Man, I hate to countersignal here because on fundamentals, I feel like you're right on so much.
I think this takes a good observation and takes it a bit too far.
The pro-life 'movement' is one run by aged karens and catladies. It has since time immemorial. These people are culturally and socially ill-equipped for the insane modern age we're in. But they control these organizations, coveted endorsements, and they make repeated major strategic mistakes.
For one, they stillborn effective pro-life activism. They constantly henpick and denigate anything that isn't under their control. They don't cultivate enthusiasm so there's no class of young turks who have field tested messaging, actions, new methods of outreach.
Also, they don't expand the leadership. So, in most states, you have the same people running a Right to Life chapter who were running it in the 1980s.
Third, they repeatedly let themselves get taken advantage of by RINOs. Transparently insincere RINOs get endorsements from these groups because they flatter the Karens. I've seen this so many times and no matter how much I scream, flail, and protest, 100% of the time it works everytime.
Fourth, every issue in American politics exists off of a subsidy provided somewhere that is advantageous, typically, to elites. We're fighting between NGO's on the right who are often just sophistry-machines for tax cuts, against NGO's on the left that are sophistry-machines for total cultural, religious, and civilizational destruction. In politics and economics we call this the 'tragedy of the commons' but in reality it's that good ideas often don't have a constituency.
Nobody wants to admit this, but the growth of pro-life politics became a parallel interest for elites to keep a fledging right-wing alive by peeling off 10-15% of liberals who were single-issue pro-life voters. Without abortion, we would have a one-party state run by neoliberals who control the colleges, the media, and every institution worth controlling except for the military (which they're hard at work on) and the energy industry (which they're busy destroying).
A political right without pro-life politics is left arguing inane economic theories that no one really believes, and platitudes about immigration that no elected official has the courage to fully express. That will not yield more victories.
Good points. I agree about the problem of Right to Life organizations. Generally speaking, any political movement led by women is fundamentally going to become apolitical and "cultural." That isn't how real change occurs. The deeper problem, I think, is that men don't understand the connection between their own interests and the family and wont' defend them on that ground. That is a much bigger problem.
I think, in the short term, Trump showed the electoral path forward. There aren't all that many single issue abortion voters and in 2016 most of those types didn't vote for Trump anyway but he still won.
Long term, the Right has to establish itself as an Authority and it needs to do so while recognizing that electoral majorities are not going to be on its side on a national level within 10 years (I'm being generous).
over time I think the definitions have changed. Historically the amount of single-issue pro-life voters on the political right is about 15-20%. What's happened is that I think these people have become more conservative on other issues as well, so they have evolved into something other than pro-life liberals.
What's simultaneously happened is that the left, being generally better at social engineering due to their commanding heights in culture and institutions, have radlcalized the left to sacralize abortion and morally confuse most people about the topic. They are even so adroit at this that they confuse subgenres on the right to pursue abortion policies that are obviously false and stupid.
I also dont think Trump gave up on abortion. In fact I think some of the smartest things he did was publishing a list of judges he would appoint to the Court, and then actually followed through on that list. Trump's court appointments were seen as some of his crowning accomplishments. The problem is that pro-lifers were content for the symbolic victory and have largely neglected the complex and multifaceted gains they need to simultaneously be making elsewhere at a local, state and federal level.
A professionalization of the pro-life political class is long overdue. If that happened I think you would get very different results. And the 'winningness' of the pro-life political issue, as a consequence, would be self-evident.
FWIW I once argued that, if we were completely immoral and wanted to end abortion and were true gradualist incrementalists, you could legalize slavery and just let women sell their children for $500k or so. Somehow people think it's more moral to kill the child than to enslave the child. They also think that people can go from Moloch worshippers to tradcats with just one really good argument.
Unfortunate rare terrible Josiah take. You acknowledged yourself that “America is basically ok with abortion as long as there are restrictions”. This means that an incremental approach is possible and actually likely to be popular. We can start by banning partial birth abortion, requiring parental notification for minors, 24 hour waiting periods, increase health and safety standards (require that emergencies be reported to the state health boards and be available to the public), banning tele-health visits for abortion pill prescriptions, and even 24 week bans. Late term abortion is not popular, the general American public agrees with that.
