Soothing Thought

It was understandable that a mere day after the 2016 election Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and chairperson of the Network of Spiritual Progressives would write

The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans. If the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base by helping Americans see that much of people’s suffering is rooted in the hidden injuries of class and in the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates.

That was before we knew better. Still, even today- Tuesday, April 10, 2018- we have individuals nominally left of center chastising the left for alleged close-mindedness. Pundit and author Sally Kohn, though saying avid Trump critics "should (not) give up your core beliefs," warns them

If you want to make things better, stop hating Trump voters. After all, don’t you want them to change? Don’t you want them to abandon their loyalty to Trump, see how destructive he is and vote for a progressive candidate in two or 10 or 20 years? Too much is made of “sides” in politics today, but nonetheless, don’t you want “their side” to come join “our side”?...

....please know that a lot of Trump supporters think you’re the hateful, close-minded monsters. So just like you feel justified hating them because they hate you, they feel justified hating you because you hate them. And so we end up on this ugly merry-go-round of hate. Which only stops when one side decides to end it. 

Lerner referred to "the left," "Democrats," and "liberals" and Kohn to "fellow progressives." But one of the things they have in common is neither names names. No Democratic and/or liberal politiciian is cited and they by no means implicate themselves, their family members or relatives, friends, or even neighbors. It's easier and safer that way.

Kohn argues- sympathetically- "part of the frustration many Trump supporters have expressed is that they feel marginalized and disdained in the wake of greater social progress and inclusion."

That's putting a smiley face on it.  Last week, Tom Jacobs of Pacific Standard found

a new scholarly analysis suggests Trump's instinct that racial prejudice drove him to victory is spot on.

"The 2016 campaign witnessed a dramatic polarization in the vote choices of whites based on (their level of) education," writes a research team led by political scientist Brian Schaffner of the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. "Very little of this gap can be explained by the economic difficulties faced by less-educated whites. Rather, most of the divide appears to be associated with sexism, and denialism of racism."

In the journal Political Science Quarterly, Schaffner and his colleagues note that a significant split between the preferences of highly educated and less-educated white voters is a relatively new phenomenon.

"In 2000, a small but notable gap began to emerge, with non-college-educated whites providing more support for the Republican presidential nominee," they write. "This gap remained relatively small, ranging from five to seven points in the elections held from 2000 to 2012."

"In 2016, however, the gap in vote preferences between college-educated and non-college-educated whites widened considerably to 18 points," they add. "College-educated whites were more supportive of [Hillary] Clinton than they had been of [Barack] Obama in 2012, while whites without a college degree moved even more dramatically toward Trump."

Economic discontent, ethical questions pertaining to Hillary Clinton, and an anti-establishment spirit responding to Trump's "drain the swamp" slogan are among the reasons cited by the learned class to explain the outcome of the presidential election. By contrast, Jacobs explains of Schaffner's findings

Why this occurred has been debated ever since, with one side emphasizing these voters' economic woes, and the other focusing on their fears of a changing society. To try to determine which was more important, the researchers looked at data from two large, nationally representative surveys administered online by YouGov: a pre-election poll of 2,000 American adults taken in late October of 2016, and a survey of 2,830 who were interviewed just before and just after the vote.

Schaffner and his colleagues focused on their responses to seven statements that reflect their attitudes about race and gender. Participants indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with each.

They included "Women are too easily offended;" "Women seek to gain power by getting control over men;" "White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin;" and "Racial problems in the US. are rare, isolated situations."

In addition, participants indicated which presidential candidate they planned to vote for (or, in the follow-up survey, voted for), and answered one of two questions about their personal finances. Those in the first survey were directly asked "How satisfied are you with your overall economic situation?", while those in the second indicated whether their household income had increased, decreased, or stayed about the same over the past four years.

