Politics: Never Make Abortion the Only Issue

Too often, I see a problem in the minds of various voters. They are blinded by only one issue and refuse to even consider any others. That issue is abortion. Because they feel so strongly about this issue over all others, they refuse to even consider all the other important issue that are also part of elections and how candidates would work if elected.

Let’s say that a Christian candidate is pro-choice. Most would argue that this doesn’t make any sense. They’d be correct in thinking that. But what also doesn’t make sense to me is that there will be people thinking that the pro-life candidate is somehow the most Christian candidate based on that issue alone and no others. They aren’t even considering the actual religious beliefs of a certain candidate. There is no way that Trump is more Christian than Hillary Clinton based on just the abortion issue alone. Trump’s not a Christian. Will people vote for an Atheist who is pro-life because they consider them more Christian than actual Christians who are pro-choice? Does that make any sense either?

One should never vote based on just one issue while ignoring all other important ones. There are plenty more important things worthy of considering whether or not you should vote for someone other than just the abortion issue. I would never vote for or against someone based on just one issue. Now this goes for issues outside of abortion. One should never vote just based on what they want to happen with the Supreme Court in the future. If one makes any race for any office into a one issue race, you are blatantly ignoring any and every other important issue in that or any other race.

In my mind, there might be multiple things that could be considered deal breakers in terms of if I wouldn’t vote for a person. Too often, there are too many of these and they often apply to both of the candidates in question. But we need to get to the important things in question. What is one candidate is a liar and the other isn’t? Why vote for the liar? Are they at least honest about being pro-life? I can’t remember offhand what other deal breakers I might have.

Now I hope that people don’t get confused about my actual beliefs about abortion. I think that it is terrible and shouldn’t happen except in cases of rape. But I wouldn’t stoop so low to call every pro-choice person a baby killer. That’s far too extreme. You aren’t a baby killer unless you are the one getting the abortion or performing it. And you might be required by law to do an abortion regardless of if you want to do it or not. But merely being pro-choice doesn’t make you a killer more than being pro-gun makes you a mass shooter.

There are some aspects of the abortion debate that don’t make as much sense to me. What I do know is that it makes no sense in my mind to be against abortion and not in favor of birth control or other simple ways of preventing unwanted pregnancy. One shouldn’t be too brainwashed by the idea that abortion is wrong into thinking that rape from pregnancy is a myth. I might have to save points like this for another blog post.

That’s all that I can think of for this blog post. I should be potentially switching between this blog and my TV blog on Tuesdays, although that can change regarding what Survivor episodes that I might roll like I did today. I should hopefully keep you updated as to when this blog will itself be updated. Mondays might be gone most of the time and it will be on at least every other Tuesday that I can think of for the near future until it has the potential to do every Tuesday.

Politics: Good Things about Republicans

As I often point out terrible things about the Republican Party over and over again, I might have to stop for a moment and point out that they aren’t all bad. Seriously. There are some good things about Republicans. I’m not going to be sarcastic or do this post with caveats. (Well, there might be some caveats where deemed fit.) I am going to post multiple things that I actually like about the Republican Party. Don’t expect a post like this to happen again in this blog. I feel like saying this at least once.

The first thing that I like about Republicans is that they are pro-life. I don’t understand those who just don’t think that an unborn child isn’t life in some way. I do wish that their weren’t some who just voted based on this alone and no other issues at all. But they are on the common sense and more reasonable side that abortion is wrong.

The second thing that is good about Republicans is that they are rather unified. Sure, they may not be unified over good things anymore, but at least they are there, most of the time, united in how they do things nowadays.

The third thing that is good about Republicans is that they often have clear goals. They will tell you straight up if they want to get rid of universal health care. It is clear if they are all bought by the gun industry. If they want to taint the judicial system of government, they won’t hide their way of doing it or their plans of it.

Well, I’m not sure if I can do more on this post as I’m not sure if I did a good job saying actually good things about this party at all. There might have been more that is good about them that I will be able to think of later. There isn’t as much good about them at all. But at least I can think of these things if nothing else.

Politics: John Paul Stevens Supreme Court Analysis

Note that while I’m now doing a post on the most recent person who died that once served on the Supreme Court, I will not be starting a new theme of Supreme Court related posts this time around. Hopefully, there won’t be a vacancy until after January 20^th of 2021. A vacancy before the 2020 election would be the worst possible thing for this country. Anyways, I should get to the next post of this blog before too much time has passed and I miss my chance to post this.

