Trite

I’ve been busy with work this month and haven’t taken the time to do the blogging thing- for the very few who have told me you enjoy reading it (i mean… who knew? certainly not me), I apologize.

As for Obama’s speech tonight- of which I just saw a rerun following a much needed run to Skyline Chili earlier- it was trite, lacking in any wisdom whatsoever, and incredibly fatiguing to watch.  The only enjoyable part for me was the very end, after it was over, when they played the score from the film Remember the Titans.

Obama to the crowd: “This has been about you!”

Great, Barack.  Very JFK of you (“Ask not what your country can do for you…”).

I was not moved one iota by any of his words.  It was full of so many terribly thought out proposals and ideas, I have hard time seeing how a thinking person could have been moved by it.  A long, long list of goals, none of which we have any reason to think are possible to obtain.  It’s all feelings, all bluster, all platitudes.

But then, feelings are what being on the left are about isn’t it?

“So I’ve got news for you, John McCain.  WE ALL PUT OUR COUNTRY FIRST.”

Let me be the first to stand up and say to you, Democrats, as a party: um, no, you don’t.  Every policy Barack Obama endorsed tonight stems from the same selfish, narcessistic, emotionally driven root.  From abortion on demand to taxing the rich, from the phony health care crisis to the fraudulant “repairing of America’s reputation abroad”, from climate change to unconditional withdrawal from Iraq, as Obama said himself:

“It’s all about you.”

It’s all about making you feel good about yourself.  It’s all about making your life easier.  It’s all about how Barack Obama is going to solve all of your problems.

As I said to a friend the other day: All you have to do is open your heart to him; ask Barack Obama to come into your heart, and Barack Obama will come and live there, and Barack Obama will miraculously solve all of your problems.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is not about you; and ironically the sooner you realize this, the more joy, fulfullment and success you will have in life.

Wonder no more! In Obama’s own words

I’ve done a little digging regarding Obama’s vote against the Induced Infant Liability Act- a 2002 Illinois bill that would compel doctors to provide medical care to a baby (fetus? It’s outside the uterus at this point, remember) who survived an abortion attempt, and has been born alive.  I am actually just curious: what possible reason could he have to do such a thing?  To what mental gymnastics must a professing Christian subject himself in order to avoid soul-crushing guilt on such a vote?

I wonder no more.  Here follows the complete text of Obama’s comments immediately prior the bill’s vote, beginning from pg 84 of the transcript.  If I may be so bold as to paraphrase, his reasoning seems to be thus: “I am voting against the bill because it will not hold up to constitutional scrutiny, because a fetus born alive, lying there on the hospital table (some would call that a baby, but I will be careful not to), is not a person under the laws of the United States.  And this is a good thing because it protects the right of women to have abortions.”

I think that’s a fair representation.  I’m not trying to make the man sound evil at all.  If you have a more lucid understanding of his reasoning here, I’d love to hear it.  Isn’t it odd, though, the Barack Obama seems to think that the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of Illinois does not afford any sort of protection to a living, crying… um… thing… lying on a hospital table?

Anyway, the text as promised (I’ve included the context- you can skip down to Obama and you won’t miss much):

