The great Protestant thinker Reinhold Niebuhr taught that we can be pure or responsible but not both. One must choose. And so I, a seamless garment pro-lifer, will not again sit out a presidential primary as an unsullied independent while each party’s base voters potentially sow ruin for harvest in the fall. Before the close of this article, I will pause and flip a coin to determine whether I will register as a Democrat or a Republican.
For a long time, I was an ardent Democrat. During my early adulthood, this affiliation kept with my views on racial and distributive justice, gender equality and military restraint. Meanwhile, I counted on my fellow Democrats to come round eventually on abortion. After all, in principle, the party stood with society’s vulnerable. A lack of prenatal viability, it seemed to me, provided reason to protect, not permission to discard. I held out hope that this moral logic would ultimately prevail to the unborn child’s benefit. Then I watched the Democratic Party harden into the Pro-Choice Party.
I, a seamless garment pro-lifer, will not again sit out a presidential primary as an unsullied independent while each party’s base voters potentially sow ruin for harvest in the fall.
In 1995, I had to re-register to vote as I returned to my native New York from five years of representing death row inmates and capital defendants in Alabama. Not registering with a party made some sense because I was to head a controversial state law office created to represent capital-crime defendants. But I also recalled 1992, when Robert P. Casey, then the pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania (and father of the current U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr.), was denied a chance to address the Democratic National Convention. That tipped the scale. I shed my Democratic identity.
For years, I had few regrets, even though, under New York’s system, I had to watch primaries from the sidelines. Then came the 2016 presidential election. Would we get the overt racist and misogynist, the solipsistic man-boy who promised waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse” and advocated killing the families of terrorists? Or would it be the candidate who, pantsuit aside, resembled the smart, secretive, calculating Richard Nixon—the candidate whose stance on abortion resembled the uncompromising pro-choice slogan “abortion on demand and without apology” more than it resembled her position in 2007 that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare, and by rare, I mean rare”? Some choice.
And now we all white-knuckle through an accidental presidency unprecedented in its incoherency, debasement and danger.
Shame on us, all of us, for those choices and calamitous outcome. Shame on me, the primary season bystander.
Looking ahead, whether my coin lands heads for Republican or tails for Democrat, I will not become a party zealot. I will recognize good ideas regardless of red or blue origins.
I will still think that Hillary Clinton showed foresight when she advocated a moonshot approach to Alzheimer’s research; compassion demands it, but so do health care cost projections as lifespans lengthen. I will still think that Rick Santorum correctly argued that our tax code should encourage larger families; America’s aging population both needs and threatens our entitlement programs. I will still think that Bernie Sanders was not simply indulging his faux socialism when condemning private prisons; no person is a commodity to be warehoused for profit. And I will still think that Carly Fiorina put children first by advocating for parental choice through vouchers and charter schools where public schools are failing.
I will still take greatest satisfaction in good hearts and good minds rising above party lines: War hero John McCain stood for decency when he denounced as “dishonest and dishonorable” the cynical “swift boat” attempt to discredit John Kerry’s record of valor under fire. Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Kerry stood for decency when they condemned waterboarding. Democrat Madeleine Albright and Republican Robert Gates offer an alternative to a balkanized United States by promoting the expectation of universal national service, whether military or civilian, by every young person.
I will not become a party zealot. I will recognize good ideas regardless of red or blue origins.
Whether as a newly minted Republican or a Democratic retread, I will put thorny questions to my party mates. To my fellow Republicans:
- Is The Wall Street Journal right when it claims that the only military the United States cannot afford is “one that is too small”? Aren’t a crumbling infrastructure and ever-less-healthy youth, among other things, national security concerns and funding priorities?
- Just how will we persuade as the pro-life party when we do not even aim for universal health care? And given the availability of abortifacients and interstate travel, just how much will state prohibitions reduce the number of abortions?
