Sr. Keehan and 60 progressive nuns claim abortion coverage is not in the Obama Health Reform Law, yet the Dept. of Health and Human Services released $160 million for emergency insurance to cover abortions … UNDER the new law (read about it here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38056). So who is really to blame for this great expansion of abortion and birth control?  Hint: It’s not exactly who you may think.

David Swindle responds to Knepper’s allegations here, explaining that the tone of his Coulter critique, not simply the act of critiquing her, was the issue with his final NRB submission, and that either way, he wasn’t simply fired over a disagreement over tone—it was the last in a string of disappointments (including some, um, interesting views about sex) from Knepper. Knepper fires back here.

As NRB’s editor, Swindle is in a much better position to respond to the specifics if he so chooses than I am, so I’ll leave that to him. But I do have a couple thoughts about which side has more credibility.

First, the idea that NRB can’t take criticism of Coulter is preposterous. I should know—my very first post for the website did just that.

Second, the website is extremely comfortable with passionate disagreement among contributors on a lot of issues, many of which are arguably bigger than what somebody thinks about a particular pundit. A few examples:

• David Swindle vs. John Nampion, David Kaplan, David Forsmark, & me on abortion
• David Swindle, Michael Van Der Gailen, & Walter Hudson vs. Mary Grabar & me on drug legalization
• David Forsmark vs. John Guardiano on Afghanistan
• David Swindle vs. me on culture
• Me, David Swindle, & Michael Van Der Gailen vs. John Guardiano on David Frum
• David Forsmark vs. Alex Knepper on sex
• Me & Jenn Public vs. Amy Siskind on feminism

Third, as I pointed out last week, we already know that David Frum’s standards of honesty are scandalously low – up to and including REPEATING SLANDER against people if it supports Frum’s agenda. Until Frum owns up to his past misdeeds, every word that appears on FrumForum should be read with extreme skepticism by the handful of readers who still waste their time there.

Yes, she and Steele are right to call Obama and the Democrats out on their posturing about Afghanistan as the “good war” and Iraq as the bad one. Yes, the populations of the two countries are vastly different. No, I don’t know what the best strategy in Afghanistan is (check out David Forsmark and John Guardiano for two competing schools of thought).

Further, in our zeal to make these points, conservatives must be careful not to lose sight of what our ultimate goal should be in Afghanistan—and whatever we decide, we need to stick to it regardless of who’s in the White House. Ann punts on that question, and I don’t recall her voicing any of these concerns during the Bush years. But Afghanistan is “Obama’s war” might be true as far as it goes, but focusing on that aspect on it diminishes the significance of the war and obscures the core question of whether or not America should be there. And yes, in calling it a war “of Obama’s choosing,” Steele did suggest that it wasn’t worth fighting, and that Democrats held a monopoly on the blame for it.

Coulter suggests we’ve already won in Afghanistan, and that a minimal troop presence there to “prevent Osama bin Laden from regrouping, swat down al-Qaida fighters and gather intelligence” is sufficient (wait a minute—weren’t we trying to leave behind a government & military stable enough to do that on its own?).

What disturbs me most is, near the end, how easily—and suddenly—Ann lends credence to the old liberal trope about “neoconservatives” being for “permanent war.” One would think a pundit who’s repeatedly been on the receiving end of such smears would think twice before deploying it herself.

Come on, Ann.  For years, I’ve defended you as better than this.  Don’t prove me wrong now.

At NRB, Phyllis Chesler takes on Wonder Woman’s new costume. As I said in the comments, “The new costume isn’t great – the prominence of black is dumb, and the jacket seems too casual for such an iconic hero (kinda like putting Batman in a hoodie) – but I’d be careful about inferring too much about the patriotism angle, one way or another. It’s all more subtle in the new design, but most of the patriotic elements – red, blue, stars, the eagle – are all still there (here’s a bigger pic), and if this promotional art for the new look is any indication, they’re not shying away from her patriotic roots.”

A warning, via the Hot Air headlines, you better not let Terry Savage catch your kids giving away lemonade. Wacky libertarians!

Robert Stacy McCain, intolerant as ever.

At Andrew Breitbart’s brand-new Big Peace: has Mullah Omar been captured?

On this Fourth of July, compare that courage and sacrifice to the potential consequences of getting involved and standing for liberty today – some lost free time, maybe public embarrassment or the hostile words of your opponents – and ask yourself how many of us are living up to their example.

*     *     *

Further Required Reading: President Calvin Coolidge, “Speech on the Occasion of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” July 5, 1926

This…

…can turn to this:

More here, for those brave enough to confront the ramifications of their positions.