When the issue is innocent babies being ripped apart and killed in the place that they should be most safe, their own mothers womb, then it is never ok to “wrap up shop and give up”. Yes, I agree that the pro-life political strategy needs to be reevaluated and changed to incrementalism in order to win (which is most important), but pro life activism and the large organizations have been changing many hearts and minds on abortion for generations. It was their hard work that changed the culture enough to get some states to ban abortion incrementally and to establish huge networks of organizations to help women in crisis pregnancies. The pro-life movement has accomplished a lot on the individual/private basis and has done the work to save many babies and help many women. It needs to continue to be active politically, but simply with a different strategy.
I agree that the pro-life movement has largely failed, mostly because we focused too much on legislation and not enough on winning hearts and minds. However, if the majority of our population just wants to kill babies, the country is not worth saving and we deserve our demise.
Like every other conservative or Republican, you're ignoring that we live in the new world of "ballot harvesting." Squads of blue hairs are waddling throughout cities gathering votes and stuffing them by the ream into ballot boxes.
Anyone with sufficient sentience to scrawl a mark across a prepared ballot is voting now.
That's why Republicans aren't going to win ever again. Even if we harvest as aggressively as the Democrats, we'll never get the numbers they will because our base is rural and suburban. An apartment block in the city has more voters than some entire counties. "Beat the streets and gather votes" has an entirely different meaning when its a dirt road and the houses are miles apart.
Bizarre to me that this fact gets so little notice. The world changed during Covid and its not going back.
I think we're agreeing with each other. Ballot harvesting has allowed even reliably Republican states to swing left. All of those states have an apathetic conservative voter base that could beat Democrats most years, but now that Democrats can turn out massive vote counts from the cities the tide has turned.
In my state at least barely anyone in rural districts votes. We're talking a few thousand per county. Now that hundreds of thousands of votes can be harvested from cities that kind of turnout is pathetic.
Meh, I concur in part: you are describing a (Dems) tour out problem, but it can be addressed both with box stuffing AND abortion scaremongering. So BOTH are a problem.
All gains and losses in this era are ephemeral. There is no essential strategy or wisdom to be gleaned from the movement of broken reeds along a stream.
All of these ‘losses’ from repealing RvW et al will disappear in five years. If you become pro-abortion in that time, it shows the only non-ephemeral motion is degradation. (as expected!)
A permanent 'dem majority' simply cannot happen, and republicans winning doesn't produce border control. Tell me which party and its president did a huge amnesty of illegal aliens in the 80's...
You think that these elections matter still, but even if we're talking concrete policies voting patterns will shift in five years and undo changes anyway. There's no point in getting upset about it.
Your argument are completely retard. You think election do not matters, both parties are the same, but still RvW overruling (a product of voting and politicing) is important. Not abortion opposition, a specific voting-and-policing product.
You are simply coping because the next Dems administration you helped electing will provide universal free abortion.
Not sure Republicans would do any different, if you are representative, sir. Republicans and their ilk are known for conserving yesterday's liberalism, this has been a problem for over 100 years. These elections will not shift the nature of the powers-that-be in the USG, they are not worth your tears or energy.
I've worked for 3 different pro-life organizations, so I will admit that some groups are more effective in our mission than others. This is where I think your argument fails: the pro-life movement is not political, it's a cultural movement. The goal isn't just to make abortion illegal, but unthinkable to the general public. I'm an incrementalist when it comes to the legality of abortion. We're not going to completely ban abortion where our culture is right now (although I'm from Indiana and we're doing pretty well), but we can make people think more negatively about abortion. The only one who can be considered "incompetent" here is you, because you can look at the reality of 2,500 loves being lost every day and think that your politics are more important than advocating for their lives.
Good for you. This is the correct approach. I think this issue could be won if we try to win the battle of ideas vs just try to pass legislation. Both are important.
