Reason's 2008 Live Convention Coverage
Infanticide-Loving Feminists Against Palin Because She Should Be Home with the Kids
Nick Gillespie | September 1, 2008, 2:06pm
I have no idea if Gov. Sarah Palin is going to turn out to be a Tom Eagleton or Dan Quayle type of veep nominee. That is, the sort of Badluck Shleprock who actually manages to drain a half-point or so away from the ticket's vote totals.
More important, there seem to be little or few reasons for libertarians to cheer her choice. Sure, she's smoked pot back when it was legal, but opposes re-legalization because of the message it would send her kids. She was apparently for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. She's not a Rick Santorum-style gay hater, but she's got the standard position (for both Dems and GOPpers, alas) of being against gay marriage. She's for teaching both evolution and creationism in public schools, which is arguably marginally better than insisting on just creationism [note: see comments below; Palin doesn't believe creationism should be part of the curriculum but that it can be a topic of debate); she is anti-reproductive choice anti-abortion but "pro-contraception."
I've got no idea of her views on immgration just yet, or free trade, or federalism, etc. And I must admit to a bias against folks from freedom-loving states such as Alaska, who tout their independence from Washington, D.C. and ability to catch fish with their bare hands and live in igloos and celebrate their frontier spirit all the while sucking in way more money from the feds than they kick into the till. (According to the Tax Foundation, in 2005, Alaskans received $1.84 from the feds for every $1 they sent in; such high-tax, high-income blue states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and California all give much more than they get.)
However all this plays out, to get a sense of Palin's use to the McCain ticket, look no further than this blog post by liberal Washington Poster Sally Quinn, who confesses to "shock" and then "anger" over the pick:
It is a cynical and calculated move. It is a choice made to try to win an election. It is a political gimmick.
Sen. McCain, have you no shame? You have taken an election and injected...politics into it. Continues Quinn:
This is nothing against Palin. From what little we know about her, she seems to be a bright, attractive, impressive person. She certainly has been successful in her 44 years. But is she ready to be president? And as the mother of five children, including an infant with special needs, does she have the time?...
She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make? I'm the mother of only one child, a special needs child who is grown now. I know how much of my time and energy I devoted to his care. He always had to be my first priority. Of course women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I've done both. Yes, other women in public office have children. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she didn't get heavily involved in politics until they were older. A mother's role is different from a father's.
This is an argument worthy of a Phyllis Schlafly or a Pope Benedict or a Bob Dylan. That it comes from a liberal journalist with a long career is pretty stunning—and testimony to the effectiveness of the pick as a way to short-circuit all sorts of bizarre identity politics in the election. The short rejoinder to this is to note that the choice to stay in the kitchen really is Palin's to make.
Elsewhere, Quinn lays into Palin's puny experience, which underscores another strength of the choice:
How can McCain call Barack Obama unqualified, inexperienced, not ready from Day One, not able to be commander in chief, and then put someone like Palin in a position that is a heartbeat away from the pesidency?
If anything, the Palin pick throws the experience question directly into the minds of voters at Obama's and the Democrats' expense. He and Palin are the same age; they both have relatively the same level of experience (which in the end really probably doesn't dictate presidential success in any case). And Obama is actually running for president, so his experience level is clearly more relevant.
More here.
Mad Max | September 1, 2008, 4:49pm | #
A guy has called Palin a "stalking horse;" I still prefer "Judas goat."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/carson/carson27.html
Nonetheless, criticism aimed at Palin herself, rather than at McCain's use of Palin, has been totally misconceived.
Episiarch,
I like the way you squarely face the issue. For my part, I actually think it would have been a loss for the world if your mother had exercised her "choice" on you.
"What kind of a twit risks pregnancy in her mid 40s and then knowingly brings a child with Down Syndrome into this world?"
I don't know . . . maybe someone who is pro-life and is wiling to "impose her views" even on herself?
What kind of twit holds it against someone that she *didn't* kill their own child?
"[Sally Quinn's stay-at-home Mom argument] is an argument worthy of a Phyllis Schlafly or a Pope Benedict or a Bob Dylan."
