"Pro-Life" Negligence and My Confrontation with the American Right to Life

This is something that I've been meaning to write about for a LOOONG time now as it is about an issue that is near and dear to my heart: abortion. This blog post will have two parts, the first of which I have been thinking about for a while, and the second part is something that has come up in the last few days.

First, I want to talk about the negligence and the hypocrisy of many people who call themselves "pro-life", a title that I am proud to carry myself. It seems that there are so many people that refer to themselves as "pro-life", but are they really?

Take the church group that I was a part of in high school for example. For the most part, St. Ann's Life Teen was an excellent group that I grew to love and be extremely involved in, but it had it's share of hypocrisy as well. I can recall a retreat that I went on where a priest was giving a talk and said something to the effect of "It's a sin to vote for John Kerry because he is pro-choice." Everyone applauded. His reasoning being that George W. Bush was "pro-life" and if you voted against him than you hated babies or something. That's right, the same George W. Bush that thinks it is okay to kill thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, execute people, torture people, destroy families by imprisoning victims of the Drug War, hold people indefinitely in secret prisons without charging them with anything, etc., etc. THIS is the "pro-life" candidate that we must all vote for, lest we be committing a sin. I'm not saying that John Kerry would've been any better, but you cannot call W. "pro-life".

In summary, it seems the "pro-life" movement is only interested in saving certain lives, not all lives. That does not seem very pro-life to me.

Second, I want to discuss my run-in with the group called the American Right to Life (ARL). This group has a website called prolifeprofiles.com in which they rank politicians in terms of how good a defender of life they are (of course this is only concerned with the unborn). They got my attention for ranking Dr. Ron Paul as being pro-abortion, showing complete ignorance of the man, the Constitution, and perhaps most importantly, libertarianism in general. His "pro-life profile" can be found here (prepare to get furious). I won't go into the details as you can read them for yourselves, but I do want to point out a few of the craziest comments on his page:

1)Against Conservative Christian Policies: Libertarian Ron Paul campaigns as a Republican and many think he advocates conservative Christian policies, but Paul is a member of and remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and he spoke at its 2004 national convention,12 13 14 15 16 and the Libertarian Party platform opposes traditional Judeo-Christian public policy.

All I can do is shake my head in disgust.

2)Libertarian Humanism Omits God: Ron Paul's Libertarian Party is based on a humanist rather than on a Judeo-Christian worldview and thus has misguided notions of governance and no compass for righteousness in law and so it does not know18 what The Declaration of Independence states, the fundamental truth that even a deist like Thomas Jefferson19 acknowledged, that people, "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights [and] that among these are Life..."20

........

3)Paul Used by his Christian Supporters: The more truth a person knows, the more God holds him accountable for betraying it. As Jesus Christ said, "that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not... do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few" (Luke 12:47-48a). A New Testament epistle adds, "to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Ron Paul's pro-life supporters are using him for political sport against liberals and they seem to care nothing about his soul, for if they cared about Ron as a person, they would warn him that God says, "Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don't stand back and let them die" (Proverbs 24:11, NLT). For the Lord also said about those who have greater understanding, including Ron Paul, "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required" (Luke 12:48b).

"Ron Paul's pro-life supporters are using him for political sport against liberals and they seem to care nothing about his soul..." WHAT?!?! That is one of the most pompous statements I have EVER heard!

4)Ignored His Own Policies to Regulate State Abortion Procedures: Ron Paul refuses to acknowledge that the federal government has the authority from God and even from the U.S. Constitution to compel the states to enforce equal protection under the law to prevent the de-criminalization of the murder of the innocent.

The federal government has the what now? I'm sorry, I must've read that incorrectly. They have they authority FROM GOD?!?!?! This has to be a joke right? Isn't that what emperors and kings claimed back in the day? That God gave them the right to rule?!?!

Needless to say I NEEDED to e-mail these people and tell them how flat-out ignorant they are. So here is the e-mail I sent them:

I read your article and your profile on Dr. Ron Paul and the ignorance I found was shocking, appalling, and just flat out infuriating. It is this kind of divisiveness that is created by these national pro-life movements that amount to nothing.

