by Rep. Steve King
For too long we left the Iowa judicial branch to its own devices. Just like the rest of government, it has grown out of control without the blessing of Iowans or the watchful eye of voters.
With the judicial retention vote looming, the debate has shifted into two separate, but vitally important topics. First is the Varnum v. Brien (Same-sex marriage) opinion that highlighted the Iowa Supreme Court’s willful determination to legislate from the bench. The other question is: what to do about it.
Actually, the lawless decision in Varnum can only be debated as to how far-reaching and limitless the current court could rule if unchecked. When the Iowa Supreme Court justices claim omnipotent power to imagine and confer constitutional rights that “were at one time unimagined” [Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009). Page 15 of the opinion] it is time to remove them on that basis alone. It is obvious they feel empowered and will follow their whim in future decisions rather than the law. They have usurped the constitutional authority of the legislature and will do so at every notion until they are stopped by a vote of the people. To read their opinion brings one to the conclusion that these justices believe they have the authority to find the Constitution—unconstitutional.
On the matter of what the citizens of Iowa can do about their rogue judges, the retention vote is the only recourse. When judges usurp the letter of the Constitution and the Code of Iowa to suit their whim, they must be removed from office. The very fact that our Constitution calls for a retention vote on a general election ballot means the Constitutional intention is for the voters of Iowa to use their moral authority and judgment to check the runaway judicial branch.
However, judges do not want to acknowledge that fact. They encourage rubber-stamp acquiescence from the citizens they want to rule. Some days ago, Judge Robert B. Hanson, the creator of Iowa’s same-sex marriage status, revealed the political nature of our current judicial system when he called opponents of his ruling “misguided.” He continued to characterize a ‘no’ vote on judicial retention as “an abuse of the system.” The U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Iowa were both designed so that, if any branch of government gets out of hand, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
Elitism and judicial arrogance are on full display. They have for so long controlled their own hierarchy and culture that they openly consider our constitutionally granted right to vote our conscience and judgment as “an abuse of the system.”
Heretofore, judges have wrapped themselves in the cloak of jurisprudence. The average Iowan believes that judges carefully and scholarly study the Constitution, the statutes, and case law, then render a decision that is the objective result of jurisprudence. Some do. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told me that when he is unhappy with the effect of a decision he has made, he is confident that he has made the right legal decision. Not so with activist judges. They match their personal, political and policy preference with their conclusion, and then rationalize using creative and convoluted legal jujitsu to work backwards into their opinion. This is the stuff of Iowa’s judge made same-sex marriage policy.
Iowa law says that marriage is only between “a male and a female” [Iowa Code section 595.2(1)]. No judge can be allowed to remain on the bench who would turn thousands of years of law and human history on its head by discovering rights that “were at one time unimagined” in our Constitution. If Iowans read the decision, Varnum v. Brien, as I have, they will realize that their only recourse is to vote “NO” on all three Iowa Supreme Court judges who are on the back side of the ballot. I will vote “NO” on all three judges because it’s my sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and because it’s time to put the control of all three branches of government back in the hands of the people.
______
Rep. King was elected to Iowa's 5th District in 2002. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and its Constitution and Immigration subcommittees.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Feingold Versus Johnson Debate - U.S. Senate Election - Wisconsin
by Thomas Sowell
One of a surprising number of old, well-established politicians being challenged in this year's election by some unknown newcomer is Senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. In a recent debate between Senator Feingold and his new challenger, businessman Ron Johnson, the difference between the old pol and new guy on the block stood out.
Feingold was clearly smoother and more glib-- and his arguments may have sounded more plausible to those unfamiliar with the facts. But what Ron Johnson said would have resonated better with those who did know the facts. How many people are in which category may determine the outcome of this election.
Senator Feingold wants Social Security kept pretty much the way it is. That would mean that there is not enough money to pay what is owed to the baby boomers who retire. Ron Johnson wants to keep Social Security as is for those who have already retired and for those approaching retirement years, but would not make it mandatory for younger people to join, if they don't want to.
