Let’s keep going with Laurie Higgins’ excellent responses to her critics regarding the Illinois race for governor. Her original articles are listed here, and the first two installments of this series are found here and here.
Here’s a short post from one critic using the name “ChicagoElStop”:
Democrats count votes. Republicans count souls. Votes win elections. Social or value issues win nothing. Get over yourselves. You want change? You need to count votes and win elections. It is simple arithmetic. Social or value conservatives are the dumbest people in earth.
The evidence about winning elections is actually the exact opposite.
Here is the response by Laurie Higgins:
So, you believe winning elections is wholly incompatible with protecting the lives of the preborn, preserving a proper understanding of marriage, and protecting religious liberty? And you believe fighting for those principles is so quixotic, such a fool’s errand that we, “the dumbest people on earth” should abandon them completely?
There you have it, my conservative friends, in plain English. That’s what the only party that has stood for the preborn, stood for a proper understanding of marriage, and stood for religious liberty thinks of conservatives.
It’s a good thing that ChicagoElStop was not around when the abolitionists were pursuing their “social” issue, or when William Wilberforce pursued his quixotic quest to end the slave trade in England, or when Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the civil rights of blacks (because of his Christian faith, I might add).
And, oh, how I wish that ChicagoElStop had been allied with homosexual activists decades ago when they began what everyone thought was a fool’s errand: the dismantling of the historic definition of marriage. I wish his defeatist pragmatism had dissuaded homosexual activists from their utterly quixotic effort which is now destroying marriage, corrupting public education, undermining religious liberty, and robbing children of their right to mothers and fathers.
“For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.”
Someone calling themself Mark Curran posted this:
If you want religion to be your government — go to ISIS you lunatics. We had religion in government — it was called slavery. Learn about the religious heroes torture of slave girls, and their justification of it by the bible.
If you think the GOP are against abortion — it’s fake. A GOP office holder told me he would gladly pay for every black woman’s abortion.
Remember GOP Bob Barr? Head of Right to Life in GA? He had his wife get abortion, then dumped her for wife 3, waiting in wings. He didn’t want to pay child support, so he had the child killed. And he was head of right to life.
Romney was pro choice — remember. Then against it — whatever got him money and votes.
The reason GOP have to pump up the hate, with Tea Party and hate radio and FOX SPEWS, is to get the low info voter so hateful, they will not only vote, they will destroy the US economy in the meantime. Thank God for Obama. He is saving the US from the religious lunatics, and is more Christian than their fake hate mongers.
Here is what Laurie Higgins said in reply to Mark Curran:
Another silly non-argument.
1. No one wants “religion to be” the “government.” What you seem to be suggesting is the unconstitutional idea that the political views of religious citizens may not reflect or be informed by their religious beliefs. Would you have argued that Martin Luther King Jr. wanted “religion to be his government” when he said that a just law is one that conforms to God’s law?
And what about those who opposed the Vietnam War because of their religious beliefs? Were they seeking to have their “religion be our government”?
And what about homosexuals who attend churches that affirm “gay theology” and seek to dismantle marriage? Do they want their “religion to be our government”?
2. Your “evidence” that the GOP supports abortion is a racist comment from an anonymous GOP officeholder. Well, I’ll see you that evidence of racism and raise you one: Planned Parenthood locates its abortuaries primarily in black communities, and a disproportionate number of the babies they abort are black. Margaret Sanger, the infamous founder of Planned Parenthod, was a devoted eugenicist. And one of the groups she targeted were blacks.
3. I don’t know what the heck you’re trying to prove about opposition to abortion by introducing the morally challenged Bob Barr. I guess your point is that some former Republicans who then became Libertarians and are once again Republicans can be hypocrites who do bad things. I can’t disagree.
But the hypocrisy and serious moral failings of humans on both sides of the political aisle tell us precisely nothing about the soundness, truth, wisdom, and goodness of the principles they espouse.
Did President Clinton’s personal disregard for women mean that support for the dignity, integrity, and worth of women–which he publicly espoused–is a cause unworthy of defense?
4. If “moderate” Republicans and Democrats can’t distinguish ISIS from conservative Christians, our country is in for a world of constitutional and cultural hurt.
5. If you think it’s the GOP that’s fomenting hatred, you haven’t listened to Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, or Keith Olberman. And you haven’t been on the receiving end of email messages from homosexual activists.
Here is Higgins answering a “Mr. Windon”:
With all due respect to Mr. Windon, while acknowledging the central argument I have made regarding the dangerous leftward tilt of the Republican Party, he does not refute it. Rather, he offers the boilerplate reasons for standing behind Republican candidates, no matter how offensive they or their positions or their campaigns are.
I would submit that what we’re facing now is a time unique in modern American history. We’re facing the dismantling of marriage, which poses a real an imminent threat to religious liberty. We’re facing daily the purchasing of DNA by naturally sterile homosexual couples who see nothing wrong with robbing children of their right to be raised by both a mother and a father. And we’re seeing Republicans embrace such pernicious non-sense.
The purpose of voting for [Mike] Frerichs [for Illinois State Treasurer] is to get Tom Cross out of a position of power within the Republican Party. There are two reasons for this: First, so he has less capacity to spread his toxic ideas and duplicitousness within the party. And second, so that those laughingly called “moderate” Republicans realize that conservatives have yet a smidge of power and they’re not afraid to use it.
Mr. Windon cited Tom Cross’s less liberal record, but he conveniently omitted any discussion of what issues account for Cross’s paltry 67% rating by the American Conservative Union. I wonder, could it be his support for legalized killing of preborn babies? Or perhaps it was his treasonous betrayal of marriage, religious liberty, children’s rights, the Republican platform, and conservatives when he voted for the destruction of marriage.
Mr. Windon cites his work for Bill Brady in a prior gubernatorial race. Bad analogy. Had Brady ever betrayed the Republican platform or “moderates” the way Cross has betrayed the Republican platform and conservatives?
Mr. Windon claims that “the stronger we are, the more Republicans (both conservative and moderates) we can elect throughout the State.” Well, I’ve heard that one before. And every year the Republican Party gets weaker and weaker on issues that are at least as fundamental to the future of Illinois and America. We must look beyond the next 4-8 years, and as immoderates like to harangue conservatives, we must not be single-issue voters. Fiscal matters are not superordinate over tiny human lives, marriage, and religious liberty.
Mr. Windon has told us he is “moderate.” He supported Mark Kirk, for goodness sake. Conservatives are foolish to take voting advice from those who announce that marriage, children’s rights, religious liberty, and the lives of preborn babies take a back-seat to pension and tax reform. In fact, immoderates don’t think these issues warrant even a back-seat. Immoderates have shoved them out of the speeding car.
I would like Mr. Windon, Tom Cross, Bruce Rauner, and Mark Kirk to answer this question: Do you think the Republican Party will be more or less conservative on issues related to life, marriage, and religious liberty if you are elected or reelected, respectively?
The time is diminishing during which conservatives will have any power left at all. There will come a day when the Republican Party won’t need conservative votes. The stunning fact that this year Republicans saw fit to run campaign ads from that tout their anti-life, anti-marriage bona fides should be the canary in the coal mine for conservatives.
The time is at hand for radical, subversive, countercultural action. The fact that Mr. Winton wrote this gracious piece pleading with conservatives to support Cross and Rauner exposes that conservative yet retain that smidgin of power and immoderates are afraid we’ll use it in ways that don’t suit their fancy. If we sabotage immoderate candidates like the duplicitous Cross and Rauner, what do you think will happen in the next election? Will the GOP continue to fund immoderates or will they find and fund someone electable?
