From this article by columnist Ben Shapiro:
"President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. According to RealClearPolitics, his favorability ratings now stand at just 41 percent -- near-historic lows. This means that Democrats have the upper hand heading into 2020. All they have to do is not be radically insane. And they just can't do it."
I don't agree with everything Shapiro says in his article. Some of the things he considers radical, such as Medicare for all, I don't consider all that radical. Just impossible at this time. However, what he says here, about Howard Schultz's announcement that he would run as an Independent is well worth pondering:
"Now, Schultz may be a boring billionaire, but at least he isn't pushing proposals so loony they alienate vast swaths of the American public. Democrats want to have it both ways: They want to push radical leftist policy, but they don't want the blowback such policies entail. They want to pretend that radical leftism is popular even as they implicitly acknowledge the fact that it's not all that popular."
Not included in Shapiro's article is any discussion of New York's new abortion law. However it would make my list of things which may alienate large swaths of the American public. The America Magazine site has a good discussion by Sam Sawyer, SJ, of this subject
From the article:
"….the law is of huge symbolic importance. It announces that pro-choice activists and their political allies have no interest in or intention of settling for abortion that is “safe, legal and rare.” It has systematically eliminated any legal recognition, no matter how meager, that an unborn child could be worthy of protection or concern, following a playbook that argues that any acknowledgment of “fetal personhood” must be essentially anti-woman."
"The tragedy of this law is not only that it makes late-term abortions more available in New York. The bigger tragedy is that it more deeply entrenches our divisions over abortion by adopting the most absolutist pro-choice position imaginable and leaves New Yorkers less able to work together to address or even acknowledge the factors that contribute to our state’s catastrophically high abortion rate."
"The tragedy of this law is not only that it makes late-term abortions more available in New York. The bigger tragedy is that it more deeply entrenches our divisions over abortion by adopting the most absolutist pro-choice position imaginable and leaves New Yorkers less able to work together to address or even acknowledge the factors that contribute to our state’s catastrophically high abortion rate."
In conclusion, from Shapiro's article:
"There's an easy answer to the Schultz conundrum for Democrats: Stop embracing the radical id of your own base."
Let's take a look at one policy area, climate change. Who has the policy position most closely aligned to the prognostications of climatologists and ecologists? AOC. She proposes that minimizing climate change is our WWII and will require a similar level of effort. She is spot on with this. They can say that this is not feasible, that it must be subject to political compromise, however, there's no compromise with physics. My opinion is, if she is so exactly right about this, she can't be too wrong about everything else. These voices of whizdumb like Shapiro and Schultz are only trying to restrict the steering range of the ship of state while there are icebergs ahead. As for abortion, most people don't abort and why should they be collectively punished in myriad ways for the decisions of individuals. There's no one-child government policy forcing women to abort their unborn. As pro-abortion as Cuomo is, he's not rounding up pregnant women and dragging them to the shop vac. Unlike China, they're free to have the babies.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Warren has a 99% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. She has described climate change as an economic disaster; that may get people's attention more than AOC's approach.
DeleteWarren's fine with me. I don't trust Harris very much, though, of course, I'd vote for her over Trump.
DeleteOpening Rant: The convention center in Kansas City, Mo. is named for H. Roe Bartle, who had businesses and was prominent in Scouting but who, it was explained to me, was the last American to earn his living by giving speeches. He died in 1974. He did not live to see the number of platforms available to people who say what rich people want to hear said. And so we have Ben Shapiro, author of seven books between the ages of 17 and his current 35, columnist, podcaster, speaker, debater, TV moosehead -- a veritable walking Webster's spouting on matters here and there he has never experienced but only talked about. He's cute; he debates well, but why does any adult pay attention?
ReplyDeleteOK, with that off my chest, what Shapiro says has some kind of conventional wisdom validity. You really can go too far to get elected in the United States, although what is too far has been redefined outward by our gabby, grabby incumbent. The Rs have made it difficult for Ds to start any programs that would do any, um, real people any real good. Just yesterday, the Treasury Department announced that the federal debt reached unreachable levels unheard of in our arithmetic. You'll hear a lot about that when the Ds return to the White House. Well, when you cut taxes and increase spending, debt is what happens. Reagan did it, both Bushes did it, Trump is doing it. Never bothers Republicans when they are doing it because they allow themselves cuts that pay for themselves and magic asterisks. But let the word get out that the government has something for non-billionaires, and the ghost of Fiscal Responsibility Past rattles his chains.
