Excellent point. So why did the chips fall that way?
Perhaps it comes down to convenience?
I was trying to figure out why the religious right is right. After all, religion doesn’t necessarily put you on the right; many Catholics are very much on the left, and the concept of “convenience” occurred to me.
Religious people are less apt to let “convenience” play into a decision since they are used to God telling them not to do fun things. “It’s inconvenient, but by golly, it’s the law.” That let’s them try to ban liquor and pornography and drugs, etc. So, those who have no problem banning conveniences are on the right, and many religious people are there because of that.
Now, back to the topic at hand. A primary divide between pro-choicers and pro-lifers is convenience. A pro-lifer exploring when life begins is a futile effort to convince a pro-choicer if the pro-lifer is not solely considering life starting points which are late enough for a woman to find out she is pregnant and do something about it. In other words, even if you could “prove” life begins earlier than 6-8 weeks out, I doubt it would carry the day in the argument. That is because convenience of the woman is paramount on the pro-choice side.
So, given the inclinations of the people in each party already, the people who ended up banning other conveniences (social conservatives) ended up trying to ban abortion, and the people who enjoyed conveniences (social liberals) ended up supporting abortion.
Another aspect of the debate (one I haven’t seen covered here): conservatives typically revere the text of the Constitution, and believe it’s to be interpreted according to the original intent of the Framers. Now, the text of the Constitution says NOTHING about abortion. A conservative would maintain, then, that a “constitutional right” to abortion is a fiction.
Quite apart from the morality of abortion, many conservatives were outraged by the Roe vs. Wade decision precisely because it had nothing to do with Constitutional principles, and Harry Blackmun’s fatuous decision barely bothered to pretend that the Constitution itself mattered.What it came down to was this: a liberal majority on the Supreme Court made up a Constitutional right out of thin air.
That continues to outrage many on the right- including some who aren’t particularly opposed to abortion.
Setup so you now where I’m coming from: I’m sort of Libertarian myself, but MOST of my viewpoints would be perceived as conservative. I am also a constitutional “reverence” sort of guy… I think Roe V. Wade was a wrong decision not because I oppose abortion, but because of the “made up” right to privacy.
My viewpoint on pro-whatever is based on the constitutional element that most conservatives forget, though. It’s the part that says anything not specifically laid out in the constitution is “reserved to the several states”… Meaning if the consitution doesn’t address abortion, it has nothing to say about it either way. States can make it legal or not as they see fit according to THEIR constitutions and legal precedents.
That’s my view. The Federal government should neither outlaw nor approve abortion. It’s NOT THEIR JOB and NOT THEIR CALL TO MAKE. (Most of the crap the Feds do falls into this category, BTW)
Each state should determine how to handle abortion within its borders. Some will outlaw it completely (You know, that state that you “don’t mess with”). Others will probably have drive-thru abortion stands paid for with public funds (Taxachussets comes to mind)…
So I would say as a “conservative” by and large I think Pro-Nothing and Anti-Neither is my preferred viewpoint. Beyond that, call your governor and let him know your viewpoint…
I disagree, DrLizardo, that liberal and conservative bith mean “whatever” at any give point in time. Conservatism is about tradition. All manner of religious beliefs are traditional, racism was/is traditional, ruggend individualism and minimal government interferance in business is also traditional. Liberalism and Leftism are not the same thing–as RickJay implied in his reference to Russia. Here’s my definitions:
Conservative: An adherance to traditional or established ways of thinking.
Right wing: An adherance to the ways of thinking established before the social uphevals of the mid 20th century
Liberal: A willingness to disregard traditional thinking and apply frsh thinking to the issues at hand.
Left wing: Supporting policies meant to remedy percieved past injustices.
*So racism is right-wing, color blindness is liberal, and affirmative-action is left-wing. Most “conservatives” actually accept the liberal view here, but since a belief in “systemic racism” has become an established way of thinking, polictical correctness amounts to a new kind of left-wing conservatism (indeed, as I see it, “conservative” and “politically correct” are synonymous).
Interesting thoughts, sqweels. Two areas where I’d like to comment:
Not to be confrontational, but inadvertently or otherwise you’re using far more “positive” connotation terms and phrases to define Liberal than any of the other viewpoints. It’s sort of like this Bulls*** poll the Republican Party sent me the other day with questions like “Do you support President Bush’s initiatives to protect our great nation? Yes or No?” Talk about asking skewed questions! (and clearly a far MORE extreme example than what you say). No doubt they’ll come out with the results showing “overwhelming” support for Shrub.
