liberalism

Don’t Count Toomey Out

Calvin Freiburger Arlen Specter, conservatism, David Frum, liberalism, Pat Toomey, Republican Party, resercons, strategy

When Pat Toomey, the conservative former head of the Club for Growth, challenged liberal Republican Arlen Specter for the nomination to Specter’s seat in the US Senate, the beating Specter’s poll numbers took led him to officially move to his true spiritual home, the Democrat Party.  Predictably, resercons like David Frum wasted no time in accusing the supposedly-unelectable Toomey of giving total control of the Senate to the Democrats by needlessly taking out the Republican who had a decent shot at retaining the seat.

The polls, however, tell a different story.  Specter’s 20-point general election lead diminished by half between the beginning and the end of May, and the latest polls show no reason to put a fork in Toomey.  Specter currently leads Toomey 50-39 (Rep. Joe Sestak’s lead on Toomey is smaller at 41-35).  This would be very bad news if the election were weeks, or even a couple months, down the road, but the election is still a year away.  You don’t have to be a professional pollster to have noticed that lots can change in short periods of time.  For instance, a candidate’s connection to a psychotic reverend could come to light…

Bottom line: there’s no reason to consider this race over, and Toomey is no traitor to the “greater good” of the GOP.  Specter made the decision to leave the party precisely because he didn’t feel loyalty to its greater good.  This is the sort of man Frum thinks deserves “an honored place made in the Republican Party.”  But as the polls show, the GOP very well ma reclaim that seat next year—thanks to a candidate who has principles, for a change, someone who actually believes in his party’s platform.

UPDATE: As Ed Morrissey points out, Toomey is hardly some kind of unserious also-ran:

Toomey didn’t just come out of nowhere.  He won an election to Congress in a district best described as moderate, replacing a retiring Democratic incumbent and beating another popular Democrat by ten points.  He won re-election twice afterwards, until he kept his promise to limit himself to three terms in the House.  The notion that Toomey would only appeal to the Republican base has no evidence, other than the fears among Specter apologists.

Ground Zero: Taking Back the Schools, UPDATE: Latham Wins!

Calvin Freiburger conservatism, Constitution, dishonesty, education, Fond du Lac High School, Founding Fathers, history, liberalism, McCarthyism, me, Republican Party, revisionism, strategy

UPDATE: Chalk one up for the good guys—Mr. Latham has his job back!

Newsbusters and Fox News have the scoop (video from this morning’s Fox & Friends interview here) on Tim Latham, a high school social studies teacher who contends he’s been let go from his job merely for being a conservative.  Latham’s crimes:

– Not showing Barack Obama’s inauguration in class—never mind that he never has, and says he never would, shown video of any presidential inauguration.  Good to know that kneeling before Zod is now part of the job description.

– Having an overly-patriotic website, which states his goal to get students “to love your country, live the experiences of those who came before — to truly love the American way of life,” links to hotbeds of right-wing extremism like…uh, West Point and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and stories about terrorist attacks (which he was forced to remove).  Weird…it’s as if he thinks he’s teaching American kids or something…

– Putting a McCain-Palin bumper sticker on his car.  Doesn’t he realize that Sarah Palin is Potemkin symbolism?

His students love him and have gone to bat for him, and even the liberal kids insist he never forced his views on them.  School officials have reportedly admitted that they violated union procedures for firing teachers, and his colleagues have berated him for supporting “that woman” (hmm, that phrase sounds familiar…).  There’s nothing wrong with trying to instill honest patriotism in students—in fact, that’s precisely what a social studies teacher should do.

As far as I can tell, this is straight-up ideological persecution.  Public schools around the country are firmly in the grip of the Left—left-wing indoctrination and persecution are commonplace, and often take forms far more sinister than “to love your country.”