John Paul Stevens might have been one of the greatest justices that we had on the court. He might have seemed like was random in some of his rulings, but I think that it served the country best that he had a place on it. His seat is now held by Elena Kagan. He had the sense to know when it was time to go. If he were still on the court when he died, that would have been bad for society in general. Even after he left the court, he had great opinions about the country.

Who put John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court? Why it was none other than Gerald Ford. This was the only justice that Gerald Ford was able to put on the court. Ford was a Republican. John may have labeled himself as a Republican, but generally sided with the liberal side of the court over and over again. Ford had no regrets about the appointment in question. I do wonder if the Democratic majority in the senate at the time might have had anything to do with the fact that he wasn’t really a Republican on the court. The vote for his confirmation was unanimous.

One of his smarter policies was that he was against presidential immunity. This is one of the smarter choices that he made. I have no idea if he was ever able to do much with this opinion like actually change the law in favor of sitting presidents being indicted. But at least he had a good choice of what should happen with it.

There were at least two notable dissents of his career. The first was Bush versus Gore. He felt that America would lose faith in its judicial system because of decisions like this. He isn’t far off with this thought. One of the last notable dissents that he did was Citizens United versus FEC. He didn’t think it was wise to overturn at least three previous cases with this ruling. And he was right to think that. Sadly, money and free speech are now the same thing, meaning that the richer you are, the more free speech you have.

He was the longest serving justice for quite some time. As that person, he was also the acting chief justice between the Rehnquist court and Roberts court. He was even part of the Supreme Court before the Rehnquist court started. I have no idea what all he might have done during this time as acting chief justice, outside of leading the court until a new chief justice was found. But a lot of people might never get this opportunity to be the most senior justice for so long.

While some people view some of his decisions as random, part of the reason why he might have had different opinions on different cases was because he was changing his views on things while learning on the job. If a man (or woman) doesn’t even change their mind, it could be a bad thing for people in general.

Another smart thing that he did was knowing when to call it quits. When he stumbled over some of his sentences on the infamous Citizens United case, he realized that he had been around longer than he should be. If he were still on the court when he died, it would be Trump naming a replacement. We don’t need Trump getting anyone else on the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan would not have his seat in his stead. And he still offered great opinions after leaving the court in question. He was able to give insight about things we wouldn’t have otherwise gotten.

When Brett Kavanaugh displayed horrible temperament during his confirmation hearings, we got to hear from John about why such a person shouldn’t be allowed on the Supreme Court. There was even a case about whether or not Brett should be punished for this behavior, but they seem to be treating him with too much leniency a la Trump. Apparently if he wasn’t on the court now, then Brett might have been able to be in the jurisdiction. But enough about that. All I know is that John was right to think that we don’t need people like Brett around.

There were at least three notable books that John Paul Stevens had written. One was released quite recently called The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 years. He talks about his time on the court and other parts of his life. Another book he wrote was Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir, where he detailed his time in the judicial community before leaving. One that I might want to read sometime is Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. In it, he details certain laws that he thinks we need to change.

John did regret some of his decisions on the court. One of those regrets was allowing the death penalty to happen in Gregg versus Georgia. I haven’t researched enough about the case and am in favor of capital punishment. I don’t know if John was a key vote in this or not. Now this was not a decision that I found bad, but I will get to those next.

One of his actually bad choices was saying that photo identification being required to vote was constitutional. I think that voter id laws are terrible and I wouldn’t know why anyone would be in favor of them at all. What good are they actually going to do for those that want to vote and are otherwise capable of doing so outside of this suppression law?

Another thing that John talked about was wanting to repeal the Second Amendment. While I do think that better gun laws are needed, an outright repeal goes too far. Plus, even if we think of just the law abiding gun owners, are they really going to return guns easily? Some might, but others would point their loaded guns at those that would seek to take them away from them and say, “Try taking it away.” Repealing the Second Amendment is unfeasible. That doesn’t mean that we should give up trying to make better gun laws to prevent mass shootings. It just means that we don’t need to get rid of the right to bear arms entirely.

That’s all that I can think of for this post. John Paul Stevens was certainly one of the better of all of the justices on the Supreme Court. He didn’t let his political affiliation prevent him from siding on the logical side of the law, even when it wasn’t enough to make the decision go his way. He was a great part of the court and it seems like we are missing too much from his departure from life and the court in general.