Russ Feingold was on it in an instant, accusing his opponent of denying the benefits of Social Security to young workers and forcing them into the risky stock market for their retirement.
Although Senator Feingold cast himself in the role of a defender of Social Security, Ron Johnson pointed out that members of Congress like Senator Feingold had in fact undermined Social Security financially, by spending its money on other things.
This is in fact the dirty little secret about Social Security. In all the years when the money coming into Social Security exceeded the money being paid out in pensions, Congress simply spent the difference on everything from junkets to earmarks.The fiction of a Social Security "trust fund" was maintained by giving government bonds in exchange for the money taken. But these bonds changed nothing, since they were just claims on future taxpayers.
If these bonds had never been printed, future taxpayers would have been on the hook for future shortfalls. Neither the government nor anyone else can spend and save the same money.
But the question is: How well did Johnson explain it to people who don't know the facts? That is also something that could determine the outcome of this election.
As for the dangers of the stock market, it would take a very poor index mutual fund to do worse than Social Security, even if the investor retires when the stock market is down.
After Ron Johnson referred to having recently read the Constitution, Russ Feingold pounced and depicted that as showing that his opponent hadn't read the Constitution before. It was the kind of political trick that may impress people who don't pay close attention.But, to those who do pay attention to what goes on, the mention of the Constitution should remind them of the McCain-Feingold bill, which restricted free speech by some in the closing days of an election campaign. Just what part of "Congress shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech did Senators Feingold and McCain not understand?
Apparently quite a lot. The Supreme Court has already declared part of that law unconstitutional.
The rationale for the McCain-Feingold law was to reduce the influence of money in political campaigns. But did you notice any reduction in the role of money after that law was passed and before it was declared unconstitutional? Feingold and McCain sold our birthright and didn't even get the mess of pottage.
Finally, there was that old favorite from the liberal playbook, "tax cuts for the rich." According to Senator Feingold, we cannot allow high-income people to continue to get the Bush administration tax cuts because the federal budget needs the money.
It has been shown so many times, in many administrations, as well as in other countries, that reductions in tax rates do not imply lower tax revenues. Often it has meant more tax revenues, when people change their behavior in response to tax cuts, and the resulting increase in economic activity generates higher incomes.It is "tax cuts for the economy," but that does not have the same political pizzazz as "tax cuts for the rich."
The question in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, is whether the voters want more political cleverness of the kind that has gotten this economy into its present predicament. Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Sign up today and receive Thomas Sowell and Townhall.com's daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.
©Creators Syndicate
One of a surprising number of old, well-established politicians being challenged in this year's election by some unknown newcomer is Senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. In a recent debate between Senator Feingold and his new challenger, businessman Ron Johnson, the difference between the old pol and new guy on the block stood out.
Feingold was clearly smoother and more glib-- and his arguments may have sounded more plausible to those unfamiliar with the facts. But what Ron Johnson said would have resonated better with those who did know the facts. How many people are in which category may determine the outcome of this election.
Senator Feingold wants Social Security kept pretty much the way it is. That would mean that there is not enough money to pay what is owed to the baby boomers who retire. Ron Johnson wants to keep Social Security as is for those who have already retired and for those approaching retirement years, but would not make it mandatory for younger people to join, if they don't want to.
Russ Feingold was on it in an instant, accusing his opponent of denying the benefits of Social Security to young workers and forcing them into the risky stock market for their retirement.
Although Senator Feingold cast himself in the role of a defender of Social Security, Ron Johnson pointed out that members of Congress like Senator Feingold had in fact undermined Social Security financially, by spending its money on other things.
This is in fact the dirty little secret about Social Security. In all the years when the money coming into Social Security exceeded the money being paid out in pensions, Congress simply spent the difference on everything from junkets to earmarks.The fiction of a Social Security "trust fund" was maintained by giving government bonds in exchange for the money taken. But these bonds changed nothing, since they were just claims on future taxpayers.
If these bonds had never been printed, future taxpayers would have been on the hook for future shortfalls. Neither the government nor anyone else can spend and save the same money.