The GOP had a gold-plated opportunity when Roe was overturned. If they'd gone for something reasonable, like 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, minors, and fetal health disasters, it would've passed easily and given a solid foundation to work on the culture. Instead, they pounced on the opportunity to go for a total ban, and women started having to look up state laws so they knew whether or not to cross a state line to get to the ER in the event of a miscarriage (cue: pro-lifers who think the government can do absolutely nothing right except write abortion legislation, which they do perfectly and without even the possibility of error, in all 50 states, clicking reply to tell me that all such fears are obviously silly hysterics). Women in certain states started having to ask friends in other states: "Um, if something happens, I can visit you for a long weekend and stay in your extra bedroom....right?" Women started having to ask lawyers if they could be charged for sending Plan B to friends in other states.
Various states also went after Plan B access and even tried to make laws about women crossing state lines to get abortions-- and whether it worked or not, the very attempts solidified the idea that this is and always was about keeping government in bedrooms and controlling women's bodies, not saving babies.
This issue is a trump card in part because almost every woman has had one or more of the following experiences: 1) being raped, 2) coming very close to being raped, 3) helping a friend through the aftermath of rape, 4) having a pharmacist or doctor forget, or almost forget, to mention that a drug interaction would nullify the pill, thus opening up the possibility of pregnancy despite responsible precautions, 5) having sex when it was a little risky (like when she was distracted by her 3 yr old and took the pill ten minutes late that morning) because her husband was emotionally connecting with her and the desire to bond and strengthen the relationship outweighed cold, hard rationality in that moment, 6) the blood-freezing terror of a pregnancy scare when she was already having a hard time caring for her already-here-children.
The idea that any of these realities of life being messy and often uncontrollable could result in the government forcing her to make all the sacrifices pregnancy requires, as if she's an incubator for the state and not a human in her own right--this idea is what the right declares is not just what they want, but the very will of God, and this enough to turn many women off.
Christians who will reply to me: all I ask, before you call me a baby killer and rub your hands together in the glee of anticipating watching me roast on a spit in hell, is this: when we lose the country to the Wokies -- and we will -- if you and I end up in the same wing of the Communist gulag, do you want me to congratulate you loudly and in front of everyone for not compromising your values? Or would you prefer a quiet "I told you so" in your ear?
P.S. -- Do you pro-lifers want to strengthen marriages? Imagine--at a time in our country when almost everyone is struggling financially--marriage partners having a lot less sex because they have to plan it, be 100% sure it's exactly the safe time in her cycle plus that his condoms aren't expired, since if she gets pregnant their fragile financial condition comes tumbling down in an instant. Gosh, I wonder what a lot less sex, and the necessity of coldly scheduling and planning for sex, does for a culture of life and family?
As a lawyer, my objection to Roe was grounded in the belief that the decision was legally incorrect. Dobbs validated my opinion.
But again, as a lawyer, I know that there some human activities that cannot be prevented by laws. Prohibition was a good example of that sort of thing. Gambling is another.
I believe that abortion is yet another. Consequently, even though I am almost entirely against abortion, it is my view that the government should not pass laws making abortion illegal.
But as with drinking and gambling, I think government is capable of regulating abortion to some extent by, for example, limiting the right of minors to get abortions without parental consent, or prohibiting some methods of abortion which are inhumane.
Aside from that, it seems to me that the way forward for Republicans lies in refusing to let government finance abortions. In short, “we will not stop you from killing your baby, but we won’t help you pay for it.”
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, 29 until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice and mean-spiritedness. They are gossips [spreading rumors], 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors [of new forms] of evil, disobedient and disrespectful to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful [without pity]. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree and His judgment, that those who do such things deserve death, yet they not only do them, but they even [enthusiastically] approve and tolerate others who practice them.
If a country sacrifices it children to Moloch on the altars of abortion it is utterly corrupt and not worth preserving. A godless and immoral culture deserves to die.
If winning political power means siding with a corrupt culture then political power is not the avenue to affect actual change in the people.
This is spiritual and the crumbling of this nation is that of one under God’s wrath. To turn this ship a massive repentance is required. Republicans or democrats aren’t going to save you. They’re almost identical at this point.
Yup. The culture war is real but it's NOT the most important thing for ordinary people. Ordinary people are tired of war and inflation, and want to see government cracking down on predatory monopolies.
