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Strange role models

April 13, 2009 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

Those old school feminists choose strange role models: 

‘We want fewer and better children . . . and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict on us.’

That ghastly message appeared in the introduction to Margaret Sanger’s 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization.In a little-noticed incident, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that she is “really in awe” of Sanger. “The 20th-century reproductive-rights movement, really embodied in the life and leadership of Margaret Sanger, was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race,” Clinton declaimed upon receiving an award from the organization that Sanger founded, Planned Parenthood.

I have to wonder why we don’t highlight these sorts of “women’s rights advocates” more often. Certainly does serve the pro-life cause well because Sanger is a very, er, conflicted mentor at best. And either Clinton doesn’t know all she stood for (unlikely) or she really does agree with her. In which case, I’d agree with the author of the article linked to–this certainly does “puncture the fiction that [Clinton] is a moderate.”

(cross-posted to The Shotgun)

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood

Ponnuru on Biden on abortion

August 25, 2008 by Brigitte Pellerin 1 Comment

For those of you eager to hear something encouraging about the U.S. presidential campaign: A post at the Corner about Joe Biden’s stance on abortion, which appears slightly less extreme than that of Barack Obama.

For pro-lifers, there is one tiny hopeful sign in the Biden pick. For a long time now, the top ranks of the Democratic party have embraced an orthodoxy on abortion policy that includes support for taxpayer funding of it and for keeping partial-birth abortion legal. The Democratic platform supports taxpayer funding. The three top contenders in this year’s Democratic presidential primaries—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards—support both taxpayer funding and partial-birth abortion.

Since partial-birth abortion became a political issue during Bill Clinton’s first term in office, every Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominee has supported keeping it legal (or making it illegal in name with loopholes to keep it legal in practice). When Gore considered running with Evan Bayh in 2000, feminist leaders told reporters that he was unacceptable because he had voted against partial-birth abortion.

This time the feminists said very little as Obama considered Bayh and Biden. For the first time in many years, the Democrats have a candidate for national office who opposes taxpayer funding of abortion. For the first time since partial-birth abortion became an issue, they have a candidate who opposes it, too. It is a less important development, I think, than the fact that their presidential nominee believes that some forms of infanticide should be legal. But it strikes me nonetheless as progress, however painfully limited.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards, partial birth abortion, taxpayer-funded abortion

What’s worse than a career politician?…

June 5, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

…two of them, who are married to each other.

Power cannot corrupt them, as the perpetual search for power has long since rendered them free of any principles or honour to corrupt.

And that about sums up my disdain for the Clintons.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Bill Clinton, Father DeSouza, Hillary Clinton, politics corrupts, Power at any cost

American politics and abortion

June 5, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Now that Hillary has conceded defeat, sort of, we can examine Obama’s platform.

On abortion, it’s not good. Not good at all.

Oftentimes pro-lifers will declare there’s no middle ground on abortion–voting against amendments that would outlaw some abortions but not all, because they don’t go far enough.

But there is some middle ground to be found. Most everyone–even those who are pro-choice–find late-term abortion abhorrent. Most every civilized person shies away from eugenics, though eugenic abortions are common in Canada today. (Note the Canadian Down Syndrome Society’s new TV campaign: Different Genes, Same Value.)

Barack Obama’s position on abortion has been relentlessly extreme–against life.  This link, from the Atlantic Monthly, discusses just how extreme he has been. He has not done anything conciliatory on this front. Late term abortions? Fine by him.

As a side note, I stumbled on this link, for different reasons yesterday–you can choose your topic and get the candidate’s summary position on it. On abortion, I like Ron Paul’s the best. The man don’t mince words:

Paul said he views the fetus as a “human being [with] legal rights … from the day of conception.” He reconciles his anti-abortion outlook with his libertarian views, saying, “I do not say that because our homes are our castles that we have the right to murder our children.”

If I were American, I might vote for him, just for that clear-as-a-bell statement. I guess if you are the long shot, (ie. Ron Paul’s not going to be President) you can afford to say things like that.  