But the question is: How well did Johnson explain it to people who don't know the facts? That is also something that could determine the outcome of this election.
As for the dangers of the stock market, it would take a very poor index mutual fund to do worse than Social Security, even if the investor retires when the stock market is down.
After Ron Johnson referred to having recently read the Constitution, Russ Feingold pounced and depicted that as showing that his opponent hadn't read the Constitution before. It was the kind of political trick that may impress people who don't pay close attention.But, to those who do pay attention to what goes on, the mention of the Constitution should remind them of the McCain-Feingold bill, which restricted free speech by some in the closing days of an election campaign. Just what part of "Congress shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech did Senators Feingold and McCain not understand?
Apparently quite a lot. The Supreme Court has already declared part of that law unconstitutional.
The rationale for the McCain-Feingold law was to reduce the influence of money in political campaigns. But did you notice any reduction in the role of money after that law was passed and before it was declared unconstitutional? Feingold and McCain sold our birthright and didn't even get the mess of pottage.
Finally, there was that old favorite from the liberal playbook, "tax cuts for the rich." According to Senator Feingold, we cannot allow high-income people to continue to get the Bush administration tax cuts because the federal budget needs the money.
It has been shown so many times, in many administrations, as well as in other countries, that reductions in tax rates do not imply lower tax revenues. Often it has meant more tax revenues, when people change their behavior in response to tax cuts, and the resulting increase in economic activity generates higher incomes.It is "tax cuts for the economy," but that does not have the same political pizzazz as "tax cuts for the rich."
The question in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, is whether the voters want more political cleverness of the kind that has gotten this economy into its present predicament. Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Sign up today and receive Thomas Sowell and Townhall.com's daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.
©Creators Syndicate
Monday, October 11, 2010
Explaining Islam to the Islamists
by Gary Bauer
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
______________
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
______________
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science
by Nancy Pearcey
In their “Pledge to America,” Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, which has imposed taxpayer-funded abortion on the nation. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of the American people do not want their tax dollars to pay for abortion. A poll of likely voters put the number at 72%.
Liberal counter-attacks are resorting to the old slur that Republicans are anti-science. The current issue of Nature bemoans the “anti-science streak on the American right.”
Now is the time to turn the tables and make the case that it’s the pro-abortion stance that is actually anti-science.
In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human—biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”
How do liberals get around that scientific fact? By denying the relevance of science.
Liberals argue that the sheer fact of being human does not confer any moral worth. Nor does it warrant legal protection. The turning point is said to be when an individual becomes a “person,” generally defined in terms of self-awareness, autonomy, or other cognitive capabilities.
This is called personhood theory, and it implies a dangerously divided view of the human being. On one hand, the physical body, knowable by science, is trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. Human life is reduced to a utilitarian calculus subject only to a cost-benefit analysis.
On the other hand, the concept of personhood has been disconnected from the biological fact of being human, which renders it ultimately arbitrary. Ethicists disagree even on the point when personhood begins: Is it when the fetus starts to exhibit neural activity, or feels pain, or achieves a certain level of consciousness?
Or even after the child is born? According to British bioethicist John Harris, “Nine months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person.”
James Watson of DNA fame recommended giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether the child should be allowed to live. Singer considers personhood a “gray” area even at three years of age. (After all, how much cognitive functioning does a toddler have?)
Each ethicist draws the line at a different place, according to his or her own personal vision and private values.
Pro-lifers have long been castigated for bringing private values into the public square. But actually it is the pro-abortion position that is based on merely personal views and values.
In First Things, law professor Stanley Fish sets the record straight: “It is pro-lifers who make the scientific question of when the beginning of life occurs the key one.” By contrast, “pro-choicers want to transform the question into a ‘metaphysical’ or ‘religious’ one”—using those terms to mean disconnected from any scientifically knowable reality.
Of course, people are much more than biological organisms. Yet biology gives an objective, empirically detectable marker of human status.