FWIW, Kansas isn't really a red state on cultural questions. I grew up there. The state's culture was formed by Yankees who moved there in 1855 to oppose slavery, so there's always been a streak of Wokism in modern terms. In the '60s and '70s, Kansas had several "illegal" but approved abortion clinics, which served people from nearby states where the laws were taken more seriously. Before that, Kansas was the bootlegger for Oklahoma, which was still dry until 1959.
Mr Lippincott, no, the pro-life movement isn’t done. The fact is large majorities prior to the overturning of Roe felt it had gone too far. We have a serious problem with election fraud that needed to be addressed & the #Rino leadership ignored it
Independence start at local level, not national, and that requires concentration of patriots in a smaller part so that more can be connected together into a more effective units. It’s a number game for now. We want to encourage more Blues to leave and More Reds to enter. This will help to eliminate distrust and build confidence which is needed for a more effective local action. Abortion ban will help speed the process. As the counties and states get more red, we’ll have more control and networks together to scale up.
"In the past three years I’ve heard more sermons on fighting racism and opposing the death penalty than sermons attacking abortion. This in a “conservative” church, mind you."
Interesting. I go to a Catholic church in the Detroit suburbs and the clergy are consistently overtly anti-woke/anti-abortion.
"suffered a double digit loss"
You must mean had a double digit win.
It was already widely known that a personhood amendment would lose every state in the country prior to 2016, and that allowing a GOP state leg to decide abortion restrictions would make for a close race even in a state as R as TN.
"protecting industry with tariffs"
The U.S. is already one of the most closed economies in the world:
Man, I hate to countersignal here because on fundamentals, I feel like you're right on so much.
I think this takes a good observation and takes it a bit too far.
The pro-life 'movement' is one run by aged karens and catladies. It has since time immemorial. These people are culturally and socially ill-equipped for the insane modern age we're in. But they control these organizations, coveted endorsements, and they make repeated major strategic mistakes.
For one, they stillborn effective pro-life activism. They constantly henpick and denigate anything that isn't under their control. They don't cultivate enthusiasm so there's no class of young turks who have field tested messaging, actions, new methods of outreach.
Also, they don't expand the leadership. So, in most states, you have the same people running a Right to Life chapter who were running it in the 1980s.
Third, they repeatedly let themselves get taken advantage of by RINOs. Transparently insincere RINOs get endorsements from these groups because they flatter the Karens. I've seen this so many times and no matter how much I scream, flail, and protest, 100% of the time it works everytime.
Fourth, every issue in American politics exists off of a subsidy provided somewhere that is advantageous, typically, to elites. We're fighting between NGO's on the right who are often just sophistry-machines for tax cuts, against NGO's on the left that are sophistry-machines for total cultural, religious, and civilizational destruction. In politics and economics we call this the 'tragedy of the commons' but in reality it's that good ideas often don't have a constituency.
Nobody wants to admit this, but the growth of pro-life politics became a parallel interest for elites to keep a fledging right-wing alive by peeling off 10-15% of liberals who were single-issue pro-life voters. Without abortion, we would have a one-party state run by neoliberals who control the colleges, the media, and every institution worth controlling except for the military (which they're hard at work on) and the energy industry (which they're busy destroying).
A political right without pro-life politics is left arguing inane economic theories that no one really believes, and platitudes about immigration that no elected official has the courage to fully express. That will not yield more victories.
Good points. I agree about the problem of Right to Life organizations. Generally speaking, any political movement led by women is fundamentally going to become apolitical and "cultural." That isn't how real change occurs. The deeper problem, I think, is that men don't understand the connection between their own interests and the family and wont' defend them on that ground. That is a much bigger problem.
I think, in the short term, Trump showed the electoral path forward. There aren't all that many single issue abortion voters and in 2016 most of those types didn't vote for Trump anyway but he still won.
Long term, the Right has to establish itself as an Authority and it needs to do so while recognizing that electoral majorities are not going to be on its side on a national level within 10 years (I'm being generous).
over time I think the definitions have changed. Historically the amount of single-issue pro-life voters on the political right is about 15-20%. What's happened is that I think these people have become more conservative on other issues as well, so they have evolved into something other than pro-life liberals.
