The Freedom to Swing Your Fist

Cross-posted from WhereIStand

Mister E is confused about freedom. He writes:

We all know banning abortion is a restriction of freedom, a stranglehold on the breath of what is supposed to make this country great. Honestly, its people like the South Dakota legislature that make this country shameful.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best. “Your freedom to swing your fist ends where someone else’s face begins.”

When you guys talk about freedom, you’ve got this libertine vision of being able to do whatever you want, no matter the damage to society. No matter if it harms another person, you just deny their humanity. Such silly notions have never defined the American vision of freedom.

Freedom has meant the freedom from persecution, that ability to practice your religion without doing harm to others and follow your conscience. The freedom to build, to buy, and to become what you dream of. The American dream has never been the idea of freeing people from responsibility, or making everyone successful.

Freedom is a chance, a shot, at the life you want. Its not an excuse for tearing down everything that makes our culture great. When evil is practiced in our nation, people have always stood against it. Whether it was the Civil Rights movement, or those opposing slavery, America has always been about righting wrongs and living up to our best values. No people, no nation, has struggled with issues like justice like we have.

No nation is like ours. As much as we’re derided and attacked as imperialists, other world powers in our position of dominance have expanded their spheres of influence to receive tribute. Yet America made a moral decision not to take over the Earth.

MisterE’s view as freedom as an excuse to indulge the worst human vices, the worst of evils, to make excuses for the wholesale slaughter of the innocent. No, its not freedom anymore than the ancient Pagans were enjoying freedom when they took their children to the altar of Molech. The only difference is that instead of Molech, the Gods that the abortion priests serve are Convenience, Education, Career, Sex, and so on.

Abortion is the god of which you dare not speak against in any substantive way. Oh sure, you appease the conscience of soft-headed Americans by saying some malarkey about needing to increase access to birth control to reduce abortion and constantly ignore the fact that 58% of women who had abortions have been using birth control. But dare you admit that abortion damages womens and traumatizes them. You shall not criticize the sell-outs to the first principles of medicine who have begun six figure butchers.

When you see a picture of an aborted fetus, your anger is to go anywhere but towards the so-called doctor whose handywork brought you that picture.

Don’t tell me about freedom. Lots of societies have had this “freedom.” In the Roman Empire, you could not only get an abortion, you could take your newborn and kill it by exposing the elements, you could go and sit back with your buddies and watch two gladiators fight to the death.

And you know what, Christians put an end to that, fighting for the right of human beings to live in dignity, like men and not like wild animals. We’ve been at this political fight for 1600 years when Basil of Caeserea got the first pro-life law in the world past and if necessary, we’ll fight another 1600 years, because there’s no freedom to destroy innocent life. There’s no freedom to butcher human beings like cattle and that is an issue upon which there will be no compromise and no hedging.

It is this just and moral vision of freedom that is the only thing worth standing for, not your libertine fantasies.

Endorsement v. Voting

Betty Richardson had a piece in today’s Statesman urging Keith Johnson and Shelia Sorensen to back Larry Grant. She writes that her father was a Democrat:

Imagine my surprise when, a few years later, my father, then a Democratic precinct committeeman, publicly supported Republican Gov. Robert Smylie, who was challenged by Democrat Vernon K. Smith, a pro-gambling candidate. How could that be?

My Dad explained that, while party affiliation was important, he was an American first, an Idahoan second and a Democrat third. That meant he voted for the person, not the party, when the Republican would better serve our country and state.

History has an interesting way of repeating itself. In 1986, I was Ada County Democratic chairwoman. And just as my parents had impressed upon me, I wanted my children to understand the importance of exercising their right to vote.

My son, then 6 years old, accompanied me to the polls. He watched intently as I punched the ballot, and then suddenly exclaimed, “Mom! You can’t do that! You just voted for a Republican!” Other voters chuckled. Polling officials raised their eyebrows. “I’ll explain later,” I whispered. When we got home, I repeated the lesson my father had taught me.

She argues that Sorensen and Johnson ought to cast it with “centrist Democrat Larry Grant”. After all, if he’s reasonable and moderate enough for Big Labor to kick in $18,000 already, he should be reasonable for Republicans to back.

Of course, Ms. Richardson misses the distinction between voting for a candidate and endorsing them. In the privacy of my polling booth, I can vote for whoever want, but in this club called the Republican Party, we’ve got a general arrangement. We fight like dogs during the primary, then we shake hands and go after the other guys.

