The Myth of Justice Souter as a Yankee Republican:
Some people say that Justice Souter is a Yankee Republican, and that he seems like a liberal only because the GOP has shifted so far to the right. In an earlier day, the argument runs, he would have been considered a Justice on the conservative side. I confess I find this claim puzzling, and I wanted to offer some thoughts about why.
First, consider the fact that the two Justices on the current Court who vote most frequently with each other are often Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg. Looking at the current Supreme Court Term, for example, the Souter/Ginsburg pairing is the most common: They have fully agreed with each other 88% of the time. The next closest pairings are Scalia/Roberts at 83%, Roberts/Alito at 81%, and Thomas/Scalia at 79%.
I think it is generally recognized that Justice Ginsburg is not a Yankee Republican, and that she would not have been a Republican if the GOP had not become more conservative. Everyone pretty much agrees that Justice Ginsburg is very much a Democrat and at least somewhere on the left. But if the Souter/Ginsburg pairing is the closest pairing on the Court, closer than Thomas/Scalia, then isn't it a little strange to say that one is a liberal Democrat but the other is a Yankee Republican who only "seems" liberal?
Next, consider the cliche that it's Justice Kennedy's Court, and that the really big ideological cases are likely to be 5-4. That cliche has some force because in big ideological cases, Justice Souter is a safe vote for the liberal side. Souter is part of the "four" on the left side of the Court that makes Kennedy the swing vote. If there's a case about affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, federalism, takings, the Second Amendment, or any other "hot" area, everyone simply assumes that Justice Souter is voting for the liberal side. Usually there's no debate on this: You know where Souter is coming out, because that's where he pretty much always comes out in the big ideological cases.
Making broad claims of ideology can be tricky business, so a few caveats are in order. Perhaps Justice Souter has policy views that are different from his legal views. Or perhaps he has traditionally Republican views on some policy issues that don't come up in Supreme Court cases. And there are always various strains within ideologies; A moderate liberal might seem almost conservative to someone far on the left. Still, just based on his votes — which is the usual way to measure and discuss a Justice's ideology — it seems to me that Justice Souter has voted as a reliably liberal Justice.
First, consider the fact that the two Justices on the current Court who vote most frequently with each other are often Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg. Looking at the current Supreme Court Term, for example, the Souter/Ginsburg pairing is the most common: They have fully agreed with each other 88% of the time. The next closest pairings are Scalia/Roberts at 83%, Roberts/Alito at 81%, and Thomas/Scalia at 79%.
I think it is generally recognized that Justice Ginsburg is not a Yankee Republican, and that she would not have been a Republican if the GOP had not become more conservative. Everyone pretty much agrees that Justice Ginsburg is very much a Democrat and at least somewhere on the left. But if the Souter/Ginsburg pairing is the closest pairing on the Court, closer than Thomas/Scalia, then isn't it a little strange to say that one is a liberal Democrat but the other is a Yankee Republican who only "seems" liberal?
Next, consider the cliche that it's Justice Kennedy's Court, and that the really big ideological cases are likely to be 5-4. That cliche has some force because in big ideological cases, Justice Souter is a safe vote for the liberal side. Souter is part of the "four" on the left side of the Court that makes Kennedy the swing vote. If there's a case about affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, federalism, takings, the Second Amendment, or any other "hot" area, everyone simply assumes that Justice Souter is voting for the liberal side. Usually there's no debate on this: You know where Souter is coming out, because that's where he pretty much always comes out in the big ideological cases.
Making broad claims of ideology can be tricky business, so a few caveats are in order. Perhaps Justice Souter has policy views that are different from his legal views. Or perhaps he has traditionally Republican views on some policy issues that don't come up in Supreme Court cases. And there are always various strains within ideologies; A moderate liberal might seem almost conservative to someone far on the left. Still, just based on his votes — which is the usual way to measure and discuss a Justice's ideology — it seems to me that Justice Souter has voted as a reliably liberal Justice.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Is Justice Souter a "Burkean" Conservative?
- The Myth of Justice Souter as a Yankee Republican:
The object of Yankee hate.
Couldn't say I'd blame him.
The Republican party of today is the southern wing of the Democrat party of the 1940s and 1950s. Strom Thurmond felt very comfortable as a Democrat in 1960 and a Republican in 1990.
That is, the Republicans have moved to the right. And it left Spector.
I think, were he just getting into politics, Senator Byrd would come up as a Republican.
It used to be John McCain who was brought up this way when talking about George W. Bush too, which is funny given how he was subsequently vilified.
Souter is too far left to be part of this conversation though.
That said, I think your caveats you mention give rise to a lot more uncertainty than you give them credit for, at least in my mind. Law and politics are not exactly equivalent. One can have a stereotypically "liberal" approach to Constitutional and statutory interpretation and have conservative policy preferences. (Indeed, I seem to recall those who take a "conservative" approach to interpretation arguing that such and such result is necessary as a matter of law, even though they do not like that result as a matter of policy. I am thinking especially about Justice Scalia with respect to various Constitutional criminal procedure cases, as an example. Likewise, I imagine that one could have a "conservative" approach to Constitutional and statutory interpretation, and yet have "liberal" policy preferences. At least, I think, that this is one of the points Justice Scalia makes (I think correctly) in A Matter of Interpretation.
Of course, lets get real for a second. It does seem that at the end of the day, the main thing that seems to drive people to particular interpretative approaches is their politics. Conservatives are very much aware of the "convenient" fact that certain "neutral" interpretive methodologies they prefer (or even self-righteously proclaim are the only legitimate methodologies) tend to lead to policy results that are pleasing to conservatives (even if in particular cases those methodologies lead to results that liberals would like better or just as common, results that no one likes -- this is a small price to pay for a methodology that leads to pleasing results from a conservative perspective in the majority of cases). Likewise, liberals are very much aware that the interpretative methodologies they endorse enable liberal results (but also, I think enable a lot of other potential results -- like libertarian results -- think about Lochner.)
