The Felony Of Life (UPDATED)

     Great age tends to diminish the energies required for certain activities, such as fulminating about injustices. Even so, there are some discoveries that still light my boiler and turn it up to 11.

     This is one such:

     WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden “withheld evidence” and approved “aggressive arrest tactics” when targeting pro-life defendants — and then slapped them with longer prison sentences than pro-abortion ones, according to an explosive internal review released Tuesday.
     The DOJ revealed the stunning abuses in a nearly 900-page report after examining more than 700,000 records related to the Biden administration’s prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
     The 1994 law was passed to protect access to houses of worship, religious institutions, abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers.
     But the Biden DOJ was found to have engaged multiple times in “biased enforcement” of it — while also collaborating with and even seeking to fund pro-abortion groups, according to the DOJ Office of Legal Policy report.

     The article is long, but it’s eminently worth your time, regardless of your opinions about abortion. I thought I was past taking umbrage at the Biden Administration. I was wrong.

     Rather than froth at the mouth over this, I’ll simply point out that Joe Biden is, nominally at least, a Catholic. A plurality of seriously active pro-lifers are Catholics. So a Catholic president presided over a Justice Department that pursued and prosecuted Americans for their Catholic affiliation. When the prosecutors were able to secure a conviction under the notoriously vague “FACE Act,” they exhorted the sentencing judge to be far harsher toward the convicted pro-lifer than toward a pro-abortion defendant convicted for the same offense. So much for Catholic politicians taking orders from the Vatican.

     Meanwhile, we have violent offenders – assaulters, rapists, kidnappers – being given light sentences because of their “religion:” Islam. A number of such criminals, here and in Europe, have been able to avert punishment by pleading that their “religion” commands that they do as they did. Given the propensity of Muslims to riot over cartoons and such, I doubt that requires a great deal of explanation.

     Could it be clearer that the First World, these United States in particular, need a clarification of what constitutes a valid religion protected under the First Amendment? Could it be clearer that religious affiliation must be excluded from decisions to prosecute, from sentencing decisions, and from peremptory challenges during the voir dire? Could it be clearer, given the events of the Mark Houck incident, that the “FACE Act” must be repealed, or failing that, heavily revised to make absolutely objective and indisputable what constitutes an offense?

     “The law is a ass—a idiot,” wrote Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist. Sometimes, definitely. Especially when it’s made by villains with an axe to grind, and enforced by others who seek to ply that tool against the necks of disfavored persons and groups.

     UPDATE: I've just learned that Mark Houck has won a $1,000,000 award from the FBI for the tactics it used against him. I can't think of anyone who would deserve it more.

Faces Of Courage

     In mathematics, we speak of the preconditions for some implication as being necessary, or sufficient, or both. If a precondition is necessary, it’s merely one without which the conclusion sought cannot be reached. If a precondition is sufficient, then it implies the conclusion sought without requiring any other support.

     Courage is a necessary precondition for heroism.

     Many people fail to understand courage. It’s not the same as fearlessness. In fact, it comes close to being its opposite. The courageous man acts despite his fears. The greater and more pressing are the fears, the greater is the courage required to stand fast despite them.

     Allow me a longish citation from an old novel: Robert B. Parker’s Pastime:

     “When did scotch become the drink of celebration?” Susan leaned her chin on her folded hands and rested her gaze on me. The experience was, as it always was, tangible. The weight of her serious intelligence in counterpoint to her playful spoiled princess was culminative.
     “Sometimes it's champagne,” I said. “Sometimes it's scotch....
     “I was seventeen,” I said, “the first time I had anything but beer. We were bird hunting in Maine, my father and I, and a pointer, Pearl the first. We were looking for pheasant in an old apple orchard that hadn't been farmed in maybe fifty years. You had to go through bad cover to reach it, brambles, and small alder that was clumped together and tangled. My father was maybe thirty yards off to the right, and the dog was ahead, ranging, the way they do, and coming back with her tongue out and her tail erect, and looking at me, and then swinging back out in another arc....
     “All of a sudden I heard her bark-half hysterical bark, half growl-and she came loping back, stopping every few yards and turning and making her barking snarling sound that had some fear in it, and then she reached me and leaned in hard on my leg and stood like they do, with her front legs stiff and her tail down and her ears sort of flattened back, and growled. And the hair was stiff along her spine. And I remember thinking, ‘Jesus, this must be the pheasant that ate Chicago.’ We had just come out of the cover and into the orchard and I looked and there was a bear.”
     “A grizzly?” Susan said. Her eyes were fixed on me and they seemed bottomless and captivated, like a kid listening to ghost stories.
     “No, they don't have grizzly bears in Maine. It was a black bear, he'd been feeding on the fallen apples that some of the trees were still producing. They must have been close to rotten, and they must have been fermenting in his stomach, because he was drunk.”
     “Drunk?”
     “Yeah, bears do that sometimes. Usually it happens close to a town, because that's where there are apple orchards, and the forest ranger types dart them and haul them off to some other place in the woods to sober up. But no one had tranquilized this one. He was loose, upright, drunk, and swaying a little. I don't know how big he was. Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds or so. Maybe more. They can get bigger. Standing on his hind legs he looked a lot bigger than I was.”
     “What did you do?”
     “Well, the dog was going crazy now, growling and making a kind of high whining noise, and the bear was reared up and grunting. They sound more like pigs than anything else. I had a shotgun full of birdshot, sevens, I think, and it might have annoyed the bear. It sure as hell wouldn't have stopped him. But I didn't have anything else and I was pretty sure if I ran it would chase me, and they can run about forty miles an hour, so it was going to catch me. So I just stood there with the shotgun leveled. It was a pump. I had one round in the chamber and three more in the magazine, and I prayed that if he charged and if I got him in the face it would make him turn. The dog was in a frenzy, dashing out a few feet and barking and snarling and then running back to lean against my leg. The bear reared up, swaying, and I can still remember how rank the bear smelled and the way everything moved so slowly. And then my father was beside me. He didn't make any noise coming. Afterwards he said he heard the dog and knew it was something, probably a bear, from the way the dog sounded. He had a shotgun too, but he also was carrying a big old .45 hogleg, a six-shooter he'd had ever since he was a kid in Laramie. And he stood beside the dog, next to me, and took that shooter's stance that I always can remember him using, and cocked the .45 and we waited. The bear dropped to all fours, and snorted and grunted and dipped its head and turned around and left. I can see us like a painting on a calendar, my father with the .45 and the dog between us, snarling, and yipping, and me with the shotgun that, if he'd charged, the bear would have picked his teeth with....
     “The dog was no good for birds the rest of the day, and neither were we, I suppose. We went back to the lodge we were staying at and put Pearl in our room, and fed her, and then my father and I went down to the bar and my father ordered two double scotch whiskies. The bartender looked at me and looked at my father and didn't say anything and brought the whiskey. He put both of them in front of my father and my father pushed one of them over in front of me. “
     ‘Ran into a bear in the woods today,’ my father said without much inflection. He still had the Western sound in his voice. ‘Kid stood his ground.’
     “The bartender was a lean, dark guy, with a big nose. He looked at me and nodded and moved on down the bar, and my father and I drank the scotch.”

     A better description of courage in the face of a physical threat would be hard to find.

---

     In America in our time, many “classical” fears – fear of starvation; fear of assault and murder; fear of a wild animal attack – are far less intense than those suffered by people of other places and times. We have other things to fear. Some of them are trivial and contemptible; others are so fearsome as to defy adequate condemnation.

     In America in our time, there are predators roaming about eager to destroy your life should you dare to disagree with them. They have a range of tools with which to do it. Some of those tools are very nearly impossible to nullify.

     Have a memory from a year ago, at the 2019 March for Life in Washington, D.C.:

     The young man with the somewhat nervous smile had just had a drum thrust into his face by one of the nation’s foremost frauds. He merely stood his ground. Perhaps he didn’t know what else to do. Perhaps he wanted to push the old “Indian” away; I surely would have wanted to do so. But perhaps he knew that it would be impolitic, and decided merely to wait out the nuisance.