What has every national pro-life movement amounted to since the Roe v. Wade decision? Yes, you have had marches. Yes, you have had your protests. But you have done nothing to save the millions of lives being aborted. You have elected your "pro-life" candidates to office and what have they done? Nothing in regards to abortion and plenty in killing other innocent people through war, drug prohibition, etc. It seems that the pro-life movement these days seems to forget that there are other people dying in the world, not just the unborn.

I applaud the efforts of local organizations that counsel pregnant women and get them to consider other options, such as adoption. I have a relative that has devoted her life to this cause and she is a great inspiration to me. She is accomplishing so much with limited resources. This is how the fight for life will be won, on a person-to-person basis, not on vesting more power in the state. Your unquestioning allegiance to the all-knowing, all-powerful entity known as the state is scary.

What is even scarier is that you dare to call Dr. Ron Paul (an OB-GYN who has delivered over 4,000 babies, never performed an abortion, and counseled women OUT of getting an abortion) pro-choice when he is anything but! If you had taken the time to read his book "The Revolution: A Manifesto", you would have heard the story of when he was in medical school and he had to witness an abortion. He writes the following:
"One day I walked into an operating room without knowing what I was walking into, and the doctors were in the middle of performing a C-section. It was actually an abortion by hysterotomy. The woman was probably six months along in her pregnancy, and the child she was carrying weighed over two pounds. A that time [mid 1960s] doctors were not especially sophisticated, for lack of a better term, when it came to killing the baby prior to delivery, so they went ahead with delivery and put the baby in a bucket in the corner of the room. The baby tried to breathe, and tried to cry, and everyone in the room pretended the baby wasn't there. I was deeply shaken by the experience, and it hit me at that moment just how important the life issue was." (pg. 58-59)

Dr. Paul goes on to describe the quickest and most effective way to end abortion (Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution). This way requires only a simple majority of Congress to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, he acknowledges that this will give power over how to deal with abortion back to the states (where it legally belongs, after all that is where murder is dealt with). What Dr. Paul argues be done is, very simply, the most Christian answer:
"Ultimately, law or no law, it is going to be up to us as parent, as clergy, and as citizens - in the way we raise our children, how we interact and talk with our friends and neighbors, and the good example we give - to bring about changes to our culture toward greater respect for life." (pg. 61)

This bickering and finger pointing gets us nowhere. Stop blaming people that they aren't "pro-life enough" and start doing some real good. Start with yourself. Always promote a culture of life through your example, not with the barrel of a gun from a third-party (the state), and start to promote a culture of life in your community. It must begin with you, your family, and your community. From there it will spread. It will only create more hate and more death if you wish to use the coercion of the state at your disposal, because, even if with good intentions, it is still coercion.

This is the response that they sent to me:

We are so thankful that you wrote to us and as you know, there is a $100 reward at theProlifeprofiles.com website. Please let us know if you find any errors in Ron Paul's profile.

Paul Used by his Christian Supporters: The more truth a person knows, the more God holds him accountable for betraying it. As Jesus Christ said, "that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not... do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few" (Luke 12:47-48a). A New Testament epistle adds, "to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Ron Paul's pro-life supporters are using him for political sport against liberals and they seem to care nothing about his soul, for if they cared about Ron as a person, they would warn him that God says, "Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don't stand back and let them die" (Proverbs 24:11, NLT). For the Lord also said about those who have greater understanding, including Ron Paul, "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required" (Luke 12:48b).

Paul Condemned by his Own Words: Who is worse? King David, or Abimelech, for commiting adultery? Who is worse, the atheist apathetic over the killing of Jews or the pastor? Who had the greater sin, the pagan Pontius Pilate or the religious leader who delivered Christ to be judged (John 19:10-11)? When a politician acknowledges that the baby in the womb is, in truth, a human person who should have legal rights, and he compares the abortion issue to the murder of an infant, he condemns himself when he finds ways to tolerate child killing. For Ron Paul said, "I see the fetus as a human being that has legal rights… I deal with the abortion issue like I deal with all acts of violence... Our homes are our castles [but we don't] have the right to murder our children… So, it's very hard intellectually to distinguish between the killing of an infant a minute before birth, and a minute afterwards." 22 This makes Paul more guilty, not less. Because he acknowledges the truth that a child is a person with rights, he is far more guilty than the typical pro-abort for devising arguments to "legitimize" systematic child killing for any claim or in any venue.