ACTING SECRETARY HAWKER:
Senate Bill 1093.
(Secretary reads title of bill)
3rd Reading of the bill.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Senator O’Malley.
SENATOR O’MALLEY:
Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate. Senate Bill 1093, as amended, provides that no abortion procedure which, in the medical judgment of the attending physician, has a reasonable likelihood of resulting in a live born child shall be undertaken unless there is in attendance a physician other than the physician performing or inducing the abortion who shall assess the child’s viability and provide medical care for the child. The bill further provides that if there is a medical emergency, a physician inducing or performing an abortion which results in a live born child shall provide for the soonest practical attendance of a physician other than the physician performing or inducing the abortion to immediately assess the child’s viability and provide medical care for the
child. The bill additionally provides that a live child born as a result of an — of — of an abortion procedure shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.    All reasonable measures consistent with good
medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken to preserve the life and health of the child. I’d be pleased to answer any questions there may be.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Any discussion? Senator Obama.
SENATOR OBAMA:
Thank you, Madam President.    Will the sponsor yield for
questions?
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
He indicates he will.
SENATOR OBAMA:
This bill was fairly extensively debated in the Judiciary Committee, and so I won’t belabor the issue. I do want to just make sure that everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, as I understand it. Senator O’Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was — is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living.    Is that correct? Is that an accurate
sort of description of one of the key concerns in the bill?
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Senator O’Malley.
SENATOR O’MALLEY:
Senator Obama, it is certainly a key concern that the — the way children are treated following their birth under these
circumstances has been reported to be, without question, in my opinion, less than humane, and so this bill suggests that appropriate steps be taken to treat that baby as a — a citizen of the United States and afforded all the rights and protections it deserves under the Constitution of the United States.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Senator Obama.
SENATOR OBAMA:
Well, it turned out — that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your — you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it’ll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional. The second reason that it would probably be found unconstitutional is that this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide
treatment to a previable child, or fetus, however way you want to describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place. And if we’re placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality. Now, as I said before, this probably won’t make any difference. I recall the last time we had a debate about abortion, we passed a bill out of here. I suggested to Members of the Judiciary Committee that it was unconstitutional and it would be struck down by the Seventh Circuit. It was. I recognize this is a passionate issue, and so I — I won’t, as I said, belabor the point. I think it’s important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have compromised and — and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a — a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We’re going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. And as a consequence, I’ll be voting Present.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Further discussion? If not, Senator O’Malley, to close.

Actually, after reading that meandering- no- trainwreck of reasoning, I am still wondering.

Obama problems

I’ve talked with plenty of self described independent and even conservative folks who are planning, or at least considering, voting for Barack Obama.  Bill Bennett has compiled a list of 10 reasons not to do so.  It’s a good list, but there is one item on it that I had no clue about, and I pay a lot of attention to all this stuff.  It was quite shocking to say the least:

9. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton and NARAL on the issue of life. As a state senator in Illinois, Barack Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, a law that would have protected babies if they survived an attempted abortion and were delivered alive. When a similar bill was proposed in the United States Senate, it passed unanimously and even the National Abortion Rights Action League issued a statement saying they did not oppose the law.

What more does one need to know about Obama’s moral compass?  I believe that for the majority of Americans, this would automatically disqualify the man to be their local senator, state representative or (as the saying goes) dog catcher.

It’s amazing what effective rhetoric is able to obfuscate.

Abortion kills more than children

Feminism. Pro choice. Safety. Health. Doctor. All empty words when it comes to this story [via KJ Lopez].

Abortion kills more than children.

McCain bites it- sortof

This is quite unexpected, at least by me.

In yet another rather unpredictable result for this election cycle, Romney comes out on top in MI, and by a sizable margin. It would not be entirely correct to say he trounced McCain, but I will anyway because it makes me feel all warm an gooey inside to think of John with a little dirt on his face. So here goes: McCain bit it tonight.

Now, I still think McCain will ultimately win the nom before it’s all over, and we’ll have a vanilla McCain vs. Hillary election where there is basically no difference between the 2 candidates except on abortion, and a slight difference in the way you draw the letter of the alphabet appended to their last names (R or D). Such an election will surely drive me to drinking, and no matter who wins I’ve decided that it is pertinent to begin the process of locating the local chapter of AA, and postpone finishing my engineering degree this fall.

Especially in the eventuality of, as Blogging Superboy (and reliably anti-Romney pugilist) Daniel Larison suggests, the awful Mike Huckabee receiving the veep nomination. Can you imagine a world where McCain gets elected, bites it in the existential sense, and we suddenly have President Huckabee signing laws prohibiting fast food? Similar things have happened.

Such gloomy thoughts. I need to think on nicer things.