I am not saying that every single conservative and every single liberal chooses their interpretative methodology based on policy preferences. I just think that is true in the vast majority of instances. I for one don't buy into conservative interpretative methodologies independently of my policy preferences, because I think conservatives tend to fail to recognize that the choices they make in interpretation are actually choices and not necessarily objectively required by text, precedent, and other objective evidence of law. (That is, I think conservative too easily believe that certain result, which so often just "conveniently" happen to mirror their own policy preferences, are compelled by the rule of law.) But, I think the correlation between interpretative methodologies and political preference it too deeply ingrained for their not to be causation in the real world. That is, political preference causes people to favor particular interpretative methodologies (and rarely vice-versa and rarely is the issue of interpretative methodology truly divorced from what results one things is likely, most of the time, by choosing a particular methodology.)
Anyway, Orin is asserting that Souter is not a Yankee Republican. He is probably right. Because if Souter were a Yankee Republican, he probably would have chosen more "conservative" interpretative methodologies. But, I think it is at least possible that Souter is a Yankee Republican but has chosen more "liberal" interpretative methodologies despite his policy preferences, because he thinks that those interpretative methodologies are better without taking into consideration his policy preferences. I think that anyone who thinks that Law and Politics can be separated (at least in theory, even if all to little in fact) -- like I believe Orin does -- must at least concede that is a possibility.
Anyway, maybe I should start trying to reform this bad habit instead of apologizing after the fact. That is a thought...
You listed six moderate Democrats and suggeted that the split would have been 50:50 a decade ago. Yet I would note that of the six you list, three are actually the children of other prominent Democrats (Casey, Jr., Landrieu, and Begich).
Lincoln is from the southern state where the Republicans have had the hardest time getting traction (politics in Arkansas is still very territorial and Bill Clinton used his immense political skills to keep his home state blue).
Montana has had a progressive Democratic party (think Mike Mansfield) that is curmudgeonly conservative in its own ways on certain issues important to the west. Tester fits in that tradition.
That leaves Webb. In another era, he may have been a Republican (he did serve in the sub-cabinet of a Republican President, though as a "Reagan Democrat"). But Virginia has been finely balanced and could probably still fit in with the Virginia Republicans if he tried. So I will give you one of the six you named.
Anybody who thinks McCain 'became a W clone' needs to get their head out of MoveOn press releases. McCain didn't significantly alter his opposition to torture, was a pivotal member of the gang of 14, was out of step with Bush on climate change and was moderate on a number of other issues. This blog isn't redstate or dailykos and lets not reduce it to that level.
@DaveN
The Lincoln thing doesn't fly with me. Republicans used to have difficulty getting traction in Louisiana as well but have made major strides as they started solidifying the south. I don't see why Arkansas should be an exception. Democrats have also been a fairly strong party in Montana but Tester's victory is illustrative of the fact that the dems have ridden Bush fatigue and a big tent strategy to their current majority. Despite changing demographics/party affiliation in Colorado the same is true of Udall. Bennet will be a good test in the upcoming election. Otherwise there are more moderates I can name (this isn't to say the republicans don't have any - Snowe/Collins/McCain/Graham are some obvious ones) who the dems have built their majority on - Hagan, the Nelsons, Warner, Bayh, etc.
That John McCain was moderate on a number of issues makes him precisely no different than George W. Bush, who was also moderate on a number of issues. I agree that John McCain never became a Bush clone, but it is quite clear that he shifted many of his positions (like his opposition to the Bush tax cuts) in an attempt succeed politically rather than as a matter of principle.
Pre-campaign, McCain took the position that the US should not use coercive interrogation techniques, both the military and the CIA. In the campaign, he limited this to the military (exempting the CIA). Seems like he was for outlawing torture before the campaign but open to and/or supportive of it during the campaign. I'd call that a significant change.
There are still plenty of conservative Democrats. They are just too attached to their old resentments to leave, and their new masters are in no hurry to force them too.
Indeed there are, and quite a few liberal Republicans as well, though very few holding elected office in D.C. Partly that's a function of regional variations - if you're running as a Republican in Vermont you're not going to be able to run on an Alabama Republican platform, partly it's a function of different meanings of "conservative" and partly it's a function of one's priority. If you think abortion is murder and stopping it by any means possible means more to you than all other issues, then you're probably going to vote Republican even if you take liberal positions on every other issue.
You've just nailed a very widely disseminated talking point.
Pre-campaign McCain was against using cruel and inhumane treatment and he stayed true to that position during the campaign. The point of evidence used by McCain opponents during the campaign as evidence of his 'shift' was his vote against the bill to limit interrogative techniques to those listed in the army field manual. He was fairly clear that he already opposed torture under the DTA and believed the bill was too restrictive because it constricted interrogators to only listed military techniques even in non military situations (a distinguishable and reasonable position). He also came out again against waterboarding during that vote/episode. McCain never made a blanket declaration against all interrogative techniques nor did he ever give the CIA unlimited discretion in the matter.
Otherwise the question was about McCain as a moderate and whether or not he ever stopped being one. If you believe Bush was a moderate (a somewhat tenable position considering his cavalier spending and views on immigration) then its hard argue that McCain wasn't. He certainly wasn't a Bush clone.
Cornellian's point on the increased alignment of ideology and party is well taken.
Not that Andrea Mitchell's the final authority on these issues. Just saying, though.
In any case, to echo a thought above, the Democrats are obviously the big tent party these days. Y'all see this little development, reported by the AP, on the Prairie last month?
"Democrat Schweitzer" signed a pro-gun bill that he emphasized was really about state sovereignty. Democrat Schweitzer. Let that sink in a bit.
Who are these people? Are they the same people who in 2004 tried to portray Sen. John Kerry (lifetime ACU rating of 6) as a "centrist"?
So how about "Herbert Hoover republicans..."
