I have not been a Republican since the spring of 2016 and then I was more of a conservative coalition affiliate. I've not volunteered for any GOP campaign, and I haven't made contributions. (I did make 1 or 2 modest contributions for the 2008 McCain campaign, which I've endlessly regretted for political and other reasons). (Plus. I never got the promised souvenir tire gauge, which represented Obama's energy policy.)
It's somewhat paradoxical being a promoter of pro-liberty politics; in part, this reflects a variation of Bastiat's infamous distinction between things seen and unseen. It's easier to demonstrate the effectiveness of government when you're dealing with tangible goods and services, e.g., a filled pothole. a new highway or bridge, obtaining a passport for upcoming travel, etc. During the 2013 shutdown, "nonessential" departments and personnel were furloughed, e.g., national parks, zoo, NASA--probably any tourist attraction in DC. I was up for a contractor position, and it took 2 months vs. a few days to process.
The fact is that libertarians and conservatives do not necessarily disagree with the goal or good intentions of prospective Statist legislation as with the structural approach, moral hazard, unintended consequences, and economic inefficiencies of the general government's central planning. The general government was intended to focus on enumerated responsibilities, like common defense, interstate commerce, and trade. Things like health regulation and police power are vested in the states as one would expect by the principle of Subsidiarity.
On the question of abortion, I've been pro-life all my life, including in my salad days of being a social liberal. I strongly supported the Dobbs decision rolling back Roe v Wade and Casey, precedents and this would have been true even if I were pro-abort. Abortion had traditionally been restricted by the colonies and states, initially under English common law.by the quickening. There was simply no constitutional basis for intervening against state responsibilities under the Tenth Amendment.
I've written multiple abortion related posts since the leak of the Alito majority decision, and I'm not going to repeat them here. Although abortion has been rejected by my Catholic faith since the Didache, I did not know that until my college years; I knew the scientific fact that human life begins at conception. This isn't a moral crusade; I knew a number of blue states had radically liberalized abortion before the Dobbs decision, and motivated women from more restrictive states could travel to them. There are legal abortifacients. It's not even clear to the pregnant woman herself if/when she knows she's pregnant. Short of unacceptable breaches of individual liberty like a police state, we need to focus on persuasion.
Trump in 2016 was a classic example of inept handling of the GOP on the issue. Trump had convenient conversion on the issue just like Romney. Consider this from his brief campaign for the 2000 Reform Party nomination for POTUS:
In 1999, Trump publicly said he was a supporter of abortion rights as a matter of women’s choice. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump was asked whether he would ban abortions, or at least “partial-birth” abortions. He said he would not, and that he is “pro-choice in every respect.”
“I’m very pro-choice,” Trump said in that 1999 interview. “I hate the concept of abortion. … But still, I just believe in choice.”
I remember in his 2016 campaign, there was a question of whether Trump had ever donated to Planned Parenthood (a leading abortion provider), and Trump deliberately sidestepped the issue, claiming he had no specific memory but he had made lots of donations over the decades and couldn't rule out the possibility.
However, Trump knew the pro-life constituency was key to political support, and perhaps he felt he had to remain true to his law-and-order perspective, so "Donald Trump tells @MSNBC"There has to be some form of punishment" for abortion". I've been in the pro-life movement for decades (no, no leadership positions or rallies), e.g., emails from pro-life websites, pro-life groups on social media. But I've never heard a pro-lifer advocate prosecuting women who aborted their babies. At the risk of oversimplification, we tend to focus on providers and advocates and regard pregnant women who abort as victims of tragic pregnancies like miscarriages. In fact, the Catholic Church has a ministry focused on post-abortion counseling. Trump soon after his gaffe had to walk it back; to mw, a consistent Trump critic during the life of this blog, it was just another example of his poor impulsive, surface-level decision-making.
Now post-Dobbs, the GOP seemed caught completely off-guard by decades-old exceptions for rape and incest. I understand the notion the preborn child should not pay for the sins of his father but these cases are literally in the rounding error of all abortions. We need to focus on moral persuasion, not allow the pro-aborts define us as unreasonable ideologues in a pluralistic society.
I have to admit cringing on hearing Chuck Todd endlessly obsess that the American people overwhelmingly approve of abortion on demand. First, I am not impressed with the tyranny of the majority on the subject of natural rights. Second, for most of the last few decades generally speaking Gallup has found a plurality of Americans have regarded abortion as morally wrong and/or consider themselves as pro-life. I do think moderates are concerned about where to draw the line, including short durations and a few exceptions.
In past essays and tweets, I have suggested that the median 12-week abortion period in Europe is roughly comparable to the traditional quickening criterion with most body parts and organs well-formed and operational. Up to 90% of abortions occur in this period. Some states have floated a 15-week period.
Then there's the kerfuffle over U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk who has ruled that the abortifacient drug mifepristone, part of a common potent 2-deug protocol, was improperly approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago. Reportedly more than half of abortions are medication abortions. Let me point out I am personally opposed to the use of abortifacients, just like Hippocrates, but I am skeptical of purported safety concerns of a widely distributed drug globally with over 20 years of history and patient medical histories. The FDA hasn't withdrawn approval, something it has done up to 600 times for safety or effectiveness reasons for other drugs.
Finally, after Biden and the Dems repeatedly sought to codify the so-called right to abort at the federal level (which is no less a violation of the Tenth Amendment than Roe, etc., by SCOTUS), some Republicans have floated the idea of a federal abortion ban. From a constitutional standpoint, this is no better than Roe codification. But it's not even politically viable with a filibustering Senate Dem caucus, not to mention a Dem POTUS. I'm not sure why some Republicans have raised it unless it's a response to the Roe codification gambit. I would advise GOP Congressmen to declare victory over returning the issue to the states and not give independents reasons to vote for Dems in federal elections.by trying to impose unpopular restrictions in blue states.
Now, as to the "Tennessee Three": the talking points on both sides are stupid. We are talking about 3 Tennessee gun control Dems (2 black males, 1 white woman) who, in the aftermath of a trans mass shooter at a Tennessee private school, went to the state assembly floor to protest, at least one with a bullhorn. The Republican leader responded with expulsion votes for all 3; the white legislator barely missing expulsion, unlike her black colleagues (with bullhorn(s)) The 2 ejected black legislators have been reappointed to the legislature.
I don't disagree that the legislators' protest violated House rules. and an appropriate sanction was warranted. But expulsion seems disproportionate, and the racially disparate outcome raises questions