Summary: Ron Paul's legacy is apparent. When politicians run for mayor and they are asked about children being dismembered in the womb they reply that abortion is not a matter of city statute. When politicians run for governor they say abortion is a federal issue. When they run for president they say abortion is a state issue. They pass the buck. In cowardice (Rev. 21:8). Ron Paul style. Paul is teaching a generation of politicians how to pass the buck regarding human rights and the slaughter of the innocent. We urge Dr. Ron Paul to follow the Great Physician in recognizing that process does not trump principle and certainly cannot justify tolerance of the intentional slaughter of innocent children in the States.

http://prolifeprofiles.com/paul

Paul's Sanctity of Life Act Elevates State's Rights Over Personhood: "...the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review...any statute...on the grounds that such statute...regulates...the performance of abortions..."27 Therefore, if a state declared that if a minor girl first gets her parent's signature, then she can kill her baby, under this act the Supreme Court would not have the authority to even review that state's law, let alone overturn it.


Oppose Regulations Because...

American Right To Life urges you to oppose every law that regulates the killing of unborn children including waiting periods, offers of anesthesia, and informed consent. Regardless of the intention, these laws backfire for many practical and moral reasons. For such regulations:

- make abortion seem more acceptable to the public and politicians, and so they
- merely prune the abortion weed and strengthen its root, while even
- on the surface such regulations undermine the very concept of the right to life, and
- call upon our own judges to uphold laws that regulate killing the innocent, and thus
- turn conservative judges increasingly against the personhood of the unborn, and
- help elect pro-aborts who support regulations to deceive pro-life voters, and they
- are just variations on Roe v. Wade which itself regulated abortion, and these laws
- could easily authorize a hundred million abortions after Roe is overturned, for they
- will keep abortion 'legal' if abortion is wickedly 'returned to the states,' for they
- reduce the God-given right to life to a second-tier negotiable matter, and they
- confuse many on our own side into defending various 'exceptions' as good, as they
- violate God's enduring command, Do not murder by re-authorizing abortion, so they
- "do evil that good may come," ignoring the scriptural warning at Romans 3:8, and
- are like the PBA ban which Dr. Dobson said, "does not save a single human life," and
- can never ever end the murder of unborn children because they
- end with the meaning, "and then you can kill the baby."

Then I e-mailed them this short little response earlier today:

I guess it just comes down to the fact that we appear to have a fundamental disagreement about the role of government. You believe that it is okay for the government to order people around and I think that there is a much better, more peaceful way to accomplish an end to abortion. Dr. Walter Block essentially says that people have the right to not want a child, but if they don't, then it is their duty to pass off responsibility of their child in the most peaceful way possible. So I propose that we don't fight to get another law passed, but to make the entire abortion issue obsolete. Also, outlawing abortion will NOT mean that abortion will end. We must change the way that people think and make abortion non-existent.

Also, here is a great article that was on lewrockwell.com that drew my attention to this craziness.

Yours in Peace and Liberty,

Andy

A President That SHOULD Live In Infamy

December 7, 1941. The Japanese launched an attack on the United States naval installation at Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,000 people and crippling the US Navy. The next day, the US declared war on Japan and Adolf Hitler declared war on the US shortly thereafter. This could have been avoided, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his staff wanted it to happen.

In the years prior, FDR was breaking international law by sending weapons to the Chinese (he was able to do this by denying that China was officially in a war) and to the British (via the Lend-Lease Act) and by reporting the locations of German submarines to the British. By doing so, FDR effectively goaded the Germans into attacking the US warship the Greer. In Winston Churchill's own words, "everything was to be done to provoke an incident."

The Pacific Theater is a totally different beast, but much of the same kind of activity can be found. On top of sending weapons to the Chinese who were fighting the Japanese, FDR froze Japanese assets in the US and, by setting up an oil embargo on Japan, greatly crippled them. FDR refused to negotiate with Japan who, according to the American ambassador to Japan, was willing to go so far as to remove all of their troops from China and Indochina. A little later, the fairly moderate, at least compared to his successor, Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye was replaced by the minister of war, General Hideki Tojo, in October of 1941. The Japanese were in desperate need of resources thanks to the embargo that FDR organized, and they could acquire them in nearby British and Dutch colonies, but there was one thing in the way: Pearl Harbor. US Secretary of War Henry Stimson said it best when he wrote in his diary in November of 1941 that the US needed "to maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot." Or did former president Herbert Hoover say it best when he wrote that FDR and his administration was "doing everything they can to get us into war through the Japanese back door."

