Rudy Giuliani's support for abortion rights is neither very deep, nor very consequential, and no other candidate can match his record, his intelligence, his strength, his tenacity, or his commitment to limited government, free markets, low, pro-growth tax policies, a strong and vigorous military, secure borders, and an aggressive, America-first foreign policy.
I like Rudy Giuliani. I hate abortion. This was the dilemma I faced when deciding for whom to vote in the upcoming Republican primary. Being a staunchly pro-life conservative Catholic, it somehow seemed wrong to vote for a candidate who has voiced his support for the legality, if not the morality, of a woman’s right to kill her unwanted child. But as I closely followed the campaign and the candidates, I came to realize that his support for abortion rights is neither very deep, nor very consequential. And in the process I reached the conclusion that Rudy Giuliani is the best man for the job of President of the United States.
Like every field of presidential hopefuls, the current crop of candidates is not perfect, but in order to advance our agenda conservatives must coalesce around whichever candidate ultimately wins the Republican nomination. Some conservatives have once again been doing their level best to split the movement apart and thus dampen conservative turnout in the upcoming general election. Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, for example, in a classic case of ‘casting the first stone,’ uncharitably judged Rudy for various events in his personal life which are, quite frankly, none of his business. Dobson vowed he “cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008.” Other conservatives have reached different conclusions: Free Congress Foundation’s Paul Weyrich left open the possibility of supporting the former Mayor (if he wins the nomination) as long as he makes certain commitments on issues such as abortion and gay-marriage. And Evangelical leader and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy for president. For my part, though I will cast my primary vote for Rudy, I will support any of the top five Republicans (and the seventh) in this race against the eventual Democrat nominee if they win the nomination.
It is crucial that we conservatives rally round the eventual nominee because the last time self-righteous ideologues such as Dobson tried to punish Republicans for their apostasy on a small number of issues was in the 2006 mid-terms, with this predictable result: It elevated Charles Rangel to Chairman of the Ways and Means committee in the House, and Chuck Schumer to the Chairmanship of the Judiciary committee in the Senate. As a result, the nomination of strict constructionist or originalist judges is at the mercy of the rabidly pro-abortion liberal Schumer and tax policy is in the hands of the leftist tax-and-spend Rangel. Nice going, guys.
Each of the Republican candidates is flawed in one way or another: Mike Huckabee is a social conservative, but an economic liberal with a dubious record on law-enforcement. John McCain is generally strong on foreign policy (his anti-water-boarding crusade being an exception), but his positions on taxes, immigration, campaign finance, and global warming, among others, are repellent to the rank and file. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney generally support the conservative position on most issues, but the former Tennessee Senator lacks any real executive experience, while the former Massachusetts governor’s recent conversion on some of these issues smacks more of expedience than conviction. And since Ron Paul is even less willing than the top three Democrat contenders to defend American interests abroad I shudder at the possibility, however remote, that he wins the nomination. The knock on Rudy is that he is a social moderate – some would say liberal. He has and does articulate positions on some social issues that are to the left of the Republican mainstream. (I’ll explore the abortion issue in greater detail later). This has always been, in terms of Republican electoral politics, his Achilles heel, but . . .
Then Achilles Turned Toward Troy
On the morning of September 11, 2001, everything changed. Two commercial airliners loaded with Americans were hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists and, in an act of unmitigated evil and treachery, slammed into some of the most visible landmarks of American freedom. This was more than a mere terrorist attack; it was an act of war. The resultant toll in American blood was both appalling and horrific. And it only turned out to be considerably less than initial estimates seemed to suggest because of the heroic efforts of hundreds of brave and selfless patriots in the NYPD, FDNY, PAPD, the U.S. Military, and civilians both on Flight 93 and in the Pentagon and World Trade Center. These men and women, most of whose acts of selfless courage will never be known because their stories died with them, responded with singular bravery in their country’s moment of need.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Rudy Giuliani, despite the personal grief caused by the loss of a number of close friends in the collapse of the Twin Towers, provided precisely the sort of strong and inspirational leadership displayed by Winston Churchill during WWII and the sort that was painfully and glaringly lacking in Louisiana in the wake of the Katrina disaster. No one else in the presidential field has been tested in the crucible of this conflict’s front lines the way he has (Sen. McCain’s Vietnam experience notwithstanding). And Rudy, perhaps more than any other candidate in this race, understands intrinsically the existential threat posed to Western freedom by the forces of radical Islamic jihad. No one is as committed as he is to take this fight to the enemy and defeat them on their turf, and on our terms.
Leviathan in Chains
Many Republican candidates promise to govern as a conservative by reigning in the size, scope, and cost of government, but only one has actually done it; not only has Rudy Giuliani actually scaled back government, but he did it in the very belly of the beast: NYC. In a typical display of leadership and fiscal discipline, Mayor Giuliani reduced the NYC workforce by roughly 20%, the welfare rolls by 60%, balanced a city budget that was hemorrhaging cash, and elevated the city’s bond rating to a 30-year high – all while cutting taxes by 9 billion dollars. He accomplished all of this with a legislative body – the City Council – dominated by liberal Democrats. This is an example of true conservative, supply-side governance. No other candidate can match this record. And the new tax plan announced by the Giuliani campaign promises to transfer these achievements to the federal government by slashing tax rates and eliminating many unfair and counter-productive taxes. In contrast, Mike Huckabee recently defended his decision to raise taxes on Arkansans by explaining he did it to balance the state budget. And John McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts from the start. Whom should conservatives support, a man who has balanced budgets by raising taxes? A Senator who has never managed a large budget and opposes tax cuts? Or should we support a seasoned executive who has slashed taxes while balancing a massive budget?
Broken Windows, Broken Records
Upon taking office as mayor in 1994, Rudy Giuliani based the future of his entire administration on one key premise: If he could make NYC’s streets safe again, then the rest of his ambitious plan (economic growth, job creation, welfare reform, etc.) was possible; if not, his would be the latest in a long string of failed mayoralties, bested – like his well-intentioned predecessors – by the wild, ungovernable metropolis he led.
His first order of business, then, was crime. He tackled this problem with the same mixture of cool intelligence and bulldog tenacity which had become his trademark. He began by appointing William Bratton as Police Commissioner and together they began the revolution which forever transformed the nature of policing in America. They implemented the ideas of noted criminologist James Q. Wilson, the concept that by ignoring low-level crimes and being a reactive police force, criminality, even anarchy is encouraged; and conversely that by being proactive in posture and treating quality of life crimes seriously, that an atmosphere of order is created. They implemented COMPSTAT – the system, inspired by Jack Maple, which tracks daily crime trends, devolves responsibility (and resources) to local precinct commanders, and holds those commanders responsible for crime in their jurisdiction. He also instituted a policy even more radical in its uniqueness which allowed all the other changes to germinate and bear fruit: he backed up his cops and told the racist, racial agitators to take a walk.
The result of these changes has been well-noted, but that makes them no less remarkable. By the end of his term as mayor, overall crime in NYC had been reduced by half, murder by two-thirds. And because his successor, Mike Bloomberg, and his Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, have, to their great credit, retained and furthered the innovations begun by Rudy Giuliani, crime continues to drop precipitously in NYC: there were fewer than 500 murders in the city in 2007 — a remarkable achievement considering the fact the there were well over 2,000 murders per year in the late 80’s and early 90’s – before Rudy took office.