It was accepted for publication by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and then withdrawn by the author at the insistence of Edith Jones
As for the idea of making Bush's term permanent, nobody wants an arrogant Chief Executive who spites our closest allies and succeeds at nothing beyond grabbing power and running up deficits, but replacing him with Bush isn't the answer. We'll just have to vote him out in 2012 (assuming he doesn't get caught up in any of the criminal investigations into Blago, Richardson, TARP, or Edwards, or any of the scandals we have to look forward to from Dodd, Murtha, Burris, Frank, Fannie Mae, and the tax cheatingest cabinet in history, or maybe some as-yet unknown criminal activity from his last 1360 days in office).
The correlation between Souter's voting record and Ginsberg's is I think more revealing. But again I suspect even Ginsberg would have been a moderate on the Warren Court.
I agree it's unlikely Souter considers himself a Republican, but I don't think it's at all unlikely he considered himself one when Bush Sr. nominated him.
fir=> fitSouter comes from a part of the Republican party that does not exist anymore. It was destroyed by Buckley and movement conservatives who saw Rockefeller and John Lindsay as the enemy, not as a marginal ally, and the New Deal tradition as descent into socialism, rather than an accepted political reality.
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I'd say that over the last 30-40 years or so, the Democrats have historically demanded fealty to the most extreme leftist positions. That may be starting to change, we'll see.
After the 2000 census, Michigan lost a couple congressional seats, and the Republicans controlled state government, so they pitted sitting Demos against each other, as per usual practice. One of these matchups was to be David Bonior v. Sander Levin... both liberal... not much daylight between them politically.
But Bonior was a far sharper political operative, by a large margin, and Levin is not even a patch to his brother Carl. Sander is basically a worthless stooge, while Bonior was extremely effective to his cause. However, Bonior is pro-life, and this apostasy on just the one issue caused the dogmatists to force him to withdraw. Here, they chose ideology over function, for sure. I think this is why you saw "Bush" gains in 2002 and 2004, not because anybody liked him/them, but because their opponents were weakening themselves and running poor candidates.
In 2006, you have to give Schumer credit, because he put a stop to many of these stupid practices, and drew from a more divergent candidate base. But, this hasn't been their historical practice, it's only a recent (2 elections) development.
But if you accept Blue Dogs into the fold, you accept Blue Dog politics, which will tend to temper the extreme Left, as we're seeing.
Well, as a supporter of free speech, I'll defend your right to say that. Even if it is barking nonsense that is completely disconnected to reality.
Two words: "Clinton" "Triangulation" . You do remember the 90's, don't you?
Or to give a more direct counterexample to your Bonier-Levin example, there was John Dingle v Lynn Rivers, two Democratic representatives who's districts were similarly combined by redistricting the same year. Rivers is a down-the-line University town liberal who among other things favored gun control while Dingle was endorsed by the NRA (cf "apostacy" above).
Guess who won? Hint: he's still in congress today.
For starters, their Senate majority leader is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, anti-gay marriage.
Clinton was the exception proving the rule, and likely an early precursor to what Schumer was speaking of in the runup to the '06 election. You do remember the wailing when he signed that welfare reform bill don't you? And you remember who was doing the wailing, don't you?
The Left may be evolving from their historical stridency, but it's too early to say.
"Souter comes from a part of the Republican party that does not exist anymore. It was destroyed by Buckley and movement conservatives who saw Rockefeller and John Lindsay as the enemy, not as a marginal ally, and the New Deal tradition as descent into socialism, rather than an accepted political reality."
Maybe. My guess is that the old usual suspects upon which Yankees with a certain self-regard used to look down their noses became unfashionable, so they chose the old standby, Southerners, undifferentiated, thereby not noticing that it was the Southern liberals (the New South, too busy to hate crowd) who had become Republican, while the old haters there remain steadfastly Democrat, unwilling to relinquish their age-old resentments. Now the country-club Yankees have joined them.
There are many things to be said about such a coalition, but "progressive" isn't one of them.
Being a Republican and being a conservative are by no means the same thing, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Souter still thinks of himself as a Republican. (I have no idea if he does. I'm just saying that it wouldn't surprise me. I've often heard that Stevens still considers himself a Republican, so perhaps Souter is similar.)
I never believed that McCain was a moderate Republican. What he was was a Republican who had no, or limited allegiance to Bush and his allies.
Like any other politician, McCan does not agree with his party 100%. Most members of Congress, however, tend to play down their differences with their parties for a variety of reasons from party loyalty to need for party support in elections, committee appointments, or getting a few important issues on the party agenda.
After the 2000 election, it appeared that McCain had a falling out with Bush and the GOP leadership and decided, for whatever reason, that he was no longer interested in cooperating. This could have been a political calculation, that they weren't going to do him any favors any way, it could have been out of spite for tactics used during the primary, or it could be for some reason unknown to me. As a result, when he disagreed with the party line, McCain was not easily pulled into place and often went out on his own, even when his own plan was not significantly different than Bush's (see e.g., the Bush tax cuts).
Of course the media loved him for this, "Republican Senator Comes Out Against Republican President's Initiative" is essentially a "man bites dog story," and arguably many members of the media didn't quite mind making Bush look bad. I tend to think that this reinforced McCain's "mavrickness" because he realized that, by opposing Bush, he would get media coverage, and so opposed Bush more often to get more media coverage (and later to distinguish himself from an unpopular president). Many Democrats saw this and assumed that it was because he was moderate, not because he was not, at the time, a party loyalist, despite still sharing a majority of his views with the GOP.
When it came time to run for election, he became the GOP leadership. As a result, it was no longer possible to benefit from playing his small differences with the party leadership, now himself. Also, like any other candidate, he shifted his public views somewhat to fit what he believed would get him elected, in this case towards the conservative end of the spectrum. It probably didn't help that the media had moved on to a new darling, Obama, leaving his media image as just another Republican.
The decision has not been discussed as much as I would have expected, but it deserves more attention. My contacts with law enforcement indicate they are often taking it as license to fulfill the old cop saying, "You might beat the rap but you won't beat the ride," and to use arrests to harass people they don't like, especially political dissenters or critics of police abuse or local judges. They have discovered they can arrest the same person repeatedly as a way to oppress him, knowing he will be released without charge in a few days, but at great expense and loss of earnings. I have gotten reports of this happening with increasing frequency, often used to keep targets in jail more days than they are free, until they are driven to move away to escape the targeting.