What this means is that pro-choicers have lost the argument on the scientific level—and so they are repudiating science. In the New York Times, Yale professor Paul Bloom informs us that abortion “is not really about life in any biological sense.”
Likewise Jennie Bristow, editor of Abortion Review, dismisses science as irrelevant: “With anti-abortionists pushing ‘scientific evidence’ on fetal viability, it is time to restate the moral case for a woman’s right to choose.” Her article is titled, “Abortion: Stop Hiding behind the Science.”
Liberals bring the same anti-scientific stance to other life issues, such as euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and genetic engineering. According to personhood theory, just being part of the human race is not morally relevant. Individuals must earn the status of personhood by meeting an additional set of criteria—the ability to make decisions, exercise self-awareness, and so on, depending on the ethicist setting the criteria.
Those who do not make the grade are demoted to non-persons, even though they are still biologically human.
The concept of personhood is so malleable that anyone at any stage of life could be demoted to the status of non-person and denied the right to live. Especially if their healthcare is determined by Obamacare boards whose members are committed to a liberal ideology. Sarah Palin’s phrase “death panels” is not misapplied.
If pro-abortionists want to commit intellectual suicide and deny scientific facts, that‘s their problem. But there’s no reason a civilized society should fund their anti-scientific outlook—or accept its inhumane consequences.
This is the third in a series based on Mrs. Pearcey's just-published book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.
_____
Nancy Pearcey is a bestselling author, editor at large of The Pearcey Report, and fellow of the Discovery Institute. She has published a new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. To inquire about media interviews, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group at 703-260-1915 (email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).
In their “Pledge to America,” Republicans are promising to repeal Obamacare, which has imposed taxpayer-funded abortion on the nation. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of the American people do not want their tax dollars to pay for abortion. A poll of likely voters put the number at 72%.
Liberal counter-attacks are resorting to the old slur that Republicans are anti-science. The current issue of Nature bemoans the “anti-science streak on the American right.”
Now is the time to turn the tables and make the case that it’s the pro-abortion stance that is actually anti-science.
In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human—biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”
How do liberals get around that scientific fact? By denying the relevance of science.
Liberals argue that the sheer fact of being human does not confer any moral worth. Nor does it warrant legal protection. The turning point is said to be when an individual becomes a “person,” generally defined in terms of self-awareness, autonomy, or other cognitive capabilities.
This is called personhood theory, and it implies a dangerously divided view of the human being. On one hand, the physical body, knowable by science, is trivialized as a form of raw material that can be tinkered with, manipulated, experimented on, or destroyed with no moral significance. Human life is reduced to a utilitarian calculus subject only to a cost-benefit analysis.
On the other hand, the concept of personhood has been disconnected from the biological fact of being human, which renders it ultimately arbitrary. Ethicists disagree even on the point when personhood begins: Is it when the fetus starts to exhibit neural activity, or feels pain, or achieves a certain level of consciousness?
Or even after the child is born? According to British bioethicist John Harris, “Nine months of development leaves the human embryo far short of the emergence of anything that can be called a person.”
James Watson of DNA fame recommended giving a newborn baby three days of genetic testing before deciding whether the child should be allowed to live. Singer considers personhood a “gray” area even at three years of age. (After all, how much cognitive functioning does a toddler have?)
Each ethicist draws the line at a different place, according to his or her own personal vision and private values.
Pro-lifers have long been castigated for bringing private values into the public square. But actually it is the pro-abortion position that is based on merely personal views and values.
In First Things, law professor Stanley Fish sets the record straight: “It is pro-lifers who make the scientific question of when the beginning of life occurs the key one.” By contrast, “pro-choicers want to transform the question into a ‘metaphysical’ or ‘religious’ one”—using those terms to mean disconnected from any scientifically knowable reality.
Of course, people are much more than biological organisms. Yet biology gives an objective, empirically detectable marker of human status.
What this means is that pro-choicers have lost the argument on the scientific level—and so they are repudiating science. In the New York Times, Yale professor Paul Bloom informs us that abortion “is not really about life in any biological sense.”
