[extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "J. Andrew Rogers" <andrew at ceruleansystems.com>
>
> On Nov 5, 2004, at 12:06 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote:
> > Let's just start with ... er, Republicans (all generally speaking here)
> > support a woman's right to choose?
>
> Yes.  It has been dropped as a real platform for a reason -- there was
> no consensus within the party.  I do not personally know any
> Republicans that are not pro-choice, and I know quite a few
> Republicans.

Yes, Bush carefully walked around the issue and only dealt with "partial
birth abortion."  And the whole matter with stem cells has something to do
with the so-called "pro-life" stance, too.  You may not personally know any
Republicans that are not pro-choice, but certainly you have to admit there
are many more Republicans (than Democrats) who are anti-choice out there.

And Ashcroft (may he soon retire so he will have more time to handle snakes
and sing gospel) - remember the brouhaha over the statue with exposed
breasts? (he was against it, and put a drape over it before he would speak
in front of it).  That's another way conservatives/Republicans want to
*control* things - censorship.

 > > Republicans led the marches for civil
> > rights, gay rights and women's rights?
>
> You may want to read some history.  The Democrats were on the wrong
> side of a great many civil rights issues.  They've only claimed many of
> them after the fact.  The Deep South has been pretty much 100% Democrat
> for more than a century up until the last few years and one of its core
> constituencies.  Any faults regarding civil rights you see evident in
> or would paint on the Southern culture throughout history you'll have
> to paint on the Democratic party.  Which includes race, gender, and
> sexual orientation discrimination.

Civil rights was a *liberal* cause and victory.  Being spoon fed

The "wrong side" you refer to here is, I suspect, having been reared in the
heart of Dixie and been weaned

> > Republicans want to support stem
> > cell research?   Republicans want the separation of church and state?
>
>
> Yes, and yes.  Your analysis has been shallow.
>
> The Republicans are a coalition of two major factions, a libertarian
> faction and a religious conservative faction.  They have competing
> motivations but they've learned to get along.  They originally formed a
> coalition to deal with the Democratic party back when they were a
> juggernaut for most of the 20th century.
>
> The religious conservative faction objects to stem cell research on
> moral grounds.  The libertarian faction likes the research but objects
> to the Federal government funding it, particularly since there is no
> real shortage of private funding for it.  The obvious policy compromise
> is to reduce or eliminate Federal funding of the research.  The
> libertarian faction has long kept the religious faction in check with
> respect to the separation of church and state.  I am not a Republican
> but I am an atheist, and I've never felt threatened by the bogeyman of
> the "religious right" in a legal sense.  The Republican party has no
> designs toward establishing a state religion nor would the libertarian
> faction allow anything vaguely resembling that.  And if the militant
> atheists in some Democrat factions would stop going out of their way to
> antagonize the religious Republicans (and yes, this does happen), this
> would largely dissipate as an issue.
>
> You need to learn to look at Republican policy from this perspective.
> Little gets done that does not pass the filter of both the libertarians
> and religious conservatives.  This means that compromises usually only
> include things that both factions can agree on from an ideological
> standpoint.  A few bones get thrown and occasionally there are very
> heated discussions within the party, but nothing really gets out of
> control.
>
>
> There are many, many pro-choice, atheist, gay-friendly Republicans,
> primarily because the Republicans only rarely step on the toes of these
> quasi-libertarian folks and vice-versa.  Why do you think it is that
> drug legalization has occurred primarily in western Republican states
> rather than Democrat ones?  The different factions have different
> proportional strengths in different parts of the country.  Your view of
> Republicans is a highly biased caricature.
>
>
> > And - horror of horrors - do you *really* want to see what a
> > conservative
> > Supreme Court?
>
>
> Right now, I would settle for a non-activist court.  The liberal courts
> have an egregious record in this regard (in evidence in the circuit
> courts and some State supreme courts), and to a greater extent than
> conservative courts generally.  This is something I follow pretty
> closely, and the track records are not even close to similar in this
> respect.  Knowing nothing else, I would choose a conservative court
> over a liberal court, only because conservative courts have a better
> track record of interpreting various constitutions in a reasonable and
> consistent fashion.  That would be playing the odds.
>
> The push for more conservative courts and constitutional amendments
> rather than legislation is a backlash against what is rightly perceived
> as excessive and extra-constitutional legislation from liberal activist
> courts.  I only hope that the conservative courts do not escalate the
> situation by responding in kind.
>
> cheers,
>
> j. andrew rogers
>
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