Equating conservative and politically correct is the triumph of theory over reality. The reality is you can’t get much more polar opposite than the viewpoints of those who would call themselves conservative and those who would call themselves politically correct. That’s the danger of creating theoretical definitions then trying to shoe-horn existing convergences of people into like-minded groups into those definitions.
Nitpick: Griswold v. Connecticut is the case that invented the right to privacy. It’s considered the forerunner of Roe, however, since Roe relied heavily on the idea that this right could be read from…well…“somewhere” in the Constitution.
Roe largely came from the 14th Amendment. Again, we’re not sure what part. This is why conservative and liberals alike largely find Roe to be a baffling decision: there was just plain no legal basis for it. (The fun continued in 1992 with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where the court still couldn’t find a basis for the right to abortion, but ruled that it couldn’t be eliminated because we’d been using it for 20 years. :rolleyes:)
Can’t it be seen as a non-enumerated right, as stated in the ninth and tenth amendments? Nowhere does the constitution ban abortion, and thus it must be a right reserved to the states or to the people… The SC just decided that it belongs to the people, not the states…
I agree that this isn’t the reasoning they used when they published Roe v. Wade, but is it wrong?
(Seems to me that the “right to privacy” is very strongly implied in several of the other Bill of Rights amendments…)
I’m not going to read minds here, but a thought on the possible bases for abortion being legal:
14th amendment, implied “right to privacy”: Pretty vague. Very arguable. Using this as basis keeps it on a national level.
Non-enumerated right, reserved to the several states or to the people: pretty darn clear to me at least this this DOES cover it: Supremes/Constitution simply doesn’t speak to the issue. Essentially throws it to a state-by-state thing: Texas would ban it, California would have drive-thru abortion clinics with no ID check (dude!)… etc. People living in the bible belt would have to make some LONG drives to get to an abortion-legal state…
Now, I’m not saying anything here because we all KNOW the supreme court NEVER would engage in judicial activism, but if we were in an alternate universe where the supremes DID have agendas of their own and WERE subject to political pressure, basing the ruling on the 14th, even if weaker basis, keeps the decision national and prevents states from outlawing it…
Of course, the feds would NEVER EVER seek to maximize their control and power at the expense of states rights, now would they?
Both organizations do uphold the constitution. No inconsistancy there. The inconsistency is in the major parties, neither of which totally embraces the Constitution, and both of which pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they like and want to enforce.
After recalling the New Yorker magazine cover which presented the famous map of the United States from the distorted view of a New Yorker (in which Manhattan dominated, and everything west of the Hudson is collapsed together and minimally displayed), he notes that maps of any kind differ depending on the perspective of the mapmaker…
Well, yeah. That’s because being more positive is what liberalism is all about. During the American Revolution, the Liberals were the Patriots and the Conservatives were the Tories. During the Civil Rights Movement, the Conservatives were the racists. Libbeals look around at the World and say, “We can make things better”. Conservatives say, “The World is just as God and our ancestors intended it to be, or it was unitl these ‘Liberals’ came along and started causing trouble”.
Theory vs perceptions perhaps. We are, after all, trying to capture an exceedingly complex ideological spectrum using highly simplistic terms. People’s distorted perceptions affect not only their approach to the issues but also their approach to the terms.
But I see a lot in common between minority activists and right-wing fundamentalists. Both are ‘set in their ways’, allow their identities to dictate their views, and cite non-existent evil as justification. Yes they are poles apart on the Left/Right spectrum, but I am trying to de-link the Liberal/Conservative dichotomy from the Left/Right dichotomy.
Noboldy calls themselves politically correct. PC is what you complain about when a gesture you make–however correct or innocuous-- is shouted down by an ideologically driven majority.
Here is an example of Right-wing political correctness (i.e. plain old conservatism):
From the Gay Teens thread-
As for shoehorning, isn’t that what’s going on when folks try to define communism as “Liberal”?
I always thought it was a matter of religion. Many pro-life stances are based on ideas of a soul, enforced chastity or other relious beliefs. The most politically active religions in America are very conservative. Therefor abortion is a conservative issue.
I just want to make sure you make your bias on this known since you DO have one, but your posts try to come across as “nonpartisan.” But I think you’ve taken care of that now:
With the given that you’re coming from a liberal standpoint, I think you’ve stated some interesting well-reasoned viewpoints – with which I disagree. But that’s old news, so I’m leaving the floor in favor of someone who may have additive rather than repetitive items to bring.