What's simultaneously happened is that the left, being generally better at social engineering due to their commanding heights in culture and institutions, have radlcalized the left to sacralize abortion and morally confuse most people about the topic. They are even so adroit at this that they confuse subgenres on the right to pursue abortion policies that are obviously false and stupid.
I also dont think Trump gave up on abortion. In fact I think some of the smartest things he did was publishing a list of judges he would appoint to the Court, and then actually followed through on that list. Trump's court appointments were seen as some of his crowning accomplishments. The problem is that pro-lifers were content for the symbolic victory and have largely neglected the complex and multifaceted gains they need to simultaneously be making elsewhere at a local, state and federal level.
A professionalization of the pro-life political class is long overdue. If that happened I think you would get very different results. And the 'winningness' of the pro-life political issue, as a consequence, would be self-evident.
FWIW I once argued that, if we were completely immoral and wanted to end abortion and were true gradualist incrementalists, you could legalize slavery and just let women sell their children for $500k or so. Somehow people think it's more moral to kill the child than to enslave the child. They also think that people can go from Moloch worshippers to tradcats with just one really good argument.
Amen! Very well articulated and you’re absolutely right. Pyrrhic victory is worthless.
Thank you
Unfortunate rare terrible Josiah take. You acknowledged yourself that “America is basically ok with abortion as long as there are restrictions”. This means that an incremental approach is possible and actually likely to be popular. We can start by banning partial birth abortion, requiring parental notification for minors, 24 hour waiting periods, increase health and safety standards (require that emergencies be reported to the state health boards and be available to the public), banning tele-health visits for abortion pill prescriptions, and even 24 week bans. Late term abortion is not popular, the general American public agrees with that.
When the issue is innocent babies being ripped apart and killed in the place that they should be most safe, their own mothers womb, then it is never ok to “wrap up shop and give up”. Yes, I agree that the pro-life political strategy needs to be reevaluated and changed to incrementalism in order to win (which is most important), but pro life activism and the large organizations have been changing many hearts and minds on abortion for generations. It was their hard work that changed the culture enough to get some states to ban abortion incrementally and to establish huge networks of organizations to help women in crisis pregnancies. The pro-life movement has accomplished a lot on the individual/private basis and has done the work to save many babies and help many women. It needs to continue to be active politically, but simply with a different strategy.
Problem is: electors dislike partial birth abortion, but they simply avoid it.
But they like early abortion and know that "an incremental approach" ends with an abortion ban; and they *really* like early abortion.
Disagree, I don't care about democracy.
I agree that the pro-life movement has largely failed, mostly because we focused too much on legislation and not enough on winning hearts and minds. However, if the majority of our population just wants to kill babies, the country is not worth saving and we deserve our demise.
Like every other conservative or Republican, you're ignoring that we live in the new world of "ballot harvesting." Squads of blue hairs are waddling throughout cities gathering votes and stuffing them by the ream into ballot boxes.
Anyone with sufficient sentience to scrawl a mark across a prepared ballot is voting now.
That's why Republicans aren't going to win ever again. Even if we harvest as aggressively as the Democrats, we'll never get the numbers they will because our base is rural and suburban. An apartment block in the city has more voters than some entire counties. "Beat the streets and gather votes" has an entirely different meaning when its a dirt road and the houses are miles apart.
Bizarre to me that this fact gets so little notice. The world changed during Covid and its not going back.
If it was about ballot harvesting, explain Ohio, Kentucky, Mississipi etc.
Without abortion Trump "lost" for 41k vote in 4/5 States.
With abortion, R got massacred in Mississipi.
I think we're agreeing with each other. Ballot harvesting has allowed even reliably Republican states to swing left. All of those states have an apathetic conservative voter base that could beat Democrats most years, but now that Democrats can turn out massive vote counts from the cities the tide has turned.
In my state at least barely anyone in rural districts votes. We're talking a few thousand per county. Now that hundreds of thousands of votes can be harvested from cities that kind of turnout is pathetic.
Meh, I concur in part: you are describing a (Dems) tour out problem, but it can be addressed both with box stuffing AND abortion scaremongering. So BOTH are a problem.
All gains and losses in this era are ephemeral. There is no essential strategy or wisdom to be gleaned from the movement of broken reeds along a stream.