Likewise Jennie Bristow, editor of Abortion Review, dismisses science as irrelevant: “With anti-abortionists pushing ‘scientific evidence’ on fetal viability, it is time to restate the moral case for a woman’s right to choose.” Her article is titled, “Abortion: Stop Hiding behind the Science.”
Liberals bring the same anti-scientific stance to other life issues, such as euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and genetic engineering. According to personhood theory, just being part of the human race is not morally relevant. Individuals must earn the status of personhood by meeting an additional set of criteria—the ability to make decisions, exercise self-awareness, and so on, depending on the ethicist setting the criteria.
Those who do not make the grade are demoted to non-persons, even though they are still biologically human.
The concept of personhood is so malleable that anyone at any stage of life could be demoted to the status of non-person and denied the right to live. Especially if their healthcare is determined by Obamacare boards whose members are committed to a liberal ideology. Sarah Palin’s phrase “death panels” is not misapplied.
If pro-abortionists want to commit intellectual suicide and deny scientific facts, that‘s their problem. But there’s no reason a civilized society should fund their anti-scientific outlook—or accept its inhumane consequences.
This is the third in a series based on Mrs. Pearcey's just-published book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.
_____
Nancy Pearcey is a bestselling author, editor at large of The Pearcey Report, and fellow of the Discovery Institute. She has published a new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. To inquire about media interviews, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group at 703-260-1915 (email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).
Sunday, September 19, 2010
'It's time to impeach Obama for high crimes against U.S.'
TAKING AMERICA BACK 2010
President blasted as a Christianity-hating tyrant 'working that anvil right now forging our chains'
By Joe Kovacs
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
MIAMI – An urgent plea to impeach a "Christianity-hating" President Obama for alleged "high crimes and misdemeanors" was issued today at the start of WND's "TTaking America Back Conference" in South Florida.
The call was announced by Floyd Brown, president of the Western Center for Journalism, who asserted in strong terms the commander in chief is deliberately trying to destroy the principles on which the U.S. was founded.
"The Obama presidency is a disease," said Brown. "Article 2, Section 4 (the impeachment clause of the Constitution) is the cure. And it's Obama's hatred of America that makes it absolutely imperative that we take action now."
"Barack Hussein Obama is not some do-gooder that has had his plans go astray," Brown added. "He is not a person of good will just trying his best to make America go the right direction. He is not. Barack Hussein Obama is a liar that absolutely knows what he's doing to the United States of America. He has a plan. He has an agenda. This man knows exactly where he's taking us."
A political innovator, writer and speaker, Brown is now running an online campaign to impeach the president.
"Barack Obama is a very dangerous man," said Brown. "Over the last two years, we have been watching the slow progression of what I call a bloodless coup."
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
"For the international socialist movement of which Barack Obama is a card-carrying member," he added, "the U.S. must be brought to its knees, and I guarantee you that Barack Hussein Obama is doing everything he can to bring the country to its knees. He wants to bring it to its knees."
Brown warned that a counterculture has risen up, dividing America.
"They don't have the same respect for you as an individual and personal property, and these traditional ideas in the Constitution. That's why they're at war with the Constitution. Everything our forefathers fought and died for to them is just trash to be thrown out on Monday morning."
Brown responded to a common question about what specifically the president has done that rises to the level of impeachment by recalling President Gerald Ford in the 1970s, who indicated an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at any given moment in history.
The U.S. Constitution states a president can be impeached for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Brown said the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" essentially means "bad behavior."
He went through a list of what he considered bad behavior, saying Obama has "nationalized the banks. He nationalized GM and Chrysler. He's attacked the 2nd Amendment. He's taken over health care. He wants cap and trade legislation, so he literally taxes the air that you breathe. We breathe out CO2. He appointed czars to control your life without congressional oversight. He apologizes for us abroad. I find it personally offensive that he would apologize for this great land."
