Conservative Musings

McCain/Palin - A Great Ticket

John McCain made a brilliant move on so many fronts by picking Sarah Palin for V.P.  I had heard about her some time ago because of her bold moves in Alaska, but I did not think about her as a VP candidate, because I was concentrating on all the traditional candidates that everyone was talking about.  I have read a great deal about Sarah today and AM I IMPRESSED!  There has been a lot said today and her accomplishments have certainly been discussed but no one has touched on the some of these accomplishments and the character that America has been looking for for quite some time. 

From wikipedia:

1) She ran for City Council in 1992 and served two terms from 1992 to 1996.  She made a campaign promise to reduce the salary of her position and followed through with it and reduced property taxes by 60%. 

2) She also served as president of Alaska Conference of Mayors.

3) She was appointed Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 and resigned over a lack of ethics of fellow Republican leaders. 

4) In 2006, she ran against the Republican incumbent Governor and won the primary for Governor.  Later, winning the election. 

5) She promoted and successfully got an ethics bill and did away with pork barrel spending that had gone on by other Republicans. 

6) While she initially supported the Gravina Island Bridge project, once it became a source of wasteful spending involving large sums of federal money, she opposed and stopped the project. 

7)  In Alaska, she has won the public support with ratings of 76% to 90% approval. 

I can not believe the things I have heard today especially the comment from John Roberts from CNN on Friday's "Newsroom" program.  We used to call CNN, "the Clinton News Network", because they are so liberal.  However, when this man makes the comment, "There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome...Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention.  The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?" 

Now, let's be truthful here - If someone like McCain, McConnell, Bush or Cheney had made that comment or even Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh, the NOW gang would be in an uproar.  Even Obama and Biden would be in on the lynching.  That is a very sexist thing to say.  How she handles her home life is none of John Robert's business.  That is up to her and her husband.  What if her husband had been the pick for V.P., this comment wouldn't have entered into the conversation. 

Great job McCain!  I'm very excited about this Presidential ticket.

-Lady Colonel

Minimizing Life

The argument made for abortion for years has been that human life doesn't start til birth.  The next step in that argument is in defining conscienous. So argues Peter Singer, in an August 2007 editorial:

Opponents of abortion think there is a very compelling reason for denying freedom in these circumstances. They regard abortion as murder. Killing an embryo or fetus, they say, takes an innocent human life.

Defenders of a woman's right to choose sometimes challenge this claim. They deny that the embryo or fetus is a human life. The abortion debate then focuses on the question, "When does a human life begin?"

I think this is the wrong question to ask. In a strictly biological sense, the opponents of abortion are right to say that abortion ends a human life.

When a woman has an abortion, the fetus is alive, and it is undoubtedly human – in the sense that it is a member of the species homo sapiens. It isn't a dog or a chimpanzee.

But mere membership of our species doesn't settle the moral issue of whether it is wrong to end a life. As long as the abortion is carried out at less than 20 weeks of gestation – as almost all abortions are – the brain of the fetus has not developed to the point of making consciousness possible.

So, according to Peter Singer, being conscious is the new definition of a worthiness to live.  We are now placing ourselves at the same level with all other animals and plants.  Even to the point that now, in Spain, apes will be extended rights along side their human counterparts.  Another move that has Peter Singer's backing.

(HT: World on the Web)

-Colonel Steve

Safe and Clean Abortions?

I was always told that making abortion legal would move us away from unsanitary and unsafe back alley abortions.  Then why this?

In an emergency order, the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure has suspended the license of Lexington gynecologist Hamid Sheikh to practice medicine.

An investigator for the Attorney General's office reported that she found expired medications, unsanitary conditions, and missing or inoperable equipment in the office of Sheikh, who has performed abortions at his Lexington office since 1975.

One Medicaid investigator, a nurse, found ”medical care standards dramatically out of compliance“ in Sheikh's office, according to documents that accompanied the medical board's June 5 order.

And a Medicaid fraud agent told the board that seven patients reported ”highly negative experiences, commonly involving a lack of medication and being told by the licensee not to scream during the procedure.“

One patient told investigators that Sheikh ”took no history, vitals, nor did he verify her pregnancy,“ according to board documents.

”She was given a Valium for the pain ... . During the procedure the pain was unbearable and she fought them and kicked over a tray. After the procedure she was given a stained sheet to cover herself with.“

-Colonel Steve

The Next Pro-Life Battleground?

Modern medicine has brought us many miracles.  One of those miracles is the infant mortality rate.  In America alone, that rate dropped 73% from 1960 thru 2000.

