It is truly amazing to watch the intellectual contortions some people go through to protect their ideology. There is no better example of this than Mike Adams’ little ”>commentary on liberalism. It begins with this interesting contortion of logic:
”For years, many have mistakenly dubbed the pro-choice position as a “liberal” position. Clearly, it is not. It is certainly true that pro-choicers applaud a 1973 decision extending a new constitutional right to choose – oddly by saying that the constitution is living and breathing but the fetus is not. “
Note the Coulteresque semantic game with the terms “living and breathing”. Surely Adams understands that these terms are figurative when it comes to the constitution. It simply means that it is unreasonable to expect the framers to understand every nuance and detail of life 200 years from when they lived, and that the document they wrote should be expected to “live” and “breath” with the modern times. Now certainly one can argue that point. However, it is inexcusable for someone to think this issue has anything to do with the issue of whether or not a fetus should be treated as a living, breathing human being while still in the womb. To choose the lesser of two evil interpretations, Adams is being obtuse for manipulative purposes.
As to whether the pro-choice position on abortion is liberal, any claim that it isn’t is by its very nature wrong. Abortion is a relatively new procedure on the political front, and it certainly expands the freedoms of some, so by definition it is liberal. For Adams to attempt to argue otherwise is again nothing more than semantic manipulation, as his next statements make crystal clear:
”What Roe really said is that we no longer may enjoy the liberty of voting on the issue of abortion. Since this applies to both men and women, it can be viewed as producing a net loss of liberty. It is not even necessary to take into account the fact that the fetus will never have an opportunity to vote or to abort another fetus. “
This is one of those “No shit Sherlock” moments. Of course Roe limits the liberty of voting on the issue of abortion. That is what any constitutional ruling does: limit what the majority is allowed to legislate. I suppose it is possible that Adams really has a fundamental problem with constitutional democracy, but I suspect he knows how the government works. He just has such a twisted view of what constitutes liberty that he considers it a violation of his liberty to be prevented from violating the liberty of others. One might with similar reasoning claim that it makes no sense to kidnap kidnappers and put them in prison.
”That this mass infringement of voting rights (read: disenfranchisement) is accomplished by counting only nine votes is significant. It is an example of statism, not liberalism.”
OK, maybe he doesn’t understand how the government works. Statism is the state dictating to the people. Outlawing abortions would be statism. Forcing abortions would be statism. Allowing everyone to decide for themselves is the opposite of statism. That someone like Adams, who is obviously not as brick stupid as his claims here might suggest, would make such an argument shows just how much a faith-driven political view like that held by the life-worthy-of-right-at-conception crew, can distort one’s ability to think clearly about these issues.
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He doesn't know what it means to live in a LIBERAL democracy; that is, where people have certain rights that can't be taken away by majority rule.
For example: countries where a theocracy is voted in are non-liberal democracies; this is what many of the wingnuts have in mind for the U. S.
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