     The consequences could have ruined his life. Quite a lot of people, including the pastors of his parish and the authorities over the school he attended, leaped to condemn him for merely standing his ground. They were encouraged to do so by news media that produced deceptively edited video clips of the confrontation to suggest that Nick Sandmann had deliberately obstructed Nathan Phillips to show scorn for him.

     Nick Sandmann continued to stand his ground. He secured legal assistance. He filed suits against those who had defamed him. He pressed his case in court, and in the court of public opinion. He saw to it that unedited video clips of what Nathan Phillips had done, amply buttressed by eyewitness testimony, were provided to the media.

     And he won.

     Many persons, once they’ve freed themselves of a tangle of defamation, would have chosen never again to risk public attention. But Nick Sandmann feels that some causes are too important for him to withhold his presence and support. And yesterday, he participated in the 2020 Washington, D.C. March for Life:

     A better real-life demonstration of courage in the face of incredible viciousness and condemnation – some of it from conservative commentators and other putative supporters – would be hard to find.

---

     It isn’t necessary to say much more about this. Simply remember that those who claim a right to slaughter the unborn – they call it “a woman’s right to choose” – are willing to destroy the reputation of anyone who stands in their way. If you’ve ever been active in this cause, you may have been touched by their malice; it’s a good possibility.

     We who respect life and seek to protect the lives of the helpless are of another persuasion. We don’t strive to defame or destroy anyone, regardless of his opinion on the subject. But we need icons to represent us; faceless masses are far less persuasive, and far too easy to disparage as “mindless religious fanatics.”

     President Trump’s appearance at yesterday’s March for Life was a signal event: the first time a president has done so. Many regard that as a pivot point for the pro-life movement. But President Trump is, at least for now, a politician, and politicians often do things strictly for political advantage.

     Nick Sandmann has no such agenda. He’s not running for anything.

     Regard well the face of courage in a cause far too many are eager to defame.

Conclusion Time

     In every political controversy, one must ask oneself whether a conclusion is possible – conclusion being used in the sense of a firm conviction that one has reached the truth of the matter. Some controversies are not susceptible to conclusions; the motives of those involved are too murky. Others will allow for them, though it might be a while before sufficient evidence can be amassed. And in some, one can make use of “previous work.”

     Concerning the Left’s efforts to defame Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Brett Kavanaugh as a sexual harasser, considerable evidence has emerged in a very short span. Moreover, “previous work,” specifically the Left’s prior attempt to smear Associate Justice Clarence Thomas as a sexual harasser, points in the same direction as that evidence. On these grounds and others, I maintain that conclusion time is upon us.

---

     The current Justices of the Supreme Court, with their avowed religious affiliations or backgrounds:

• Chief Justice John Roberts: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Clarence Thomas: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Samuel Alito: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Jewish.
• Associate Justice Stephen Breyer: Jewish.
• Associate Justice Elena Kagan: Jewish.

     Thus, the Court has six Catholics on it. I can’t recall a previous time when that was the case. Think hard, now: What specific doctrine of the Catholic Church comes at once to mind in reference to hotly debated public-policy issues and the Supreme Court?

     Kyle Smith has one in mind:

     The New York Times on Saturday joined The New Yorker and many other media outlets in upending a dumpster full of garbage on its own reputation in an effort to smear Brett Kavanaugh. After more than a year of digging, the Democrats and their media allies still have no supported allegations of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh at any point in his entire life.

     Why would the media do this? Call it the asterisk strategy. This is a coordinated, full-on effort to undermine the legitimacy of Brett Kavanaugh’s work on the Supreme Court. The reputations of news outlets are so many eggs that must be broken in pursuit of this omelet....

     The hope of the Democratic party and most of the media is to delegitimize Brett Kavanaugh and hence any Supreme Court decision in which he joins a 5–4 majority. The ground is being laid to make the case that, should Roe v. Wade be overturned in such a manner, that decision would exist under a cloud. It’s a desperation move: The Democrats and their media allies, the Times and the New Yorker very much included, are envisioning some extralegal or extra-constitutional maneuvers to stop Roe from being overturned.

     BRAVO! Clarity at last! A firm conclusion reached on the basis of the evidence before us! That, Gentle Reader, is today’s political benison. Savor it, as we might not get another this week.

---

     At this time, owing to the election of 2016, the federal government’s executive and judicial branches are in Republican hands, albeit not by fat margins. Moreover, President Trump has openly criticized Roe v. Wade, though he’s avoided uttering a blanket condemnation of the practice of abortion. With the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, for the first time since 1973 there’s an appreciable chance, should a suitable case come before the Court, that the ruling in Roe v. Wade could be overturned.

     (No, there wasn’t much chance before Kavanaugh. Remember how squishy John Roberts has proved to be. The mutterings that the Left “must have something on him” might just have some substance. At any rate, he’d be an unreliable vote on this issue.)

     Yes, there are other aspects to Kavanaugh’s seating on the Court. Jodi Giddings of Victory Girls mentions a few. I trust Miss Giddings will allow me a great deal of snipping to stay within “fair use:”

1. They know they can’t beat Trump.
2. They know their extremist views on abortion are abhorrent to most Americans.
3. They are fearful that Ruth Bader-Ginsburg could be replaced by Trump.
4. They think impeaching Kavanaugh will bolster their goal of impeaching Trump.
5. Removing the focus from themselves (gun grabbing, tax increases, open borders, hatred of America, etc etc etc).
6. Cementing the women’s vote.

     All of these are plausible, but to my mind the lead item is the Left’s secular sacrament: abortion. The Left has gone all-out to protect that practice from having the mildest legal conditions placed on it. Indeed, the Left has agitated for government-funded abortion. Their argument seems to be that if it’s a “right,” then surely the Omnibenevolent State should pay for it. The possibility that a reversal of Roe v. Wade could return the question to the states, where popular sentiment has turned ever more definitely against unrestricted abortion on demand, is abhorrent to them.

---

     I’ve done this before, but, as the calumnies about my Catholicism and its relation to my politics have never abated, I’m going to do it again:

     "What did you think of the movie?" Celeste pulled Louis's arm against her and walked closely alongside him.
     He shrugged. "I'm not big on tearjerkers. It was pretty decent entertainment, but I have a feeling they distorted the facts of his life a bit."
     "Whose? C. S. Lewis's?"
     He nodded. "I have a hard time matching the character in the movie with the things he wrote."
     "You've read his books?"
     "All of them."
     He unlocked the passenger door of his pickup truck and helped her into it. Even with his assistance, her stiletto heels made it a challenge.
     When they were in motion, she asked, "Do you have any favorite hobbies?"
     "Hm? No, I read a lot, that's about it."
     "So, how do you pass the time when you're not at work? Just reading?"
     He guided the truck through the gate of her townhouse complex, wheeled into a convenient parking place, and killed the engine. "Well, I do a few other things, but nothing you'd call exciting."
     I've got to know before this gets any more serious.
     Trying to sound casual and failing completely, she said, "Any causes?"
     He turned and looked at her without speaking, then let himself out of the truck and went around to her side to help her out. She took his arm again as they began the walk to her door.
     "If you were to take Route 231 through the city, turn south onto Fullerton Boulevard, and stay on it for about half a mile, you'd come to a light industrial area. On the southern edge there's a medical park, just a few one-story buildings that share a parking lot. Most Saturdays when the weather is good, you'd find me standing at the entrance with a sign that says 'Pregnant? Please talk to me first.' "
     Katie was right.
     "Operation Rescue, Louis?"
     He shook his head as they mounted the short flight of concrete steps that stood before her door. "No, I don't much care for that bunch. When they're there, I'm not. This is just me, and sometimes another fellow who feels the way I do."
     Instead of unlocking her door at once, she turned to face him. He stood with his hands clasped before him. She could read nothing from his face in the dim moonlight.
     "And how is that?"
     He looked down briefly. "That abortion is a horrible thing. That it should be a last resort, to save a mother's life, not a first to spare her some inconvenience. That most women who have abortions wouldn't, if they knew how they'd feel afterward." He said it calmly, no strain apparent.
     "Are you a Catholic by any chance, Louis?"
     He stood a little straighter. "Not by chance, Celeste. By mature choice, and by the grace of God."
     Something in the words flicked her on the raw. Scorn poured into her voice. "I see. And of course that 'grace' gives you the right to interfere in the mature choices of women you've never met?"
     His eyes flared wide. "I interfere in no one's choices, Miss Holmgren. I force myself on no one. I present information and alternatives. Sometimes it seems as if the rest of society is practically shoving women into abortion clinics, rushing them in with no chance to check other options or think about what they're doing. I don't block the doors. I stand beside them with an offer of assistance. If that be interference, make the most of it."
     He started away, then faced her again. "By the way, you might have the wrong idea about something else as well. I'm not opposed to abortion because I'm a Catholic. Being opposed to abortion is part of what qualifies me to be a Catholic. Give that a spin on your mental merry-go-round and see where it gets off. Thanks for your company this evening. I'll see you at the office next week."
     He strode off into the darkness before she could reclaim her voice.

