I’m not sure why I’ve been exposed to this talking point so often in the last few days, but once again I’m hearing and reading people calling Obama voters pro-abortion voters. ?Some leave the sentence enthymemic, but others go ahead and finish, saying that a vote for McCain would have been an anti-abortion vote.
I have to imagine that folks who have been voting Republican just to oppose abortion all these years are tired of hearing that, and I reckon they deserve a better option. ?If abortion really is the systematic act of consumerist murder that folks seem to think it is, then continuing to vote for the Republicans, who have been crowing about it for thirty years but have managed to get less than a percent of it outlawed, seems like it would be the height of frustration.? After all, the Republicans need the anti-abortion vote far more than abortion opponents need the Republican party. ?If you don’t believe me, just look at how the DNC treats the pro-abortion faction: they’ll derail themselves at every turn to make sure nobody touches abortion law, irrespective of other consequences. ?The fact is that Democrats need their pro-abortion voters to stay scared of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and Republicans would have much less to commend themselves to a good number of evangelicals if abortion suddenly became illegal. ?The GOP, ultimately, ?is more parasitic on Roe v. Wade than is the DNC, and the elephants would quickly enough dry up if all they had to sell to evangelicals was unfettered Capitalism.? I’ve entertained the suspicion, though I’ve usually resisted the move to conspiracy theory, that the GOP fears the repeal of Roe v. Wade more than the DNC does.
I do with that more of the one-issue voters would join me, seceding from the GOP and getting behind Joe Schriner, who stands more than any big-faction candidate to form the New Abolitionist party, whose platform will consist in nothing less than to push a Constitutional Amendment outlawing the practice as the first point of policy upon taking office. ?I know the customary argument–abortion is an entrenched policy, and those poor old Republicans just need more money and political capital to make something that big happen. ?But Republicans have shown the ability to make all sorts of things happen with the levers of power, from invading nations to instituting a surveillance state to stockpiling enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the human race to driving up the national deficit by cutting taxes on the wealthy to replacing giant sections of American military operations with mercenary forces. ?If they can do those things, all of which required time and money and political capital, they could have been doing something more about abortion some time from the Reagan years forward. ?If folks are, like me, really concerned about abortion, they do have another horse to back. ?That horse is named Joe. ?(He’s actually not a horse but a house painter.)
Now don’t read in this what I’ve not written: I know that some people are both anti-abortion and dedicated to Capitalism. ?While I’m fairly convinced that those loyalties are in contradiction, I know that not everyone has had a full portion of my wisdom and might still think they hold on to both. ?(That was a joke, folks.) ?That’s not the phenomenon I’m talking about. ?I am speaking to and about the former and current “one-issue voter” Republicans whom I know and, I’m guessing, who also exist outside of my own circles. ?I really don’t think that those folks are in bad faith if they’ve given up on the GOP as a valid vehicle for reform on questions of abortion policy, and I think it’s those folks who haven’t given up on the GOP who should get behind Joe Schriner and leave the GOP to the Capitalists.
If the pearl is of great price, sell everything and pursue it.
If not, stop accusing folks who have abandoned the lazy pearl hunters.
But you know where my vote is going as long as Joe is running.
(I’m not an official representative of Joe Schriner for President, but I’d be glad to be one if he’s looking for volunteers.)
