What It Means to Be Pro-Life (Part 2)

Continued from Part I: How the Left Justifies Killing

Part II: How the Right Justifies Killing

Rightists love to award themselves the moral high ground for opposing abortion while simultaneously supporting wars of aggression with high civilian casualties.  Indeed, on the economic front, conservatives who ironically subscribe to Keynesian economic theory are convinced that America’s entry into World War II is what restored economic prosperity --  that war is a good cure for economic depression.  What a pro-life sentiment:  War is good for the economy!  Who cares about the loss of innocent life war always entails -- any time the country falls into economic recession, all Americans need to do is go to war and all will be well! </sarcasm>

Currently many Republicans are incredibly nervous about Iran developing nuclear weapons.  Many of these unrepentant warhawks are crying out for the U.S. to “stop Iran from getting the bomb!”  Yet they fail to think through what this means in practice. 

How does one country stop a hostile country from doing something?  Should the United States throw sanctions on Iran?  That has already been done!  Should the U.S. throw more sanctions at the rogue republic?  Such an effort would be useless!  Sanctions are a waste of time and also an agent of death when used against third world dictatorships.  After all, cutting off food, trade, and other needed commodities will not change the plans of the Ahmadinejad regime; the regime is not representative of the Iranian people and no matter what, both Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah will still eat gourmet meals while the poorest of the poor in Iran will die of starvation from the sanctions. 

What It Means to Be Pro-Life (Part 1)

Many Americans with some political consciousness tend to group themselves in one or two political categories: the left and the right, the former are usually associated with the Democrat Party and the latter with the Republican Party.  Whenever people assign themselves to one of these two positions, they usually subscribe to the majority of that position’s pre-set policies and beliefs. 

Both the left and the right have their own views on the sanctity of life, yet their contradictory views -- the left being against war and the death penalty but all for the choice of abortion and the right being against abortion but for the death penalty and war -- become a paradox.  Wherever they stand on the issue of life, both the left and the right are in full favor of death to some extent, and any stance they take on preserving life -- whether in the fetal stage or in the electric chair -- is based on fallacious logic and dishonest euphemisms.  Both sides are willing to kill in order to bring about their ideal conditions in society.

Part I: How the Left Justifies Killing

Leftists love to attack war but most of them are hypocrites for doing so, since they also often favor war but simply for different reasons than the right.  Socialists favor labor violence and outright civil wars which they refer to as “wars of liberation.”  If they subscribe to Lenin’s teachings, violence and outright terror in the name of proletarian revolution are justified (see The Black Book of Communism, Chapter 4: The Red Terror).   More moderate leftists, from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama, campaign on peace but instead lead the country into wars for various political and economic purposes.  With Wilson it was the First World War  and with Obama it was continuation of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as intervention in the Libyan Civil War as well as those in Somalia, South Sudan, and Central Africa.   Both social democrats enjoyed wide support from their allegedly pacific Democrat Party.

Where did you get your shoes?

It's a common question I used to ask Occupy activists while being present at some of their rallies during the peak of the movement in autumn 2011.

Caught off guard by a perfectly normal question, the anti-corporate activist would inevitably drop his head down towards the ground in guilty contemplation of whatever shoes he was wearing during the protest, with his "corporations are evil" sign suddenly beginning to waver uncertainly in his hand. As if contemplating the issue for the first time, his mind races for a quick response to a disarmingly simple question. He flounders around awkwardly for a few minutes, thinking out loud with an "um, well... ah" mumble, fidgeting nervously with the wounded and confused look setting deeper and deeper into his well-meaning yet misguided face. 

If there's any one question I've found that silences an Occupier who decries the evils of corporate greed which puts profit before people, it's  "So where did you get your (fill in the blank) from?"  

America, past and present

It’s easy to pick out the most unsavory aspects of our history and claim that if not for the benevolent efforts of the state, we would still be mired in our own version of the Dark Ages. This strategy, however, conveniently ignores the fact that there is much more to American history than slavery, corruption, and sixteen-hour workdays.

The next time you hear someone fuming about conservatives and libertarians who “want to set us back 100 years,” consider whether it would be so horrible to live in a United States where – for example – there was no federal income tax, wars had to be explicitly declared by Congress, and the government could not just print up and lend out as much money as it desired.

Or for a different perspective, consider whether Americans 100 years ago would want to live in a country where:

• The government can secretly assassinate American citizens.
• The national debt exceeds the gross national product.
• A handful of undeclared wars are ongoing at any time.
• Federal agents can search their mail and tap their phones without a warrant.

In other words, the United States we live in today. Which America sounds better now?

Such a snapshot is obviously an incomplete portrait of life as we know it, and it would be unfair to condemn the 2012 United States on the basis of a few (substantial) shortcomings while ignoring its many accomplishments. It is likewise incorrect to judge the United States of years past based only on its faults.