All of these ‘losses’ from repealing RvW et al will disappear in five years. If you become pro-abortion in that time, it shows the only non-ephemeral motion is degradation. (as expected!)
In five years you will disappear, killed by a fed or an illegal alien.
We are not discussing about abortion morality, but national survival.
If you are too obtuse to understand that a permanent Dems majority is not a good thing for the pro-life movement, you are not cut for the fight.
A permanent 'dem majority' simply cannot happen, and republicans winning doesn't produce border control. Tell me which party and its president did a huge amnesty of illegal aliens in the 80's...
You think that these elections matter still, but even if we're talking concrete policies voting patterns will shift in five years and undo changes anyway. There's no point in getting upset about it.
Your argument are completely retard. You think election do not matters, both parties are the same, but still RvW overruling (a product of voting and politicing) is important. Not abortion opposition, a specific voting-and-policing product.
You are simply coping because the next Dems administration you helped electing will provide universal free abortion.
Not sure Republicans would do any different, if you are representative, sir. Republicans and their ilk are known for conserving yesterday's liberalism, this has been a problem for over 100 years. These elections will not shift the nature of the powers-that-be in the USG, they are not worth your tears or energy.
I've worked for 3 different pro-life organizations, so I will admit that some groups are more effective in our mission than others. This is where I think your argument fails: the pro-life movement is not political, it's a cultural movement. The goal isn't just to make abortion illegal, but unthinkable to the general public. I'm an incrementalist when it comes to the legality of abortion. We're not going to completely ban abortion where our culture is right now (although I'm from Indiana and we're doing pretty well), but we can make people think more negatively about abortion. The only one who can be considered "incompetent" here is you, because you can look at the reality of 2,500 loves being lost every day and think that your politics are more important than advocating for their lives.
Good for you. This is the correct approach. I think this issue could be won if we try to win the battle of ideas vs just try to pass legislation. Both are important.
The GOP had a gold-plated opportunity when Roe was overturned. If they'd gone for something reasonable, like 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, minors, and fetal health disasters, it would've passed easily and given a solid foundation to work on the culture. Instead, they pounced on the opportunity to go for a total ban, and women started having to look up state laws so they knew whether or not to cross a state line to get to the ER in the event of a miscarriage (cue: pro-lifers who think the government can do absolutely nothing right except write abortion legislation, which they do perfectly and without even the possibility of error, in all 50 states, clicking reply to tell me that all such fears are obviously silly hysterics). Women in certain states started having to ask friends in other states: "Um, if something happens, I can visit you for a long weekend and stay in your extra bedroom....right?" Women started having to ask lawyers if they could be charged for sending Plan B to friends in other states.
Various states also went after Plan B access and even tried to make laws about women crossing state lines to get abortions-- and whether it worked or not, the very attempts solidified the idea that this is and always was about keeping government in bedrooms and controlling women's bodies, not saving babies.
This issue is a trump card in part because almost every woman has had one or more of the following experiences: 1) being raped, 2) coming very close to being raped, 3) helping a friend through the aftermath of rape, 4) having a pharmacist or doctor forget, or almost forget, to mention that a drug interaction would nullify the pill, thus opening up the possibility of pregnancy despite responsible precautions, 5) having sex when it was a little risky (like when she was distracted by her 3 yr old and took the pill ten minutes late that morning) because her husband was emotionally connecting with her and the desire to bond and strengthen the relationship outweighed cold, hard rationality in that moment, 6) the blood-freezing terror of a pregnancy scare when she was already having a hard time caring for her already-here-children.
The idea that any of these realities of life being messy and often uncontrollable could result in the government forcing her to make all the sacrifices pregnancy requires, as if she's an incubator for the state and not a human in her own right--this idea is what the right declares is not just what they want, but the very will of God, and this enough to turn many women off.
Christians who will reply to me: all I ask, before you call me a baby killer and rub your hands together in the glee of anticipating watching me roast on a spit in hell, is this: when we lose the country to the Wokies -- and we will -- if you and I end up in the same wing of the Communist gulag, do you want me to congratulate you loudly and in front of everyone for not compromising your values? Or would you prefer a quiet "I told you so" in your ear?