DeleteNow some of the D hopefuls, including some I think are too wet behind the ears to be seriously considered, are talking about that exact point. And in simple words people can understand. And people, it appears, are beginning to hear them. If the Ds stick to that message until it has taken hold, they win. If they go off that message with Medicare for everyone and free college for all, they will be drawing conclusions before they have made the point of which they have to convince the country.
About Shapiro, he's not one of my favorite columnists either. However, as they say, a stopped clock is right twice a day. I believe he is correct that Democrats need to not alienate large swaths of the public if we don't want a second Trump term.
DeleteConservatives are reacting. Alexandra DeSanctis wrote this yesterday at National Review's site:
ReplyDelete"Late this afternoon, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) called for the Senate to vote on Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — which bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on scientific research suggesting that fetuses can begin to feel pain at that stage of development — in light of Northam’s comments in this morning’s interview. He also noted that the Democratic primary candidates for president should be asked about their stance on extreme abortion bills such as those in Virginia and New York."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/virginia-governor-defends-letting-infants-die/
"Northam" refers to Virginia Democratic governor Ralph Northam. He has come out in favor of a bill introduced by Democratic state lawmaker Kathy Tran that permits abortion even while the mother is in labor. Northam unleashed controversy by going even farther than that provision of the bill, making some verbal comments that implied he'd permit already-born infants to die if that was the wish of the parents (such as because of a severe birth defect). Northam has been attempting to walk back that implication.
Also at National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru notes, referring to the New York law and the Virginia bill, "The central provisions of these laws and proposed laws do not liberalize abortion policy beyond the status quo. The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence has for decades effectively forbidden any state from prohibiting abortion even late in pregnancy ... But most people are unaware of how expansive the Court’s rulings have been, which lowers the political cost for politicians who take this view. (For that matter, some of those politicians must be ignorant of this point as well.) Supporters of the country’s expansive abortion regime now fear that the Supreme Court will retreat from it, either by declaring that the Constitution permits states to protect unborn children in general or by letting them offer more protection. That’s why they are pushing legislation in the states to codify that regime. It is an effort that is forcing supporters of abortion to be a little more candid about what they really want: an extreme regime that denies any meaningful protection to unborn children and threatens the protection for born ones."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/infanticide-craze-new-york-virginia-abortion-laws/
You guys are so with-it ... I had to Google to figure out who AOC was :-)
ReplyDeleteMy feeling about her is that she's awfully talkative for someone who has been in office less than a full month.
DeleteJim, With it? Everyone uses her initials because no one can remember her name. Oh, well, Nixon always wanted them to use RMN, as in FDR and JFK. But Nixon was short enough for headlines.
DeleteI am trying to figure out if Warren is experienced enough to do foreign affairs, and now we have a set of initials with an office of her own lining up a campaign staff.
Since AOC aligns with my views, I want her to be as outspoken as possible. She has received support from Paul Kruger on her 70% tax and climatologists like Michael Mann for the Green New Deal. The Democratic party rolled over like a puppy dog after Reagan's win. AOC is doing what the Democrats should have been doing for years and she has to make up for lost time. There IS urgency and timidity may prove fatal.
DeleteAOC is guilty of a lot of inaccuracies, and she talks about herself and responds to personal attacks too much. She might mellow, but sometimes she acts like a teenager having high school spats. I realize Trump has lowered the bar on political behavior, but ...
DeleteGeorge Will stopped just short of endorsing Amy Klobuchar. Apparently, he believes she is thoughtful, cheerful, pragmatic, listens, can solve problems, and knows how to make policy. Possibly she is also thrifty, brave, and trustworthy.
ReplyDeleteShe follows the party line on the main planks, including abortion, but she has also worked across the aisle and has pushed through an impressive number of bills.
I don't look for her to make a bunch of pie-in-the-sky promises while walking around in tight suits and stilettos. Or to yammer ceaselessly about her ethnic and gender creds.
https://www.twincities.com/2019/01/31/amy-klobuchar-klobuchar-could-break-minnesotas-presidential-losing-streak/
From the little I know about AK she deserves that I find out more. Her quasi endorsement by the butler to the Midwestern Upper Class is not a mark in her favor, though.