Brown said the president has committed actual crimes, including offering jobs in exchange for political favors; firing Inspector General Gerald Walpin who was investigating Obama friend Kevin Johnson for allegedly misusing funds; and is now actively trying to bankrupt America, adding more to the national deficit in nine months than in the first 200 years of U.S. history.
He noted the Congressional Budget Office has warned that unless Obama can control his appetite for deficit spending, accumulated debt could spark a U.S. fiscal crisis similar to recent ones in Greece and Ireland.
Brown then turned to matters of faith, and blasted Obama's contention that he's a Christian.
"Obama hates Christianity," Brown declared. "He is a Muslim. Others will say he's just a godless atheist. The bottom line is that this man hates Christianity."
He said at Georgetown University, Obama forced the school to cover the name of Jesus on the podium, and he paraphrased the president's comments suggesting the U.S. was no longer a Christian nation, but could now be considered a Muslim nation.
"Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers," Obama stated.
"He said it!" exclaimed Brown. "Have you read about it in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal? There is a conspiracy of silence in the mainstream media to cover up this man's hatred of Christianity."
He quoted American leaders of the past, including President Andrew Jackson, who called the Bible "the rock upon which our republic rests," and Patrick Henry, who said, "It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains."
"Obama is that tyrant and he's working that anvil right now of forging our chains," said Brown.
Brown admitted that there would have to be a change in the leadership of Congress in the upcoming November elections to make impeachment a reality, but said the issue was pressing.
"Do we wait until he's totally ripped our country apart?" Brown asked.
He closed by invoking President Ronald Reagan, who was noted for saying, "If not us, then who? If not now, when?"
The "Taking America Back Conference" is a three-day event taking place at the Doral Resort in Miami, and includes dozens of speakers including U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former presidential candidates Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo, and authors Jerome Corsi, Aaron Klein and David Kupelian.
Other speakers include scientist and Bible teacher Chuck Missler; talk-show host Rusty Humphries,Michael Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association; Robert Knight and Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries; William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition and son of notorious atheist Madeline Murray O'Hair; RC Sproul, Jr., author of "Biblical Economics"; "Saturday Night Live" alum Victoria Jackson, author-columnist Erik Rush and author Judith Reisman.
Related offers:
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
There's a new strategy to get answers to Obama's eligibility questions. See how you can help.
See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential-eligibility mystery!
Join the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!
Want to turn up the pressure to learn the facts? Get your signs and postcards asking for the president's birth-certificate documentation from the Birth Certificate Store!
Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks the simple question, "Where's the birth certificate?"
Get your yard signs and rally signs that ask the same question – and make sure it's in time for the next tea-party rally
Get your permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers for your car, truck or file cabinet – and join the campaign for constitutional integrity.
Get the most comprehensive special report ever produced on the Obama eligibility issue.
Previous stories:
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
Retired general: Congress should give Obama ultimatum
Ex-congressman: President a 'threat,' must be impeached
Elections chief: Constitution 'important'
Microsoft Xbox: 'Impeach Obama' off limits
Impeachment suggested to remove 'threats' to America
Call for Obama's resignation cites 'deceit, fraud, dishonesty'
THE FULL STORY: See listing of more than 200 exclusive WND reports on the eligibility issue
Obama's nuke agreements meant to disarm U.S.?
President blasted as a Christianity-hating tyrant 'working that anvil right now forging our chains'
By Joe Kovacs
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
MIAMI – An urgent plea to impeach a "Christianity-hating" President Obama for alleged "high crimes and misdemeanors" was issued today at the start of WND's "TTaking America Back Conference" in South Florida.
The call was announced by Floyd Brown, president of the Western Center for Journalism, who asserted in strong terms the commander in chief is deliberately trying to destroy the principles on which the U.S. was founded.
"The Obama presidency is a disease," said Brown. "Article 2, Section 4 (the impeachment clause of the Constitution) is the cure. And it's Obama's hatred of America that makes it absolutely imperative that we take action now."