To my fellow Democrats:
- Let’s take pride in marriage equality, but does a pluralistic society need to punish the conscientious objector who refuses to bake a wedding cake for two lads or two lasses getting married? Why mimic the intolerance of those who would even today criminalize homosexual acts?
- More important, are we really champions of the weak when we perpetuate the moral fiction of a magical birth canal? Does the brief passage from in utero to ex utero really bestow personhood?
O.K. I have a quarter in hand. One flip, not two out of three. No do-overs. Heads, I revert to the Democratic Party; tails, I register Republican. Here goes....
Huh. Hmm. Gee.
So what was I saying? Oh yeah, was that F.D.R. a godsend or what?
What I have seen on this site is an unfair portrayal of the Republicans. This article does that. Maybe there should be a polite discussion of what each party's position means.
We've all had the discussion & republicans, especially drumpettes, and Democratic positions are what will bring us ALL to tomorrow & beyond. You can join any time you feel that Everyone should have equal rights under the law.
Thank you for making my point.
Other than that was a FAIR portrayal of the GOP.
Five for six.
What point of yours did Robin Smith make and how did Smith make it?
If you want such a discussion you should try starting it.
I did.
Mr. Cosgrove, you are an idiot. Your political ideas are adolescent. The Catholic Church and Pope Francis and the Jesuits don’t agree with you. Accept it and go away.
Todd
Now yours is a splendid argument!.....just full of ideas.....and so very charitable to boot.
Thank you Stuart!
I ask for a polite discussion and it is interesting what the responses are. So far in the last two days I have been directly called a racist, bigot and idiot amongst other things and through innuendo many other negative things.
I disagree that a commenter should call you an idiot.
However, it's disingenuous on your part to claim that you want a "polite discussion" when you start with a general statement with no specifics. How was the article unfair to Republicans? Let's talk about what you thought was unfair.
It's also disingenuous for a man who replies to the first comment that disagrees with you, "thanks for proving my point" every. single. time. Which leads to a "how do you mean?" every. single. time.
If you actually want a discussion, be specific for once.
Be specific for once
I am probably more specific than most on this site. I ask for a polite discussion and get called all sorts of negative things including disingenuous and troll by you. That is hardly polite.
An initial reply could have been that the person thinks Republican policy is harmful because of A, B and C. To which anyone could respond...politely
As far as the article above, the comparison between national defense and infrastructure is a red herring. Trump proposed both. If anything is disingenuous that is. Is he worried about funding? Universal health care is a vague term and an impossibility so what can be offered to the population? Yet both are used to criticize Republicans. You may disagree and can state why? Nothing like this happened. See my four polite responses here and below to other commenters.
Ellen B---
Thanks for your comments. This is a continuous issue.
“Unfair portrayal of Republicans”…. I don’t see any real Republicans around anymore!!! I used to consider myself as a strong Republican when I just arrived here from a communist country under Reagan. I often saw myself as Alex, a young clean-cut Republican played by Michael J. Fox in Family Ties. How thing has changed since then. Nowadays, I believe that even Reagan would be considered too leftist by most Trump supporters. Trump has single-handed destroyed all that remains good in the GOP. Now it is a party of the hypocrites and cowards who don’t have the backbone to stand up to his bullying. It is so pathetic!
I’m proud myself that since I became a US citizen around 30 years ago, I never registered as a Democrat or Republican and I intend to keep it this way. Both parties are becoming too radical for me!
Thank you too, for making my point. Two for two.
Your failure to make your point clear suggests you don't really have a point.
Explain or expect rejection.
J – I have a few points to respond to your statement:
1 – Don’t thank me as I don’t care and don’t need it. You should thank yourself.
2 – What’s your point? The only point I see from you is the persistent and shameless support for Trump, the guy who bullies the GOP into a pitifully submissive and spineless herd.