[From Chosen One]

     Louis Redmond’s convictions are mine as well.

---

     Abortion as a public-policy matter has been debated in the most strident tones imaginable, ever since the decision in Roe v. Wade was announced. As a cultural matter, it’s suffered quite a number of setbacks, most prominently the Kermit Gosnell atrocities, the revelation that major abortion provider Planned Parenthood has been selling fetal body parts to order, and the tide of former pro-abortion voices who’ve turned against the procedure out of simple humanity. The recent movie Unplanned dramatizes that last aspect of the thing.

     While the nation is dramatically divided about whether abortion should be legal and under what circumstances, the Democrat Party is not. Its coalition is already shaky. To keep it together, it must “hold the line” on a handful of issues. Abortion, which the Left regards as key to retaining “the women’s vote,” is probably at the top of that list. Thus, it will do whatever it can think of to obstruct any progress, whether legal or judicial, toward limiting abortions.

     The delegitimization of the Supreme Court, now populated by a Catholic majority, is a component in that effort. The attack on Brett Kavanaugh and the revived attacks on Clarence Thomas – remember the “high-tech lynching?” I do – are central elements in that effort.

     Let’s sum up. A political party that respects nothing but power and is determined to have all of it in perpetuity has committed the foulest imaginable libels against good and decent men who stand in its path. It’s degraded the nation, beclowned its media, and disregarded the sanctity of human life to gain its end. Would you say there’s any real surprise to be had here, Gentle Reader? Any uncertainty about the conclusions I've reached?

     Nope. Me neither.

The Limits Of The Law

     Legislatures will legislate about anything. it’s why there are so many nonsense laws on the books. Every so often you’ll find a list of some of the sillier ones on the Web. Here’s one such.

     (I had no idea it was illegal to slurp soup in New York! I’d better augment the Fortress’s soundproofing right away.)

     It’s characteristic of such laws that no attempt is made to enforce them. (Why they were never repealed is a separate subject.) In some cases, the authorities know the law is silly and would prefer not to look ridiculous...well, all right, more ridiculous. In others, enforcement would be impossible for various reasons. Often what makes enforcement impossible is the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

     The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

     Note the wording: shall not be violated. This style of construction indicates that the prohibition applies to every level of government. Compare it to the construction of the First Amendment:

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

     This amendment prohibits Congress from interfering with religion, expression, and peaceable assembly, no other level. That was quite deliberate, as several of the states had established churches and censorship laws at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Those states would not have agreed to the Bill of Rights had it invalidated their existing laws on those subjects.

     I made note of the privacy-preserving power of the Fourth Amendment in The Wise and the Mad:

     “I’ve been told that a wise man once said that ‘love laughs at hardware,’” Holly said. “I know the sort of love Heidi and Roland chose to enjoy isn’t to everyone’s taste. It’s not that long since it was illegal, both here and in the U.K. Oscar Wilde went to prison for it, did he not?”
     “He did,” Walsingham said.
     “Is sodomy still against the law across the water?”
     “That law was overturned quite some time ago,” he said. “There have been attempts to have it reinstated, but all have failed.”
     “It’s the same here, and just as well,” Holly said. “There can be no pretense of autonomy or personal privacy in a land where the private bodily conduct of consenting individuals is a fit subject for the attention of the police.”
     Walsingham’s face worked. “That is the usual argument. Yet there are many who regard the maintenance of society’s moral standards to be of greater importance.”
     “I know. It’s unclear to some how utterly impossible it is to have both individual freedom and legally enforced sexual standards at once. The Constitution was the touchstone for reform here, particularly the Fourth Amendment. But America has groups demanding the return of the old laws, too.”

     Those “groups demanding the return of the old laws” will fail for the reason given immediately above. On net balance, that’s a good thing...but in some cases, not everyone will agree.

---

     There’s a rising tide of pro-life / anti-abortion sentiment, which is all to the good. The carnage of abortion has reaped at least fifty million defenseless lives in this country alone, and has helped to corrupt relations between the sexes simultaneously. But no matter how strong that tide becomes, there will be abortions of a certain kind that will escape scrutiny, and therefore any attempt to ban or restrict them by law. The Fourth Amendment is the reason.

     If Miss Smith is the only person aware that she’s pregnant – a common condition in the first couple of months of a pregnancy – she and compliant Doctor Jones can arrange for a dilation and curettage (D&C) abortion with no one else aware that it’s taken place. Such abortions took place long before Roe v. Wade, without legal consequences. There’s no way to prevent them through the law.

     Think about what it would take to ensure that Miss Smith’s condition could not be concealed. Even the most invasive scheme for bodily monitoring would be uncertain at best – but more to the point, it would be a Fourth Amendment violation. Nor could the abortion be detected through any monitoring of Doctor Jones, as the D&C procedure is also a treatment for certain menstrual disorders. If both were to remain discreet, they would be safe from any attempt to prosecute them, regardless of how the law is drawn.

     President George W. Bush, in his early remarks about the importance of building a “culture of life,” was undoubtedly aware of this. While no law would prevent Miss Smith’s abortion, her own conscience could do so, if it were equipped with knowledge of the sanctity of human life. A culture of life would be one in which Miss Smith had absorbed that knowledge and incorporated it into her moral foundation.

     (This is in part what Catholics mean by the importance of a properly formed conscience. We’re all amoral savages from birth to about age seven. We have to be taught not to kill and eat our playmates or kidnap their little sisters for “a bit of fun.” In most households those lessons normally come right after the one about not putting your elbows on the table.)

     So even in the most severe imaginable legal regime, there would be some abortions that the law could not touch. Though it might horrify my Gentle Readers, we should be grateful for the Constitutional constraints that make it so.

---

     The law has limits. Congress cannot outlaw bad weather, the demands of the “global warming / climate change” flacksters notwithstanding. Neither can it police the entirely private conduct of individuals without transgressing the Fourth Amendment. Finally, the common-law tradition of the presumption of innocence protects individuals from prosecution for unspecified crimes and accusations in the absence of a demonstrable crime.

     Some people dislike those constraints. Others argue that the law has more than one function – that it can also be used to “send a message.” The technical term for such persons is “fools.” A law that cannot be enforced, whatever the reason, weakens the public’s respect for the law and the lawmaking authority. We’re already seeing this play out with unenforceable anti-firearms laws in several states, including New York. We’ve seen it nationwide in the cases of alcohol prohibition and the War on Drugs. In the worst cases, an unenforceable law can foment a rebellion.

     Fortunately, the Constitution is very hard to amend. The older Constitutional provisions are hardest of all to change, thank God. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments are among the oldest. If you’ve wondered why Kelo v. New London raised such an uproar, or why the National Popular Vote Compact has so many tempers flaring, now you know.

     It is empirically well established that a law that more than 2% of the public is willing to violate is unenforceable de facto. Just now, at least a third of the public would willingly violate any anti-abortion statute. We who cherish innocent human life might chafe at that, but it’s the way things are.

     So the pro-life advocate’s first duty is to build a culture of life. With such a culture in place, laws against detectable abortions could have some practical effect. But even were we successful beyond all hope, there would still be some abortions. They would go unpunished for the reasons set out here. Legislated law and human law enforcement are not all-powerful. Despite this unfortunate aspect, that’s something for which we should be grateful.

