Another Opportunity For Conservative Musing

GOP and Abortion

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

After spending fifty years coherently arguing against the incoherent Roe and Casey decisions, the GOP—like the dog that finally catches the car—had no approach to what to do next after these decisions were overturned earlier this summer. The natural and reasonable one—that the issue is returned to the States and the people of those States will determine how the practice is regulated—was washed out in our new national past-time, the politics of the extreme. Congressional Liberals leapt at the opportunity to introduce legislation that would codify Roe/Casey as the baseline of a national approach to abortion, and irresponsible Congressional Republicans (I cannot in good faith call many of them Conservatives anymore) were not to be outdone, publicly speculating about a ban on abortion nationwide. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has ridden into this debate by attempting to introduce a national policy that would protect the right to abortion up to fifteen weeks of gestation, and that after such time, would be illegal except in cases of rape or the life/health of the mother. That a prominent Republican legislator put forward a bill that essentially codifies a national abortion policy well-aligned with our morally superior Euro buddies

(and which would potentially overrule stricter policies passed in several States in the past few months) meant little to the hyperventilating media which characterized it as a “15 week abortion ban” (they easily could have called it a Republican pro-choice bill). But whether or not this is a pro-choice or a pro-life measure, or whether it is aligned with our European friends’ views—is utterly immaterial. As a matter of conservative policy-making, it is a terrible idea.

I urge readers to have a look at a series of articles at National Review. starting with their editorial in favor of the Graham’s bill, then a dissent with which I agree strongly, then a dissent to the dissent, and finally a rebuttal from the dissenter. All in all, I think Andy McCarthy’s dissent is persuasive here, in that all Graham’s bill accomplishes is the substitution of another made-up framework (like Roe) from another branch of government that likely does not possess the Constitutional authority to make abortion law to begin with. Not only does the Constitution not provide for the right to abortion, the authority it grants the Congress to make laws is limited to those areas enumerated in Article I. While the power the Congress was granted by the States was in fact, limited, it has grown over the centuries as courts interpreted some of Congress’s powers rather more broadly than I might have done. That said, I think any national law respecting the regulation of abortion would have strong challenges from those who wish for either extreme.

More to the point though, Graham’s error here is thinking that this bill does anything to tamp down the perceived political agitation that the Dobbs decision caused. The bottom line is that what the GOP argued for decades was wise—return the question to the States which is where it existed before there was a Constitution (in the colonies) and where it existed for the first 196 years of the Republic.

Illegal Immigrants and Sanctuary

The questions posed by the re-distribution of illegal aliens by red-state Governors to other locations around the country are like most modern political matters, not easily answered. Over the past few weeks, the Governors of Texas and Florida have undertaken a program where some number of those apprehended entering the country illegally are bused or flown to places in the country where the citizenry and their elected leaders have adopted “Sanctuary” policies that provide illegal aliens with a measure of security, as these polities claim that they will not cooperate with those elements of the federal government charged with regulating the borders and immigration. An outcry has ensued, one in which the governors are accused of recklessness and cruelty. I am not persuaded.

Initially, I was uncomfortable with these repatriations. I am a supporter of legal immigration in general, many of these people had endured great privation in making this journey, and the appearance of utterly powerless people being used as political pawns was not appealing. The more I’ve looked into this, the more my thinking has evolved.

First, I am in favor of LEGAL immigration. The entry of these people into the country was not legal.

Second, I am better educated as to not only the great strain that is put on border states by the arrival of these immigrants, but also of the degree to which the promise of security offered by sanctuary cities—not to mention the diminishment of enforcement on the boarder—has induced even greater numbers to make the often perilous journey.

Third, I am not at all sure that the conditions and prospects faced by the repatriated in Chicago, New York, Washington DC, or Martha’s Vineyard are in fact, any worse than those found in the border states.

As to the obvious political theater that these flights and bus trips represent, I am less enthused. But then again, I am not a fan of climate change activists tying up traffic either. I’m funny like this.

I’ve decided that while distasteful, as a means for raising the consciousness of the issues facing border towns among those whose consciousness was previously raised high enough to claim the mantle of “sanctuary”, the practice is legitimate.

Farewell, Bulwark

I have decided to let my subscription to The Bulwark lapse, a decision I have not reached lightly. The Bulwark published an essay of mine, and I was a guest on Charlie Sykes’ podcast. I have been a fan of J.V. Last and Sonny Bunch for years, and there are a number of people there who I have come to be Twitter-friendly with and with whom I share a number of policy preferences. My respect and admiration for Bill Kristol’s intelligence and wit will continue unabated.

But when I first subscribed, I believed I was capitalistically joining forces with an effort dedicated to contesting Trump and Trumpism from the RIGHT. Because so many of the initial crew were of the intellectual right that I had come to respect, I may have projected onto them my own sense of what they should do and be. I imagined that they would pretty much remain latched onto the tenets of modern American conservatism (free markets, rule of law, individual liberty, strong on national security) and attack Trump where he (consistently and often) deviated from these guideposts—in addition to remaining critical of his bizarre and unpresidential behavior.

And while there have been PLENTY of rock-solid conservative pieces published by The Bulwark, there has been from the beginning, a sense that the GOP itself had become contaminated, and that it was likely irredeemable. I agreed with this stance, but not to the point of deciding that I would not vote for any Republicans anymore. I was simply going to be very selective about when I did. What has changed—or at least what I perceive has changed—is the degree to which The Bulwark has come to deviate from conservative ideals that I believed we once held in common—only to adopt policy preferences of the left. I get not voting for Republicans—I don’t get repudiating fundamental policy agreements that bound conservatives to each other for decades.

Criticism of the Supreme Court for the Dobbs decision has been a particular area of concern for me, and while I am all for there being room for differences of opinion/I won’t always agree with everything—this piece and the Twitter ruminations of a number of Bulwark regulars leave me convinced that not only is The Bulwark hostile to one of the very few things Trump did that I agreed with (appointed well-qualified conservative jurists), but that they were amenable to the general view of the Democratic Party on abortion (Roe/Casey is the law of the land). This is not a small deal. Roe/Casey as wrongly decided was one of the things I considered as binding on conservatives, irrespective of one’s views on the morality of abortion.

The death blow for me was this recent piece on the Biden Student Loan Liability Transfer bill. I had to do a double-take when I got about half-way through it. This piece does not reflect a difference of opinion on the right (like the ongoing kerfuffle at National Review cited in the abortion section above); it is the flat out opinion of the left.

I truly wish those at The Bulwark well, and I will hop into an anti-Trump foxhole with them any time. But I need a little more “from the right” in my “attacking Trump from the right”.

On Presentism

Don’t forget the world’s greatest podcast that self-consciously aims at history without presentism. The History of the Americans.