DeleteWill seems to have given up entirely on the GOP since Trump. I think he's still an insufferable prig, but not sure that automatically makes Klobuchar tainted goods.
DeleteKlobuchar sounds promising. We'll see how she does in the primaries. Speaking of which, I don't like the way they are done. The states, such as ours, which have late primaries, usually find themselves with a very attenuated list of candidates. It seems like it would be better to have the primaries a lot closer together.
DeleteYeah, why can't they all be on the same day?
DeleteTo toss one more set of ideas into the mix of the veer left among Democratic candidates and thought leaders: I had occasion in a recent post to quote from NY Times opinion writer David Leonhardt's daily newsletter. Here is a long passage from another recent daily edition. This day's main theme happened to be entitled "The Howard Shultz delusion". Here he sets the general context for that specific delusion by noting what American voters actually prefer:
ReplyDelete"When I was in college, a fair number of my fellow students liked to describe themselves as “socially liberal and economically conservative.” This was the 1990s, when Bill Clinton’s “third way” was thriving, and I was attending a college — Yale — where the student body was predominantly affluent.
"When members of the national media — whose incomes also tend to be above average — describe the prototypical centrist voter, this is the same image they often have in mind: socially liberal and economically conservative.
"But it’s a big myth.
"True, many high-income voters are socially liberal and economically conservative. They aren’t particularly religious and generally agree with the Democratic Party on social issues, like abortion, affirmative action and immigration. On economic issues, though, these affluent voters lean to the center if not the right. They don’t like talk of 70 percent marginal tax rates, and they favor cuts to Medicare and Social Security (which they describe as “entitlement reform”).
"Many commentators share these views, and they commit a classic version of the pundit fallacy: They confuse their own beliefs with the country’s. They fool themselves into thinking that “socially liberal and economically conservative” is a good campaign strategy. This is precisely the theory that seems to motivate Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks C.E.O. now planning an independent run for president.
"In reality, the American public is closer to being “socially conservative and economically liberal” than the reverse.
On the socially conservative part: More than half of Americans say they pray daily. About 53 percent say abortion should be legal either “only in a few circumstances” or never. Almost 70 percent say illegal immigration is a “very big” or “moderately big” problem. On some of these subjects, the answers can depend on the precise phrasing of poll questions. But you have to twist the data pretty hard to create a portrait of a secular, liberal majority on most social issues.
"Economic policy is very different. Large majorities of Americans oppose cuts to Medicare and Social Security and favor expanded Medicaid. They favor higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. They favor a higher minimum wage and more aggressive government action to create jobs. No wonder: Incomes for most Americans have been growing painfully slowly for most of the past four decades."
As it happens, I'm socially conservative and economically conservative. Once I had a party. But that's a different topic than the one at hand.
I think that is true, that the American voter is closer to being "socially conservative and economically liberal".
DeleteAlso, I have thought that the abortion rights fanatics are similar to the gun rights fanatics, albeit on different sides of the ideological divide. Both have an issue that is a "sine qua non". And both sacred cows are destructive to society and individuals, and draw time, energy, and attention away from other urgent issues.
I think it is absurd that daily prayer = socially conservative. I pray every day. My personal life is pretty conservative/conventional, but I'm not interested in making laws that force everyone else to fit that mold.
Delete"My personal life is pretty conservative/conventional, but I'm not interested in making laws that force everyone else to fit that mold."
DeleteI guess I'm more or less the same way. In general, I'm not very Libertarian, so I may have marginally more interest in laws that constrain personal behavior. For example, I'm skeptical about granting carte blanche to consumers and purveyors of marijuana (while also deploring the mass criminalization of casual and small-time drug consumption). And I don't view abortion as a matter of private choice, as though there were no social implications. It's fair game for regulation, in my book.
I didn't know daily prayer meant socially conservative, though I suppose I am, to an extent. I am " live and let live" about social issues, unless it hurts somebody.