I would be interested in what Souter would say about his opinion in that case if he had a change to review cases of what police have done with it.
Right. What I hear you saying in this post is that there's a connection between the politics of, say, Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896 railing against the Northern elite (Republican) bankers and businessmen for their arrogance and condescention towards working class whites, and a modern Republican like Limbaugh, mocking the effete intellectual brahmins for basically the same thing. The great reversal of politics in the American south is that whereas for Bryan, the condescention of the elites was primarily understood as an economic issue, starting in the 1960s the Republican party learned to channel that sense of cultural resentment and use it to pursue an economic agenda that was the exact opposite of Bryan's. Souter is part of the generation of Republicans that got caught in between, a clear brahmin elite who saw the Republican party as the party of responsible government, not part of a aggressive conservative agenda. He came of age politically in the early 1960s, his influences and supporters were men like Warren Rudman, a Republican governor of New Hampshire who has essentially become a Democrat and was talked about as a possible Kerry running mate.
All of those people are now liberals. Snowe and Collins hang on - for now - because of the power of the incumbancy and a certain nostaglia for that old kind of politics. But for those impacts, Republicans would be completely washed out of New England. So it's not surprising that Souter's path has been exactly the same as the rest of Republican New England.
You think the solid Eastern Republicans of the 1960s would have identified with a MoveOn dominated foreign policy that places the blame for every one of the world's ills at the feet of the United States? Would have stood, for one minute, with the hemming and hawing of the Democrats over the prosecution of the war against the terrorists post-9/11? Would have given a rats ass over the waterboarding of KSM? Would be willing to sacrifice American industry for the epherma of "climate change"? Would have stood for a single rock-ribbed minute for the stimulus package passed by the Democrats?
Today's social class that once formed the basis of the Rockefeller Republican party has fundamentally changed; they are not their parents. They were raised in a media and education bubble that was completely infiltrated--in classic Gramscian fashion--by the ideals of the far left. The corrosive effect of decades of NY Times editorials and other establishment vehicles taken over by the left has wrecked havoc on the beliefs and values of these people. So much so that they are now completely unable to understand that they are supporting candidates whose policies are directly against their economic interests. Their paychecks will be smaller, their health care worse, their children less likely to matriculate at elite schools, their businesses less likely to recieve government contracts.
What's the matter with Kansas? Absurd. What's the matter with Westchester County, that's the real question.
You don't know what you're talking about. Ginsburg has never expressed doubt about Roe in any Supreme Court opinion (while a law professor, she merely said that maybe the Court should have taken a more gradual approach). Ginsburg has indeed been a staunch vote for abortion rights, gay rights, employment discrimination law, forbidding single-sex schools, etc. The ONLY way in which she (or the other Supreme Court liberals) wouldn't match Brennan/Marshall is that they're not quite as gung-ho about using the 4th Amendment in all cases to throw out evidence, nor is it quite as obvious that they will vote to make the death penalty unconstitutional (although the current liberals do vote for every restriction on the death penalty that comes up).
Otherwise, Ginsburg/Souter/Stevens have just been preserving the liberal decisions of the Warren Court. That doesn't make them "significantly further right in most areas" in any way whatsoever.
Yes. Don't take my word for it, ask Warren Rudman or Lincoln Chaffee or John Lindsay or Edward Brooke. Or for that matter David Souter! This isn't ancient history here, most of these people are still alive, and most of them are voting for Democrats.
No, but that's not a fair characterization of Democratic foreign policy (or move on, for that matter).
Would have stood for the rule of law and in defense of the Convention Against Torture, signed by Ronald Reagan, and the Geneva Conventions? Absolutely.
Again, the party of TR would absolutely have stood for real science and a truly conservative, risk-adverse, protective approach to changes in the environment. Absolutely.
Again, as the defining characteristic of Rockefeller Republican was their acceptance of the New Deal, as opposed the Goldwater resistance to it, it is absolutely the case that a Rockefeller Republican would logically support Keynesian eonomics.
Your post is ironically a perfect reflection of how far to the right the Republican party has moved.
That is, politicians like McConnel and Boehner are on the reactionary right. And they are in the mainstream of the Republican party. Tom Hayden and Dennis Kucinich are on the hard left, but they are on the fringe of the Democrat party.
William Buckley was always to the far right. That Republicans identify with him says alot about the party.
Karl Marx was/is the far left. There are not many Democrats who would cite his theories as the best theories of government.
So, yes, Souter is conservative. Roe v. Wade is, essentially, a centrist position (although arguably a bad decision on federalism grounds).
But conservative political thought, and with it, the Republican party, has moved away from him?
And most of them have also drunk deeply of the far-left media establishment since the 1960s and 1970s. They've "evolved" as well.l
That's right, everyone who disagrees with you has been brainwashed by the elite. Even if they clearly have the same position on, say, Keynesian economics that they had in 1964.
The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.
This post mixes two things 1) Whether Souter is a "Yankee Republican" and 2) whether the GOP has shifted so far to the right.
But it takes the cake to say this: Roe v. Wade is, essentially, a centrist position (although arguably a bad decision on federalism grounds).
Has there EVER been a Supreme Court decision more hated and more controversial than Roe (and not only because of its shoddy reasoning, but because of its actual effect)? I only think Dred Scott comes close. Only the most deluded would think that it's a centrist position.
But, as I said, people seem to think that they're engaged in P.R. here, spinning the agenda, setting a "frame" for the debate, moving the goalposts, whatever. You guys overestimate your importance.
Just because Roe v. Wade is hated, does not make it a left/right position.
On the issue of abortion, the end result of Roe was centrist. I would posit that, were Roe not there, the law in most the states would allow for abortion. The way the justices got there was anti-federalist.
