I’ve heard from side of the political table that this particular election is stark choice election. I agree with that, there’s a clear and distinct difference between the two major parties and what they are offering up for the future of America.
Where this tend to go wrong is the idea I hear that when the choice is made it will reveal something about what the population wants and what they have rejected.
I contend that no losing side in the election will admit in any way that they might have lost because of their message.
Should Romney/Ryan win, the Democratic side will claim that it was because of Citizen United and the unlimited cash that flowed from the Koch Brothers, but not because American wanted the Republican Policies, never!
And If Obama/Biden win, then the Republicans will insist that it was because the Democrats ran a very dirty campaign, the media piled unfairly onto the conservatives, and it was close, voter fraud. Just like the Democrats they will never admit that the American populace wanted the Democratic policies.
So while this is a choice election, it won’t change one whit our cold civil war.
Looks like once (and wannabe future) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is all aboard when it comes to mangling the 1st Amendment with a new constitutional amendment.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/20/pelosi-democrats-will-amend-constitution-to-overturn-citizens-united-if-they-control-house-video
It’s not just Obama who is dangerous to American rights, it is also the elected leadership of the Democratic Party.
“To the Republican Party, I am not fully human …”
Holy crap.
So when some clown in Missouri makes a stupid off-hand statement about “legitimate rape” in an interview, and virtually the entire Republican party responds by demanding he quit the race and in addition they cut off all Party money to the candidate, to you that equals the idea Republicans support that fool’s concept of “legitimate rape”? How crazy is that.
“It is a fair statement to make that [taking away women’s vote] is not your party’s general policy or opinion. The problem I see is that small minority is growing and has been given a larger and larger portion of the Republican agenda every four years.”
So because one blowhard Reverend spouts inflammatory rhetoric, that equals the social-conservatives element of the Republican party wants to take away the right of women to vote? How crazy is that?
And you lecture me about realistic fears?
As for de-facto infanticide, I don’t see how you could be confused about Obama’s extremism on abortion.
Obama opposed legislation that would have protected living babies who initially survive a failed abortion procedure. It certainly is a very rare circumstance that the legislation would have covered. But without the legislation it was perfectly legal to trash-can living people. That is de-facto infanticide.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/obama-and-infanticide/
To be charitable to Obama, I don’t believe he supports infanticide. However I do believe he is such an extremist that messy details which could equate to de-facto infanticide don’t matter to him.
When abortion rights gets that kind of knee jerk support, that is when de-facto infanticide can encourage real murderous infanticide. Infanticide which can go on for decades before the perp is caught.
As the Doctor Gosnell devised abortion technique of “snipping” exemplifies…
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7906881
How could Gosnell have operated openly for decades before being caught? It is because abortion rights in too much of the nation have gone too far.
“State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979, authorities said. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.
Williams accused state Health Department officials of “utter disregard” for the safety of women undergoing abortion, and said the testimony of agency officials “enraged” the grand jury. But he said he could find no criminal offenses with which they could be charged, in part because too much time has elapsed.
“These officials were far more protective of themselves when they testified before the grand jury. Even (Health Department) lawyers, including the chief counsel, brought private attorneys with them – presumably at government expense,” the report said.
The state’s reluctance to investigate, under several administrations, may stem partly from the sensitivity of the abortion debate, Williams said. Nonetheless, he called Gosnell’s conduct a clear case of murder.”
True enough it is extremely unlikely that the amendment proposed by Obama would ever pass into law. But then I never claimed that was a realistic danger either. Citing Obama’s proposal was to demonstrate how extremist Obama is on core 1st Amendment political rights.
And even though Obama’s constitutional amendment is in all likelyhood stillborn, the 1st Amendment is still in danger. Otherwise something as crazy as McCain-Feingold wouldn’t have passed into law in the first place.
Unlike Obama’s proposed constitutional revision of the 1st Amendment, the danger Obama presents to the 2nd Amendment is terrifyingly real.
The current pro-gun ruling on the 2nd Amendment only dates to 2008. 2nd Amendment jurisprudence is practically a brand new field with no doubt decades worth of additional Supreme Court decisions to come which will flesh out the full boundaries of the right. Yet the DC v Heller decision was a razor thin 5-4 vote. The following McDonald v Chicago ruling was also 5-4, with the minority expressing a desire to overturn DC v Heller!
Voting with the minority in McDonald v Chicago was brand new justice Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama. Sotomayor, by siding with the minority in McDonald v Chicago, proved she lied to the U.S. Senate when she testified she would respect the precedent of DC v Heller. I fully expect the first gun related case to come up before justice Kagan will prove her anti-gun inclinations as well. Because of the ages of the current justices, odds are whoever is president next term will have the chance to appoint two new Supreme Court justices on average.
Just as the new 14th Amendment was rendered impotent by a racist Supreme Court back in the 1870’s, the newly empowered 2nd Amendment can also be eviscerated if an anti-gun majority takes control of the Supreme Court. It took almost 100 years for the 14th Amendment to fully recover from the damage the Supreme Court inflicted. I’m not about to take that chance with the 2nd Amendment.
I expect he’d have about as much luck with that as we had getting the Equal Rights Ammendment passed. You really do worry about some unlikely things.
Here’s my source regarding a Republican stating women should not be allowed to vote: http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/05/08/479998/jesse-lee-peterson-women-vote/?mobile=nc
It is a fair statement to make that this is not your party’s general policy or opinion. The problem I see is that small minority is growing and has been given a larger and larger portion of the Republican agenda every four years.
