United Liberty

Black lives don’t matter.

I know. It’s horribly insensitive and politically incorrect to say so, but any objective assessment of reality reveals this is true. Or, to be more precise, black lives don’t matter to the race-baiting political opportunists and the liberal Democrat politicians who are always lecturing, preening, moralizing, and inciting anger and outrage in front of the nearest available TV camera.

Doubt me? Well, then look at the facts.

The #blacklivesmatter movement began in the wake of the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Martin was shot and killed after assaulting volunteer neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman (a “white Hispanic”, according to the New York Times), who witnesses testified was knocked to the ground and punched repeatedly by Martin, slamming his head over and over into the concrete. Michael Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson, after Brown robbed a store, threatened the store owner, and assaulted Officer Wilson, attempting to take his gun after Wilson initially stopped only because Brown was walking down the middle of the street.

In both cases, the Obama White House sent several representatives to the funeral, and in both cases Obama expressed solidarity with the families, and lectured us on the history of American racism.

Even Hillary Clinton, recipient of Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award for Excellence in Supporting Elimination of the Darker Races Through Progressive Eugenics, is unable to support Planned Parenthood’s commoditization of human life and inhuman methods. But Mrs. Clinton still supports abortion on demand!

Editor’s Note: This originally appeared at The Ancient & Noble Order of the Gormogons.

Our readers surely have seen or read about Planned Parenthood’s current troubles. Enterprising pro-life activists went undercover and taped Planned Parenthood executives and employees discussing fetal organ sales and the abortion process in callous, inhuman terms.*

Planned Parenthood is now fighting for its life, and rightly so. Planned Parenthood’s assembly line, dehumanizing abortion mill procedures cannot withstand scrutiny. So long as Planned Parenthood publicly said the right things (e.g., “abortion should be safe, legal and rare,” “women’s health,” etc.), America was content to ignore Planned Parenthood’s charnel house ethics. But these tapes destroy the veil of willful ignorance Planned Parenthood depends upon for its survival.

If you can watch these videos without viscerally loathing Planned Parenthood’s ghoulish leaders, you’re a far better person than I. If you can watch these videos and still unquestioningly support Planned Parenthood’s abortion operations, you’re morally damaged.

The Supreme Court heard the case of Hobby Lobby, et.al. on the HHS mandate that requires most businesses that employ over 50 individuals to provide coverage for 21 forms of birth control. The businesses that are parties to the suit, while they are private for-profit companies, have incorporated or otherwise stated in their mission statements, that their businesses are owned and operated by individuals that include their religious practices in their work.

Due to their religious beliefs, that are freely stated to potential employees before they consent to work for these companies, they object to providing some or all of the contraceptives in the HHS mandate on moral grounds. The government presented the case that since they are not religious organizations per se, they do not have the freedom to run their businesses with religious overtones, at least not when it interferes with governmental mandates.

That is a thumbnail sketch of the case, and in spite of the fact that SCOTUS will not hand down a ruling until June, there are plenty of pundits offering opinions on exactly how that will end up. It’s interesting to attempt to guess what a given Justice will say on this issue, based on the questions presented during the case yesterday, however, it probably isn’t going to serve anyone to do that. Let’s not forget the ruling that the ObamaCare penalties were actually taxes by Chief Justice John Roberts, that got us to this point in the first place.

While it seems that quite a few of the commentators out there seem to think that this will fall in favor of Hobby Lobby, and the other corporations involved, perhaps at this point it would be better to think about “what comes next?” if that isn’t the case.

There are a few ways that a policy gets to be called racist: it is intended to negatively affect one race over another, it results in a negative affect on one race over another regardless of intent, or it has historically been used to negatively affect one race over another regardless of present intent or eventual result.

The first two are justifiably used to disqualify certain policies; of course we shouldn’t enact things that are intended to or serve to foster racial discrimination. But the latter is used as a fallacious smear tactic almost exclusively against conservative and libertarian policies. If that’s how we’re going to debate, it’s long past time the historically racist origins of certain liberal policies got considered too.

Federalism gets a bad rap obviously because of slavery and Jim Crow laws. The mantle of states’ rights was used for a long time as a means to get away with any number of heinous injustices and atrocities. That is almost never the case today, yet one risks being labeled racist for suggesting it, whether the issue to which federalism is to be applied has anything to do with race or not.

Well, if the putative federalist in question is a Republican, that is. Democrats are free to cling to states’ rights when it is convenient without having to worry about similar ad hominem attacks. Even after President Obama’s hailed conversion on the issue of gay marriage, he maintains that states should be free to decide the issue themselves.

This is effectively the same position as most elected Republicans, yet he doesn’t get called names because of it. Even the President’s signature health insurance reform grants states tremendous discretion in how much of the law’s new bureaucracy to implement themselves. Has anyone called Obamacare racist?

Editor’s note: United Liberty recognizes the divide amongst libertarians over the abortion issue and that there are strong, but thoughtful feelings coming from both sides. This piece covers an important issue that has been neglected by the mainstream media. It does not necessarily reflect the views of United Liberty or every contributor.

Murder. Exploitation. Blood money. Intrigue. The story of Kermit Gosnell has all of this and more, a story which is filled with horrifying and sensational details, a story of such heartless depravity and gory death that it could have been a George Romero film. So why it that you are almost guaranteed to have never heard of Gosnell? That is an excellent question, and one that anyone who believes in a strong and independent free press should be demanding answers to. If there was ever a case of clear-cut media bias and cover-up, this is it.