There are many pro-choice people (such as, me) out there who do not like the way Roe was written.
Given that it is still good law, I would not say that it is so hated.
As for other hated cases: Brown v. Board, Katzenbach, Miranda, Gideon, Lochner, Marbury, Plessy, the Indian case in the 1820s (that Jackson ignored), some of the New Deal decisions, Wickard... The list goes on.
This was read as a law and order, tough on crime commitment. His clean and bare papertrail also make his confirmation easier.
As for other hated cases: Brown v. Board, Katzenbach, Miranda, Gideon, Lochner, Marbury, Plessy, the Indian case in the 1820s (that Jackson ignored), some of the New Deal decisions, Wickard... The list goes on.
I'm sorry, but that is an incredibly short sighted and deluded worldview. The fact that it's "good law" doesn't mean squat. There is only one case in America that has millions of people marching on Washington to the foot of the Supreme Court building every year: the March for Life, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Nobody in the country has been protesting Wickard for decades. Nobody is protesting any other case in the country. And apart from Dred Scott, no other case in the country has been as more divisive or controversial, or more strongly rejected by large majorities of the non-lawyer populace.
Get out of your hole. If you can name one case that has attracted the attention that Roe v. Wade has, consistent with the yearly opposition as seen in the March For Life, then maybe I'll consider it.
You are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that Yankee Republican = modern conservative. They don't. The Republican Party has moved to the right and toward conservatism. As it has done so, it has moved away from Yankee Republicans. That's why they're all Democrats now.
My grandfather once held elective office as a Democrat (because during FDR's reign that was pretty much a prerequisite for any sort of public service in his area of the country), but by the 1950s he was calling himself an "Eisenhower Republican." Which is a phrase I haven't heard in many years, and frankly I never figured out what it meant - perhaps internationalism and strong defense, economic conservatism (e.g., the "nine businessmen and a plumber" cabinet), and social issues moderation (including support for civil rights)? Regardless, I think the concept, whatever it was, probably died with Goldwater's nomination, or at the latest sometime before Nixon's resignation?
We have millions who hate the result of Roe v. Wade and millions who like the result of Roe v. Wade. The best that can be said (from the anti-Roe crowd) is that the country is split 50/50 on abortion policy. How more centrist can you get?
Roe is not opposed by a "majority". It is questionable whether a a large percentage of the country would vote to make abortions illegal in the first trimester, even were Roe not on the books. The political landscape is a little askew, as pro-choicers have no incentive to march, they have the law.
As for hate, you did not ask for the currently most hated decision, just the most hated decision. There were riots as a result of Brown. I have yet to see an anti-Roe riot.
Currently, a minorty of the population supports abortion. A majority oppose it. This goes up and down. But it is inaccurate to say that a small minorty opposes abortion.
The best that can be said (from the anti-Roe crowd) is that the country is split 50/50 on abortion policy. How more centrist can you get?
Centrist means "middle of the road policy." If 50% of the populace opposes abortion policy, and 50% support it, that says nothing about whether the policy itself is extreme or not, as the 50% supporting the policy could be extreme themselves. In fact, the half-split strongly suggests that the current policy is not "centrist," because it draws support from neither side.
Anyway, all you're doing is more "framing." Nobody is going to believe you on it.
Huh? If 1/2 support a policy, then, by definition it is not extreme.
As for abortion, if you ask the question properly, only a small portion of society opposes abortion. That is, those who would oppose abortion even in the case of rape or incest, and even if not having an abortion would kill the mother.
There is no-one out there who is pro-abortion (well, maybe there are a few). That is, people who would have all pregnant women, no matter the circumstances, have an abortion.
Everyone else is pro-choice, with the only question being where to draw the line. I would guess that:
95% are for allowing abortion if it would save the life of the mother.
90% are for allowing abortions in the case of rape or incest.
65% are for allowing abortion in the first trimester.
40% are for allowing abortion at the discretion of the mother with no restrictions.
Even Sarah Palin is pro-choice. She has said that her daughter made the right choice in having her baby, and that she made the right choice in not aborting her sure-to-be disabled child.
The key is that it is the choice of the mother.
5 people want to murder you, 5 others want you to live. I guess the "pro-murder" policy isn't extreme.
There is no-one out there who is pro-abortion (well, maybe there are a few).
There are plenty of people who are pro-abortion:
As for the rest of your post..
Everyone else is pro-choice, with the only question being where to draw the line. I would guess that:
I post a link to an actual, current poll on this matter, and you're guessing? I guess facts don't matter in the way of your spin, with thie stupid attempt to claim that everyone is pro-abortion unless they favor 100% restriction on abortion. God, you must think we're all idiots.
Yup, you're engaged in spin. This is ludicrous. Good luck selling that line to your fellow libs. Hey libs: there was no reason to oppose Palin so strongly, because Allan says she's pro-choice! Who would've thought? Thanks Allan!
On social and moral issues it has shifted far to the left. I can't really imagine Calvin Coolidge or Robert Taft as backers of abortion rights or gay marriage. (It is true that from the 1920s onward Yankee Republicanism often had a pro-contraceptive tinge to it, but the leading backers were those - like Nelson Rockefeller - who were not regarded as very conservative even at the time.)
On race things have shifted so much that the once common openly segregationist politician is now an extinct species. However, the GOP has probably shifted slightly to the right in that while 1960s and 1970s Republicans (even, or indeed especially, Nixon) were generally supportive of affirmative action, this is no longer the case.
On economics there was for some time a decided shift to the right. Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Goldwater accepted rates in the top income tax bracket that Barack Obama would never dare to suggest today. But heedless of national trends, some states shifted to the left - Bernie Sanders could never have gotten elected in one of the two states that voted for Alf Landon. And now, with bailouts, possible bank nationalizations, etc., we are possibly seeing a big shift back to the left.
On foreign policy there has been a shift that many today would call ultra-conservative but that the Old Right would not have. Torture/enhanced interrogation, preemptive war, presidential powers, etc.
Finally, while many Yankee Republicans were admirably in the forefront of full rights for blacks, they were certainly not a group immune from prejudice. Many quite liberal Yankees stayed Republican to keep away from the party of Catholics and white Southerners, and when the former became a swing group and the latter outright Republican, the Yankees moved away.
So in short, what party would a hypothetical Souter of bygone years supported, and what have would been the reasoning behind his choice? We can't say, because there are too many variables.
Political alignments are always shifting and evolving on ideological and policy grounds. This has been going on forever. And politicians on the margins of these shifts are sometimes squeezed out.
Let's not forget that six months ago Joe Lieberman, recently on the Democratic Presidential ticket, was speaking at the Republican convention bemoaning his party over a perceived loss of identity, priorities, etc (coupled with his own desire for survival against left-wing challenges from within). Add this to the laundry list of southern populist, western libertarians and others who have either switched to the Republican Party, retired, maintained a disgruntled stance or gone rabid dog crazy over the fact (Zell Miller).
Anyway, just politics as usual.
Somebody please wake me when this basket of laundry has finished the spin cycle and it's time to put a new load in.
With abortion, there are extreme positions, e.g., everyone should get an abortion, abortions should be legal without any restrictions, abortions should be banned even when they are necessary to save the life of the mother, abortion doctors should be killed, etc. The idea that abortions should be essentially unrestricted during the first trimester, with increasing restrictions as time goes on, is pretty much the middle of the road on the abortion debate, and also the position espoused by Roe v. Wade.
Now being "centrists" does not mean that a position is correct. The centrist position about slavery in 1850 was that the slaves should be freed, but not treated equally, whereas equal rights for all former slaves was an extremest position. Today, most would agree that the extremist answer was the right answer with regards to slavery.
The articles you cited are pro-choice. They are for destigmatizing abortions. They are not advocating abortions for everyone. Consequently, they are not pro-abortion (as the only choice available).
Your polls support me.
16% say abortion should be illegal in all cases.
Everyone else is pro-choice and the only question is where to draw the line.
In your opinion, is someone who thinks abortion in the 3rd trimester, but not before, pro-choice or anti-abortion? In my book, that person is pro-choice.
In your opinion, is someone who thinks abortion should be allowed in the first trimester, but not thereafter, pro-choice or anti-abortion? In my book, that person is pro-choice.
In your opinion, is someone who thinks abortion should be allowed only in the case of rape or incest pro-choice or anti-abortion? In my book, that person is pro-choice.
In your opinion, is someone who thinks that abortion should be an option if the choice is abortion or death to the mother pro-choice or anti-abortion? In my opinion, that person is pro-choice.
In your opinion, if someone thinks abortion should never be allowed, is the person pro-choice or anti-abortion? In my book, that person is anti-abortion. And that is about 16% of the population.
I suppose that there are people who are for abortion in all cases, but I have never heard of one. When you find one, please let me know.
That's my point. I'm not the one saying that a 50/50 split means that the split means the dispute reflects a "centrist" policy. Take it up with Allan.
The idea that abortions should be essentially unrestricted during the first trimester, with increasing restrictions as time goes on, is pretty much the middle of the road on the abortion debate, and also the position espoused by Roe v. Wade.
A common fallacy. Roe v. Wade should be read with Doe v. Bolton, which gutted the trimester proposition and opened the door to 9th month abortions because of "mental health" reasons. There are no temporal restrictions on abortion at all in America.
That is, where would you say the "center" is on the abortion issue? And, if you would like, please explain. Perhaps I can be persuaded.
What I was saying is that where a position splits the country 50/50, it is not an extremist position.
A common fallacy. Roe v. Wade should be read with Doe v. Bolton, which gutted the trimester proposition and opened the door to 9th month abortions because of "mental health" reasons. There are no temporal restrictions on abortion at all in America.
Doe v. Bolton did limit the types of restrictions that can be put, even on 3rd trimester abortions, but the restrictions are still there. That those restrictions have been loosely enforced does not mean that they are not applicable.
16% say abortion should be illegal in all cases.
Everyone else is pro-choice and the only question is where to draw the line.
More "framing," or spin as they call it. Look, Allan, it is fundamentally dishonest of you to claim that only 16% of the population is pro-life, and the rest are pro-choice. That is just not the way those terms are used in everyday discourse, which is why I objected to your post in the beginning. You're a spin artist. NOBODY is going to believe or agree with you that only 16% of the country is pro-life. It's just not in the cards, notwithstanding your deluded allegiance to your self-invented definitions.
The absurdity of your position is demonstrated by your pathetic attempt to claim Sarah Palin as pro-choice. Funny, that's not what NARAL thought when they attacked her, and they're the most pro-abortion people in the planet. In fact, they called her "anti-choice." Yup.
Any other libs here want to take up Allan's point that Sarah Palin is pro-choice? I didn't think so. It doesn't pass the laugh test.
In case it's not clear, I think you're a spin artist hack. No, I don't think you can be persuaded.
In part because Republicans have been unwililng to negotiate with the dozen or so Democrats who would be willing to sign on to a ban on third trimester abortions if it contained an exception for the health of the mother. Rather than agree to a compromise, the GOP evidently prefers to have no ban on partial birth abortion at all.
Crack,
Are you aware of any law restricting the temporal ability to get an abortion? That is, any law saying than an abortion after X date is illegal? I'm not aware of any.
I am not a spin artist. I am pro-choice. There are no pro-abortion people that I know of. There are some anti-abortion people.
The great majority of people support abortions in some cases. If they cannot be viewed as pro-choice, I don't know who can be.
NARAL does not speak for me. They should embrace Governor Palin's pro-choice position and engage in a debate on where to draw the line.
I can be persuaded that the line be drawn at one place or another. A ban on abortions in the third trimester, except for the health of the mother seems reasonable to me, for example. A ban on abortions altogether seems unreasonable to me. I would support somewhere in the middle, but the anti-abortion folks won't do it.
So, we are left with no abortion restrictions. To me, that is better than being left with no choice at all.
