Sanity, Decency, and Civility

The past week has been an incredible demonstration of the depths to which public politica discourse has fallen. We started the week with a tiff in the press over being kept out of the loop on the Cheney hunting accident. Now that we all know much more about that accident than any of us cared to, I wonder whether anyone noticed what utter fools Democrats and the White House press corps made of themselves.

Let's see if I can recap all of the ridiculous speculation that they've all been spouting about the incident: It's just evidence of the administration's penchant for secrecy in keeping matters large and small from the public. Cheney was drunk and held off reporting the incident so he wouldn't be tested. Cheney was hunting with a woman not his wife, and didn't want the press to find out. Cheney shot his friend as a warning to Scooter Libby about what could happen to him if he testified about any shenanigans in the VP's office. The Secret Service was part of a massive coverup in the matter. The victim actually died, but they trotted out a look-alike to tell their version of the story.

There's probably more, but I think I've covered the basics.

Does anybody actually believe this stuff? I guess they would be the same people that believe Bush made up Iraq's weapons of mass distruction to cover his war to benefit his buddies in the oil industry. They believe Bush and Cheney willfully killed over 100,000 innocent Iraqis and sent over 2,000 Americans to be killed for personal reasons and not national security reasons. They believe the NSA "Domestic Spying" program is listening in on American Liberal Democrats in order to harrass, intimidate, or arrest them just for hating the President. They believe Bush and big business have teamed up to make America a land of sweatshops where a tiny elite control all the wealth and everyone else is forced to live in poverty and without healthcare. Overall, they simply believe Bush and Cheney are evil personified.

There's something really big here that I just don't get. Nobody seems able to explain it to me, so maybe some intelligent reader will happen upon this blog and can help. It's about the liberal self-image that suggests they are smarter than everyone else, and conservative-minded individuals are nothing more than rubes who have fallen for the Bush propaganda.

One thing I do get. Liberals run on feelings. They feel emotions very deeply. They "care". They are concerned about the poor, the minorities, the downtrodden, the exploited. And they support government policies aimed at "fairness", at making the poor less poor, at punishing those who abuse and exploit them, and forcing the evil corporations to hire minority workers for high-paying jobs whether they are qualified or not.

But I don't get the whole "we're smarter than you" thing. Like the college professors, which surveys have shown tend to be somewhere north of 80% liberal. And on just about any public university, all you have to do is throw a stone through the quad and you're likely to hit a professor who's not just liberal, but most likely a Marxist.

So if they're so intelligent, why do they abandon that intelligence in their political activism? For example, the Communists: Didn't they see how the Soviet Union fell under its own weight, because ultimately it didn't work? Are they ignoring the fact that communist regimes can't abide opposing views and brutally suppress those who dare to even question their dictatorial party leaders? Have they no knowledge of human behavior, to understand that people need the motivation of a better life for themselves and their children to guide them to achievement and productivity?

What about the education system itself: How can they align with liberals who want more of the same in the public school systems that are failing despite the massive investments made to try to improve them in the past 30 years? How can they deny the horrible outcomes of millions of functionally illiterate "graduates" of our public education institutions across the country while making sure there can be no values education (except for liberal values), no discipline, and no standards?

How can they profess to be so smart about global issues, yet completely miss the point of the Iraq war? How can they use such misleading rhetoric about the missing WMD's and that Saddam didn't take down the World Trade Center, when anybody who has been paying attention knows that al Quaeda is simply one of the larger terrorist organizations supported heavily and openly by Iran, Syria, and (formerly) Iraq?

Finally, I have to take issue with which party contains the majority of ignorant masses. The left would portray conservatives as a bunch of evangelical bible-thumpers aligned with the Confederate flag waving NASCAR fans and the super-rich. Are some of the groups who align with Republicans ignorant? Sure. But when I'm out in public, just listening to conversations of all sorts of obviously ignorant folks, what I hear the most is simplistic Bush hatred - repeating the Democratic playbook almost to the letter about lies, Iraq, gas prices, corruption, and corporate greed.