The results would surprise Lerner, Kohn, and others who do not want to face reality:

"While the economic variables in our models were significantly associated with vote choice, those effects were dwarfed by the relationship between hostile sexism and denial of racism and voting for Trump," the researchers report. "Moving from one end of the sexism scale to the other was associated with more than a 30-point increase in support for Trump among the average likely voter. The relationship for the denial-of-racism scale was nearly identical. Moving from the highest levels of acknowledgement and empathy for racism to the lowest level was associated with about a 30-point increase in support for Trump."

These findings held true even after the researchers took into account two additional factors that have been linked to Trump support: populism (determined by responses to statements such as "The system is stacked against people like me") and authoritarianism (as measured by attitudes about child-rearing).

If only we'd just listen to each other (or at least the left to the right), Lerner and Kohn imply. More realistically, Jamelle Bouie on the day after the election observed

Americans are stubbornly, congenitally optimistic. And the millions who backed Trump see something in his visage. Something that gives them hope. Here’s what I see. I see a man who empowered white nationalists and won. I see a man who demanded the removal of nonwhite immigrants and won. I see a man who pledged war crimes against foreign enemies and won. I see a man who empowers the likes of Rudy Giuliani and others who see blacks as potential criminals to control, not citizens to respect.

Understanding how other people think is never a bad thing, and economic discontent did indeed play a role in defeat of the party defending (in more ways than one) the presidency. It is comforting to believe that we, the American people, have few if any prejudices, and that the election of Barack Obama eight years earlier proved it.  But no good can come from ignoring facts, facts which should have been evident in the victory of the Make America Great Again candidate (video from 11/17/16), who laid bare his contempt for ethnic minorities, women, and the country itself.

Share |


This blog will return on Saturday, April 14, 2018, when hopefully you will, also.

We'll Find Out If The Door Swings Both Ways

It is now April, 2018, and hence the right (or left) time to return to a period 48 months ago, and then 24 months ago, to two events recalled by Steve M. Four years ago we read from the Washington Times' Cheryl K. Chumley

Former CEO Brendan Eich, who’s been with Mozilla since its creation and actually helped found the company’s charitable offshoot foundation in 1998, announced this week he’s stepping down from the role over a flap generated by a $1,000 donation he made to a California campaign that sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state.

Mr. Eich made the donation five years ago, but his promotion to CEO brought the issue to the forefront once again. And the ensuing outcry from the gay rights crowd and certain Mozilla employees on social media ultimately pushed him to abandon the leadership post.

But now conservatives are striking back.

Mr. Shapiro has started a movement — complete with petition — to get as many Internet users as possible to “uninstall or cease using Mozilla,” he wrote on his website, TruthRevolt.org, replacing his traditional news content with simply the call-to-arms, Raw Story reported.

“Pardon this interruption of your TruthRevolt experience,” the message continued. “Mozilla recently forced its CEO, Brendan Eich, to resign over his personal support for traditional marriage. The firing followed a vicious smear campaign against Eich by dating website OKCupid, in which OKCupid blocked Mozilla users from visiting their website.”

Two years later there was this, from a blog post by Chumley:

A petition to boycott Target over its transgender bathroom policy has generated huge interest ...

Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and of the Christian international relief organization Samaritan's Purse, struck back hard on Facebook at Target over its recently implemented transgender policy, saying men who use women's bathrooms is a danger to the most vulnerable in society.

"I agree with the American Family Association – this policy encourages sexual predators and puts women and children in danger," Graham wrote. "A man shouldn't be able to enter the women's restroom or dressing room because he says he 'feels like a woman today.' That's ridiculous."

And now two years later still, Laura Ingraham criticized young pro-gun safety activist David Hogg, who called for a boycott of her program and took an unexpected vacation after companies took Hogg up on his challenge. The Huffington Post reports that Ingraham returned Monday night and at the end of her program

said she would launch a new segment called “Defending the First” meant to promote free speech and counter a “dangerous epidemic” she said was being sponsored by liberals.

“The left will brook no dissent, and they will militarily police the borders of their stale orthodoxy,” Ingraham said. “We will expose the enemies of the First Amendment while showcasing those brave voices for making a difference.”