Douglas Fang--
I agree with you. My in-laws’ family had been Republicans since Lincoln. After Trump was elected, one by one, most of them left the Republican Party and are now independents. The Republican Party no longer stands for the same principles it used to promote. I remain a life-long Democrat.
Three for four.
J Cosgrove---
You have a habit of telling people, “Thank you for making my point.” But as Robert Klahn stated above, ‘What is your point?” You do not clarify how the person is making your point; you do not clarify which point you are referring to; and, you do not clarify if you even have a point.
I’m thanking nearly everyone because I made a claim in my comment and nearly everyone so far is validating it. When someone validates what you say it is an admission of agreement so I thank them even if they detest the thank you.
He does it on every article he comments on. Which leads people to believe he is a troll. Which he then pretends to be offended by. It's boring.
He does it on every article he comments on
Hardly true, so why make the claim. No, just when people issue ad hominems or irrelevant criticisms. Both are indications that they cannot logically undermine one's argument. You have just distorted what I have done and implied I am a troll. I am not offended by the answers because I have said often they validate my point.
Kevin, As a fellow Fordham alum and a CUA Law grad, I join you in the Catholic search for a consistent ethic of life approach to public policy issues and candidates. For years, I too, was an independent voter, casting my Presidential vote in 1992 as a write-in for Governor Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Since our Presidential election system is not a direct vote for a candidate, but is based upon the Electoral College process, the decision of whom to vote for may turn on the projected state outcome based upon responsible polling data indicating the individual state's electoral votes being cast for the Presidential candidate from the D or R party. When the state's electoral votes are not in doubt, the voter will be freed to write-in a consistent ethic of life candidate of one's choosing. In closely projected polling in a toss-up state, the moral decision-making is more complex and one's judgment is more critical when choosing a candidate to support at the ballot box. A state's primary is different in helping to choose the "best" candidate from a consistent ethic of life value system: who stands to do the most good across the spectrum of issues and the least harm. After the primary, the general election in a particular state, e.g. NY, IL, OR or CA may not be in doubt given the predominance of registered party voters in that state. In that instance, a write-in vote may be the moral decision a voter makes. There is a relatively new, if not-widely-known, option of the American Solidarity Party organized on consistent ethic of life philosophical basis, similar to the Christian Democratic parties in Europe. You're right: it's not easy being a voter, nor being a candidate for office if you hold a consistent ethic of life moral value system. There's got to be a better way than merely tossing a coin. Good luck in the choices we have ahead of us in 2020. May the Holy Spirit inspire our choice as a nation.
Robert Castagna, J.D.---
I applaud you for searching for a consistent ethic of life approach to public policy. I do have a question. The Republicans have a strong position for life before birth (anti-abortion) and before death (anti-euthanasia). However, I don’t find much discussion among them, and certainly not the dramatic passion, for issues about life in between birth and death. Do you think such a position makes someone pro-life?
“I don’t find much discussion among them, and certainly not the dramatic passion, for issues about life in between birth and death.” — Why don't you be specific about the lack of support. We have lots of evidence that making it too easy has destroyed a culture and created a new dysfunctional one. If you want to dispute that, then we can discuss it. But funding for government programs has gone way up in recent years so what is being curtailed that was there before or should be added?
J Cosgrove---
It is ironical that you would ask for clarification when so many people posting ask you to clarify what you are talking about. But, here it goes. Even if funding goes up, the need has gone up.
Charities, including one of the biggest, Catholic Charities, have testified before Congress that they do not have enough resources to take care of all the needs and they need more government subsidy to care for children. If you look at the Congressional Record, you will see that most “pro-life” representatives vote against programs for impoverished children. The pro-choice representatives vote for programs for the children. The one exception I know of is Chris Smith, a Republican from NJ. He is anti-choice, but he also votes for programs to care for children.
Ironically, “pro-life” people criticize women for getting an abortion for “mere economic” reasons. When it is pointed out that we must give much more governmental support to poor women, children, and pregnant women, the “pro-life” people lash back and insist the government already has money for these programs. In other words, they do not support these programs because of economic reasons…they don’t want to pay more taxes.