I first learned about Gosnell in January 2011 from a link to an article in Philly.com, reporting on his arrest and formal indictment on eight counts of murder and related charges. The trial of Gosnell began last month, and other than conservative websites and news sources, it is almost impossible to find a story in the mainstream print press until a few days ago, and as of the time of this writing, there has been ZERO coverage of the story by the major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS). The travesty of the media black-out was captured in an article in Investors Business Daily, which wrote:

For years it has been conventional wisdom that the GOP needs the votes of social conservatives to win elections.  Defined loosely, a “social conservative” is someone who has very traditional, restrictionist views on so-called “social issues” like abortion and same-sex marriage.  These voters are mostly white and evangelical Christians.  They support strong restrictions on abortion and oppose any recognition of gay couples.  In short, they are basically anti-libertarians.  As such, the moderate wing of the party has always them as a necessary but disliked coalition partner.

In recent years, though, the tide has started to turn against this strategy.  The portion of the electorate that votes strictly on social issues is shrinking.  Attitudes are changing on gay rights and, while the country tends to lean pro-life, it’s fairly clear that most voters are repulsed by the extreme views held by some pro-life polticians.  It’s clear, then, that the GOP can’t rely on anti-gay rhetoric and severe positions on abortion to win.

The call, then, naturally is coming from those who never even liked social conservatives to push this portion of the voting population to the wayside.  Some, like my colleague Jeremy Kolassa, argue that the GOP should entirely ignore social conservatives.  The thinking goes that moderating on abortion and gay rights will gather enough new votes to make it possible to live without hardline social cons.

It’s election day. We’re finally here. This grueling, seemingly non-stop campaign ends today. President Barack Obama made his last campaign stops yesterday. Mitt Romney hopes to pickup what undecided voters remain during visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania today.

Despite public polls showing a close race in swing states, though Obama has a slight advantage, Romney’s campaign says that their internal polls show him leading in Ohio and tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Writing at National Review yesterday, Jim Geraghty saw reason to hope that Romney will pull off a win tonight. And Aaron Blake surmised that the early voting numbers suggest that the race will be tight. However, Blake points out that “[i]n basically every state, Democrats’ early vote edge is between four and eight points less than it was in 2008.” That could mean trouble for Obama, especially in Colorado, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.

It seems that GOP candidates still have not learned that they are better off not speaking about rape and abortion.  Just weeks after Todd Akin’s infamous “legitimate rape” comment, another conservative has stated his views on the issue - this time Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock:

“I know there are some who disagree and I respect their point of view but I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother. I just struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize: “Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Now, I should get one thing out the way here.  I personally find Mourdock’s comments to be callous, and as someone who does not personally believe in a deity, I could never imagine telling a woman who was impregnated by a rapist that it was “God’s will” to carry to term a baby fathered by a vicious attacker and forced on her through the most violent of means.  It seems remarkably insensitive and lacking compassion.

But it’s not at all inconsistent or illogical given the thinking of pro-lifers.  If you’re someone who genuinely believes that life begins at the moment of conception, it doesn’t matter to you the circumstances.  I’ve always thought it to be very dishonest for “pro-life” candidates to be against abortion, but leave exceptions for rape and incest.  If you believe that unborn fetuses have full human rights, then the only possible time you could be okay with ending that life is if another life is at stake or if you believe it is compassionate due to severe birth defects.  And even then, that’s debatable.

For the most part, political conventions today are carefully scripted affairs, the platform hammered out in advance, the nominations a foregone conclusion. More than anything it is a festive gathering for thousands of partisans being rewarded for years of financial contributions, door-knocking, and phone-banking. Rarely do we see such drama as the contested Republican nomination of 1976 between Ford and Reagan, and certainly nothing like the 1912 Republican convention where the Roosevelt and Taft contingents were so bitterly divided that barbed wire lined the stage under the bunting.

The 2012 GOP convention was meant to let voters see the personal side of Mitt Romney, a man tight-lipped about his private life, religion, and charitable endeavors, painted as a ruthless businessman who cares only for profits. While toned down, it largely succeeded in its goals. Beyond that, Republicans lauded the greatness of the American entrepreneurial spirit that built this country, and rejected the idea that government gets credit for all we have.

The Democrat National Convention, on the other hand, turned into a freak show of radicals panting breathlessly about evil Republicans and the coming holocaust if Romney gets elected. It was a celebration of taxpayer funded abortions, government dependency until death, calls to steal more from the producers to give to the slothful, plus a tribute to their messianic figurehead, Barack Obama.

Over the last couple of years, libertarians have complained about the emphasis conservatives, particularly the Rick Santorums and Mike Huckabees their movement, have placed on social issues. We’ve noted that conservatives should focus their message on issues where they can attract agreement — such as repealing ObamaCare, lessening regulation on businesses, cutting spending, and reducing taxes.

While I support same-sex marriage and have grown increasingly pro-choice within reason, the Republican National Convention was a largely a breath of fresh air from this perspective . That’s not to say that I agree with everything said on the budget, economy or foreign policy, but the discussion of social issues was relatively mild with Republicans choosing instead to place a heavy focus on the economic record of President Barack Obama.

But watching the Democratic National Convention off-and-on for a couple of days, one can’t help but notice the heavy emphasis on social issues. There is certainly a discussion and defense of President Obama’s economic record, but abortion, same-sex marriage, and labor unions been featured heavily.

Of course, this is really isn’t surprising. Democrats have tried to change the narrative at several points since the beginning of the year; usually by complaining that there is some supposed “war” being waged against a segment of the American public.