Bill Maher (video below) notes "you shouldn't be doing this by teams, you should be doing it by principle." If Laura Ingraham truly is joining Maher, Salman Rushdie and others in promoting the values of free expression and liberal democracy, she ought to be welcomed. But she would then have to condemn efforts by the right- as well as the left- to shut down speech, popular and unpopular.  It's extremely unlikely she will- but if I'm surprised, I'll join the few others who will defend her.







Share |

Business Model

Someone is "standing up" to mainland China. It could be former New York State Attorney General and governor Eliot Spitzer or even neoconservative Max Boot as they spoke (beginning at 7:29 of video below) on Friday evening's overtime segment of Real Time:

Spitzer: Another one that's important- the tariffs. Democrats should stand u;p and say "you know what, it's time we stood up against China"-we should do it as a global coalition not as one-off deal. Somebody needs to stand up. China was gaming the system.

Boot: Wait a second. I don't think Democras ought to be supporting Trump trying to start a trade war with China. This is not going to work out well.

Spitzer: We need to stand up to China on trade.

Boot: Yea, but not this way.

Spitzer: Again, I said not this way but we need to stand up. It's time somebody said that.




But could it be President Trump, who himself announced tariffs against the mainland, who is standing up to" China?

It could be- but apparently is not, even though as Think Progress reports

The steel and aluminum industries in China will soon be slapped with tariffs up to $50 billion by President Donald Trump. On Thursday, after China announced their intentions to retaliate against the United States with $50 billion in tariffs of their own against U.S. goods, Trump warned that his administration would respond with another set of tariffs, this time targeting $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Exempt from the proposed tariffs against China, however, is the clothing manufacturing industry.

U.S. officials say they used an algorithm to determine which goods to exclude from new tariffs. According to the Washington Post, the list was drafted to achieve “the lowest consumer impact,” ensuring goods like clothing and toys were excluded so as not to raise the cost on domestic consumer goods.

When in doubt these days, always say "algorithm."  Most of us don't know what it is but it sounds very, very wise. Trump's move also was wise- given his priorities- because

Exempting clothing from the tariffs provides a big break to American clothing companies that hold trademarks in China. One of those clothing companies belongs to the First Daughter of the United States, Ivanka Trump.

A recent report by the Huffington Post found that the president’s daughter and closest adviser rakes in a total of $1.5 million a year from the Trump Organization while still working at the White House.

It may coincidental that clothing is excluded from the tariffs in the same manner that it is coincidental that "Ivanka dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Trump family’s resort in West Palm Beach on the same day China approved three new trademarks for Ivanka’s company."

Eliot Spitzer and Max Boot recognize that mainland China's free ride must come to an end. However, with Donald Trump as president, all policies emanating from the White House first will be vetted for their impact on the Trump family fortune.

Share |

Silence Is Not Golden.

Admittedly, it was pretty silly when last month Joe Biden, condemning Donald Trump for his remarks about women, declared "if we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him... Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room."

He was, though, more mature when two months earlier he had tweeted "It’s not how a president should speak. It’s not how a president should behave. Most of all, it’s not what a president should believe. We’re better than this."

In February, Rob Porter- who couldn't obtain a security clearance from the FBI- was allowed to remain in his highly sensitive position before being fired.  Biden observed "controlled chaos" in the administration and remarked "I'm having enormous difficulty understanding how this White House functions."

He's at least naming names. But Joe Biden no longer is the second banana to the leader of the free world, and the responsibility for calling out the current President of the United States of America should not fall upon him.

Earlier today, Sunday, we learned

Doctors and rescue workers in Syria said at least 42 people were killed in an apparent chemical attack on a rebel-held town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta, located near the capital of Damascus. Rescue workers said they found families suffocated in their homes and shelters and videos spread online showing purported victims of the attack. “The attack was near bomb shelters and so it spread quickly in them,” a paramedic who helped treat a group of victims said. “The gas was concentrated and in a place where people thought they were safe.