Make no mistake, this stuff goes on at our very own Fond du Lac High School, too.  Four of my five social studies teachers were very good and very fair, but one was a rabid antiwar, anti-Scott McCallum propagandists.  My AP English teacher had a reputation as a bitter left-wing fanatic, whose rants about Vietnam, George Bush, religion, and more would leave our class days behind schedule.  I know of a science teacher who told his students not to trust Fox News, and of another English teacher who railed against Bush (the same teacher who complained to school administration that I once uttered the phrase “God Bless America” on the intercom—which the principal later lied about).

And even when teachers aren’t pushing an agenda, textbooks often offer a flawed, biased view of American history and politics.  Some examples:

American Civics, Constitution Edition (1987) accepts the fatuous concept of the living Constitution as a given, characterizes the “Necessary & Proper” clause in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution as “allow[ing] Congress to take many actions not named in the Constitution,” never mentioning the substantial dispute over its nature early in our history, warns that “Many of [the problems in America’s schools] are caused by lack of money,” and makes no mention of the Federalist Papers.

America’s History, Fourth Edition (2000, Bedford/St. Martin’s) presents then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan as a mild, market-based solution to healthcare reform (no), wildly mischaracterizes Sen. Joe McCarthy as a lying demagogue (no), dismisses Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative as unrealistic (no), and outrageously asserts that Anita Hill’s accusations against Clarence Thomas were ignored only because there weren’t enough women in the Senate (no).

The American Pageant, Twelfth Edition (2001), the history book used in Fond du Lac High School’s AP US History courses during the 05/06 school year, also engages in vicious McCarthy revisionism, going so far as to impugn McCarthy’s military record as “trumped up,” characterizes one of Osama bin Laden’s grievances as America’s “support for Israel’s hostility to Palestinian nationalism,” adds a note into the text of the Second Amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms [i.e., for military purposes] shall not be infringed”), and downplays the religiosity of the Framers, leaving their beliefs on religion’s societal importance unmentioned.

In Vindicating Lincoln, Hillsdale College Political Science Professor Thomas Krannawitter writes:

I recently led a civic education workshop for middle and high school teachers during which I presented the different views of the Framers of the Constitution offered by Abraham Lincoln [who said the Framers believed slavery to be evil and wanted to end it] and Chief Justice Roger Taney [who said they never meant for the Declaration of Independence to include blacks, whom they saw as little more than property…] After analyzing numerous original source documents from Lincoln, Taney, and the Founders, one of the teachers raised his hand in exasperation, explaining that for twenty-five years he had been teaching American government, and all along he had unknowingly been teaching Taney’s view of the Founding, not Lincoln’s.  He went on to explain that he had not taught Lincoln’s view because he had never encountered it, that all the American history and government textbooks simply parroted Taney’s groundless description of the Founders, and that he felt cheated by his own (mis)education.

There is some evidence that leftist thinking is even embedded into the training of modern teachers—the 1993 edition of School & Society, a textbook for teacher education, paints a grim picture of a country in which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer (one can just imagine what other goodies lie inside).

The Left’s stranglehold on education is going almost completely unchallenged, which is one of the Right’s greatest failings, and nothing less than a dereliction of duty by federal, state, and local Republican parties.  No attempt to truly advance conservative ideas or repair the damage the Left has done to this country will be complete without a full-blown offensive to restore integrity, accuracy, and fair-mindedness to the schools.  Millions of children are being taught to accept at face value false premises about our form of government, historical falsehoods presented as fact, a laundry list of supposed sins tarnishing the image of their country, and other core tenets of liberalism.  As documented by David Limbaugh and Jay Sekulow & Keith Fournier, bigotry towards students’ mild, benign religious expression is commonplace.

Morally, this situation is intolerable, and demands a vigorous opposition.  But conservatives also need to realize that any effort to make the conservative case in the media or during campaigns will be at a major disadvantage as long as major portions of its audience are receiving that message through the prism of their miseducation.  Converts to the Right will be won from time to time, but many more will unwittingly adopt and internalize tenets of the Left through their taxpayer-funded miseducation.

