as a conservative might depart from conservative orthodoxy. But in McCain’s case, adherence is the exception to the rule — McCain-Feingold (restrictions on political speech), McCain-Kennedy (amnesty for illegal aliens), McCain-Kennedy-Edwards (trial lawyers’ bill of rights), McCain-Lieberman (global warming legislation), Gang of 14 (obstructing change to the filibuster rule for judicial nominations), the Bush tax cuts, and so forth. This is a record any liberal Democrat would proudly run on. Are we to overlook this record when selecting a Republican nominee to carry our message in the general election?
But what about his national security record? It’s a mixed bag. McCain is rightly credited with being an early voice for changing tactics in Iraq. He was a vocal supporter of the surge, even when many were not. But he does not have a record of being a vocal advocate for defense spending when Bill Clinton was slashing it. And he has been on the wrong side of the debate on homeland security. He supports closing Guantanamo Bay, which would result in granting an array of constitutional protections to al-Qaeda detainees, and limiting legitimate interrogation techniques that have, in fact, saved American lives. Combined with his (past) de-emphasis on border-security, I think it’s fair to say that McCain’s positions are more in line with the ACLU than most conservatives.
Why recite this record? Well, if conservatives don’t act now to stop McCain, he will become the Republican nominee and he will lose the general election. He is simply flawed on too many levels. He is a Republican Hillary Clinton in many ways. Many McCain supporters insist he is the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. And they point to certain polls. The polls are meaningless this far from November. Six months ago, the polls had Rudy winning the Republican nomination. In October 1980, the polls had Jimmy Carter defeating Ronald Reagan. This is no more than spin.
Romney has the right idea on the separation of church and state with encouragement of religion in general in the public square. (If you missed it or would like reminding, read the transcript of his speech on the topic over at NPR.) He has a very good track record in fiscal reform - he turned both the bankrupt Salt Lake City Olympics and the government of Massechusets around to great surplusses - and reason of hope to reign in our massively burgeoned government. He has the practical approach to foreign policy required to secure our nation by stamping out militant extremism abroad. Romney is the real deal and I choose to trust the position he states he has on various social issues. I am impressed, actually, when a man is capable of changing his mind and saying why he did so. It assures me that he thinks for himself and does not just blindly follow or rigidly adhere to any dogma without thought. Lastly, Romney’s position on immigration is naturalization, not amnesty, and naturalization bears a price for citizenship. Citizens obtained through amnesty draw on the resources of a nation without paying the same price as other citizens. But naturalized citizens do pay the price, and in turn contribute to the society they join.
If your mind is made up not to support Huckabee, you may not need to read these next paragraphs, which blast Huckabee’s utterly despicable tactics and frightening thinking. If you want to read them, click “show”.
[Update 02/04/08: I saw this email reporting yet another Huckabee hypocrisy:
Earlier in the day Huckabee attacked Romney for “voter suppression” by telling Hannity and Colmes last Thursday that a vote for Huckabee is really a vote for McCain.
Romney responded, “First a couple of rules in politics. One, no whining. And Number 2, you get them to vote for you. And so I want them not to vote for Mike Huckabee and not to vote for John McCain and to vote for me. … That’s not voter suppression. That’s known as politics,” Romney said. “I want people to vote, but I want them to vote for me.”
But wait, it ain’t over yet!
Later in the day Huckabee released a videotape recorded at a campaign stop in Macon, Ga., over the weekend that urged his supporters to get to the polls. In the video, Huckabee “joked” that “if there’s somebody you know who’s not going to vote for us, don’t let them out of their house.”
“You let the air out of their tires and keep them from getting out. Tell them the primary’s been moved to March But don’t let them near a voting booth until after Tuesday.”
Poor, dear, Governor Huckabee: you joke might almost elicit a snicker if we didn’t know that “voter suppression” has been on your mind lately.