_____________________________

Tanya sticks up for Ron Paul:

Even when he was full-swing campaigning, he didn’t mince words at all. And not just on the issue of abortion. The man would have been quite a president. Sigh.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion, Barack Obama, Different Genes Same Value, Down syndrome society, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul

Two types of abortion supporters

April 14, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Obama and Clinton on abortion, here.

I believe that the potential for life begins at conception,” said Mrs Clinton. But for me, it is not only about the potential life, but the other lives involved…

And Obama:

Mr Obama said he did not know whether life begins with conception.

“This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on… I don’t presume to know the answer to that question,” he said.

One position is utilitarian, the other, ill-informed and evasive. But this would be the dividing line in the pro-abortion camp these days, I think. Those who know when life begins and don’t care, and those who maintain life does not begin at conception but rather at some other magical moment, arbitrarily chosen.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

Sympathy for Hillary?

March 28, 2008 by Patricia Egan Leave a Comment

hillary.jpg       edwards.jpg

 What do you make of this? An op-ed writer for the Washington Post makes the point that Hillary Clinton suffers a disadvantage on the campaign trail because “on top of everything else, [she] has to spend an hour and a half getting ready for each day’s campaigning”.  And by getting ready, he means the getting yourself presentable part of getting ready – that part which, for most women, means doing your hair, putting on your makeup, deciding what to wear or, if you have someone else to pick outfits for you (as Hillary probably does), deciding if that person has made a reasonable choice.

Even John Edwards, the “Breck Girl” of presidential candidates, probably got away with half that amount of time. 

This could be a point about which I actually have some sympathy for Hillary. 

________________________

Brigitte can’t resist posting this video:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AE847UXu3Q]

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards

The androgynous ideal

March 27, 2008 by Brigitte Pellerin Leave a Comment

obamhill.jpg

On the cover of the New Republic: The merged faces of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I gather it’s to illustrate how so many Democratic party members are having trouble picking one candidate over the other. Which is a reasonably common problem in partisan politics; how often have you wished you could get a little bit of two or more leaders in one person? But, er, I didn’t think we ought to extend that to gender. This is one creepy picture.

_____________________

Tanya adds: It looks like a very clean cut David Spade. That is creepy.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, The New Republic

Values voters and McCain

February 15, 2008 by Rebecca Walberg Leave a Comment

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2JoSo17Azk]

Barring something very strange between now and November, the next president of the USA will be Hillary Clinton, John McCain or Barack Obama. The Democrats are currently divided, along some very interesting lines, between Obama and Clinton.

By contrast, the Republicans fall into a number of different camps, most of which are lukewarm-to-actively-hostile to McCain. Fortunately, save for Ann Coulter (see YouTube clip) the petulant calls to sit out the election or cast a protest vote for Hillary have subsided. Still,  there remains a lack of enthusiasm for McCain among social and fiscal conservatives.

Arguments that conservatives and Republicans will or ought to stay home on election day generally rest on one of three postulations. 

The first is that McCain is not a “real” conservative, and hasn’t earned their votes. 

The second is that McCain is so eager to reach across the aisle and be moderate that electing him is tantamount to electing Hillary or Obama. 

Finally, some analysts suggest that the long-term health of the Republican Party requires a crushing defeat this year, so that the (perceived) heresies of compassionate conservatism, neoconservatism and big-government conservatism can be rooted out. 

Each of these ideas is badly flawed. I’ll address each of them in turn.

On fiscal and social conservatism, McCain has repeatedly asserted he did not “manage for profit,” as did Mitt Romney, but rather “led for patriotism.” Fine. But if he is truly a patriot he must be able to see the connection between the nation’s economic and social health and its ability to carry out the ambitious foreign policy missions he has outlined. That means fiscal issues are intertwined with social ones.

America spends a staggering amount of money on its military. Such budgets are only sustainable by an ever-growing and thriving economy; to advocate keeping the military strong, or using it worldwide, without recognizing the crucial nature of a solid economy to back it up, is folly. An effective and muscular foreign policy requires both strong families and a strong economy. 