Conservatives need to watch their school districts with a fine toothed comb.  Pay attention to what your kids encounter.  Follow the school board meetings, whether in person or on local public access television.  Go to your schools’ libraries, and see what books are and aren’t there, and in what proportion (find out if your district keeps their libraries’ catalogs computerized).  Examine the textbooks used in class every chance you get (such as when new ones are up for adoption—the FdL School District has announced that community members can review a group of new books, including 5 social studies texts, until June 22).  Whenever cause for concern arises, pursue it, offer your support to those involved, demand answers from the officials, and raise awareness however you can—newspaper letters, emails, townhall meetings, you name it.  Pay attention to what kids are saying on RateMyTeachers.com, and don’t be afraid to contribute.

In a future post, I will create a list of key falsehoods and omissions in class curriculums, and other school practices, that parents, students, and other concerned citizens should watch out for.

Granted, taking a stand against liberal indoctrination is a guaranteed way to incur the wrath of the establishment, demonized as obsessed, petty, hateful, on a vendetta to destroy education itself, with no consideration “for the children.”  It takes courage and fortitude to withstand one of the Left’s trademark intimidation campaigns.  It’s a lot to ask of any individual, which is why organizations like local GOPs ought to take the lead.  We need parties brave enough to risk the invective and take up this fight and citizens who will urge their parties to take action.  If local Republican establishments cannot be spurred to action, we need concerned citizens willing to make this stand on their own.  Making enemies is never easy, but those who want to heal this country, advance conservatism, or restore the power and credibility of the Republican Party have no choice.

Why Sotomayor Is Wrong for the Court, & What the GOP Should Do About It

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, conservatism, Constitution, Founding Fathers, judicial branch, law, liberalism, Republican Party, Sonia Sotomayor, strategy, Supreme Court

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is exactly the kind of person you don’t want on the Supreme Court.  Her infamous (and recurrent) “hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” is a clear sign that she sees issues and situations through a racial, identity-politics prism.  Her comment that the US Court of Appeals “is where policy is made” speaks for itself.  Apologists have tried to explain these statements away as if they were detached, self-evident observations about the way things are, not the way she wants them to be.  But that won’t do—we already have examples of both ideas polluting her judicial analysis.

She opposes capital punishment on the grounds that it “is associated with evident racism in our society” and once claimed that, after reviewing “the current literature of the past two years, no publications have been found that challenge the evidence and the rationale presented in opposition to the death penalty.”  She has complained that her 1998 appellate confirmation was delayed due to racism: “I was dealt with on the basis of stereotypes . . . and it was painful . . . and not based on my record…I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman and [therefore] I had to be liberal.” However, her racial sensitivity doesn’t extend to white and Hispanic firefighters denied promotions on the basis of their race.  She looks at the phrase, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” and somehow concludes that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”  She acknowledges that her judicial analysis is influenced in part by “foreign law and the international community.”

In America’s system of checks and balances, the purpose of the judicial branch is “to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws,” as Hamilton writes in Federalist 78.  He goes on to write that judges are to have an “inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals.”  The duty of a judge is to discern the plain meaning and original intent of the law.  Opinions regarding what the law should be—preferences for which policies to adopt and which to repeal—are for the elected representatives of the people to debate and enact.  Why would we even dream of giving policymaking power to unelected magistrates with lifetime offices?

Anyone familiar with the Framers’ thinking, from Federalist 10 to Washington’s Farewell Address, can attest to their belief in the importance of national unity and pursuing the common interest, and in the dangers of factional division along regional, ethnic, cultural, or religious lines.  The idea that it’s even legitimate, much less desirable, for a judge to view legal matters through any sort of racial or identity-politics prism would have been utterly alien to them.  The law is what it is, regardless of its observer, and the mark of a great judge is the ability to look beyond one’s personal baggage and prejudices to seek the truth.