The attack on Pearl Harbor happened days later, and too many people were drafted and killed thanks to the actions of FDR and the US government. World War II was a devastating war for everyone involved, but hey, at least it got us out of the Great Depression right?*

It is important to remember that it was not an unprovoked attack that the Japanese launched on this day 68 years ago, but one that could have been easily avoided if FDR and the US government wasn't dead-set on entering World War II.

Most of the information (especially the quotes) was taken from Thomas Woods' great book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" and I would highly recommend it, and all of Tom Woods' other books, to anyone interested in history and/or economics.

*said with sarcasm

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

"V" - A Libertarian Review

Well, the remake of the 1980s miniseries "V" has ended its four episode fall run and I say, so far so good!

*WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD*

Essentially the show is about an alien race that refer to themselves as "The Visitors", or "V", that have come to Earth promising friendship with their catch phrase, "We are of peace, always." They claim that they need water and some other minerals and in exchange they will offer their superior medicine and technology. However, we soon find out that not everything is as it seems. Through an underground resistance, we learn that the Visitors have slowly infiltrated every facet of our world, through government, religion, business, and have twisted each thing to make the world a chaotic place that is in search of a savior. That is when the Visitors make their presence known.

The show (so far) has appeared to be very libertarian, and this makes me ecstatic! It is fairly rare to come across something libertarian on TV, so we libertarians tend to get REALLY excited when a show like this comes along. We have had lots (and I mean LOTS) of criticism of blind devotion and unquestioning loyalty to the wonderful V's (which can easily be read as the government or the presidency specifically), a little shot at universal health care (though probably for the wrong reasons), and a shout out to the dangers of vaccines, mandatory vaccines in particular (what with the possibility of a mandatory swine flu vaccination).

Another good reason to tune in is that the leader of the Visitors is played wonderfully by Morena Baccarin, who played Inara Serra in the show "Firefly", which was also very libertarian.

"V" manages to combine a great alien invasion story, with some very awesome libertarian themes and, so far, I am loving it!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

Don't Compromise, Don't Quit, Don't Worry, Be Happy!

After many conversations and much reflection on my part, I've come to realize that libertarianism is too important a message to compromise. If followed to its logical conclusion, libertarianism leads to anarcho-capitalism. And even though this may seem like an extreme ideal to most, this is the only form of libertarianism that can work effectively for a long period of time. Classical liberalism, while better than what we have today, still allows for a government monopoly over defense, law, a police force and ultimate decision-making, and this power will no doubt grow to the level that it is today. Therefore, it is important to not settle for a limited government, but end it entirely!

Now, the ultimate goal of libertarianism is to create a peaceful and prosperous society for all and that should be the ultimate goal of every libertarian. This may just be the Catholic Christian in me, but aren't the needs of others just as important, if not more so than the needs of oneself? We should always be looking to help others, which is why the libertarian message MUST be conveyed! This should supersede all other things, because if you believe as I do, we should help others in life and the best way we can do this is through selflessly giving of ourselves, but also through the spreading of ideas. Libertarianism should be spread because, as Mary Ruwart says, "Liberty gives people what they want." But the question is: How does one convey the message effectively?

The answer is simple. We should all just look at the wonderful example of Mary Ruwart and convey the message with a smile. We have to be empathetic and realize that all people believe what they believe because they sincerely feel that what they believe will truly help people. We must always be polite and understanding and welcoming towards everyone. Now, I will be the first to admit that I still struggle with effectively delivering the message, especially to people that I knew before I became a libertarian, and that is something that I work on all the time, but again, this message is too important to just stop trying. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but people's lives DO hang in the balance. Now are you just going to sit by idly as aggression and hatred run our lives, or are you going to fight for peace and prosperity? Yeah, that's what I thought. :)

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

WAR! What is it good for?

Absolutely NUTHIN'! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Okay, today is Veteran's Day and I thought it would be appropriate to throw a number out there: 89,457.

What is the significance of this number? Oh, well that is just the number of US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001, which is when the war in Afghanistan began. Of course the number of casualties on the other side (but who cares about them right? I mean, they don't count as people) is much higher and includes many innocent men, women, and children.

Will we ever know peace? Is it too much to ask of people to treat others with respect and dignity? I guess all I'm really saying is, can't we all just get along?

