Mitt Romney’s stated desire to kick Dreamer kids out of the country is disconcerting and disappointing — and a policy that is Trumpian, not conservative.
For a man who once excoriated Donald Trump for being “very very not smart,” Mitt is very very not smart about immigration policy generally and how Utahns view undocumented immigrants specifically.
I cannot look the other way any more. As a voice for thoughtful conservatism in Utah, I now revoke his pass.
On my desk in my home office I have several yellow “sticky” notes upon which I write reminders, sometimes for my “to-do” list but mostly with those momentary but deeper reflections I feel I need to capture for later pondering. One of those deeper thoughts constantly before my eyes says, “Good policy requires good character.”
Of course, for those who know me, this theme of personal character has been important to me. Character has been my basis for understanding freedom, supporting the issues I have supported over the years and opposing the many ideologies and ideologues I have opposed. For instance, my opposition to the ideology of libertarianism is about its general lack of intellectual and moral character rather than disagreement over any particular issue.
By now, a week after his death, Stephen Hawking has discovered his atheism. He now knows that God exists or he knows nothing because a spiritless, decomposing body is nothing. Hawking is either standing among God’s children (yes, standing) or, as he liked to say, his life has the value of an iPhone dropped in the toilet – no value at all.
Hawking was a dedicated atheist or, rather, he was a dedicated scientist who felt that the latter engineered the former. Here are some quotes from Hawking on God and science:
America owes a great debt to the philosophers of the Enlightenment over 300 years ago. Many democratic virtues are the result of liberal ideas formed in the 18th century leading up to the American Revolution. Unsurprisingly, illiberal ideas sprang from the Enlightenment as well – label these ideas “if a little is good, more is better.” As the ink was drying on our new Constitution and its initial amendments, the French Revolution proved to the world that more is not always better.
Illiberalism was invented through zeal and excess in the Age of Reason. Excesses in the French Revolution included rejecting civil authority while rightly rejecting monarchy; rejecting moral authority while rightly rejecting theocracy; rejecting community while rightly recognizing individualism; and, rejecting intellectual integrity while rightly pursuing democratic equality. In other words, Jacobins easily threw the baby out with the bath and signs of the same are going on today.
As I said last week, Mitt Romney has a problem. To repeat myself, “I am concerned Mitt Romney does not understand freedom in its fullest, most transcendent meaning.” I am concerned that Mitt views freedom transactionally, as mere opportunity – the right to hunt, gather and possess. Of course, opportunity is a big part of freedom, but it is not the only part or even the most important part.
Funny thing about our American priorities when tested: We fight and die for quality of life, not quantity of life. When I think of my father fighting at Iwo Jima he was not risking his life simply for the hope to open a business when he returned home. No, he risked all for his family, community and way of life. He was not thinking about how much deli meat he could eventually sell. He imagined a good home in which he could raise a happy family, care for his aged parents and, one day, enjoy grandchildren and great grandchildren.
What problem could Mitt Romney possibly have in his new quest for the United States Senate? He is a shoe-in for the office. He is beloved in Utah. His career has been spectacular. In running for president, he was vetted backward and forward. Every closet was opened to find any lurking skeletons and none were found. As far as elected office goes, Mitt Romney is nearly the perfect candidate, especially for Utah. I will vote for him on his character alone. So, when I say Mitt Romney has a problem, you might want to pay attention.
Commendable is the only word I can think of to describe the efforts of Florida high school students after the recent mass shooting. These kids may very well change the debate about gun control. They now have experience-driven passion and many of them are on the verge of adulthood giving their collective voice a growing feeling of efficacy.
But passion does not always breed logic or accuracy or soundness of ideas. After all, these students are still children even if the ugliness of their recent trauma has aged them substantially. And, like children, they tend to see only what is right in front of them. They see troubled and traumatized teens every day all around them. Rarely, though, do they see an AR-15 rifle, let alone one being used to kill their friends. For them, the shooter is not the problem. For them, the semi-automatic rifle is what is unfamiliar. The gun is the wild card for these kids in this tragedy. Take away the gun and, in their minds anyway, the troubled kid is otherwise harmless.
By the time you read this, Mitt Romney will have announced his candidacy for the United States Senate from Utah. He will win the seat being vacated by Orrin Hatch and he will win big. You might think that the Utah GOP under current party circumstances would welcome Romney’s decision. Instead, the state Republican chairman now holds Romney in contempt.
On the eve of Romney’s announcement, Utah GOP chairman Rob Anderson essentially called him a carpetbagger and compared him to Hillary Clinton. Anderson reeled off a host of complaints about Romney:
Consent or not to consent? That is the question for Utah legislators wondering how to address a new bill (HB 330) requiring the consent of both parties before a private conversation can be electronically recorded. Everyone knows how much fun secret recordings can be. We remember secret recordings of insider conversations, such as Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment and those guys that video taped Planned Parenthood admitting to selling baby parts. That stuff is juicy and shouldn’t we know those things?
State Representative Karianne Lisonbee and State Senator Curt Bramble have co-sponsored a bill protecting a baby from being aborted solely because it has or has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome (HB 205) – and it sounds altogether reasonable to me. Why should Down Syndrome be a death sentence? Or, if focusing solely on the feelings and rights of the mother, why does a personal preference outweigh the inherent dignity of a Down Syndrome child?
For the bill’s pro-abortion opponents, the biggest excuse in opposing the bill is the law. Since 1973, the law has stated that a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion outweighs any other factor involved in the abortion, even the baby whose life is to be terminated. So, on its face, current federal abortion laws are the excuse as to why House Bill 205 should be opposed. To subordinate a woman’s right to choose an abortion to any perceived rights involving the baby to be aborted is unconstitutional. What is there to misunderstand about a woman’s legal right to an abortion?