Sonia Sotomayor fails this test, and her nomination doesn’t speak well of the judicial philosophy of the president who nominated her (especially considering that Obama once taught constitutional law).  As a matter of principle, her nomination ought to be opposed—but thanks to the Republican moderation mentality, that’s another can of worms.  The standard reaction to Sotomayor’s known failings by Republicans making the cable news rounds seems to be, “it’s troubling, but let’s see what she has to say during the hearings.”  Translation: “Yeah, we know it looks bad, but we don’t want to make any commitments because we’re scared that we might alienate the Hispanic vote further” (because pandering to liberal Hispanics worked out so well last year).

This is absurd.  Cowardly failure to draw clear distinctions between themselves and the Democrats got Republicans into this mess, and it’s not going to get them out of it.  The idea that whatever Sotomayor says during her job interview should carry more weight than her record is ridiculous.  And I don’t understand the idea that an opposition to this Supreme Court nominee will somehow deplete the “ammo” Republicans will need to battle the next nominee, or the idea that this battle is less important, since she’s just filling a seat that was occupied by another liberal anyway, and fighting isn’t ultimately going to keep her off the court.

Regardless of whether or not Sotomayor becomes a Justice, Republicans need to loudly oppose her nomination, for two reasons.  First, the base cannot be expected to keep fighting for Republicans if Republicans cannot be expected to fight for them.  Second, a fight over Sotomayor’s failings is an opportunity to bring attention to the underlying constitutional issues and principles at stake, which you cannot expect unconvinced Americans to adopt if you only mention them in passing during campaign season.  We always hear about the need to have a “national discussion” over this or that issue.  Well, here’s your chance.  Discuss.

Standing Up to Pro-Abortion Persecution (Updated)

Calvin Freiburger abortion, David Frum, dishonesty, evil, liberalism, murder, propaganda, resercons, strategy

Unsurprisingly, the guy campaigning for an even more liberal GOP seems to be taking the side of the demagogues using George Tiller’s murder to savage and silence the pro-life movement.  First, he uncritically links to a Gawker post characterizing Bill O’Reilly’s coverage of the Tiller case as a “holy war” and “jihad.”  Then, he and the rest of New Majority’s editors lend credence to the pro-choice hate campaign, lecturing us that “a broader self-examination is called for if we wish to claim in good conscience that our hands are clean of the next victim’s blood.”

Sorry David, but my conscience is clean.  I’m not going to accept blame for conduct that I’ve always opposed, that I’ve never presented as legitimate, carried out by a man with a history of antigovernment fanaticism and possible mental illness long before he ever saw an episode of The O’Reilly Factor.  I’m not going to pretend abortion isn’t evil just because the Left demands it.

And neither should any other pro-lifers.  This is not the time to cower in a hole and wait for it all to blow over.  Because it will never blow over.  This is what the Left is—hateful, lying, and tyrannical to the core.  Deep down, most of ‘em know better, as my rundown of their blatant double-standards shows.  They will use anything they can do delegitimize challenging speech and destroy those with whom they differ.  Appeasing them (or their enablers like Frum) is an exercise in futility.

Instead, the pro-life movement should be turning the tables on their persecutors, making an issue of how disgraceful it is to blame millions of good-natured Americans for the actions of one man.  The best defense, in this case, is a good offense, aided by the fact that we have the truth on our side.

UPDATE, 7/7/10: The old New Majority links have been fixed.  They now link to the articles at FrumForum.

George Tiller Murdered, Libs ALREADY Using Death to Smear Pro-Lifers (Updated Hypocrisy Rundown)

Calvin Freiburger abortion, blogosphere, dishonesty, evil, hypocrisy, liberalism, propaganda, religion

George Tiller, the infamous Kansas abortionist (and old pal of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius), was murdered today at his church.  A suspect is in custody.  The pro-life community is denouncing the crime, as well they should—evil though George Tiller was, he was also a human being living in a nation of laws.  Vengeance is not the same thing as justice, and we simply cannot permit people to take the law into their own hands.  His murder was un-American, un-Christian, and certainly not pro-life.