I don't think it makes any sense to try to debate with someone who is delusional enough to claim that Sarah Palin is pro-choice. Frankly, I think you're the only person on the planet who this that to be true.
I can't talk to you because you're not speaking the same language.
There are others with the same view (just a sampling of links):
Here you go:
Link 1
Link 2
Allan, I said you were a spin-doctor, and now you have proven it. Regarding Palin's speech at the pro-life fundraiser, it was unambiguously pro-life. The libs tried to spin it as pro-choice because she talked about the temptations inherent in the human condition. The conclusion in her address, however, was to promote a culture of life and reject such temptations. That the libs would spin that as pro-choice shows how far they have fallen.
More commentary on that spin here, for those who are interested.
Were we living in a state based upon the precepts of one religion, and it happened to be yours, abortion would be illegal, because, by definition, it would be immoral.
I reject the premise that abortion is immoral for all. Morality in a diverse society is a moving target. We do have some morals that transcend all beliefs, such as murder of a person who has been born is wrong and theft is wrong. Abortion is not one of those.
If you can succeed in persuading the vast majority of people in the US that abortion is morally wrong, making abortion illegal will follow. But, of course, if 100% of the people thought abortion was morally wrong, there would be no need for the law, as everyone would choose to have their baby.
Laws are in place so that society can function. Making some actions criminal, i.e., murder and theft, helps the society function better. Making abortion illegal does not help the society function better. Heck, I am not sure that making marijuana illegal makes society function better. Theoretically, making abortion illegal would do the opposite.
I commend the fight to have fewer abortions. I just don't think that it need be criminalized. Instead, the pro-life movement could work with the pro-choice movement to lessen the incidence of abortion. They can do that by funding (overfunding) alternatives, such as adoption and foster care, and health care for all pregnant women. In addition, there should be more assistance for families with children. Maybe that is a bit socialist. But if a bit of socialism would result in significantly less abortions, would it not be worth it? Maybe not. I don't know.
What I do know is that abortion is not a black or white issue and there is no easy answer.
It seems to me that the right metric, if we're talking about abortion, is what fraction of the citizens want an abortion regime more restrictive than Roe and subsequent decisions allow. I don't know what the most recent polls say here, but the older ones I remember showed large majorities in favor of restrictions that SCOTUS has disallowed.
I would bet that two-thirds or so of Americans would sign on to a proposal to allow abortion in the first three months only. That's not "consensus," but it's better than we have now. Only we can't have it, because Roe and Casey say no.
I would agree that it is a metric. I am not sure that it is the "right metric".
But what legal reasoning would allow for abortions in the first trimester and not more? Roe and Casey do say no.
Roe is bad for a number of reasons, and this is one of them. What is not bad is that it does not stop all abortions. But that does not lead me to support the ruling. Me wanting to get rid of Roe does not make me anti-abortion. Nor does wanting to criminalize abortions in the second trimester.
On the other hand, if I want to have a society with no abortions, but not to criminalize abortions, am I anti-abortion?
Calhoun and Davis may well have been pro-choice on slavery.
On the other hand, Jefferson has been posed as being anti-slavery, but he owned slaves. Damn hypocrite. He should be stripped of his title of "cool guy".
Those who were anti-slavery were truly anti-slavery. They meant: "no slaves under any circumstance." I would think that the anti-abortion supporters would have the same view.
But what legal reasoning would allow for abortions in the first trimester and not more? Roe and Casey do say no.
No "legal reasoning" would. But then no serious "legal reasoning" stood behind Roe's third-trimester cutoff either. My point wasn't about what the Constitution demands, but about what the public wants vs. what the Constitution is now read as demanding.
If "pro-choice" means you want abortion available in at least some circumstances, and "anti-abortion" means you oppose it anywhere and everywhere, of course the vast majority of Americans are "pro-choice." But if "pro-choice" means that you want American abortion law to be as it is or more relaxed, and "anti-abortion" means you would like it more restrictive than it now is, most Americans are "anti-abortion." Only, since the issue has been lifted out of the legislative sphere altogether, they can't legislate their preferences.
I think the country would be capable of making its own laws, state by state, in this matter; only since we've been told that the sort of law that most of Western Europe tolerates fairly well does violence (invisible, but none the better for that) to the Constitution, we can't.
Strom Thurmond joined the Republican party in 1954. As in so much of his life, here he was a trailblazer.
Are you aware of any law restricting the temporal ability to get an abortion? That is, any law saying than an abortion after X date is illegal? I'm not aware of any.
There are many such laws still on the books. They are unconstitutional to the extent that they do not have an exception for the health of the mother, which as you (DangerMouse) have said pretty much swallows any contrary rule.
I have not seen a poll of public opinion on the issue. I do know that the Democrats were tagged in 1972 as the party of "acid, amnesty (for draft evaders, not illegal immigrants) and abortion." Presumably whoever did the tagging thought that most people were against acid, amnesty and abortion. On the other hand, this suggests that changing abortion law was on the agenda in the early 1970s.
I was able to find a number of polls about whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and most came out 60/40 against overturning the decision. You can see the polls at http://pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
There are people who really don't care how close a fetus is to birth when they talk about abortion. Some take any human embryo to be a human child. They, at least, are human; they're putting a dividing line at the only place it's logical to put it: between the separate egg and sperm and the new combination of them. At the other end of the spectrum, I remember arguing ages ago with a fellow who insisted that a fetus wasn't a human life until it had drawn breath — citing the bit about "the breath of life" in Genesis as proof. This man would seriously have argued — indeed, did seriously argue — that a fetus was no more to be considered "alive" than a rock until it had drawn breath; you could strangle it neatly with the umbilical cord and treat the result as no more than a rather badly-made sculpture. Unless it managed to breathe, of course; then you were royally screwed.
The thing is, most of us are somewhere in the middle — not quite thinking of fertilized eggs as babies, certainly not thinking of full-term fetuses as "biological waste," but wanting in some way to protect what looks to us like human life. And Roe and its sequelae mean that we can't. Not even to the degree that Our Betters The Europeans do.