Wasn't it Ben Franklin who suggested that without a well-informed population, our Republic will fail? I don't care which side of an individual issue anyone comes down on, but I am frightened by the fact that most people have no clue about who or what they are voting for when they walk into the booth on election day.

On the Judiciary

One of the great responsibilities of the Presidency is the appointment of judges to the federal and supreme courts. Recently our country has been observing an increasingly divided and politically charged Senate that supports and opposes nominees to especially the Supreme Court based on ideology rather than competence.

The most disturbing trend seems to be the determined efforts by some in the Senate to block Supreme Court nominees based solely on their perceived stand on abortion rights. The issue is carefully couched by abortion supporters in terms of protecting civil and privacy rights, but there can be little doubt that a nominee put forward by a conservative president can expect a ferocious and uncivil opposition from the abortion rights supporters.

Mine is a simple philosophy on judicial appointments. Judges are required to uphold the constitution of the United States and interpret the laws, not make new ones. However one may feel about the issue of abortion personally, the pertinent question for the Supreme Court is whether it is, or is not, a fundamentally protected right of individuals that cannot be infringed by any federal, state, or local government entity.

Roe v. Wade was decided, not based on specific language found anywhere in the Constitution protecting the surgical termination of pregnancy, but on a vague theory of a right to privacy used by the slimmest majority of activists then empaneled on the Supreme Court. Most honest students of constitutional law, including those who support legalized abortion, agree that Roe v. Wade was a decision without constitutional support. Basically, the justices who ruled to establish this brand new right to abortion did so out of their personal ideology rather than the strict interpretation of the constitution and the law.

Today we know a great deal more about fetal development. We also are advancing medicine to be able to save premature infants at much earlier stages. We know that aborted babies feel pain, and agree that the procedure commonly called partial-birth abortion is barbaric infanticide.

Personally, I support a Supreme Court review of the Roe v. Wade decision. I believe it is justified to begin a new national conversation about where the dividing line is between the mother's right to terminate her pregnancy and her unborn child's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The entire issue of whether the unborn baby is an individual with the same unalieanable rights shared by the rest of us, or just the property of the mother who has sole power of life or death, needs to be revisited. I also believe that the unspoken tragedy of abortion occurs overwhelmingly in our poor and minority communities, which makes the practice even more morally repugnant. Finally, we as a nation must recognize that, legal or illegal, the practice of abortion is a tragedy that cannot be allowed to continue without some reasonable and practical solutions.

Therefore, whether or not the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, a key objective throughout my presidency will be to focus on providing alternatives to women with unplanned pregnancy. I will make sure that any woman or girl who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant will receive all the support she needs to bring the child to term and go on with her life. Whether through pre-natal care assistance, adoption services, day care assistance, parenting education, housing, or whatever the expectant mother needs to make the choice easier to make, the government will partner with any public or private organization who shares our goal of making abortion a thing of the past.

Finally, back to the Supreme Court. As a matter of law, the Court can and should find Roe v. Wade to be unconstitutional. But this does not mean that abortion will be immediately outlawed. It simply means that jurisdiction over such laws will be returned to the states, where each state legislature will be free to pass laws either permitting or outlawing abortion, or setting specific parameters within which abortion is allowed.

There remains much to be discussed and considered in our national debate on this topic. For example, if abortion remains legal, when in the 9 months can it be performed? If abortion is illegal, is it ever justified: for example, is abortion justifiable for cases of incest or rape, or if the mother is incompetent? Is abortion ever justified if tests reveal severe birth defects? Are there risks to the mother that should be taken into account, and if so, what are they? Are babies to be protected from conception? What about the use of contraceptives that are being seen to cause long-term detrimental health affects for women who use them over long periods of time?

I believe that Americans need to leave behind the old, divisive rhetoric of the past on the topic of abortion, and move forward to a reasonable and productive discussion of the real challenges and questions that must be addressed. And I expect to help lead that discussion through the office of the presidency.