That won’t stop the propagandists of the Left from using this crime to demonize the pro-life movement—indeed, scumbags on the Daily Kos and Huffington Post are already claiming this is indicative of a broader threat of right-wing, fundamentalist terrorism (thanks, Department of Homeland Security!).

What do the facts really show?  NARAL’s own statistics on pro-life violence (PDF link) cover both the United States and Canada during the time between 1977 and 2007.  According to them, there have been:

– 7 murders
– 17 attempted murders
– 41 bombings
– 171 arsons
– 82 attempted bombings & arsons
– 574 fake anthrax letters
– 92,000 “acts of disruption” such as bomb threats & harassing calls

Assuming none of the other cases were counted among the “acts of disruption,” that’s a grand total of 92,892 acts of pro-life extremism in two countries over three decades. That sounds like a lot, but consider the following. About 99% of the acts come from the “disruption” category, and we should question exactly what constitutes a “harassing call” in NARAL’s view—I highly doubt they only counted truly violent or uncivil calls; chances are there are quite a few in that number which only consisted of arguing abortion’s morality and/or offering to pray for their forgiveness. Say what you want about the productivity or decorum of such calls, but they certainly can’t be described as malevolent in any way. Also, NARAL puts the bomb-threat number at 596, which means the overwhelming majority of the pro-life extremism in general, and of the disruptions in particular, consists of lesser acts.

As for the incidents of actual violence and genuine threat, each is inexcusable & deplorable, and no pro-lifer should tolerate them in any way. The good news is, the fanatics make up only a tiny sliver of abortion foes—consider that Pro-Life Wisconsin alone boasts the support of 14,000 families (and that many pro-lifers only belong to one of a state’s multiple pro-life groups given their differences on things like rape exceptions), and that 51% of Americans call themselves pro-life, and the serious, honorable pro-life movement easily dwarfs the unhinged.

Besides, when was the last time a liberal decided that eco-terrorism or animal-rights extremism discredited the central arguments of the environmental or animal-rights movements?  How about how Muslims who flirt with violence reflect on claims of Islamophobia?

The truth is, none of this really matters to the Left.  After all, you can never let a good crisis go to waste.

Update: Predictably, Andrew Sullivan piles on, including implying that Bill O’Reilly is partially culpable (and, incredibly, denying he did anything of the sort just hours later), and the genocide lobbyists at NARAL lecture pro-lifers on the need to denounce the murder, regardless of the fact that they already have.  To his credit, Alonzo Fyfe does the right thing.  A couple of his readers, though…

Update 2: More extremism for which the Left has a different standard:

– The Black Panthers

– The Nation of Islam

– The utterly wretched Keith Olbermann

– The hate-filled antiwar protests of the Bush years

– The most unhinged of Proposition 8’s opponents

– Rhetoric about killing President George W. Bush, including an entire movie devoted to the sick idea

– Left-wing violence against American soldiers (let me be clear: I am referring to the Flashback links Michelle Malkin has compiled, NOT to the man who killed a soldier today, whose motive we do not yet know)

– Slashing tires to sabotage your opponents’ grassroots efforts

– Actor Alec Baldwin’s tirade about killing Rep. Henry Hyde and his family

– Vile cartoonist Ted Rall

– Columnist Julianne Malveaux saying, “I hope [Justice Clarence Thomas’s] wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease

– Sen. Ted Kennedy’s famous rant about “Robert Bork’s America”

– Then-Sen. Obama’s racial demagoguery on the campaign trail

– Charming blogger Amanda Marcotte in the employ of presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards

– Wild–eyed intolerance of global warming skeptics

The movement to abolish slavery had its share of violence, too.  For instance, John Brown famously advocated, and participated in, armed insurrection.  Yet somehow I don’t think anybody would take that fact as evidence that the slaves should never have been freed.

And lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that President Barack Obama’s statement about Tiller’s murder, in which he reminds us that “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” comes from the same man who had no problem with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers.

Waste 101

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, bureaucracy, liberalism, waste

Fox News has a few videos from last night’s special, “Waste 101,” in which Sean Hannity highlights 101 examples of wastefully-spent taxpayer dollars from the stimulus bill Barack Obama is so very proud of (and is so wonderful that new restrictions on criticizing it are in order).  It’s more of the same crap that groups like Club for Growth and Citizens Against Government Waste have been sounding the alarm on for years—bridges named after politicians, useless government make-work jobs, gifts to lobbyists and special interests, obscure scientific research, et cetera.  It puts the lie to the claim that Obama and the Democrats have any interest in fiscal responsibility.

Two points, though.  First, this is from the guy who not only claimed to be different (which all politicians do), but based his entire campaign on the concept.  Second, not only does Obama reflect all the problems of the status quo, but he amplifies them: Hannity’s rundown totaled over a billion dollars, out of a $787 billion bill, meaning it barely scratches the surface of the waste this administration has already spent in less than half a year in office—and there’s more where that came from.

Cleaning up the mess the 44th president is making is not going to be a fun task.

PS: Wisconsin Dems are no better.

How Is Colin Powell “Still a Republican?”

Calvin Freiburger Colin Powell, conservatism, liberalism, Republican Party, resercons

Ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell insists he’s “still a Republican” despite opposing the GOP platform on abortion, affirmative action, voting for the hard-left Barack Obama, and recently advocating “sharing the wealth of the country not only with the rich, but with those who are least advantaged in society.”  If so, then Powell needs to explain what aspects of the Republican platform he hasn’t rejected, which issues on which he agrees with conservatives rather than liberals.

Reflections on Election Day, and a Look to the Future

Calvin Freiburger 2008, America, conservatism, Democrats, GOP, liberalism, McCain, Obama, RINOs
(This post was written on November 5.)
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Last night was a disaster for America. Barack Obama—a man whose lack of character and cultural, economic, and foreign-policy liberalism have been so extreme as to force disgruntled conservatives (myself included) into the arms of longtime foe John McCain—is the president-elect of the United States, and he will enjoy expanded majorities in both houses of Congress to pursue his agenda. Michigan voted to legalize medical marijuana and affirm embryonic stem-cell research, and pro-life referendums failed in South Dakota & Colorado (conservatives did win several marriage battles, though). Heck, Jack Murtha was sent back to the House by the same people he called racists just weeks before!
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With conservatives’ worst fears realized, I should be upset, depressed, or scared out of my mind. But honestly, I don’t feel any of those things today.
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Don’t get me wrong—I still fear what’ll happen to our liberties, our economy, and the continued deaths of unborn babies, and though I pray I’m wrong, I don’t doubt for a second that we’ll see the first terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, within Obama’s first term. We’re in for some mighty interesting times.
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And yet I’m not panicky or bitter. Maybe it’s because the outcome could have been seen coming miles away (really, is anyone surprised?). I remember watching McCain win the GOP primary back in February with an unshakable conviction that I was witnessing Obama’s victory right then & there. Out of the Republican contenders, McCain may not have been the worst choice (that would be Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul, in my opinion), but I’m certain any of them (well, ‘cept the Paulestinian) would have run a better campaign. A few exceptions—like Obama’s scandals with Jeremiah Wright, his unpatriotic wife, and infanticide; McCain’s eye-catching performance at Rick Warren’s Saddleback forum, or the rise of Sarah Palin—gave me hope for a while, but ultimately they couldn’t compensate for the inherent failings of the candidate.
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Evidently McCain got a whopping 20% of the Hispanic vote (Bush got 40%). Obviously, the gamble to lure moderates & independents to the ticket at the expense of the base worked reeeaaaaaal well, didn’t it?
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What I’m trying to say is this: last night may have been a victory for liberalism, but (counterintuitive though it may sound) that doesn’t mean it was a failure for conservatism. It wasn’t a principled conservative candidate that Obama defeated, after all. Consider the fact that the same California that voted for Obama 61% to 37% also (narrowly) voted to defend traditional marriage. California, of all places! Seems to me a pretty clear indication that it could only have helped McCain to embrace social issues (I think I can count on one hand the number of times I heard McCain address social issues during the entire race—including when Obama’s support for the most evil extreme of abortion yet came to light).
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It wasn’t conservatism that soured the American people to the Republican Party over the past 8 years. It was corruption, amnesty, and a White House that refused to reevaluate its Iraq strategy until the electoral winds of 2006 gave it no choice.
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The Democrats will have tremendous power come January 21, but it’s not a blank check: Congress’ abysmal approval ratings won’t magically rebound overnight, and according to a new Rasmussen poll, voters’ confidence in the outcome of the Iraq War is increasing. If the Dems get too ambitious, they just might find they’re playing with fire.
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Blaming the American people for not trusting the GOP won’t do any good. Throwing in the towel and proclaiming the twilight of the republic won’t, either. Now’s the time for all of us to be more vigilant than ever—towards both Obama and his pals on Capitol Hill, and our Republican representatives, who (in case they didn’t get the message) need to hear loud and clear that we demand integrity and conservatism.
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Old Glory’s been in tough spots before, and it’s always darkest just before the dawn. But hang in there; now’s the time to get up, dust ourselves off, and prepare for the next battle.