I think that even a five-year-old can tell you that the more hate, death, and destruction that you spread, the more hate, death, and destruction you will spawn (maybe not in those terms, but they would agree that if someone took a toy from them or hit them, then they are more likely to retaliate violently than they would have been otherwise). How different would the world be if we all recognized this?

You still have to be optimistic about the future. We may not have the numbers and the musical talent of the anti-war movement in the 1960s (mainly because there was a draft then and there is not one now), but we are here! It is important for all the lovers of peace out there to continue to speak up against the actions of our government, not just for our own safety, but the safety of the entire world! Who knows what kind of future death and destruction that the US's actions in the Middle East will cause?

Peace is NOT unattainable. It is NOT unreasonable.

Yours in Liberty (and in Peace & Love),

Andy

Why Socialism (of any kind) Fails

My friend Daniel Krawisz gave a great presentation on the failure of socialism and how it can never work. On the anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, I would like to very briefly summarize the austrian perspective on why socialism has never worked, and will never work.

Ludwig von Mises was the first who clearly articulated this in his essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth". Basically what is said is the following:

On the free market, businesses must make money by fulfilling a want or need in the marketplace. If a business is able to provide something that people want, and do so efficiently, they are rewarded with profits. If they are unsuccessful in this endeavor, they are penalized with losses, while other businesses that are able to allocate their scarce resources more effectively get the money that did not go to the other business. Therefore, the most efficient businesses that offer the best products at the lowest cost to the consumer get the most rewards. That is a VERY brief summary of how a free society, with no coercive agent such as a government limiting cooperation, would and should work.

On the other hand, socialism does not work that way. For my purposes, I will define socialism as any government action that involves funding (which essentially is any government action). As a government does not produce anything, they do not earn money in the way that a business would. Instead, a government forcibly takes money from individuals and businesses. Once they have this money, they simply reallocate it to whatever they deem is most worthy.

This creates THE problem of socialism: there is no way to determine if that reallocation is efficient. If this were to happen on the market, that is to say a business takes its profits and decides to spend some of it on a machine that could increase production and profits in the future, there is still some uncertainty. The entrepreneur will be able to find out if his or her investment was worthwhile by doing some simple cost-benefit analysis and by looking at the profits and losses. If the investment ends up increasing profits, then it was a good investment, but if it results in losses, then it was a bad investment.

A government, on the other hand, is incapable of determining this, because there is no system of profits and losses and no way to perform any sort of cost-benefit analysis. ANY government spending is inefficient because that money has been stolen from the market and there is no way to know how that money would have been spent otherwise.

This leads me to the great example that Frederic Bastiat discussed, "The Broken Window Fallacy". If one were to say that war is good for an economy (and yes, war IS a form of socialism), then this is a great example to use. Bastiat essentially pointed out the idiocy in saying that breaking a window is good for the economy as that action employs someone to fix or replace the broken window. Sounds well and good right? WRONG! The problem is this. Let's say that the owner of the building in which the window was broken has $100. He is now compelled to spend that $100 on fixing the broken window, instead of spending it on a new suit or whatever else he felt was a better use of his money. Now society has lost the benefits of whatever he would have spent that money on, because he is now compelled to spend his money on the window. It is inefficient to break windows and employ window makers, because without that money being spent on fixing and making new windows, it would be spent in other areas that the individual deemed more important.

Well, that is enough of my rambling for today. Happy Fall of the Berlin Wall Day!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy

Is Limited Government An Oxymoron?

The answer is, of course, a resounding "YES!".

On the Dallas/Fort Worth affiliate of PBS, they aired a show in which this was the topic and guests Tom Woods and Doug Casey talked about how it is ridiculous to think that a government is supposed to limit itself among other things. The show can be found here in its entirety on YouTube. I still can't believe that this radical anarchist thinking aired on PBS! Oh that just tickles me!

Also, this article on mises.org entitled "Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism" by Jesus Huerta de Soto adds a lot to this discussion of minarchy versus anarchy and how it is naive to think that a government will be able to restrict itself.

Also, on an unrelated note, my friend and fellow Libertarian Longhorn Daniel Krawisz recently got his second article published on mises.org! His article is called "How the Free Market Works" and it is a great introduction and explanation of Murray Rothbard's production theory. Congrats!

Yours in Liberty,

Andy