As I explained on June 15, abortion is an affront to the Declaration of Independence. As the unjust taking of a human life, it is wrong for the same reason slavery, theft, assault, honor killings, rape, eminent domain abuse, and individual health insurance mandates are wrong: they are all violations of human liberty and natural rights.  Accordingly, society justly protects its citizens from them via law for the same reason.  As long as conservatism still “holds these truths to be self-evident” that all men have “certain unalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and as long as conservatism still accepts that “governments are instituted among men” for the purpose of “secur[ing] these rights,” then philosophically-consistent conservatives have no choice but to oppose legalized abortion. Nobody can support abortion in good conscience without either honestly confronting this conundrum head-on, or asking himself what definition of “conservatism” he’s been operating under all this time.

That pro-choice views are an egregious exception to conservatives’ and libertarians’ pro-liberty rhetoric should be obvious. What may be less obvious—but is no less true—is that such dubious thinking cannot help but undermine other core conservative principles and efforts.

Consider the judiciary.  We are often told pro-lifers should support pro-choice Republicans because they would nominate originalist judges who would vote against Roe v. Wade, which is all a president can do about abortion anyway.  For the record, this isn’t true: presidents can oppose pro-abortion legislation, articulate pro-life ideas, set the standard for other politicians, endorse a Human Life Amendment and state & local pro-life efforts, and while I’m not yet entirely convinced that a congressional abortion ban would pass constitutional muster, the possibility deserves further consideration—and there are other opportunities for pro-life federal legislation.  But even if judicial nominations were a president’s only effect on abortion, the pro-choice apologists’ case would still be invalid.

If someone doesn’t understand or value the right to life, there is no reason to automatically assume he understands or values other rights. To the contrary: failing the life question should tell us something is very, very wrong. Whether or not he believes in judicial originalism also remains an open question. In particular, there’s the matter of a pro-choicer’s opinion on Roe v. Wade, which employed shoddy constitutional analysis to usurp the American people’s right to decide abortion policy for themselves via their state legislatures. Nobody AWOL on the blatant affront to representative democracy & federalism that is Roe has any business calling himself a conservative of any stripe, nor can he be trusted as a good judge of judges. Thus, while conservatives are supposed to revere the Constitution, pro-choice ideology undermines the Right’s understanding of the Constitution, advocacy of judicial originalism and battle against judicial activism.

As bad as that is, the pro-abortion threat to conservatism runs even deeper.  As I wrote in December, there is a definite link between a culture’s character and its susceptibility to leftist thinking:

A culture that worships gratification (particularly sexual) without responsibility or constraints, that believes truth is personal and relativistic rather than grounded in permanent wisdom, that has been conditioned to expect everyone else to provide for their every need and clean up after their every mistake, that sneers at traditional morality and religious belief…these trends and attitudes cannot help but play into the Left’s hands.

Simply put, a narcissistic, relativistic, secular, ignorant culture will always be receptive to a political movement that promises to give them things paid for with other people’s money, affirms their “if it feels good, do it” mentality, and assures them that supporting statism and “environmental consciousness” are the only forms of morality or compassion they’ll ever really need.

Conservatives need to curtail these cultural trends if they are to win any lasting victory, and let’s not kid ourselves: abortion is the ultimate expression of leftist ignorance and narcissism. If we surrender on abortion, we might as well kiss goodbye the free market, or any chance of reforming the welfare state. Once society has accepted the proposition, I may take an innocent life if it benefits me to do so, why should we think twice about taking from our countrymen anything less vital—income, personal freedom, you name it—for the sake of interest? The rights to go without health insurance or allow smoking in your restaurant pale in comparison to the right not to be deliberately killed.  Surrender the right to life, and you’ve already as good as surrendered the others.

Do we really expect those who don’t take human embryology seriously to reliably assess scientific evidence in other areas, like global warming or alternative energy?

Pro-choicers mistake abortion for a question of values rather than justice, leading many of them to conclusions like, “I personally dislike abortion, but who am I to impose my beliefs on others? After all, I only believe as I do because of my culture.” This is a textbook manifestation of what the David Horowitz Freedom Center recognizes as cultural relativism or multiculturalism—hallmarks of Leftism.  If we indulge and affirm this mindset regarding abortion, do we really expect it to confine itself to that single policy area?  It’s ludicrous to think this mindset will be terribly useful in challenging radical Islam as an objectively-inferior culture.

Thus we see that abortionism imperils even the War on Terror. By now it’s clear that, if we care about a strong national defense or maintaining the free market, our best bet is to make sure the Right remains firmly pro-life. But this also brings us to David Swindle’s last remaining challenge: what if the choice does come down to a pro-life appeaser or a pro-abortion terror warrior?

First, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: David’s challenge is a theoretical exercise, not a pressing political danger.  The pro-life movement is not asking the Right to accept statists or appeasers for the sake of advancing their cause.  There is no reason to believe this must be an either-or proposition, or that “truces” on social issues would serve any purpose (indeed, the evidence actually suggests they would be unwise). Pro-lifers do sometimes threaten to sit out general elections rather than voting for odious Republicans, but even this is misleading: often we are falsely accused of such threats for doing no more than opposing such candidates in primaries, not general elections (and even the actual threats are often simply intended to discourage primary voters from voting for bad candidates out of fear of the potential general-election results). Though David’s extensive & intense work against radical Islam reveal his intent to be on the level, these challenges to pro-lifers are often disingenuous smokescreens by social liberals whose true goal is to remake the Right in their own pro-abortion image.

That said, I do recognize that America is at war. If, heaven forbid, my only choice were a pro-abortion terror warrior or four more years of Barack Obama, I would vote for the former. Pro-lifers cannot ignore the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, or the fact that a left-wing White House means a world in which Israel has no allies in her fight for survival. To this extent, David is right: “an America with legalized abortion is better than a bankrupt America under the yoke of Sharia law.”

If pro-lifers can admit this much, then our pro-choice counterparts need to admit there is far, far more at stake in the abortion battle than they have previously realized, and they need to accept the importance of keeping the Right unified and preventing such nightmare scenarios—for all our sakes.

I want to revisit the issue of whether or not the pro-life cause is central or peripheral to the conservative movement.  I made clear where I stood on that question—as an egregious deprivation of human rights, abortion should be opposed by every lover of liberty with every fiber of his or her being—but I fear I didn’t go nearly far enough in explaining the implications of the answer.  This essay will explore the practical aspects of the matter; my next one will address the moral and philosophical.

I conceded that I could “basically support” the kind of ‘truce’ David Swindle was talking about, i.e. candidates centering their campaigns on the “two unifying issues” of the free market and defeating Islamofascism. That’s more or less how wartime Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan have run for office anyway (in Reagan’s case swapping out Islamofascism for the Soviet Union), and that’s okay.  I don’t have a problem with our candidates emphasizing some issues more than others to put voters’ most immediate concerns front and center, or to address crises that demand immediate resolution.

However, that doesn’t exempt a candidate from talking about the right to life at all, or from being pro-life.  I have already argued that pro-life principles are inseparable from core conservatism, and that abortion cannot be regarded as merely one issue among many, and I’ll elaborate more on those points in the next post.  But it’s also important because whether or not one is capable of recognizing abortion for the evil that it is, and is willing to do something about it, tells us something about what he or she is made of. I know there are exceptions (Ron Paul is pro-life but deranged, Joe Lieberman is radically pro-abortion, but firm on the war), but I truly believe that strongly pro-life candidates will tend to be of a higher caliber than pro-choice candidates in several qualities that will benefit public servants, and the American people, in all areas:

More honest, rational, and trustworthy—Frankly, to defend or be indifferent to the willful destruction of innocent human beings requires an inescapable degree of moral blindness/irresponsibility, serious lapses in logical abilities, and/or scandalous ignorance of basic biology. If morally-sound, well-reasoned arguments for legal abortion that haven’t yet been discredited exist, I’m not aware of them.

More steadfast in the face of opposition—Stand for life, and you’re asking to be smeared as a religious tyrant who hates women, a trigger-happy nutcase, or just not sophisticated enough to see the ‘big’ picture.  Appease abortionism, and the press will grant you the coveted rank of ‘good’ or ‘respectable’ Republican, hailing your as a noble voice of reason in a party ruled by hate & ignorance.  Surely the fortitude to resist these forces and stick to principle under pressure is a highly desirable trait for any conservative—and avowed pro-lifers are nothing if not battle-hardened.

The Left loves their Mavericks (see Colin Powell, Arlen Specter, John McCain pre-2008), and would like nothing better than to see a GOP they can push around.  But their belligerence on the issue masks a fundamental weakness.  Sure, they’re quick to deem Roe v. Wade a “settled precedent” and “choice” a cherished women’s right.  Funny thing, though—mainstream liberals almost never discuss the issue on the merits.  They can’t.  They don’t want to.  Because they have no argument.