DeleteI certainly agree that the Democrats need to appeal to disaffected voters, and we know that abortion is a big negative. But most Democratic issues are now a negative for less liberal voters. And we always have to remember that most citizens don’t vote, so it’s the ideologues who need to be persuaded. It seems to me that it’s extremely unlikely that core Trump voters will abandon him. The Democrats need to find a platform that will bring in the disaffected and fire up their own base. It’s a tightrope, but that’s what professional politicians (as opposed to successful but demagogic amateurs) are supposed to do. The key thing is that after the primary fights, we need a candidate behind whom all the wings can unite. Will such a unicorn, such a phoenix, appear?
ReplyDeleteIt used to be kind of a truism that a candidate would try to appeal to the base which was farther to the right or the left to get elected, then tack to the center to actually govern. But that certainly hasn't happened with the present administration. Yes, we need that unicorn or phoenix.
DeleteLet's be careful about going overboard in being solicitous about those independent voters. They are not sitting on a mountaintop carefully weighing the issues. Most of them lean Democratic, so they are the D's to lose, and the ones who truly lean neither way don't vote. See E. J. Dionne on WaPo polling:
ReplyDeletettps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/howard-schultz-is-suffering-from-the-frappuccino-syndrome/2019/01/30/8e7fe028-24cf-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html?utm_term=.a3728bc32895
I've always registered in the party most likely to have contested primaries where I live. I used to identify as Democrat and still do from time to time, but more and more I identify as independent. In recent years I have been voting against, not for. We were talking about it in my men's group the other morning, and summoning up my experience interviewing candidates from school board to POTUS, I said if they were looking for Caesar's wife, they wouldn't be able to vote at all because the only morally flawless candidates I ever saw were so dumb they wouldn't be able to find a men's room in Tallahassee with a year for looking.
I will stand by that outburst.
I haven't been enthused by a presidential candidate since Walter Mondale. I knew we were going to lose that one. I do vote for Rs, but that is when the D manages to be more egregious than the R, which is difficult around here.
I press the big D button these days especially for state elections since the main function of R state legislatures is to gerrymander like hell and keep the minority R party in power.
DeleteJim: I don't view abortion as a matter of private choice, as though there were no social implications. It's fair game for regulation
ReplyDeleteHow do you define "regulation", Jim?
Over the years I moved from fairly militant pro-life to where Jean ad Katherine are.
I would like to see "regulation" - basically, I would love to see abortion limited to the first 8-12 weeks except when it is needed to save the life of the mother. And yes, I do put the mom's life as the priority, not the life of the fetus, unlike the bishop in Tucson, and in Ireland, and in a number of other cases.
So - a complete ban? A shortened legal period for abortion? Requirements for waiting periods and/or sonograms?
For me, all of these would be reasonable EXCEPT for a complete ban even in early pregnancy.
My main problem with a total ban is that it would be based on the religious beliefs of a sub-group of Americans. Even in Catholic teaching, abortion was not seen as the 'murder" of a child, which did not occur until "ensoulment" - thought to be about 40 days by Aquinas.
I don't believe that Catholics, or christians in general, have any more right to impose their religious beliefs on the entire country than I believe that the religious-based beliefs of Christian Scientists or Jehovah's Witnesses regarding medical care should be imposed legally on all Americans.
Yet conservative christian beliefs are being imposed more and more frequently, permitted by our completely non-christ-following President for his own political purposes.
Catholics and evangelicals scream loudly that their religious freedom is more important than the religious freedom of those who do not follow the same beliefs. Thus the country seems to be sanctioning discrimination by business owners. landlords, etc due to sexual preference based on "religious beliefs". Tax-supported Catholic agencies that serve the general public with staff who are hired for their knowledge and skills, not their religion, are denied contraceptive coverage. Etc.
This is exactly how those who discriminated against African Americans justified that discrimination for a couple of hundred years - justifying slavery first, and then discrimination after the Civil War.
I was somewhat amused to read that Dwight Longenecker, the extreme right (married) Catholic priest convert blogger at Patheos, is incensed that the Evangelical agency that places children in foster homes in his town of Greensboro, SC will be allowed to continue to place them only in weekly church going evangelical protestant homes. He is upset that Catholics are being discriminated against (it was the request of a Catholic to be a foster parent that set the whole legal thing off). This group does receive federal funding BTW. So they are discriminating against taxpayers of different religions. Yet Longenecker himself was upset when tax supported Catholic adoption agencies were told they could not discriminate against gay couples in placement if they were to continue receiving taxpayer money.
https://religionnews.com/2019/01/30/s-c-foster-care-agency-tests-publics-will-to-exclude-on-the-basis-of-faith/
Some christians (including one of my sisters and her husband) who have swallowed all the lies about Muslims are convinced that the Muslims are conspiring to take over the governments of our country at all levels and impose sharia law. Given that Muslims are only about 1.1% of the US population, this seems a bit far-fetched. My sister was shocked to learn how few Muslims there actually are in this country.