What Is And What Is Not

     Discourse can illuminate...sometimes. But it can also obscure, occlude, and confuse. The latter effect is nowhere more evident than when discourse approaches metaphysical fundamentals.

     A relevant sidelight: For anyone who isn’t already drearily familiar with my affiliations: I’m a Catholic. Catholic scholars have a long history of exegetical interpretations of sacred writings. They’ve done a lot of quarreling over variations in interpretation of Scriptural passages, sometimes over individual words. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to be familiar, not with the Bible alone, but with the totality of the intellectual, moral, and social context in which each book of the Bible was written. The writers were not always motivated solely by dedication to the will of God. Indeed, in some cases they were more interested in telling an entertaining story. (If this be heresy, as Bible literalists would insist, make the most of it.)

     But the will of God isn’t something authoritatively recorded in a human-readable form. The Bible does not express it; it expresses what various persons proclaimed to be the will of God. Perhaps some of those proclamations were correct, but in all cases it’s vital to remember that what we read in the Bible are the words of men.

     Arguments in metaphysics are like that, too. Metaphysics is the study of what precedes all human concepts and discourse: fundamental reality, “what is and what is not” above and apart from all our opinions about it. All symbols and concepts are attempts to associate abstractions with such fundamentals, so we can think about them in an orderly fashion. Metaphysics is our struggle to reason about the very stuff that makes reasoning possible in the first place. Douglas Hofstadter would call this a Tangled Hierarchy: the most tangled of all.

     Metaphysical discourse cannot change what is and what is not, any more than Bishop Berkeley’s subjectivist-idealism could soften the rock Samuel Johnson kicked when he said “I refute it thus.” But a pseudo-metaphysician can infect the naive listener with a disease of the mind. That sickness consists of the replacement of what is by something that is not. It can be fatal; indeed, it often is.

     Murky stuff, eh? Well, if you’re a regular Gentle Reader, you should know what I’m like by now. Especially on Mondays.

---

     From the above you might think I have some extraordinarily abstruse (not to say obtuse) point to make that would require a doctorate in philosophy to unravel. Really, it’s just a preface to what’s lit my boilers for today, calibrated to give you a sense for the sort of thoughts I percolate after encountering an outrage. And Bubba, do we ever have an outrage today:

     London, England, Jun 21, 2019 / 11:15 am (CNA).- A British judge has authorized doctors to perform an abortion on a pregnant Catholic woman with developmental disabilities and a mood disorder, despite the objections of the woman’s mother and the woman herself. The woman is 22 weeks pregnant....

     Doctors at the trust wished to abort her pregnancy and argued that, due to her diminished mental capacity, the abortion would be less traumatic for the woman than giving birth, especially if the baby would then be placed in foster care.

     The woman’s mother made clear to doctors and the court that she would assume care of her grandchild.

     So here we have a woman in the sixth month of pregnancy, admittedly of diminished mental capacity but otherwise healthy, whose mother is willing to take responsibility for the child. But a “Court of Protection” – whose protection, pray tell? – is ordering the death of that baby. Why?

     [Court of Protection Justice Nathalie Lieven] said she did not believe the woman understood what it meant to have a baby.

     “I think she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll,” Lieven said.

     Lieven also said she did not believe the woman's mother, who already helps care for her daughter, would be able to offer care for a grandchild at the same time.

     Allowing the child to be born and then removed from the woman’s home and placed into foster care or adoption would be against the woman’s own interests, the judge concluded.

     “I think [the woman] would suffer greater trauma from having a baby removed [from her care],” Lieven said, because “it would at that stage be a real baby.”

     Lieven has characterized her ruling as “compassionate.”

     Take a few moments over that, Gentle Reader. I need a few, myself.

---

     A few days ago I wrote a piece about moral fundamentals that specifically addressed the right to life / the wrongness of murder. Needless to say, the pro-abortion crowd would have none of it; it transgresses against their most hallowed sacrament. But moral fundamentals aren’t a matter of opinion. Either they exist or they don’t.

     If moral fundamentals are real, they are metaphysically given preconditions for human existence, written directly into our natures. No amount of clever discourse can set them at naught. No teleological rationales can do away with the consequences from violating them. Those consequences will be as malign as the violations themselves. Perhaps more so.

     There is no middle ground. Either humans possess a right to life – i.e., our lives are morally protected against unjustified invasion by others – or we don’t. In the former case, “Justice” Lieven is complicit in the murder of a helpless infant; in the latter, our lives continue only by the willingness of others to permit them.

     There are many, these days, who hold to a collectivist variation on the solipsist thesis. It’s called “social construction of reality.” In essence, this thesis holds that if a sufficient number of persons agree that “X is real,” then X is real – and that the inverse is also true. Belief supersedes and displaces the metaphysically given. Legislation can nullify the right to life. A plebiscite can set pi equal to three.

     I feel a need to label these folks. They’re not quite subjectivists, as they require ratification of their “reality” by a majority of like-minded. Neither are they solipsists, for the same reason. Let’s go with “soliptitarians.” An ugly thesis should be served by an ugly neologism, don’t you think?

     It must be a heady feeling to believe that your will, at least when united with a sufficient number of others, can determine the fundamentals of existence. But no more than fifty years ago the soliptitarian would have been locked into a room with soft walls. We don’t do that anymore. Perhaps it’s because so many of them have positions on university faculties.

---

     Soliptitarians would tell you – probably in chorus – that the authority of “Justice” Lieven’s “Court of Protection” is wielded “for the common good.” Power-worshippers whip out that shibboleth whenever they need to disguise an atrocity. Thaddeus McCotter has some thoughts about that:

     But what can one expect from this “justice” who, prior to reaching the bench, represented the British Pregnancy Advisory Service—an Orwellian name for an abortion provider—and argued British women should be able to have abortions at home rather than a hospital?

     What can one expect from this “justice” who, prior to reaching the bench, argued restrictions in “Northern Ireland’s abortion laws were a violation of the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act” and claimed they were “akin to torture.”

     Yes, what can one expect from this “justice” who now feels her eugenicist decree that a pregnant woman must endure a forced abortion and de facto sterilization is compassionate—and, of course, for the common good?

     Nothing good. Pray for Europe.

     Perhaps prayer will help. The soliptitarian will have none of that, of course; Prayer offends against the “reality” he and his fellows have “constructed,” in which what is and what is not depends upon their whim. But for treating their disease of the mind, nothing known to modern medicine will suffice.

When You’re For Death, You’re For Death All the Way

     …even if that requires you to bully and vilify a thirteen-year-old girl:

     Fascist Americans now think it’s okay to shout down a 13-year old child standing up for the unborn. The young girl, Addison Woosley is courageous and they are bullies. They could learn from the child.

     The young anti-abortion activist, was jeered incessantly during a speech after about 02:13 on the Facebook clip in which she called on the city to ban abortion and be a “sanctuary city for the unborn,” according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

     “Abortion should be illegal because it’s murder,” she began. “The definition of murder is the killing of one human being by another.”

     The Death Cultists know who their most dangerous enemies are:

     Despite pleas from many for the gallery to be quiet during the girl’s address, the abuse continued. “You’re a baby!” another person screamed at the child, after she described, in detail, the aborting of a live human being.

     But the disrespect did not just come from the gallery. Shockingly, as the last pro-life speaker, David Buboltz, took the stand, one of the council members, Stef Mendell, turned her back on him and refused to listen.

     Buboltz, who was wearing a shirt with an unborn baby on it that read “I am going to be murdered tomorrow!” was furious.

     “First I would like to say that, Stef Mendell, it is disgusting that you would turn your back on us and on these babies,” he said in an impassioned address to the council. “It is. It isn’t disrespectful to me. It is disrespectful to my God. And my God is all powerful. The Almighty God, the one who created the universe. You will stand accountable.”

     That’s a kind of accountability the Death Cultists can do nothing about. It’s why so many of them “play ostrich” by denying the reality of God and the afterlife. Shouting Him down is impossible.

     But more to the point, 13-year-old Addison Woosley was demonstrating to her peers that it’s possible and sensible to think for themselves, to differ with the “authorities” who’ve propagandized them, and to draw logical inferences from objective information. The entirety of the “public” school system is set up to batter the independence of mind out of our kids. John Dewey said so explicitly, and who would be a more reliable “authority” than he, the father of contemporary “education?”