]
I will comment on Mike Huckabee’s press stunt, wherein he assembled the press and claimed that, while he had made a negative ad about Mitt Romney (and to be clear, the ad was a smear of Mitt Romney, and not any logical disagreement with Romney’s philosophies or positions - this is the classically ill-reasoned Ad Hominem attack, as the Romans call it), he had, he claimed, changed his mind just then and decided not to air the ad, but he also then claimed he would prove that he had indeed made the ad, but was opting to take the high road and not air it - and he then showed the very ad to all the assembled press. It was as transparently inevitable as it was pathetic that the press would publicize the stunt and rebroadcast Huckabee’s ad. Mike Huckabee could not sincerely hope otherwise; or if he could have, he is far too naive to hold the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth. Either way, the consequences of his actions are that he has left a smearing ad (which smeared Romney’s integrity without any basis of sound reasoning or fact) open to a press arguably rabid to smugly bandy about the dirtiest dirt they can dig up on anything (otherwise they’d have dismissed Huckabee and his ad out of hand) - and, case in point, the ad Huckabee made was and is very dirty and disingenuous - the same as Huckabee’s presenting such dirt to an open press can only be seen unless, to repeat what has been said - unless he is far too naive to warrant serious support of candidacy for President. And if Huckabee is not naive in that way, he is in another: as his campaign asks for support, his behavior asks the Citizens of the United States to tolerate dirty politics.
The most sickening part is that Huckabee feigns his hands are clean of dirty talk. But here the term needs clarifying. Attacking the political position, record, and reasoning of a candidate is not dirty. That’s expected. This is debate. Who has the best ideas? But attacking the very character of another, irrelevant and apart from any bearing on political ideas and record – this is dirty. And this is what Huckabee has consistently done, and which Romney has not done. Romney has not geared any arguments and attacks at people themselves - none of this back-handed religion and character slamming etc. - all of Romney’s arguments against other candidates are appropriately geared at their political positions and histories. Please notice how little the press has distinguished between the two. Arguing with a person’s ideas and choices is not a personal attack; but the press frequently has glibly described it so, misrepresenting Romney’s attacks as personal. Examine anything Romney says in competition with other candidates. He is never back-handed or personal, on the contrary he disagrees respectfully with policy, record, and position. But Mike Huckabee has attacked character and one of the greater substances of character – religion – backhandedly, feigning innocent curiosity, questions. Well, first, who cares about theological questions – Presidential candidates should only care about policy questions in debate. But Huckabee feigned such off-limits religious curiosity regardless (that it is off-limits he doesn’t feign – it’s fair territory in his book of attacks disguised as curiosity). He cannot be given the benefit of doubting that he knows what he talks about. He posed a question framed in Mormon teaching of two opposing supernatural beings as brothers. As a minister he is of course well-versed in how his own and other religions differ. His abuse of that knowledge is to illustrate religious differences - which again, emphatically, are by definition irrelevant and ill-applied to a political campaign.
The question Huckabee posed plays to a cultural position which assumes certain negative questions and answers without words. The execution is fairly brisk and seemingly easy-going, but the underlying reasoning is brute and not in line with any claim of Christian behavior. The assumption his question conjures is this: If a godly being and an ungodly being are brothers, doesn’t that lower the status of the divine by association? After all, the divine has no association with the not divine. Therefore, the ill logic goes, anyone who would associate such a divine holy with a not divine unholy must have a view which degrades the divine or sees the divine as lower, they must not set their sights as high on spiritual matters: they must have a really wrong idea of what is really what with religion; they may even be fools, religiously, or may have been fooled. This is juvenile thinking, folks. If one of two brothers is a criminal who goes to jail, while the other brother is a noble, upright citizen who abides the law, devotes his life to charity, and does good to those around him, is the good brother, by position as brother of the imprisoned brother, therefore less a person, less in virtue, lower in position, less in goodness, or in spiritual terms, less holy? Is one person accountable for the choices of another? The only way one person can be responsible for another’s actions is if he has control over what the other chooses. We are accountable only for what we have control over. One’s own goodness only diminishes when one fails to control himself; so one’s own goodness could only diminish on account of a brother if one had control over a brother. Nobody has control over another; each chooses his own path: but while everybody chooses for themselves the path to follow, Huckabee’s rhetoric assumes it isn’t so: one is less good when one has failed to control another. There are places for control - parents preventing children from harming themselves, for example, or police men preventing one person from harming another, or if the notion isn’t lost on you as it seems lost on so many all-cases pacifists - armies preventing dictators from executing genocide - but on the whole man controls only himself and chooses right or wrong only for himself – not for others. A man can bring good into the lives others by persuading or encouraging others to do good (and good example is the best way to persuade). But it is a very interesting - more harrowing - observation that the cultural assumptions which Mike Huckabee plays his cards from wrest their operations from a presumed right of undue control, from a position where one brother should forcibly cause another to follow a path of virtue.