Plus, you must see the many articles and comments by anti-choice people and groups claiming that abortion is the only real issue and they cannot waste time on other “life” issues. (Their quotes, not mine)
My favorite person on this subject is Sister Joan Chittister, Order of St. Benedict, best describes my position. She stated:
"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."
Everything you say is nonsense till you provide specifics. You make vague claims about lack of money and then call me immoral. Yet government spending is at all time high without considering the negative aspects of government programs. Just look at inner cities to see where this had led to. You can disagree but don’t pat yourself on the back and disparage others when you do so. . Thank you for making my point. Nearly every liberal gets there.
The Church's positions on pro-life issues span the public policy arena. Consistent ethic of life public policy positions support the dignity of human life from conception to natural death. Church teaching documents include, but are not limited to, Papal encyclicals and other papal statements, addresses, etc., Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), statements of the USCCB, state Catholic Conferences to name a few sources. An illustrative sample of life-supporting issues for the common good include, but are not limited to, opposition to abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and the death penalty; policies reasonably restricting access to guns in society; access to health care as a basic human right; a social safety net to protect children, families and the vulnerable in society; support for families, including economic justice in tax policies based upon the ability to pay,and support for a living wage for workers to be able to support their families; care for creation and the environment, access to affordable housing, protection and care for refugees, migrants and foreign workers, e.g. farmworkers; access to education, acknowledging parents as the primary educators of their children; opposition to the use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction; access to sufficient food and clean drinking water in support of life, etc. Essentially and fundamentally, Church social teaching supports public policies in furtherance of the common good upholding the human dignity of all peoples, families and children, particularly the most vulnerable in society from conception to natural death. The non-profit, Church and charitable institutions in society supplement the government social safety net programs, but the charitable institutions in society are not able to replace government programs, nor are they intended to do so. Both the charitable sector and government programs constituting the social safety net are necessary to support the consistent ethic of life for the common good in our day.
Gee. Or rather June v. Gee will show that overturning Roe is not an electoral issue. Only one justice believed that states should have the final word on due process issues. He died. His replacement and Justice Kennedy's replacement believe Roe and Casey are settled law. So do Chief Roberts and Justice Alito. No future nominee from a reputable law school will vote differently.
Justice Thomas believes that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 delegates the power of Congress to enforce the 14th Amendment to the Judiciary. He is likely correct, although this authority does not overturn due process in investigating voluntary abortions and not therapeutic ones or the privacy rights which does not allow investigating any abortion or miscarriage. For the GOP and the USCCB to say otherwise is either ignorance or treachery. The same equal protection, due process and federal power issues protect marriage equality.
The way to stop abortion is to give more money to families with children until adulthood and through an associates degree or technical training. The Republicans never will.
That said, I may register Republican if Governor Weld advances this case when running against soon to be President Pence. This is because the best place to kill the myth that voting Republican can overturn Roe is from within the GOP.
As it stands now, negative partisanship assures that Trump cannot breach a Blue Wall of 278 electoral votes. The analysis of Pence as president is pending. If Pence is the nominee, Senator Warren telling the truth on abortion will deny him election in his own right. If she promises more income for children, it will not even be a close call for Catholics.
Four for five.
Not from grads from real law schools. Plessy is never coming back. State courts cannot be trusted to regulate their own legislatures.
You lack loyalty and celebrate indifference.
As the greater Protestant thinker - Martin Luther King Jr. showed, Niebuhr was wrong about non-violence and even human nature. Purity is not possible, but loyalty is. (Ask my teacher, of blessed memory, Father Andrew Greeley - a yellow dog Democrat)
One man come in the Name of Love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow
ONe man caught on a barbwire fence
One man he resist!
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the Name of LOve
One more in the Name of Love!