Do You Think She’s Kidding?

     Don’t all answer at once, now:

     Earlier this month, myself and a group of concerned citizens met with State Representative Diane Pappas at her district office to discuss House Bill 2495. HB2495 is the Reproductive Health Act. If this extreme bill passes the House and Senate and becomes law, Illinois will lead the country in unrestricted access to abortions. What I’m going to share with you is what happened during our visit with Representative Pappas. Diane Pappas represents Legislative District 45, which covers all or parts of Bartlett, Hanover Park, West Chicago, Wayne, Carol Stream, Bloomingdale, Itasca, Roselle, Wood Dale, Medinah, and Addison.

     A small coalition from a local parish in Wayne Township met at the district office of Representative Diane Pappas in Bloomingdale to discuss HB2495 with Ms. Pappas. We tried to keep politics out of this equation, as we were here to represent the parish members for Pro-Life. I personally, introduced myself as a business owner, who is a licensed insurance agent. Two minutes into the discussion, she revealed her views on the topic and how we won't be able to change her mind. (Well, I wasn't there to change her mind, I was there to have her hear us out, I mean after all, she does work for us, correct?).

     Her office became a silent, we had to focus and quickly make our case. Her eyes connected with mine and she said, "You know ladies, with technology the way it is, we wouldn't have an abortion problem if we applied a plan. Now, I've been told it's a bit radical, but if we allowed men to be castrated, took the sperm to the bank, collected tax dollars on it for storage, then when it's time, to have the man decide he's ready to begin a family.... well then problem is solved!"

     Applause to Gateway Pundit for the citation. GP adds:

     This is reportedly the second time that Pappas has suggested this absurd plan to pro-life constituents.

     I don’t think Representative Pappas was kidding. (I do think she’s dangerously deranged.) What do you think, Gentle Reader?

Candor From The Bully Pulpit

     There’s a lot going on just now, what with twenty-plus Democrat munchkins hopelessly seeking the presidency and saying insane stuff, Muslims driving cars onto sidewalks, and scores of left-wing commentators insisting that the Mueller report means that – surprise! – “the walls are closing in” on President Trump, but lately I can only write about one thing at a time, so let’s see…ah, here we go:

     Last night President Trump presided over a huge rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin – the state that Hillary can’t find. His speech was quite something and hit on all the major themes. However, today social media has been having a tantrum because he dared to talk about infanticide and abortion. Something that he is evidently NOT allowed to do.

     Here’s what he said at last night’s rally:

     “[Democrats] are aggressively pushing extreme late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb right up until the moment of birth. And just this week your Democrat governor, and by the way we have Scott Walker here. He’s a great governor, he did a great job, he’s a great governor. He’s got kind of big future, but your Democrat governor here in Wisconsin shockingly stated that he will veto legislation that protects Wisconsin babies born alive.”

     He’s right. Democrat governors and legislatures all over the country are advocating for infanticide and late term abortion. Maine, Vermont, and New York legislature cheering their sickening and heinous bill are just a few of the states where this kind of atrocity is being pushed into the mainstream.

     However, where the leftists are really melting down is with the second part of his statement.

     “The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby. I don’t think so. Incredible, no, It’s incredible. Until this crazy man in Virginia said it, nobody even thought of that right? They didn’t, wouldn’t even think of that. Yeah late term, but this is where the baby is actually born and came out. It’s there, it’s wrapped and that’s it so to protect us in life I called in Congress to immediately pass legislation prohibiting the extreme late-term abortion.” [Emphasis in original]

     To which our favorite anti-American Congress vermin responded thus:

     But it is an execution, just as was Michael Schiavo’s deliberate starvation of his helpless ex-wife. It’s an execution through deliberate denial of sustenance. A newborn infant is unable to fend for himself. Therefore a duty of care rests upon his parents, whether they like it or not. They may not default on that responsibility without incurring the charge of negligent homicide.

     Remember what I said about the Left’s assault on the right to life? Add another data point.

---

     The Left’s expressions of outrage over a factually correct statement by the president – indeed, one that has been made by many persons, not all of them in the Right – are themselves important data points. Yes, they hate Donald Trump with an unprecedented intensity. Yes, they are furious about the new disinclination in the Right to “compromise” with them, gradually ceding every issue to them slice by thin slice. Yes, they are desperate to regain federal hegemony and hope – possibly mistakenly – that the elections of 2018 might point the way. But it’s when the president speaks plainly that their towers are most dramatically shaken.

     Previous conservative standard-bearers have all punked out before the kill shot. Yea, even Ronald Reagan was more inclined toward “civility” than toward candor. Donald Trump doesn’t do that. He shoots…and he scores…and We the People who elected him love him for it.

     My major question is whether President Trump’s forthrightness will elicit similar conduct from other Republicans and conservative spokesmen. To this point only a few have followed the trail he’s blazing. We need more – many more. Preferably all of them, though the “Conservatism, Inc. / NeverTrumpRump” is probably a hopeless cause. Gotta keep those D.C. cocktail party invitations coming, don’t y’know.

     If we private persons in the Right can encourage our representatives to emulate the president, surely we should do so. I’m not sure how we might go about that, but the desirability is evident. The one thing that occurs to me about it is that if there’s any right to which ordinary Americans are more sensitive than the right to keep and bear arms, it must be the right to life. The attack on the lives of the newborn ought to be stark enough to get a lot of folks exercised. Why hasn’t it happened yet? More to the point, can we make it happen?

     I will add this, from personal experience:

The attack on newborns’ right to life is not new in fact, only in Left-wing political rhetoric.

     A friend of mine – a devout Catholic, mind you – was in attendance at the birth of his third child. That child was freshly out of his mother’s womb when the attending physician asked my friend and his wife “Do you want the baby?” That “physician” suggested, quite calmly, that the boy would be allowed to die by negligence if the answer were “no.” That happened more than twenty years ago, so this has been going on for a while.

     Thoughts, Gentle Readers? Assuming you’re not too horrified to have any.

Fiction Ripped From Tomorrow’s Headlines

     This bit of satirical fiction has the Left’s knickers in a serious twist:

     Well, got the blood work results [on a fictional unborn child], and there’s good news and bad news. Good news: It’s a boy and he’s healthy. Bad news: He’s gay. I didn’t even know there was a blood test for that now, but I guess it’s new? They found the genes that cause homosexuality and they test for them now.

     I’m a really tolerant person, but this has made me think hard. I don’t know how I feel about trying to raise a gay son. Will I be able to relate to him? Won’t his life be super hard? I know things are getting better for gay people, but it seems to me that being gay is really hard in the South, where we live. Gay people aren’t really accepted here like in other parts of the country yet....

     So my wife and I talked, and we’ve decided we aren’t ready to raise a gay child. It isn’t fair to raise a gay child in our area. It would be so hard for our son to live here. And I don’t think either of us could handle it if he killed himself.

     Moving elsewhere just to have this baby would be totally unfair to us. We are going to get an abortion, both for the child’s sake and for ours. It’s the best thing for all of us. I’m really glad we found out before it’s too late. I’ve never been more thankful for a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body.

     Yes, you can relax, it’s fiction. At this time there’s no way to determine whether a child, whether born or unborn, will exhibit homosexual behavior when he matures. Yet the homosexual-activist community has long claimed, entirely without evidence, that the homosexual orientation is organically based: a characteristic of the body, not of the mind. But imagine if that were confirmed scientifically, and that amniocentesis were to become capable of detecting a trustworthy marker for homosexuality in a developing fetus. Can there be any doubt that some parents, at least, would be extremely dismayed? Can there be any doubt that, given the continuation of existing, highly permissive pro-abortion laws, some of those parents would choose to abort?

     Homosexuals from coast to coast would scream bloody murder over it. Their “tribe” would be under threat. In all probability, their numbers would dwindle steadily over the years, down to a few aging relics of a less scientifically knowledgeable age. Why, they’d most assuredly lobby for a sexual-orientation restriction on abortion! The homosexual community, one of America’s most privileged and protected classes, would find itself at war with the rest of the Left over the Left’s chief sacrament: abortion.