Why do you think they want to keep it as a matter for the courts, out of the people’s hands? Why do you think they bristle at describing abortion in terms more specific than “terminating pregnancies” or “the right to choose, their first instinct is to steer the heart of the matter toward anything except what an unborn baby is?  Why do you think public defenses of abortion almost universally carry caveats about being “personally opposed” to abortion, which is a “sad” or “tragic” thing that we can all agree there should be fewer of? Consider how leading Democrats defend their position:

Barack Obama—“Whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question [when a baby gets human rights] with specificity, y’know, is above my pay grade…I am pro-choice, I believe in Roe vs. Wade, and I come to that conclusion not because I’m pro-abortion, but because ultimately I don’t think women make these decisions casually. They wrestle with these things in profound ways, in consultation with their pastors or spouses, or their doctors or their family members.”

John Kerry—“I oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. But I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist . . . who doesn’t share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.”

Nancy Pelosi—“I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition … St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”

Somewhat less than persuasive, no? If America really was having a national conversation about abortion, in which the Left had to regularly explain and defend what abortion consists of, that “constitutional right” wouldn’t look so untouchable—nor would politicians who defend the heinous practice.

Consider the phenomenon of pro-life Democrats.  The number of Democrats who at least campaigned as pro-lifers was big enough to almost kill ObamaCare (how’s that for demonstrating the ties between social & fiscal conservatism?). Presumably, they got into office thanks to voters without a strong commitment to limited government, but with strong reservations about abortion.

This only makes sense—the average voter isn’t grounded in the nuances of classical political or economic theory. He grows up in a world where a proactive, far-reaching, service-providing federal government is the established norm, and therefore has little reason to think things should be different—thriftier here, more effective there, but not a fundamentally different way of doing things (this is why Democrats get mileage out of simplistically demagoging issues like healthcare and the minimum wage).  Abortion, on the other hand, is a much easier concept for the layman to understand intuitively. The idea of killing an innocent child for convenience speaks directly to the human conscience, especially in an age where “when life begins” is no longer ambiguous and a single image can say more than any judicial or economic treatise:

And yet it’s supposed to make good political sense—and enlarge the “big tent” past “50.1%”—to give these voters no reason to even consider voting Republican?  Really?

As Ramesh Ponnuru explains, being visibly pro-life is actually a net gain for a politician, not a hindrance, because “surveys have consistently found that pro-lifers are more likely to vote on abortion than pro-choicers.” While there isn’t a clear majority for overturning Roe (partly due to misinformation over what Roe really says) or instituting a general abortion ban, the public does want more restrictions than current law allows, and they’re definitely to the right of the Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, on the issue.  Since Ponnuru made these observations in 2008, public opinion has only become more pro-life, with the fastest growth among young adults. There’s no reason the American people can’t or won’t continue in that direction, a) as long as the pro-life movement maintains its efforts on the hearts and minds front, and b) if our politicians actually talked to the American people about it once in a while.

Deep blue states aside, there’s no reason to think supporting life is a general election turn-off, and every reason to believe it’s an asset. Indeed, the only scenarios that carry real risks are the Right taking the pro-life vote for granted (pro-lifers are frustrated enough with the party for giving the cause little more than lip service), making them sit closer to the back of the bus than they already are, or kicking them off the bus entirely. Just as pro-life Democrats are supported by otherwise-liberal voters, we may be confident that a sizeable chunk of the GOP’s pro-life support comes from voters without strong inclinations on other issues (who, in some cases, probably vote Republican despite their other views, due to the gravity of abortion).

Before calling for “truces” on so-called “social” issues, left-leaning Republicans need to think long and hard about whether or not the new voters they expect to gain—if they materialize at all—will be enough to make up for the pro-life voters they could lose—especially considering that for the more religious among them, voting for a pro-choicer is a mortal sin, regardless of other considerations.  Whether or not they’re wrong is irrelevant: they are going to act on this conviction, regardless of the finger waving David Frum & Michael Medved have in store for them. “Big picture” Republicans who insist on a more socially-liberal party are playing with fire—and the rest of us are going to get burned.

UPDATE: Ponnuru’s 2007 piece on Rudy Giuliani’s failed candidacy speaks powerfully to these concerns as well, and demands to be read in full. Just one of many, many points the Right’s elites should stop and think about:

In 2004, George W. Bush carried 80 percent of voters who chose their candidate based on “moral values,” but lost 80 percent of voters who cited “jobs” and “the economy” as their top issues. The New York Times that year ran a story about voters in swing states such as Ohio and Iowa who were torn between the presidential candidates: They thought their economic interests lay with John Kerry, but their values lined up with Bush. Nominating Giuliani would make such voters’ choices a lot easier. (And that’s leaving aside the possibility of a party split, a convention walkout, or a third-party challenge.)

UPDATE II: For those truly interested in understanding both the politics and principles of abortion, I cannot recommend Ramesh Ponnuru’s The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life highly enough.

Yep.  Squirrel bridges.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go try to forget that liberals exist for a few hours.