But why object to that if they don't object to evangelical christians/conservative Roman Catholics working to impose their personal religious beliefs on all?
Besides my concerns about religious freedom in the US, I also moved away from the militant pro-life movement after a few very disillusioning experiences related to the movement. I will not go into those now however.
Religious freedom is often a cover for religious domination. Some idiot in the Michigan Legislature insisted we have a creche on the Capitol lawn every year ... and this means the Satanists put up their "snaketivity" scene (though this year it was a "goativity," because nobody could find the snakes).
Deletehttps://www.mlive.com/news/2018/12/satanic-group-plans-to-resurrect-holiday-display-at-michigan-capitol.html
Religious symbols, imo, have no place in the public square. Not even Christmas trees and Santa Claus on a fire truck. If legislators want to celebrate Jesus, maybe they could pass some laws that help the sick, the aged, and poor people.
Jean, no kidding, "snaketivity" scenes? What'll they come up with next!
DeleteMichael Sean Winters has a good discussion of New York's law and why we can expect more of same, on the NCR site.
DeleteYou can see.pictures of snaketivity in the link.
DeleteI don't know why Winters capitulated so easily in abortion-by-pill if he thinks it is wrong in every single case.
But I am not going to argue abortion on here. I heard of too many terrible obstetrical problems and gray areas when I worked in the hospital to be a friend to the screamers on either side.
I think MSW still belives abortion by pill is wrong but thinks that realistically it's not amenable to regulation in the same way that a surgical procedure is, especially since it would have to occur very early on.
DeleteRBG's health may have as much to do with the 2020 election than anything else. While there is a lot of chatter about Roe, there are any number of other issues--from health care to find to free speech--that might be affected as RBG's tenure winds down. Not to be ghoulisg, but odds are that whoever is elected in 2020 will be naming her replacement.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for her, because she is under tremendous pressure to hang in there, even though she's 85?(I think) and probably would like to go home and take it easy.
DeleteI have said before that I think it's time for term limits for the SCOTUS, say 18 years.
I have never heard that she wants to retire, and, as a retiree, I find going home to languish until death comes a-knockin' a charmless existence.
DeleteThat prickly little rant aside, I think 15 years on the court is long enough for anyone, regardless of age.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI will get it right yet: how about 25 years or age 75, whichever comes first.
Delete"I don't believe that Catholics, or christians in general, have any more right to impose their religious beliefs on the entire country than I believe that the religious-based beliefs of Christian Scientists or Jehovah's Witnesses regarding medical care should be imposed legally on all Americans. "
ReplyDeleteReally? That's how you position abortion: as a 'religious group imposing their beliefs on the entire country'?
Let's set aside for the moment that there are many religious groups, including many non-Christian groups, and many people that don't practice nor profess any particular religion, that oppose abortion. In line with Catholic teaching, I happen to think matrimony should be between two people, not four or five or 15. But apparently, using your line of thought here, religious groups that think men are entitled to numerous 'sister-wives' should be allowed to have them; otherwise, a religious group (Christians) is imposing its beliefs on others.
Obamacare was passed when it was supported by a distinct minority of the country. How dare they impose their ethical beliefs on the whole country?
I don't oppose abortion because I want to impose Catholic beliefs on the rest of the country. I oppose it because killing infant human beings is deeply immoral.
Jim, Not to pick on you -- because I've done it, too, but it's hard for Catholics to make that case in public because so many of their co-religionists and reputed leaders have attached contraception to abortion, making it a 6th Commandment, not 5th issue. In the course of a discussion I was having with a deacon of about your years, I explained that when I was receiving my Catholic education, abortion, contraception, fornication and masturbation were all lumped together as "always mortal" sins against #6. A Church that lumps abortion and masturbation in the same stew is a Church NOT in a position to speak of abortion as murder.(We know she's having it now because she had illicit fun then, and it's really the illicit fun we oppose.) I imagine you will find this, well, odd. But it's the way I was originally taught. (My thinking, one might say, has evolved.)