Huckabee’s rhetoric plays to audiences who have given up the right to think or act for themselves. Want a democracy? Huckabee’s thinking is kin to dictatorial theocracy. Read it through again. Huckabee’s religious attacks implicitly would have it A-OK to support him on the basis of his religion - or else he wouldn’t think it okay to attack the religion of others. Their religion bad, his religion good. Elect the baptist, goes the underlying logic, while the facade is far too clever to be so crudely un-American. His position is not American. It is in fact a threat to the very idea of American, where anyone is game for citizenship so far as they adhere to the rule of law and the Constitution. Huckabee poses questions of religion above the Constitution in the public square. There remains no place for the public square when rhetoric insists only on meeting at the square on the basis of religion - not on the basis of law. I repeat, Huckabee’s thinking is akin to dictatorial theocracy. Do you want that kind of thinking in a President?
I didn’t think so. Say it with your vote.
These next expired paragraphs rail against Giuliani and speculate on Thompson, neither any longer relevant to the race. Again, click “show” if you want to read them.
Giuliani loses my vote under one phrase: “Pro-Choice”. The millions of slaughtered unborn in this country never had a choice, folks. Reagan said it best. The only people arguing for the “right” to “abort” were not aborted. Let us speak plainly. There are circumstances (rape, incest, a mother’s life in danger) where terminating the life of an unborn may be necessary. The vast majority of the time there is no such reason for terminating an unborn infant. Far more often, “Pro-Choice” is a euphemism placing the dignity and value of one person – a mother – over another – a child. Well, children haven’t really been given a lot of choices and rights through the centuries. Maybe after the billionth pre-birth slaughter in our nation, the kids will get used to it. We kept lil’ Billy. He was a keeper. Too bad his sister wasn’t.
How did Republicans win a ban on “partial-birth abortion”? By asking about the rights of the extraordinarily brave few infants who, despite the best efforts of a doctor to kill them, survive and come out of the womb, alive. Why, having attempted to kill the infant and failing to do so in the womb, can we not take the life of the infant when he is out of the womb? Why is not the “right” to “abortion” the right to an effective abortion?
Because life does not start out of the womb.
The logic has not yet been taken to the full measure it goes to; which is the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. The victor of Roe vs. Wade has since changed her mind and said the decision was altogether wrong. How many “Pro-Choice” folks site this fact? How many anti-religion folks wrest their speculations against Christianity by such fictionally apocryphal means as presented in THE DA VINCI code? How much more are they willing to champion any ex-Christian who comes along and joins their crowd? But do “Pro-Choice” folks champion the messenger who used to be in their crowd and has turned against them? Nope. It’s not even about messengers or means, it’s all about ends.
Nobody knows when a forming human soul becomes human. It is the moral responsibility of man to define and protect life as broadly as he reasonably can.
I think I could probably support Thompson. I don’t believe however that his campaign has enough steam to topple other candidates.
) to oppose this: every voice is valid in a democracy. 
defending Barack Obama’s stance on abortion (I won’t link to it). This argument seems to present Barack Obama’s reasoning on the issue as similar or identical to the LDS (Mormon) church’s reasoning. I don’t think that is so, and I’m posting my arguments against it. I want to seriously qualify that if Obama’s reasoning doesn’t harmonize with church policy (in my opinion) on this point, there are many other questions surrounding the political position about which the church is neutral (otherwise the church would instruct its members to oppose the Democratic party, which it most certainly does not - the Church is party neutral). But this is what I respond to: