The future of the abortion question?

George Will makes a bad argument for Hillary Clinton's popularity, right now (which happens to be falling and to be matched by high unfavorables, as well). George knows better to conflate popularity with a strong leadership choice or choice of any kind, but he gives into the temptation of that reasoning, nonetheless. The same temptation E.J. Dionne's been giving into, lately, equating the unpopularity of the war in Iraq with the wisdom of pulling out before making sure that Iraqi security forces are up to the task of taking over security for themselves.

But George makes an excellent argument for what may, in fact, be the future of the abortion question.

What Voters Want: Competence

George argues:

"By 1972, 16 states with 41 percent of the nation's population had liberalized their abortion laws, and the Republican platform did not mention the subject. The next year the Supreme Court ripped the subject away from state legislatures. In 1976 the Republican platform protested the court's decision, recommended "continuance of the public dialogue on abortion" and endorsed a constitutional amendment "to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children."

The 1980 platform was similar, but four years later and afterward, the party, while continuing to favor a constitutional amendment, advocated "legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections" -- no "person" shall be deprived of life without due process of law -- "apply to unborn children." So, the party has repeatedly endorsed a constitutional amendment it thinks is a redundancy.

The party asserts that one of America's most common surgical procedures is murder. So, last year perhaps a million women and their doctors committed murder. However much a person deplores abortion and embraces that legal logic, nobody believes that either the legislation or the constitutional amendment that Republican platforms have praised will be passed. Hence the sterility of today's abortion debate. And hence the inclination of some social conservatives to focus on limiting abortion by changing the culture, and their willingness to evaluate candidates by criteria unrelated to abortion.

Writing in the New Republic, Thomas B. Edsall notes that in the late 1980s voters by a margin of 51 to 42 percent believed that "school boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals." Today voters disagree, 66 to 28. In 1987 voters were evenly divided on the question of whether "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior." Today voters disagree, 72 to 23.

Recent Pew polling shows that a combined 48 percent of Republican voters say that Iraq (31 percent) or terrorism (17 percent) is their principal concern. Abortion? Seven percent. Gay marriage? One percent.

Edsall wonders whether Giuliani, who is appealing to "the Republican longing for managerial competence" with his "idiosyncratic brand of conservatism," might be a transformational Republican figure. But perhaps his conservatism is not idiosyncratic. Perhaps it is, in a way, traditional. Perhaps some conservatives are really serious about turning back the clock. To 1972."

Essentially what George seems to be arguing is that Rudy Guliani's position on abortion is the most genuinely conservative position. The simplified version of that argument would be:

Conservatives don't like abortion. But they both respect and endorse the right of states to make these decisions, which is their major beef with Roe v. Wade, overriding state legislative resolution of this issue. George's argument for conservativism increasingly emphasizes its more limited government, classically liberal, libertarian roots, with a commitment to traditional values like the immorality for abortion. But perhaps, George seems to suggest, if Rudy is elected, and a conservative Supreme Court were to endorse his view that it would be just fine to send the question of abortion back to the states, just perhaps, they will endorse a more classically liberal, limited government view of this question and continue to liberalize as George points out they were well on their way to doing as early as 1972.

Meaning: perhaps the path of liberal democratic integrity might be to endorse principles of federalism and democratic decision-making and allow states to decide the abortion question, which will actually lead to the more liberalizing result that conservatives and liberals both seem to be moving toward, at this point, anyway, and which Rudy Guliani seems to be embody: they believe it should be avoided, as much as possible, as a personal decision, but they endorse that it, generally, is a woman's choice (with input from fathers and families, we would all hope) that she should employ rarely if at all, when other alternatives are available and reasonable.

It's a good argument, actually. And it might finally resolve this godforesaken issue in the political arena and allow us to focus on more important issues while the culture rather than political representatives sort this matter out. It sure would be nice to have a consensus that is sustainable because it's based on liberal democratic principals with some integrity. As Rudy seemed to suggest in the debates, I'm fine with Roe v. Wade deciding the question, as well. But perhaps this is the only solution that will finally move this question in the right direction.

Something to chew on.

Fareed Zakaria and a better direction for liberalism and America

Fareed Zakaria writes brilliantly in Newsweek, this week, for their cover story.

After Bush: How to Restore America's Place in the World

Killer quotes:

"I have no magic formula to stop Iran from going nuclear, nor to change Iran's regime. But the strategy we have adopted against so many troublesome countries over the last few decades—sanction, isolate, ignore, chastise—has simply not worked. Cuba is perhaps the best example of this paradox. Having put in place a policy to force regime change in that country, we confront the reality that Fidel Castro will die in office the longest-serving head of government in the world. On the other hand, countries where we have had the confidence to engage—from China to Vietnam to Libya—have shifted course substantially over time. Capitalism and commerce and contact have proved far more reliable agents of change than lectures about evil. The next president should have the courage to start talking to rogue regimes, not as a sign of approval but as a way of influencing them and shaping their environment."

"Some of foreign policy is what we do, but some of it is also who we are. America as a place has often been the great antidote to U.S. foreign policy. When American actions across the world have seemed harsh, misguided or unfair, America itself has always been open, welcoming and tolerant. I remember visiting the United States as a kid in the 1970s, at a time when, as a country, India was officially anti-American. The reality of the America that I experienced was a powerful refutation of the propaganda and caricatures of its enemies. But today, through inattention, fear and bureaucratic cowardice, the caricature threatens to become reality.

At the end of the day, openness is America's greatest strength. Many people on both sides of the political aisle have ideas that they believe will keep America strong in this new world—fences, tariffs, subsidies, investments. But America has succeeded not because of the ingenuity of its government programs. It has thrived because it has kept itself open to the world—to goods and services, ideas and inventions, people and cultures. This openness has allowed us to respond fast and flexibly in new economic times, to manage change and diversity with remarkable ease, and to push forward the boundaries of freedom and autonomy.

It is easy to look at America's place in the world right now and believe that we are in a downward spiral of decline. But this is a snapshot of a tough moment. If the country can keep its cool, admit to its mistakes, cherish and strengthen its successes, it will not only recover but return with renewed strength. There could not have been a worse time for America than the end of the Vietnam War, with helicopters lifting people off the roof of the Saigon embassy, the fallout of Watergate and, in the Soviet Union, a global adversary that took advantage of its weakness. And yet, just 15 years later, the United States was resurgent, the U.S.S.R. was in its death throes and the world was moving in a direction that was distinctly American in flavor. The United States has new challenges, new adversaries and new problems. But unlike so much of the world, it also has solutions—if only it has the courage and wisdom to implement them."

This is the future of liberalism and America that we need to be embracing, right now. He is right. The last 7 years have been a long spiral of fear, aggression, and insecurity guiding almost all of our policies and our culture. It is the worst I have lived through as an adult when I am more attuned to it and its consequences. I was alive during a similar period in the late 70's, early 80's, to which Fareed refers in this article. A period of similar national malaise after a controversial and bloody war, economic slowdown, inflation and worries about oil and economic security with challenges of immigration and trade, and confrontation with Iran and a Middle East increasingly hostile to America and her liberal democratic values.

Fareed is right. What is parallel in these two periods is that fear and insecurity guides our policies - here and abroad - when what is needed is openness and confidence. We will be hurt for that openness and confidence. But we are resilient. We are strong. And we can face and withstand the slings and arrows of an insecure world without having to resort to aggression to solve all of our problems.

The most hopeful line in Fareed's article was the honest admission of the problem: "[t]he strategy we have adopted against so many troublesome countries over the last few decades—sanction, isolate, ignore, chastise—has simply not worked."

Because acknowledging the reality honestly is the first step to finding new solutions. And Fareed's proposal of engagement as a better alternative to sanctioning, isolating, ignoring, chastising or other means of pressure and manipulation is both a better suggestion, in general, and one which Fareed argues well has clearly had better empirical results of a more confident constructive engagement if we will only look to the examples of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, the peace process in Northern Ireland and the roadmap for peace in the Middle East, which, while not finalizing an agreement is clearly a stronger road than the one taken in its absence.

If people will only remember just 6 years ago, there was an America that was far more successfully engaging the world. But that America was overtaken by a scared, insecure, power-hungry, aggressive, and mean-spirited America. This other darker, less noble America was not a monopoly of either the left or right wings. It was the sum of all of their aggression and their seductive but wrongheaded message that more aggression would finally resolve all of their respective problems. It is an illiberal direction for America that has been very sad, indeed, to watch my friends and neighbors be seduced by, and the pride that does not allow them to acknowledge the folly and sad consequences of this path.

It is nice to see that there is a quiet, patient, but clear path being paved by a few important and thoughtful liberals and conservatives out of this malaise and the aggressive, illiberal America that it has currently left us with. Illiberalism is no path forward, no matter what the protestations to the contrary. There will never be an illiberal path forward. Because illiberal paths are what define more narrow, backwards thinking and movement for a liberal society. Less freedom means steps backwards, no matter what we might protest to the contrary. As Fareed argues well, it is not a government program that will take America forward. It is American society at large and its rich, confident, open, free cultural landscape, which values liberty above all values, which will lead America and the world forward, just as those values have been responsible for doing the same for the entirety of the history of liberal democratic values and peoples.

This is the direction that I have been waiting for from liberals for the last 6 years. It is nice to see some people getting there rather than perpetually rationalizing the failures and insecure, aggressive posture of liberalism for the last half decade.

I can only hope that the rest of America catches up sooner rather than later.

Love,
Ben