http://news.yahoo.com/huckabee-threatens-leave-gop-over-gay-marriage-abortion-184817498.html
How would I survive if Huckabee and I no longer had the same political affiliation? :cry:
QuoteFormer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he will leave the GOP if Republicans abandon their ardent opposition to gay marriage and abortion.
Appearing on the American Family Association's radio show this week, Huckabee was discussing gay marriage and said: "If the Republicans want to lose guys like me — and a whole bunch of still God-fearing Bible-believing people — go ahead and just abdicate on this issue, and why you're at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn't matter, either."
"Because at that point, you lose me," Huckabee said. "I'm gone. I'll become an independent. I'll start finding people that have guts to stand. I'm tired of this."
His comments follow the Supreme Court this week opting not to take up gay marriage, effectively clearing the way for several states to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
"I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans who have abdicated on this issue when, if they continue this direction they guarantee they're gonna lose every election in the future," Huckabee said. "Guarantee it."
"And I don't understand why they want to lose," he continued. "Because a lot of Republicans, particularly in the establishment and those who live on either the left coast or those who live up in the bubbles of New York and Washington, are convinced that if we don't capitulate on the same sex marriage issue and if we don't raise the white flag of surrender, and just the accept it as inevitable, we'll be losers."
"I tell you," Huckabee said. "It's the absolute opposite of that."
But will he lose Shielbh's support? :hmm:
I'm sure Huck will still have plenty of Christian love in his heart for you, in all your black gayness.
I think a better question is why do you choose to continue having the same party affiliation as this guy, garbon.
Quote from: Martinus on October 10, 2014, 12:30:26 AM
I think a better question is why do you choose to continue having the same party affiliation as this guy, garbon.
Seems pretty obvious that the party is choosing garbon over Huck
Bye
Oh please Mike. Start a fundamentalist third party and splinter the GOP vote all to hell.
Huck has some admirable qualities and he's genuinely a nice guy, but he kinda needs to fade into the background and be quiet for a while.
This the one who pardoned a campaign contributor for a DUI after getting some big time bling from the guy's wife?
God-fearing Bible-believing people
All, the Christian God of love, to be feared by everyone.
He's right. It'd be mad for the GOP to flip on either of these issues.
What they need to do is stay pro-life and to go Federalist on gay marriage.
Quote from: Sheilbh on October 10, 2014, 06:37:25 PM
He's right. It'd be mad for the GOP to flip on either of these issues.
What they need to do is stay pro-life and to go Federalist on gay marriage.
:huh:
What? :mellow:
Can you expand on your reasoning?
Or rather as to your reasoning?
There's a big generational difference on gay marriage and opinion's shifted on it hugely. Neither's true on abortion:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/chapter-2-generations-and-issues/
Also abortion's ultimately about Roe v Wade (my understanding is that Republicans have been successful at eroding and restricting access elsewhere) which is an issue that'll be decided by Presidential appointees, approved by the Senate. As long as that's the case and it's roughly 50-50 (or more likely 40-40 with 20% swinging depending on the politics of the time) it makes sense as a litmus test, especially as the activists on either side are committed, willing to volunteer and willing to donate/fundraise.
What Republicans need to do is use different language and try and reframe the issue. They need to avoid Akin like disasters and come up with a pro-life version of Clinton's reframing of the unpopular pro-choice message into 'safe, rare and legal'. At the same time, ultimately, gay marriage will win everywhere in the US. But there's still significant opposition in some areas and it'd be mad to just eschew those votes and could lead to strong enough third party of independent challenges. The best approach would be to have no GOP position but GOP positions. If Alabama wants to fight it, that's fine, but Vermont won't.
In addition the GOP has for the past 10 years been staunchly anti-gay marriage and, since Roe v Wade, it's been the pro-life party. To just switch on either would look absurd (and in the case of abortion be counter-productive) and it'd destroy trust with regular GOP voters while just inviting contempt and mockery from the pro-choicers and pro-gay marriage voters who are, most likely, most of the time already Democrats.
They shouldn't scorn their base, but try and expand them.
To be honest, I think mixing abortion and homosexuality is a bit of a dishonest move on his part. I agree that the needle for that is in a very different place from homosexuality.
I don't know that Republicans should do a total flip and embrace homosexuality (necks might snap from the whiplash) but it does make sense to de-emphasize that as part of the party platform. It isn't really a winning issue /could they spend less time on that front on more on things that actually matter?
Of course, I'm also not sure holding onto the religious right is ultimately the best strategy. I mean I guess it is good for the politicians who can ride that safely into office but I'm not sure it is good for the party, or the American public as a whole.