President Trump took to Twitter, blaming Syria itself, Iran, and- finally- Vladimir Putin, although it is not clear what "President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price..." means, nor even what Trump meant by it. (Assad will pay a big price? Supporting a genocidal tyrant is a big price to pay for geopolitical influence? Something else?)

He did, however, blame someone else- the former president, Barack H. Obama:

If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

We should not assume, without asking, precisely what Trump is saying or what he believes his predecessor should have done.  When Obama, as the last president fluent in English, declared a "red line," he implied he would take decisive action if Damascus went beyond a certain point. If Obama had in fact taken action, he would not have crossed the red line; it was already crossed by Assad. However, Trump's tweet suggests he believed the then-President himself should have acted- "crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand"- without provocation.

Responding to Sunday's attack, Kathy Gilsinanin in The Atlantic argues that the 2014 chemical weapons deal struck by Obama Secretary of State John Kerry failed to prevent attacks such as the one Sunday because it did not include chlorine gas, which has civilian uses, and did not include "everything."

Gilsinan acknowledges that the agreement did force Damascus to declare 1300 tons of nuclear weapons, which were then destroyed. Moreover, "if all this added up to something short of disarmament, Trump's strike on regime targets following last April's sarin attack haven't achieved it either."

President Trump wants us to disregard the reality that Barack Obama left the office of the presidency over thirteen months ago.

Republican members of Congress have reacted to the outrages of the Trump Administration by remaining silent, raising their heads out of the sand only to support, nearly or completely unanimously, President Trump's legislative initiatives which have strengthened his hand.

And now there is this: former president Barack Obama remains silent.  A lovely tradition has persisted wherein no former president criticizes an incumbent President, although the extent of that tradition is exaggerated.  It is, of course, a small, exclusive, and privileged club. But Donald J. Trump is no ordinary President, and no ordinary human being. As a candidate, he practically birthed birtherism, and rode his conspiracy theory to the presidency; and as President, he has gone so far as to denounce former President Obama on foreign soil.





At six-foot-one, it is time for Barack Obama to stand up tall and defend his record. He should do so for his country and for his party. But most of all, he could show a little self-respect.



Share |

Go Big Or Go Home

In one of the (many) articles I wish I had written, Politico Magazine's Bill Scher argues

... if Mueller believes that Trump needs to be held accountable for any violation of law, he cannot expect Congress to do the accounting. There is only one mechanism that has any chance of working, and it is not impeachment. It's indictment.

He recognizes "impeachment is a dead end because the congressinal jury pool is tainted," now that the Special Counsel "has been systematically demonized for weeks by Trump and his allies." Further, if Democrats won every 2018 Senate race, they would still control only 58 seats, leaving them nine short of the 67 they would need to convict the President in the Senate. Thus

the more serious discussion to have is about indictment. Democrats and progressive activists need not get over their skis and call for an indictment before Mueller finishes his work, as he may welll declare that Trump has not committed any crimes.

On the assumption, however, that the Special Counsel will conclude that Donald Trump has committed one or more crimes, Scher summarizes the arguments for and against the notion that a incumbent President can be indicted.

Many pundits, lawyers or otherwise, hang their hat on the the 1973, and the 2000 concurring, memo from the Office of Legal Counsel arguing indictment of a sitting President would "interfere with the President's ability to carry out his constitutionally assigned functions and thus would be inconsistent with the constitutional structure."   However, one former head of the OLC maintains that a President can be indicted while in office and be tried after he/she leaves office.  And both the Watergate special counsel investigating President Nixon and a memo received by independent prosecutor Ken Starr argued that a sitting President can be prosecuted.

In that memorandum, law professor Richard Rotunda maintained "No federal  statutes recognize, or purport to recognize, any Presidential immunity from criminal indictment. Indeed, Congress has done quite the opposite: it has created an Independent Counsel statute for the express purpose of investigating alleged criminal activities of the President."  While the independent counsel has been replaced with a special counsel, Congress still has conspicuously chosen not to enact a statue "creating some sort of temporary immunity."