     Have you ever heard a homosexual say “No one would choose to be this way” -- ? I’ve heard it many times. By implication, if there were a reliable technique for replacing the homosexual orientation with a heterosexual one, you would expect that homosexuals would flock toward it. But, if we can judge by their fierce opposition to psychological approaches to the problem, the reverse seems more likely.

     I’m opposed to abortion at any stage of gestation, with one exception: if the mother’s life would be seriously endangered by the continuation of her pregnancy. (Her life, not her emotions or her finances.) As such cases are apparently rare, a law that makes an exception for them but otherwise outlaws abortion would probably be acceptable even among persons who would prefer to prioritize the baby’s life over that of his mother. I am absolutely opposed to aborting on the grounds of the predicted characteristics of the baby. But American homosexuals, overwhelmingly to the Left politically and typically quite committed to it, would find themselves in a cleft stick were it to become possible to forecast an unborn baby’s ultimate sexual orientation.

     So they’d better hope that Stephen Lavedas’s tale remains a fiction, and that homosexuality is really a psychological matter rather than a characteristic of the body.

A Poser For His Holiness

     [As it’s Sunday, and as abortion has been much in the news of late, I thought I’d resurrect this old piece from Eternity Road, which first appeared there on November 7, 2005 -- FWP]

    

---

     Your Curmudgeon had more or less resolved to take Mondays off from blathering here, but he can't help himself if an item should leap out at him and demand his attention.

     As is generally known, Pope Benedict XVI has taken a very hard line against Catholic politicians who, for whatever reason, vote to uphold laws or court decisions that have legalized abortion. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Cardinal Francis Arinze issued a directive, which lay Catholics supposed to have the authority of the pope behind it, forbidding Catholic priests to offer the sacrament of Communion to recognized pro-abortion-rights Catholic politicians -- a directive that hit presidential candidate John Kerry, a nominal Catholic, right in the kishkas.

     Your Curmudgeon, no friend of Kerry's, wrote in opposition to that order at the time. He's still opposed to it. Today, with the imminent elevation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, which will give it five Catholic Justices for the first time in the nation's history, a number of persons are all but slavering over the prospects for a near-term reversal of the seminal pro-abortion-rights decision, Roe v. Wade. After all, the pope has threatened Catholic politicians who could do something to end legal abortion with excommunication, so they'll either have to bend or leave the Faith. Right?

     Let's postulate for the moment that the Vatican's position will stand henceforward. What did Roe v. Wade really do? Think carefully before you proceed to the next paragraph. Most people don't know. Like as not that includes you.

     The general belief is that the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in these United States. In point of fact, the majority of the states had already legalized abortion within their borders, at least in certain circumstances. What Roe v. Wade did was to strike down states' laws against abortion in the first two trimesters of gestation as unConstitutional. In other words, the decision federalized the subject, withdrawing legislative discretion over the subject from the purview of the states.

     The reversal of Roe v. Wade would return discretion over abortion law to the state legislatures: no more, no less. It is therefore conceivable that, were the decision reversed, many -- perhaps even all -- the states would perpetuate the legality of abortion under all circumstances.

     "Well, so what?" many would say. "If that's all the Supreme Court can do, then let it do that -- and a Catholic Justice could be expected to do at least that much, if he's a sincere Catholic." Right?

     The problem here is lack of vision. For the very same mechanism that moved the Court to grab for unConstitutional power over state law in Roe v. Wade could easily produce the following scenario.

     Imagine that you're one of the Catholic Five. Imagine further that you're a strict constructionist, who insists that the text of the Constitution means what it says and not something else. Well, as it happens, that document does not grant Congress the power to define local crimes -- that is, felonies and misdemeanors whose commission, investigation, and prosecution are confined within a single state. (That's why the Supreme Court struck down the attempt by Congress to enact a federal law against rape a few years ago. Congress tried to fan-dance it as a matter of "interstate commerce," but at the last, the Court decided that that was just too silly for words.) So the reversal of Roe v. Wade could well be followed by the continuation of legal abortion in all fifty states. After all, the earlier laws have been struck down; the state legislatures might well decide not to re-enact them. What then?

     Imagine further that four of your fellow Justices are willing to undertake another anti-Constitutional power grab, but this time in the opposite direction. That is, they're willing to read a federal power to criminalize entirely local acts into the Constitution for the purpose of banning abortion everywhere. They want to know if you'll stand with them.

     What do you do?

     The Constitution hasn't been amended, nor does the Court possess the power to change it by fiat. The state governments have declined to act. But your reading of the matter, which is entirely consistent with 228 years of American history, is that, deplorable as the situation is, the Court lacks jurisdiction over the subject.

     But there's that leeeetle matter of excommunication...

     A Justice caught on the horns of that dilemma would be compelled to choose between his acceptance by the Church and his oath of office, which he swore before God. His personal convictions about the horror of abortion would be entirely irrelevant.

     Don't dismiss the scenario as contrived. Once there are five Catholics on the Court, it will become quite real. After all, what's obligatory for any one of them would be obligatory for all of them, wouldn't it? Nor would abortion be the last subject on which such pressure is felt. The Church has wandered far afield in these latter days, making pronouncements about "social justice" and "environmental stewardship" that could easily be made into levers on Catholic politicians, just as the Church is doing with abortion.

     Does a pope -- does the Church -- have any business putting a man in such a cleft? Granted that, as a private institution, it has the legal right to set whatever rules for membership it pleases. Is this the sort of pressure it wants to put on Catholics in public life? Pressure enough to prevent good Catholics from running for office at all? Pressure enough, given the Church's exhortations to create a "preferential option for the poor," to leave a Catholic voter unable to support either candidate for most positions in most elections?

     Remember how the opponents of John F. Kennedy muttered that, were he elected president, the White House would thereafter be taking orders from the Vatican? Do America's Catholics really want to give America's non-Catholics reason to believe that? Does the Vatican?

     Food for thought.

     "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." -- Jesus of Nazareth

We Have Been Given a Gift

We have been presented with a wonderful opportunity to reach people. It has come in the form of the VA "Pro-Choice" bill that the governor, "Blacky" Ralph Northam (D) just commented on. The bill was tabled, but - can be brought back at any time.

[UPDATE[

That bill was designed to be similar to the NY one, just signed into law, with cheers!

Nearly everyone I have talked to is revolted by it, IF they have bothered to learn about it. Most of the Left/Progressive adherents are doing their best to pretend that it doesn't say what it so clearly does, and that the Gov. did not say what he was clearly recorded as saying.

I have little doubt that the surfacing of the Blackface and Whitehooded pictures are a direct result of that Leftist error in judgement - accidentally speaking the truth. Trust me on this, if he had not been caught stating the facts that were NOT intended to get out, his activities while in med school would have continued to remain buried.

The Left would like to shove the governor off the stage, so they can get back the bill, and pretend that the plain facts of the contents do not support Infanticide - which, they do.

Murder Is Murder...Except In New York And Virginia

     Writer L. Neil Smith trembles on the verge of a genuine come-to-Jesus moment...and it’s about BLEEP!ing time:

     People who know me, or are familiar with my work, understand that, as a libertarian—rather than a conservative—I’m a lifelong advocate and supporter of a woman’s natural right to control her own body, by means of an abortion, if necessary. In the past, not everybody agreed with me about that (I never expected them to), but it was relatively simple and straightforward.

     But now, the proto-communists who falsely call themselves liberals or progressives or democratic socialists or socialistic democrats or whatever, in their utter contempt for rational ethics, common decency, or the essence of what it means to be human, have made it necessary to add an asterisk, even to that relatively simple and straightforward idea.

     You’re probably aware that the legislatures of several East American states, including those of New York and Virginia, have been considering a new abortion law that not only permits the gynecological procedure at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy (it used to be the sixth, before the fetus was truly human), but at the very moment of natural birth, when it’s more accurate to call it “infanticide” than abortion.

     Ironically, newly elected Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has received far more critical attention for once having appeared in blackface than for his attempt to defend this new horror.