So our views aren't that different? I think the Federal solution is the best to de-emphasise. It wouldn't be a national thing among Republicans and you'd have a defence for disagreeing.
On the Religious Right I disagree. I think they get a lot of stick but opinion on gay marriage is moving quick among Evangelicals too (though between generations), so they're not some uniform, unchangeable voting block. Though there'll always be holdouts I think it's largely a generational thing.
The Religious Right of today doesn't look like Pat Buchanan's and it won't look the same in thirty years time. Also, from a European perspective, I'm not convinced cordons sanitaires around certain chunks of voters work.
Even at the best of times, a party which depends on votes from people who are in or expect to be in high tax brackets is going to have trouble getting a majority. These aren't the most optimistic of times. Get rid of social and cultural issues and the outcome's likely to resemble FDR's elections.
Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.
Quote from: Martinus on October 11, 2014, 03:27:43 PM
Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.
Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 03:36:31 PM
homophobes [sic]
:huh: Pretty sure that is the word he meant.
Quote from: Martinus on October 11, 2014, 03:27:43 PM
Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.
Actually I think race is the big issue the GOP still need to move on and one of the few people who've done anything on that is Huckabee, though not enough.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 11, 2014, 03:40:58 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 03:36:31 PM
homophobes [sic]
:huh: Pretty sure that is the word he meant.
I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 03:36:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus link=topic=12010.msg791871# :huh: date=1413059263
Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.
Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?
:huh:
Are you kidding me?
Quote from: Sheilbh on October 11, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 11, 2014, 03:40:58 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 03:36:31 PM
homophobes [sic]
:huh: Pretty sure that is the word he meant.
I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.
:huh:
Does he do it with every word (if so, words like "hippopotamus" and "antisemite" must be a bitch) or just this one?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 03:36:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 11, 2014, 03:27:43 PM
Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.
Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?
Every election since 1980.
Quote from: Sheilbh on October 11, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.
What's more relevant in this case is Marty's definition, which is anyone who opposes any gay policy.
Abortion is an abomination morally, but I think it's a long term technologically dated issue. I think there's been a pretty good downward trend on unwanted pregnancies, and most of those are no being had by those below the poverty line. Something like 70% of people who have abortions are below the poverty line. Eventually tax payers on both sides of the spectrum are probably going to come to an agreement to boost contraception funding because it's cheaper than more and more poor kids and far less morally objectionable than killing a fetus in the womb. Further, in a society that is trying to equate animal life with human life in a growing trend of "species equality", I find it hard to believe that eventually the people who believe killing baby cows for delicious food is evil are going to be okay with killing babies that happen to still be in the womb. I think over time abortion will be viewed as far less acceptable, especially when contraception is made more universally available. In some of the most recent Gallup polling 65% of Americans felt abortion was terminating a human life (biologically of course that's not disputable, it is terminating homo sapien life), more people today than 20 years ago view abortion as morally wrong (51% in 2011 versus as low as the low 40% in the past), and only 39% of people view abortion as morally acceptable (down from a little over 40%.)
So it's a slow trend, but I think a lot of people are sort of slowly getting more and more uncomfortable with abortion. In particular it should be noted America's abortion laws are extremely permissive in comparison to Europe. Many European countries disallow abortion past 12 weeks, and the ones that allow later term abortions all perform the procedure essentially almost never, while it is rare in the United States it is an order of magnitude more often than in Europe. That suggests that American abortion policy is actually out of step with the Western norm, which is okay with it very early on but deeply uncomfortable with it late term, particularly when the fetus would be viable outside the mother. [Technically RvW only prohibits the State from stepping in on behalf of the life of the fetus pre-viability, but most States have stuck to a trimester framework or been more permissive than RvW as they wrote their laws after RvW but before Planned Parenthood v Casey which established the viability test.]
I think as you have better sex education and better access to contraception, that undermines a lot of the feeling that abortion is morally defensible. Of course, many of those who are most ardently against abortion are also against sex education and contraception, but luckily only the ones who care enough to send their kids to Protestant madrassas and bible colleges will perpetuate and they are going to eventually be aged out of anything but the ultra fringe. But most importantly opinions on abortion haven't changed much since the 90s, and in that they have changed they have moved more against it than for it (the only real place where the popular opinion has shifted in favor of the pro-choice side is less people today view it as murder, but more people view it as immoral.) I know a lot of young people that are against abortion in any case as individuals, even if they might begrudgingly be okay with it as a matter of law. [Personally I'm for it legally until we have more holistic sex education and better contraception access, but am deeply opposed to it morally. However, I'm okay with it continuing as a matter of law and policy because I would rather there be more dead unborn poor babies than living poor babies.]