Nor is there a need to do so.  The notion that prosecution of a sitting President would render the nation rudderless flies in the face of reality- and of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which relegates to the Vice President (emphasis mine) the "powers and duties" of the President if the latter  unable to do so because he resigns, dies, or is unable to discharge those functions. Rotunda explains

Because·of this (i.e., 25th) Amendment, the temporary disability of the President does not incapacitate an entire branch of government because the Constitution itself recognizes the problems and deals with it in a structural way, not by creating an immunity but by providing for a temporary replacement. In addition, the indictment of the President does-not incapacitate either the President or entire Executive Branch. Aaron Burr was quite able to function as a Vice President although indicted. Indictment does not incapacitate the indicted individual. In the unlikely event that the defense of a civil case (e.g., Jones v. Clinton) or the defense of a criminal case would prevent the President from performing his duties, the Executive Branch does not simply shut down. The Twenty Fifth Amendment, § 3, provides a procedure for the Executive Branch to continue to function "[w]henever the President transmits . .. his written declaration that is unable to discharge the powel'S and duties of his office .... " This procedure is clearly not limited to cases of illness. 

One should also note that it is easy to make a claim that the Executive Branch will simply "shut down," but that claim is difficult to accept.

The only other constitutional duty of the Vice President is to preside over the Senate, which any dimwit can do. Nonetheless, the McCain-Palin ticket of 2008 was harmed by the widespread belief that the vice-presidential candidate was unqualified and unable to perform the duties of the President..

That has not been a common handicap to a presidential ticket, and Trump-Pence was no exception because- however awful a president he would be- Mike Pence is qualified for the office.  The notion that somehow the USA would be a hopeless basket case if President Trump is preoccupied with matters other than the presidency is laughable on its face.

No doubt Robert Mueller know, as Rotunda emphasizes,  that "the Constitution does not create an absolute Monarch above the law" and that "in this country, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the state that no one is above the law." If he is the stelllar public servant and patriot he is reputed to be, Mueller understands that confidence in civil institutions is at stake, The American people need to be assured (or convinced) that the powerful recognize that everyone is equal under the law and that this is a nation of laws and not of men.

Robertt Mueller will not be eager to look over his long career, including this long investigation, and conclude that all has gone to naught as Congress does little or nothing.  Therefore- as Bill Scher believes-

If by the end of the investigation, Meller concludes Trump has a (sic) committed a serious crime, he should recognize that he has only two real choices: Indict or go home.









Share |

When Fear Goes Both Ways

Ten months ago, the New York Times' Amanda Hess wrote "talk of 'snowflakes'" is "tough-guy posturing" which

revives the idea of a culturewide wussification that must be fought with a return to aggression, physicality and ego. This is what the insult argues for — a rough-and-tumble world in which raw power reigns and nobody ever asks for help or complains of ill treatment. This pose isn’t merely aesthetic: There are those who truly believe that set free from etiquette, care and cooperation, they would prevail over others. The alt-right has even picked up the word “anti-fragile” and whipped it into a political strategy — embracing chaos and conflict because they think they’re better suited to thrive in those conditions than weaker people are.

However, she recognizes,  "making an entire alternate masculine identity is a lot of work. It’s always much easier to just call other people wimps and snowflakes — and hope they’ll be intimidated enough to melt away."

Identification of the term (to a lesser extent, the concept) with the alt-right should not preclude suspicion that this tendency has infected Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg now that he has, Politico reports, announced

the magazine was “parting ways” with newly hired conservative writer Kevin Williamson after fresh evidence emerged that he had endorsed hanging women who get abortions.

Goldberg had initially defended hiring Williamson from National Review despite complaints about his previous writing, some of which critics said was racially insensitive or offensive to transgender people. Much of the criticism involved a 2014 tweet that suggested women who had abortions “should face capital punishment, namely hanging.”

On Wednesday, the liberal research group Media Matters unearthed a podcast in which Williamson expressed the same position.

“The language he used in this podcast — and in my conversations with [Williamson] in recent days — made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered view,” Goldberg told staff in a Thursday memo.....

