Winning On Abortion
Written by Mark Harris on February 12th, 2007Tonight I had the opportunity, thanks to John McCormack, to debate at the CloseUp Foundation event in front of 200ish High School students from all across the country. Each student had a red card and a green card and they held up the red if they disagreed with what you said and the green if they agreed. It turned into an interesting chance to message test and see what a fairly large sample of students had to think about certain issues. So I wanted to share my findings.
1. We’re winning on abortion - Besides my support for allowing states to determine the drinking age, no statement of mine got a more lopsided response then “I want to protect every unborn _life_” We are clearly winning on this issue and I think its because of things like ultrasounds that allow people to understand it really is murder.
2. We’re losing on gay marriage - Probably for the same reason we are winning on the life issue. Our generation is the “fair” generation to them both abortion and banning gay marriage is unfair so they want to change them.
3. The “We were right on Vietnam” argument helps us on Iraq - The preponderance of red cards that popped up when I came out in favor of the surge was not surprising, but what was surprising was how many green cards went up when I said, “But we had this same argument thirty years ago, and we pulled out of Vietnam a huge mistake that resulted in the slavery of an entire subcontinent” I think in some odd way, Iraq has allowed conservatives to feel confident to rehash the Vietnam argument we lost in the 70s. Maybe in some odd way we want liberals to talk about Iraq. One guy, an admitted liberal, said that even he found our “abandonment” of the South Vietnamese appalling. Whoddathunkit?
4. Bush hatred runs deep - One of the first thing the liberal guy did in the debate was frame it about George Bush, a very good tactic, which stuck me in a hard position. Hatred for Bush runs indescribably deep and will be a liability for our party for years to come.
13
AM
Very neat, I would love to participate in a debate like that in the future.
Gay marriage is a tough issue to discuss for two reasons. Firstly, our generation has no real experience or confidence in seriously discussing cultural/social issues and their ramifications.
Secondly, we as conservatives are fighting a losing battle against gay marriage because what it really is about is taxes and hospital rights. I think two guys who drill each other in the butt should be able to visit each other if one has a heart attack and so do most folks. The gay marriage debate is about two sides talking past one another. If two people who are married can get a tax break, why can’t three people marry each other and get a tax break? Because that is harmful to society? Since when does a conservative believe that the government should use tax policy to influence the behavior of people?
The surge was opposed because we are losing in Iraq. Patton said it best, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” If people thought the surge would make a nickel’s worth of a difference (it won’t) they would support it. The surge is nonesense. Does anyone honestly think our struggles to suppress a rag tag group of fighters has anything to do with us not having an extra 20,000 or so troops? And of course it is natural that most folks (young or old) disagree with us breaking our word to Vietnam.
I am encouraged to see that Bush hatred runs deep. He was a terrible president and the consequences of his presidency will be with us for some time.
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Mr. Harris, Are you an able-bodied person? I’m tired of hearing about how we should have sent more cannon fodder to Vietnam or how we need to send more over to Iraq, since what you really mean is that you want to sit on your butt while more poor black kids get shot.
15
AM
Can we have an education filter on this blog to stop the ignorance? I mean you must be able to form better opinions than that, right?