P.S. -- Do you pro-lifers want to strengthen marriages? Imagine--at a time in our country when almost everyone is struggling financially--marriage partners having a lot less sex because they have to plan it, be 100% sure it's exactly the safe time in her cycle plus that his condoms aren't expired, since if she gets pregnant their fragile financial condition comes tumbling down in an instant. Gosh, I wonder what a lot less sex, and the necessity of coldly scheduling and planning for sex, does for a culture of life and family?
As a lawyer, my objection to Roe was grounded in the belief that the decision was legally incorrect. Dobbs validated my opinion.
But again, as a lawyer, I know that there some human activities that cannot be prevented by laws. Prohibition was a good example of that sort of thing. Gambling is another.
I believe that abortion is yet another. Consequently, even though I am almost entirely against abortion, it is my view that the government should not pass laws making abortion illegal.
But as with drinking and gambling, I think government is capable of regulating abortion to some extent by, for example, limiting the right of minors to get abortions without parental consent, or prohibiting some methods of abortion which are inhumane.
Aside from that, it seems to me that the way forward for Republicans lies in refusing to let government finance abortions. In short, “we will not stop you from killing your baby, but we won’t help you pay for it.”
Romans 1:28-32
Amplified Bible
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, 29 until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice and mean-spiritedness. They are gossips [spreading rumors], 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors [of new forms] of evil, disobedient and disrespectful to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful [without pity]. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree and His judgment, that those who do such things deserve death, yet they not only do them, but they even [enthusiastically] approve and tolerate others who practice them.
You have two choices:
Option 1: Have your neighborhood filled wth resentful foreigners who hate you and view your death as a moral good.
Option 2: You are no longer able to kill your child if they give you the ick.
Unmarried White women almost exclusively choose option one. The 19th was a disaster for the White race.
If a country sacrifices it children to Moloch on the altars of abortion it is utterly corrupt and not worth preserving. A godless and immoral culture deserves to die.
If winning political power means siding with a corrupt culture then political power is not the avenue to affect actual change in the people.
This is spiritual and the crumbling of this nation is that of one under God’s wrath. To turn this ship a massive repentance is required. Republicans or democrats aren’t going to save you. They’re almost identical at this point.
Yup. The culture war is real but it's NOT the most important thing for ordinary people. Ordinary people are tired of war and inflation, and want to see government cracking down on predatory monopolies.
FWIW, Kansas isn't really a red state on cultural questions. I grew up there. The state's culture was formed by Yankees who moved there in 1855 to oppose slavery, so there's always been a streak of Wokism in modern terms. In the '60s and '70s, Kansas had several "illegal" but approved abortion clinics, which served people from nearby states where the laws were taken more seriously. Before that, Kansas was the bootlegger for Oklahoma, which was still dry until 1959.
Mr Lippincott, no, the pro-life movement isn’t done. The fact is large majorities prior to the overturning of Roe felt it had gone too far. We have a serious problem with election fraud that needed to be addressed & the #Rino leadership ignored it
Pro-life, Inc. is an overgrown Catholic social club. Leading the movement into electoral obscurity is the one good thing 45 did for this country.
Independence start at local level, not national, and that requires concentration of patriots in a smaller part so that more can be connected together into a more effective units. It’s a number game for now. We want to encourage more Blues to leave and More Reds to enter. This will help to eliminate distrust and build confidence which is needed for a more effective local action. Abortion ban will help speed the process. As the counties and states get more red, we’ll have more control and networks together to scale up.
I also suggest you get on the LibDem network:
https://eharding.substack.com/p/why-does-russian-physical-therapy
"In the past three years I’ve heard more sermons on fighting racism and opposing the death penalty than sermons attacking abortion. This in a “conservative” church, mind you."
Interesting. I go to a Catholic church in the Detroit suburbs and the clergy are consistently overtly anti-woke/anti-abortion.
"suffered a double digit loss"
You must mean had a double digit win.
It was already widely known that a personhood amendment would lose every state in the country prior to 2016, and that allowing a GOP state leg to decide abortion restrictions would make for a close race even in a state as R as TN.
"protecting industry with tariffs"
The U.S. is already one of the most closed economies in the world:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.IMP.GNFS.ZS