“We remain committed to grappling with complex moral issues in our journalism. Some of our colleagues are pro-life, and some are pro-choice; we have pro-death-penalty and anti-death-penalty writers; we have liberals and conservatives,” Goldberg wrote. “We obviously understood that Kevin himself is pro-life when we asked him to write for us. This is not about Kevin’s views on abortion.”

Williamson had in 2014 in both a tweet and a podcast suggested hanging as punishment for murder and

“The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment post, as Kevin had explained it,” Goldberg continued. “Furthermore, the language used in the podcast was callous and violent. This runs contrary to The Atlantic’s tradition of respectful, well-reasoned debate, and to the values of our workplace.

Many conservatives and most libertarians (being libertarians) will misinterpret Goldberg's decision,. Pro-life libertarian (also, pacifistic army, meat-eating vegetarians) Katherine Mangu-Ward imagines "The Atlantic is essentially declaring that it cannot stomach real, mainstream conservatism as it actually exists in 21st century America."  Jim Geraghty, columnist at Williamson's former and probably future employer, claims at National Review "Goldberg completely underestimated the level of liberal rage about the presence of an outspoken conservative in its pages."

However, The Atlantic is not required to fulfill a quota for conservatives, which conservatives and libertarians would be expected to understand. thus, the decision would be more justifiable if  Williamson actually was dismissed because of his perspective on abortion. However, the Daily Beast suggested otherwise:

The top editor emphasized that Williamson’s firing was not a result of his being anti-abortion—a common position for deeply religious Americans of all political stripes—but because of how his especially violent belief conflicts with the “values of our workplace."

 One understated twitterer noted 

It appears Goldberg's concern that Kevin Williamson's abortion opinions would offend female staffers significantly motivated the firing. Possibly in a "workplace harassment" sense, which seems, uh, worrisome.

If there is any indication that any woman has been harrassed by Williamson in his professional career, Goldberg's presumed concern would be well-placed. Evidently, however, there is none, for none has emerged.

Williamson did not expect to be in on the hanging even if abortion is prohibited, execution is deemed the maximum penalty, one or more of the women illegally has an abortion, and he became aware of it.

If Williamson was dismissed because his presence on the staff merely would have discomfited the women, Goldberg is exhibiting what Hess recognizes in the many ultra-conservatives who are "hypersensitive to dissent or complication."  Exquisitely sensitive, he would be displaying attributes of a snowflake.

He also would be short-sighted. There is a reason that, in social and in conventional media, there has been nary a word of support among his supporters for Williamson's openness to execution.

It is a viewpoint that is embarrassing to pro-forced birth advocates, who do not want to be associated with any penalty, however slight, for what it nonetheless considers "murder."  Support for their position depends on maintaining the fiction that doctors scour the landscape for emotionally fragile women whom they can coerce into forking over money to them so that they may destroy human life.

The pro-life crowd considers women to be a delicate, emotionally weak form of the species.  If Kevin Williamson has been dismissed because of the fears of women who were his professional colleagues, the right has been given more cause for its troglodytic prejudices.









Share |

When "Murder" Is Not Even A Misedemeanor

National Review columnist Kevin Williamson, recently hired by The Atlantic, has taken a nearly unique view on an enduring public policy question, stating that he is partial to the notion of hanging women who have illegal abortions.  Media Matters For America found a National Review podcast from 2014 in which he was co-host and remarked

And someone challenged me on my views on abortion, saying, “If you really thought it was a crime you would support things like life in prison, no parole, for treating it as a homicide.” And I do support that, in fact, as I wrote, what I had in mind was hanging.

My broader point here is, of course, that I am a -- as you know I’m kind of squishy on capital punishment in general -- but that I’m absolutely willing to see abortion treated like a regular homicide under the criminal code, sure.