ReplyDeleteTom, I was not aware of that history of lumping abortion in with sins against chastity. I only went to Catholic grade school (that is until I went my freshman year in college to a Catholic school). They didn't talk much at all about sexual stuff in grade school. I always just assumed abortion to be under "Thou shalt not kill".
DeleteJim, your belief that abortion is the killing of a human being is based on your religion. The Catholic church teaches that a fertilized ovum with a couple of cells is a human being and that contraceptive methods such as IUDs that interfere with implantation (when cell multiplication and differentiation begin,) are murder. Yes, there are some from non-christian religions and of no religion who believe the same thing. But the polls indicate that most Americans support keeping abortion legal for the first 12 weeks at least. By 12 weeks, the brain and nervous system are finally present, and the systems and organs needed to be a human being are there. The developing body is no longer an embryo, but a fetus. So after the first trimester, support for abortion during the remainder of pregnancy falls because people now believe that the fetus , while not yet fully developed, is a human being.
ReplyDeleteMost do not think that a blastocyst is a human being. They think instead that it is a potential human being. They don't think that an embryo that is smaller than a grain of rice is a human being. They think it is a potential human being. For much of its history, the Catholic church did not teach that an embryo was really a human being until around 7 or 8 weeks of pregnancy, based on the religious notion of ensoulment. So the church itself has changed its own understanding over the centuries.
Almost all abortions are performed by 12 weeks, with the biggest percentage by 6 – 8 weeks.
So the really hard question involves trying to discern when the potentiality of being a human being becomes the actuality. I don't have the answer to that, and I don't think you do either.
I don't have the answers to any of these questions, but since the US is a religiously pluralistic country, it seems that it is important to respect the beliefs of the majority.
The pro-life movement needs to support the programs that provide the practical support that might encourage pregnant women to carry their pregnancies to term. Catholic schools should not fire pregnant teachers who are single and have chosen to have their child. That simply leaves the pregnant woman without an income, and without health insurance for medical during pregnancy, for birth, and for the child's medical needs after birth. So, what the school is actually doing is making it hard for the single female teacher to have her baby and support it, thus encouraging her to have an abortion so she can keep her job.
Unfortunately, the many supports needed are not available to many women, and it seems that most in the pro-life movement oppose many support measures- including subsidizing health insurance for pregnancy, birth, and for the children who are born, supporting subsidies for child care so women can work to support their children, etc. Most in the pro-life movement support Republican candidates who want to gut social safety nets, deny women access to affordable and reliable contraception, etc.
"Jim, your belief that abortion is the killing of a human being is based on your religion. The Catholic church teaches that a fertilized ovum with a couple of cells is a human being"
DeleteThat people with the genetic makeup of a human being are human beings isn't a matter of religious belief; it's a matter of straightforward science. That my church accepts that scientific fact is one of the reasons I'm very happy to be Catholic.
Many people may believe that human beings aren't human beings; I can't help the silly and stupid things that many people believe.
I don't think we should kill human beings. I believed that during a period of my life when I didn't have a particular attachment to the Catholic church, and I believe it today. The Catholic church also happens to believe that, but that doesn't make it a "Catholic belief" in the sense that it's some loony and patently false thing that only Catholics believe, and certainly isn't a case of the Catholic church seeking to impose some sectarian belief on the rest of the world.
"The pro-life movement needs to support the programs that provide the practical support that might encourage pregnant women to carry their pregnancies to term. Catholic schools should not fire pregnant teachers who are single and have chosen to have their child."
DeleteI hadn't heard that before, that Catholic schools fire unmarried pregnant teachers. I did a very little poking around in Google; seems there have been a handful of instances in the last 10-15 years that have made news reports. Whether there also are instances of unmarried pregnant teachers keeping their jobs, I wasn't able to find any reports, but perhaps that wouldn't be considered newsworthy. At any rate, those decisions seem to be the decisions of individual principals and pastors, as opposed to a consistent and universal Catholic church policy. (And for what it's worth, I don't agree that teachers in that predicament should be fired.)
