Exactly right

Reader comment on: Why I Am Not a Republican

Submitted by John Gillis (United States), Aug 7, 2015 17:45

It is for exactly those two reasons, immigration and abortion that I could never be a Republican. It is why I am a Tea Party advocate (because that is about small government and fiscal restraint) but never a Republican.

Both of these conservative issues show the terrible philosophical premises of conservatism. In immigration, conservatives reject the Jeffersonian idea that ALL humans have rights, and specifically have the right to life (which implies the right to labor and movement). Opening our borders would not only be the right moral thing to do but the right practical thing as well.

In abortion the conservatives do the opposite of immigration (where they deny a human right), they invent a right for a someday human. While a fetus clearly evolves into a human being, the whole religious idea that a few cells that occur after the uniting of an egg and fetus IS a baby is a senseless position. At the same time the conservatives, so concerned about the rights of a future potential human, deny that the actual human involved -- the mother -- has any right to make choices in her life. They raise the potential onto a pedestal while throwing the actual human into the dirt. I hate to say that the Dems are right, but the phony "war on women" actually is real in this one respect: the Republicans reject a mother's right to her body and her life.

(Of course, by these two positions, I'm sure conservatives out there wouldn't want me in the Repub party, so I guess they can be happy that I'm not.)

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Other reader comments on this item

Title	By	Date
Putting debates in context. [54 words]	DonM	Aug 17, 2015 01:09
Comment on comments [w/response] [99 words]	Peter Pollak	Aug 9, 2015 19:08
I agree [47 words]	Pat	Aug 8, 2015 23:39
Seriously; Why I am no longer a Republican after 35 years. [663 words]	donald larson	Aug 7, 2015 21:44
All Winners at First GOP Debate [62 words]	donald larson	Aug 7, 2015 20:37
republican debate [107 words]	herman kaufman	Aug 7, 2015 18:13
↔ the failure of the debatesth [117 words]	Herman Kaufman	Aug 10, 2015 10:56
⇒ Exactly right [267 words]	John Gillis	Aug 7, 2015 17:45
↔ Six of One - - Half Dozen of Another [145 words]	donald larson	Aug 9, 2015 18:33

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