This has caused quite a bit of consternation, such as from a disapproving Media Matters, which nevertheless concedes "Notably, although Williamson did hedge saying that he was 'kind of squishy on capital punishment in general' he was 'absolutely willing to see abortion treated like regular homicide under the criminal code.'” Steve M, himself, acknowledging Williamson admitted it would "be 150 years before this happens," snarked "but whenever society has the gallows ready, he's there for it. No walkback."

And of course those who oppose abortion rights, who have the most to lose if this reasoning takes hold, are opposed.  Charles W. Cooke, Williamson's co-host on the podcast, argued

Before we get on to the disagreement between us on this issue, it's worth saying that the presumption that you cannot believe something to be murder unless you agree with whatever response to that crime your interlocutor is proposing is ridiculous. [Williamson replies, "Sure."] The reality is that you can simultaneously believe that a crime is murder and that the person should be hanged or that the person should be put in prison for ten years or that the person should be not put in prison at all but rehabilitated by their family or that the person should go to a mental institution or that the person should be sent to Australia or exiled onto an island just off civilization's coast. You can believe all of these things.

Cooke does not have to believe in whatever his interlocutor is recommending as punishment for an illegal abortion in order for him to believe it is "murder."

First off, there is disingenuousness in referring- as Cooke does later in the video below- to abortion as "murder." It is killing but not murder until it is prohibited, and were that its status, pro-life advocates understandably would not be exorcised about it.

Lexicon aside, however, Cooke does not have to believe in whatever is  recommended as punishment for the procedure in order for him to believe it is killing.  He does not have to support execution for each and every woman who successfully pursues an illegal abortion. But consider his suggestion that a person who commits what he considers "murder" could

be put in prison for ten yeas or that the person should be not put in prison at all but rehabilitated by their family or that the person should go to a mental institution or that the person should be ent to Australia or exiled onto an island just off civilizations's coast.

He said that. The state's response to a woman who seeks, pays for, and obtains a "murder" can possibly be.... rehabilitated by their family.

This is not a slap on the wrist. This is less than a slap on the wrist and not even a penalty for what Cooke believes is- and under his scenario, the law would consider- a murder. Surely, even if capital punishment were the maximum penalty for obtaining an abortion, it rarely if ever would be applied.  In 2017 there were 23 executions in the entire nation. It is unlikely, then, that there would be even one execution in any one year. If there were, it would suggest that abortion- with execution even remotely possible- remained extremely common, implying a public acceptance of the procedure which would justify removing the ban.

By far the most commonly stated reason, as it is for Cooke, for supporting forced-birth laws is the belief that abortion is the taking of a human life. One does not, or at least should not, automatically deny prosecutors by law the option of pursuing the death penalty for the wanton, premeditated taking of a life.  If an ardent foe (as Cooke is) of abortion legalization wishes to take that punishment off the table, he cannot logically believe abortion is killing.

Alternatively, the pro-life person may believe that murder can be punished by, oh, releasing the murderer to her family. Yet, this is never suggested as the punishment for the doctor who performs the abortion as requested, for he or she must be treated as a dastardly criminal.

When in 2016 Donald Trump told Chris Matthews "there must be some form of punishment" for women who get an abortion if it is banned, he backtracked within hours with not one, but two, statements, perhaps to leave no doubt that he really didn't believe a murderer should be penalized.  He argued in the latter instance that not only should the health practitioner be punished but even that "the woman is the victim in this case."

He had to reassure conservatives that he was in on the game. In on the game that they must simultaneously pretend that abortion  takes a human life and that the primary culprit is not the perpetrator, but the victim.

Delivered in March, 2016, the statements came not during the general election campaign, in which voters are nearly even split on the issue of abortion, but during the primary election campaign, in which voters (overwhelmingly Republican) are presumed anti-abortion. Trump did not have to appeal at that time to voters of all ideological stripes; he had to reassure conservatives, who completely dominate GOP primaries.

Considering a woman the victim when she makes a carefully considered decision obviously denies her agency, presuming that she is an easily manipulated child rather than a thinking, responsible adult.  But that is a small price to pay, the calculation goes, for maintaining an intellectual incoherence endearing to opponents of abortion rights.




Share |