You lack loyalty and celebrate indifference.
As the greater Protestant thinker - Martin Luther King Jr. showed, Niebuhr was wrong about non-violence and even human nature. Purity is not possible, but loyalty is. (Ask my teacher, of blessed memory, Father Andrew Greeley - a yellow dog Democrat)
One man come in the Name of Love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow
ONe man caught on a barbwire fence
One man he resist!
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the Name of LOve
One more in the Name of Love!
When you address your fellow Republicans, be sure to mention the migrant children who have died on Trump's watch, the environmental ruination envisioned by Trump's roll back of protections on clean air and water and his championing of coal, oh, and be sure to congratulate them on voting for a rapist. You all must be so proud.
Six for seven.
" With Democratic and Republican flaws, party registration comes down to a coin toss"
Only if you are incapable of judging between the two. The differences are so stark it should not be difficult.
"The great Protestant thinker Reinhold Niebuhr taught that we can be pure or responsible but not both. "
Interesting thought, but, since no human can be pure, the choice is obvious.
"each party's base voters potentially sow ruin for harvest in the fall."
It is where the candidates stand that matters.
"Before the close of this article, I will pause and flip a coin to "
If you cannot chose more rationally than that, maybe you should refrain from voting at all.
"For a long time, I was an ardent Democrat. During my early adulthood,
this affiliation kept with my views on racial and distributive justice,
gender equality and military restraint."
"Meanwhile, I counted on my fellow Democrats to come round eventually on abortion. After all, in principle, the party stood with society's vulnerable. A lack of prenatal viability, it seemed to me, provided reason to protect, not permission to discard."
Yet our society discards those same children after birth, but not before. Actively support one before you have a right to advocate for the other.
"Then I watched the Democratic Party harden into the Pro-Choice Party."
What you saw was the Republican party harden into the "I don't give a damn" party.
"I, a seamless garment pro-lifer, will not again sit out a presidential
primary as an unsullied independent while each party's base voters
potentially sow ruin for harvest in the fall."
If you could not see the difference between the parties, and how you could actually do good as a Democrat, but not as a Republican, you lack sufficient judgement to advise anyone.
"But I also recalled 1992, when Robert P. Casey, was denied a chance to address the Democratic National Convention That tipped the scale. I shed my Democratic identity."
If you quit the field after a small loss you have little standing to complain.
Then came the 2016 presidential election. Would we get the overt racist and misogynist, the solipsistic man-boy who promised waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse and advocated killing..."
"Or would it be the candidate who, pantsuit aside, resembled the smart,
secretive, calculating Richard Nixon the candidate whose stance on
abortion resembled the uncompromising pro-choice slogan abortion on
demand and without apology more than it resembled her position in 2007 that abortion should be safe, legal and rare..."
"Some choice."
It was a clear choice, toward the Democratic side.
"And now we all white-knuckle through an accidental presidency
unprecedented in its incoherency, debasement and danger."
Not accidental, brought to us by people like you not capable of dealing with reality.
You are not guilty of what happens, if your opposition on one issue will make no difference, and the other choice will be guilty of crimes that will not happen if they don't win.
"Shame on us, all of us, for those choices and calamitous outcome. Shame on me, the primary season bystander."
"Looking ahead, whether my coin lands heads for Republican or tails for
Democrat,"
Funny, I have been a Democrat all along, and have not felt obligated to follow the path without exception.
"I will still think that Rick Santorum correctly argued that our tax code should encourage larger families..."
Our tax codes are one of the smaller issues on family size.
"America's aging population both needs and threatens our entitlement
programs."
False and fradulent. Entitlement programs referred to welfare programs back in the '90s when they were being cut. Now Social Security and Medicare are referred to as such to justify cutting them, which would be immoral.
"I will still think that Bernie Sanders was not simply
indulging his faux socialism when condemning private prisons
no person is a commodity to be warehoused for profit."
