An idea or 44
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Following on our article on Rick Santorum by Suzanne Kahn and Campus Progress' Vilas Rao, we're opening this thread to allow you to discuss the article and the premise offered in Vilas' final paragraph: we don't necessarily expect 44 out of you, but what points can you offer for a progressive plan that will improve the lives of all Americans?
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Santorum called abortion a practice equivalent to slavery, "treating a life as another’s property, instead of as a person." Santorum argued that the left has never been able to defend abortion because “it’s a lie” and cited from his book a debate he had with Senator Barbara Boxer of California, (the mere mention of whose name sent snickers rippling through the audience.)
The debate (pp. 255-257) does indeed show Senator Boxer unable to meet Santorum’s questions about partial birth abortion. Santorum asked why the left, in its motto of “safe, legal, and rare” includes ‘rare’, when it lets government sanction it. “If it’s legal, it must be right…it must be moral,” he says. The reason, he says, is because the left sees the error of its own position, but can’t bring itself to acknowledge it.
Again, this is ideology without a base in reality. The question of abortion is not one of whether government should or should not give its stamp of approval on the practice, but a more complex one of public health. Abortion is a practice that will continue whether or not it is sanctioned by government, in a way much more tragic and unsafe. By legalizing and setting the terms of abortion policy, we can indeed work to make abortions “safe, legal, and rare”. Unfortunately, too few of our leaders can speak with conviction on the matter, as the exchange with Senator Boxer illustrated.
(Not to mention the right to privacy issue, which I'll let other people talk about...for now I'll just quote Tupac:
"I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one"
- "Keep ya head up")
I'm working on a list. Going to be 44 points long, when I'm done. We'll see if I can pull it off by tonight. :)
A thought that occurs to me: Sometimes, there is a very real tradeoff between fairness and effectiveness. For instance, one might argue that welfare reform is unfair to some -- yet still incredibly effective, and a societal force for good on the whole.
Sometimes, in the process of setting up the proper incentives, people are hurt in the process unavoidably.
Seems to be the fundamental dilemma of a welfare state.
As far as abortion goes: I still think that our party should welcome both pro-choicers and pro-lifers, and that our political hand would be greatly strengthened by the removal of Roe; by casting abortion as a matter of law than as a matter of right, we'd strip away plenty of pro-choice Republican women voters.
That said, I think the progressive vision should include comprehensive sex-ed with free condoms (though starting older than some would like, at age 12 or so), and over-the-counter availability of RU486. Perhaps, geared toward the older teens, an active promotion of oral sex as an alternative to risky intercourse?
I hate to think of how that cuts into a parent's perogative to raise their children with the values they see fit, though. So, maybe dialed back a notch on some of that.
He's tripping over himself. He's just sworn off a Presidential run. He is currently down in the polls, a bad place for an incumbent. His name has been redefined to refer to the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter resulting from anal sex.
I'm all for kicking people when they're down, but it seems excessive.
As for winning a debate with Senator Boxer, I've heard it ain't the toughest thing in the world. But Santorum makes an extremely stupid statement, conflating legal with moral.
I don't think of any of a number of legal actions as being moral. Indeed, we distinguish between the two in a number of matters (as have a number of distinguished theologians). Is smoking moral? Would Santorum think it moral for parents to teach their kids to hate minorities? I hope not. That doesn't mean it's illegal or that it should be.
The problem with Santorum is that he is more interested in the law sending a signal that abortion is immoral than he is in actually encouraging responsible decision-making and in empowering people with the tools they need to avoid abortions.
Notice that Santorum doesn't take issue with the progressive argument that abortions should be rare. He can't. Nothing in his playbook demonstrates that one of the outcomes of his policy will be rare abortions. Instead, he tries to argue around the term.
Why are we scared of this guy, erm, I mean this frothy individual?
I think I got that right. I've spent some time on ISI.Org, the website of the people who publish him, trying to better understand the views of intellectual conservatism on a variety of such issues. They sent me a free copy of The Road To Serfdom in the mail! Oh boy. Where's my free copy of Skipping Towards Gomorrah, CampusProgress? :)
So, yeah. Santorum himself is going down. But the argument he represents will be around a lot longer; that by simply leaving Americans to their own devices, a 'semi-libertarian' stance on issues of personal freedom, our society is hurt in measurable ways: families weakened, ghettos arise, etc.
It's most vulnerable in the way any narrow-minded ideologue is: Just show how in the real world, things are more complicated.
Just as the hard-Leftist believes that every ill is the result of oppression, the staunch Rightist in this case believes that every ill is the result of a lack of societal values, and that the law can enforce these values.
In other words: America has problems that need to be solved. For instance, the divorce rate is at 55% or higher. We want to get it back down to 15 or 20%.
Rick Santorum will affect this change by ending no-fault divorce, which came into law in the 70's: now, to get divorced, there must be abuse, adultery, or some other such serious thing. This is how it was before the 70's, during times that many people look to fondly in some ways. Santorum would argue that while this is a restriction on freedom, it is necessary for the health of the society.
What's the progressive plan for slashing 30 to 40 points from the divorce rate?
...Answer that, and that's how we counter Santorums, present and future.
"…most vulnerable in the way any narrow-minded ideologue is: Just show how in the real world, things are more complicated."
My suggestion would then be to provide a counter to his overall lack of vision. Not only show how in the real world things are more complicated (this just counters his argument) but instead offer a new vision that proclaims "we are open to change and all the benefits that come from moving forward and we want policies that allow us as a society to move forward, not backward." An open society bears many enriching fruits.
Maybe the divorce rate is destined to rise and the idea of marriage of the past is at an end. Maybe we are socially evolving past it. Marriage of the past has traditionally been about managing power, and usually the woman is at the losing end of that arrangement. It seems that the idea of marriage itself is evolving and will continue to do so despite attempts at regulating it.
Or maybe we could combat the rising divorce rate through education... Not TEST PREPARATION, but actually teaching critical thinking skills that enable people to make choices effective through accurately weighing potential outcomes or consequences.
The world moves forward despite our preparation to deal with that fact. Overpopulation and resource scarcity will force us all to make many hard choices as a society. Many of these hard choices will be effective at helping to alleviate the effects of these major problems but few will seem fair. Abortion for instance may be compulsory by sheer necessity and we will no longer have the luxury to debate its morality.
These are some of my ramblings.