Did Pope benedict or Bob Dylan say anything against mothers presiding over the U.S. Senate and attending foreign funerals? I certainly haven't heard about such things.
As for Phyllis Schafly, here's a statement from her organization, Concerned Women for America:
http://www.cwalac.org/article_751.shtml
Would Quinn have criticized a female politican who killed her baby so she would have more time for politics? We all know the answer. So Quinn's position is that it's better for a child to be dead than to have a mother who's in politics.
"I am amazed at the 12th-century Catholic crap that has fallen out of so-called 'elite and informed' liberal mouths the past couple of days."
The Catholic Church . . . is there anything they can't be blamed for?
BrianTerrel | September 2, 2008, 2:42am | #
Well this is one of the more interesting debates on abortion I've seen in quite some time. Kudos to everyone for being so civilized. If nobody minds, I'd like to jump in (If you do mind, please do skip the rest).
Here's a challenge for the folks making a libertarian case for prohibiting abortion:
Can you state a principle that requires us to respect an embryo as having the full suite of natural rights generally accorded to human beings, and therefore requires us to prohibit abortion, without also entailing the prohibition of anything that knowingly kills any mammal or other "advanced" organism (I'm thinking cephalapods)?
Essentially what I am asking is what makes a human being different from a raccoon or a cat or a mouse or an octopus.
Difficulty: No appealing to theology. We live in a pluralistic society and not everyone can be expected to abide by any one group's untestable opinions as to what happens when we die.
Remember: Appealing to "The potential for X" opens up the possibility for morally eliminating any person who cannot posses that faculty (think of the developmentally disabled, people with brain injuries that impair certain functions.
I'd also like to offer my opinion on the issue for criticism:
I think that Kant got it just about a good as it gets when he pegged it as the power of moral reasoning. Unfortunately it is fundamentally hazy as to when that power comes into being.
We can definitely say that an embryo that is indistinguishable from a similarly aged chicken embryo doesn't possess the power of reason. Sometime between then and college most human beings seem to pick up the ability to act as moral agents. Since a baby can't speak we can't really grill it as to its understanding of its moral agency. It seems unfair to take its silence as testimony against it.
My point is that the only principle I've seen that would settle the issue doesn't lead to a clear bright line.
I think Angie raises a very good point saying:
The fact that someone's life should be in the hand of someone else is antithetical to libertarian ideals.
The problem is that it isn't the actions of human beings that causes life of an embryo contingent on a woman's willingness to carry it. Moral appeals carry no weight with nature.
However, in the case of prohibiting the abortion of a zygote or blastocyst, there is a very clear case of force being used to stay the hand of the potential mother. Her will is being thwarted, and her standing as a moral actor is not in dispute. Unless some principle can be stated which makes a zygote the moral equivalent of an adult human being without disastrous consequences for the rest of natural law theory, I think the libertarian position must be to allow a woman to chose whether or not to continue a pregnancy.
Now there is still the question of where we draw the line as far as using the force of law to protect a developing child. I offer that babies are a lot more sophisticated than they are generally given credit for, and It isn't possible to say to what degree they've developed an identity and the rudiments of moral reasoning. I think it is reasonable, therefore, to use the capacity to live outside the womb as a proxy. This is erring
way on the side of not killing a moral actor.
The gist is that I favor prohibiting only the destruction of a viable fetus. This is a tad fuzzy and probably requires some exercise judgement on the part of the doctors involved, but I think it strikes the best balance between respecting the will of the woman and protecting what might potentialy be moral actor.
A note: I'm not aware of the relative health risks for a woman being induced to deliver a 7 or 8 month baby versus having the same aborted. If there is a marked difference between the two I might be convinced to change my position re: aborting a viable fetus. I suppose I should look that up at some point.
For the record, I don't have any problem with the fact that my position would have given my mother the chance to abort me. Actually, given her situation, I think she probably would have been wiser to. I'm glad she didnt, but had she, I wouldn't be in a position to be too upset about it, so I don't worry about it too much.