You probably also know that there are many things that pro-life groups will do to help pregnant women, from supporting clinics and shelters for them (often despite well-organized and well-funded political resistance from Democrats) to providing financial and material assistance for mom and baby to providing medical care for them. Whenever my parents, who in their younger days were regular 'picketers' outside an abortion clinic, had a "save", they immediately offered to support the woman and child through the pregnancy and beyond.
Do pro-life Americans support programs of government assistance? I think that's a complicated question. There is no doubt that many/most pro-life people are politically conservative and so don't turn to new or expanded government programs as a first resort. Most Catholics do support existing government entitlement programs, including Medicaid and other forms of public assistance for those who are in need. They may not be in favor of expanding those programs, but how those political views relate to their views of women and pregnancy are probably not simple and straightforward. It seems that Obamacare is supported by about half the country now, and it seems reasonable to infer that women support it more strongly than men do. How Catholics (men and women) feel about Obamacare, I am not certain - I looked around for public opinion surveys but didn't find any.
Speaking of non-Christians, interesting to read what the Hindus, in many respects more pro-life than we are, think about the status of the human at various stages. Ensoulment is a concept for them, as well.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_and_abortion
I remember a very religious Hindu coworker who stated that since he could not even eat a chicken egg, he could not support abortion of even a fertilized human egg. We didn't even get to the legislative consequences of that. Hindus do practice abortion, even sex selective, so maybe they just accept the karmic consequences.
He was a very nice chap, by the way, though engaged in so-called defense work which means death tech, like myself.
DeleteI don't know how many of you remember the late Nat Hentoff. He was a liberal columnist, among other things. He was a Jewish atheist, who was also pro-life. His reasoning was, if this is all there is, how can you, in justice, deprive someone of the only chance at existence they'll ever have?
Delete"Unfortunately, the many supports needed are not available to many women"
DeleteI know that is a standard 'talking point', and something that many people believe to be true, but I have to say, I question to what extent it's true. Just speaking of government-funded programs alone, there are quite a few to make sure that pregnant women and mothers with already-born children don't fall through the cracks.
I do know, from my own (very modest) outreach ministry, that there are some folks who need help navigating the government programs and getting established on the appropriate forms of aid; but even out here in the red-ish suburbs, there are a lot of social workers, local government agencies and private agencies that help clients understand what forms of assistance they qualify for and how to apply for it. One of the things we do is try to connect clients up with those professional resources. (Some clients resist that sort of help; the reasons for that can be complicated; but the help is there for those who wish to take advantage of it.)
The safety net isn't a holistic thing; it's a patchwork combination of many specialized government programs, supplemented by private sources of assistance. For many of those programs, pregnant women are prioritized over other demographic profiles. That said, I'm aware, just from my own experience, of some good-size holes in the safety net (adequate housing assistance and adequate mental health treatment are the two that spring first to mind), but I feel fairly confident in asserting that no pregnant woman should choose an abortion out of despair that she won't be able to give the child a minimal level of care and financial support.
That's not to say that some women don't despair anyway; being pregnant surely can be a very lonely and frightening thing for a woman who doesn't have a supportive network of friends and family. I am not sure, though, that a government assistance program can fill in what is missing from our lives (love, emotional support, wisdom, perspective) when we don't have that supportive personal network. As I mentioned in a previous comment, pro-life groups would genuinely like to fill those gaps in a pregnant woman's life. My personal experience of Catholic pro-life groups at local parishes is that they would approach that task with love, authenticity and a lack of condemnation. No doubt, there are other pro-life folks out there who would introduce the element of condemnation. I think that's very unfortunate; beyond fraternal correction, I am not sure what can be done about it. I guess I would say that I wouldn't become pro-choice just because some pro-life people are repellent.
And we shouldn't forget that adoption is a valid and humane choice if someone simply doesn't feel ready for parenthood. The days of hermetically sealed records and coerced adoptions are long past. There are prospective parents who wait in line for years for a chance to adopt.
DeleteJim, what you said about the Catholic and Christian pro-life groups in your area is in line with what I know of the ones here; that they they are caring people who genuinely want to help.
DeleteJust to move back to the original topic: "Stop embracing the radical id of your own base."
