VoluntaryAmerican
Member
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2011
- Messages
- 2,972
TUBE?
He did stand by it. The bill stated his position, and now the floor is open for debate. He will be on the side of the debate in support of the bill.
His statement on "makes no sense to pass a bill if we don't have agreement" is a throwaway line that's just genius.
He's basically saying, "here's my position for debate; I understand many may not agree, but let's talk it over".
It's actually a lot like his filibuster. He's looking for areas to discuss first principles; this is a great one.
The thing is that I don't really see what good it does for Rand to sound more "moderate" on this issue in these interviews, because there's already an audio recording of him saying that this bill will "outlaw abortion once and for all." That recording could be used against him in commercials in a general election regardless of how much he tries to walk back his position.
I liked Rand's discussion at the end there about abortion, but I wish he would have talked about federalism as a solution to the problem.
I know this might be taken as an insult, but Rand is an amazing politician. "Silver-tongued" doesn't quite do justice the way he waltzed through that landmine-filled interview.
And listen, I'm not speaking from experience because I don't know any evangelicals in real life, but I think Republicans are making a huge mistake in clinging to this no-exceptions "even in the case of rape" view of abortion. Personally, I'm pro-choice and it's the one issue Ron Paul was never able to sway me on. But I don't think making sure young women who are raped are forced to carry through a pregnancy is what keeps evangelicals and social conservatives up at night. I think that's a "fringe case" that they'd rather just pretend doesn't exist, and while they don't want to say "yes, it's ok to murder the fetus in that case," I don't think they get any satisfaction out of loudly declaring that rape victims should have to suffer 9 months of unwanted maternal labor as a "punishment" for being so unlucky as to get raped.
Having said that, they will never succeed in this endeavor. Liberals are NOT going to tolerate the outlawing of pre-viable (or whatever the timeframe is) abortions. And I don't blame them. If conservatives ever get close to passing something like this, they will get annihilated in the election following their effforts and the Democrats will mobilize like you've never seen before.