As to the second argument, that McCain is such a moderate that he’s not much better than Hillary or Obama, values voters should know better.  McCain is staunchly pro-life, and would prefer to permit abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening risk to the mother’s health.  He is also in favour of traditional marriage.  (He has not expressed an interest in settling these issues as President, but this is not because he opposes the idea, but rather that he considers that an inappropriate use of federal power in a federal system of government.)  And for better or for worse, abortion law is made these days by the Supreme Court, so McCain’s thoughts on what federal abortion law should be are less significant than the judges he would appoint to the Supreme Court (and it is likely that up to three justices will be appointed between 2009 and 2012).  Not only has McCain committed to originalist judges, but he even voted in favour of Bork at his confirmation hearings. 

On the last point- that a stunning defeat would be a bracing and overall rejuvenating experience for the Republicans–there is some truth to this idea.  The question we must ask is, what would the cost be?  In the next four years, and possibly eight, what would happen as the Republicans rebuilt?  The significance of a Supreme Court with three or more new hard-line liberal justices should be clear; major decisions that have a profound influence on life today, such as Roe v. Wade and Miranda v. Arizona, were decided in the 1960s and 1970s.  And radical social change is always harder to reverse than to initiate.  How much harder to reduce the number of abortions after two more terms of rulings striking down any laws about notification, parental consent, and third trimester abortions?

Exasperation and frustration with McCain are understandable. A moderate and a maverick he might be, but he is closer to mainstream Republicans and conservatives than any Democrat candidate, and Obama and Hillary in particular, could possibly be. 

John McCain is perhaps not a values voter’s first choice, but he is certainly not a bad choice, and infinitely preferable to the other name on the ballot in nine months’ time.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, U.S. elections

Why I don’t like feminists

January 20, 2008 by Brigitte Pellerin Leave a Comment

Well, some of them anyway.

America’s favourite television presenter is paying a painful price for her intervention in the US presidential campaign last month. Oprah Winfrey has been dubbed a “traitor” by some of her female fans for supporting Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

Winfrey’s website, Oprah.com, has been flooded with a barrage of abuse since the queen of daytime chat shows joined Obama on a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in mid-December.

[…]

It started with a message on her website entitled “Oprah is a traitor” and rapidly expanded to include several discussions that attracted hundreds of comments.

In the original post, a reader called austaz68 said she “cannot believe that women all over this country are not up in arms over Oprah’s backing of Obama. For the first time in history we actually have a shot at putting a woman in the White House and Oprah backs the black MAN. She’s choosing her race over her gender.”

Oprah? A traitor to women? Some sisters need to give their head a good shake.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey

I am woman, hear me sob?

January 11, 2008 by Brigitte Pellerin Leave a Comment

A semi-interesting piece in today’s Ottawa Citizen by Susan Riley about Hillary Clinton’s “sudden display of emotion” at a recent campaign event which has reportedly helped her avoid another defeat in New Hampshire.

…no one would portray Hillary — wealthy, well-educated, well-connected and white — as a victim. As an individual, she obviously isn’t; as a woman trying to become president of the United States, however, she faces as daunting and history-shattering a challenge as does Obama — and her odds may be longer. In the New York Times, veteran feminist Gloria Steinem argues that “gender is probably the most restrictive force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen, or who could be in the White House.”

This argument can quickly become futile and self-defeating: who has it tougher in America, black men or women? Both do, in different ways, says Steinem — and, of course, intolerance hurts others, including Jews, Muslims, and, in the case of Republican candidate Mitt Romney, Mormons. But when it comes to winning political office in North America, Steinem argues, it is still hardest for women. The evidence is everywhere — including at 24 Sussex, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper is dining tonight with the 13 provincial leaders, not a woman among them.

Perhaps I am weird. But this endless victimizing really bothers me. So it’s tough for a woman to become president of the United States? I hope so! It ought to be tough for anybody. 

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=6qgWH89qWks]

 

UPDATE, Jan. 14: Re Judi’s comment – there is a third possibility. Maybe Hillary Clinton is losing (or in danger of same; I’m not counting her out just yet) because people don’t like her, irrespective of her gender.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Hillary Clinton, Ottawa Citizen, Susan Riley

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