Now we see the chances of living from a premature birth improve dramatically, all due to similar advances.  But from that advance comes the questions of whether we should continue to advance that.  Questions are arising around the use of finances and resources to keep premature babies alive.

Many of us in the pro-life movement saw this coming.  When the worth of any life, pre-born or otherwise, is considered to be less worth, it will spread to life at other ages.  Euthanasia and lack of support for preemies are natural out growths of the same thinking.  Just where will it stop?

-Colonel Steve

A Great Pro-Life Story

This particular story that I read late last week really awed me.

Jim Caviezel, the star of the blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, told an interviewer that he had been challenged by a friend who was not pro-life to live up to his professed pro-life convictions and adopt a disabled child.

The friend told Caviezel that if he did that, then he would change to the pro-life position. When Caviezel and his wife, Kerri, went to China to adopt not one, but eventually two orphans suffering from brain tumours, the friend reneged on the deal. Caviezel, however, said, "It didn't matter to me because the joy that we had from (Bo) - he's like our own."

Wow!

I am most in awe at Jim's determination to do what he said, no matter what the cost.  His pro-choice friend - not so determined.  I am not surprised.  We're talking about the kind of choice that runs away from responsibility.  A choice made to have fun and flee from the costs of that fun.  This friend has a character that is very shallow.  Especially when compared side-by-side to Jim's.

I'm gonna guess this friend is a Hollywood friend.  So much like their promises of leaving the country if George W. Bush is elected.  They didn't live up to their election promises, or their pro-life promises.

Mr. Caviezel, I look up to you.  My prayers are with you, your wife, and your boy and girl.

(HT: Anchoress)

-Colonel Steve

Pro-Life's Latest Approach

South Dakota's initiative to ban abortions is currently being challenged by a ballot referendum.  Pro-life groups there have begun running with a new perspective on presenting their side, using what is normally language of the pro-choice side.

The Horrors of Science....

...particularly when it shows any fetus as being practically human.  That's the current fear of some doctors concerning the latest 4-D ultrasounds used today.  Consider the following comments from the TimesOnline article:

The emotive photographs, taken with new fourdimensional imaging technology, have created a misleading impression that foetuses become viable and potentially self-aware at a much earlier stage than is actually the case, according to experts on foetal development.

Australian Muslim Cabbies Turn Away Blind

As noted by Little Green Footballs, Australian Muslim cab drivers are turning away the blind who happen to have guide dogs.  This is also occurring in Britain.  This is due to Islamic law stating that dogs are unclean unless they are used for such things as herding.

I catch myself between the stereotypical rock and a hard place on this one.  On one side, Lady Colonel and I train service dogs that are used for the physically handicapped and hearing impaired.  We've had to deal with many of the issues of folks not understanding just where these dogs are allowed by law.  Since these dogs allow independence for anyone who has them, I'm all for it.

However, I also understand it as a religious issue.  Remember the RU-486 pharmacists issue?

Like Washington’s pharmacy board, states have been struggling with how to balance the rights of patients to get access to Plan B and the rights of health care providers to follow their religious or moral convictions.

 

Pharmacists have lost their jobs in Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin for their unwillingness to dispense emergency contraception.

The answer in this case was people actually losing their jobs in the process of enforcing a law.  As much as I dislike the idea that their jobs were lost, it also sounds to me like a precedant had been set.  With the drug and with cab drivers, either allow both to operate based on their conscience, or fire them both.  There's very little in between.

-Colonel Steve

Dubya Finally Vetoes A Bill

Today George W. Bush finally vetoes a bill.  A veto that I strongly agree with, but his first veto in six years.

As noted by the Bluegrass Policy Blog, Bush has vetoed the least number of bills of any president of the past 75 years.  This include presidents who had a congress of the same party as they were.

As much as I agree with the president's veto, I sure wish he had vetoed a few other bills.  McCain-Feingold comes to mind.  A few spending bills for others.

-Colonel Steve

Stem Cell Bill

Sorry, Bill Frist and Glenn Reynolds, I disagree.  I don't think this bill is such a good idea.

The Wall Street Journal states quotes Senator Gordon Smith: "I think they would rather it not come up ... there's frustration that it's like immigration, in that it splits the party."

You betcha it will.  I'm of the opinion the Senate Republicans behind this bill and the immigration ideas have now moved beyond their conservative base.

If these Republican-supported bills are a hint to the direction that Senate Republicans are moving, it won't be long before the Democrats will be ruling the Senate.

-Colonel Steve