You know I agree with you regarding guns. It is one of several areas where I differ from my party and I would stand with you, WITH MY GUNS IF NECESSARY, to back you up on this issue. (Which, as I have stated, I see as a rural/urban divide, not a conservative/liberal divide.)
What you do not seeme to see is that my personhood as a woman, my full enfranchisement as a citizen, and the personhood and enfranchisement of over half of the current citizens is threaten by a Republican take-over. Reagan gave the social conservatives rhetoric but both Presidents Bush started giving them legislation. I know gun laws are important BUT to me, these rights, more directly threatened than guns have ever been, must take precident at this time.
I read the link you posted. What “de facto infanticide” are you and the article talking about? I am familiar with no such actual case and the article was very confusing to me. (Normally, I am not confused ojn this issue. Please explain.) I followed one link to a Washington Post article about Romney’s change of position on abortion and other matters – pity a previous Democratic candidate was not given the same credit for “maturing” when his opinions changed based on new evidence but NO, John Kerry was a flip-flopper!! Apparently maturing and changing opinions only applies to Republicans. I don’t call it maturation. I call it pandering to the social conservatives of the Republican Party. (He would have a shot at getting my vote if he’d tell the social conservatives to back off on abortion and if he would back health care. Seriously. I’d give him the chance to convince me.)
Bottom line – Social conservatives and the people who pander to them scare the hell out of me – even more than those who would limit gun rights scare you. I know how bad it can get. You do, too, but you don’t acknowledge it because if the worst happens you will not be affected and your gun rights will be safe. Meanwhile, we have YOUR PARTY taking a huge step backwards by talking about “legitimate rape” when we have only just gotten rape declared a war crime at last. No. To the Republican Party, I am not fully human and until they fix that part of their agenda, I can not and will not vote for them.
“To have Republicans make statements such as, “All the problems in this country could be solved if women no longer had the vote.” ”
Please source your accusation about women and the vote. Because it sounds like BS to me.
But let’s talk social issues, in particular abortion and guns since that was the focus of your comment.
“Why are guns more important to you than your fellow human being?”
How nicely put. Not.
What do you think happens when some poor schlub runs afoul of some arcane and arbitrary gun law? Do you think the gun gets spanked? No. What happens is that poor schlub goes to jail. With all the attendant costs to life, property and liberty that usually follow such a prosecution.
The American gun-control movement is all about putting regular people in jail. The gun-control movement not about shaming or social pressure, the movement is focused on legislation, on criminal law.
Pro-gun is pro-people to put it simply.
To be pro-gun is to defend my fellow human beings, as well as my own precious skin. “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Or in this case, state or federal prison terms as long as life in prison.
That’s not to say that all anti-gun legislation is bad. It is an anti-gunner promoted myth that the NRA and pro-gun people are opposed to all regulation of firearms. For example the NRA has no problem with the prohibition of firearms and ammunition possession by those who have been convicted of a felony crime, a law which has been around since 1968.
On the other hand the anti-gun movement is a prohibitionist movement. As evidence of that, no organization or spokesman for the anti-gun movement has ever opposed any existing anti-gun law in the United States or the English speaking world, no matter how extreme the law. In fact such laws are instead celebrated and defended by the anti-gun movement, such as the ban on handguns in the city of Washington D.C. that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2008.
Weapon ownership and their use for lawful self-defense is a fundamental right, which is finally being defended by the U.S. Constitution. But like ALL rights it is not an absolute right, and reasonable people can come to reasonable differences of where to draw the line for a well ordered society which still preserves liberty. Which brings me to abortion. If gun-rights had the same protection that abortion-rights enjoys in the United States then we would have government subsidies for minors to buy machineguns without parental consent!
I support abortion rights. But no doubt many people would disagree with me over the appropriate place to draw the line for abortion rights. For example I am against de-facto infanticide. Other people, not so much…
http://liveactionnews.org/politics/thinkprogress-tries-fails-to-sanitize-barack-obamas-abortion-extremism/
I know exactly what I am voting for and against. The Republican party will NEVER see a vote of mine until they kick the social conservative agenda to the curb, where it belongs. I can not and will not vote for a party where members of that party question my sovereignty over my own body and my rights as a human being. To have Republicans make statements such as, “All the problems in this country could be solved if women no longer had the vote.” or “When it comes to rape, the person who needs to be punished is the rapist, not the innocent child.” (Notice how the true victim – the woman – is completely bypassed there??), as if I am not worthy of citizenship because of my gender – Brad, how can you ask me to vote for these people??? Why are guns more important to you than your fellow human being?
A choice election indeed.
Obama want’s a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/29/obama-floats-constitutional-amendment-overturning-citizens-united/
Thank god for the Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling. If it wasn’t for them the horrible McCain-Feingold law would have banned books and other political speech.
“During the original oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart (representing the FEC) argued that under Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or union.[13] In response to this line of questioning, Stewart further argued that under Austin the government could ban the digital distribution of political books over the Amazon Kindle or prevent a union from hiring a writer to author a political book.[14]”
Notably, new Justice Sotomayor joined the speech infringing minority opinion, just as she later joined the anti-gun minority opinion in McDonald v Chicago.
A president only lasts in power for a few years. The Supreme Court justices he appoints influence American policy for decades. A fact which Constitutional scholar Obama is well aware of.
Even with all the drawbacks our democratic system suffers under, you can only fool enough of the people some of the time, so in the long run we tend to get the governments we deserve.
The California and Illinois state governments are prime examples of this. The majority have spoken. Ugh.