I think totally the opposite there. As time goes on abortion will become more and more common place anf acceptable. It is obvious even now that a fetus is no more human than the spunk in a sock and as technology advances and abortion becomes ever quicker, cheaper and safer, it will come to be seen as a viable method of contraception in its own right
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on October 11, 2014, 06:13:49 PM
Eventually tax payers on both sides of the spectrum are probably going to come to an agreement to boost contraception funding because it's cheaper than more and more poor kids and far less morally objectionable than killing a fetus in the womb.
:lol: No they won't.
Your premise seems to be that there would be some sort of political maturation of the American public to abortion, when it's all gone increasingly in the opposite direction the last twenty years: less funding, less accessibility, more legal restrictions.
Quote from: Tyr on October 11, 2014, 07:39:36 PM
I think totally the opposite there. As time goes on abortion will become more and more common place anf acceptable. It is obvious even now that a fetus is no more human than the spunk in a sock and as technology advances and abortion becomes ever quicker, cheaper and safer, it will come to be seen as a viable method of contraception in its own right
It's already very quick, cheap and safe. You stick a suction in the cootchie and out it comes.
Unless you think a baby the instant before birth is not recognizably human, I don't see how you can see that a fetus is no more recognizably human than spunk in a sock.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 08:24:25 PM
It's already very quick, cheap and safe. You stick a suction in the cootchie and out it comes.
Unless you think a baby the instant before birth is not recognizably human, I don't see how you can see that a fetus is no more recognizably human than spunk in a sock.
Way to drop loaded language to polarize your position. A fetus, no, an embryo, yes. There's been general agreement for some time that the line is when a fetus becomes externally viable with minimal medical intervention, and that's exactly the line of reasoning that's led to late-term and partial-birth abortions being banned (which I'm pro-choice, and still completely agree with).
I don't know what you're trying to say. A fetus no what? An embryo yes what?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 11:19:11 PM
I don't know what you're trying to say. A fetus no what? An embryo yes what?
Not recognizably human? You know, answering the question you posed? I realize you probably expected it to be a rhetorical zinger, but the loaded language seemed a bit disingenuous.
He was making a comparison operation, not an equality one. A day old fetus is more "recognizably human" than a sperm cell. At least to a scientist with a microscope.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 11, 2014, 11:32:37 PM
At least to a scientist with a microscope.
That is using it up a woman's vagina.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 11, 2014, 05:50:10 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on October 11, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.
What's more relevant in this case is Marty's definition, which is anyone who opposes any gay policy.
What is a "gay policy"? Is it a policy that is attracted to other policies of the same sex? :huh:
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on October 11, 2014, 06:13:49 PM
Of course, many of those who are most ardently against abortion are also against sex education and contraception
That is pretty much the gist of it. This is because most of the staunchly anti-abortion voters do so not out of some deeply thought through moral reasoning, but because they are "punishing the slut".
Just as most of the staunchly anti-gay voters do so because of homophobia, not because of any other reason.
GOP needs that "nasty and stupid" vote to be able to push through economic policies that benefit the financial elite (because, without it, they would end up like liberal parties in Europe which usually poll between 5% and 15%).
Quote from: DontSayBanana on October 11, 2014, 11:28:49 PM
Not recognizably human? You know, answering the question you posed? I realize you probably expected it to be a rhetorical zinger, but the loaded language seemed a bit disingenuous.
I didn't pose any question.
Don't you have it backwards? Shouldn't it be an embryo is not recognizably human but a fetus is?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 12, 2014, 01:52:07 AM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on October 11, 2014, 11:28:49 PM
Not recognizably human? You know, answering the question you posed? I realize you probably expected it to be a rhetorical zinger, but the loaded language seemed a bit disingenuous.
I didn't pose any question.
Don't you have it backwards? Shouldn't it be an embryo is not recognizably human but a fetus is?
I think that's his point. A few cells clinging together is not recognizably human. If you were to look at a fetus of a certain age you would be to recognizance as human rather then say, a fish or a bird.
If that's his point why did he flip out on me? That was my point.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 12, 2014, 02:29:02 AM
If that's his point why did he flip out on me? That was my point.
Its DSB. Just roll with it.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 12, 2014, 02:29:02 AM
If that's his point why did he flip out on me? That was my point.
The inanity of DSB's statements is mitigated only by their incomprehensibility.