Obama: The Pro-Infanticide Candidate

Calvin Freiburger 2008, abortion, Democrats, dishonesty, evil, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Illinois, infanticide, letters, liberalism, lying, murder, Obama, propaganda, reporter, scandal

Covered in my latest letter to the Fond du Lac Reporter:

After an Illinois hospital left a newborn who survived an abortion to starve to death in a closet, the state senate considered legislation protecting the rights of babies born alive during attempted abortions (SB1082) in 2001. Barack Obama opposed it. Now he says he would have voted yes if the bill included language guaranteeing it wouldn’t be used someday to undermine Roe v. Wade.

He’s essentially saying that newborns dying of starvation matters less than the legal standing of Roe, which is horrible enough (remember, reversing Roe would NOT ban abortion—it would just restore the people’s right to vote on abortion policy). But incredibly, the story gets even worse: we now know Obama is lying about his motivations.

In 2003, Illinois lawmakers tried again, now with the very language Obama claims was the original dealbreaker (Senate Amendment 001). At the time, Obama chaired the health committee, which unanimously added the language—only for Obama to vote no anyway, killing it before it reached the senate floor [PDF link]. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that he recently told Pastor Rick Warren that figuring out when people have human rights was “above his pay grade.”

This is every bit as evil as slavery. It’s shocking that a United States Senator could so callously disregard both his first duty (“to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men”), and basic human decency and compassion—and appalling that a mainstream political party could nominate such a man for the presidency. All Americans—liberal, conservative, and independent—who have any sort of conscience should be utterly disgusted by this man. Obama doesn’t want to heal the sins of the past—he just wants to trade them for brand-new ones in the future.

Aside from his above lie, Obama and his apologists have deployed a full-blown revolving door of excuses for his vote.

They claim Illinois law already had sufficient protections in place for born-alive infants. But that’s not true; the law in question, as Ramesh Ponnuru notes, said only fetuses of “sustainable survivability” would be protected, so any fetus deemed “pre-viable” would not be protected—SB1082 was intended to clear up any ambiguity.