Dear Right to Life: what are you THINKING?

I mean, honestly.. is it still March over there?  Did they miss this past summer and fall?

Fred Thompson? Really?

And, true to form,  he doesn’t even show up to the party:

Thompson did not attend the group’s event announcing the endorsement at the National Press Club.

Ugh.  I’m really starting to like this guy even less than McCain.  Even though, concurrently, I’ve started to like McCain more than.. McCain.

His (McCain’s) performance at the debates have been incredibly impressive, and its hard to argue (even though I’ve tried before!) he doesn’t deserve consideration for carrying the mantle of genuine conservatism; he’s staunchly pro life, is demonstrably more economically conservative than any of his rivals (except, of course, Paul) and with regards to foreign policy he lately seems to be without doubt the most qualified to lead us in these uncertain times.

But then again, there’s that whole problem with McCain Finance Reform, which amounts to trying to throw out the first amendment in an ill advised attempt of “getting the money out of politics”… which didn’t work by the way.  Oh, and there’s that other little problem… he’s almost as polarizing among the ranks of conservatives as Hllary is among the general populace.  You either love him, or hate him.  At least, that was the conventional wisdom for a while.  It could be changing though- actually it IS changing, and I hate to be anecdotal, but I say that because if I am starting to look past his shortcomings (I have always been one of the haters), there simply has to be something to the recent McCain surge.

The rights of the as-yet-uncreateable

Apparently, cloning primates is no longer science fiction, which means cloning humans is soon to be a reality.  But not quite yet.

However, the UN- that bastion of freedom which has historically done such a bang-up job of protecting human rights around the world- is worried:

Unless the world bans human cloning it may be just a matter of time until we share the Earth with exact copies… Tobin believes the international community will have a responsibility to protect the human rights of cloned individuals if human cloning is not banned. Essentially the choices come down to this: prevent human cloning by acting soon or work towards preventing discrimination against clones.

This seems like only so much alarmism to me.  If clones are created and birthed, it still has to be done via a womb- this is not like that 1980s flick D.A.R.Y.L. (remember that one? With Michael McKean. The kid steals an F-15 and can play amazing Atari.) where they grow kids in some kind of artificial womb and raise them in a big secret base somewhere. The clones will still be babies with a birth mother, and at least 1 genetic parent which may or may not be their birth mother- but with so many single parent families today, is that aspect even a concern?  They will still grow up and go to school.  There will be nothing to distinguish them (except perhaps for genetic abnormalities or ailments stemming from shortcomings in the cloning process) from everyone else. Cloned sheep stink just like other sheep.  Cloned cows taste just as yummy as regular cows.  The only thing that will be odd about the clone is that he or she will be strikingly physically similar to their mother or father as they mature.  That and their only having 1 genetic parent are the ONLY differences.

This is also an classic example of Orwellian doublethink.  I guarantee you that the same folks who are so concerned about the rights of unborn, uncreated, cloned humans who do not even yet exist have nothing- zero, zilch- to say about rights of the millions of unborn children currently murdered around the world every year.

So, yet again, the UN is stirring up a controversy where there is none, and belying its real goals.  This is really about power.  The UN wants to control how much we drive our cars, regulate the internet, and exercise judicial powers over people all over the world, among other things.  I have no doubt people are genuinely concerned about this cloning thing, but really, this is not about cloning;  this is about a group of people who think they are so enlightened and sophisticated that they feel it is their moral duty to impose their views on the entire world.

Now from a standpoint of Judeo-Christian values and the sanctity of human life, of course there are other issues to consider here, such as creating human embryos in a laboratory for experimentation and/or for harvesting their stem cells, resulting in eventual destruction, and the commoditization of human life (growing a selling cloned human body parts).  I’m not saying that we should just clone clone clone to our little heart’s content.  However, the only thing that will guide us through these morally murky waters is a sober evaluation of the questions at hand, and not the sentimentalized alarmism so prevalent in other quarters of life today.