While Democrats in congress and the Clinton Administration were debating the crime-fighting efficacy of midnight basketball and after-school programs, the NYPD, under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani, was locking up felons, closing out open warrants, and vigorously prosecuting criminals. The results of this approach speak for themselves. The methods and techniques pioneered by Rudy Giuliani have been copied and implemented throughout the country resulting in a nationwide decline in crime unprecedented in US history. Rudy Giuliani will bring with him to Washington this same knack for strong, effective leadership in reducing the size and cost of government and will wield the same innovative approach to border security/immigration enforcement and anti-terror efforts that he honed in cracking down on crime in New York.
Culture Warrior
Paradoxically, like President Bush, Rudy Giuliani may be a victim of his own success. Many Americans, as memories of 9/11 fade with the passage of time, are lulled into a false sense of security by the success of the Bush administration in preventing another major terrorist attack on U.S. soil for 6+ years. Likewise, many people – New Yorkers included – forget what the City was like before it was tamed by America’s Mayor.
Times Square is a perfect example. Like Iraq’s al-Anbar province circa 2004, it was, before Rudy’s tenure, a no-go zone (that is, unless you were packing heat and looking for trouble). In the early 90’s a person could not walk through ‘the crossroads of the world’ without slipping on a used condom and landing on a dirty needle. Now, Times Square is a thriving, family-friendly tourist destination once again.
In 1995, before standing up to terrorists (let alone the State Department) was cool, he kicked Yasser Arafat out of Lincoln Center and in 2001 he refused to accept Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s donation to the Twin Towers Fund after he (like Ron Paul) blamed America for the attacks on 9/11. He took on and crushed (as a federal prosecutor, Justice Department official, and as mayor) organized crime in New York. He took on the ACLU and the peddlers of pornography; he cut off public funding for the Brooklyn Art Museum for displaying blasphemy masquerading as art; he refused to meet with the vile race hustlers, let alone bow down before them as his predecessors had done; in fact, at every opportunity to take an official stand in the culture wars, Rudy has taken an unapologetic and principled conservative one.
Abortion
Since Roe v. Wade, presidential power has been severely restricted with respect to abortion policy. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling against state laws restricting abortion, like other activist court decisions, replaced federalism and the democratic process with the oligarchic rule of five unelected judges with lifetime tenure. Overturning Roe v. Wade and restoring the Supreme Court to its proper status as a co-equal – not preeminent – branch of government is the immediate goal of the pro-life movement. Once this is done, however, abortion policy will once again become a state issue, not a federal one. It will be up to the 50 state legislatures to pass new laws outlawing the barbaric procedure. What the next president can do is to appoint conservative, strict constructionist justices to the bench who will restore the proper balance between the three branches of government and overturn Roe. The next president will, in all likelihood, have the opportunity to appoint as many as three new justices to the High Court. Rudy Giuliani has committed to appointing just such men and women to the court. In his National Review article endorsing Rudy last year, former Solicitor General (and possible High Court nominee?) Ted Olson wrote:
That is one very important reason why this conservative Republican is supporting Rudy Giuliani for president. I know the qualities he will look for in the persons he will appoint to the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts: individuals of talent, quality, experience, integrity, intellect, and conscious of constitutional limits on judicial authority; men and women who will respect and defer to the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution and the rights of citizens to make policy through their elected representatives; jurists in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito and Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts.
When a majority of the Supreme Court base their decisions on the Constitution's original meaning and the intent of its framers, Roe v. Wade will be overturned because it was a decision based not on the Constitution but in spite of it. And since Rudy has made the commitment to appoint such men and women to the court, his personal support for a woman’s right to an abortion should not prohibit pro-life conservatives from backing his candidacy.
Rudy Giuliani is a strong, principled conservative with the executive experience and leadership ability to lead our country and our party for the next four years and beyond. No other candidate can match his record, his intelligence, his strength, his tenacity, or his commitment to limited government, free markets, low, pro-growth tax policies, a strong and vigorous military, secure borders, and an aggressive, America-first foreign policy. As a New Yorker I witnessed first-hand how he imposed order and sanity on a city and government in chaos; a city ravaged by decades of liberal madness which had sapped it of its vitality and sent its middle class fleeing in droves. Rudy did for New York what Ronald Reagan did for America: he restored a sense of pride in its people and hope for the future. And just as Reagan prevailed over the threat of Soviet communism by confronting it head-on, Rudy will aggressively confront the current threat to liberty our country faces: radical Islamic jihad. And ultimately, that is why I proudly support Rudy Giuliani for President.
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
Personally, I despise Rudy, but your article has given me pause for thought.
It is really refreshing to read something that sets out a coherent argument free of ideological platitudes, something I will admit to often succumbing to.
But I do have some questions. Whenever I evaluate people, I always look to see how they have met their obligations to their nearest and dearest. I always ask whether they have risen to the call of their obligations towards those with whom they have created life, and the lives they have created. I will never trust someone who has betrayed his own obligations.
If someone is incapable of meeting the obligations towards those he brings into the world, and the person with whom he does so, I ask – can such a person be trusted to rise to the obligations towards people he does not know? You seem to suggest Rudy can. Then the next question is this: does he rise to such obligations out of expediency, especially political expediency, or out of a sense of duty? In short, is it vanity, or some principled position?
If I betrayed my wife and children because I found temptation irresistible, I don’t see why I should expect others to entrust their security, finances, and ‘morality’ to me. What would be the motivation for me to demonstrate a greater degree of integrity towards those I don’t know, than to the very lives I create?
Please do pardon me the comparison, but it is for purely theoretical purposes. Hitler came into power on much the basis you have outlined in support of Rudy – strong national interest; competent on the economy which he transformed from a basket case into the strongest in the world of the time; he pretty much eradicated crime; and he stood up for German interests. But he had no principles other than administrative principles, and his own utter vanity.
I am not saying that Rudy is a Hitler, but just that ‘abstract administrative’ qualities, even if they work, don’t make a man. A man without principles is an empty vessel, no matter how successful he is in administration. And he can be dangerous.
I should also add that it was not only the Germans who stood in awe of the ‘Hitler economic and social miracle’, but many ‘principled’ and ‘intelligent’ people in both Britain and the US at the time.
For me, governing the greatest nation on the earth requires more than ‘administrative qualities’ – it requires character based on fundamental principles. I see none of that in Rudy. In fact I see the opposite.
I shall however consider all you have said, and research it, to see whether there are in fact some real principled positions underlying Rudy’s position other than pure Rudy vanity.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Lets start with your concern over Rudy's personal life (a concern, incidentally, that I do not share). It is your insinuation that a man's personal life is a mirror of his character and thus indicative of how he will govern. Rudy was divorced twice, whereas Hitler married once and remained faithfully married to his betrothed 'till death parted them. By your logic, then, it would appear that a man with a stable marriage is more likely to become an evil, genocidal maniac. Yet another reason to vote for Rudy! Of course this is silly, but no more so than thinking a man's lack of luck in marriage is a possible indicator of his secret seething fascism.
Hitler was a national socialist who believed in government control of every facet of life; in contrast Rudy is a small government libertarian/conservative who supports and defends the right of individuals to make decisions free of government interference (which is a position I support in every area except abortion, which I dealt with in my article). It is nothing more than a cheap shot to denigrate a man's accomplishments by repeating the tired old cliche (if more eloquently) that 'even Hitler made the trains run on time.'
Dishonest argument, Mr. Osonitsch. Picking out an extreme example of a horrific man who was faithful to one woman does not invalidate Mr. McMillan's point. The issue is character. It is easy enough to determine Hitler's egregious flaws.
We look at the whole picture. Character is character. A man who makes personal promises in front of many witnesses (marriage vows) and then breaks them (more than once) is a man with bad character.
It doesn't matter if his political positions are good. If he will break his promises to the wife of his youth, then what other promises can we expect him to keep?
America has the right and obligation to choose a leader with good moral character. The highest office in the country must be occupied by such a person. That person represents America to the world, and to our children. It sends a message.
There is nothing dishonest about my argument. I did not "pick out an extreme example." Mr. McMillan did that for me. I was responding to his "extreme example." Who's being dishonest now Mountain Man? The fact is, comparing Rudy to Adolph Hitler is both despicible and ridiculous. To the extent it even dignified a response, I felt my best recourse was to respond with humor.
Moreover, Ronald Reagan was divorced, did you question his moral character?
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
I appreciate you responding to my Comment.
However, I must say that your response has a little more ideological content than your article.
Nevertheless, I don’t see how it follows from what I have said that a man who does not betray his obligations is a man worthy of governing. By that standard, there are a great many men/women worthy of leadership. For me, it is a starting point, not a condition. And I think it a little odd that you draw from my “logic” that a man who honors his family obligations “is more likely to become an evil, genocidal maniac.” By contrast there are no doubt many man and women capable of leadership who are divorced because they have been betrayed. Divorce is not the criteria – it is the reason for it that is important.
I don’t know if it is a tired old cliché about trains running on time, but is that not what you are arguing in favor of Rudy? Dost thou not protest too much?
As I said in my Comment, you have caused me to reflect on him. Yet, you now say that “Rudy is a small government libertarian/conservative who supports and defends the right of individuals to make decisions free of government interference.” What I am looking for are the PRINCIPLES on which he bases that position.
As you rightly point out, his record seems to indicate that ‘freedom’ includes the ‘freedom’ to kill your own offspring. On what principle does he base that position? Freedom also seems to include the ‘freedom’ of homosexuals to impose on our children their particularly indulgent view of ‘family’ and ‘sexuality’ – or is Rudy against homosexuality? From what I have seen, on that he is ambiguous – leave it to someone else to decide.
So where exactly does Rudy say that the “right of individuals to make decisions free of government interference” end – with bestiality, incest, pedophilia? What are the PRINCIPLES that underpin his positions? I simply cannot find them!
Finally, please permit me to address your statement that it is “silly” to think that “a man’s lack of luck in marriage is a possible indicator of his secret seething fascism.” Of course it is, and that is not what I said. Can you not acknowledge that there is a great difference between “lack of luck” (mostly ill judgment – not good for a president, if that was what Rudy had), and betrayal? If we cannot distinguish between these two, there is simply no hope!
Of course, Rudy would prefer that we simply ignore his personal shortcomings and ‘admire’ his ‘administrative qualities’ – and each person is free to do so or not. But I have frankly seen too many efficient administrators to know that they make the worst leaders. But, thank God, so far the American people still have the freedom to make that choice – and I expect that Rudy will not be it. But stranger things have happened in politics.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
I’d like briefly to address your reference to Ronald Reagan (it seems my last comment is still pending). I think it ingenious to compare Reagan to Rudy. Reagan, so far as I know, married a divorced woman in the first instance, who may not have even revealed her previous marriage because of the various aliases she used. Secondly, the end of his marriage was brought about by Wyman's (Reagan’s first wife’s) affair with another actor called Lew Ayers. It’s called betrayal!
Once Reagan found a woman who was prepared to share the obligations of marriage, he was faithful – unless I’ve missed something.
Is this Rudy’s history?? You tell me!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Rudy, has never met an illegal alien that he didn't want to keep. He, just like all the Democrats, is a disaster for our economy, taxpayers, and schools! The only rational policy is one that forces illegals to leave due to lack of jobs, educational opportunities, social services, and health care…all should be denied to illegals and anchor babies!
I took the pledge and if Rudy is nominated looks like I will be voting for a write-in.
THE PLEDGE:
I will vote, and actively work for the election of, the opponent of any elected official or candidate supporting ANY form of legislation, resolution, proclamation, or action offering illegal aliens:
1. sanctuary,
2. taxpayer funded benefits,
3. anchor baby citizenship,
4. drivers licenses
5. police no ask policy,
6. day worker centers,
7. legal services,
8. chain migration,
9. amnesty
10. Language support other than ENGLISH.
UNLESS their opponent also supported the legislation, resolution, proclamation, or action.
THEN I will vote for a write-in candidate.
I also will not contribute to their campaign AND I will return their campaign material marked as REFUSED RETURN TO SENDER.
Mr. Osonitsch,
You persist in dishonest comparisons. Mr. McMillan compared the rise to power. You compared moral character. You comparison was out of context.
Then you persist in your practice by bringing Reagan into it. Mickey G may or may not be correct about Reagan's history, but it does not change the fact that Rudy is a serial adulterer who broke his marriage vows. This, sir, no matter how you try to obfuscate, is moral weakness.
Unlike you and Mountain Man, Mr. McMillan, I do not spend my free time digging into or priggishly judging other men's private lives. I try to take seriously our Lord's question from Matthew 7, "why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Rudy's marital history is none of your or my business. His record alone is at issue.
To Mickey G: Rudy supports closing the borders and enforcing immigration law, just as he vigorously enforced every other law as mayor.
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
Christ also said: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his Heart” [Mat 5:28].
We don’t need to judge whether Rudy is destined for one afterlife or another – we (or at least the American people) need to judge, on his life, whether they want him as president. Should they play deaf, blind and dumb? I expect Rudy would say yes!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
I am not going to sit here and debate another man's private life: it is silly, meaningless, uncharitable, and unseemly. Nevertheless, I agree with you on the relevance of Matthew 5. And by our Lord's own definition it is pretty clear that we have all committed adultery at one point or another. This, of course, negates your criticism of Rudy. Thanks, I rest my case.
Mountain Man: I'll say it one more time, Mr. McMillan brought Hitler into the discussion. He even prefaced his remark by writing, "Please do pardon me the comparison…" You. MM, are the only one engaging in dishonesty here.
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
Au contraire. Rudy is almost as bad on immigration as McCain. View his record in making NYC a sanctuary for illegals then talk to me about his support for finding a solution to the illegal alien issue that does not backrupt those few of us that actually pay taxes.
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
In any circumstance other than the question of a person’s eligibility (in the voter’s eyes) for election to the most powerful position on earth, I’d agree with you.
Matthew 5 does not, it seems to me, do what you claim. What it does do is demonstrate the essence of character. Those who have it in their heart to seek personal gratification, and thus personal vanity, have a serious flaw in their character. Are you really suggesting that ‘doing it’ is the same thing as occasionally ‘wondering’? Both, of course, are wrong (Commandment 10), but I would be surprised if you would conflate the two.
It seems to me that Christ was saying that ‘doing it’ starts with ‘thinking it’, and if we let our temptation control us, that is the problem – and perhaps Rudy’s problem. People who are disposed to act on their temptations re, I think, a little different to those who entertain, then reject them.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Check out the judges he appointed in New York. That alone makes for a no vote.
Mickey G:
I appreciate your criticism insofar as it is relevent to what policies one might expect Rudy to implement as president rather than a personal attack on the man's character and family.
I agree that, as mayor, Rudy was rather soft on illegal immigration. He will not be as president. Let me explain: Because of the scope of the mayor's authority and his committment to vigorously combat overall crime, he found himself in a quandry of the federal government's making. New York was a major metropolis with many jobs and a booming economy under Rudy's watch, so, naturally many illegal immigrants flocked here. Since his first priority was the fight against violent street crime, he made the decision to not arrest illegals who reported crimes to the police so as to not create an underclass of victims felons could feel free to accost risk-free. This encouraged crime reportage and aided law-enforcement. He is not for amnesty.
As president, he will be in a position to treat immigration-law breakers (a federal issue) every bit as seriously as he treated street-level criminals as mayor (a local issue). Moreover, because of his personal investment in what he calls 'the terrorists war against us', he understands the dangers of open borders from a national-security perspective.
Rudy is no John McCain on immigration.
Mr. Osonitsch,
You are now arguing like a leftist. Personal attack? Please. That is the convenient accusation leveled by those who what to shut off debate and marginalize those who disagree.
And then you compound the matter by misquoting the leftists' favorite verse from Matthew 7.
You're making excuses for a man who isn't fit to be president.
Rudy is clearly the best candidate. Some of the attacks on him make me ashamed to be a republican. For example, “you can trust someone who was once a democrat.” Oh, like Ronald Reagan. “Someone who broke their marriage vows can’t be trusted.” Oh, like Ronald Reagan.
Please try to focus on the facts. Rudy has offered the American people the largest tax cut in the history of the republic. To be more specific the largest tax cut of any republic Greece, Rome, etc! That is why he has a prefect score from the American’s for Tax Reform.
If you care to be objective please read these five reasons why conservatives should make Rudy GOP nominee:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/rudy_giuliani_should_be_gop_no.html
I copied the Matthew 7 quote directly from my KJV Bible.
I was not aware that the New Testament was a leftist document, Mountain Man. Is your church aware of this revelation? Shocking!
How about discussing issues for a change instead of blaspheming the Good Book?
Sounds like things are getting a little testy in the comments.
I disagree with the issue that immigration is a federal issue. If one takes the time to read the constitution is is clear that states have a role in immigration. But let's put the constitution aside and consider the implications of illegal immigration on cities and states. It seems to me that all local government should be seeking rule making and ordinances that serve to send illegals back where they came from. Contrary to economically uninformed belief illegals are a massive drain and drag on the economy. Take the simple example of the 3 child illegal family that will drag almost $400,000 just for education through 12th grade. This estimate is on the conservative side because it uses average national cost instead of costs loaded for the special services needed for ESL, free breakfast and lunch, and special curriculum. Then step a little further and determine health care costs, any food stamps, aid to dependent children for the anchors and you come up with a situation where each of the families cost significant amounts paid by? US! Then factor in SSI and Social Security which they will become eligible if legalized and you can envision a true disaster. Social Security, in particular since it is a welfare system not a retirement system pays much more the less you put into it. Guess these minimum wage workers we are importing who cannot read or write their native language much less English will end up costing us around $1,000,000 per family before the chain migration starts. Factor that in and the cost zooms to $3,000,000 when the mother, father, sister, brother, cousins etc arrive.
Dear Mr Osonitsch,
I think it uncharitable to ridicule MM on the Scriptures. I have left a couple of comments which are still pending, but let me at least, in the interim, address that issue.
What MM was saying is that the verse you referred to has been used to tolerate just about anything and everything, and that you are now mobilizing it in support of Rudy. In other words, like the Liberals do, you refer to it in order to abbreviate debate when it does not suit you.
I agree with his analysis. Let’s take other biblical references. Christ said ‘turn the other cheek’ – does that mean we should offer up another US city for attack? Christ said offer your shirt if someone sues for you coat – should we thus offer up America for conversion to Islam? I could go on pretty much infinitum, but I expect you get the message.
I do find your loyalty to Rudy touching, but I fear that it may be clouding your faith in favor of making Rudy’s case for him. Is he that great a man?
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Mickey,
I agree with pretty much eveything you wrote in your last comment. I cannot speak for Rudy on all these specifics, however, as a New Yorker who lived in the city under Rudy's stewardship and as a cop who worked for him (as a street-cop, I didn't work in the Mayor's personal security detail) I can assure you that he will, at a minimum, vigorously enforce existing immigration laws and effectively close the border.
Excuse me, misinterpreting, not misquoting. You are incorrectly applying that verse.
Blaspheming? A serious charge. Back it up. Specifically, how have I spoken "irreverently of God or sacred things; utter[ed] impieties?"
By impiously dismissing Matthew 7:3 as "the leftists favorite verse" and thus implying it is a mere political statement which rightists are not obligated to follow.
Let's all remember there are two decisions here.
1, Who do you support in the primary?
2. Who do you support in the general?
If Rudy is not your candidate in the primaries, but is the eventual Republican party nominee, who do you vote for in November 2008: The Republican candidate, or the Democrat candidate? [Staying home or voting 3rd party is meaningless electorally].
Since we're never likely to have a pure candidate, and the only electorally-relevant choice comes down to the better of the two, I'm just curious how all the characterizations about Rudy above will impact the most important decision in the 2008 election cycle (assuming he's the nominee)?
I cannot help what you incorrectly infer. That verse IS the favorite of leftists, perhaps the only one any of them have ever memorized. Of course, it is never applied personally, it is invariably used as a tool of judgment (irony, anyone?) to muzzle people of moral principle. Inevitably, the verse is used to manipulate people into silence under the guise of, "You can't judge me. See, it says so right in your own Bible."
That's how you used the verse. You were not illuminating a matter of faith. You were using it as a tool to cut off criticism of your preferred presidential candidate.
If you truly were interested in elucidating Scriptural truth, you would have quoted the concluding verse: "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
In other words, get rid of your own hypocrisy, then you can judge a matter accurately.
If it is now off limits for people to use matters of sin in determining their character, as you seem to suggest, then any sort of evil ought to be tolerable in a person (as long as it is legal, perhaps?), and not to be used as criteria to determine fitness for office. Right?
Great question, Phil.
If it came down to a person of good moral character versus a person who has a consistent track record of immorality, I would vote for the candidate of good moral character.
A leader must be a person of character, both personal and publice. Otherwise, how is it possible to know if a person who is willing to break his word as spoken before God and man in marriage vows, will not break his word regarding campaign promises? The candidate may be a limited government, pro-defense person now, but what will happen later when another course becomes expedient (i.e. George Bush Sr. and "no new taxes?"
If there is no moral grounding, then anything can happen. There are a couple of Supreme Court justices who we all thought were one thing, but turned out to be another. We don't need a president like that.
MM — what about a person of no moral character (Hillary) vs a person with the flaws you've identified in Rudy. Would Rudy get your vote?
And what about Obama/Rudy? Obama is a flaming liberal and actively pro-abortion, but seems to have a good marriage and is otherwise a "moral" guy (if you get beyond his admitted drug use in the past, and the Clinton's allegations that he's a crack dealer).
My point is that morality is an important factor, but in politics much more is at stake than the candidate's own past history. The morally superior candidate may still be the worse candidate from a policy perspective.
Phil, that sounds like just the sort of argument Rudy’s supporters are making – ‘if you think I’m bad, just look at the Democratic candidates.’
If conservatives are indeed people of principle, then that argument shouldn’t prevail. If they are not, then they deserve what they get.
If I had a vote, subject to researching what the author of the article has said, it would frankly make no difference to me whether Rudy, Obama, or Clinton won. Does that cut off my nose to spite my face? Perhaps! But to choose otherwise would be dishonest; self-serving perhaps, but dishonest.
And besides that, I don’t like the idea of someone imposing his ideas under threat of something worse. Rudy is not about to bring about any revolution; he will simply bring about competent (perhaps) administration – but so did Bill Clinton.
Will Rudy go out and find bin Laden? Of course not! If anyone finds that jerk it will be the military, not some politician. Will he sort out Iraq? No, it will be the same.
What I see in Rudy is a slick operator, not a president.
And if he is nominated, we should be under no illusion that the Dems will ‘uncover’ a great deal of unpleasant things about him – but then it will be too late.
So who does that leave on the Republican ticket? In my view, nobody who could beat either Clinton or Obama, and perhaps that is what every ‘good’ Republican candidate feared in the first place.
Perhaps I am wrong and one of the Republican ‘leading’ contenders will transform into a man of real principle – I just won’t hold my breath.
You say that abstaining or voting for a third party is meaningless. I don’t see that. Would that not be one of the strongest expressions of discontent with the way the Republican Party attempts to impose a candidate against the wishes of the people?
Often times the pain can be worth the gain.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Mr McMillan: Nonsense. I do not want want to abbreviate debate, I simply say Rudy's personal life is none of your business, and thus not subject to debate in the first place. The rest of your last post is so asinine (much like your first one) I don't feel the need to respond, so I wont.
Mountain Man: So now George Bush Sr. is a no-good sinner too? You're begining to freak me out a little bit now.
Anyone who is looking for perfection in a presidential candidate may as well stay home on election day because nobody currently on this earth is perfect. In the meantime, all you can do is evaluate the candidates records and positions and make your choice of one of the imperfect contenders.
Mr. Osonitsch,
I'm beginning to wonder about your comprehension skills. You completely ignore the substance of my posts, and take off running on some misunderstood minor issue.
You can read, can't you? Was I not talking about someone who lacks principles, and therefore is willing to compromise when expedient? Did not the first George Bush do exactly that? Was it not bad for the country?
Good grief. How does some like you get into the position of writing commentary for IC when basic reading skills are so lacking?
“You say that abstaining or voting for a third party is meaningless. I don’t see that. Would that not be one of the strongest expressions of discontent with the way the Republican Party attempts to impose a candidate against the wishes of the people?”
Joseph: Here’s my October 12, 2007 article “Who’s Running for President?” which speaks directly to your question. The party is not "imposing" a candidate on us. The party members have choices that range from Rudy to Ron Paul. Your candidate may not win, but that doesn't mean he was forbidden to win. Huckabee won Iowa when he wasn't "supposed" to. Rudy is losing Florida when he was "supposed to win".
There’s a whole bunch of commentary that followed my article, none of which ever contradicted the main point that voting 3rd party or staying home is meaningless electorally. Elections are about ideas, but they are also about power. And full power cannot be exercised unless you actually win the election.
* * *
“Who’s running for President?” This may seem like a silly question after two years of endless straw polls and pre-primary campaigning, a myriad of televised debates, and with enough declared and undeclared candidates in both parties to field opposing baseball teams. But two months before the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, I find that a vast number of people are still quite confused about this matter.
No, it isn’t that they can’t name the latest declared Republican candidate missing from the last debate (Alan Keyes), or that they’ve forgotten about the on-again off-again speculation on the Democrat side that Al Gore will jump into the race once he wins his Nobel Peace Prize for inventing man-made Global Warming. The reason for this confusion can be traced to a simple, but profoundly-neglected fact.
Those who think that Fred Thompson is running against Ron Paul, Rudy, John McCain and the other Republican nominees are just as confused as those who believe that Hillary is being challenged by Obama, Edwards and the rest of the Democrat political dwarfs. This contest isn’t the one that matters. It’s the lineup in August-November 2008 that counts, when the Republican nominee faces the Democrat nominee before the national electorate. The race for president is between the Republican and Democrat candidates, period. Everything else is just a side-show.
Okay. You all knew this. So you think there’s nothing profound in having this basic fact of American politics repeated once again. But if this was really the case, why would anyone expend a moment’s energy debating whether Mitt represents your own personal political philosophy better than Huckabee, Tancredo, Rudy or Paul? That’s not the question on the table. The question is, what makes you think any one of these guys can beat Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Obama or Al Gore in a head-to-head race for the White House?
It’s at this point that I’m usually lectured about the critical importance of supporting a candidate with the correct political philosophy, ethical conduct, and previous track record that when taken together, will assure me that he/she will indeed do in office what they said they would do on the campaign circuit. And it’s at this point that I usually confound my critics by completely agreeing with what they said. My ideal candidate would be a person who thinks as I do, possesses the highest personal and professional integrity, and has demonstrated his/her ability to govern effectively. I just add one additional element to this mix. I want them to be able to win the election, so all these great things can be put into practice.
Focusing on a candidate’s electability is not the same thing as selling your soul for a political victory, despite the protests of the politically pure who insist that only their candidate represents True Conservative thought, and therefore deserves our support. Elections serve two purposes. The primaries allow individual candidates to test their ideas both within their own party structure, as well as giving the general public a taste of what to expect in the coming election. The Vegan wing of the Republican or Democrat party may put up a candidate who faithfully expresses the Vegan worldview. But if the rest of the beef-eating primary and general election voters find that philosophy difficult to swallow (pardon the pun), then Vegan-boy hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the election.
Sure, his Vegan-awareness campaign may help raise public consciousness a notch or two. In this case, fertile ground has been prepared for Vegan-boy II to run for office in 2012, and perhaps change history this way. But the future is just that. The election at hand involves the present, and this is where an actual decision must be made by Vegan-boy’s supporters. Launching a third party to give voters a “Vegan choice” won’t win the White House. At best the Vegan-voters cast irrelevant votes. At worst, they vote for someone like Perot in 1992 and Nader in 2000, and help insure that the other candidate gets into power.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the choice was between third party Vegan and mainstream party Vegetarian. The oceans might be missing a few more fish if Vegetarian-boy takes the oath of office, but Bessie the cow and other animal friends would be just as safe. But rarely is this the case when a third party run is made. To drop the now-painful analogies and speak plainly, the third party candidate is out of the mainstream, and by taking his supporters with him, not only helps insure that his former party loses, but that a completely opposite philosophy wins! The same outcome occurs when there is no third party run, but a significant number of party voters sit on their hands because “their guy” (and “their view”) isn’t fully represented by the individual who actually won the party’s nomination.
I’ve never understood the philosophy that “it’s better for the other side to win and teach our guys a lesson,” than support our party’s nominee who, though less than perfect, is vastly better than the other guy/gal. Winning is always better than losing, when winning carries with it the power to make public policy, and losing severely restricts that ability. This applies to such things as illegal immigration, foreign policy, fiscal matters and abortion politics. It’s better to control these issues with a flawed candidate, than surrender power over these issues to an even-more flawed candidate.
We don’t burn our own house down to teach it a lesson for giving us high heating bills, or let our kids run with scissors to prove we’re right when we said such things are dangerous. We don’t practice self-destructive policies in our own lives, so why would we want to follow that path in the political arena? Consider this scenario. Your daughter has been dating two men. She finally makes up her mind, and brings home the man she wants to marry. But he goes to the wrong church, is in debt more than you’d like him to be, has certain socially-liberal beliefs, and would not object to a woman aborting her child if that was her so-called “choice.” This horrifies you, so you express yourself vocally and/or refuse to speak to her again until she breaks off the engagement. She still resists, so you introduce her to the guy you’d like her to marry. But she rejects him.
However, because of your opposition she does not marry the flawed man she originally intended to. You claim a moral victory. But then reality sets in. Instead of the flawed man she originally chose, she marries her second choice. And your new son-in-law is a man who may go to the right church, but is in debt up to his eyeballs (and expects you to bail him out); supports not merely liberal, but radical social policies; and is on the board of directors of NARAL.
Yes, I know that in real life your daughter would have more than two choices in a husband, but go ahead and stick yourself on a semi-deserted island with no hope of rescue, and these two men are the only available marriage partners (except for the nerdy guy living in the lean-to down the trail). The point is, in real life we can express our beliefs, and try to persuade others to accept them as their own. But we can’t force other people to believe what we do. The choices in life that we have aren’t between perfect and flawed. More often than not they’re between flawed and more-flawed. Like it or not, both of the people running for president in 2008 will possess qualities and philosophies we dislike, or even reject. Unless you are prepared to write your own name in at election time, any candidate you support will have flaws — some of them quite serious.
So what do you do? Remain pure, and insure that an even-more hideous outcome will prevail? Just how does electing a staunch supporter of expanded abortion rights vs. a pro-choice candidate who claims he will appoint strict constructionist justices advance the anti-abortion cause? You may feel morally pure by voting for a third party candidate, or simply sitting the election out. But your moral superiority just helped kill a whole bunch more innocent children than otherwise would have been slaughtered. The same argument can be made for any other policy that you hold dear, and is not completely embraced by your party’s nominee.
Which leads back to the main question posed by this essay. In the primary, vote for the candidate you see as best fitting the country’s needs, as you envision it. But once the primary season has ended, the choice is between the Republican and Democrat nominees. If your guy lost the primary battle, take the fight up again in 2012 — and help lay the groundwork for a successful campaign in the four years preceding the next election. But in 2008, there’s a different, concrete choice on the table. Walk away and feel good about yourself, or actually participate in the political process.
The choice for president will be between the Democrat and Republican nominees. Wishing someone else was running is irrelevant. One of these two people will become president, and you must choose between the two of them. It’s a political contest, not a litmus test for True Conservatism or getting into Heaven. Ignoring that fact will help elect someone who is even more hostile to your views.
It’s not just the choice we face in 2008. It’s the only choice in 2008.
Again, good point, Phil.
The basic problem is that we are being forced into a situation of choosing the best of a bad litter. This ought not be. Every candidate should be a person of character, leadership, and integrity. I think this speaks to our state as a society.
So where are we as voters left when every candidate has flaws that make them unfit to hold office?
I'm pro-life. So how could I support a candidate who thinks it's ok to murder children in the womb?
I'm pro- traditional marriage. How could I support a candidate who is in favor of gay marriage or practices adultery?
I'm pro- 2nd amendment. How could I support someone who fears law-abiding citizens possessing firearms?
Honestly, I would give up liberties and pay confiscatory tax rates before I would tolerate the immorality of holders of public office.
You mentioned Obama. As a public person, he stands in opposition to almost every public policy position I hold dear. But, he is a person of integrity (as far as I know at present). He has an intact marriage, he doesn't attack his political opponents. He seems to be a person who has not compromised his moral principles.
Would I vote for him? Tough call. If it were Rudy vs. Obama, I would have to consider it.
Wow, that last thing was hard to type!
Dear Mr Osonitsch, that’s what I love about America – free speech, and the free exchange of ideas.
I am a little perplexed however that you think Rudy’s personal life is no business of the electorate. If, or perhaps the question is when, details of his ‘professional’ life are revealed, will this immunity extend to that as well?
I don’t know how many interviews you have attended in your life, but from my experience, personal life is pretty important to employers. Perhaps they have some special ‘right’ denied to the electorate?
And just think of all those Senate hearings for presidential nominations – to the bench, as well as other positions in the executive and judiciary – full of personal details, the more ‘juicy’ the better. Is there a Constitutional provision that protects a Republican candidate??
I’m sure Rudy would like one. And your assertion that such issues are ‘out of bounds’ I think reinforces my fear that a man without any principles can be dangerous – I’m referring by the way to Rudy, not you. I expect that each and every dictator promulgates such a law the minute they enter office – and from then its all down hill.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Mr. McMillan: I find it quite amusing that a man can sit several thousand miles away and pass sweeping value judgements on people they have never met. You don't live in the Western Hemisphere, let alone the US, or NY; you've never watched Rudy operate and make decisions on a day-to-day basis; you've never lived in NY under Rudy, his predecessors, or successors; you know absolutely nothing about the man yet you have the balls to say you despise him? To compare him to Hitler?
Mountain Man: Your posts thus far have been completely lacking in substance. You wrote in your last post that a "leader must be a person of character" otherwise he may go back on campaign promises. You then cite George Bush Sr. as an example. Ergo, you think Bush Sr. is a man (presumably like Rudy?) of questionable moral character – a sinner. This is ridiculous. You have, in every post, substituted your judgement of other men's moral character for an argument over anything of substance or relevance. This is silly and pedantic.
If you two have nothing to say about matters of policy, I'm through responding. Spare me your self-righteous pontificating.
Joseph: My long response is hung up in the filter. Phil
Dear Mr Osonitsch, thank you for your observation. Yes, I am a few thousand miles away, but at the same time a ‘click’ away. If America had no influence on world events perhaps I would have nothing to say, as I have nothing to say about Tibet for example. But what happens in the US affects me, and the rest of the world.
And is it not interesting that the people who have had the greatest influence on the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, also lived thousands of miles away – and never even visited or owned property there.
Is this not just another way to say you don’t like to have to debate the subject? You are of course free to make that decision, and thanks to a Bill of Rights (imperfect in my view), I have the freedom to throw in my thoughts – for what they are worth, which, it seems, are worthless. But its still great fun!! And, at least, as you admit, its amusing.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Phil, its late here several thousand miles away, so I'll have a look at you response hopefully later tomorrow – I'm out during the day. But I await your comment with eager anticipation!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Dear Mr Osonitsch, I just can’t help posting this last comment before bed.
I have also made a lot of sweeping value judgments on Tony Blair whom I have never met, and hope never will. I don’t know whether Spain is in the Western Hemisphere, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was (everyone over here seems to think it is). I have never watched Tony Blair operate and make decisions on a day-to-day basis (except in the press); I have never lived “under” Blair, his predecessors, or successors, and would never want to; and I know “absolutely nothing about the man”, yet I have had the balls to say that I despise him. And I have compared him too to Hitler – Tony Blair: Elder Statesman or Political Clown?
It’s called freedom!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
This thread was ruined from the get-go by posts that were equal parts stupid and dishonest by Joseph BH McMillan and Mountain Man. McMillan compared Rudy Giuliani to Hitler, a pathetic, tiresome tactic that anyone who has followed Giuliani’s political career will be familiar with. The other stupid and dishonest argument made by McMillan and MM was that because Giuliani has been unfaithful to at least one of his wives, he cannot be trusted to be faithful to the American people. The argument is presented as a moral argument, but is in fact based on the empirical claim that no one who is unfaithful to his wife will be faithful to the people. Conversely, McMillan and MM imply that a man who is faithful to his wife will ipso facto be a good president. As far as is known, Jimmy Carter was faithful to Rosalynn. Was he a good president? I should say not. As far as is known, Richard Nixon was faithful to Pat. Was he a good president? Most people would say no; I would say he was a pretty good president. Gerald Ford was faithful to Betty, but was not a good president. Jack Kennedy was the biggest whoremonger in White House history, and yet, during his brief stay there, he was, I believe, a good president.
There is much to like in Jeff Osonitsch’s depiction of the Giuliani mayoralty, particularly his countering of the phony claim I have read, whereby Giuliani was a mediocre mayor whose legacy was saved by 911. Rudy Giuliani is one of the most heroic figures in modern—perhaps all—American political history. As Osonitsch portrays, he inherited a city that was universally considered to be ungovernable, and which was in thrall to murderous racist demagogues. Between the demagogues, who threatened to burn the city down, and the despicable, racist media that supported them, Giuliani was faced with the sort of organized hatred that would guaranteed the failure of many a strong man. Indeed, as I have written, I think had I faced such organized evil, might have ended up eating the business end of a .38.
And as Osonitsch notes, Giuliani (unlike his successor) refused to ever let the demagogues darken City Hall’s doorway.
Because of the challenges Giuliani successfully faced, he was the greatest mayor in New York City history, including even the great LaGuardia, and perhaps the greatest mayor in American history.
Anyone who would dismiss Rudy Giuliani as lacking in moral character is, all sanctimony notwithstanding, dishonest, ridiculous, and morally lost.
End of Part I
Stix, Part II
However, here is where I part ways with Osonitsch.
Crime: Giuliani’s victory over crime was done with smoke and mirrors, and involved massive fraud in the gathering of crime statistics. Based both on direct observation, which I used for my exposes, and research using other journalists’ (Leonard Levitt, Rocco Parascandola, William K. Rashbaum, Larry Celona) exposés, beginning in 1996, I published a series of articles showing the massive fraud at heart of Giuliani’s crime fighting revolution. A link to one such exposé follows.
(“‘Disappearing’ Urban Crime”
http://www.vdare.com/stix/040526_crime.htm)
I also showed how Bill Bratton and his men were spreading his revolution in fighting crime-reporting to other cities, e.g., Philadelphia (Atlanta has indulged in similar legerdemain, though not due to any Bratton alumni.) The Philly PD calls the method, “going down with crime.” Assaults are reduced to “harassment”; rapes are “unfounded” (the Philly PD’s specialty, which Larry Celona caught the NYPD doing). Many index crimes (including first degree assault, rape, and murder) are simply “disappeared” altogether.
Since I wrote my last exposé on policing in New York, Paul Moses showed that thousands more victims of assaults with a deadly weapon annually were being treated in New York’s emergency rooms than the NYPD reported.
“These Stats are a Crime”
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0544,moses,69552,5.html
With the exception perhaps of periodic arrests of subway fare beaters, “broken windows” policing and Compstat remained PR gimmicks.
Compstat might have been useful, had the requisite political will stood behind it. Alas, they would have involved hyper-policing, and entailed massive roundups of racist black and Hispanic criminals, and been followed by race riots. (I emphasize minority racism, because I maintain that it is at the heart of their refusal to obey the law, their perpetuation of the “racial profiling” myth, and their willingness to riot over the matter.) Heck, influential black police officers have for years fomented racist, black disrespect towards the job from within, and led witch hunts against white officers. Instead of hyper-policing, what New York got was largely de-policing in hyper-policing drag.
Bill Bratton is nothing if not a gifted salesman and politician. (Ray Kelly’s no slouch, either.)
If Giuliani actually reduced crime, he did so through conning bad guys into believing his press releases. That’s not a knock on him. However, in addition to my knowledge of the NYPD’s systemic fraud, my experience was that life became more unsafe under Giuliani than it was under his corrupt, black, socialist predecessor, and that the decrease in safety for whites was directly due to the NYPD’s increasing refusal to enforce the law against racist blacks who targeted whites.
However, Giuliani was great for blacks, since he gave the job a certain measure of freedom to fight black-on-black crime. A lot of good that did him!
End of Part II
Stix, Part III
Immigration: Giuliani did much more than make the best of a bad situation. He praised illegal aliens to the skies, and invited them to come to the city. Not only did he break federal immigration laws with impunity, in maintaining New York as a sanctuary city, but he sued the federal government, in defense of his violation of immigration law.
And because of Giuliani’s historic embrace of illegal immigration, and systematic misrepresentations of that history, I cannot trust him to suddenly become a faithful enforcer of America’s immigration laws.
Defending America against external foes (in this case, Islam), is one side of the coin, where national security is concerned. The other side is the necessity of a moratorium on legal and illegal immigration, the massive deportation of the over 20 million foreign criminals in our midst, and the legislative elimination of the erroneous birthright citizenship interpretation of the 14th Amendment. What is the point of defending America against Islam abroad, if while doing that, you permit America to be conquered from within by irredentist foreign criminals?
N.B. There is nothing conservative or libertarian about Giuliani. He has for many years supported gay rights, while opposing and violating the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, as anchored in the Second Amendment. Religiously, he is a secular, liberal, cafeteria Catholic. Politically, he is a statist, and may accurately be called a neoconservative or a liberal Republican.
I’m surprised that the sons of sanctimony didn’t catch the one issue where personal and public character intersected. (Like most Giuliani critics, they were too lazy to do their homework.) Giuliani’s first marriage was to a (second, I believe) cousin. But years later, when a reporter interviewing him asked him about his marriage to his cousin, Hizzoner replied, without missing a beat, “I didn’t know that.” That’s when I decided that Rudy Giuliani is a liar of presidential proportions.
Of course, since barring a miracle, Giuliani’s candidacy is DOA, for better or worse, this entire discussion is moot. He already had two strikes against him with Republican voters: His social liberalism and his history of embracing illegal aliens. Given the power of the GOP’s Evangelical Christian base, the MSM, which did everything imaginable to derail his mayoralty, emphasized his use of police security to protect his then-mistress, Judy Nathan, towards the end of his mayoralty.
I have no problem with the practice in question. Giuliani’s then-wife, Donna Hanover, had already abandoned both her marriage to Giuliani and her duties as First Lady, while exploiting the perks of being married to the Mayor. (E.g., living in the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion, while the Mayor had to bunk with gay friends; using taxpayer-funded city drivers and bodyguards to chauffeur and escort her to her broadcasting jobs; allegedly sabotaging him through leaks to the media.) Donna Hanover proved to be the political wife from hell.
Since Giuliani’s wife had abandoned the marriage, he was legally and morally entitled (even Catholicism has traditionally winked at the maintaining of mistresses, but I’m not a Catholic) to find a girlfriend. And any woman involved in the Mayor’s life, even Hanover, automatically required police protection.
But this situation was bound to play badly with Evangelicals. And so, the New York and then the national MSM played it up, and that is why Tim Russert, the longtime chief of staff to late Democratic New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Hillary Clinton’s immediate predecessor), repetitiously hammered at the issue on the Meet the Press.
Strike three was Giuliani’s blunder in not campaigning aggressively from the get-go. My God, he couldn’t beat the ungainly Ron Paul! Had Giuliani taken just one early campaign (Wyoming, Michigan, Nevada or New Hampshire, unlikely as that sounds), he would now be poised to take Florida. As it is, it is now unlikely that he will win a single state primary, caucus, or party convention. That is a shame, but that’s life in the big leagues.
Note too that no New York City mayor, no matter how popular at home, has ever been elected president. In an unprecedented campaign season, I believe that that is one precedent that is going to endure. Mike Bloomberg believes otherwise. We’ll just have to see who is proved right. That’s why you still have to play the games, er, run the elections.
If you go to vote for a president based on his morality then your thinking is fallacious from the outset – there are no moral politicians. At least not ones that are "electable". For all of our insistence that we demand candidates of high moral fiber, our collective voting patterns indicate exactly the opposite. We elect con men based on their catchphrases and completely dismiss anyone who has any practical, political or moral substance. If conservatives were the principled hard liners and moralists that we all claim to be, the "front runners" in our presidential primaries would not be all the slick, polished, career politicians with glib, ready-made speeches and 5 positions on any given issue. They would be the "un-electable" issues-based candidates that have all dropped out (or will be) for lack of support and funding.
Setting all of that aside, two of the top four Republican candidates for president have been divorced, one believes in a religion that could probably best be described as a strange amalgamation of Christianity, spiritualism and scientology, and the only "moral" (basing the judgment solely on the status of his marriage, which seems to be the agreed upon yardstick) candidate in the race is an anti-constitutional social gospel liberal who, at best, bends the truth about his record, and, at worst, is an outright liar. For that matter, Barack Obama is a happily married professing Christian. So there you have it. Who shall we elect based on his superior morals and unquestionable integrity?
Don't get me wrong, I am not a Rudy Giuliani apologist by any means. All of the candidates I supported are no longer in the race, and I frankly couldn't care less who gets the Republican nomination at this point – horse manure, cow manure, and chicken manure are all equally manure to me. But all of this moralizing in regards to Giuliani rings a little hollow to me given the field of candidates.
Nicholas Stix,
I agree with much of what you've written, however I must disagree with you on crime. As a New Yorker you must admit that you felt much safer walking the streets of the city after dark in 2001 (the end of Rudy's term) than you did in 1993. I know I certainly did. And if you did not, then you are the only New Yorker I know that didn't.
The allegation that crime statistics are bogus is quite simply false. Are certain crimes occasionally wrongfully and unlawfully misclassified by overzealous cops? Of course, but this is extremely rare and was no more prevalent during Rudy's tenure than before. And those caught doing it are fired. The real barometer of any city's crime rate are homicides (you cannot reclassify a DOA with stab wounds.) When you compare the NYPD's homicide stats with other index crimes, they are pretty consistent. In other words, if a theoretical 20% drop in homicides is mirrored by a similar drop in robberies, the numbers are surely accurate. If, on the other hand, murder was down 20% while robberies were down 70%, this would lead you to question the accuracy of the numbers. NY's drop in crime has been remarkable not only by its enormity, but by its consistency as well.
Rudy is politically conservative/libertarian. Those areas in which he takes a more liberal position (abortion/gays) are in precisely those areas a president has little authority to enact policy.
"Anyone who would dismiss Rudy Giuliani as lacking in moral character is, all sanctimony notwithstanding, dishonest, ridiculous, and morally lost."
Rudy is an adulterer. Adultery is immoral. However, I am morally lost by talking about it? Immorality is moral and morality is immoral… Truly bizarre, Mr. Stix.
Dear Mr Stix, that’s an awful lot of words to make a simple point. But then again, when you know that the point you want to make will be met by scorn, ridicule, and contempt, even by sympathy that someone can harbor such primitive prejudices in the modern world, then I can understand why you need to dress it up with brightly colored foliage.
Taking your Comments here together with your last article, let me see if I can make your point more succinctly? – “I don’t like blacks or Jews, and any candidate who accommodates me on that, however remotely, will get my vote.”
If that is indeed your point, then should you not exercise the virtue you said you so admired in your article about Blacks and Jews (Jackie Mason vs. James Watson: Jews, IQ, and ‘Shvartzers’.) – the “intellectual courage” to say so openly? Much as I would despise the sentiment itself, I'd at least admire you for your "intellectual courage".
And if that is your point, much as I dislike Rudy, I doubt that he is your man. Whatever else I may think of him, I would not brand him with the primitive prejudices you appear to admire.
If I am wrong in my assessment of your ideological leanings, then you have my wholehearted and unreserved apology, and to make amends, I’ll offer to send you a complimentary copy of my book Freedom v A Tyranny of Rights.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Joseph,
I think you basically glossed over Stix's posts entirely, because you already had a pre-conceived idea of what the underlying meaning would be. Nevertheless, I don't see how any of what he's said is racist, even by fascist, thought-policing European standards. That cracking down on certain crimes would have required arresting certain minorities who commit them at a disproportionate rate is a statistically valid observation, not a call to incite a lynch mob. And that race riots likely would have occurred as a result is a reasonable inference to make based on race rioting that has happened in the past (as recently as May 2006 when hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants took to the streets because law enforcement officials has the unmitigated audacity to imply that they should be dealt with according to the prescriptions made in, you know, our laws. Or going back to 1992 and the LA riots after the acquittal of the officers involved in the Rodney King incident). Whether "white" people are responsible for the disproportionate commission of crimes by certain minorities due to profiling, coercion, economic exploitation, or any other means (an extremely popular idea with the thought-police, though certainly a debatable explanation), the fact remains that it is an observed phenomenon. Hyper-sensitive inferences and knee-jerk accusations of racism aside, was there anything substantive about Nicholas Stix's posts that you take issue with? Factual inaccuracies, logical fallacies, etc? If so, do you think it might be more productive and civil to discuss those instead of simply crying "RACIST!"?
For my part, not surprisingly, it is only part one of Mr. Stix's post with which I generally agree. The rest is a kind of bizarre and somewhat paranoid list of inuendo and conspiracy theory not supported (or supportable) by facts.
Jeff,
I'm not taking sides with anyone. However, I do think Mr. Stix raises some valid (or at least interesting) points. Like I said though, if you disagree, I would be interested in hearing specific facts that he's cited, or logical conclusions with which you take issue, and why, instead of simply name-calling. Simply labeling someone a racist, bizarre, paranoid conspiracy theorist doesn't really raise any issues as to what he actually said.
I never called him any of those things, what I wrote was "the rest [of his post] was a kind of bizarre and paranoid list." I dealt with the specifics (his allegation that NY is not safer and that the NYPD is cooking the books) in a previous post. I need not repeat myself.
Dear Mr Mulligan, the only thing I know about Mr Stix is the article he wrote about “intelligence” which I refer to in my post, and his posts here.
I’m trying to work out how else I could ‘interpret’ what he has said in both.
Here is what he said above: “Between the demagogues, who threatened to burn the city down [blacks], and the despicable, racist media that supported them [Jews, it sounds to me], Giuliani was faced with the sort of organized hatred [by the above races, perhaps?] that would guaranteed the failure of many a strong man. Indeed, as I have written, I think had I faced such organized evil, [they] might have ended up eating the business end of a .38.” The square brackets are mine.
It seems to me that the ‘slur’ racist was invoked by Mr Stix, not me.
If you choose to construe what else I have said in the manner you have, that is your prerogative. However, to get a better perspective of my position, perhaps I should send you a copy of my book – it will undoubtedly dispel your delusions of my position. I’ll send it ‘gratis’ as they say over here in “fascist, thought-policing Europe” – a description, I should add, on which I pretty much agree with you.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com