They have argued that there was no evidence what Jill Stanek alleged actually happened. But according to a US House Judiciary Committee report, another Christ Hospital nurse, Allison Baker, gave consistent testimony, and the committee found:

When allegations such as these were first made against Christ Hospital, the hospital claimed that this procedure* was only used ‘‘when doctors determine the fetus has serious problems, such as lack of a brain, that would prevent long-term survival.” Later, however, the hospital changed its position, announcing that although it had performed abortions on infants with non-fatal birth defects, it was changing its policy and would henceforth use the procedure to abort only fatally-deformed infants.

* meaning, as described by the report: ‘‘induced labor’’ or ‘‘live-birth’’ abortions, a procedure in which physicians use drugs to induce premature labor and deliver unborn children, many of whom are sometimes still alive, and then simply allow those who are born alive to die.”

The Illinois Department of Health and Human Services failed to act on the charges not because they thought they weren’t happening, but merely because “abortion procedures” and “the rights of newborns” were beyond the scope of their office.

According to the National Right to Life Committee:

Obama’s defenders now (August 19, 2008) insist that the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was not needed because, they claim, Illinois already had a 1975 law “that requires doctors to provide medical care in the very rare case that babies are born alive during abortions.” They fail to mention that the law covered only situations where an abortionist decided before the abortion that there was “a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb.” Humans are often born alive a month or more before they reach the point where such “sustained survival” — that is, long-term survival — is possible or likely (which is often called the point of “viability”). Moreover, this already-weak law was further weakened by a consent decree issued by a federal court in 1993, which among other things permanently prohibits state officials from enforcing the law’s definitions of “born alive,” “live born,” and “live birth.” To read or download the consent decree, click here.

Obama has also expressed indignation at the implication inherent in the legislation that doctors would ever do such a thing to a newborn. This is an idiotic reason to oppose a law—society makes laws precisely because some people will do wrong; one might as well be offended at speed limits in school zones because they imply a driver would ever drive irresponsibly with children present. But it’s also meaningless because, again, Christ Hospital admitted it, and the Committee report also found evidence of similar incidents elsewhere in the US and in other nations. Clearly, not everyone licensed to practice medicine is a saint.

They say bills Obama opposed had language “clearly threatening Roe.” That language? “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law” (emphasis added). Come on, nobody with any self-respect can parrot this one with a straight face. It specifically refers to children who have already been born, which is exactly where most pro-choicers tell us they draw the line anyway.

They have also said that “even if the federal and state versions had identical language, they would have very different consequences. The federal government doesn’t have a law regulating abortion, so Congress could pass a ‘born alive’ measure without actually affecting anything. But Illinois has an abortion law that would be muddled by changing the definition of a person with full rights.” Please, do we really have to go over how transparent and stupid this one is?

They claim the bill was part of a package deal which went further, but as NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson notes, “Obama confuses these bills, which were entirely separate. They had sequential numbers, but they were not in any way linked. To call them a package is a tactic to try to reach out and grab issues in an attempt to divert attention from this one.”

And then, of course, it’s kinda hard to get past what Obama said at the time.

Further coverage:
–
Jill Stanek’s blog
“Life with Obama” and “Life Lies” by David Freddoso
“Why Obama Really Voted for Infanticide” by Andrew McCarthy
“Dead Weight” by the National Review Editors
Red State
FactCheck.org: Obama and ‘Infanticide’ (though it should be noted that Fact Check does not devote the same level of detail to the claim Illinois already protected newborns as it does to Obama’s dishonesty, which they have confirmed is false)

These will be ignored or decried by the shameless propagandists whose ideological bias is so deep that not even infanticide can reawaken their consciences, but cries of “right-winger” or “theocon fundie” are no substitute for providing and refuting facts.

Facts are stubborn things. The evidence is clear, and the bottom line is this: Barack Obama was presented with the scenario of live, newborn, babies being starved to death by the very doctors who delivered them—and decided the continued possibility of this happening was preferable to a nonexistent threat to the logic of Roe v. Wade.