Oh, I don’t know, given your definition of “Liberal.” After all, I’m sure the Communists back in 1917 “look[ed] around at the World and [said], ‘We can make things better.’”
Each person with a opinion on the abortion issue is referring to the procedure as affecting either one person or two people. Most religious people that I talk with believe that life begins at conception - -> so there are two people involved, one of which is entitled to very basic protections, and it should be legislated accordingly. It is necessary to have formulated a belief beyond a political one to have that view though, that life begins at conception.
A plain old conservative may or may not have that belief. I don’t…I see the early stage of pregnancy involving 1 person, down the road in the third trimester it becomes two…I’m undecided in the middle…but speaking just for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy I see no reason for any procedure to be outlawed, or to be granted as a “right”. I’m not concerned about the social implications of getting a PAP smear or a man taking Viagra…I’m no more concerned about the legal status of an early pregancy. Others are. I’ve talked to liberal women who are very uncomfortable with the idea of 2nd or 3rd trimester abortions, and I know conservatives for whom it’s a non-issue - the government should “mind it’s own business”. So I don’t think it can be neatly divided into two camps.
To the original question: why is Pro-life known as ‘conservative’…somewhere along the line conservatism became 'traditionalism" or something, interchangeable nowadays with the Religious Right. I for one think that people who would use the government to enact policy according to Biblical guidelines should be referred to as something separate and distinct. Conservative is supposed to mean less (via conservative interpretation) federal legislation, powers, and initiatives. Dammit.
Again, not really. Most, if not all, conservatives support increased governmental regulation of pornography and drugs. It is only in economic matters that less government is preferred by conservatives.
There is a two-dimensional spread of political beliefs along a first economic freedom axis and a second, orthogonal personal freedom axis. (See the square–actually a diamond to correllate with the left-right line–graph at this link: Political Philosophies
To simplify a two-dimensional map (with north, south, east and west) into a one-dimensional line distribution (between right and left) will necessarily result in oversimplifications and confusion, thereby causing threads such as this one.
Of course, the two parties stick with the right-left line so that there is no place on the political spectrum for those who disagree with them. A four party system would not be beneficial to those currently in power.
And then they very quickly stopped being liberal; they left their liberal principles behind. It’s a pretty common scenario for someone to start out as a liberal and then get lock into a left-wing position. Continuously *re-*thinking positions is an important part of being liberal. Communists–and minority activists–don’t do this, so thye ain’t liberal and that’s bad. Conservatives don’t do this, and that’s bad too.
I do notice that Conservatives, rather than justifying their positions vis-a-vis bias, always manage to turn it around and point the finger at “Liberals”.
Sorry, I don’t see the debate. Pro-life is part of the GOP platform. The GOP is called the conservative party (as the Dems are called liberal). A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. If you’re looking for more than that, it just ain’t there. You may argue about the meaning of the word “conservative”, but in common parliance, the Republicans are called conservatives.
The question that I’m really interested in getting answers on is this:
Do most people accept their political beliefs as part of a package deal, as in “I’m a Republican and therefore, I believe in X,Y, and Z”? It seems to me that this is the case. There is something vague (if not arbitrary) in the way that the parties pick sides on some issues. Gun-control is portrayed as a constitutional infringement issue by the self-identified conservatives. And yet free speech–also a constitutional right–is often described as a liberal interest. The death penalty is favored more by conservatives than liberals. But most conservatives tend to be pro-life and anti-welfare.
What Republican thought process is reponsible for determining the angle and direction of these slants? It seems to me (and God knows that politics baffle me anyway) that there should be some underlying rule that decides what a person believes, for the sake of being a consistent animal. And yet it’s hard to come up with a rule that allows for consistency.
Even if there was a clearly-defined Republican mindset that decides beliefs, who’s to say that most self-identified Republicans really abide by that mindset? Take constitutionality, for instance. The forefathers of the GOP may have been united under the banner of constitutional integrity, but today does Joe Blow the Average Schmoe and Self-Identified Conservative really build his belief system off that idea? Or does the fact that Joe’s dad was a Republican play a more significant role in what team Joe cheers for?
Identifying as independent makes more sense to me than identifying as a Republican or Democrat, because it seems to entail less package-deal acceptance of ideas. Rule-based formulation of beliefs also seems less associated with non-party affiliation. I wish there were more leaders who just represented themselves instead of donkeys or elephants. Oh well.