Most people, with good reason, don't want to see Supreme Court decisions overturned lightly. As regards Roe, there's the additional complication that a distressing number of people think that overturning Roe would instantly make all abortion illegal everywhere. Only a sliver of the electorate wants that.
Michelle Dulak Thomson: Most abortion polling is nearly useless to pinpoint what most people believe.
I was able to find a number of polls about whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and most came out 60/40 against overturning the decision. You can see the polls at http://pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
To be honest, I am surprised 40% think it should be overturned. Supreme Court decisions command a surprising amount of deference just because they are Supreme Court decisions. Also, most people think that if the decision was overturned abortion would immediately become illegal.
I suspect Roe (without Bolton's gloss) is pretty close to where people come out on "sensible" regulation of abortion. But I don't think it was the Court's place to make that decision. But the Court did it, and the Court got away with it. I suspect along with Miranda that Roe is now the Court's most popular decision.
Even if you include states that allowed abortions if you have an excuse (health, rape, expected birth defects), you still wind up with huge expanses without abortion, including the entire inland north of the US and Texas.
Nearly all states will then pass pro-choice laws with some exceptions, but gradually these laws will be overturned, with the campaign to overturn them led by those who have fought to expand rights for going on 300 years - liberals. Killing little Zoe in the ultrasound will not be acceptable by century's end, and shortly thereafter, if not before, those who supported abortion throughout history will be (wrongly) relegated to the same category as those who, not rarely with the best of intentions, originally supported our first peculiar institution.
This is predictive, not normative in any sense. The abortion debate is a conflict between our two most deeply help values, and my sense is that at the end of the day, the life and liberty of future generations will continue to trump the liberty and pursuit of happiness of the present one.
That's some slight of hand, but the cultural and economic can not be so readily separated. Indeed, we have the Bryanists very much with us, and they are very much still the core of the Democratic Party, though now that they've added the
Roman LegionsGovernment Unions to their ranks, they of course look much more like America.If you need proof of this reality, see President Obama's recent kow-towing to the UAW and NEA, in violation of the rule of law in one case, and freedom of association in the other, both of which should serve as pillars of any liberal, let alone progressive, order, but instead have fallen by the wayside in the name of hating the right people, and the unity that inevitably flows from such shared hate. Liberals should strive for better means toward unity. That's what makes us Liberal.
What is most utterly bizarre is your characterization of the current aggrandizement of big labor/government/business corporatism (on which Yankee "Republicans" and their new reactionary friends have evidently reached an agreement) to be somehow "left-wing", with those resisting it therefore on the right. Jefferson taught, and revolutionaries the world over have since have learned, the hard way, that the only sure guard against the overweening power of the strong is the shackling of the means of exercising that power through the coercive power of the state, and the dispersal of that power throughout the various civic institutions of the people.
Oppose this if you will, but please stop dishonoring the name Liberal by claiming to be one, or defaming those who actually are.
You mean, he said he'd do what Obama (that well-known Bush clone!) is now in fact doing?
When the Boomers die, Roe will go with them, and good riddance. Its too tied up in the Women's Liberation movement (rightly) dear to Boomer hearts to go before then.
Nearly all states will then pass pro-choice laws with some exceptions, but gradually these laws will be overturned, with the campaign to overturn them led by those who have fought to expand rights for going on 300 years - liberals. Killing little Zoe in the ultrasound will not be acceptable by century's end, and shortly thereafter, if not before, those who supported abortion throughout history will be (wrongly) relegated to the same category as those who, not rarely with the best of intentions, originally supported our first peculiar institution.
This is predictive, not normative in any sense. The abortion debate is a conflict between our two most deeply help values, and my sense is that at the end of the day, the life and liberty of future generations will continue to trump the liberty and pursuit of happiness of the present one.
Glass wombs. Aldous Huxley had the end of the abortion debate figured out almost before it began.
If you define anti-abortion as someone who would concede that reasonable controls on abortion procedures, like all other medical procedures, is necessary, then I am anti-abortion.
If you define anti-abortion as someone who opposes abortion with the exception for the health of the mother, I am not anti-abortion.
If you define pro-choice as someone who condones abortion because you do not like the sex of the child, I am not pro-choice.
If you define pro-choice as someone who believes that a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body, within limits, I am pro-choice.
I have my definition, you have yours.
Great point - hope Kerr notices it. Fits well with his thesis.
Allan,
"If you define pro-choice as someone who believes that a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body"
Does anyone actually believe that this formulation is serious? That anyone actually cares what the woman does with her body? The question is the new body created inside her body, that can be considered her's but not entirely her's even if you don't believe that body to be human at conception.
I think we're at the point where this strawman hurts abortion advocates worse than opponents, in that they don't even recognize what a strawman it is.
I think the terms as commonly used are not consistent with how you use them. You can play the opposite game too and argue that anyone who agrees with any restriction on abortion, such as forbidding partial birth abortion -- must be pro-life, since they are willing to favor the baby and oppose the mother at least some of the time. At some point, you are just playing word games.
More specifically, I think that someone who thinks that abortion should be allowed only in the case of rape or incest and/or only where the woman's life is on the line or there is a serious health risk (e.g., major organ failure, not depression) is generally considered to be pro-life and not pro-choice. So the numbers are considerably off from your 16% pro-life number.
That having been said, polls on this issue are always volatile in results depending on how you ask the question. If the question focuses on the baby, they skew pro-life, while if the question focuses on the mother (and especially if it focuses on punishing the mother or doctor), they skew pro-choice.
In any event, I think it is more or less accurate to say that the country is relatively evenly divided over the question, with no more than 40% embracing either position consistently. With those kinds of numbers, I think it is pretty silly for dangermouse to call Roe extreme, even if he thinks it is wrong. Left to their own devices, many states -- including some of the most populous, like CA, IL and NY -- would have come to the same position, which belies a claim of extremism.
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