This is the last entry at mwbh (except for the novena, which ends tonight), prior to the day of this year's Presidential election.In 2000, I voted for Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party. In 2004, I voted for Michael Petrouka of the Constitution Party, and only because Pat wasn't running. No one can hang on me that I supported George W Bush for President, or that I was otherwise a supporter of him, just because I tend to vote for conservatives.
Earlier this year, I would have preferred to see Ron Paul or Fred Thompson get more attention. Alas, the status quo of the GOP ignored the grumbling of the conservative base, and realizing the need for a candidate that would get more than a crumb of media attention, put its efforts toward promoting the least offensive candidate. Otherwise, Mitt Romney would never have stood a chance. Ron Paul did better in the Iowa caucuses then Rudy Guiliani. When attention then turned to New Hampshire, who bumped Ron Paul out of the limelight? You guessed it.
Still, I harbored reservations about supporting McCain. Then he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. If he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the election, it will be to the extent that he tells his top minions to go jump in a lake, and just let Sarah be Sarah.
Stephen Heiner has made his case against either McCain or Obama, in favor of a third-party candidate, inasmuch as the "lesser of two evils" is evil nonetheless:
Russell Kirk often said that politics is the art of the possible. Republicans have proven that it is not possible to trust anything they tell us they will "do" for the pro-life movement. The hour is late. People have to be won by ideas, not by desperate idealogues who will say anything to get elected. Ideas cannot penetrate when people vitiate their convictions for a "win." The fight against abortion will not be won by trying to channel Reagan by saying "win one for the Gipper - vote McCain." It will not be won by people who two-step when asked about litmus tests and abortion.
Stephen's arguments are very convincing; so much so, as to make one forget how high the stakes really are this year. Pat Buchanan, whom no one has ever accused of being a neoconservative, spells it out:
This election is America's last hope to reverse Roe v. Wade. Upon its outcome will rest the life, or death, of millions of unborn children. The great social cause of the Catholic Church and the Knights of Columbus, of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, of the entire right-to-life movement, hangs today in the balance... [I]f Obama-Biden wins, Roe is forever. If McCain-Palin wins, Roe could be gone by the decade's end.
Despite what you may read at this blog, I am not at all enthusiastic in my support for McCain. I remember attending the Conservative Political Action Conference back in February, and witnessing the lukewarm reception he got there after being equally lukewarm to the conservative base. I remember him and Twit Romney rolling their eyes on national television, and looking at each other as if to share an inside joke, when Ron Paul began to explain his very well-thought out position. If it weren't for Palin, I'd be voting for a third-party candidate again. I don't blame Stephen for his position, but I might take him to task for its inevitable outcome. This is not about supporting McCain. This is about stopping Obama, and the minions who worship the ground upon which he walks, ready to obey his every utterance. McCain makes no such cult-of-personality demands upon his supporters, and with a Democratic majority in one or both houses, our American system of checks and balances may at least slow the downward spiral of an imperial Presidency.
Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrisey and Elizabeth “The Anchoress” Scalia make their final appeal to fellow Catholics. Meanwhile, Matthew Archbold of Creative Minority Report sums it up as well as anyone:
The battle lines are drawn. Whoever gets to choose the next Supreme Court Justice wins, at least for a generation. There is a strong likelihood that the next President will get to appoint one, maybe two Justices. So please don't stay on the sidelines this election. Please don't say you don't agree with McCain on this issue or that issue because all of them pale in comparison to the abortion issue. Pick a side.
Otherwise, we may as well all move to the Netherlands, where once you're fifty years old and get in an accident, they can decide whether you're worth saving. That's where America could be in ten years. If you think that's too far fetched, remember that the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005, regardless of a judge's sanction, was a violation of both Florida law (765.309, prohibiting euthanasia) and Federal law (Title 28 35.130(e)(2) prohibiting refusal of food and water). If it didn't matter then...
.
2 comments:
I think it is appropriate to respond to this post the day before the Inauguration of our 44th president.
I take issue with this post for three reasons:
1. The next justices to leave will be Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens. Reliable liberal votes. Democrats are not going to let those guys get replaced by Republicans. If you want to talk about changing the court for a generation, make sure we win when Kennedy and Souter are heading down retirement road...
2. Along that same theme of "not going to let" - a President appoints, but does not confirm Supreme Court Justices. Robert Bork is far back in our memory, but not so far back to think that people like Roberts and Alito can be confirmed without a Republican majority, and even had McCain won the Presidency, he would have been dealing with a Democratic super-majority, as currently exists in Congress.
3. Republicans have had a generation to resolve Roe - and instead of taking the route of the Founding Fathers - and bypassing judicial rule by using executive and legislative powers (balance of powers, anyone?) we've allowed ourselves - an entire nation of 300 million people - to become hostage to 9 men and women. Oligarchy.
I very gladly cast my vote for a pro-life candidate who is not willing to do embryonic stem-cell research - and is not a Johnny-McCain-come-lately (which means he might Johnny-leave-quickly, too). I was not the only one who didn't really believe McCain was prolife, as evinced by the election results.
Stephen:
It would appear you have mistaken this post for an apologia for John McCain. I would be hard pressed to know where you got that idea. Certainly not from my lack of enthusiasm for him, shared by most of the "conservative base" of voters. True, he might not have challenged a Democratic-controlled Congress (assuming it stayed that way through 2010) on High Court appointments. But he would be more likely to than Obama. McCain would not have to have been an evil choice to be a lousy one. But what we have now is even more lousy.
If your "taking issue" has any merit, it will be in the awakening from complacency in the pro-life movement, from being a mere lackey for the Republican Party, into a force to be reckoned with in the conservative movement.
In short, I never said I liked my choice.
Post a Comment