"Barack Hussein Obama is not some do-gooder that has had his plans go astray," Brown added. "He is not a person of good will just trying his best to make America go the right direction. He is not. Barack Hussein Obama is a liar that absolutely knows what he's doing to the United States of America. He has a plan. He has an agenda. This man knows exactly where he's taking us."
A political innovator, writer and speaker, Brown is now running an online campaign to impeach the president.
"Barack Obama is a very dangerous man," said Brown. "Over the last two years, we have been watching the slow progression of what I call a bloodless coup."
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
"For the international socialist movement of which Barack Obama is a card-carrying member," he added, "the U.S. must be brought to its knees, and I guarantee you that Barack Hussein Obama is doing everything he can to bring the country to its knees. He wants to bring it to its knees."
Brown warned that a counterculture has risen up, dividing America.
"They don't have the same respect for you as an individual and personal property, and these traditional ideas in the Constitution. That's why they're at war with the Constitution. Everything our forefathers fought and died for to them is just trash to be thrown out on Monday morning."
Brown responded to a common question about what specifically the president has done that rises to the level of impeachment by recalling President Gerald Ford in the 1970s, who indicated an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at any given moment in history.
The U.S. Constitution states a president can be impeached for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Brown said the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" essentially means "bad behavior."
He went through a list of what he considered bad behavior, saying Obama has "nationalized the banks. He nationalized GM and Chrysler. He's attacked the 2nd Amendment. He's taken over health care. He wants cap and trade legislation, so he literally taxes the air that you breathe. We breathe out CO2. He appointed czars to control your life without congressional oversight. He apologizes for us abroad. I find it personally offensive that he would apologize for this great land."
Brown said the president has committed actual crimes, including offering jobs in exchange for political favors; firing Inspector General Gerald Walpin who was investigating Obama friend Kevin Johnson for allegedly misusing funds; and is now actively trying to bankrupt America, adding more to the national deficit in nine months than in the first 200 years of U.S. history.
He noted the Congressional Budget Office has warned that unless Obama can control his appetite for deficit spending, accumulated debt could spark a U.S. fiscal crisis similar to recent ones in Greece and Ireland.
Brown then turned to matters of faith, and blasted Obama's contention that he's a Christian.
"Obama hates Christianity," Brown declared. "He is a Muslim. Others will say he's just a godless atheist. The bottom line is that this man hates Christianity."
He said at Georgetown University, Obama forced the school to cover the name of Jesus on the podium, and he paraphrased the president's comments suggesting the U.S. was no longer a Christian nation, but could now be considered a Muslim nation.
"Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers," Obama stated.
"He said it!" exclaimed Brown. "Have you read about it in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal? There is a conspiracy of silence in the mainstream media to cover up this man's hatred of Christianity."
He quoted American leaders of the past, including President Andrew Jackson, who called the Bible "the rock upon which our republic rests," and Patrick Henry, who said, "It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains."
"Obama is that tyrant and he's working that anvil right now of forging our chains," said Brown.
Brown admitted that there would have to be a change in the leadership of Congress in the upcoming November elections to make impeachment a reality, but said the issue was pressing.
"Do we wait until he's totally ripped our country apart?" Brown asked.
He closed by invoking President Ronald Reagan, who was noted for saying, "If not us, then who? If not now, when?"
The "Taking America Back Conference" is a three-day event taking place at the Doral Resort in Miami, and includes dozens of speakers including U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former presidential candidates Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo, and authors Jerome Corsi, Aaron Klein and David Kupelian.
Other speakers include scientist and Bible teacher Chuck Missler; talk-show host Rusty Humphries,Michael Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association; Robert Knight and Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries; William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition and son of notorious atheist Madeline Murray O'Hair; RC Sproul, Jr., author of "Biblical Economics"; "Saturday Night Live" alum Victoria Jackson, author-columnist Erik Rush and author Judith Reisman.
Related offers:
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
There's a new strategy to get answers to Obama's eligibility questions. See how you can help.
See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential-eligibility mystery!
Join the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!
Want to turn up the pressure to learn the facts? Get your signs and postcards asking for the president's birth-certificate documentation from the Birth Certificate Store!
Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks the simple question, "Where's the birth certificate?"
Get your yard signs and rally signs that ask the same question – and make sure it's in time for the next tea-party rally
Get your permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers for your car, truck or file cabinet – and join the campaign for constitutional integrity.
Get the most comprehensive special report ever produced on the Obama eligibility issue.
Previous stories:
Read all about the grounds for impeachment.
Retired general: Congress should give Obama ultimatum
Ex-congressman: President a 'threat,' must be impeached
Elections chief: Constitution 'important'
Microsoft Xbox: 'Impeach Obama' off limits
Impeachment suggested to remove 'threats' to America
Call for Obama's resignation cites 'deceit, fraud, dishonesty'
THE FULL STORY: See listing of more than 200 exclusive WND reports on the eligibility issue
Obama's nuke agreements meant to disarm U.S.?
The Case for Impeachment:
- (Special Report)
Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America
By Steven Baldwin
The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America - (Special Report)
By Steven Baldwin
Product Description
The Founding Fathers enshrined the impeachment clause into the United States Constitution because they feared that a president intent on subverting the very principles the American experiment was built on would someday rise to power.
Despite all the checks and balances and obstacles they put in place, the Founders knew a determined cabal could still gain control of all three branches of government and wield this consolidation of power to dismantle our cherished Constitutional principles, and eradicate the freedoms that generations of Americans sacrificed their lives to preserve.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: THAT DAY IS NOW UPON US.
"The Case For Impeachment" is an insightful summary of how President Barack Hussein Obama�s purposeful actions have jeopardized America�s ability to defend herself, and undermined our free enterprise system, corrupted our democratic institutions, and transferred massive amounts of power and wealth from American citizens to extremist special interest groups whose loyalty lies not with our Constitution, but with a global socialist movement. This is the beginning of the end for the United States unless the people exercise their precious remaining liberties and stand and demand that their elected representatives impeach this president before further mortal damage is inflicted upon America.
If the silent majority can summon the indignation, willpower and energy to make their voices heard, there is still a chance our country may survive.
Order a copy of this special report for yourself and one for your representative in Congress! It's time to prepare for the inevitable impeachment process next year.
Product Details
# ISBN: 978-193507122-8
# Page Count: 52
NOTE:
Purchasing "The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America" from WND's online store also qualifies you to receive a FREE 3-month trial subscription to our immensely popular monthly print magazine, Whistleblower. Watch for the FREE offer during checkout.
Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America
By Steven Baldwin
The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America - (Special Report)
By Steven Baldwin
Product Description
The Founding Fathers enshrined the impeachment clause into the United States Constitution because they feared that a president intent on subverting the very principles the American experiment was built on would someday rise to power.
Despite all the checks and balances and obstacles they put in place, the Founders knew a determined cabal could still gain control of all three branches of government and wield this consolidation of power to dismantle our cherished Constitutional principles, and eradicate the freedoms that generations of Americans sacrificed their lives to preserve.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: THAT DAY IS NOW UPON US.
"The Case For Impeachment" is an insightful summary of how President Barack Hussein Obama�s purposeful actions have jeopardized America�s ability to defend herself, and undermined our free enterprise system, corrupted our democratic institutions, and transferred massive amounts of power and wealth from American citizens to extremist special interest groups whose loyalty lies not with our Constitution, but with a global socialist movement. This is the beginning of the end for the United States unless the people exercise their precious remaining liberties and stand and demand that their elected representatives impeach this president before further mortal damage is inflicted upon America.
If the silent majority can summon the indignation, willpower and energy to make their voices heard, there is still a chance our country may survive.
Order a copy of this special report for yourself and one for your representative in Congress! It's time to prepare for the inevitable impeachment process next year.
Product Details
# ISBN: 978-193507122-8
# Page Count: 52
NOTE:
Purchasing "The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America" from WND's online store also qualifies you to receive a FREE 3-month trial subscription to our immensely popular monthly print magazine, Whistleblower. Watch for the FREE offer during checkout.
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