Pax Americana, or New Carthage?

New figures from ORB:

By and large the results are in line with the ‘urban results’ and we now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.

Pax Americana indeed.

So the war in Iraq is killing about 250,000 Iraqi citizens per year, if this is accurate. That's only 1/4 of the yearly murders of the abortion industry in America, give or take a few thousand. And good Christians always choose the lesser of two evils, right? So they vote for war in exchange for empty promises to halt abortion.

Are we Rome, or are we Carthage? Perhaps a little of both?

It's a good thing we gave those Iraqis a shiny new equal-suffrage democracy. They'll have reproductive rights in no time.

H/t antiwar.com

JMM

Comments

[evagrius]

Yes...of course. Make abortions illegal and they'll go away. Great logic.

[JMM]

The law is only a part of the solution. It's amusing that you assume that the authors of a blog the name of which starts with "Anarcho" would think that the sole remedy for a problem is the enactment of new legislation.

[evagrius]

Then I'd like a little detail on how the change is to be enacted.

[JMM]

Here is the "law part," or a place to start:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/life-and-liberty/

As far as the most important part, the end of the culture of death which hampers any pro-life law's efficacy, I don't have a ten-point plan for the conversion of all Americans and Westerners. It appears that what is required is a full-blown cultural revolution at least on the scale of the 60s sexual revolution, and may involve political revolution as well. This will probably bring itself about in the wake of the demographic, cultural, and other collapses it is causing. All in due time. The other authors may have some insight. At any rate, the point was that the law is far from the only means to that end. Nobody here expects to overturn Roe tomorrow and have all abortions cease from day one, as you seem to suggest we do.

[Scott Wilson]

Ideally the law would be there to enshrine and objectify what the social mores actually are. I agree that law alone will not solve the problem. But the argument that making abortion illegal is wrong because it will be ineffictive fails...unless the person making the argument accepts the position that all laws should be repealed because ultimately all laws do not guarantee moral faithfulness or obedience. What is the answer? Well on this Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, Christ is the answer. The greatest thing the society and culture needs is a stronger witness and manifestation of Christ in the world, through His Holy Church, something which, as Belloc noted, the state seeks to prevent and overwhelm.

[JGB]

I agree with Josh that the solution to abortion has got to be more of a cultural revolution than a litigious one. Laws follow cultural changes-or should at any rate. For example, the changes in American attitudes about Race (in film, literature, the military) gave birth to the civil rights movement of the sixties and the law followed. Speaking of the civil rights movement, I think it's important to add that the law-in an attempt to catch-up with/outdo society-went further in some areas than society itself was ready to go (forced bussing, affirmative action) and where it did that, it was tyrannical (even if well intentioned).

People have to be changed first and then only by persuasion and example. Once that groundwork can be laid, a movement follows and scores
some victories. That is why the state-by-state incremental approach seems best to me. It allows the law to follow the culture. Not that laws should be based on popular sentiment . Instead it's a matter of allowing authentic change to take place so that the locus of moral authority still resides in the community. If this does not take place then I'm afraid a law is just an empty measure. Like jay walking laws.
I like to compare the meek and philosophical monks who Christianized the West from the "grassroots" to the grand Catholic Kings and Popes of the late middle ages/early renaissance who in some ways allowed external forms of the faith (great and holy
though they were) to become the real center of Catholic
identity.
We need to be more like the former and a little less like the latter-although there's plenty good in grand external forms.

If history teaches us anything about laws and people, it is that laws rarely change people but people do change people...and laws. For better or worse.