Yes, a precinct captain can get away with this, but not even a county chairwoman could. She didn’t walk up to the Democrat she was voting against and tell him he wouldn’t have her vote. She didn’t campaign for the Republican. She made her own private decision.

But what she’s saying is, “Keith and Shelia, would you midn splitting your party in two to help a Democrat get to congress?” Keith Johnson is a conservative and he’s closer to Sali on the issues than Larry Grant. As to Sorensen, who knows, but if she wants to play the game of politics as a Republican, she’ll give some type of endorsement.

Key thing to remember about this. The Republican Animal is an elephant and an elephant never forgets.

That’s It, I’m Joining Up

Liberal Idaho, that grave mainstream blog, went ahead and inferred that yours truly is the typical Idaho Chickenhawk who supports the war, but won’t go fight it.

I’m tired of liberals and their attacks on my patriotism and character. They’re upset I’m not in a fighting unit, well fine! They win! I’m joining up!

At 1228 hours, I reported to Captain Ed Morrisey of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders Brigade, who will be processing my enlistment papers shortly. Hopefully, I’ll be accepted, though compared to some of the other bloggers out there, mine is overweight, but you go to war with the media with the army you have, not the one you want or would like to have.

You go to the war with a bunch of petty, mean-spirited liberals who think name-calling is an argument and don’t understand the meaning of “all volunteer.” In the 21st Century, wars are won and lost, not on the battlefield, but in the media. The United States military is second to none in the world, we lose only through the tireless efforts of those who attack and malign our armed forces as a matter of practice, weaken support for our soldiers at home, and embolden our nation’s foreign enemies. Today, we are blighted by those who cannot wrap their mind around the fact we have one president at a time to fight our nation’s wars.

As for this absurd ad hominem, even the standards set by their own leadership bely the silly argument. John Kerry observed regarding Vietnam protests and Vietnam vets:

We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways.

While, unlike John Kerry, we won’t be honored by our nation’s enemies in a museum, we do provide a valuable service in refuting the lies about this war and fighting the attempts to paint the bleakest, blackest picture to bring down this president no matter what the price. It is that effort we stand against.

Call us Chicken Hawks if you will, as IMAO explains a Chicken Hawk is really a hawk that eats chickens and rats. I just hope I don’t get KP Duty.

Linked to Freedom Watch, TMH Bacon Bits, and Jo’s Cafe

The Communist Balanced Budget

IdaBlue attacks the Club for Growth for a post in which they responded to MoveOn.org’s agenda:

A living wage for all

Global leadership through diplomacy

Verifiable, accurate elections

High quality education for all

Balanced federal budget

Health care for all

Publicly funded elections

Preserve our natural resources

Energy independence: clean, renewable sources

Restored constitutional rights

In response to MoveOn’s ideas, Andy Roth writes:

LThat’s one crazy, whacked-out list. Notice how the last one conflicts with several of the other ones? These liberals/socialists/progressives/communitarians crack me up.

Alan chimes in:

If Sali agrees with the CFG – and for $483,000 I’m sure he does – he has aligned himself with an extremist group that believes a balanced federal budget is a whacked-out, communist idea.

First of all, I think Alan has taken them out of context. He didn’t say, “Every item on that agenda is a communist plot.” No, he said that as a list it was crazy and whacked out. What’s so crazy about it?

You’re going to give everyone health care, you’re going to spend more money on education (that’s what the left means whenever they talk of doing anything on that topic), then on top of that you’re going to publicly fund elections. How exactly do you balance the budget particularly when you go ahead and use the force of government to control wages which actually kills the economy? Its non-sensical, its whacked out when taken as a total package. Then you go to the fact that the federal government is given no authority in the Constitution to set living wages, give everyone on health care, or fund elections. How exactly do you restore the constitution when your entire plan violates it?

As proof, that the Club doesn’t believe that a balanced budget is communist, please note that they’re backing less spending. Now, why would they help the commies?

UPDATE: Serephin at 43rd State Blues chimed in, adding nothing but constructive except to show respect for diversity by attacking Bill Sali’s disability. I remember Alan saying “Dogging Sali with a dunce cap and idiot label, and using his statements about being brain damaged, are not the type of politics I’d like Dems to engage in. But they might be politics they might have to engage in.” Apparently, Democrats have to because their just mean-spirited.

Getting What We Deserve Politics, Podcast

Getting What We Deserve

Politics, Podcast