Regular Rostra commenter “Founding Father” asked me: Your insight and perspective as one who comes from a culture of Life first, while promoting and supporting a Pro-Abortion candidate through the RPSDC (Republican Party of San Diego County) endorsement of said candidate, illuminates what may be the thought process and definitive shift of a core-leadership team within the SDC GOP and what their motivation was/is regarding the abandonment of the GOP as the Party of Life.
Again, your measured, thoughtful insight is appreciated and respected as we delve into the sea-change that is the current GOP and its decidedly apparent shift in ideology.
For most of my life, Founding Father, abortion on demand has been the “Law of the Land.” On January 22. 1973, SCOTUS ruled that a woman had a fundamental right to abort her pre-born child and made an unscientific and utilitarian decision about when a human life actually started. Nine years later, as a junior at a Jesuit high school, I made the decision that SCOTUS was a political decision with little or no regard for science or the principles enshrined in the Preamble of our Declaration of Independence.
Ronald Reagan was President and I admired him and the new Holy Father a lot. I watched how Reagan’s four meetings with Pope John Paul II moved him from the California pro-choice Governor to a pro-life President who advocated for a constitutional “Personhood” amendment. As a teenager and young man, I was elected to a Republican County Committee (during Reagan’s second term). I started to learn what “political capital” was and how the protection of pre-born humans was subordinated to containing Soviet aggression. To govern is to prioritize and I suppose Reagan had to pick his battles so that his political capital account wouldn’t run dry.
Reagan’s pro-Life rhetoric wasn’t for naught, though. Abortions peaked at 1.6 million per annum in 1990 and have dropped to 1.1 million in 2012. Much of that decline might be attributed to demographics (the last baby boomer turned 26 in 1990) but public opinion has shifted over the past thirty years. A majority of Americans still think Roe v Wade shouldn’t be overturned, but a majority of Americans think restrictions on abortion should be tighter. The majority who think abortion should be legal has dropped while the majority who favor more restrictions is rising.
I think that’s a huge step in the right direction but there is so much more which should be done to protect the innocent human beings who are being killed each year.
Alas, this country has a bigger problem which, if left unsolved, makes tighter abortion restrictions and the ability to offer legal protection to pre-born humans untenable — our government is financially upside down. THAT fact is the reality which moved me off the sidelines and BACK into the political activist arena some eight years ago. When Medicare Part D kicked in, and I realized that Republicans were spending money on guns AND butter, I realized our country’s future existence was in peril.
It wasn’t easy to be “that Republican,” calling Bush a big government socialist in 2006 but I did. It wasn’t easy to be “that Republican,” questioning how we might pay for the troop surge in Iraq in 2007 but I did. It wasn’t easy to be “that Republican,” supporting a (then) fringe Republican Congressman over McCain in 2008 but I did. It certainly wasn’t easy to be that ‘racist,’ pouring “tea” into the ocean in 2009, but I was that guy (in spite of the ad hominem attacks hurled at me.)
It wasn’t easy to run as “that tea party” insurgent candidate for the Republican Central Committee in 2012 but I did…and won. Today, it isn’t easy to be on that Central Committee. For the most part, the Central Committee is more conservative than the registered Republicans in San Diego but our candidates in the City have to run in an environment which is stacked against them from the get go. Too many Committee members, in my opinion, have career connections with elected officials and that influences much of our agenda. Those elected officials also raise a lot of money into the party organization and I imagine their influence will be strong for years to come.
Like Reagan did on a much grander stage, I gotta pick my battles in the Committee. In the City of San Diego (which includes the 52nd Congressional District), Republican platform issues take a back seat to: (a) who will right the financial ship?, and (b) who has the support of the local elected officials. I could have stood against Bill Gore’s endorsement, because of his CCW policy, but no alternative was offered in his race. I could have supported one of two pro-Life candidates rather than a man who has fought for fiscal sanity alongside me, but I’d be doing a disservice to what I see as the most important issue of today:
The government is financially upside down
That issue is driving my activism today. While I understand that the political construct is much more that the financial viability of the federal government, I choose the let the Constitution define the proper role of government. To that end, while the arguments to secure the lives of pre-born children hold water under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, I think the People lack the political will to accept those arguments…today. Rather, repealing Roe v. Wade by using the Tenth Amendment appeals to me because it will save babies’ lives. Many pro-Life supporters argue the slavery analogy with me (when I cite the Tenth Amendment solution) and, while I accept that argument, I’ll remind them that rather than to let the Tenth Amendment expose the evil which is human slavery, our country fought a brutal civil war which resulted in 650,000-800,000 Americans killed. I don’t think that kind of political will exists to overturn Roe v. Wade today.
Endorsed federal candidates have to jump through the Tenth Amendment hoop (at a minimum) for my vote on the Committee. But even that hacks at the branches in my opinion because the root of the problem is this:
The government is financially upside down. I want to strike the root.
Don’t mistake me for a single-issue activist. It would be easy to support a candidate who calls for 45% across the board cuts but that would ignore the proper role of the federal government. Cutting the legitimate functions, as enumerated in Article One, Section Eight, to retain illegitimate functions (which should be left to the States and People), doesn’t make sense to me. Pushing those functions down to the States, Counties, and People (which include social security, Medicare, and Obamacare) makes much more sense to me.
Reassessing our foreign policy, to be less Wilsonian and more like Goldwater makes more sense to me. Questioning whether a Federal Reserve Bank charter satisfies three of the seventeen enumerated powers makes sense to me. Questioning whether the federal government is fulfilling or overstepping its powers granted by the Constitution makes sense to me because something is wrong. I know this because…
The government is financially upside down.
I don’t pretend that the Founders were some kind of gift of omniscience from God. They were flawed to a man but, as a body, they laid a foundation for a diverse, peaceful, and prosperous society with a maximum amount of freedom for the individual. That society has produced the greatest amount of wealth for the greatest amount of people in the history of humankind. That is in peril today.
I serve as an elected representative on a Republican County Committee for the third time in my adult life. That Committee is operating in an environment which can be hostile to Republican beliefs. That Committee is trying to be relevant in this hostile environment through electoral success. Compromises are made, trade-offs are made, ideas get squelched and dissenters run the risk of being ostracized by the Committee. I try to balance the need to advance my conservative principles with the need to remain relevant on the Committee. I’ve introduced ideas for changing the electoral process of the Committee. I’ve made the stand when I thought the Committee was overreaching. I’ve made certain choices to remain relevant rather than fight every single battle which is presented. I’ve done all of these things in a transparent matter with tepid support from grass roots conservatives.
I’m tired but I signed up for a four-year commitment and I always try to honor my commitments. The Republican Party is going through another drastic change on the national, state, and local levels and I think it’s going to be a good one. I don’t agree with every direction we’re headed but, on balance, I think it will make us more successful at saving this great nation from peril. While I’m tired, I’m always optimistic that, while not all of us will be completely satisfied, we’ll restore our party and our nation to something which resembles more of the Founders’ blue print for Liberty and Prosperity than exists today.
I hope that gives you some insight into (a) my world view, (b) how I’m trying to serve my term as a County Committeeman, and (c) the help I need to let our elected officials, candidates, and my colleagues in the Committee see that while I think the fiscal issues are of immediate importance, our Republican platform is one which advances the cause of Liberty and Prosperity.