ReplyDeleteAbortion is is clearly an issue where Democrats have lost Catholics. This is not news, but the party leaders seem to believe, rightly or wrongly, that no one is being forced to have abortions, so there is no moral conundrum. Moreover, I presume they've crunched their numbers, and they know that the number of voters they could woo back with a softer abortion plank wouldn't offset the number they would lose.
So: Are there other issues that support the notion that the party is embracing a "radical id"?
It strikes me that Democrats, instead of focusing on "level playing field" legislation (voting rights, right to organize collective bargaining units, anti-discrimination in the basis of gender, riding herd on drug and education costs etc.) have shifted toward "Lady Bountiful legislation" that throws a lot of money around and exacerbat we inequalities while capital runs rampant.
Instead of clearing paths, Democrats just want to expand the safety net. Not to say we don't need safety nets, but in making the safety net bigger instead of making it possible for people to fight back against a rigged system, we perpetuate the problem.
I don't think Democrats would lose many voters with a softer abortion plank. The militant voters have nowhere else to go. This was the Evangelical calculus with Trump: they didn't trust him; he is not one of them; but the alternative in the general election was worse (from their point of view).
Delete"So: Are there other issues that support the notion that the party is embracing a "radical id"? "
DeleteThe proposal for the 70% tax bracket is pretty radical. So is Warren's proposed tax on wealth. To me they both feel like stoke-hatred-against-the-rich proposals.
Jean, you said, "Instead of clearing paths, Democrats just want to expand the safety net." I guess my thought would be, maybe we should stop making so many precipices for people to fall off of. If that would be in the form of fairness and a more level playing field, I would be in favor of it.
DeleteAs far as "embracing a radical id", the whole identity politics thing is what comes to mind. I would rather see more focus on the common good.
Precipes such as?
DeleteI agree that identity politics is corrosive and
distracting.
Precipices..one of the main reasons for people to have to fall back on the social safety net is job loss. Much is made of the so-called "gig economy", which is basically just an update of day labor. Labor rights are weak right now. More stability of employment would mean less stress on the social safety net.
DeleteKatherine, I agree with you about the "gig economy". If Trump was truly a populist, he would be doing something about it, as his voters (at least those who are of working age) are vulnerable to this unfortunate trend.
DeleteJim, How radical would a top tax bracket of 91 percent be? That is what it was during the 1950s when President Ike the Likeable presided and played golf with his millionaire buddies, who were presumably paying it. Eisenhower was (for the young folks here) a Republican.
ReplyDeleteThat is a marginal rate, as you know, meaning they weren't paying 91 percent on all of their income, only what was covered by the top bracket -- the money that Ronald Reagan said put camera men out of jobs because rich actors stopped working because taxes were so high. Well do I remember the years when John Wayne refused to mount a horse. (I joke, but Reagan believed it).
Now, since even the top 1% of income earners were sucking wind compared to the top 0.2% for the past 20+ years, a 70 percent rate at the top wouldn't affect many voters and would go part way toward taking the gold chips off the top of their chocolate sundaes. The current top rate is 37% on the amount over roughly a half million dollars after deductions and exemptions.
Of course, as every Wall Street Journal editorial writer can recite in his sleep, JFK "got the economy moving again" by cutting tax rates in the 1960s. But cutting from 91% is a lot different than cutting from 37%. And, compared to 91%, 70% would be a mere annoyance to anyone paying it.
The
The trouble is, whether we are talking about 70% or 91%, people aren't hearing that as a marginal rate. They are hearing it as a percent of total income, and that does seem radical. It needs to be made more clear what is actually being proposed.
DeleteAnd a cautionary note, what is a fair rate and what people and corporations *will* pay are two different things.
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DeleteKatherine, Correct. Ain't it a shame how little people who pay the taxes know about them? People who hate sports can probably tell you more about today's football game than most taxpayers can tell you about about tax rates. Now, if a smart politician were to educate them... But I'm dreaming.
DeleteI've done my own taxes since I started earning enough money. I can't see how someone doesn't understand what a tax bracket is. But, then again, they managed to rile people up about the "death tax" most of whom would never have enough assets to qualify.
DeleteTom, don't tell me you're one of those guys who thinks the world was better during the Eisenhower Administration :-).
DeleteFWIW, I think 91% is too high, too.
Jim, Ike is pretty much under-rated these days. And as for 91 percent being too high, I ask, "91 percent of how much?"
Delete