"And I will still think that Carly Fiorina put children first by advocating for parental choice through vouchers and charter schools where public schools are failing."
That's bull. If public schools are failing, fix them.
To my fellow Republicans:
"* Is The Wall Street Journal right when it claims that the only
military the United States cannot afford is one that is too small?"
Nope.
"Aren't a crumbling infrastructure and ever-less-healthy youth, among other things, national security concerns and funding priorities?"
Yep.
* "Just how will we persuade as the pro-life party when we do not even
aim for universal health care? And given the availability of
abortifacients and interstate travel, just how much will state
prohibitions reduce the number of abortions?"
Since the GOP positions on those things are fradulent, it's irrelavent.
"To my fellow Democrats"
"* Let's take pride in marriage equality, but does a pluralistic
society need to punish the conscientious objector who refuses to
bake a wedding cake for two lads or two lasses getting married?"
Or who don't want to feed people or serve coffee to people of a different race?
How about just requiring a sign at the door? If they get in the door without encountering a sign telling them they won't be served, then they should be served.
*Heterosexual, Protestant, White, English Speaking, customers only.*
No Irish need apply.
"* More important, are we really champions of the weak when we
perpetuate the moral fiction of a magical birth canal"
No one I know of says that.
" Does the brief passage from /in utero /to /ex utero/ really bestow
personhood?"
No one I know of says that.
Your entire commentary was blatant nonsense. Words of choice deleted.
If you would like to be educated on this let me know... you buy the coffee.
The winner take all system is disappointing often
How about you flip a coin, it stands on end, and you form a centrist Christian Democrat party. There is nothing in the constitution that requires a two-party system. Both parties have abandoned the center; there might be an opportunity, not necessarily to win a majority but to be a tiebreaker, or kingmaker, if you prefer.
There would not be enough votes to get any representatives. What would you change about either party's platform if you believe a third party would make a difference? One way to start is to cherry pick each party's recommendations.
There are a lot of valid points, one thing I'm coincerned with is the number of homes for sale and that we're about to enter into another crisis.
I wonder if studying and practising law distorts ones moral conscience.
From outside USA, the whole system look terrible and eventually unworkable. That said, a Catholic in good standing and intending to remain so has two choices, unaligned or reluctant Republican.
From afar, the current incumbent does not seem to be making a mess of things; he seems to have signalled many intentions before election and been putting plenty of them in place since election.
That in the face of a relentless, remorseless, savage campaign by Democrats to sabotage, undermine and destroy his presidency no matter who is hurt in the process.
Mr. Cosgrove is one of the few “adult” voices in the comment section. In my humble opinion, “America” represents the left of the nation in a way contrary to the views of our founding fathers far too often. Bravo to Mr. Cosgrove for consistently offering a well thought out counter argument to the many ad hominem attacks and responses of “America” commenters.
Thank you. They do like ad hominems.
I whole-heartedly second this endorsement.
Few others have brought real-world data to the discussions and few others participate in mature intellectual debate.
Pro-choice is not the opposite of pro-life. Choice can be pro-life. And the Christian way is to help persons, including women with problem pregnancies, choose life. Our economic system is not very pro-life or pro-children or pro-families. And many men are not pro-life, impregnating a woman, and leaving her on her own with an unwanted pregnancy.
These days with effective and relatively safe abortifacients available online, a law change and closing of family planning clinics may not reduce abortions very much at all--and it will mean women using them too late in a pregnancy, where it is dangerous to her.
Rather than pro-life or pro-choice, choose life is a better slogan, one both pro-life and pro-choice folks can work together under. Catholics are split as it is now, easily used by a president of very questionable morals. He was pro-choice most of his life--until he ran for president and saw an easy way of getting Catholic votes.
True, he was pro choice and was objected to by many including myself. Second part maybe true too, but can a Catholic object no matter what the underlying reason. You surely must be supportive of his judicial choices.