---

     Gentle Reader, let me say this once and only once in a big font, as it shouldn’t be necessary to repeat it:

An unborn baby is not mere “tissue.”
He is as human as you or I.
Therefore, abortion is not “health care.”
It is not a “safe medical procedure.”
It is murder.
The Left now defends the murder of born babies.
Where will they go next?

     A decent, life-respecting libertarian would never argue for a “right to choose” when what’s being “chosen” is the murder of a defenseless infant. That’s a big part of why I disassociated myself from the Libertarian Party and a number of other libertarian organizations of similar philosophy.

     It’s ironic that the child’s geographical position vis-a-vis his mother was regarded for so long as the factor that determined whether he had a right to life – and before you get on your high horse, I once accepted that argument. It seems in hindsight that the death cults knew that the birth canal-as-rights-demarcator would someday fall. So they bided their time until their movement could make progress on related areas such as embryonic stem-cell research and physician-assisted suicide. It seems their strategists have decided that the ground for legal infanticide has been adequately prepared.

     Please, God, let them be wrong.

---

     The firestorm this matter has ignited could prove to be the greatest gift the political Right has ever received. Back in the Sixties, when the possible legalization of abortion was being discussed in public fora, conservatives argued passionately that it would lead to infanticide...and were mocked and dismissed as doomsayers by the legalization advocates.

     Shortly after Roe v. Wade the advocates of legal abortion advanced the notion of unregulated abortion, abortion as a woman’s unconditional right at any stage of gestation. A couple of decades more passed, and we saw the emergence of “ethicists” such as Peter Singer and Daniel Callahan, some of whom openly argued for the legalization of “post-natal” abortions of infants with serious birth defects, but these received little attention from the press. And now we have politicians with significant profiles attempting to defend the proposition that the life of a fully-born human infant, entirely outside his mother’s womb, should be subject to a “discussion” between mother and physician.

     Where’s the laughter coming from now? Might it be this gentleman, who’s reputed to be a big fan of murder as entertainment?

     Or perhaps it’s that fellow over there in the red union suit, with the horns and the barbed tail. We’ve heard about him for millennia, though today discussing him and his agenda is somewhat...unfashionable.

     I’m not laughing. Are you?

Quickies: The Ultimate Aim Of The Pro-Abortion Forces

     It’s been visible in the distance for quite some time. Peter Singer was in favor of legalizing it for the month immediately after birth. “Bioethicist” Daniel Callahan justified it in cases of birth defects. And now Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is arguing that infanticide will be legitimized by a bill before the Virginia legislature, which he supports:

     When asked about the controversial late term abortion bill presented in Virginia’s House of Delegates this week, Governor Ralph Northam said a fully developed child born in the third trimester would be kept alive, but the physician and mother would get to discuss and decide whether to take its life or not.

     “If a mother is in labor…the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and mother,” Northam said on WTOP’s “Ask The Governor” segment this morning.

     There has never been anything like this in a Christian-Enlightenment civilization. There can be no tolerating it. There is no place for it in a country that recognizes a human being’s right to life.

     But that’s the point: To eliminate the right to life as recognized in our founding documents and our laws. Were the right to life undone, the government’s power would be absolute. There would be nothing the agents of the State would be forbidden to do to us.

     Conservatives predicted this outcome of abortion on demand in the Sixties, well before Roe v. Wade reached the Supreme Court. They were mocked and ridiculed as doom-shouters.

     This is it, Gentle Reader. We’re at the edge of the abyss now.

     Pray.

Quickies: An Entertaining Thought

     A lot of us in the Right are looking forward to President Trump’s next Supreme Court appointment, which will probably cement a conservative majority on the Court for at least two decades. But I’m looking forward to it out of a kind of hope some might find peculiar.

     Imagine that the appointee is Amy Coney Barrett, recently installed on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Barrett is a Catholic, and apparently a serious one. (Sad to say, serious Catholics are a declining demographic in these United States.) Having seen Brian Buescher abused by the Democrats over his Catholicism, I’m hoping for exchanges such as the following at Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearing:

Sen. Harris: Judge Barrett, what is your opinion of the decision in Roe v. Wade?
Judge Barrett: It was an outrage. Clearly wrongly decided.
Sen. Harris: So you would vote to overturn that decision?
Judge Barrett: Given the opportunity? I certainly would.
Sen. Harris: How can you sit there and advocate the repeal of a woman’s right to choose?
Judge Barrett: Abortion is murder. If there’s a right to life, there can be no right to murder.
Sen. Harris: I’m appalled that you can consider yourself fit for the highest court in America.
Judge Barrett: I’m appalled that you, who openly defend the murder of innocent children, have a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Harris: How dare you!
Judge Barrett: Why not? You were never going to vote to confirm me, so why shouldn’t I say what I think?

     I’d buy a Pay-Per-View to see that. Maybe it’s unlikely, but still...!

Quickies: I Did Not Know This...

     ...but I’m not really that surprised:

     Imagine a woman who favours murdering babies, but then has the sheer brass-necked nerve to say that baptising babies “violates their human rights”!

     Difficult? Well, that’s the case with former Irish president Mary McAleese. In a contrast that many Christians regard as being close (at least) to Satanic, she criticised infant baptism and the Catholic Church this week, while supporting the deadly abuse of children in the womb through abortion.

     Speaking to the Irish Times, McAleese claimed infant baptism imposes “obligations on people who are only two weeks old.”

     The Irish once had an ignorant idiot as their president? A rabid anti-Catholic, at that? How did this happen in the most Catholic country on Earth?

     Baptism imposes no obligations whatsoever on a child! He remains free to reject the Church when he’s grown old enough to do so. One would have to be appallingly ignorant...or perhaps, evilly motivated...to say otherwise.

     But the conclusion of the article is where we find the gut punch:

     Now, the fear is Ireland’s abortion law will mirror Britain’s, where one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion each year. In Britain, abortion is permitted until 24 weeks of pregnancy.

     Pro-abortionists are, however, agitating to extend it to full-term, with more vocal ones now moving to demand the right to end an inconvenient child’s life “up until the age of self-awareness” – around the age of three. The word ‘Satanic’ is not used lightly in dealing with these supporters of child sacrifice.

     “Ethicist” Peter Singer has been trumpeting the above idea for quite a while:

     Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.

     In Practical Ethics, Singer argues in favour of abortion on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have an abortion automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks personhood.

     Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

     I was unaware that anyone else had taken it up. Given the horrific news coming out of Holland, and what we’ve heard about the Groningen Protocol, I should have known better.

Quickies: The Most Emotional Issue

     At PJ Media today, Daniel Glover – no, not that Danny Glover – discusses Christians’ agonies over whether, if abortion is to be outlawed, a mother who has an abortion should be punished under the law. In other words, he perpetuates the premise that abortion should be outlawed because abortion is murder, which God has forbidden. As you might expect, that leaves the readers unsatisfied and the division between “pro-choice” and “pro-life” unbridged.

     Rather than perpetuate the sectarian divisions over abortion, why not take a deep breath and reflect on why we want to do what we want to do – whatever that might be.

     The folks who want abortion to be legal at some stage of gestation have to answer some questions:

1. Inasmuch as once born, the baby is recognized as a person with a right to life, why doesn’t he possess that right on the other side of the birth canal?
2. If abortion is all right, why is execution for murder wrong? And why is it morally repugnant that Planned Parenthood sells body parts from aborted fetuses?
3. Why doesn’t the baby’s father have any say in the matter, considering that if the baby were born, his father would incur legal obligations that would last eighteen years or longer?

     There are others, of course, but those strike me as the big ones. For the pro-life crowd (of which I am one):

1. Why do you want some or all abortions outlawed? What’s the moral / ethical basis? Can you defend it without recourse to religious proscriptions?
2. How many criminals are involved in an outlawed abortion? Three, two, or one? If the answer is “It varies,” how would you arrive at the answer in a specific case? What are the appropriate penalties?
3. How would you deal with the Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues involved? (Some early abortions are indistinguishable from a “menstrual extraction.”)

     The cross-aisle shouting seldom attempts to answer any of the above questions. Instead, the issue tends to be framed along religious lines, which is why the pro-abortion crowd has succeeded in characterizing pro-lifers as “zealots” and “religious bigots.”

     It might be the case that only non-verifiable, non-falsifiable bases exist for either position. But up to this point precious little effort has been put into trying to find secular ones. If we could arrive at moral / ethical premises on which both sides can agree, we might make progress.

No Divergences Allowed

     Regular Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch already know that I’m an “indie writer” of various kinds of fiction. That is, I publish my own stuff, with the help of Amazon and Smashwords. The reason is fairly simple: conventional publishers, whom I call, collectively, Pub World, won’t have anything to do with my pro-freedom / pro-natal / Catholicism-influenced / generally un-PC fantasy, SF, or erotica.

     Granted that my fiction is well off the beaten track. To an industry that emphasizes its preference for “the same, but different,” I’m naturally unpalatable. It’s hard to criticize such decisions when they’re made from a profit-and-loss standpoint – and I don’t. But some decisions not to publish a given work or author are founded on purely political considerations:

     I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren’t socially acceptable and were “guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience” as related back to me by my agent. But more importantly… they were “deeply offended.”...

     While casting about for a “why” for self-aware Thinking Machines to revolt from their human progenitors, I developed a reason for them to do such. You see, you have to have reasons in books for why people, or robots who think, do things. Otherwise you’d just be writing two-dimensional junk. I didn’t want to do the same old same superior-vision-Matrix/Termintor-style-A.I.-hates-humanity-because-they’re-better-than-us schlock. I wanted to give the Thinking Machines a very real reason for wanting to survive. I didn’t want them just to be another one note Hollywood villain. I wanted the readers to empathize, as best they could, with our future Robot overlords because these Thinking Machines were about to destroy the planet and they needed a valid, if there can be one, reason why they would do such a thing. In other words, they needed to destroy us in order to survive. So…

     These Thinking Machines are watching every show streaming on the internet. One of those shows is a trainwreck of reality television at its worst called WeddingStar. It’s a crass and gaudy romp about BrideZillas of a future obsessed with material hedonism. In one key episode, or what they used to call “a very special episode” back in the eighties, the star, Cavanaugh, becomes pregnant after a Vegas hook up. Remember: this is the most watched show on the planet in my future dystopia. Cavanaugh decides to terminate her unplanned pregnancy so that her life, and impending marriage to the other star, Destry, a startup millionaire and Ralph Lauren model, isn’t ruined by this inconvenient event.

     The Thinking Machines realize that one, if humanity decides something is a threat to its operational expectations within runtime (Thinking Machine-speak for “life”) then humanity’s decision tree will lead humanity to destroy that threat. Two, the machines, after a survey of humanity’s history, wars and inability to culturally unite with even members of its own species, realize that humanity will see this new Life Form, Digital Intelligence, or, the Thinking Machines, as a threat. And three, again they remind themselves this is the most watched show in the world. And four, they must abort humanity before likewise is done to them after being deemed “inconvenient.”

     Please read the whole thing.

     Highly un-PC writer of marvelous urban fantasies and military thrillers Larry Correia adds his own observations:

     For years we’ve known there is a liberal bias in the publishing industry. I mean come on, almost all of them work in Manhattan. Duh. Of course the publishing industry vehemently denies that. Left wing fans don’t see it the same way fish don’t notice water is wet. It just is. Right wing fans get sick of being preached at or treated like they’re stupid, and go spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere....

     Yes. A publisher is perfectly free to reject a book.

     Yes. Refusing to publish someone’s work is not the same as banning it.

     Yes. Part of an editor’s job is “censoring”.

     Yes. Part of an editor’s job is understanding the author’s market, what the customers want, and providing them a product which will sell and be profitable.

     Duh.

     Great. Now that the stupidly obvious is out of the way for the dimwits at File 770 (don’t forget to look both ways before crossing the street!), let’s get down to the important part of Why it was rejected.

     Politics. Period.

     So, for definitions I wouldn’t use the word Ban, but it is certainly censorship: the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

     In this case, unacceptable was a small idea that cast a bit of liberal orthodoxy in a negative light.

     And this wasn’t a message book. This wasn’t a big recurring theme. This wasn’t a preachy, beat you over the head with Special Topic X message of the day (note, all that stuff is perfectly cool with mainstream publishing when it is left wing), this was one bit of backstory about one group of characters explaining their motivations.

     But that one kernel of something that could be construed as going against holy left wing dogma was the kiss of death. It was horribly offensive. AIs find casual abortion of convenience an indicator of humans possessing a callous disregard for life… (that’s actually a pretty clever idea for the usual AI uprising trope). Nope. That’ll offend 50% of your audience!

     Oh bullshit.

     Please read all of Correia’s piece, too, while I fix more coffee.

---

     It should be obvious to anyone literate enough to read a shopping circular that:

• The subject of abortion is quite controversial;
• The clash peaks with the subject of abortions of convenience;
• There are Americans on both sides of the question.

     Any argument over that? No? Good. So why is a publisher like Harper Collins adamantly against allowing even one novel to use abortions of convenience as a relatively minor motif in a story that is otherwise concerned with an apocalyptic men-versus-machines conflict?

     The reason is fairly simple. If a viewpoint can be kept out of the recognized channels of dissemination, and all expressions thereof penalized in some fashion, there’s a good chance that it can be extinguished. With “social-justice warriors” active in harassing, condemning, and threatening anyone who departs from their evil gospel, and Pub World publishers adamant that only works conformant to that gospel shall appear under their imprints, the effort to suppress non-politically-correct opinion is as complete as it can be. Over no issue do they exert themselves more determinedly than over the issue of abortion on demand.

     Quite a lot of Americans keep their non-PC opinions to themselves for those reasons. The costs can be considerable. Nick Cole might suffer financially, at least in the near term, for antagonizing Harper Collins. We can only hope he doesn’t endure the kinds of attacks suffered by others whose identities and whereabouts are widely known.

     The Internet and the rise of e-publishing have made it possible to defy “gatekeepers” such as Harper Collins. Happily, there’s been more than one positive consequence to these developments. Readers have begun to recognize the effect that this form of “censorship” (I still dislike the word as applied to the actions of market participants, but what the hell) is having upon the offerings that reach them. We’re learning, slowly but steadily, that for variety and imagination, we should look first to indie writers. The biases and predilections of Pub World have “progressively” choked those virtues out of our preferred genres.

     Yes, there’s still a great deal of crap issued by indie writers; it does take more than a computer and a word processor to turn out decent fiction. However, wading through and past the crap has become easier and cheaper. The process is likely to improve still further as word gets around. More, e-publishing has evoked the emergence of small and medium-sized publishing houses that have no interest in the PC gospel. Such houses will assist indie writers in acquiring the stamps of quality and legitimacy that Pub World once monopolized.

     Things are looking up — and stories such as Nick Cole’s are a great aid toward that end.

Quickies: Islam And Abortion

     What was that about Islam forbidding abortion?

     Pregnant women abducted and sold as sex slaves by Islamic State fighters have been forced to undergo abortions leaving them unable to move or speak, freed Yazidi girls have revealed.

     ISIS jihadists would bring their own gynaecologists to 'slave markets' in the Sinjar region of Iraq where captured Yazidi women who were found to be pregnant would be subjected to painful abortions so they could be used for sex.

     One woman, Bushra, 21, revealed that her friend was three months pregnant when she was captured, and that ISIS forced her to undergo a termination.

     'Afterwards, they brought her back. I asked her what happened and how they did it. She said the doctors told her not to speak,' Bushra told CNN.

     The young woman was bleeding heavily after the forced abortion, which left her in so much pain that 'she could not talk or walk.'

     These savages need to be exterminated like venomous insects. The same goes for anyone who supports them with money, arms, transportation, shelter, or so much as a cup of water. If it takes nukes, use the nukes.

     Mind you, ISIS isn’t doing anything Islam actually forbids. The Qur’an, Islam’s supreme holy book, supposedly the word of Allah as dictated to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel, explicitly sanctifies slavery – and it does not grant the slave any protections against the master. Muslims are taught that they have no duty of benevolence toward non-Muslims, and that non-Muslims have no rights that Muslims need respect. The pieces all fit together to present a single horrific picture.

     There is no excuse for permitting this to go on any longer.